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Boys and girls are different! As homeschooling families, we have the privilege of teaching our children according to their strengths and abilities, and encouraging them to be the people God made them to be. Join Durenda Wilson and Yvette Hampton as they discuss effective techniques for teaching boys and for growing them into the MEN that God wants them to be. Hang around for some great homeschooling encouragement (for boys and girls!) and get your questions answered by Yvette and Durenda.
Durenda Wilson is a 24-year veteran homeschooling mom of eight (born 1991-2004), six of whom have graduated. She has been married to Darryl for 30 years and they have 6 grandkids.
Durenda has written The Unhurried Homeschooler (a simple, mercifully short book on homeschooling) and Unhurried Grace for a Mom’s Heart. She is the owner, writer, and host of her blog and podcast, at DurendaWilson.com. She also enjoys speaking at events where she can encourage homeschool parents to lay aside unnecessary expectations and truly enjoy this homeschooling journey!
Watch Durenda Wilson’s previous session, “Nurturing Sibling Relationships”.
Automated transcript (spelling and grammar errors are guaranteed!)
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I think as parents we assume that kids are going to just know the right way to do things, but you have to teach them first and then train them by teaching them to do it over and over again until they actually get it. Imagine trying to teach your child how to tie his shoes without the practice principle. If the practice principle is vital for teaching, such morally neutral to ask is tying shoes, how much more important is it for training children and cry light character?
I speak to parents all the time, have come up to me and they see what’s happening, but they don’t know what to do and I just want to stand up and say, you can do this. Here is a solution.
This is Yvette Hampton, host of the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. Join us each week for a new episode as we offer encouragement and resources on biblical discipleship from popular speakers and authors as well as parents. Just like you and me, find out more at SchoolhouseRocked.com or listen anywhere you find your favorite podcast.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. I am so glad to be back with you today and look who’s back with me. It’s Durenda Wilson. Hi Durenda. Hi. I’m so excited to be here. I’m glad you asked me back. It’s always a lot of fun talking with you. Yeah, well you know, it’s really interesting. We actually sent out, after the expo, we sent out a survey and we asked people who were your favorite speakers and your name came up over and over and over again, and it was so exciting to see. You are just such a blessing. During the, the week of the expo, you talked about sibling relationships and did such a fabulous, fabulous job of just bringing the encouragement that we need because the majority of homeschool families deal with sibling relationships and even those who don’t, those kids still have friends and relationships outside of their home that they need to learn to deal with.
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And so it’s really exciting just to have you back. And today we’re talking about a topic that is kind of fun for me because it’s not a topic that I ever really talk about. We’re talking about homeschooling and boys and I don’t have boys. As a matter of fact, not only do I not have sons, but there are no boys in our family. I have two daughters, one sister and five nieces. There are no there. I don’t have even a nephew. I do have boy cousins, but they all live far away. And so I just, I don’t even understand the world of boys. Boys have cooties as far as I’m concerned. I just don’t even know what to do with them. But, but they are fun. And so, you, you have a lot of boys.
I do. I do. I have five boys. Yes. Yes. They’re ages 25 down to 15. So we had two girls first, and then we had four boys in a row. I realized as I was looking through some family pictures the other day that when I had our fourth boy in our row in a row, our oldest boy wasn’t six yet.
Wow.
(00:03:40):
So, yeah, I was like, wow, how did I do that? But I tell you, the boys have been fantastic. They have taught me so much. They still continue to teach me a lot and have a good relationship with all of them. And I’m so grateful for that. That is awesome. You know I have had a lot of moms who are, boy moms tell me that and, and if they have boys and girls like yourself that there’s just a different kind of connection with boys and different kind of that. And so I don’t know that maybe someday I will, I pray that the Lord will bless us with more kids at some point. And maybe some of those will be boys. I don’t, I don’t know who knows what the Lord has for us, but yeah, so I have brought in the expert, the expert, because you really are an expert.
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And I, I’m, I’m going to call you that because what makes you the expert is that not only have you raised your boys and they are, you know, most of them into adulthood. I know you’re young, youngest is 15, right? Most of them are adults now are young adults. But the relationship that you have with them and the relationship that they have with the Lord and the relationship that they have with one another, shows how the Lord was able to work through you and through your husband, Darryl, to really bring up Godly men and disciple their hearts and point them towards a life of serving Christ. And so I would love for you to just talk to us, talk to us about boys. And it’s so funny, you and I, you sent me some of your notes for this session that you did, and I just cracked up when I first saw them because you use the acronym burp, B.U.R.P.
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Yes, yes, yes. I thought it for boy moms, it’s really important to choose a word that they could definitely associate with their boys. And I realize girls are, you know, they say think gas is funny too, but boys especially, I don’t know, they just get the biggest kick out of it. It never seems to get old for them. And I don’t quite fully understand it, but, but you know, this is one thing I think is so important for boy moms to know, and I know this sounds crazy that I even have to say this, but is there something important to know about the God-given nature of boys that, that they’re not girls? Yeah. You know, and, and that’s the reason that’s important is because we’re women. We’re girls and
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We’re trying to raise them, right? So we need to be aware of the differences and respect the differences. And I’ll be talking about that a little more as we get more into our conversation. And I think it’s important to recognize that they’re wired differently but also recognize that they’re equal but different. Now we live in a culture that definitely looks down on boys. The boys I feel like are just, they’re swimming upstream when it comes to our culture. And it’s sad to me and I’m hoping that today this will be just a time of encouragement for boy moms because you’ve got some amazing creatures that you are raising with amazing potential. So hang in there and listen because I think you’re going to be encouraged.
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Yeah. Well I’m glad to hear you say that because we really as a culture have feminized boys and we, we’ve wanted to make them so sensitive and think, and not that they shouldn’t be sensitive, but I vividly remember when Brooklyn was probably about three years old, she really started to enjoy playing with Barbies. And I was a mom who didn’t have a problem with that. You know, we actually, we, we would play like Adam and Eve Barbies and you know, we would make up Bible stories with them and, and I’m like, they’re, they’re adults. It only becomes inappropriate if you play with them and appropriately, you know, but when you sit and play with your child and learn how to play with them, it can be a great thing. But it became very frustrating to me because I would go to the store and look for Kendall’s for, cause she had a ton of Barbies and we would look for Ken dolls and they all look like girls, like they had like [inaudible] faces and, right. Right. Where’s Ken? Where’s the Ken of my day? Who looked like a man and you know, he, he was Ken the man and Barbie the woman and right. You know, and it was so frustrating to me and we won’t even go down the Barb just disclaimer. We do not buy Barbies anymore. They have completely destroyed, destroyed everything. Right.
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I understand your point. Your point is we’ve feminized boys and it’s really to the detriment of, of our society, of the family. And I think it’s just, it’s, it’s sad because they have so much to offer if we understand them and can help direct them in a healthy way because they have just amazing, amazing features in their DNA that we don’t have as, as women in our DNA. And I, you know, that’s not up for argument in my book because, you know, God says he made them male and female and but with a purpose, you know, this equal but different thing. Stop trying to make the boys girls like you said, you know, they can, they, they have things they can learn, they can learn to be more sensitive. But we don’t want them to be girls. We want them to be who God made them to be.
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Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Well let’s, let’s roll into this. Let’s start talking about burping. Okay. Talk about your acronym B.U.R.P. and I’m going to let you kind of just go through each one of these words because you have a lot to say on each one and it’s so good. You have so much good information on this. I do have some things I really think are important to share. Now. so let’s talk about the letter B. B is for boundaries. And I start there because it is important that we set clear boundaries for boys. And why is that? The first reason is because obviously with the scripture says our, our kids are born sinful boy or girl. Doesn’t matter. Okay. Proverbs 22:15 says, a youngster’s heart is filled with foolishness, but physical discipline will drive it far away. So wisdom is not innate.
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It’s learned, right? It’s something we have to train our children. And discipline is what changes foolishness to wisdom. So, we want to be training our boys in wisdom. And so the first place that starts is by setting clear boundaries. Now the second thing, a reason this is important is because consistent boundaries are what make our kids feel secure. Again, boy or girl doesn’t matter. This is just true with children. They need to know where the boundaries are and some will check that line more often and more persistently and more doggedly than others. But boys. And I feel like in some ways in some areas the boys like to test the boundaries more and then in other areas the girls did. So it was, it was, it was different. But consistent boundaries are what make them feel secure. So it’s important to set boundaries.
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And the third thing is because of boys innate desire to lead and conquer, they will often try to run the show. Now I realize girls will do that too, but especially as boys start to get into their tree teen to teen years, you start running into this thing where they start recognizing that they’re no longer, they’re kind of attached to and associate themselves with their parents, especially with mom, if she’s been the ones spending the most time with them, which usually we are, you will find them starting to try to separate themselves. They start to see themselves as separate and their way of doing that and they don’t even realize they’re doing it is kind of to start being respect disrespectful sometimes and to start kind of ordering you around telling you how things are going to be. And I remember at one point with each of the boys, I think at a certain point, at least once I had to say that to them, look, I understand this innate desire that you have to conquer, to lead again, these, these things are a part of their DNA. So I was recognizing their strength, but then I said to them, your right now
(00:11:54):
Is not to lead me. Someday you’re gonna have a wife, you’re gonna have a family to lead. You’re going to, you know, maybe be in business, you’re going to be in church, you’re going to be maybe in leadership there. And you’ll be, you know, be a, be able to use those strengths and all of that in that particular area. But right now I, you need to know, I already have a husband. You’re not it. Someday you’ll get to be that husband and that father and all those things, but this is not the time. Right? And wow, you are being trained for that. And so you need to yield to God’s plan, which is to honor me as your mom in in our home. And I would say to them, in order to be an effective servant leader, you have to learn to serve first.
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So that’s what you’re doing right now. You’re learning to serve first. You’re also learning to respect women. So that piece where we want our boys to respect women starts with, with them respecting us and us respecting them, which I’ll be talking about in just a couple of minutes, but they don’t really respect a mom who doesn’t show some fortitude and who isn’t willing to set the boundaries. So it’s important that we set those now and know that they will press those boundaries more than you would ever imagine at times. So you’ve got to put your boots on and you got to hold firmly to those limits within reason. And then your boys will be secure. And I like to say quite possibly live into adulthood.
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So while we’re, we’re having this respectful conversation with them, we’re treating, we’re teaching them how to treat women, but we’re also showing them what basically we’re teaching them how they will allow women to treat them. If I insist that I’m able to talk to them in disrespectful ways, in ways that I shouldn’t, I’m telling them that it’s okay for other women to do that in their lives. So someday when they have a wife they will take more than they maybe should. Instead of saying, you know, we need to have a conversation, I’d really don’t want you talking to me like that. You know, they need to have that boundary. There’s a respect. It’s a selfie. It’s a mutual respect. So that’s what we’re teaching them by, by keeping those boundaries. Now how do we do that? We let them feel natural consequences. That is the best way for boys especially if they’re physical, I’m just going to be [inaudible].
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Most of my boys responded best to physical consequences. A lot of times that involves extra work that involved extra chores that involve physical work. Sometimes it involved me acting kind of like a military Sergeant where I would be like, okay, you know, down on the floor, 10 pushups right now. The girls did not like that. That did not work well for them. But it worked well for the boys. They would kind of laugh and think it was funny and you know, and I would joke with them and say, now I want you to salute me. And you know, we would kind of make it funny, but at the same time my point was being made and that seemed to work really well. And the other way that we did this was just keeping a consistent routine. So the way that we kept boundaries, one of the ways we did that isn’t, is the way that we homeschooled them, which was having a very consistent routine.
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So that was, that was important. They need to, needed to know what to expect. Now I remember giving them chores to do and sometimes I wasn’t sure when exactly the chores were going to end and they hated that. They would rather me give them the list and say, this is what I expect of you. Now go do it. You can do it in whatever order you want, but it needs to get done. They tended to like that more than me saying, okay, when you’re done with that, come back to me. But sometimes they just needed to concede and do what I was asking them to do. But it was just being kind of sensitive to what kind of, how they, how they function best. But again, keeping those boundaries secure. So the second thing is you so we’ve got boundaries and now we have the letter.
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You use few words. I cannot even emphasize that to you enough. I remember one time when our boys, I think we had four teenage boys at the time. I was super frustrated with them and my husband took me out on a date and I think you listened to me for a solid hour saying how I don’t feel like they’re hearing me. I say stuff and it doesn’t seem to sink in. I feel like I’m talking and I’m beginning to wonder if words are even coming out of my mouth. And so I just went on and on nod. So he just listened patiently through the whole thing. Then he, I get in the car with him and we’re leaving the parking lot and I’d remember exactly where we were when he, he said to me, I, I need, I need to tell you something, but I don’t want this to hurt your feelings.
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And by now I had gotten everything off my chest though. I was like, Hey, whatever you need to say, I’m, I’m willing to listen. He said, you need to use less words with the boys. And all of a sudden it just like, Oh, you know, I realized he was right. He said, the problem is that they don’t respect you when you use too many words because this isn’t how they’re wired. So they don’t, boys don’t respect or respond to too many words. They’re more likely to respect you if you choose your words carefully and as few as possible, followed by action. So I went home, I told the boys what their dad said, and they said, Oh mom, he’s totally right. They’re like, yeah, we would, we would rather you give us harsh consequences right away. Then listen to you talk. Okay. So I was like, okay.
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So I’ve really had to work on that because I like words and somehow I thought if I use more words, they would listen more. Right. That, that, that had the OxiClean it 10 different times, then they’re going to get one of the 10 Nope, Nope, Nope. That does not work. That’s how we’re different. So it was important for me to respect that. Can I say something on that real quickly? What’s interesting about that as you’re saying that is, I’m thinking back to several years ago, Garritt and I took a parenting class when our youngest was probably, I mean, she was a baby probably. So this was, you know, eight years ago or so. And I remember the husband dad who was teaching this class, he said, teach your, if you have a girl who likes to talk a lot, teach her not to, always have to talk a lot, teach her to just be silent sometimes.
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And at the time I didn’t quite understand it because my oldest, she talks, you know, she’s not real shy or you know, super introvert, but she’s not as much of a talker. And I didn’t really get that. Well. Then my youngest started growing up and she’s, she loves to talk, loves, loves to she talks to herself. She, she’ll throw a rock, she’ll talk to anybody who will listen to her. And we oftentimes have to say to her, cause I’ve always kept that in my mind. I oftentimes have to say, you know, honey, I need you to just practice silence. Just 15 minutes. I need you to practice silence. And so as you’re talking about that, you know, I’m thinking about a relationship between maybe her and her husband as they grow. If she’s the wife who has not learned to use self-control with her talking, she’s going to just [inaudible] her husband is exactly going to just tune her out.
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And that’s not doing any favors for her husband or her future sons if she has them. That’s absolutely right. I love that. I love just, you know, boys need less words. Yes. Girls. Yes. To use less words. Yeah. Well, and here’s the thing. It even applies to schoolwork. Schoolwork can be overwhelming when too many words are involved. So the same curriculum that might work for your girls isn’t going to work for your boys. They need a lot of simplicity. Simplicity can actually be key in homeschooling boys because it leaves room for questions. It also leaves room for them to go deep into certain things that are more interesting to them, more engaging to them. CS Lewis said the greatest service we can do for education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things.
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Well before he is 20. And when we force a boy to be mediocre in a dozen subjects, we destroy his standards perhaps for life. So he won’t even try to go deep after a while because he’s been so overwhelmed with information. So I thought that that quote just really hit the nail on the head. And when we run into obstacles in school work, we need to ask ourselves some important questions. Things like, does he need to know this? Think about life, think about the big picture. Does he actually really need to know this? The second thing is, does he need to know this now? Does it have to be now or is there another way he can learn this or a better time example maybe through something he’s interested in or through a real life, hands on scenarios. So those are good questions to ask ourselves.
(00:21:16):
When we run into schoolwork obstacles with our boys, ask ourselves, is this a Hill worth dying on or is there a more important one to spend that time and energy on? And I very, very often opted for the relationship over the schoolwork. And now that all of our boys are, almost all of them are adults. I do not regret that one little bit. They picked up what they needed to pick up when they needed to pick it up when it was their idea. So it, you know, and this is the other thing, boys, at least my boys, very, very independent and I wanted them to be independent and first of all, it made homeschooling a lot easier, but second of all, it made it much more enjoyable for them. So I, I just, I just want to encourage you just to remember that, that there, that, that it’s just important to keep that relationship at the forefront of your mind.
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So how do we use few words? Okay, let’s talk about that for just a second. When keeping boundaries, we have to be ready with an appropriate, with appropriate natural consequences before they step over the line. Because I don’t know about you. I lose all creativity when I’m flustered. So it’s easier to stay calm and to keep the words to a minimum if you already know what the consequences are going to be. I would have a running list of jobs that I could give them if they started giving me hassles too frequently because I just didn’t put up with it. You know, if they were arguing with me about anything. Okay, we’re done. The other thing that I did a lot of with our kids, and I think this is a super helpful, give them that little bit of grace when they would start saying something disrespectful to me, I would say, do you want to try that again?
(00:23:01):
They gave them the opportunity to come up with the right words on their own without me telling them what to say. They had to actually come up with it and train them. That practice of saying, responding respectfully. And if that became problematic, then the next thing I had were jobs, pushups, whatever. Sometimes our boys just need to blow off energy. Honestly, they have so much energy and it’s a great thing. But you gotta, you gotta, you gotta direct it, you know, so direct it to something that’s actually gonna help you raking the lawn, weeding you know, stuff in the house. Anyway, so all that to say, you know, just keeping those words to a minimum really, really important and respecting their need for a few words. And also one more thing I would just want to throw in there, ask your husband when it comes to your boys, ask him questions when you’re running into obstacles.
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I have found my husband to be such a great resource when it comes to boys because he thinks like they do, he understands where they’re coming from. And so when he told me that few words thing and my husband likes to talk like he’s not really a few words guy, but he that connected, he made that connection and he was able to help me tremendously. So lean hard on him for that because they, they can really, really offer a lot. Yeah, love it. Okay, so we’ve been through B, yes. We’ve been through you, which is, which is use few words, few words now, and if anyone missed the beginning of this where we’re spelling out the acronym burp, right? You can remember it.
(00:24:46):
Use fewer words. So we’re are, we’re on our, and I actually have two RS. I know that’s kind of cheating, but they’re both really important. It’s responsibility and respect. So as far as responsibility goes, put responsibility on their shoulders as soon as they can handle it. And here’s why. Because number one, age appropriate responsibilities, help them grow quickly in skills and also in confidence. And what happens is sometimes they’re not grasping the schoolwork quite as much as early on as maybe some girls boys tend to be six to nine months behind girls at certain stages. It’s not true across the board, but a lot of times it is true and they catch up eventually and take off. But in the meantime, they can feel a little unsure and lacking confidence in their schoolwork. So if they’re rocking their chores and they’re rocking, learning new skills about how to fix things, how to help mom, how to do all these different things they are still growing in confidence and eventually they’re going to translate that over into their schoolwork.
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So the second reason we want to do that is to put responsibilities on them early, is it gives them something to conquer. Boys need something to conquer. Again, if they’re not conquered, they don’t feel like they’re conquering their schoolwork, but they’re conquering their chores and they’re conquering being a great help to mom and a really important part of the family that is huge for them. And the third thing, third reason is that it encourages ownership. So when our boys own what they’re doing, they, they feel kind of like they’re in charge, even though they’re really not. We let them feel like they’ve got some independence and they feel like they’re a little bit in charge. And that means the world to them. One of our boys mentioned this when I was when I was kinda going over this talk with him. He said, give them a little more than you think they can handle because that gives them a challenge.
(00:26:51):
It gives them something to conquer. And it also builds resilience and problem solving skills. Don’t be too quick to rescue your boys or your girls either. But you know, boys, it’s so important. It’s so important for them to conquer. You know, a girl might see your help as I’m relational and nurturing and you know, it might be viewed a little bit different with boys. It could undermine some of that confidence that you’re trying to, to establish by allowing them to conquer things and to build resilience and to build problem solving skills. So how do we help them grasp this responsibility and take a hold of it. Well I, you know, I can only share my own experience and I was specifically want to talk about homeschooling cause I know we have a lot of homeschooling moms who are watching is just to share a little bit about what our days look like.
(00:27:43):
So I encouraged ownership of schoolwork, chores I let them participate in some decision making. Like I mentioned earlier when it, when it comes to letting them feel like they’re a little bit in charge some of the other ways I did that as I didn’t hover over them in schoolwork, I didn’t make them think that they needed me. When it came to schoolwork, I let them believe that they could totally do this and I was available if they got stuck. The funny thing is that a lot of times my boys, I would watch, you know, I, I watched my kids while they were doing schoolwork to see if they were struggling in case they needed me. And sometimes I would see them just, Oh, an adjunct’s over a math problem or something. And I’d be like, Hey bud, you know, do you need some help?
(00:28:25):
I’m right here if you need me. And they’re like, no, no. What is it? I want to do this on my own. Okay. All right. And I would let them work it out and it was the best thing for them. And they say, now that it was the best thing for them. One, another thing that I did was I inspected, inspected their chores and I kept timeframes on their chores, reasonable timeframes. I offered page chores if they were, can being consistent in their regular chores. So that ownership wasn’t just about school work. It was about a balance across the board in all the areas of their life. Exactly. Exactly. Now our son Luke, who is 21 said this, he said, I liked doing the book work in the mornings, which is what we did. We would do bookwork in the morning. They would have margin in the afternoon to follow their interests.
(00:29:14):
So we he liked doing book work in the morning because the reward was that he got to play or conquer in his words in the afternoon, his own projects, his own interests. This taught me to be productive in the mornings and it taught me the value of doing hard things first. So, and I, that’s so, so important. So the other R is respect. So why is this such an important thing for boys? Well, Gary Smalley, I learned years ago when my husband and I were first married, that boys and men tend to have a greater need to be respected than to feel loved. Okay. The difference is that girls tend, it’s not across the board, but for the most part we want to be feeling loved is the most important thing to us. We just want to feel loved. For boys, it’s being respected. For men, it’s being respected and it makes sense because what does God tell us in his word?
(00:30:06):
He doesn’t instruct men to respect their wife. He instructs them to love them because he knew that it would be a challenge for them to do that. That they would automatically respect them, but they might not love show the love towards them that they really needed. And vice versa. Wives respect your husbands cause he knew we would tend to be loving but maybe not verbalizing and showing that we respect them. So how do we do that? Respect that they are different than us. Here are some of the ways, main ways. Number one, they need a lot more physical activity. I think there’s a, I, I believe ADHD and add are real, but I think there’s a lot of misdiagnosed add and ADHD, especially in the early years because our kids, our boys need brain breaks. My boys have always needed brain breaks, but less as they got older and a lot when they were younger, they need breaks between subjects.
(00:31:01):
If they’re struggling, get cut them loose, set the timer, let them run around the yard, ride their bike, do something that refreshes the end, resets their brain. Sometimes I even, you know, would the ways that I would spend some of their energy is on chores, jumping on the trampoline outside projects. Let them carry in the groceries for you. Tell them how strong they are that you need their help. These again, are things they need to hear that shows respect to them. The another thing we have to remember that’s different is they’re very, very competitive. The ways that boys bond. Okay, this is really hilarious. I perused did not read a book called the minds of boys. It was fascinating, but it was a lot of science in it. But the things that I ran across that were the most helpful was he said, you know how when women sit across from each other, we have coffee, we talk, and we’d walk away.
(00:31:55):
Our cups are filled, right? We have bonded. We feel so close to that person. Well, guess how boys do that? They do that by hitting each other. Exactly. Or having some sort of competition. A lot of times it’s physical. So you know, saying to them, you know, don’t, you know, don’t do that. Don’t rough house. You’re taking away something that’s natural for them and obviously they have to learn when and where. That’s the, that’s important for us to teach that to them. But the bottom line is they need that just like we need that cup of coffee with a friend. So I remember laying out a car mat one time handing boxing gloves that we’d picked up at a yard sale, putting boy in each corner and saying, look, I’m going to give you one minute or five minutes or whatever to beat the tar out of each other.
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And so go for it. You know. Well, they, they had so much fun. It was, they were laughing. They thought it was hysterical. The one caveat was I said, if you heard each other, I’m not giving you any sympathy. So which they totally loved. They were totally great with that. So remembering that they’re competitive also they tend to be very concrete. So again, the use, the few words, Swift consequences. I shared with my boys said about that. The fourth thing is insist I mentioned this earlier, insist that they treat you with respect. So important, keep that respect level. It needs to be mutual, but they’ve got to stay respectful towards you. And you know, our simple homeschooling was, was a way that I respected their way of learning and respected their need for simplicity and their brain breaks. So a few quotes from our adult boys that I want to share with you. On the topic of independence, they said if mom is always protecting him from failure, he will never learn how to learn from failures. Mistakes are not failures unless we fail to learn from them. Sometimes they do. This is great. You guys are gonna love this. Sometimes they do what appears to be really dumb things. Let him make mistakes without ridiculing him. This is how moms show respect and call their boys up to a higher standard. Lastly, don’t baby him. Think of yourself as a little bit of a drill Sergeant.
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Through developing a strong work ethic, we learned grit. In other words, we learned courage and resolve and strength of character. And I loved that. So I just want to men, I just want to just touch really quickly on how you know I’m having to do with the respect and the responsibility. My daughter shared something on Facebook a couple of years ago that I, that I have to share with you. That was so true. This is what our boys are up against. Okay. This is what our culture is wanting from boys. She said, I think society asks way too many different things of men. Seems like all women want these days is a clean shaven, bearded, fully mature man-child with a gay man since his style. But obviously a masculine man who’s perfectly honest but never says anything negative. Oh, and he has to want a family, but also not hold a woman back or pressure her to have a family and he has to have a traditional but also open-minded, nontraditional, non-judgmental world view.
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Wow. I thought she nailed. I mean we laugh, but it’s true. Our boys are up against seemingly impossible odds. So let’s talk about the last thing. This is super, super important, P. So we’ve done boundaries, use few words, respect and responsibility. Prayer, the greatest thing you can do for your boys is to pray for them. I’m telling you, the enemy wants the hearts of our men. You are raising men, fight for their souls on your knees. The greatest, deepest work that needs to be done in our boys as heart is done by God himself. And I believe that the power of a praying mom will overcome the onslaught of the enemy and our culture who seem hell bent on destroying our men. We need to remember that one. These boys are not our projects. Okay? They’re not our projects. Number two, don’t assume that you know how to pray for them.
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And what I mean by that, you might know, but ask God also for eyes to see and to be a student of your sons, that he will show you how to pray for them. And third, the greatest deepest work again has to be done by God, his son himself. We can’t let the culture define our boys and who God made them to be. We have to fight for their right to be who God made them to be. They were made to protect, to provide, to conquer, to overcome. And they will live up or down to the standard that we set before them. So really quickly, do I have a few minutes to just share some fun things that you can, well, no, they’re not all fun. These are just things that you can likely expect from your boys because I think it’s important to have realistic expectations.
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This can help us tremendously. Okay. You ready? What you can expect from boys expect to be grossed out regularly. You have now you have to decide where the line is. It has much to do with who is present. So they have to be aware of their surroundings. Are there girls around grandparents, that kind of thing. We need to teach them that discernment. Expect to laugh a lot. Loves boys, love to be goofy, so be goofy with them. It’s one of the ways they know we are enjoying them. Expect to go to the emergency room, expect them to press the boundaries and be ready to stand your ground, but also be ready to listen for respectful, reasonable appeals and compromises. Expect lots of physical activity, wrestling, running sword fights and battles. Expect them to like weapons. Expect them to want to be independent of you and need time with their dad and other guys don’t assume or don’t expect them to like showers.
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Don’t assume that they will carry about that they will care about or even be aware of what they look like or smell like. Expect to need to set boundaries on their Boyness as far as being respectful, knowing when and where it’s appropriate to rough house, that kinda thing. To also be aware if they’re hurting someone or the other person isn’t having fun. Like with when it comes to teasing, if it’s not fun for all, it’s not fun at all. So expect them to develop slower than a girl his same age, expect him to lose part of his brain as he approaches puberty. So important not to ridicule him, but it’s okay to laugh together during this time and remind him that this is part of the journey to adulthood. His body is working to change him from a boy to a man, and that’s exciting.
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Let him own that part of the journey with his dignity intact. Now some of the things that I’ve loved most about raising our boys, and I know this isn’t true for all boys, but they haven’t been picky about their clothes or food. I could be brutally honest with them. Pretty much all of the time. They made me laugh harder than I ever thought possible. They pushed my boundaries of safety beyond what I ever imagined, which seriously makes my prayer life much more active. But if they work to keep a good relationship with them through mutual respect and encouragement, they will be our most loyal friends and protectors. So we have the opportunity to raise world changers, movers, shakers and leaders, real men who are courageous and know who they are. They’re ones who care. They, they care enough to help the helpless, but they also know how to wage war when necessary.
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But it all starts at home with parents who are their biggest fans, who aren’t afraid to tell them the truth, but will also be the first to offer a word of encouragement. It starts with parents that will set the example of courage and bravery by encouraging their boys to manhood. Those who aren’t afraid of what others think. This is so important, but focus their eyes directly on their creator and the creator of their boys and who will fight for their right to manhood. You have to be willing to pray hard, waging whatever warfare is necessary to keep the hearts of your boys turned towards him. Love that you should write a book called Wilson. His thoughts from your whole family and all your kids and they have plenty of them. Believe me, I know we still, they all share them with me very generously. I’m sure.
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I’m sure. Well, it sounds like it is such good stuff to Rhonda and you know, I want to tell you how much I appreciate you and your commitment to discipling the hearts of your boys because we pray every day with having two daughters. We pray daily for them that the Lord right now would be raising up Godly men for them and men who would lead them and lead their families spiritually and emotionally and, and who would genuinely love Jesus. You know, we, one of the things we say we, I learned this years ago from one of our pastors is he would say, boys are poison. Men are not, age has nothing to do with it. You can have a 45 year old boy or a 14 year old man, you know? And so much of that depends on their responsibility, maturity, you know? And exactly, exactly.
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I used to, when my boys would complain about having to do something, you know, when they were 12, 13, 14, I would remind them, you know, a hundred years ago, boys your age were running a farm. So it’s not because you’re not capable or able, yeah, sure enough. Right. You can totally do this. It’s just whether or not you’re willing to do the hard thing. Yes. And you know, and I think that is something that we really instilled in all of our kids is a strong work ethic and, and today especially our boys really, really are grateful for that. They say that’s one of the most important things we taught them. And that meant we had to be the bad guy a lot. We had to have them do a lot of things they didn’t want to do and they still had to do it, you know, and that’s just, it’s part of the deal.
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But also at the same time, keeping the relationship intact and keeping that mutual respect is so important. And, and this is why I involve them in there. A lot of times in their decisions about schoolwork, if something isn’t working for them, I don’t want to make them keep doing it. My, my thing is I get a lot of moms who say to me, you know, my son is, you know, six years old and he’s cries every time he has to write a paragraph. And I’m thinking a paragraph is a lot for a six year old to write, especially a six year old boy. So I’m sitting here thinking, okay but they’re worried about his character. That’s the issue they bring to the forefront. And I say to them, okay, how does he respond to you when you ask him to do chores?
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When you ask him to do something for you? Is he, does he have the same response as he does to the schoolwork? Because that’s gonna tell you whether it’s a character issue or a schoolwork issue. Right. And if it’s a schoolwork issue, then you get to sit down and have a conversation, a nice safe, respectful conversation with maybe a cup of hot chocolate and talk about what, you know, I noticed you’re really struggling with your schoolwork. What is it that’s bugging you about this? I want to work with you on this. You want them to know you’re on their side, you’re on their team and you want to work with them to do something that’s doable for them. And a lot of times I would tell them, look as a mom and the homeschooling mom, I feel a certain responsibility to prepare you to be a man.
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Can you help me out in what that’s supposed to look like right now? And then, you know, I know you need to learn your multiplication tables, but the thing we’re doing now isn’t, I don’t think, it doesn’t seem like it’s working for you, is it? You know, you asking lots of questions, letting them own it. And then all of a sudden, my boys have been so good at opening my eyes to things, you know, they would say, but mom, it’s so hard for me to sit still and just be doing nothing. And I’m like, okay, what do you need? Do you need music? Do you need to sit on a medicine ball? Do you need something to do with your hands while you’re doing this? How can we help you? That’s so important. Again, we’re respecting the differences. We’re not saying, I don’t understand that this doesn’t make any sense to me.
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Instead we say, I get it, I totally get that. You know, like I, I’m not wired that way, but I know you are. Let’s, let’s work with that, you know, and I want to help you. So just, it’s just keeping that communication, that relationship open. I love it. So much. Good stuff. Durenda you are, you’re a wise mama. I love having you on here. I’ve seen a few questions come in. If you guys have questions for Durenda feel free to post those. I see Tiffany that you’ve, you’ve even put question and apparently you’ve done this with us before. So yes, just put question ahead of it and, and we’ll try to get to him. So let me back up just for a second and see, cause there, there were a few kind of from the beginning. Oh, let me see.
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[Inaudible]
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Okay, so here’s when okay, so say, where does dad come into all this? And I think when she posted that she was talking about boundaries when you were talking about boundaries, but maybe talking about boundaries and then kind of everything else. So how do, how does Dan plan to all this? Oh, definitely. You know, I, since I was the one who is with our sons most of the day, you know, sometimes
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You know, obviously I needed to set boundaries with them in our relationship. If that was consistently being overrun then I would talk to my husband about it and sometimes he would talk to them. Sometimes he would, you know, bring in reinforcements for consequences. But a lot of times he was just really great springboard for ideas so that I could have more than one thing ready at all times in order to help keep those boundaries. And, but he was very good at stepping in and sitting down and talk, cause the boys would, they would, they, they respected their dads so they would, they would listen to him. You know, cause sometimes it, especially as they get more into the teen years, it’s a little bit tougher to they just, they tend to gravitate more towards the male role model, which is healthy. That is so good.
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So if you’re getting some pushback during that time, mama’s boy, it’s nothing personal. It isn’t, they’re doing exactly what God meant for them to do, but you have to help them with that transition. And this is where I would say, okay, I’m happy to work with you. And if you would rather talk to your dad about this, that’s fine. But your response to me still needs to be respectful. You know, I’ll try to ask more questions and assume the best in you instead of the worst, not jumping to conclusions and really try, this is another important thing we need to, we, I, I just said this a minute ago is so important. Don’t take this stuff personally. There’s so many things that are going on in their bodies as they’re turning into teenagers. You know, if women, we know, we know hormones can be brutal, right?
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It’s brutal for them to in other ways. And so we need to give them that, that grace that they need. Yeah. So I hope that answered the question. Yeah. Yes. Good stuff. Tiffany asked what our natural consequences and how do you decide them? And I know you talked about that. Yeah, I did. A lot of times it’s physical stuff, you know, but natural consequences would be something that fits the crime. So for instance, I had one who kept sneaking into my Costco bag of chocolate chips, right. I’d buy this pickle honking bag of chips thinking it was gonna last me a month before I knew it. They were gone and I knew exactly who was getting into them, but of course he never got caught and he tended to deny it. And so I would just keep warning him. Well, finally, I, you know, it finally all came out and I realized, okay, yeah, it’s been him all along.
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I wasn’t entirely sure, but when I did find that out that night at dinner time, you guys are gonna think I’m a really mean mom, but I could tell you he’s a great kid now. I served him a plate of chocolate chips at dinner time and I eventually said, if you love these so much that you’re willing to steal them out of the pantry, you are welcome to eat this entire pile for dinner. And he didn’t get regular dinner. All he got was the chocolate chips. Did he eat a no? And he and he did not keep getting into them after that. So it’s, it’s, it’s having that, that punishment that fits the crime. So try to do it so that it’s related to that. Now that kid, particularly loved sweets, know your kid’s currency, know what it is. So I could, you know, if he just been a real pain and he could be a real pain, in fact, hilarious.
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I’ll tell you a hilarious story in just a minute, but he, he could be a real pain consistently. And sometimes I would just be so done with him and I would just say, okay, I’ve warned you enough times so you are losing dessert for, you know, sugar for three days or four days. And then I would be sure that I made the most scrumptious dessert for dinner. That I, again, it sounds mean, but he was that kind of kid that if you didn’t hit him between the eyeballs wouldn’t get it. So this is the same kid who, you know, the words just seem to bounce off of him. He struggled a little bit with I think some attention deficit things and, but you know, we, we got through it. He’s a hard worker. He’s apprenticing as a plumber right now. He’s one of their best employees. They’re there, they’re saying he’s going to move up really fast.
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But the other day he was at our house and he looked at me and he’s, he’s actually having to learn now to focus more. Yeah. Recognize that on the job. So sometimes that thing they need to learn, they’re not going to learn it til they’re an adult in a situation where they’re motivated. Well, he’s motivated now. So he comes over and he’s like, yeah, my focus is getting so much better. Mom. I’m doing this and I’m doing this. And I realized this is what I need to do. I said, that is awesome. And he looks at me and he goes, I feel so sorry for you.
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He said, all those years, mom, I wasn’t listening to you. It was hysterical. So eventually it registers. Yes, maybe not in the moment, but maybe not in the moment. Maybe not even this year or next year. Keep working at it. That is so funny. I love that story. Here’s another one. Tiffany asked at what age do these lessons really start being implemented? I can see some of these traits in my four year old, independent likes to teach me energetic pushed boundaries but don’t know how to approach it at age four. I would say at age four, the boundaries are the boundaries. You, you, you don’t, you can’t go into a lengthy explanation like you could have, I mean not too lengthy, obviously even at 13, but at four especially, you just needs to know mommy is in charge and you know that it’s just important for them to understand that right now because here’s the thing God has ordered has put order to the family so that the parents, you know, the husband is covering his family.
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We’re under our husbands. And it’s a beautiful thing cause it’s an equal partnership, just different. But then underneath that are the children, right? So God tells ’em the husband and wife how to treat each other. But he, he gives instruction to us about how to parent. But then he also gives instruction to the children. And I have told my children, your job is hard but simple, your only job, the thing that God has called you to is to honor and obey your parents. That’s what you’re doing right now. You are in training. I used to explain it to the boys like it was military training cause that always resonated with them. They like that, you know, that manly stuff. And I would say it’s basically like training you’re training for battle. I mean, when you get into life, life is a battle, right?
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So you’re training right now and part of that training is learning to honor and obey your parents. So at four years old, that’s really all he needs to know, that honoring and obeying his parents honors and obeys God and God is gonna bless it. It’s going to go well with him. And if they don’t do it, I would remind my children, it will not go well with you. That’s right. So there you go. Yeah, that’s good stuff. And someone posted underneath that she mentioned wise words for moms and don’t make me count to three by gender. It’s a very good friend of mine. And Darren does. She has, yeah, she’s written a couple of really good books though. She’s got wise words for moms. Don’t make me count to three. And then her newest one is called, I can’t believe you just said that.
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Yes, it is another fan. Fantastic. The, and those are all parenting books and those are really I would say geared more towards the younger agents. Right? Kids. And so, yes. So for a four year old Tiffany, for sure, if you don’t have those books, I would highly recommend them. And, and as a matter of fact, for the Homegrown Generation Family Expo, you can still go back if you’re registered for that event, you can go back and watch Ginger’s entire session on reaching the heart of your child. And she talks about so much of that stuff during her session. So and she asks this much scripture, it’s great. It’s great scripture and very practical wisdom on how to implement it, how to implement all of that stuff is so, so good. So good. So here’s this is the last one last question and let’s see.
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This one is how much responsibility did you give your boys and helping with younger siblings? That’s a great one. Well, I think it really depends on your family. You may have, if you, if your oldest boy, oldest kids are boys, you’re probably going to need to have them help more often. There is nothing wrong with that. I did have our boys help with their siblings, especially boy to boy that seemed to work really well. You know, where I would have maybe the, the oldest boy entertain the toddler for a while, play with them and which, you know, he actually loved play with them for 20 to 30 minutes while I work with this kid over here when it comes to schoolwork. But absolutely it’s so important. This is how they turn into good dads. So I look at our boys now and they’re their peer counterparts, know nothing about children and these boys will scoop up anything from a newborn to a toddler and play with them and talk with them like, like they, like a dad.
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They know what they’re doing because they’ve had that kind of exposure. This is the beauty of homeschooling are our kids get to learn this well rounded view of family. We’re all part of something bigger than ourselves. And that’s what we’re doing when we pull them in to help but their siblings plus it gives them something to conquer. It gives them something to overcome. It gives them something to feel responsible for. All those things we talked about earlier and in the talk. Yup. Yup. Good stuff. Okay, here’s another one. She says, my son is 13 next month. Really struggling with not liking school. I’m struggling with how much and what to give him. You need to have a conversation with him. He is old enough for you to have that respectful conversation that I mentioned earlier. You know, in a relaxed setting, not when he’s upset about his schoolwork.
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Wait until you maybe take it along. We can all go out for coffee right now, but you can make something and go in the backyard and sit in a chair or in a quiet room and just really let him know how much you care about him, how much you want to work with him. Ask him if there’s something he wants to learn about that he isn’t learning the, I mean if there an interest that he has, because some of his basic skills like writing could come through that interest, you know, so be willing to work and compromise and think outside the box. Ask him for his ideas, you know, when it comes to the subject that he’s struggling with, what would you like to do? How would you like to learn that topic instead? You know, so that they, I would give my boys the opportunity in, you know, middle school, high school, when they had to, you know, meet a science credit or whatever, I would say, okay, how do you want to learn this?
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There’s a lot of different ways we can go about this. Do you want to take a class? You want to take an online class? Do you want to do this hands on curriculum? Do you want to do a textbook? Do you want to do something? Audio, visual what would be your preference? And usually by then they know what they would prefer and they can really give you a lot of insight into tackling how to approach their schoolwork during the can you actually really quickly tell the story about Jake and going to the bookstore and him wanting you to buy him a book on coding? This is a perfect story. It is crunch sample. It is a great example. He was around 12 years old and he did not like reading. I did assign some reading to him every day because that’s what a good homeschooling mom does, right?
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But I, I was walking that fine line of not wanting him to completely hate it. So I said, you just got to do, I just do the minimal if you’ll just do that, let’s compromise. He said, okay, I’ll do that. So he’ll read, he would read the minimum and he would write a summary and that was it on language arts for him because he just, he despised it. He loved math, didn’t like that. So anyway, we would take our kids to a bookstore regularly let them all pick out a book. All eight of them and everybody would come, they would be so excited about their book except for Jake. He would come and he would say, I didn’t really find anything I was interested in. And I’m like, really? We’re in Barnes and noble who can’t find some book in here somewhere that you’re interested in?
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But he didn’t. So we said, okay, and we’d move on. Finally, one day he came to me and he said, will you buy me this book? And he was super excited. I was like, so he hands me this book and it says “C++.” And I’m thinking, I said, what is this? He said, it’s a book on coding. And I’m thinking to myself, who in their right mind would ever want to read a book like this? I mean like if I want to sleep well that would be the book I would read. But I didn’t say any of that very, very important. Wire. I did not say anything, but my homeschool, homeschool mom wheels were turning. And I’m thinking, how can I use this to my advantage? And I said, okay, I will buy you the book, but you have to promise me one thing.
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He said, what’s that? I said, you have to read it from cover to cover. And he said, I will. And he did. And he read another one and another one and another one. And I heard recently he’s re-read a bunch of those books. So fast forward, four years later, he starts college and he gets his software computer software engineer a, what does it, computer science degree. He’s a software engineer and a very successful and so yeah, that’s his story and it was crazy. But when he was ready it, when his interest was piqued, all of the sudden he was reading and writing through that interest. And even then we limped along, it came to language arts until he started college. And you know, I was kind of sweating bullets when I came to college. And he passed his entrance exam with flying colors.
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I don’t really know how, but, and I asked him how, and he said, mom, you, you taught us how to speak. Well, you know, I’m a, I am a grammar Nazi. It’s true. But, but also you had us write summaries and really essentially that’s all I needed for the entrance exam. And I was like, Oh, okay, this is great. You know? But then he did his first quarter and he wrote his first paper and I looked at it and I was shocked. I could not believe, but the guy was motivated. He knew what he wanted to do. He had a goal in mind and he was going to overcome any and every obstacle to get there. And that’s exactly what he did. Right? It was what God had made him for it. He had something to conquer. Yeah. Yeah. And so when he had something to conquer, he had a reason to, to write.
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Well, I love that. Such a great story. I love that story. We’re about out of time, but I want to ask one more question and I don’t know why. I just feel this question just pressing on my heart. I don’t know. Maybe there’s someone who’s watching this who, who wants to ask this question and they, they won’t ask it. Cause this is a public video right. But I’ll ask it because it’s not something I’ve dealt with. I have girls and praise the Lord, I’ve not had to deal with this. I want to ask the question about pornography because we’re, we’re talking to moms of boys in dealing with boys and I know that in our age today, ours, our society who are, you know, every kid has a cell phone in their hands or access to a cell phone or access to the internet or access to just about everything.
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You know, it wasn’t like that when we were kids, when we were kids. If you wanted to access pornography, you had to have, you know, a dirty uncle or something like that. I mean, you just wasn’t, it wasn’t a thing. It was a lot harder to, to get harder. And kids today, they have access to this stuff. How would you, how can you encourage moms of boys to protect their boys from digging into that? How do, how do they protect them? Well, you know, it would be really awesome if I could just tell you do a, B, C and D and you’ll be in the free, you’ll be free and clear. I can’t do that because it’s so, so much of it is about the heart and it’s about a diligence as a parent paying attention. But there are things you can put in place.
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I feel like absolute protection in the very beginning because a lot of our kids do their stuff on their computer so we can, we can do things to Kevin and I’s, there’s different, different programs out there to help a lot more out there than there were when we first started having computers, there was nothing. And we’ve dealt with this in our family. In fact, I have a podcast on it where I talk with our one of our sons about it and it’s super encouraging. So you get a chance to go listen to it. I wouldn’t, I would encourage you to go listen to it cause I, I really dive deeply into that topic and our, and share our story, but definitely protection in the early years. And then if you’re seeing a trustworthiness, I say we let loose a little bit at a time and with some good accountability, but we’ve got to it, it would be better for them to make those mistakes in our home while under our roof.
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And while we still have a lot of influence on their lives and ability to speak into their lives and a lot of accountability I think it’s really important not to freak out about this, but to definitely be diligent. It’s just a really fine line. I prayed a lot. I asked God to give me wisdom and show me and I’m telling you stuff would come out that I had, would have, nah, I don’t think I ever would have known about, had not God not like awakened to me in the middle of the night or you know, he is faithful. But yes, I, it’s definitely a concern. It’s definitely something to pay attention to. But I do encourage you to go listen to that podcast cause I think it’s a beautiful story. It’s a story of redemption. It’s a story of, there’s, there’s helpful tips there. I think that the most beautiful part of it is just God’s redemption in all of it.
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And the, the fact that I was able to keep relationship, we were able to keep relationship with our son through all of it. And one of the most important factors he points out is that we didn’t overreact when we found out. He felt like he could be honest with us because he knew that we wouldn’t because we hadn’t before. We hadn’t overreacted in other scenarios and under other situations. He trusted there was a trust there. And I think that’s really important. Open communication and trust with your voice. Yeah. And what a relief for him to have been able to just come to you and be honest about it. And if I remember correctly, he actually came to you. He did said, mom, I want to do a podcast about this and share my story. I did, is done. And that’s it. I had to pray about that because I, I, I, I, he was so he was enthusiastic because he felt like it would help.
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A lot of other boys, it turns out he was absolutely right. I can’t tell you how many people have messaged me and just said, after they listen to this with their boys, cause you can listen to it with your boys. It didn’t, maybe some of it has some, for some of them it happened right away. For others it took a little bit of time, but eventually they came to their parents and said, I just, I don’t want this anymore. It, it, they thought about it. It ruminated. And so but he, he was, my hesitation was you, you understand family, friends, everybody, you know, anybody you know can listen to this. Are you okay with that? I want to make sure that you are okay with that. And he said, he felt like for himself if he wasn’t okay with it, it was more about pride.
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Wow. Than it was about wanting to basically reveal the glory of God and the nature of God and his redemptive, his ability to redeem things, to take what Satan means for evil and to use it for good. That’s awesome. Which says so much about his relationship with the Lord and his character as a Godly young man. And so I think that just gives so much hope to, to these parents. What is someone’s asking for the link to that podcast? It’s what, what would the link be to that? How would they find it beyond DurendaWilson.com and then you can go down to the search bar and you just put in pornography and it’ll come up and we can also share the link in the comments afterwards. Did the comments stay there? You know, they will stay there for a little bit. But yeah, we can pour it in as soon as we get off.
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Okay. Okay. Yeah, we’ll try to pop that in right away. But thank you for, for sharing that. I’ve just felt, so I really felt like I needed to ask that question because that is a very, very good question. And I know it is on the hearts and minds. And the thing is, it’s a huge problem. It’s as much of a problem in the church as it is in the world, which is very, very sad. It’s something that can be easily hidden but so destructive in relationships and marriages. And so we just, we want to, we want to come against that. And the way we come against that is we shed light on it and we allow God’s redemptive work to happen. That’s right. And it is such a problem because people don’t feel like they can be honest about it. Exactly. Their experience or with their pastor or with their friends.
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And so, it’s, you know, it becomes a shameful thing that nobody ever wants to talk about. And it, I mean, it can cause so much spiritual destruction and destruction and families. So, so thank you for sharing that. We will put the lock on that. If there are no more questions, we are done. We’re actually out of time so we need to be done. But during to thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for just taking the time to encourage me. I don’t even have boys and it’s been so encouraging to me because a lot of what you talk about really does relate to having children in general. Yes, it does. Here it put the link up there. Thanks, Garritt. That’s great. So there’s the link to that but thank you during the, you are just a breath of fresh air and such an encouragement here.
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I always, I love encouraging parents and I especially just have a really soft spot in my heart for moms of boys because you’re going against, you’re going against the tide, but I’m telling you it is so worth it. Do it the way God is leading you to do it and don’t worry about what other people think because God’s going to use those, those men that you are raising. Yes, yes. And go out and raise Godly men so that our daughters have Godly men to marry. Amen. Guys, thank you for joining us today. Again, if you are not registered for the Homegrown Generation Family Expo, if you’re watching this on Facebook live and you’re just watching it for free, we did an entire week of this with amazing speakers. I mean it was absolutely incredible, but we
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Of course had Durenda on and Ginger Hubbard and Heidi St. John and Kirk Cameron and Sam Sorbo. Karen DeBeus, Aby Rinella. I mean there the list goes on and on. We had over 20, how many speakers did we have? 30 over 30 speakers actually and now we’re doing a new session every week. Most of them are going to be free. However, we do have a few premium sessions coming up that are just for those who are registered for the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. It’s only $20 to register and you have access to watch any of the sessions anytime you want. As a matter of fact, you can even get the audio downloadable so you can just download the audio and just listen to it if you would rather do that instead of watch it. But coming up next week, which is this, I think the 16th next Thursday at 5:00 PM Pacific time, 8:00 PM central time, not central time, 8:00 PM Eastern time.
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Kirk Cameron is coming back on with me and if you have seen his movie Monumental, you have probably been really blessed by it as I have. It’s one of my favorite movies and he talks about the Matrix of Liberty and really about the founding of our nation and he’s going to come on and just give some really biblical insight and hope to our nation. I know we’re, all of us are dealing with the same thing right now. You know, we’re all dealing with the frustration and the confusion and the unanswered questions and everything that’s going on. And in the midst of all of this, God still has a wonderful plan for us, for our world, for our nation, for our families. And so Kirk is going to come on, he’s going to be live. It will actually not be on Facebook, but it will be live on the website and you can interact through YouTube.
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So you’ll still be able to ask questions and stuff, but Kirk will be on with me on Thursday the 16th at again, 5:00 PM Pacific time, 8:00 PM Eastern time. So join us for that. You have to be registered for the Homegrown Generation Family Expo to do that. And then the following week we’re going to do another premium session with Kevin and Sam Sorbo. And as a matter of fact, Garritt and I were on the phone with Kevin today and they are super excited about this. There’s this going to be called Date Night and they’ve been married for over 20 years and they’re going to come on and just give some really practical marriage advice and, and just bring hope to your marriage and to your families. So join us for that. That one’s going to be on Thursday, the 23rd. That one’s going to be at 5:30 Pacific, 8:30 Eastern time. And so, you can join us for both Kirk and the Sorbos and then we’ll have more sessions coming up as well over the next couple of months. So, thank you Durenda. I love you friend. You are a blessing. Thank you guys for joining us today. Have a fantastic rest of your week. Bye.
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