This week Brian and Katie discuss the purpose and necessity of establishing boundaries in our relationships.

Boundaries can either be a life-giving, relationship-strengthening, and resource-protecting tool, or it can be something that we construct for the sake of building a life that is centered around selfish desire and an unwillingness to be inconvenienced or uncomfortable.

Join us this week as we identify the nature and purpose of boundaries, and how to use them effectively to improve the quality of our lives and relationships.

Have you ever considered the relationship between our thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and experiences?

On this episode Brian and Katie discuss something called the belief-expectation cycle, and why it's important that we actively pursue the development of healthy beliefs and expectations.

Too often people allow their beliefs to be formed solely on the basis of their experiences, but if we're to live the life that God is inviting us to live then it is necessary that we learn to submit our thoughts, beliefs, and expectations to God's Word and align ourselves with truth as He sees it.

This week Brian and Katie discussed a potentially sensitive topic - childbirth.

Katie shared her experience with giving birth to all three of their kids, and they discussed their belief about God and what they believe was His intended design for childbirth.

The purpose of this episode is not to shame or minimize the reality of anybody's experience in childbirth. Rather, it is an invitation for women everywhere to explore the realm of God's Kingdom, His goodness, His faithfulness, and what is now made possible through the finished work of Christ.

Jesus made a way for us to live a life that is free from the power and dominion of all that accompanied the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, including sin and it's affects on the human experience.

Join Brian and Katie as they look back to the Garden of Eden and consider the reality that through Christ we are being restored to fulfill the role He originally intended us to fulfill - to be carriers of His presence and authority, and to be His representatives to the rest of creation.

Two things that our kids desperately need are freedom and boundaries. The trick is finding the right balance between the two, because too much of one without the other will create problems.

Too much freedom without boundaries and your home will become a place of chaos, where the parents are weak and permissive and the kids are in charge.

Too many boundaries without freedom and your home will become a place of totalitarianism, where the parents are angry and controlling and the kids are afraid.

What would it look like to create an environment where kids are given space to exercise their God-given freedom while being shown where the boundaries of that freedom lie?

Join Brian and Katie as they share their experience in finding ways to navigate this with their own kids—with one who thrives on the safety of boundaries and another who thrives on the testing of boundaries.

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Intro & Outro music: Lion by Khozie

Join Brian & Katie as they discuss the difference between demanding and requiring certain behavior from our kids.

The temptation is to demand that which we desire, but the problem with this approach is that it leads to fear, control, and intimidation.

The alternative to demanding desirable behavior from our kids is to require it from them.

It's not bad to want kids who are respectful, responsible, and obedient, but the value of each of those is found in knowing that they only truly exist in our relationships as a product of freedom and desire, not coercion under threat of punishment.

In this episode you'll learn how to require what you need from your kids without the tension and power struggle that comes with demanding it.

Join Brian and Katie Hess as they explore what makes kids so good at being kids, and what they need from their parents in order to grow up and mature out of their childish ways.

Unfortunately, there are many parents who hold their kids to a higher standard of maturity than they're willing or capable of modeling themselves.

For the sake of our kids, we need to become as whole and healthy as we possibly can so that, rather than demanding unrealistic expectations, we are prepared to model the very behavior we wish to see in them.

Brian and Katie discuss the three types of consequences - natural, logical, and illogical.

If you have kids, they're going to make mistakes. They're going to fail. They're going to do things that you wish they wouldn't do.

One of the best things we can do for our kids when they fail or make a mistake is create an opportunity for them to learn and grow, and one of the best teachers our kids will have in life are the consequences of their actions.

Kids who are not required to experience the consequences of a mistake are likely to keep making that mistake. Similarly, kids who experience consequences that are illogical may not make the connection between their choice and the outcome.

Join us in this episode as we discuss the importance of allowing our kids to experience the natural and logical consequences of their actions in an effort to help them become more mature and responsible people.

Intro and Outro music: Lion by Khozie

Don’t listen to this episode with your kids unless you want them to learn the anatomically correct words for all of their body parts!

Brian and Katie continue the discussion on the reality that people and relationships require freedom of choice, and the role that consequences play in the development of responsibility and intentionality.

If we want our kids to grow up to become healthy, responsible, mature, thoughtful, intentional people, then we need to eliminate the tactics of fear, control, and intimidation, and simply allow them to experience the consequences of their actions.

If we can teach our kids at a young age that the direction of their life is shaped by the choices they make, we'll set them up to succeed in adulthood.

Too often parents feel that it's their responsibility to control their kids in an effort to eliminate the potential for mistakes and bad choices that their kids could make. Unfortunately, this parenting model is likely to do more harm than good.

When parents make an effort, whether knowingly or unknowingly, to control their kids, they end up preventing them from developing the ability to control themselves and manage their own freedom.

In this episode Brian and Katie Hess take a look at the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 1-3 and discuss why freedom of choice is absolutely necessary in the cultivating of healthy relationships and responsibility.