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hello and welcome to the Dr. Nursemama Show Prescribing Hope for healthy families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite day of the week, my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for healthy families. If you listen regularly. Listen, I thank you so, so very much. That is something that really gives me hope in this world is people who really want to love their families well. And so you invest your most precious resource you have and that's your time to find out how to love and serve them better. So thanks for tuning in. If you have been listening, listening since January, you know, every Friday we talk about healthy habits for healthy families. We are going through 52 of them and we are almost at the end of the year. We've been through four core spiritual disciplines. We have been through communication patterns, rhythms that your family needs. We spent all tech all summer and tech habits and then we went through safety. And right now we're in the B attitudes. If you've missed any, go back and listen to any Friday show. You can catch up in the one hour version or you can go to the doctor, nurse, mama, coaching minutes for the 1 minute version. And we're talking about some of the harder habits I think there are to adopt because these aren't just things that you do, it's ways that we should be. And when we've talked about the be attitudes as, as I'm calling them, we've talked about different ways to be with our family. And those things can be really hard. We've talked about being hopeful in a world that seems hopeless. We've talked about being a good friend, being unafraid, being an influencer, being with family, being content. And this week we' talking about being tender hearted. Now this is something that is pretty countercultural and something that we don't often see. And we live in a culture that honestly, one of the things that I've seen is we've turned meanness into entertainment.
Exploring The Countercultural Call To Be Tenderhearted In A Culture That Prizes Toughness
A vicious comeback is a viral moment. That's something that everybody goes, oh. And they clap and, and say, oh, that was so good. Someone gets humiliated. And the comments, the comments, if you really stop and think about it, are kind of disturb being like just destroyed. Oh, savage. That was no mercy, you know, sick burn or whatever you might say for your generation. But we're encouraged really to toughen up, to look up for ourselves. And those characteristics are definitely needed. We need to have resilience. We need to have strength. We need to be able to face tough challenges in life and not shrink back or, or run away. But we are taught really to celebrate just being mean to other people. Don't let somebody else get the last word. And there's a place for courage and conviction and protecting ourselves and our families, standing up for our families. But there's a difference between that, those characteristics and when harshness really becomes our everyday posture, and that does follow us home, we can become so practiced at defending ourselves, at being cynical, at, you know, just really not letting anybody, walk all, all over us. We just kind of stop listening. And we can become so accustomed to sarcasm that we just miss that our sarcasm can sometimes hurt somebody. Now, I believe me, I know I, I am not particularly one who is very fluent in sarcasm, but I have plenty of family members who are, and there is a place in time for that. And it can be really funny, but we've got to be sensitive to the people around us, especially our children. Ephesians 4 gives us a really counter cultural way to live. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. And then the verse that follows, that is, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful building up others according to their needs. Now that's not according to our communication preference. That's being sensitive to what they might need in the moment. Not instruction really reaches across relationships, our marriages, our parenting, whether we're agreeing or disagreement, disagreeing in person or in the comment sections online. So today we're going to talk about what does it mean to be tender hearted? How do we keep our hearts open? How do we give our children security and structure and really resist becoming cynical and making meanness a spectator sport? And so what we look at when we step back and look at the culture today, how did this happen? Tenderness really can sound like a liability in a culture that prizes toughness. Now I recognize there's a difference here between expressions of masculinity and femininity. And I'm not going into that. You know, that, that is definitely. We'll set that aside for just right now. Right now we're just talking about that common human experience because all of us, it takes, whether you're man, woman, girl, boy, it takes considerable strength to listen when we feel really defensive. It's, it's hard to respond kindly when we're irritated. And it's hard to stay compassionate without surrendering our convictions. We want stand, stand firm on our convictions and hold truth high and not compromise it at all. But we also are told to be kind. And that can be hard. Where's the balance in all of that? And so the, the messages that we get from culture to harden our hearts is something called the comeback culture. And this is something that is, it was really celebrated. It's a cultural norm where we kind of rehearse what will silence someone. And you can see this on any sitcom where they practice the comeback, you know, oh, I, I had this thing to say. I wish that I'd said it. Some people are at that can do that really instantly. Some people wish they could do it. But there's also something that people are calling the humiliation economy. Now this is very common in viral moments where someone else's embarrassing moment, some moment where they're embarrassed, becomes entertainment. Now sometimes that can be in good fun. We've all watched America's funniest home Videos for a long time now and there's some of those things that can be in good fun, especially if that person is consenting saying, yep, that's funny, let's share this. But we talking about something different. We're talking about a humiliation economy in viral videos of strangers having their worst moments and not having consent about sharing that moment and that real. And we see reality shows that are built around embarrassing contestants. We saw that in the rise of talk shows in the late 80s and the 90s that would do that. We see reaction accounts that mock someone's appearance. So this is where it really starts to impact our kids because you can think, oh my kid, kids don't have a phone, they don't have an account. That doesn't stop them from being posted online. Now it may give them some protection from some of the fallout, but anybody can be posted anywhere. And we see comments sections competing for the cruelest comeback. One of the most striking instances that I've seen of this reported in the news was a girl named Lily who was on a train. And this was at the height of the of the monkeypox epidemic, which is now called mpox. But at the time there was a stranger who just videoed her. Now Lily had a condition called neurofibromatosis, according to the news reports, where that, that makes little tumors grow all over your, all over your body. And they're not usually really dramatic, but they can see them. And so someone just recorded her. She didn't even know it. She was just sitting there minding her own business and used not even words, but two emojis really to change the course of her life. One was a, a face of a monkey and then a question mark asking basically, does she have a contagious illness on a train? And of course it went. People are trying to look for her and that's a scary, scary world to live in. And we live in a world where hum, humiliation is monetized when that attention generates advertising revenue. So if people are watching it makes money and the ethics become a little less important. You might subscribe, it might traffic you to someone's business and send traffic, web traffic to someone's business. And even viewers who never earn a dollar, a monetary reward can earn a social reward through like followers Approval clapping for that comeback. And the person being humiliated then becomes a product and everyone watching is encouraged to keep the spectacle going. Now this is nothing new. You can read even Bible stories that are representative of this kind of experience. I'm sure that Joseph was experiencing this when his brothers were mocking him and throwing him in the pit, but there was just no camera around to broadcast it for millions of people to see. So the cultural delivery context changes, but the emotional experience of it is really the same since the beginning of time. So for families, the concern is what are we practicing when someone else's pain becomes our entertainment? We can grow quicker to be cynical, to ridicule people, slower to show compassion. That's not very tender hearted and that's not what we're told to do in Ephesians. So there's a self protection message that we just start, begin treating every time we're inconvenienced as a personal disrespect, as a disagreement, as a threat. And that's just, that's not very true. Or, or we cultivate a suspicion habit where we just assume the worst of everybody. We, before we even ask a question and we start venting about it on social media, that is, that can not end well, as we've seen in recent headlines and in any headlines, honestly. Or we just see contempt. It's easier just to have contempt for things that we don't like online and, and really to be mean about it. So repeatedly enjoying someone else's hu. Humiliation is a habit that's worth examining. What kind of response are we rehearsing in our families? And then contrast that with what Ephesians tells us.
Applying Kindness Tenderheartedness And Forgiveness In Family Relationships And Parenting
Kindness. Choose words and actions that consider another person's good. Tenderheartedness. Let their pain impact you and impact the way that you respond to them. And then forgiving, responding from the mercy that we have received from Christ. And the preceding verse in Ephesians 4, Ephesians 431 names put away bitterness, anger, slander, malice. Paul is addressing these attitudes that are just familiar features of everyday relationships. And it can be easy to name but very hard to tame. I mean it is just very true. And tenderness is for everybody, men and women, fathers, mothers, grandparents, children. Compassion belongs in how we understand strength in a biblical worldview. So we don't have to agree with someone to remember that they're a person God called us to love. And so when we see cultural harshness entering our family life, we might offer strangers patience, but maybe we give our families our sharpest tone because, you know, behind closed doors we're we're tired of, of just knowing that we're always being watched. You can always be videoed. And then sometimes you just let loose when you get home or you just, you say something really hurtful and you say, listen, just being honest. Can I be honest for a second? And usually that's going to follow with something hurtful. Or we turn a child's mistake into a family joke even after they've stopped laughing about it. That's not funny. We may greet vulnerability with a lecture like someone in our family, our child's having a hard moment. We may say, you think that was hard, just wait. Or this is what I've experienced. Those things aren't kind or tender hearted. Or we interpret a spouse's exhaustion as you're just being lazy or a child's distress as just being manipulative before we really take the time to learn what happens. So let's have a self check here. If someone in your house is struggling and they come home and they are vulnerable with that struggle, are they going to get a tender heart from you? Are they going to get curiosity or are they going to get correction or ridicule or making fun of them? And sometimes we can start a joke that's funny and then somebody doesn't think it's funny anymore. It's run its course. We need to be sensitive to that and make sure that we're not using someone else's pain for our entertainment. So tenderness and ordinary moments. Look something like this. Like, just put down your phone. When someone begins sharing something important, give them the gift of your face. Don't scoff, don't sigh, don't roll your eyes. Just look at them with kindness. Ask when somebody is sharing with you a struggle they're having. Just say, tell me how this is making you feel. Explore their feelings because you can acknowledge their feelings. I'll tell you, I had a parenting win not too long ago where I responded to one of my kids and they said, I, oh, that was really good. Thanks. Believe me, when they get older, it gets a little better. They tell you when, when you're getting it right. But the, the, the cross side of that, the other side of that is they tell you when it get, they get it wrong. And my kids said, hey, thanks for acknowledging my feelings and saying, yep, that's tough. But also encouraging me to like, get up, move forward. That was really good. So I'm going to take that one for sure. Let disappointment be real without immediately explaining why someone you should feel differently, you should act differently, you need to get over it. You need to sit just for a minute, just for a minute. And that emotion, let them feel that for just a minute and give them some support. That's really important. We can protect our family members dignity without telling stories about them that really embarrass them and that they don't think is that funny? Notice when that person becomes quiet, not just the person who becomes loud. And our homes are really developing a tone through these ordinary exchanges. When we practice tendency tenderness in those moments we help our families learn that it's safe to bring us their struggles. That will be tender, but we'll also be tough. And we'll talk about that when we come back. Because for children, that sense of safety has implications for their development as well as for their relationships. Kids need adults who are going to comfort them, but they also need adults who are going to guide them, who are going to hold strong to bounce boundaries, who are not going to compromise truth. But we can hold a firm boundary while protecting the child's dignity and being tender hearted. We'll talk more about how to do that when we come back right after this break. I'll see you in just a minute. Hello, I'm Jessica peck, host of Dr. Nurse Mama. Did you know that this content is listener supported? Without people like you, this podcast would not exist? And that's why we need you. A generous monthly gift of any amount will help sustain American Family Radio and specifically this podcast. Please consider becoming a monthly financial partner today by visiting afr.net/give that's afr.net/give
Nobody But Jesus by Maverick City Music & Song House m before I ever knew his name I was there to walk in my way Stuck in all my sins in shame I was destined for the grave if you've been searching and if you've been hurting Then call out his name Nobody but Jesus Outside of the names nothing was the same the only one I claim is Jesus Saved by His grace he died in my place there's no other name but Jesus he's still healing mind he's always on time.
Dr. Jessica Peck Welcome back, friends. That is Nobody But Jesus by Maverick City. And nobody but Jesus can help us to face the, challenges that we have in this world today. And one of the challenges that we're talking about today is being tender hearted in a world that it feels like we have to be on guard all the time. And it's really hard to balance tenderheartedness and truth. And how do we do that? Because our kids need someone who's going to be responsive and compassionate and empathetic to the challenges that they're facing. I find that often as a adults today, we really just want the world to look like what it looked like when we were growing up. It's normal to be nostalgic for our childhoods and there's something to be said for wishing that we had simpler days. And we see this in waves of parents who are advocating for no phones in schools. And I, believe me, I am not against that at all. But there's also a truth that we need to acknowledge, the truth of the experience of what kids are having today. When we don't look and see where they are, often they feel like we're disconnected. And maybe I'm going to date myself. But if you remember back to be, even before MapQuest, okay, even before GPS and somebody would give you directions to somewhere and inevitably you'd get lost and you'd go call collect from a gas station, the first thing the person on the other end would say is, okay, look around, tell me where you are. Do you see a street sign? Do you see a landmark? Tell me where you are so that I can give you directions on how to get out of there. That's what we need to do with our kids really, is to know where they are. Because when we're responding responsive to that, that's what's going to have the building blocks for resilience. Not just making it really, making them really, really tough. Just recently I was watching an interview from Sylvester Stallone. Many of you know him as the, as star of Rocky and many other movies. And he has a whole career built around a tough guy Persona. And he has recently written a memoir. And I was listening to his childhood experiences of trauma. Really what he recounted was not being wanted by his parents, not being nurtured, sent off to a board school. That sounds like it was abusive as reported. It was just really sad. It was really, really sad. And he learned to be tough from that. And you know, when we want to build toughness in kids, we don't need to meanness to do it. We can do that through kindness, through loving interactions, through holding truth. And when we're in early childhood, all of us, those back and forth interactions, when your mother, when you, your father, when your caregiver is responding to your needs, noticing your expression, answering your bid for attention. These connections build important neural pathways for how we communicate, how we socially develop how we see ourselves. And those responsive relationships buffer stress. When we feel stress, hormones start to release in our minds. When we get a hug and an encouraging word and a kind look and we're not alone. That turns off that stress bath that's going on in our brain, and that gives our brain a moment to recover. And so that tenderness becomes practical through just kindness in those interactions. That's really important. When we don't have that, it can impact the way that we have attachment in adulthood, as we've talked about before, with Pastor Rhyen Rush on the show, and in other ways. But children are learning about relationships through the way that we respond when they need us. And we need to have psychological safety at home. Yes, there needs to be physical safety.
Creating Psychological Safety At Home And The Importance Of Trust And Vulnerability
And sometimes we can say that like, you know, okay, well, maybe I was safe when I grew up. You know, my parents didn't beat me me. But maybe it wasn't a place that was psychologically safe. You couldn't ask for help without being ridiculed. You couldn't admit a stake without admitted mistake, without being shamed. You couldn't express a feeling without risking humiliation for that feeling or threats or just downright rejection. So using words like, hey, I'm glad you told me. Thank you so much for trusting me to share. Trusting me enough to share that feeling with me. Now we need to address what happened, and we need to put some guardrails, some boundaries up. But I'm so glad that you told me. You can disagree, agree, if you do it respectfully. You don't have to hide your emotions from me. Yes, there's a consequence for this action, but I love you, and I'm going to work through it with you. And I believe in better days to come for you. I know you're a great kid who's going to overcome this momentary struggle. That sounds so simple, but it's just not the way that most of us were raised. It's not what we learned. And it doesn't feel as natural as I'm, making it sound. It takes practice. Practice. And I have been in that place, definitely been in that place, and a struggle, and been working on that for the last decade. A safe home has disappointment. It has correction, it has accountability. But children shouldn't have to protect themselves from a parent's cruelty, honestly, while learning a mistake. And sometimes we don't see it as that. But again, that's just where we've got to do some soul searching and think, okay, we can always do better. Where do we need? How do we deliver discipline with tenderness? So we've got to steady ourselves. We've got to heal ourselves, ourselves, first of all. So if that's something that you haven't done, that's something that you need to face and think, okay, what do I need to look back at my childhood and learn from and, and unlearn, those unhealthy patterns of behaving and relearn healthy patterns of connection. And so acknowledge your own feelings. We got to steady ourselves. Our kids are going to match our emotional response. It's easy for us to want to escalate. We got to lower our voice. You've got to slow your response. You've got, got to get on their eye level, take a brief pause if you need to and say, acknowledge their feeling you're angry that your turn ended. And then state the limit. Like, you cannot even if you're angry, you cannot hit your sibling. And then you follow through predictably, like, stop that behavior or apply a reasonable, developmentally appropriate, consequence. And then once they're ready, then you reconnect and then you teach them what to do the next time. And so that, that can really, really hard to do. But I encourage you to keep investing on learning how to do that because we can, we can really carry those patterns from our childhood over. And we grew up believing that, hey, that harshness builds character. And we need to ask, what is that harshness teaching? Is it teaching anything a responsibility, a usable skill, or just fear, like, fear of the consequences? So I'm going to do it out of fear. So watch for those identity attacks. And so instead of, hey, we really need to work on sharing, you need to work on seeing other people's perspective instead of saying, you're selfish, you're awful, you're impossible, what's wrong with you? We name that behavior specifically, you took something without permission, that's wrong. You can't do that. You need permission. Here's the consequence. Here are, the guardrails we're putting in place going forward. We can correct the behavior while still being tender hearted. We can do that with a steady voice, a clear expectation, consistent follow through. That clear gives tenderness, a really tough backbone. And that's important because sometimes we could just be cynical too, about the world. And we can be discerning and we can be tender hearted. And so think about, okay, what am I assuming? What do, what did I learn in my past? How do, how people have treated me? And I'm projecting that, that it can be really, really hard to do. But we can, we can practice tenderness in that way at home, recognize when there's behavior that needs to be corrected and talk about that or a relationship pattern, even, that needs to be corrected without making it a Personal attack. We can also do this online. I mean really model this for our kids. do we speak to strangers online the same way that we would speak to a stranger in person? Read your replies if that person was sitting right across the table from you. Respond to the claim without attacking another person's worth. It just, it is useful. Mute block, walk away. It's really important that we model tenderness, kindness and truth in our online reactions. And that can be a, really good thing to teach our children for sure. So there's some habits that we can do to keep our hearts tender, to keep our hearts responded so we can pray for people we're struggling with. Ask God for wisdom about your response. James tells us that God gives freely to all who ask. We can ask for that. We can, can examine our inputs which, which accounts which interactions leave us eager for conflict.
Scriptural Encouragement For Kindness Patience And Forgiveness In Difficult Moments
And maybe we need some boundaries in those relationships that, to make sure that we're not letting that emotional spillover impact our families. That's really important to do. And there are plenty of scriptures that really emphasize this and you can memorize scripture together as a family. Colossians 3:12 says, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. James 1 Tell us, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. And Galatians 6:9 tells us, Persist in doing good even when we're tempted to stop. Do not grow weary and doing good, for in the proper time you will reap a harvest. And so I encourage you to practice a, a tender hearted pause before you have a dis difficult response and think, okay, is my heart angry, is my heart bitter, is my heart irritated? Or can I just take a moment, moment and have a tender heart, especially towards your children. I don't care if they're two or if they're 50. We can have a tender heart toward our children. And that can make truth go a lot further than if we deliver that with contempt, criticism, anger. So just notice, okay, what might this person be feeling? What is their perspective that I might be missing? What response would be both kind of kind and truthful? That's the hard thing. Most of us can give a pretty truthful response. We, we can say the truth, we can say it pretty harshly. We're pretty good at that. We're also pretty good at being kind. Without saying truth. We can say, okay, I'm gonna say this kind, but I'm not really going to tell you how I feel. I'm not really going to tell you what I think about, you know, your position or whatever that is we need to be both kind and truthful. And so, your family can, will have hard days, kids are going to need correction. You're going to have disagreements with your spouse, you're going to have people in the world who disappoint you. And tenderheartedness really gives us a way to meet those moments with both compassion and integrity. So when you need to say no, just say it very clearly. Just say, nope, I. I'm not available for that. I can't do that. And when someone's hurting, just make room to listen to their perspective. When you get it wrong, return and repair. We talked about how to make good apologies and how to practice that skill as well. And when you start to feel that cynicism rising, when sarcasm is just kind of your go to all the time, ask God to help you notice the people you have stopped seeing. Ephesians 4:32 calls us back to the mercy that we have received in Christ. And when I see kindness, kindness, kind replies, it really gets attention. It's so countercultural. And for me, in the area where I work in cases of horrific abuse, and my primary lens of work that I do as a professor is trauma, childhood abuse, human trafficking, where you just see the worst of the worst. And when you see a person who has been victimized to, it has every right to, to be angry, to lash out, to really let someone have it when they have that opportunity to do that. And, and that response is definitely understood by the public. But when forgiveness is offered, even in that great of a circumstance, there's something that's really powerful. Now again, forgiveness doesn't mean reconciliation, excusing it or not having consequences. Forgiveness is for you. Forgiveness is for you to let go of that burden so that you're not walking around ingesting poison and expecting it to harm the other person. It's a really beautiful thing. So I encourage you to consider how can we let that kind of mercy, the mercy of Christ, shape our tone, how we discipline our kids, how we communicate with our families, the assumptions that we have, our willingness to forgive. How do we give the people in our home regular opportunities to, to experience a tender heart? That is, that is a beautiful thing. When you see a child who has a moment of tenderness toward maybe someone who's older, towards even an animal where they just see a puppy and they have a tender heart toward it, that's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Nurture that. Call that out in your families.
Homefront Headlines Discussing Mental Health Days For Children And Family Well-Being
And again, doesn't mean that you can't be tough. We can be tough. We can hold those boundaries, but we can do, do it with compassion and with kindness. That is much easier said than done. And that brings me to Homefront Headlines, where I've been scanning the headlines. I read every week the news, and keep a pulse of what's going on in, in the world today for kids and how it's impacting their worldview. And one of those has to do with what we're talking about and being tender hearted. And there's a debate going on right now about should children be able to have mental health days. Now, we know when you get a job, you get sick days, and there's been a lot of changes lately in HR about what that is. It's pto, it's paid time off, and you can use it for whatever you want. But there's a lot of, a lot of debate whether mental health days count for that. And again, there's this kind of balance there, right between truth and tenderness. Because sometimes when our kids are feeling anxious, we think, okay, they've just got to push through. Like, you can't just stay home every time you feel anxious. You can't stay home every time you feel down or depressed. And sometimes they've got to stick through. But there are people who are saying, hey, mental health is important and we need to recognize that. And sometimes, you know, mental health Day would help us as kids, and sometimes that can help kids who are especially overwhelmed recover. Now, repeated days away, actually, what we know from research is that repeated days away from school can actually worsened functioning and anxiety for children who are avoiding school. So for kids who have real anxiety or depression, that can, that can definitely be a challenge. But when we come back, I'll give you my thoughts on it and why it matters for families, because the same request to, stay home from school can have different meetings. And should kids have a mental health day or not? Stay tuned. I'll be, I'll tell you more right on the other side of this break. And I encourage you to continue to meditate on that scripture of, thinking about being kind and tender hearted to one another. Thanks again for listening in. Go back and catch up on everything that you have missed. And if you've been following along, I want to hear how it's going. You can write in to me and if you're just starting, that's great, too. I'll see you all right after this break.
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Don't Stop Praying by Matthew West when you've cried and you've cried till your tears run dry the answer won't come and you don't know why and you wonder if you can bow your head even one more time don't stop praying don't stop calling on Jesus name Keep on pounding on heaven's door Let your knees wear out the floor don't stop believing cause mountains move with just a little faith and you're Father's heard every single word you're saying so don't stop praying
Dr. Jessica Peck welcome back friends. That is Don't Stop Praying by Matthew west. And that is something I have really, really learned this year is not to stop praying. And you know, when I even first started in this radio ministry, I remember one of the things that the Lord impressed on me was when you feel least like praying, you need to pray the most. And that is something that has come back to me over and over and over again. God cherishes the prayers that we pray. And even though sometimes it seems like he's not answering, he's saying wait, he's saying no and we don't understand it, we can have the full reassurance of knowing that we have presented our request to God and our loving Father who loves to give good gifts to his children. Children. If he says no, we can trust that it is for our good and have even more confidence in that path even when it seems like it is not what we wanted. And now that I'm, older and wiser, hopefully I've seen so many times in my past where I prayed for something that seemed right and good at the time and seemed like something that God would say yes. And when he's given me a no and I didn't understand at the time, God and His grace so many times now that I'm older shown me here's here's where that would have led. Here's what that would have happened. And I encourage you to continue to pray for your family, pray for your children. Today we've been talking about the habit of being tender hearted and we're talking about home front headlines. Before the break, I was just talking about this headline of should children have Mental health days. Now I encourage you again, back at, way back in the early part of the year, I did a show on how to find a good primary care provider. It's so important to have that because especially for kids, a lot of times if they do have anxiety, they do have depression, they do have mental health concerns, those can show up pretty early. But they don't show up with the language that we expect. They don't say, show up with words saying I feel anxious, do I have anxiety? It shows up as behavioral struggles. It shows up as behavioral regressions. It shows up as sassiness, as irritation, as irresponsibility. These things that we perceive to be, be just simply behavioral traits. But sometimes that can be an, a sign that there's an underlying worry going on. And for most kids, they're going, everybody's going to feel anxious or depressed at some point in their life. And what a primary care provider can do is help you distinguish, okay, is this just normal in the human realm of emotion or is this something that maybe is more. Now the good news is most of the time, time that can be treated with something called cognitive behavioral therapy, which is not a specifically Christian framework, but it's so easy to lay that over, to lay a scriptural framework over that cognitive behavioral therapy framework because it's really about taking every thought captive. It's thought stopping, it's stopping those escalating thoughts that take you further into anxiety or depression. And so sometimes we can have, have a, a, real question or struggle about like, what do we do, you know, if our kids are refusing to go to school? Well, if they're refusing to go to school, you really need to talk to your primary care provider about that. But I will, tell you that, you know, for, for me, one of the things that I did as a mom when my kids were in high school, especially because those, they, they get, kids have so much stress today. They have so much pressure with standardized testing and thinking about their future and trying to balance sports, extracurricular activities, things, all those things. So what I did for my kids was every once a semester I would just give them a free mental health day. And I would say, hey, you can have a free day where you can just say, I'm gonna miss today. And that's gonna be your, your free day. You can pick it. But only one. There's only one. So use it wisely and that's it. That's all gonna be it. Otherwise you gotta have a legitimate, you know, fever, not a. Like what we used to do when we were kids, right? You'd put the thermometer on the light bulb. Am I the only one who ever did that to try to get out of school? I think we all did that. Price is Right needs Cinnamon toast crunch. Okay, well, maybe that was just me, but, that's something that worked for me. But what you can do some guidance for at home when your kids are, are feeling like they're not wanting to engage. You can begin with, they're saying, I don't want to go to school. Say, okay, tell me what it feels hardest about going today. What, what's the most difficult thing that you're going to face today? What are you afraid of? Tell me about what that is going to look like.
Providing Intentional Rest And Nourishment For Children Experiencing Overwhelm
And if there, if a day at home is appropriate, give it a, a purpose. Have them have an intentional rest day. Make them a nourishing meal. Spend some good time together. Have some conversation together if you can, if you're able to do that, or call in the troops. You know, maybe that's a day that grandma comes or somebody else you love. If you're having to work, just. But make it intentional, okay? These are things when you're feeling bad. These are things you can do to rest and renew. Because if you leave teenagers to their own purposes, they will follow social media trends like bed rotting. Now, this is the way that kids are saying, saying, okay, this is the. If you're feeling overwhelmed, this is a way to heal you. Just literally lay in your bed all day. Don't get up unless you have to go to the bathroom and just binge watch and watch a screen all day long and binge watch a whole season of a show that's not mental health. Rest and recharge. It's taking a walk, getting some sunshine. Really, you know, maybe it's cleaning and organizing a space that's been really overwhelming you or irritating you for a long period of time. Maybe that's just spending some time together. Maybe that's taking a nap in the afternoon. Afternoon. Give it intention. And that is really important to do. So I encourage you just to really think about, how you're going to handle mental health, encouragement and nourishment for your kids and Be intentional about that. Model your healthy coping skills so that they can model them as well.
Addressing Escapism In Families And Modeling Healthy Coping Mechanisms
One of the things that, that kids are really trying to do today, and if we're honest adults do too, is escape. Escapism is really, really very prevalent. We escape reality when we get overwhelmed by the stresses, by the demands, by the speed of today. We just kind of escape either into our phones. It's like you just open that lock screen and then all of a sudden your face gets sucked in the screen and you can scroll away. The average adult scrolls the amount of content that equals the height of the Statue of Liberty and we just escape. We numb out because we're not even thinking really consc when we're doing that. Maybe it's in entertainment, maybe it's in video gaming, maybe it's in binge watching. Sometimes it can even be in nostalgia and thinking of the past. And we see this coming out with AI having some serious nostalgia core where they will generate videos of, come back to Christmas in 1989. Who do you want to spend it with? And then you're just sitting there, just escaping. Now, escapism is not unhealthy, healthy if it's occasional, but we've just kind of accepted it as a new norm and that's really important. This matters for families because in escaping, a family can even share room while everyone escapes into their own separate entertainment. Everyone has a different device. Maybe somebody has an iPad, somebody has a laptop, somebody has a phone, somebody has headphones on. You're all streaming your own reality and not having any shared experience at all. You just kind of disappear from each other. And, and that the useful question goes beyond just screen time. It's what purpose is this escapism serving? What purpose is this activity serving? Am I just using it to escape? So we as parents, as grandparents, as adults around kids, especially as we're coming up on the holiday time, we really need to monitor ourselves because when we have family gatherings, maybe the family dynamics are a little uncomfortable. So I'm just gonna sit on my phone and scroll. It's really hard to do. I encouraging you to really think about, intentionally what you're modeling to your kids in that. Because. Because our kids are going to do what we're doing. If we're doing something to escape. If we're watching a show, if we're streaming, are we resting? Are we just having a few moments of enjoyment? Or are we postponing a responsibility? Are we avoiding a conversation? Because entertainment, watching entertainment, that doesn't need to be another Source of guilt like, oh, I should never watch a funny show. But it, look at whether it's just supporting your, supporting you in, in a way that's healthy or if it's just crowding out the life and the people around you that's really important. So what you should do as, as families is think, okay? When you're escaping into something, most of the time, that's media, think, okay, what am I needing a break from right now? What am I just trying to tune out? What am I trying to turn off? Is it the conflict that I'm having in my marriage? I don't want to think about that. I'm just gonna think about something else. Is it the, the overwhel with the ongoing season of struggle with our kids? Is it just the overwhelm of work? Really think about that. Identify what you're feeling and think, okay, is this the right time to scroll? Am I scrolling to numb out or am I just giving myself, some time for entertainment? There's nothing wrong with that at all. But there might be some appealing alternatives that are more healthy. Taking a walk or listening to some music or sharing a meal with somebody, engaging in a hobby or spending time with a friend. So after you choose, take a break.
Modeling Honest Prayer And The Dangers Of Early Social Media Exposure For Children
Just choose what's one manageable step back towards that unresolved task or, or, or conversation and you can model honest prayer. I have definitely done this in front of my kids where I just say, okay, God, I'm really frustrated and this just feels difficult and this is not something I wanna do. Would you please give me endurance, please give me strength to, to finish this task, to do what I need to do. And we can remind ourselves so often of scripture. Psalm, 46:1, God is our and strength and ever present help with us in time of trouble. That is really important. And when we're escaping, we see kids escaping younger and younger. And I'm continuing to watch with great interest all of the research that's coming out about social media. And again, when I give you these social media headlines, it should not feel as any surprise because it's just validating the boots on the ground experience that many parents and families are having. But we know that increasingly starting we're seeing that research show starting social media younger is associated with more anxiety and more depression. Now this particular study I followed, this past week, it was a research. They were researchers who surveyed actually about 365 young people in Australia, actually ages 10 to 15. But as the world becomes more global, I find that childhood is, is a Pretty. There's a lot of commonalities, especially for kids using social media. So they looked at these young people ages 10 to 15 and their parent, before Australia, Australia's social media age restrictions began. And we see other countries like Australia really having stricter, laws on social media access. And we're starting to see some states in the United States adopt some of those restrictions as well, saying that kids can't get on platforms until they're over 16. We've seen Florida, we've seen Utah, we've seen some other states who have some laws like this. So the findings were observational. And again, this is really important in research research because they don't prove that early social media caused those symptoms. It's just saying there's a correlation. And of course there's a growing correlation there. So this matters for kids because that timing deserves attention. One of the biggest questions I get is when should my kids have social media? And my answer is always delay it as long as possible. Don't be afraid to be that parent. But also be, don't be naive in knowing that your kids are still going to get exposure even if they don't have it. They may even try to have an account on someone else else's device. They're curious, their decision making is immature. They think, oh, you don't understand what it is. It's not that harmless because everybody has it. If that happens, don't panic. Just know that, that those are just normal. That's kind of normal, foolish decisions of childhood. And we can be kind and compassionate and tender hearted understanding their experience while still putting the limit back in place. But having an account is only part of the picture shirt because they need to be prepared for everything that they're going to encounter online. Now this is another one of my parenting successes. Believe me, my kids would love to get in line and they could tell you about hashtag mom fails all day long. But one of the things that I did when my kids when my oldest was younger and I've written about this in my book Behind Closed Doors, was as a, she had a professor mom, bless her heart, and I made her write a report and said, these are all the things you'll encounter on social media and I want to know how you're going to respond to each one of these. You'll need to, to research this and come back. And after she did, she was really overwhelmed and said, I don't think I'm ready for this. I said, okay, great, that's a great decision. I Don't think you're ready for that either. Because when kids realize the responsibility that comes along with it, sometimes that can be enough to make them just stop for just, a little bit. So I, I again, don't be afraid to be that parent. Give yourself permission just to delay access while building skills and readiness. The, American Academy of Pediatrics and AT&T actually collaborated together to make a tool to help to assess developmental readiness and include some things that maybe you wouldn't think about, like are they responsible with their devices or do they lose things? And do they have capacity for abstract thinking, which most kids in younger childhood they think very concretely. They can't think about what would I do do if this would happen. They just take things at face value. So that abstract thinking is really helpful. And that may be a helpful tool for your family. Because when you're talking about social media, there needs to be expectations for privacy and communication and bedtime and telling an adult when they see something troubling. This is something I continue to see when I talk with young people. Most kids do not tell a trusted adult when they encounter something troubling online. Because why? Because the first reaction of the adult is, give me your phone, I'm taking away your phone. These are kids that are just craving connection. They're craving to be connected in a world. And our punishment can't always be default to cut off the connection. We need to think about making those connections safer. Now we can do that a lot of times by making offline belonging just more practical and accessible. By making your house a house where friends can come over, taking them to activities, getting them involved in church. Those things are really helpful. So if you have to choose between handing over unlimited access and parenting and panic, you don't have to choose between those two things. Actually, there should not be unlimited access. We can prepare, we can set boundaries, we can stay involved and we can stay tender hearted. And wherever you are, whatever you're doing, I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. And I'll see you right here next time. We'd like to thank our sponsors, including PreBorn. PreBorn has rescued over 400,000 babies from abortion and has seen over 100,000 commitments to Christ. Will you join PreBorn in continuing this good work? supporting young moms in crisis? Save a life today. Go to preborn.com/AFR
Jeff Chamblee the views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Dr. Jessica Peck We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without our help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby or visit preborn.com/AFR friend we're living in a defining moment today. A woman facing an unexpected pregnancy can order the abortion pill online, often before anyone has the chance to tell her she is loved, that she's not alone, or that there is hope. That's why you are needed right now. You were made for this moment. At, PreBorn Network clinics, mothers are welcomed with compassion, practical support and a free ultrasound. And when she sees her baby and hears that tiny heartbeat for the very first time, fear often gives way to hope. In fact, more than 80% of abortion vulnerable women choose life after seeing their baby on an ultrasound at a PreBorn Network clinic. That one moment can save a baby's life and open a mother's heart to the hope of Jesus Christ. This is our moment to stand. For those who cannot speak for themselves, just $28 provides one life saving ultrasound. $140 helps rescue five babies. Please don't wait. Dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250 baby. If you're a business owner, would you consider a larger donation to claim a write off? Your best gift would be appreciated. A stand alone gift of $15,000 will sponsor an ultrasound machine for a needy clinic helping to save countless babies lives for years to come. All gifts are tax- deductible. Together we can save lives one heartbeat at a time. preborn.com/AFR
hello and welcome to the Dr. Nursemama Show Prescribing Hope for healthy families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite day of the week, my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for healthy families. If you listen regularly. Listen, I thank you so, so very much. That is something that really gives me hope in this world is people who really want to love their families well. And so you invest your most precious resource you have and that's your time to find out how to love and serve them better. So thanks for tuning in. If you have been listening, listening since January, you know, every Friday we talk about healthy habits for healthy families. We are going through 52 of them and we are almost at the end of the year. We've been through four core spiritual disciplines. We have been through communication patterns, rhythms that your family needs. We spent all tech all summer and tech habits and then we went through safety. And right now we're in the B attitudes. If you've missed any, go back and listen to any Friday show. You can catch up in the one hour version or you can go to the doctor, nurse, mama, coaching minutes for the 1 minute version. And we're talking about some of the harder habits I think there are to adopt because these aren't just things that you do, it's ways that we should be. And when we've talked about the be attitudes as, as I'm calling them, we've talked about different ways to be with our family. And those things can be really hard. We've talked about being hopeful in a world that seems hopeless. We've talked about being a good friend, being unafraid, being an influencer, being with family, being content. And this week we' talking about being tender hearted. Now this is something that is pretty countercultural and something that we don't often see. And we live in a culture that honestly, one of the things that I've seen is we've turned meanness into entertainment.
Exploring The Countercultural Call To Be Tenderhearted In A Culture That Prizes Toughness
A vicious comeback is a viral moment. That's something that everybody goes, oh. And they clap and, and say, oh, that was so good. Someone gets humiliated. And the comments, the comments, if you really stop and think about it, are kind of disturb being like just destroyed. Oh, savage. That was no mercy, you know, sick burn or whatever you might say for your generation. But we're encouraged really to toughen up, to look up for ourselves. And those characteristics are definitely needed. We need to have resilience. We need to have strength. We need to be able to face tough challenges in life and not shrink back or, or run away. But we are taught really to celebrate just being mean to other people. Don't let somebody else get the last word. And there's a place for courage and conviction and protecting ourselves and our families, standing up for our families. But there's a difference between that, those characteristics and when harshness really becomes our everyday posture, and that does follow us home, we can become so practiced at defending ourselves, at being cynical, at, you know, just really not letting anybody, walk all, all over us. We just kind of stop listening. And we can become so accustomed to sarcasm that we just miss that our sarcasm can sometimes hurt somebody. Now, I believe me, I know I, I am not particularly one who is very fluent in sarcasm, but I have plenty of family members who are, and there is a place in time for that. And it can be really funny, but we've got to be sensitive to the people around us, especially our children. Ephesians 4 gives us a really counter cultural way to live. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. And then the verse that follows, that is, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful building up others according to their needs. Now that's not according to our communication preference. That's being sensitive to what they might need in the moment. Not instruction really reaches across relationships, our marriages, our parenting, whether we're agreeing or disagreement, disagreeing in person or in the comment sections online. So today we're going to talk about what does it mean to be tender hearted? How do we keep our hearts open? How do we give our children security and structure and really resist becoming cynical and making meanness a spectator sport? And so what we look at when we step back and look at the culture today, how did this happen? Tenderness really can sound like a liability in a culture that prizes toughness. Now I recognize there's a difference here between expressions of masculinity and femininity. And I'm not going into that. You know, that, that is definitely. We'll set that aside for just right now. Right now we're just talking about that common human experience because all of us, it takes, whether you're man, woman, girl, boy, it takes considerable strength to listen when we feel really defensive. It's, it's hard to respond kindly when we're irritated. And it's hard to stay compassionate without surrendering our convictions. We want stand, stand firm on our convictions and hold truth high and not compromise it at all. But we also are told to be kind. And that can be hard. Where's the balance in all of that? And so the, the messages that we get from culture to harden our hearts is something called the comeback culture. And this is something that is, it was really celebrated. It's a cultural norm where we kind of rehearse what will silence someone. And you can see this on any sitcom where they practice the comeback, you know, oh, I, I had this thing to say. I wish that I'd said it. Some people are at that can do that really instantly. Some people wish they could do it. But there's also something that people are calling the humiliation economy. Now this is very common in viral moments where someone else's embarrassing moment, some moment where they're embarrassed, becomes entertainment. Now sometimes that can be in good fun. We've all watched America's funniest home Videos for a long time now and there's some of those things that can be in good fun, especially if that person is consenting saying, yep, that's funny, let's share this. But we talking about something different. We're talking about a humiliation economy in viral videos of strangers having their worst moments and not having consent about sharing that moment and that real. And we see reality shows that are built around embarrassing contestants. We saw that in the rise of talk shows in the late 80s and the 90s that would do that. We see reaction accounts that mock someone's appearance. So this is where it really starts to impact our kids because you can think, oh my kid, kids don't have a phone, they don't have an account. That doesn't stop them from being posted online. Now it may give them some protection from some of the fallout, but anybody can be posted anywhere. And we see comments sections competing for the cruelest comeback. One of the most striking instances that I've seen of this reported in the news was a girl named Lily who was on a train. And this was at the height of the of the monkeypox epidemic, which is now called mpox. But at the time there was a stranger who just videoed her. Now Lily had a condition called neurofibromatosis, according to the news reports, where that, that makes little tumors grow all over your, all over your body. And they're not usually really dramatic, but they can see them. And so someone just recorded her. She didn't even know it. She was just sitting there minding her own business and used not even words, but two emojis really to change the course of her life. One was a, a face of a monkey and then a question mark asking basically, does she have a contagious illness on a train? And of course it went. People are trying to look for her and that's a scary, scary world to live in. And we live in a world where hum, humiliation is monetized when that attention generates advertising revenue. So if people are watching it makes money and the ethics become a little less important. You might subscribe, it might traffic you to someone's business and send traffic, web traffic to someone's business. And even viewers who never earn a dollar, a monetary reward can earn a social reward through like followers Approval clapping for that comeback. And the person being humiliated then becomes a product and everyone watching is encouraged to keep the spectacle going. Now this is nothing new. You can read even Bible stories that are representative of this kind of experience. I'm sure that Joseph was experiencing this when his brothers were mocking him and throwing him in the pit, but there was just no camera around to broadcast it for millions of people to see. So the cultural delivery context changes, but the emotional experience of it is really the same since the beginning of time. So for families, the concern is what are we practicing when someone else's pain becomes our entertainment? We can grow quicker to be cynical, to ridicule people, slower to show compassion. That's not very tender hearted and that's not what we're told to do in Ephesians. So there's a self protection message that we just start, begin treating every time we're inconvenienced as a personal disrespect, as a disagreement, as a threat. And that's just, that's not very true. Or, or we cultivate a suspicion habit where we just assume the worst of everybody. We, before we even ask a question and we start venting about it on social media, that is, that can not end well, as we've seen in recent headlines and in any headlines, honestly. Or we just see contempt. It's easier just to have contempt for things that we don't like online and, and really to be mean about it. So repeatedly enjoying someone else's hu. Humiliation is a habit that's worth examining. What kind of response are we rehearsing in our families? And then contrast that with what Ephesians tells us.
Applying Kindness Tenderheartedness And Forgiveness In Family Relationships And Parenting
Kindness. Choose words and actions that consider another person's good. Tenderheartedness. Let their pain impact you and impact the way that you respond to them. And then forgiving, responding from the mercy that we have received from Christ. And the preceding verse in Ephesians 4, Ephesians 431 names put away bitterness, anger, slander, malice. Paul is addressing these attitudes that are just familiar features of everyday relationships. And it can be easy to name but very hard to tame. I mean it is just very true. And tenderness is for everybody, men and women, fathers, mothers, grandparents, children. Compassion belongs in how we understand strength in a biblical worldview. So we don't have to agree with someone to remember that they're a person God called us to love. And so when we see cultural harshness entering our family life, we might offer strangers patience, but maybe we give our families our sharpest tone because, you know, behind closed doors we're we're tired of, of just knowing that we're always being watched. You can always be videoed. And then sometimes you just let loose when you get home or you just, you say something really hurtful and you say, listen, just being honest. Can I be honest for a second? And usually that's going to follow with something hurtful. Or we turn a child's mistake into a family joke even after they've stopped laughing about it. That's not funny. We may greet vulnerability with a lecture like someone in our family, our child's having a hard moment. We may say, you think that was hard, just wait. Or this is what I've experienced. Those things aren't kind or tender hearted. Or we interpret a spouse's exhaustion as you're just being lazy or a child's distress as just being manipulative before we really take the time to learn what happens. So let's have a self check here. If someone in your house is struggling and they come home and they are vulnerable with that struggle, are they going to get a tender heart from you? Are they going to get curiosity or are they going to get correction or ridicule or making fun of them? And sometimes we can start a joke that's funny and then somebody doesn't think it's funny anymore. It's run its course. We need to be sensitive to that and make sure that we're not using someone else's pain for our entertainment. So tenderness and ordinary moments. Look something like this. Like, just put down your phone. When someone begins sharing something important, give them the gift of your face. Don't scoff, don't sigh, don't roll your eyes. Just look at them with kindness. Ask when somebody is sharing with you a struggle they're having. Just say, tell me how this is making you feel. Explore their feelings because you can acknowledge their feelings. I'll tell you, I had a parenting win not too long ago where I responded to one of my kids and they said, I, oh, that was really good. Thanks. Believe me, when they get older, it gets a little better. They tell you when, when you're getting it right. But the, the, the cross side of that, the other side of that is they tell you when it get, they get it wrong. And my kids said, hey, thanks for acknowledging my feelings and saying, yep, that's tough. But also encouraging me to like, get up, move forward. That was really good. So I'm going to take that one for sure. Let disappointment be real without immediately explaining why someone you should feel differently, you should act differently, you need to get over it. You need to sit just for a minute, just for a minute. And that emotion, let them feel that for just a minute and give them some support. That's really important. We can protect our family members dignity without telling stories about them that really embarrass them and that they don't think is that funny? Notice when that person becomes quiet, not just the person who becomes loud. And our homes are really developing a tone through these ordinary exchanges. When we practice tendency tenderness in those moments we help our families learn that it's safe to bring us their struggles. That will be tender, but we'll also be tough. And we'll talk about that when we come back. Because for children, that sense of safety has implications for their development as well as for their relationships. Kids need adults who are going to comfort them, but they also need adults who are going to guide them, who are going to hold strong to bounce boundaries, who are not going to compromise truth. But we can hold a firm boundary while protecting the child's dignity and being tender hearted. We'll talk more about how to do that when we come back right after this break. I'll see you in just a minute. Hello, I'm Jessica peck, host of Dr. Nurse Mama. Did you know that this content is listener supported? Without people like you, this podcast would not exist? And that's why we need you. A generous monthly gift of any amount will help sustain American Family Radio and specifically this podcast. Please consider becoming a monthly financial partner today by visiting afr.net/give that's afr.net/give
Nobody But Jesus by Maverick City Music & Song House m before I ever knew his name I was there to walk in my way Stuck in all my sins in shame I was destined for the grave if you've been searching and if you've been hurting Then call out his name Nobody but Jesus Outside of the names nothing was the same the only one I claim is Jesus Saved by His grace he died in my place there's no other name but Jesus he's still healing mind he's always on time.
Dr. Jessica Peck Welcome back, friends. That is Nobody But Jesus by Maverick City. And nobody but Jesus can help us to face the, challenges that we have in this world today. And one of the challenges that we're talking about today is being tender hearted in a world that it feels like we have to be on guard all the time. And it's really hard to balance tenderheartedness and truth. And how do we do that? Because our kids need someone who's going to be responsive and compassionate and empathetic to the challenges that they're facing. I find that often as a adults today, we really just want the world to look like what it looked like when we were growing up. It's normal to be nostalgic for our childhoods and there's something to be said for wishing that we had simpler days. And we see this in waves of parents who are advocating for no phones in schools. And I, believe me, I am not against that at all. But there's also a truth that we need to acknowledge, the truth of the experience of what kids are having today. When we don't look and see where they are, often they feel like we're disconnected. And maybe I'm going to date myself. But if you remember back to be, even before MapQuest, okay, even before GPS and somebody would give you directions to somewhere and inevitably you'd get lost and you'd go call collect from a gas station, the first thing the person on the other end would say is, okay, look around, tell me where you are. Do you see a street sign? Do you see a landmark? Tell me where you are so that I can give you directions on how to get out of there. That's what we need to do with our kids really, is to know where they are. Because when we're responding responsive to that, that's what's going to have the building blocks for resilience. Not just making it really, making them really, really tough. Just recently I was watching an interview from Sylvester Stallone. Many of you know him as the, as star of Rocky and many other movies. And he has a whole career built around a tough guy Persona. And he has recently written a memoir. And I was listening to his childhood experiences of trauma. Really what he recounted was not being wanted by his parents, not being nurtured, sent off to a board school. That sounds like it was abusive as reported. It was just really sad. It was really, really sad. And he learned to be tough from that. And you know, when we want to build toughness in kids, we don't need to meanness to do it. We can do that through kindness, through loving interactions, through holding truth. And when we're in early childhood, all of us, those back and forth interactions, when your mother, when you, your father, when your caregiver is responding to your needs, noticing your expression, answering your bid for attention. These connections build important neural pathways for how we communicate, how we socially develop how we see ourselves. And those responsive relationships buffer stress. When we feel stress, hormones start to release in our minds. When we get a hug and an encouraging word and a kind look and we're not alone. That turns off that stress bath that's going on in our brain, and that gives our brain a moment to recover. And so that tenderness becomes practical through just kindness in those interactions. That's really important. When we don't have that, it can impact the way that we have attachment in adulthood, as we've talked about before, with Pastor Rhyen Rush on the show, and in other ways. But children are learning about relationships through the way that we respond when they need us. And we need to have psychological safety at home. Yes, there needs to be physical safety.
Creating Psychological Safety At Home And The Importance Of Trust And Vulnerability
And sometimes we can say that like, you know, okay, well, maybe I was safe when I grew up. You know, my parents didn't beat me me. But maybe it wasn't a place that was psychologically safe. You couldn't ask for help without being ridiculed. You couldn't admit a stake without admitted mistake, without being shamed. You couldn't express a feeling without risking humiliation for that feeling or threats or just downright rejection. So using words like, hey, I'm glad you told me. Thank you so much for trusting me to share. Trusting me enough to share that feeling with me. Now we need to address what happened, and we need to put some guardrails, some boundaries up. But I'm so glad that you told me. You can disagree, agree, if you do it respectfully. You don't have to hide your emotions from me. Yes, there's a consequence for this action, but I love you, and I'm going to work through it with you. And I believe in better days to come for you. I know you're a great kid who's going to overcome this momentary struggle. That sounds so simple, but it's just not the way that most of us were raised. It's not what we learned. And it doesn't feel as natural as I'm, making it sound. It takes practice. Practice. And I have been in that place, definitely been in that place, and a struggle, and been working on that for the last decade. A safe home has disappointment. It has correction, it has accountability. But children shouldn't have to protect themselves from a parent's cruelty, honestly, while learning a mistake. And sometimes we don't see it as that. But again, that's just where we've got to do some soul searching and think, okay, we can always do better. Where do we need? How do we deliver discipline with tenderness? So we've got to steady ourselves. We've got to heal ourselves, ourselves, first of all. So if that's something that you haven't done, that's something that you need to face and think, okay, what do I need to look back at my childhood and learn from and, and unlearn, those unhealthy patterns of behaving and relearn healthy patterns of connection. And so acknowledge your own feelings. We got to steady ourselves. Our kids are going to match our emotional response. It's easy for us to want to escalate. We got to lower our voice. You've got to slow your response. You've got, got to get on their eye level, take a brief pause if you need to and say, acknowledge their feeling you're angry that your turn ended. And then state the limit. Like, you cannot even if you're angry, you cannot hit your sibling. And then you follow through predictably, like, stop that behavior or apply a reasonable, developmentally appropriate, consequence. And then once they're ready, then you reconnect and then you teach them what to do the next time. And so that, that can really, really hard to do. But I encourage you to keep investing on learning how to do that because we can, we can really carry those patterns from our childhood over. And we grew up believing that, hey, that harshness builds character. And we need to ask, what is that harshness teaching? Is it teaching anything a responsibility, a usable skill, or just fear, like, fear of the consequences? So I'm going to do it out of fear. So watch for those identity attacks. And so instead of, hey, we really need to work on sharing, you need to work on seeing other people's perspective instead of saying, you're selfish, you're awful, you're impossible, what's wrong with you? We name that behavior specifically, you took something without permission, that's wrong. You can't do that. You need permission. Here's the consequence. Here are, the guardrails we're putting in place going forward. We can correct the behavior while still being tender hearted. We can do that with a steady voice, a clear expectation, consistent follow through. That clear gives tenderness, a really tough backbone. And that's important because sometimes we could just be cynical too, about the world. And we can be discerning and we can be tender hearted. And so think about, okay, what am I assuming? What do, what did I learn in my past? How do, how people have treated me? And I'm projecting that, that it can be really, really hard to do. But we can, we can practice tenderness in that way at home, recognize when there's behavior that needs to be corrected and talk about that or a relationship pattern, even, that needs to be corrected without making it a Personal attack. We can also do this online. I mean really model this for our kids. do we speak to strangers online the same way that we would speak to a stranger in person? Read your replies if that person was sitting right across the table from you. Respond to the claim without attacking another person's worth. It just, it is useful. Mute block, walk away. It's really important that we model tenderness, kindness and truth in our online reactions. And that can be a, really good thing to teach our children for sure. So there's some habits that we can do to keep our hearts tender, to keep our hearts responded so we can pray for people we're struggling with. Ask God for wisdom about your response. James tells us that God gives freely to all who ask. We can ask for that. We can, can examine our inputs which, which accounts which interactions leave us eager for conflict.
Scriptural Encouragement For Kindness Patience And Forgiveness In Difficult Moments
And maybe we need some boundaries in those relationships that, to make sure that we're not letting that emotional spillover impact our families. That's really important to do. And there are plenty of scriptures that really emphasize this and you can memorize scripture together as a family. Colossians 3:12 says, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. James 1 Tell us, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. And Galatians 6:9 tells us, Persist in doing good even when we're tempted to stop. Do not grow weary and doing good, for in the proper time you will reap a harvest. And so I encourage you to practice a, a tender hearted pause before you have a dis difficult response and think, okay, is my heart angry, is my heart bitter, is my heart irritated? Or can I just take a moment, moment and have a tender heart, especially towards your children. I don't care if they're two or if they're 50. We can have a tender heart toward our children. And that can make truth go a lot further than if we deliver that with contempt, criticism, anger. So just notice, okay, what might this person be feeling? What is their perspective that I might be missing? What response would be both kind of kind and truthful? That's the hard thing. Most of us can give a pretty truthful response. We, we can say the truth, we can say it pretty harshly. We're pretty good at that. We're also pretty good at being kind. Without saying truth. We can say, okay, I'm gonna say this kind, but I'm not really going to tell you how I feel. I'm not really going to tell you what I think about, you know, your position or whatever that is we need to be both kind and truthful. And so, your family can, will have hard days, kids are going to need correction. You're going to have disagreements with your spouse, you're going to have people in the world who disappoint you. And tenderheartedness really gives us a way to meet those moments with both compassion and integrity. So when you need to say no, just say it very clearly. Just say, nope, I. I'm not available for that. I can't do that. And when someone's hurting, just make room to listen to their perspective. When you get it wrong, return and repair. We talked about how to make good apologies and how to practice that skill as well. And when you start to feel that cynicism rising, when sarcasm is just kind of your go to all the time, ask God to help you notice the people you have stopped seeing. Ephesians 4:32 calls us back to the mercy that we have received in Christ. And when I see kindness, kindness, kind replies, it really gets attention. It's so countercultural. And for me, in the area where I work in cases of horrific abuse, and my primary lens of work that I do as a professor is trauma, childhood abuse, human trafficking, where you just see the worst of the worst. And when you see a person who has been victimized to, it has every right to, to be angry, to lash out, to really let someone have it when they have that opportunity to do that. And, and that response is definitely understood by the public. But when forgiveness is offered, even in that great of a circumstance, there's something that's really powerful. Now again, forgiveness doesn't mean reconciliation, excusing it or not having consequences. Forgiveness is for you. Forgiveness is for you to let go of that burden so that you're not walking around ingesting poison and expecting it to harm the other person. It's a really beautiful thing. So I encourage you to consider how can we let that kind of mercy, the mercy of Christ, shape our tone, how we discipline our kids, how we communicate with our families, the assumptions that we have, our willingness to forgive. How do we give the people in our home regular opportunities to, to experience a tender heart? That is, that is a beautiful thing. When you see a child who has a moment of tenderness toward maybe someone who's older, towards even an animal where they just see a puppy and they have a tender heart toward it, that's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Nurture that. Call that out in your families.
Homefront Headlines Discussing Mental Health Days For Children And Family Well-Being
And again, doesn't mean that you can't be tough. We can be tough. We can hold those boundaries, but we can do, do it with compassion and with kindness. That is much easier said than done. And that brings me to Homefront Headlines, where I've been scanning the headlines. I read every week the news, and keep a pulse of what's going on in, in the world today for kids and how it's impacting their worldview. And one of those has to do with what we're talking about and being tender hearted. And there's a debate going on right now about should children be able to have mental health days. Now, we know when you get a job, you get sick days, and there's been a lot of changes lately in HR about what that is. It's pto, it's paid time off, and you can use it for whatever you want. But there's a lot of, a lot of debate whether mental health days count for that. And again, there's this kind of balance there, right between truth and tenderness. Because sometimes when our kids are feeling anxious, we think, okay, they've just got to push through. Like, you can't just stay home every time you feel anxious. You can't stay home every time you feel down or depressed. And sometimes they've got to stick through. But there are people who are saying, hey, mental health is important and we need to recognize that. And sometimes, you know, mental health Day would help us as kids, and sometimes that can help kids who are especially overwhelmed recover. Now, repeated days away, actually, what we know from research is that repeated days away from school can actually worsened functioning and anxiety for children who are avoiding school. So for kids who have real anxiety or depression, that can, that can definitely be a challenge. But when we come back, I'll give you my thoughts on it and why it matters for families, because the same request to, stay home from school can have different meetings. And should kids have a mental health day or not? Stay tuned. I'll be, I'll tell you more right on the other side of this break. And I encourage you to continue to meditate on that scripture of, thinking about being kind and tender hearted to one another. Thanks again for listening in. Go back and catch up on everything that you have missed. And if you've been following along, I want to hear how it's going. You can write in to me and if you're just starting, that's great, too. I'll see you all right after this break.
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Don't Stop Praying by Matthew West when you've cried and you've cried till your tears run dry the answer won't come and you don't know why and you wonder if you can bow your head even one more time don't stop praying don't stop calling on Jesus name Keep on pounding on heaven's door Let your knees wear out the floor don't stop believing cause mountains move with just a little faith and you're Father's heard every single word you're saying so don't stop praying
Dr. Jessica Peck welcome back friends. That is Don't Stop Praying by Matthew west. And that is something I have really, really learned this year is not to stop praying. And you know, when I even first started in this radio ministry, I remember one of the things that the Lord impressed on me was when you feel least like praying, you need to pray the most. And that is something that has come back to me over and over and over again. God cherishes the prayers that we pray. And even though sometimes it seems like he's not answering, he's saying wait, he's saying no and we don't understand it, we can have the full reassurance of knowing that we have presented our request to God and our loving Father who loves to give good gifts to his children. Children. If he says no, we can trust that it is for our good and have even more confidence in that path even when it seems like it is not what we wanted. And now that I'm, older and wiser, hopefully I've seen so many times in my past where I prayed for something that seemed right and good at the time and seemed like something that God would say yes. And when he's given me a no and I didn't understand at the time, God and His grace so many times now that I'm older shown me here's here's where that would have led. Here's what that would have happened. And I encourage you to continue to pray for your family, pray for your children. Today we've been talking about the habit of being tender hearted and we're talking about home front headlines. Before the break, I was just talking about this headline of should children have Mental health days. Now I encourage you again, back at, way back in the early part of the year, I did a show on how to find a good primary care provider. It's so important to have that because especially for kids, a lot of times if they do have anxiety, they do have depression, they do have mental health concerns, those can show up pretty early. But they don't show up with the language that we expect. They don't say, show up with words saying I feel anxious, do I have anxiety? It shows up as behavioral struggles. It shows up as behavioral regressions. It shows up as sassiness, as irritation, as irresponsibility. These things that we perceive to be, be just simply behavioral traits. But sometimes that can be an, a sign that there's an underlying worry going on. And for most kids, they're going, everybody's going to feel anxious or depressed at some point in their life. And what a primary care provider can do is help you distinguish, okay, is this just normal in the human realm of emotion or is this something that maybe is more. Now the good news is most of the time, time that can be treated with something called cognitive behavioral therapy, which is not a specifically Christian framework, but it's so easy to lay that over, to lay a scriptural framework over that cognitive behavioral therapy framework because it's really about taking every thought captive. It's thought stopping, it's stopping those escalating thoughts that take you further into anxiety or depression. And so sometimes we can have, have a, a, real question or struggle about like, what do we do, you know, if our kids are refusing to go to school? Well, if they're refusing to go to school, you really need to talk to your primary care provider about that. But I will, tell you that, you know, for, for me, one of the things that I did as a mom when my kids were in high school, especially because those, they, they get, kids have so much stress today. They have so much pressure with standardized testing and thinking about their future and trying to balance sports, extracurricular activities, things, all those things. So what I did for my kids was every once a semester I would just give them a free mental health day. And I would say, hey, you can have a free day where you can just say, I'm gonna miss today. And that's gonna be your, your free day. You can pick it. But only one. There's only one. So use it wisely and that's it. That's all gonna be it. Otherwise you gotta have a legitimate, you know, fever, not a. Like what we used to do when we were kids, right? You'd put the thermometer on the light bulb. Am I the only one who ever did that to try to get out of school? I think we all did that. Price is Right needs Cinnamon toast crunch. Okay, well, maybe that was just me, but, that's something that worked for me. But what you can do some guidance for at home when your kids are, are feeling like they're not wanting to engage. You can begin with, they're saying, I don't want to go to school. Say, okay, tell me what it feels hardest about going today. What, what's the most difficult thing that you're going to face today? What are you afraid of? Tell me about what that is going to look like.
Providing Intentional Rest And Nourishment For Children Experiencing Overwhelm
And if there, if a day at home is appropriate, give it a, a purpose. Have them have an intentional rest day. Make them a nourishing meal. Spend some good time together. Have some conversation together if you can, if you're able to do that, or call in the troops. You know, maybe that's a day that grandma comes or somebody else you love. If you're having to work, just. But make it intentional, okay? These are things when you're feeling bad. These are things you can do to rest and renew. Because if you leave teenagers to their own purposes, they will follow social media trends like bed rotting. Now, this is the way that kids are saying, saying, okay, this is the. If you're feeling overwhelmed, this is a way to heal you. Just literally lay in your bed all day. Don't get up unless you have to go to the bathroom and just binge watch and watch a screen all day long and binge watch a whole season of a show that's not mental health. Rest and recharge. It's taking a walk, getting some sunshine. Really, you know, maybe it's cleaning and organizing a space that's been really overwhelming you or irritating you for a long period of time. Maybe that's just spending some time together. Maybe that's taking a nap in the afternoon. Afternoon. Give it intention. And that is really important to do. So I encourage you just to really think about, how you're going to handle mental health, encouragement and nourishment for your kids and Be intentional about that. Model your healthy coping skills so that they can model them as well.
Addressing Escapism In Families And Modeling Healthy Coping Mechanisms
One of the things that, that kids are really trying to do today, and if we're honest adults do too, is escape. Escapism is really, really very prevalent. We escape reality when we get overwhelmed by the stresses, by the demands, by the speed of today. We just kind of escape either into our phones. It's like you just open that lock screen and then all of a sudden your face gets sucked in the screen and you can scroll away. The average adult scrolls the amount of content that equals the height of the Statue of Liberty and we just escape. We numb out because we're not even thinking really consc when we're doing that. Maybe it's in entertainment, maybe it's in video gaming, maybe it's in binge watching. Sometimes it can even be in nostalgia and thinking of the past. And we see this coming out with AI having some serious nostalgia core where they will generate videos of, come back to Christmas in 1989. Who do you want to spend it with? And then you're just sitting there, just escaping. Now, escapism is not unhealthy, healthy if it's occasional, but we've just kind of accepted it as a new norm and that's really important. This matters for families because in escaping, a family can even share room while everyone escapes into their own separate entertainment. Everyone has a different device. Maybe somebody has an iPad, somebody has a laptop, somebody has a phone, somebody has headphones on. You're all streaming your own reality and not having any shared experience at all. You just kind of disappear from each other. And, and that the useful question goes beyond just screen time. It's what purpose is this escapism serving? What purpose is this activity serving? Am I just using it to escape? So we as parents, as grandparents, as adults around kids, especially as we're coming up on the holiday time, we really need to monitor ourselves because when we have family gatherings, maybe the family dynamics are a little uncomfortable. So I'm just gonna sit on my phone and scroll. It's really hard to do. I encouraging you to really think about, intentionally what you're modeling to your kids in that. Because. Because our kids are going to do what we're doing. If we're doing something to escape. If we're watching a show, if we're streaming, are we resting? Are we just having a few moments of enjoyment? Or are we postponing a responsibility? Are we avoiding a conversation? Because entertainment, watching entertainment, that doesn't need to be another Source of guilt like, oh, I should never watch a funny show. But it, look at whether it's just supporting your, supporting you in, in a way that's healthy or if it's just crowding out the life and the people around you that's really important. So what you should do as, as families is think, okay? When you're escaping into something, most of the time, that's media, think, okay, what am I needing a break from right now? What am I just trying to tune out? What am I trying to turn off? Is it the conflict that I'm having in my marriage? I don't want to think about that. I'm just gonna think about something else. Is it the, the overwhel with the ongoing season of struggle with our kids? Is it just the overwhelm of work? Really think about that. Identify what you're feeling and think, okay, is this the right time to scroll? Am I scrolling to numb out or am I just giving myself, some time for entertainment? There's nothing wrong with that at all. But there might be some appealing alternatives that are more healthy. Taking a walk or listening to some music or sharing a meal with somebody, engaging in a hobby or spending time with a friend. So after you choose, take a break.
Modeling Honest Prayer And The Dangers Of Early Social Media Exposure For Children
Just choose what's one manageable step back towards that unresolved task or, or, or conversation and you can model honest prayer. I have definitely done this in front of my kids where I just say, okay, God, I'm really frustrated and this just feels difficult and this is not something I wanna do. Would you please give me endurance, please give me strength to, to finish this task, to do what I need to do. And we can remind ourselves so often of scripture. Psalm, 46:1, God is our and strength and ever present help with us in time of trouble. That is really important. And when we're escaping, we see kids escaping younger and younger. And I'm continuing to watch with great interest all of the research that's coming out about social media. And again, when I give you these social media headlines, it should not feel as any surprise because it's just validating the boots on the ground experience that many parents and families are having. But we know that increasingly starting we're seeing that research show starting social media younger is associated with more anxiety and more depression. Now this particular study I followed, this past week, it was a research. They were researchers who surveyed actually about 365 young people in Australia, actually ages 10 to 15. But as the world becomes more global, I find that childhood is, is a Pretty. There's a lot of commonalities, especially for kids using social media. So they looked at these young people ages 10 to 15 and their parent, before Australia, Australia's social media age restrictions began. And we see other countries like Australia really having stricter, laws on social media access. And we're starting to see some states in the United States adopt some of those restrictions as well, saying that kids can't get on platforms until they're over 16. We've seen Florida, we've seen Utah, we've seen some other states who have some laws like this. So the findings were observational. And again, this is really important in research research because they don't prove that early social media caused those symptoms. It's just saying there's a correlation. And of course there's a growing correlation there. So this matters for kids because that timing deserves attention. One of the biggest questions I get is when should my kids have social media? And my answer is always delay it as long as possible. Don't be afraid to be that parent. But also be, don't be naive in knowing that your kids are still going to get exposure even if they don't have it. They may even try to have an account on someone else else's device. They're curious, their decision making is immature. They think, oh, you don't understand what it is. It's not that harmless because everybody has it. If that happens, don't panic. Just know that, that those are just normal. That's kind of normal, foolish decisions of childhood. And we can be kind and compassionate and tender hearted understanding their experience while still putting the limit back in place. But having an account is only part of the picture shirt because they need to be prepared for everything that they're going to encounter online. Now this is another one of my parenting successes. Believe me, my kids would love to get in line and they could tell you about hashtag mom fails all day long. But one of the things that I did when my kids when my oldest was younger and I've written about this in my book Behind Closed Doors, was as a, she had a professor mom, bless her heart, and I made her write a report and said, these are all the things you'll encounter on social media and I want to know how you're going to respond to each one of these. You'll need to, to research this and come back. And after she did, she was really overwhelmed and said, I don't think I'm ready for this. I said, okay, great, that's a great decision. I Don't think you're ready for that either. Because when kids realize the responsibility that comes along with it, sometimes that can be enough to make them just stop for just, a little bit. So I, I again, don't be afraid to be that parent. Give yourself permission just to delay access while building skills and readiness. The, American Academy of Pediatrics and AT&T actually collaborated together to make a tool to help to assess developmental readiness and include some things that maybe you wouldn't think about, like are they responsible with their devices or do they lose things? And do they have capacity for abstract thinking, which most kids in younger childhood they think very concretely. They can't think about what would I do do if this would happen. They just take things at face value. So that abstract thinking is really helpful. And that may be a helpful tool for your family. Because when you're talking about social media, there needs to be expectations for privacy and communication and bedtime and telling an adult when they see something troubling. This is something I continue to see when I talk with young people. Most kids do not tell a trusted adult when they encounter something troubling online. Because why? Because the first reaction of the adult is, give me your phone, I'm taking away your phone. These are kids that are just craving connection. They're craving to be connected in a world. And our punishment can't always be default to cut off the connection. We need to think about making those connections safer. Now we can do that a lot of times by making offline belonging just more practical and accessible. By making your house a house where friends can come over, taking them to activities, getting them involved in church. Those things are really helpful. So if you have to choose between handing over unlimited access and parenting and panic, you don't have to choose between those two things. Actually, there should not be unlimited access. We can prepare, we can set boundaries, we can stay involved and we can stay tender hearted. And wherever you are, whatever you're doing, I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. And I'll see you right here next time. We'd like to thank our sponsors, including PreBorn. PreBorn has rescued over 400,000 babies from abortion and has seen over 100,000 commitments to Christ. Will you join PreBorn in continuing this good work? supporting young moms in crisis? Save a life today. Go to preborn.com/AFR
Jeff Chamblee the views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
It's Ask Dr. Nurse Mama Friday! Jessica introduces the healthy habit of being tenderhearted along with this week's Homefront Headlines.
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