Perfect Parents | PERFCT | Menlo Church Live Stream

Now, of course, there were pivots and down rounds. There were crisis meetings with the two cofounders sitting across the table from one or another wondering how long they could make it, but they kept pouring money in because they were focused on the exit strategy. They were committed to an IPO. They wanted the validation of the market. They wanted to be able to ring the bell and say, Look at what we built. Look at the ROI. Now I'm not talking about a tech unicorn in Mountain View or biotech firm in Silicon Valley somewhere. I'm actually talking about your family. [00:27:36] (38 seconds)  #ParentForLegacyNotIPO

Now I know the pressure firsthand that we live in in the ZIP codes that we live. In the Bay Area, parenting often feels less like raising a child and more like managing a high stakes start up. We treat our kids like venture capital projects, and we obsess over their inputs. Are they in the right school? Are they on the right soccer team? Do we find the right tutor? Do they have the right vitamin regimen? Is their diet perfect? Did they make the coding camp that they can't miss? And why do we do that? Because we are terrified of the output. [00:28:43] (33 seconds)  #KidsNotStartups

Now without realizing it, we as parents can sometimes spend an uneven amount of time focusing on the outward appearances of our kids. We think about their GPA, their jersey number, the acceptance letter. But if you build a child who looks great on the outside, great on paper, but has a hollow heart, you will regret it. And actually, so will they. If we're honest, there is a darker side for why we are so often to obsess about our kids' performance. It's not just about their future, It's about our validation. We treat our kids like they're lifetime achievement awards in Silicon Valley. [00:30:49] (45 seconds)  #HeartOverHype

We treat our kids like they're lifetime achievement awards in Silicon Valley. If they're polite, if they're smart, if they get into that school, I feel good about me. But if they're messy, if they're rebellious or, God forbid, average, I feel shame about me. [00:31:29] (27 seconds)  #KidsAreNotTrophies

I know what it is to look at your family tree and be like, is that on fire? So wherever you are, here's the hope that I would give you. Here's a miracle in my life. By the grace of God and only the grace of God, today, I stand here with four incredible kids, 16 years old, 13 years old, 11, and six. And because of the community that God gave me and the wisdom that he has placed around me, I am parenting them in ways I didn't even know were possible. Not perfect, but a different pattern. [00:32:52] (33 seconds)  #GraceRewritesFamilies

This was always the wrong version of the dream that we were supposed to be parenting toward anyway. Even if the kid catches it, even if your son or daughter gets that job at Google, gets that house at Atherton, they have everything on the outside. How's the inside? What if we change the definition of what it means to make sure that our kids are better off than we are? [00:37:02] (26 seconds)  #CharacterOverClout

Instead of praying that they have a bigger financial portfolio, what if we prayed that they had a bigger purpose and fulfillment to their life no matter what they do? Instead of parenting so that they can afford to live in a specific ZIP code, what if they would carry the qualities of the kingdom of heaven into any ZIP code that God sends them? See, the default American dream says, my peace depends on my position. But God's kingdom dream, it creates resilient people that say, my identity is secure whether I am the CEO or an intern. I know who I am whether I'm in the corner office or the cubicle. That's the only inheritance that you can give, by the way, that is not going to succumb to inflation. [00:37:27] (43 seconds)  #PurposeOverPortfolio

Well, we do it when we demand perfection and we offer no grace. We provoke them when we criticize a bee, but we don't notice their bitterness. We we provoke them when we make our love conditional on their performance. And the result, Paul says, is not only do they become discouraged, they lose heart. They become listless. See, if your child thinks that they can't get good reactions from you, they will settle for any reaction. [00:40:42] (26 seconds)  #GraceOverPerfection

And this week, we're discovering that healthy parenting, it chooses connection over compliance. That, actually, it takes that choice in every space, every age and stage. I'm going to choose connection over compliance. Quick fix parenting chases compliance. Now I think for some of us, it sounds like just do what I say so I can get back to my life. Kingdom parenting, it chases connection. It says, I'm gonna slow down. I'm gonna do this in an unhurried and inconvenient way for me so that we can have a deeper connection together. Compliance, it might change momentary behavior, but connection connection can create healthy patterns that last a lifetime. [00:44:32] (43 seconds)  #ConnectionOverCompliance

``Now that's a great statement, but do you know when God the father said this to Jesus? It was before his ministry began, before the miracle started, before the teaching started, before the cross, before the resurrection. God the father validated God the son based on relationship, not performance. He loved him because of who he was. Many of us, we wait until the report card comes back to say, I'm proud of you. My dad would wait until I graduated from college to tell me that he was proud of me for the first time. God leads with it. It's the first thing, and it should be for us too. [00:46:48] (40 seconds)  #LovedNotEarned

Here's a challenge for you this week. If you're a parent, for every correction you offer to your child or student, make three connections. If you're a critical person or maybe somebody that's got some more ground to make up, maybe make that, like, six connections for everyone. Right? That's eye contact. That's affirmation. That's unhurried time. That's seeing the stuff that they're doing great, not just great. [00:47:28] (26 seconds)  #ThreeToOneConnection

See, we tend to think of our kids kinda like broken code that we just need to fix. If I can just tweak this behavior, if I can just debug that attitude, then they'll run perfectly, and I can just detach. But your child is not a program. They're a tree. And you don't fix trees. You water them. You give them sunlight. You protect them from pests. And most importantly, you treat them differently as they grow. [00:47:58] (24 seconds)  #NurtureDontFix

One of the biggest ways that I think we provoke our kids from that language of Paul is that we parent our kids in the wrong time zone. Here's what I mean by that. We tend we try to control our 17 year old like they're a toddler, or we try to negotiate with our toddler like we're a consultant. Psychologists, they tell us that there are distinct stages and development paths for every child at every age. To form your child effectively, you have to change your job title as a parent at every stage. [00:48:22] (29 seconds)  #ParentInTheRightTimeZone

Fourth and fifth grade, you parent as a coach. Now they have some skills. Now you can push form. Right? A coach at this stage might say, I love you. Now run that lap again. I love you. That tone of voice is not okay. You are preparing them for the game of life where you will not get to be on the field with them for every play. Middle school, your parenting changes. You become a counselor. This is the crisis phase of parenting. Everything feels like the end of the world, and your job changes. You talk less. You listen more. Good counselors don't work to solve the problem. They ask good questions so that the patient can own the solution. Questions like, what do you think you should do? [00:50:02] (41 seconds)  #ParentByTheirStage

And then in high school, you parent as a consultant. This is the release phase. You don't make the decision anymore. You offer input, but it's like, here's my advice, but you're the one driving. And if you crash, I'll help you out of the wreckage, but I'm not gonna take the wheel. Because you wanna help them get a vision for their future and begin to head down that path. And then in college and young adult years, you become a champion. The heavy lifting is done. You are working to preserve the relationship for life. Let me make this clear. In this stage, you give no unasked for advice. You write that one down. You become their biggest fan. [00:50:44] (49 seconds)  #ChampionDontControl

And here is the heavy truth. You can't go back. You simply missed that stage. And there's a grief in that. There's a letting that part go. But here's the good news of the gospel. Here's the good news of the grace of God even in parenting, that even if you weren't with them, God was. See, God's with them even when you feel like you weren't, even when you feel like you've fallen short, and it's not too late to show up in whatever phase they're in now. [00:52:18] (31 seconds)  #NeverTooLateToShowUp

See, if you want your child to grow, really grow, really mature, you don't need to be louder. You need to be humbler. I never heard my parents apologize to me once as a child, not one time. But the most powerful thing I can do as a parent, the most powerful thing you can do as a parent isn't to say because I said so. That's easy. That's quick fix parenting. It's to say, I was wrong. I lost my temper. I put too much pressure on you. I'm sorry. And will you forgive me? See, when we do that, we aren't losing authority. We're gaining influence. And you're showing them that everyone needs the grace of God in their lives, including you. [00:53:26] (47 seconds)  #LeadWithHumility

It works like like a seesaw. If one person overfunctions and does too much, the other person inevitably underfunctions and does too little. And here is the law of family physics. If you work harder on your child's life than they do, you are faking their current competence and stealing their future capacity. Every time you rescue them from a forgotten lunch, every time you email that teacher to fix a grade, it's unsustainable. Every time you manage their schedules so they don't feel the pain of their mistake, you're jumping on the high side of the seesaw. And what happens when you do that? They have no choice but to sink to the bottom of helplessness. You are doing it because you love them, but you're also doing it because you're anxious and you wanna solve for that. But you are training them to be passive. [00:54:29] (54 seconds)  #TeachCompetenceNotDependence

The next time that your child comes to you with a crisis, a forgotten homework assignment, a conflict with a friend, a schedule mix up, I want you to wait twenty four hours before you intervene. Some of you just started sweating. Now I get it. Like, if if there's blood or fire involved, go ahead and jump in, but don't fix it immediately if it's not. Say something like this. Wow. That sounds really hard. What do you think you're gonna do about that? And then just have a conversation. Give them the dignity of trying to solve the problem on their own. You're like, they're gonna come up with terrible answers. Yeah. But you know how we get better answers? It's by first coming up with terrible answers and then having a conversation. [00:55:55] (49 seconds)  #Wait24LetThemSolve

This is how we raise people, not performers. This is how we carve space for connection before compliance, and it's exactly the way that God, by his grace, lovingly guides you and me. You know, at times like this, people will say to me, they'll be like, Phil, I hear all that, but then I hear about your story. And, like, how did you end up that way out of coming out of the home that you came out with? I'd say, well, one, we're, like, one out of four of us. So, odds were not great in my house, and Jesus. That that is the difference. That for you, hope is never done because Jesus is always available. [00:56:49] (40 seconds)  #RaisePeopleNotPerformers