What happens if beavers try to raise young otters? Today on Home School Heartbeat, HSLDA host Mike Smith interviews family speaker John Trent on how to parent kids with personalities different from yours.
The Blessing Challenge
This week’s guest, Dr. John Trent, has launched the Blessing Challenge to encourage and equip families and churches to make a difference in the lives of children by blessing them. Learn more about Dr. Trent’s initiative and take part in the Blessing Challenge by clicking the link below.
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Mike Smith:
Today we’ve got John Trent of Strongfamilies.com on the program. John, there is so much variety in personalities. This makes relationships really exciting, but also sometimes challenging! What if a parent is one personality type and the child is another?
John Trent:
Well, I think the Lord does that as a little bit of a, well, just to throw some extra fun and challenge into life. You know, we talked about lions and otters and golden retrievers and beavers. So, for example, I had a lion mom that we talked to and boy, she was just charge-ahead kind of mom and, you know, she had two kids. She would put an egg timer in front of both kids when it was time to do their homework. Well one kid was motivated by that! Guess what, they were another lion. So, “Hey, I can beat the clock!” But then she had a golden retriever child! Tick, tick, tick, and when you put a golden retriever kids under massive time pressure, they’ll tend to slow down, not speed up! And when we finally helped her realize, “You know what, the Lord says, ‘Train up a child according to their bent!’” Understand, not all kids are motivated the same way! I mean, great coaches know that, great parents do too.
Mike:
This is an excellent way of looking at parenting, John, and I know our listeners will appreciate your insight and thanks so much for it today. And until next time, I’m Mike Smith.
