The Art of Parenting

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript

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Emotional Identity

Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey

From the series: The Art of Parenting: Identity (Day 1 of 3)

Bob: When our kids act out—and they do—as parents, we want their behavior to change. But, as Barbara Rainey says, ultimately we want something that goes deeper than that—we want to get to their hearts.

Barbara: The side that Dennis and I erred on as parents is that we were focused on what we call behavior modification. It’s changing how our child behaves, rather than helping them understand, “Feeling angry at your brother because he took your toy is normal. It’s okay that you feel that way. But how can you learn to express that in a way that’s helpful and not harmful?”

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, January 28th. Our host is Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.

Helping our children identify and know how to deal with their emotions—that’s a big part of our assignment as parents, and we’ll talk about that today. Stay with us.

1:00

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us.

Dennis: I can’t lie, Bob.

Bob: No, that’s not true.

Dennis: I can’t lie. [Laughter]

Bob: I’ve heard you lie before. [Laughter]

Dennis: Well, I can’t lie about my grandkids, okay?

Bob: Okay. Tell me about your grandkids.

Dennis: Last Christmas Barbara and I went to Memphis and we held our new grandson.

Bob: Yes, number 20—

Barbara: —four.

Dennis: Lincoln Timothy.

Bob: Twenty-four. Wow.

Dennis: Lincoln Timothy—and what a cutie! What’d you think, sweetheart?

Barbara: Oh, cutest baby ever!

Dennis: Ever!

Bob: Don’t tell the other 23.

Barbara: No. No, no, no.

Dennis: And he was born on the day that Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address?

Bob: Is that why he is named Lincoln?

Dennis: No, not at all.

Barbara: It’s purely coincidental, because they thought it was going to be a girl, so—

Dennis: The OB doc—as she was delivering this little boy—the OB doc said, “Oh, and by the way, what’s his name?” So, Laura told her what the name was, and she said, “Well, you know this is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.”

Bob: And they had no idea.

Dennis: They had no idea.

Bob: There we go!

2:00

Dennis: So, we’re talking about parenting today—this is very relevant stuff here.

Bob: We’re going to be talking about something this week that—if you went to parents and said, “Give me your list of your top 20 felt needs of things you need to know how to do as a parent,”—I don’t know that this concept would be on that list of top 20 felt needs. This is one of those things that, as you’ve taught about it and as I’ve thought more about it, this is one of those important but not necessarily urgent parenting needs.

Dennis: Well, we’re talking about—just so our listeners understand here—we’re talking about the four pillars of parenting. Barbara and I studied the Scriptures over the past 30 years and—first of all for our own benefit, but now for the benefit of listeners—we have come up with four areas. We’re going to talk about the third one today.

The first one is relationship—helping your child develop a relationship with God and training them in knowing how to relate to one another.

3:00

Okay? Second one is character. That’s doing what’s right and not wrong—that’s living out the book of Proverbs—which is wisdom.

This third one we’re going to talk about today is the issue of identity. You said people wouldn’t list that. Bob, I’m afraid I might disagree with you.

Bob: Really?

Dennis: I think we are in a major identity crisis today in our country as we raise the next generation of boys and girls.

Bob: Well, certainly by the time a child is in middle school there are questions about gender identity today that weren’t there 20 years ago. But you expand this, not just around gender identity—you want to talk about all aspects of a child’s identity.

This—by the way—is from the book that the two of you have written called The Art of Parenting. We didn’t get to the fourth of the four pillars—which is mission—we’ll talk about that another time.

Barbara, this issue of identity—were you conscious of the fact that—as you were raising your kids—you were helping them—

4:00

—understand and discover and feel comfortable with who they were?

Barbara: Well, I was—on some level—but I think the level that Dennis and I understood, when we were actually raising our kids—was their gifts and talents, which is a part of a person’s identity. I think we were aware of looking for, “What does this child gravitate toward? What does this child like? What are they good at? What are they not good at?” That is a piece of identity.

The part that I was not aware of—I don’t think either one of us were really aware of intentionally—was that we all have an emotional identity. That’s because we were made in the image of God. We don’t think of God as being an emotional being necessarily—we may think of Him as being aloof, we may think of Him as being even unfeeling because of His distance from us—but we are made in His image. It says in Genesis—in the creation story—that God made Adam and Eve, man and woman, “in His likeness”—like Him.

5:00