Boldman's Weekly Parenting Blog

It is good to know the science behind what our kids are taught about their sexual orientation. We have been talking a little about pornography and how it effects our sons, but reality is it also plays a role in the shaping of their sexual orientation...which is a very scary thought.  There is a short teaching series on a web site called Your Brain on Porn, and it discusses the teenage brain and how viewing porn can actually change not only the way we view women, but also how we view our own sexuality.  The science studies show that DNA plays a role in how we view ourselves sexually, but so does sexual conditioning.  Unlike what our culture is teaching our kids, we really do reap what we sow in regards to how our brain is changing based on what we are dumping into it.  Today's porn is different in its content than the porn of the past, and the content is changing how our sons feel about who they are and what they think they "want."  As parents we need to have a ...

For the next couple of entries I am going to focus on pornography.  I would like to walk you through the basics so not only will you know what I am teaching your son, but also so your own parenting methods can have some food for fodder! I am currently taking them through The Conquer Series which is a good conversation starter.  None of the DVD series or YouTube series we watch here are truly stand alone for any young man.  We need to spend at LEAST an equal amount of time as the series is teaching to interject/explain/and add personal stories to help them understand.  I am also taking them through the general principles in Finally Free , as well as Wired For intimacy, How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain .  These are both excellent books geared towards helping us to understand how exactly porn is hurting us.  I was talking to a student this morning, and he told me he didn't have any problem with porn whatsoever.  I'm glad he said this, but when I pu...

Last night was another great session with Craig.  He talked about what has already taken place in the lives of Christians and how we need to live in that reality. He also made some hard distinctions between the life of a believer and a non-believer.  Last night he discussed: God's full saving work is not yet complete in us; the presence of sin has not yet been removed; we are not yet all that we will be in Christ; we still have trials to go through on Earth; God's Kingdom is not yet fully come.  It was a great session and the boys were very interactive.  This morning he closed down the week in his final session.  Again there was a lot of interaction with the boys reading Scripture and answering questions. His topics this morning were based on the following points: We are learning to obey the convictions of the Holy Spirit; Our relationship to Christ is to be growing; We will go through trials and tribulations on this life; We should be becoming more and more eq...

This week's guest sessions have been going really well.  Craig has had some great talks with the boys and it seems like they are really enjoying the time he is spending with them. Craig cherishes these times and is already lamenting that it is almost over.  The last couple of sessions Craig has been going over alternative responses to the situations the kids find themselves in. He has talked about: Not returning evil for evil; repent, repeat, and return; being quick to listen, and slow to respond; not to be argumentative.  In yesterdays session he explained how we are currently in the "already" but not the "not yet" time of our lives. In the 'already' we deal with things like: Jesus has provided salvation; the power of sin is broken; we are new creations; we have come through difficulties; God has established His kingdom in our hearts.  The "not yet" we are going over tonight.

Our first night of Craig's teaching was largely spent in introductions of the boys and Craig giving a little of his testimony and how he and I came to know each other.  He has made workbooks for the boys to follow along and take notes in.  We had a good crowd the first night with all of the boys as well as 8 of the staff.  Craig is teaching through the Lord's prayer this year.  He spent some of his time last night discussing God's role as our father and how His adoption of us as His kids is so important.  He also touched on what specific sins the boys are dealing with and what are they willing to give up in order to have a healthy relationship with Christ. 

This week we are having a guest speaker from central California come and speak with the boys.  His name is Craig Bowser and he is a trained biblical counselor as well as a farmer!  He will be sharing 5 different times with the boys.  I will add more as he starts going through the material.  Pray that God allows him to get through to the boys.  He has come for the last 4 years and does a great job.

I am going to talk just for a minute about the idea of pushing your son to make more than just pragmatic changes during his stay here at Future Men, but also realizing that once you have spoken your encouragements, concerns, and frustrations, that the end results are not in your (or my!) hands.  God has promised that His Word will not return void, and that He also finishes what He starts.  The big question is...whose work is it?  When we stand back and evaluate the lives of our own children it is very hard to be objective (probably impossible is a better word for it).  We see the good in them, what most parent's lovingly (and wrongfully) call their son's "good heart."  This "good heart" is often times in direct opposition to t he actions we are observing.  I have a prior blog regarding this topic, so go back and search for a topic regarding taking your son's actions for a direct reflection of what is in his heart. and why you should be thankful he basic...

Well here we are back again with a window into one area most of the boys are dealing with. I want to briefly talk and encourage you to do some more research and read through some sections in God's Word, that will allow you to stand strong on issues related to this matter.  The issue for today is our emotions.  Contrary to modern counseling methods and philosophy, our emotions are a gift from God and are meant to add color to life...not to determine our actions.  We have a society that believes if we are thinking something then we should shout it out for all to hear.  This goes against Scripture. We have made a saying "dont' bottle things up inside", but have given no real alternatives other than just venting.  We have been convinced to think that venting is healthy, and I chose venting as one example of an emotion that gets expressed, anger in the case of venting, but it could have been any emotion. In Proverbs we are told that "...a fool vents all of his feeli...

Today we are going to talk about discipleship of older kids a bit.  I want you to start off by thinking of the Bible and any other type of spiritual material as "food".  Jesus refers to the Word as food as well.  Just like with physical food, a person must eat spiritual food on a daily basis in order to maintain good health.  Binge feeding and diet fads are almost always unhealthy, and a habit of eating smaller amounts of a variety of foods is almost always a better life pattern.  Think in terms of food types first.  Think: meals; snacks; desserts; protein; fiber; sweets; carbs...etc.  Now apply that to how we expect our kids (and sadly ourselves) to be spiritually "eating."  If we sit down with our kids or or our spouse once a week and do some form of devotional activity we feel good.  We think we have accomplished something.  But is this good?  Is a once a week feeding (apart from church let's say) going to sustain them?  Th...

This blog is going to cover a subject that comes up a lot here at Future Men, and it is the subject of when is my son a man.  I think we want to talk to, and consider our sons as men asap, and they want the privileges that come with being a man asap, but when it comes to disagreements and we as parents trying to flex our "parental muscle"...well, it seems to be a different story.  Here is what I mean. You are at a crossroads of some big choice your son is wanting to make, and you stand in disagreement with his choice.  He wants to pull out the "I'm 18" card or "why can't I be treated as an adult?" Both of which are great points or great questions (which to be frank they are not really questions on your son's mind, it is just words used to convey disagreement.  So, how do we avoid this type of conversation, or worse, what do we do now if we are already in the middle of a conversation like this? Many parents ask me what will happen when their so...

Well another week is coming to an end and we are getting close to the Christmas break.  When your sons come home it will be a time of joy and struggle.  The boys will want to please and desire to assimilate back into the home, but will of course be struggling with obedience and being drawn in by the flesh.  Today I want to discuss the idea of just making a clean cut from social media for your son when he returns home.  Many of the boys feel a strong desire to get back into their old friends and patterns (that they somehow think is unrelated to the choices they were making that brought them here), and it is going to be up to you to change things.  As a parent it is no fun to be the "no" guy.  By this I mean putting restrictions on your children can/will make you feel like a tyrant and joy killer.  Welcome to parenthood.  When my children were younger (say at a time when we had about 8 kids under the age of 14) it was physically harder to parent, b...

Okay...I apologize a lot for not writing, but I am busy, and I actually have a legit reason this time!  First, my wife was in Africa for 2 weeks and I had all the kids (thats 10 still at home for those who dont know this).  Second, when she got back the internet at FM was actually down for 8 days!  Third, my wife and kids left for a yearly vacation they take with an old friend of hers (an ex-female student of mine who lived with us for three years and now is raising 7 kids of her own (my wife disciples her from a distance and they like to get together every so often to catch up and do some mom version of "iron sharpening iron!).  So...I decided to volunteer and build a fireplace hearth and mantle for one of my directors who is building his own home while she is gone!  Needless to say...too many irons in the fire!  But, I finished 30 minutes ago, I am sitting down, and thought I would try and catch up.  No more excuses.  One thought  that kee...

Today I want to briefly talk about a parent's job to stand at the "gates" of their home and stop any kind of foolishness to creep in.  In the early days of the Children of Israel they would post guards in many different locations around the city to "watch" for the enemy to sneak in (read 1 Chronicles to get an idea of how many men this entailed!).  What is crazy is that the best watchmen weren't placed on the back or side gates, but rather on the main front gates where the most traffic was going through.  The thought was that the enemy is more likely to sneak in where least expected rather than covertly sneaking in over some back wall (although they placed guards there as well).  As a parent YOU are that guard watching over the traffic coming in and out of your city, you home.  Most of the traffic coming in and out is safe, normal...but its also where you least expect it that the enemy strikes.  In a home this looks like the neighborhood kid, or the visiti...

Well a couple of crazy weeks have passed since I last wrote, and I need to jump back in!  Parenting my own children and trying to train up the boys here can be tough.  God gives His grace, but He seems to give it in a way I don't always recognize or feel.  When talking to the boys here its funny how easy it is to relate to them.  People ask me all the time "...how can you work with troubled teens? " Or "I don't know how you can put up with the tings they do."  Well, reality is I can't, but god can and does.  My biggest enemy, but also my biggest encourager is the mirror.  When I get frustrated or worn out on a particular student I just go take a quick peek in the mirror and remember how much patience and grace God has shown me, and suddenly it is easy to be kind to the boys, or to go back and make sure a relationship is on good grounds before leaving for the day.  As a parent and a teacher/discipler here, I find myself praying to God a lot for st...

This past week my wife and I attended the ERLC 2017 Parenting Conference.  If you look it up online you can watch pretty much all of the sessions we were blessed to take part in.  There were many good speakers who were pointing parents back to staying the course in their parenting as well as keeping the focus on the Gospel.  There was a general admission that our World is getting more wicked by the day, and that the availability of evil at the fingertips of the kids is almost overwhelming.  While we were gone we also visited our second oldest son in Athens, Tennessee.  We were blessed to attend church on Sunday and were almost more blessed by the sermon we heard then the prior three days at the parenting conference.  I would like to share the information that would allow you to listen to the sermon we were blessed to hear.  If you get online and look up Cornerstone Church of Knoxville, and go to sermons, find the one for 8/27/17 it was a guest speaker...

Today I would like to encourage you with a section of Scripture that has seen me through many a tough time, as well as just in the day to day repetitive prayers for the young men that I work with.  There are so many times that I find myself praying for one of my children, or for your son, and I just don't know what to say.  I feel as though I have said it all, and it frustrates.  My heart hurts for the situation, but I am at a loss for words.  This is the time when I find myself truly falling onto a resource that has been promised in Scripture.  If you look at Romans 8:26-28 you will see hope beyond what you could ever imagine was possible.  Romans 8:28 is a very popular verse, and rightly so, but when taken from it's context I think it loses its real power.  This verse quickly turns into neat Christian slogan or maybe t-shirt design, but it is so much more than that.  Verse 26 talks about what we are to do as believers when our hearts are so hea...

Just a quick follow up to the blog the other day.  When I was talking about a dad discipling his son in a "lifestyle" manner, rather than a "event" manner it sparked a couple of questions/responses.  I would like to discuss some of these here briefly.  A theme that seemed to run through some of the comments was "where doe the time come from?"  This is a great question.  In today's world the answer to that question really isn't going to be very popular.  The time comes from you, as a dad, dying to yourself.  When we, as men, chose to have kids we in essence set our lives aside for anywhere from 20ish years to maybe 40+ years (in my case!).  This is tough.  I think this is why it is called "dying" to self.  In Matthew's Gospel he talks about "taking up our cross daily" and following Christ.  Parenting is following Christ.  In order to parent you must die to self.  God tries to break us in quickly by giving us a helpless, cr...

Well here we are at another blog time.  We will be getting back to the idea of consequences and how to structure and implement them.  For now however I want to address a comment I heard recently from a parent at a parenting class we are teaching.  I was discussing the idea of pornography with a dad in regards to his 15 year old son.  The son had been caught in some pretty heavy pornographic habits and it devastated the family.  When I was talking to the father he was obviously angry, frustrated and disappointed.  The response that surprised me however was that he was caught off guard about it.  His response to me as he was telling me the story of what happened was "but we had that talk."  He went on to discuss how his church had a seminar on pornography and that he and his son had attended and even followed it up with a meeting of their own.  Then several months later...the sin is discovered.  Let me encourage you to view your job of di...

Sorry for the lack of blog posts.  I have spent the last two weeks in doctor's appointments having MRI's done on my spinal chord.  I have had several neck surgeries in the last year, and we thought (think) I may need one more.  I had my final MRI yesterday and they are supposed to give me the results early next week.  I would appreciate your prayers and patience in this area.  I am still teaching a bi-monthly parenting class and am looking forward to including much of this information into the blog!  Thanks again for caring and I hope you are busy reading through the material on our resource page.  One of the best "big picture" books on our page is Child Training Tips , by Reb Bradley.  If you are not already reading this you need to!  There is another great read titled Sacred Parenting , by Gary Thomas that is also an amazing resource.  Use them!

Before we get into dealing with the bigger sins and some options for consequences I want to address one other area of concern...the heart.  If you go back and read previous posts you will see where I have addressed some various aspects of heart change.  My point today is what to do when you have obedience, but their heart is far from you. This is a BIG deal.  If your child is still having a hard time just obeying (or he is actually enrolled just to keep him safe since his obedience is so far off the mark!) then for now you have to just focus on getting him to comply, but eventually you will need to work on the attitude that goes along with obedience.  We all know when they are giving outward obedience, but they are standing with a fist raised in the air on the inside.  God calls us out on this type of "obedience".  Isaiah 29:13 talks about a people who "...honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me."  God considers this disobedience at b...