Surviving Back-To-School Stress: David & Meg Robbins

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Today® National Radio Version (time edited) Transcript

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Surviving Back-To-School Stress 

Guests:David and Meg Robbins

From the series:Parenting Panic (Day 2 of 2)

Air date:September 13, 2024

David: There aren’t perfectly wrapped bows, but each one of us is being shaped as we take steps of faith together and in our own unique ways; because these types of decisions you make—whether to stay on a team or not for a few more months, or to stay in a whole sport or whether [to pare] down to one sport; whether to move and what that means for your family—those are the times that you can choose to show a lot of empathy, yet form resilience in how you depend upon God together; a faithful God who will be with you. That’s His promise: “…and lo, I will be with you always….” [Mathew 28:20]

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Dave: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: Wouldn’t you love to have a program where we could just ask somebody that is wise questions about marriage and family?

Ann: Yes, like, “What do I do about this situation with my kids?”

Dave: Well, today is the day!

Ann: Yes.

Meg: Because you’re here!

David: —because the Robbinses get to flip the table, and we get to ask you questions. [Laughter]

Meg: Ask ya’ll the questions!

Dave: That’s not what I’m thinking.

David: Yes.

Dave: I’m not thinking that.

Ann: You know what? You guys have more kids than we have, so you win.

Meg: Yours are grown.

Ann: You have four, and we have three.

Meg: You are more tried and true.

Dave: You heard them. David and Meg Robbins are back with us. We actually have questions from—

Ann: —some young couples.

Dave: Yes, couples that are raising kids. These are mostly in the Art of Parenting®. We’re going to fire some at you.

David: You get to participate, too.

Meg: You can, too.

Ann: We’ll participate.

Meg: I feel—

David: —currently in progress.

Meg: Yes. I was going to say, I feel like we need to give the caveat that we are still in the middle of it, so we are learning, too.

Ann: And we’ve learned the hard way things not to do.

Dave: Which one do you want to start with? Do you want to do the one we were just talking about off air?

Ann: Yes, let’s do that one.

Dave: How do you know when you are coddling your kids, versus empathizing?

Ann: Or the reverse, showing tough love, versus being cruel or harsh? Here’s an example: “If they want to quit piano lessons, do you let them quit, or do you make them stick with it?” I mean, these are super practical things. Every single parent has faced this.

David: This is real life.

Meg: That’s such a good question.

Dave: —sports, you name it.

David: Yes.

Ann: —school. [Laughter]

David: I would say, I flash back to what was modeled for me. I go to being—I was probably eight, and I was trying out the swim team. I begged my dad, “Dad, I want to do the swim team. I want to do the swim team.” I went to the first practice. I got home, and I didn’t want to do the swim team anymore. [Laughter] I woke up, and I was so sore. We were having it out. That particular day, I was really being stubborn.

He said, “Okay, our commitment was that we would continue. We would go back the next day for sure and for a short season. That’s what we committed to, so I’ll go with you today. Let’s go.”

Ann: Oooh!

David: He got his swimsuit on.

Ann: What?

Dave: What?

Dave: And he swims every lap. This is eight years old, not little league or anything like that [with] my dad getting on the field. [Laughter] But he went on and swam every lap that day’s practice. It made me fall in love. I became a swimmer until I was 14.

Dave: Wow!

David: It was this subtle thing that we can’t, obviously, always do. You can’t get out on the little league field with your T-baller. But it is—you can empathize. My dad did. He wasn’t putting into a corner or into a closet what I felt. He was still also saying, “But we’re going to do it, and we’re going to be resilient.”

I would go back to that time [thinking], “Robbins: we see a commitment through.” That’s what my dad taught me. It doesn’t mean it has to be my favorite thing forever, but if I commit to a certain thing, even if it’s not going the way I want it to go, we’re going to build some resilience and go do that.

That ended up paying dividends in so many ways in my life.

Meg: It’s also teaching our kids: “You can do hard things.”

Ann: This is Sissy Goff and David Thomas [of] Daystar Counseling. They always say that! “Your kids can do hard things.”

Meg: Yes.

Ann: But we hate it when our kids are in pain.

Meg: We do, and that’s where empathy is a gift. As a mom, when one of our kids is hurting, I feel it so deeply.

Ann: Me, too.

Meg: Sometimes, I think, “I probably shouldn’t be feeling this so deeply,” but I really think God has wired us that way so that we can empathize with them.

Just like your dad did, it’s, “Okay, if they come home from a practice or a piano lesson, and they feel like their teacher has been really hard on them or is asking too much, it’s listening, letting them process that, and asking them, ‘How does that make you feel? Yes, that sounds hard. That would make me feel like I wasn’t important’,” or whatever; just feeling it with them.

But the fine line there is: “You can do hard things. That doesn’t mean because it’s hard, you walk away from it.” If we did that as adults every time something got hard, I probably wouldn’t be parenting anymore. [Laughter] There are so many things that are hard that come at us. Where did I learn to stick with it? Probably when I was growing up or different things that have happened in my life where I learned to persevere.

We are promised by the Lord that we are going to have hard things, but we have to learn to persevere through that, and there are good things that come from that, and it’s [our] helping our kids fight through those moments.

Ann: That’s good. I went through this same kind of thing, but in the opposite way. I was in my senior year, going into track season. I had been in track for six years at that time. I told my dad (who was a coach; who was very athletic)—I was the youngest of four, and everybody had been in sports; I said, “Hey, this year I’ve decided not to go out for track.”

My dad looked at me, and he said, “This is not happening. You are going out for track.”

The season hadn’t started, so I wasn’t in the middle of the season. The season was just beginning, so I hadn’t given a commitment, and I was not going out. He said, “You’re going to go out.”

Then, I was sitting across from my dad. I said, “No, I’m not.” It ended up that he refused to talk to me. He said, “I will not talk to you unless you go out for track.”

Here’s what I wish he would have done, because he manipulated me into it.

Dave: Sure.

Ann: I felt so full of shame, and I already had a past of performance: “We’re the best! We come home with first place!” I had been successful, but I wish—it’s what you said, Meg; I wish—he would have said: “Tell me why.”

Dave and Meg: Yes.

Ann: “Tell me the things that you are feeling. It seems like you’ve been really successful. You could go on, into college, if you want. There must be something deeper within that.”

Just that question, and [my answer] would have been, “I feel so much pressure. I’m running the last leg of the mile relay, and I’m feeling all the weight.” It determines who wins the meet. A lot of times if you are tight, it’s that race. I had the last leg of that race. I had so much pressure on me. All we had to have done is have a great conversation: “There must be something deeper, if you don’t want to do it.”

Meg: Right.

Ann: It doesn’t mean it’s going to change the answer, necessarily, if you are in the middle of the season, but I think that empathizing piece. Dave: What I love, that you wished would have happened, [is] the result would have been a connection, a meaningful connection—

Meg: —yes.

David: —about what’s behind it. You get into the thick of emotion for a parent, or what a parent feels, when a coach is mistreating—

Meg: —oh, yes.

David: —it gets soupy quickly. Yet how do we, in those moments, [remember] the main aim: “How do I connect to my kid’s heart?” That still means we can bring tough love if that’s what it needs to follow through on our commitment, or “Now that I know why, let’s talk about that more. I’m still not sure about that, Ann.” You know, it can lead a lot of ways—

Ann: —yes.

David: —but that primary [goal] of connecting to our kids.

My mind probably was more predominantly going away from sports into when we are making decisions, as parents, that end up affecting our kids.

Ann: What do you mean?

David: There’s “Whether to take a job or not,” “Whether to move or not.” It’s a whole other realm of coddling. You can end up not listening to the Lord and getting paralyzed because you don’t want to take steps of faith, because, “We need to keep this right here going.”

Ann: —which is what you guys experienced!

David: We keep—all of us do. But what do you mean by that?

Dave: You made big decisions [about] moving your family.

Ann: I mean, you were living in New York.

David: Sure; yes.

Meg: Right.

Ann: Then you moved. How old were your kids when you moved to Little Rock?

Meg: They were sixth grade, fourth grade, second grade, and one.

David: —like a year and a half.

Ann: Give us that journey: you were there how many years?

David: It ended up being two years. We were finally close to our parents and family. They live nearby, in Memphis and in Mississippi.

I had someone who replaced another founder of an even bigger organization say, “David, your number one job is walk with God and do what He says. You just stay committed to that, and it will be alright.”

Now, when walking with God and doing what He says with a team all of a sudden moving the organization’s headquarters started, this got really personal, because we were finally close to our parents.

You always say, as God calls us, your kids in different stages of life, [are] part of the values. It is part of the journey. You don’t put it to the side.

Meg: Right.

David: But you’ve got to know, as the Lord starts leading clearly, He’s going to lead your kids, too. He has something in it for them also.

I think, “Where did that come from?” That’s a core belief of mine. “Where did that come from?” Well, back when I was in high school, we moved. We went down to not much. My mom went and had a job, and we had to restart life a little bit. Our resources were lower. We were some of the happiest people we’d ever been, because we were following God to the next step He had for us.

We ended up taking those steps of faith that the Lord had for our family. We had less than we ever had. Those were hard seasons, but it led to some of this beautiful simplicity that led to really joyful times in our home. It wasn’t a perfect time, but joyful.

It was Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

James 1, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of many kinds,…the testing of your faith produces steadfastness,” [verses 3-4, Paraphrased] and it goes on to wisdom [that] “makes you perfect and complete, not lacking anything,” which is Jesus in you. That’s what He’s doing in our lives as parents.

Dave: How have the moves—and it’s not just “move,” it’s “moves,” affected your kids as you look at them now?

Ann: Yes, because I thought it was beautiful the way you brought your kids into this decision to move to Orlando.

Meg: Well, I remember the day that we told our kids that we would be moving to Orlando. Our oldest was in eighth grade at the time. He just was upset, visibly, as we all were. We were all in tears.

David: We had just told staff that day, and we were telling kids that night.

Meg: Yes. You say what Ford said to you.

David: He doesn’t shut down. He’s our verbal processor, and he shut down. He was going up the stairs after a long evening. I said, “Buddy, just give me something. What are you feeling?” He said, “Dad, I don’t know if I’m angry at you or angry at God. All I know is I’m really angry.”

What came out—thankfully, the Lord was kind. I said, “Oh, Buddy. That makes a lot of sense to me. I want you to know I know God can handle your anger, and I can handle your anger, too. Come to us. Don’t wall up; don’t shut down. I’m here for whatever the journey is.”

Those are the types of things that shape you. The story goes on.

Ann: Yes.

David: There are not perfectly wrapped bows, but each one of us is being shaped as we all take steps of faith together and in our own unique ways, because these types of decisions you make—whether to stay on a team or not for a few more months, or to stay in a whole sport, or whether to [pare] down to one sport; whether to move and what that means for your family—those are the times that you can choose to show a lot of empathy, yet form resilience in how you depend upon God together; a faithful God who will be with you. That’s His promise! “…and lo, I will be with you always….” [Mathew 28:20]

There is no other guarantee other than He will be with us.

Meg: Right.

David: It’s gone well. The main thing, though, is He’s been with us, and He keeps shaping us.

Meg: Sweet.

Dave: Have you guys talked about—or even now, think about—mistakes you feel like [you made] or regrets [you have]. I remember, when our kids were little, I did a message once, a sermon: “Regret-Free Parenting.”

David: Ohhhh!

Dave: Of course, we had little kids, so I had no idea what I was talking about. You can’t live without regrets.

David: Yes.

Meg: Right.

Dave: You have things that you wish—so, I’m wondering if those come to mind?

I’ll tell a quick one, that our listeners have heard, about me. But I’ll keep it really short, because they’ve heard this story. My sons are older now. They’re adults; married with kids. Two of them said to me that they felt like I was more intimate with the congregation than I was with them; basically sharing weakness and stories on stage in sermons that they never heard at home.

When they said it, the second I heard it—and I knew they had talked about this; this is not like an impromptu conversation. they had talked, and they both had felt it, so they both came to me.

David: Wow.

Dave: But the second it came out, I knew they were right. [I didn’t say], “No,” but [said], “Oh, my goodness! I’m so sorry.”

David: Yes.

Dave: It was one of those regrets that I couldn’t change, but I can obviously do better now.

Meg: Right.

Dave: But as you think about mistakes or things you wish you would have [done]; as we help other parents think through, what are some of things like, “Okay, that’s a good learning for us, that we don’t want to do that?”

Meg: The one that comes to my mind is something that was so unintentional. Of course, I’m not going to intentionally hurt my children; but recently, I was in a conversation with one of the kids. Something came up about a project that they were working on, but it had been a year-long thing. At some point along the way, he had changed the topic and the plan of the project. Something came up about it, and he said, “The only reason why I had chosen that other topic in the first place is because that’s what you wanted me to do.”

It hit me so hard. I said, “Oh, my goodness. What do you mean?” It turned out that I had made a comment about—it was something they were going to work on for a whole year, so I said, “Pick something that is valuable, worth your time, and going to keep you in it.”

I had probably downplayed one of the other ideas, not knowing just how attached he was to the other idea. He did change to the one he really wanted to do, and I was thrilled that he was able to change and do that. But as we talked about it months later, I had no idea that he was doing that to please me.

As I thought about it, I think I actually teared up in the moment thinking, “I can’t believe he felt that way, and I didn’t know it.” So, I went back to him the next day, and I said, “I want you to know that I’m probably going to do that again unintentionally: say something, [but] I do not want to manipulate you.” But I think he felt manipulated.

I said, “I would want, and invite, you to tell me when you feel that way in the moment, because I am a broken person. I’m going to make mistakes, but my desire is for you to be who you are and for you to pursue the things that God has given you a passion for.”

Anyway, I said, “I am so sorry, because that was not my intention, but I totally see what you are saying.” I had done that! Looking back, I wanted it to be a certain thing. That was probably my intention without me knowing it, if that makes sense.

Ann: Yes.

Meg: We’ve felt that with my parents, when they’ve unintentionally made comments about things.

David: Yes, remembering the weight of your words that end up being really sticky and heavy.

Dave: A big lesson for anyone is going back as a parent and saying, “I’m sorry.” And “I invite you….”

Meg: Yes.

Dave: That’s huge for a kid to sense, “Mom and Dad really do invite me to speak something that’s contrary to what they’re thinking into their life.” I think he knew you meant it, right? That’s big.

Ann: Me, too. That’s good, Meg.

Meg: Right. It led to a really good conversation, I think, of, “I’m not going to do it right all the time.” I laughed and said, “You know that!” [Laughter] “You know that I mess it up a lot; but I sometimes need you to let me know when you are feeling that.”

David: For me, the thing that’s coming to my mind is not this big moment. There are moments, and then there are ingrained patterns. How do we take to Jesus the ingrained patterns we have that can just come up when we hit our default, natural, living in our flesh mode?

For me, I end up wanting to close the loop: “Alright! We’re done, and we’re going to solve it this way.” I’m an activator. [Laughter] That can end up closing off a process. That can end up not letting them come up with their own decision. They end up having to say, “Alright, I’m going to do what Dad told me to do.”

I’m not trying to over-function. I think part of it is, you get so many things going on at work, [and] you can only have so many open tabs at one time; so, “Alright, we’re going to close this tab.” Even walking through the college decision process this year, I thought, “These tabs are still open.” [Laughter] It’s part of me activating on an ingrained pattern and saying, “Okay, I’m going to choose a different course for one of these big decisions.”

Now, the hard, small decisions when this comes up really quickly, I’ve still got a lot of repentance, often, to do. I think that’s one of those things I’m seeking to grow actively in.

Ann: One of the things I wish I would have done is, I wish I would have gotten some counseling, because we were struggling in our marriage. We all do. We go through these valleys, these peaks, these great times, these hard times; but in our early years, I was resentful of Dave and the time that he was spending away from home.

That resentment, I carried it; I played with it in my head. That spews out in the home. It spewed out to the kids, where I was short; I was snappy. It wasn’t them. I was thinking, “It’s just this phase of life I’m in.” But the light on the dashboard was going off: “Get help! Get help! Get your heart checked. Get your engine checked.”

I wish that I would have understood that, if that’s going on, especially if we had this area that kept cycling back and cycling back. If you have an area that keeps cycling back up, it’s God’s grace of saying, “Deal with this.”

David: Yes.

Ann: “Look at this. There’s something deeper. It’s not just that you have little kids. It’s not just that you are busy, and you are tired. This is an area that, if it keeps cycling back, I want you to look under the hood and go deeper into.” I wish I had gotten counseling earlier, because as the kids got older, that area was still there, and I was getting sleep, and I wasn’t as tired.

Meg: Right.

Ann: As a result, I think my frustration was taken out on the kids, often, because we just carry it, and it comes out as impatience. So, that’s one thing.

Our kids have given us so much grace, because I did continually apologize and ask for their forgiveness; but I think I would have been a better mom had we dealt with our marriage issues. You would have been so great with, “Yes, let’s go get some help.” But it was also back in the day that we really didn’t know as many people that were in therapy. Now, I love that that is very common.

Meg: Yes!

Ann: It’s so helpful.

Dave: So helpful. Go! Seriously. It’s going to be one of the best gifts you give your kids.

David: Yes.

Dave: Because you’ll get to—we said it earlier, at the very beginning: we bring family of origin stuff in, and then we parent out of that, and we pass it one. I wish—yes, I agree.

Ann: What’s yours, Dave?

Dave: I would say the one big one was I wish I had been more intentional about many things. We heard this when we were younger parents. Now, we are older, and we can say it’s true: “You’re going to blink, and they’re going to be gone.” You’re literally going to be shocked at how fast it goes; and then, you are going to say, “Oh, I miss those….”

How many times did I say, “I’m going to do a weekly breakfast and ask them questions and impart spiritual truth?” I remember doing a Weekend to Remember® with Mick Yoder, who’s long gone from the speaker team!

Ann: That must have been 1990.

Dave: This was way back when I was a very young dad, and he was a grandpa. I sat, as a co-speaker, listening to him speak. He said, “I would have breakfast with my son each week.” [I thought], “I’m going to do that!” I went home, and I did it for three weeks. Then, I wasn’t intentional to stay on it. There is some regret there.

So, if you are a younger parent, put it in your calendar, have somebody hold you accountable, and do it; because you are going to wish, when you are my age, you didn’t miss those days that God gave you, because they are going to go by fast. You get to seize the day now.

David: You know, one of the most comforting things, as we have the conversation? 2 Corinthians 4 is coming to my mind, verse 7: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not us.”

Now, there are things we want to trust Him with, and we want our lives to pour out the Living Water to people around us and, especially, our kids. The freeing thing is, we aren’t the Living Water.

Dave and Ann: Yes!

David: We are the jar of clay. There are cracks in our jar, and we have this treasure living inside of us, that we will not live out perfectly, but the Perfect One can flow through us to the next generation. There is freedom in that, to keep trusting God the next day.

Shelby: I once heard a pastor say, “God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines.” Really, isn’t that what parenting kind of is? We are crooked sticks, but we’re in the hand of the One Who draws straight lines.

As David said, we’re not the Living Water. That’s a good thing, because it releases us from the pressure to feel like a perfect parent.

I’m Shelby Abbott, and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with David and Meg Robbins on FamilyLife Today. I mentioned “no perfect parents,” and Dave and Ann Wilson have written a book called No Perfect Parents. It really helps give practical advice and biblical insight into the world of parenting. The Wilsons are phenomenal communicators, as you already know, sharing real life stories that will resonate with every parent.

You can get your copy right now by going online to FamilyLifeToday.com, or you can click on the link in the show notes. Or feel free to give us a call at 800-358-6329 to request your copy; again, that number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.”

This is a unique season. I don’t want you to miss out on the biggest sale that the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway is putting on. All registrations, right now, for the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway are half-price until September 16th. So, whether your marriage needs a boost, or you just want to grow closer as a couple, now is really the time to act. You can visit FamilyLifeToday.com and click on the Weekend to Remember banner to learn more and register.

Now, coming up next week, we’re going to hear insights from Tim Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage as Dave and Ann Wilson discuss truth, love, and grace in your marriage relationships. That’s next week. We hope you will join us.

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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