Today's topic is how to develop a framework for using technology (screen time) for your kids. 

Story: How our oldest son wanted an Xbox One so he started his own business.

Problem/Stress: You will stress out about technology use with your kids until you have a grid to evaluate the right balance. 

Solution: We allow screen time for education, entertainment, and baby-sitting our kids. 

Examples: Evaluate how you use technology in your home. Do screens control us? Take time away from screens as a family. 

Today's Topic is Life is Hard. 

Story: Shawna talks about the difficulties of life in the past few weeks. Justin talks about his Grandma Allene walking to school barefoot.

Problem: Too often, you believe that life is suppose to be easy (just look at social media). The lie is that life is hard so I must be failing. Because I am a failure, I should quit. Believing that you are a failure creates all kinds of stress in your life. It kills your dreams, relationships and lots of other good things.  

Solution: Lower your stress by changing your expectations. This is not a Disney story where there is only 1 problem to solve and then happily ever after. Instead, anything good is just a blessing and kiss from Heaven. 

Examples: If bad things happen in life, don't stress. This bad thing is not forever. 

Today's Topic: How to cultivate a culture of thankfulness in kids. 

Story: The time the radiator and dad cracked. (How dad went from being a jerk to expressing thankfulness.)

Problem: Entitlement and stress develop in our children when they are not taught how to develop a thankful heart. 

Solution: We have to thinking of thankfulness like a garden. You have to keep sowing seeds of thankfulness on a continual basis to reap the benefits. Just being thankful at Thanksgiving just won't cut it. 
Create daily habits of being thankful = bedtime, meals, in the car together. 
Parents, you have to model thankfulness. 
Expose your kids to real life suffering and difficulty (age appropriate) 

It took 2 years of convincing, but Shawna has finally agreed to join Justin on a podcast adventure. 

Both grew up in Kentucky, met in Ethiopia via an arranged marriage, 
15 years of marriage, 6 biological kids, foster parents, teachers, business owners. Ready to share our successes and failures. 

Today's Topic: Introduction to Less Stress Family Podcast

Story: Shawna and her Grandmother Whartenby + Justin and his Grandfather = the little things we do matter to generations.  

Problem: Dads, moms, kids, and families are experiencing very high levels or stress. 
Internally, this stress makes us feel like failures and that we do doesn't really matter much. 

Solution: Awareness that what you do does matter to lots of people, even when you cannot see it right now. 

Examples: How you treat your spouse, speaking positive words to your kids and co-workers all matter. 

Today Topic is cultivating a culture of thankfulness within adults. 

Story: How traveling the world and then having a child with special needs helped us have thankful hearts. 

Problem: When going through hard times, it is so easy to lose perspective on the bigger things in life. This creates huge amounts of stress because you feel trapped and have no room to maneuver.

Solution: Thankfulness allows us to zoom out and gain a better perspective. Getting a global and historical perspective can shift you to thankfulness. 

Examples: Jesus Christ paid a high price that I can have citizenship in His Kingdom. Soldiers and soldier's families have paid a huge price for me to have these rights as a citizen. We need to expose ourselves to the sufferings so that we can develop a culture of thankfulness.