Dads and Family Leadership
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Francis Chan joins us one more time from San Francisco
00:00:07.560 | as our guest on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:00:10.140 | Francis, I want to conclude our episodes with you
00:00:12.660 | by asking about parenting in the digital age.
00:00:15.280 | You have six kids and number seven is on the way.
00:00:19.420 | As a dad, I find this to be one of the biggest struggles
00:00:21.700 | in parenting.
00:00:22.540 | Have you and Lisa found any keys to setting parameters
00:00:25.960 | around the time your kids spend on screens, computers,
00:00:28.560 | devices, and video games in their leisure time?
00:00:31.220 | - I'm pretty authoritative in the house.
00:00:35.360 | So if I say, look, you know, you got 45 minutes a day
00:00:39.360 | or an hour a day, you know, that's just the way
00:00:42.200 | it's gonna be.
00:00:43.120 | And they just, they know better than to argue with that.
00:00:46.740 | But you know, what I will say about the whole computer,
00:00:50.520 | iPad, movies, video games is a lot of that is our fault.
00:00:55.320 | We can't blame it on the kids.
00:00:57.000 | We get too busy to parent.
00:00:59.400 | And so we let the videos keep them occupied.
00:01:02.340 | So, you know, in our home, we do limit their time
00:01:05.240 | and we monitor what they watch.
00:01:06.880 | But so much of it is me.
00:01:09.060 | Like I need to go out, grab my son and throw the football.
00:01:13.360 | I need to grab my daughter, take her out to dinner,
00:01:15.680 | go to the beach.
00:01:16.960 | We need to interact with them.
00:01:18.960 | The other thing, the reason why this is so important too
00:01:21.600 | is I'm meeting more and more kids that don't know
00:01:24.600 | how to talk to people.
00:01:25.960 | They don't know how to interact.
00:01:27.360 | It's like they don't even wanna look up from their screen.
00:01:30.040 | And we have to remember, okay, I don't know,
00:01:32.200 | I don't hear a lot of people talk about this,
00:01:34.240 | but it hurts the kingdom when we raise
00:01:37.600 | socially awkward children.
00:01:39.560 | We need to raise kids who know how to interact,
00:01:42.760 | how to have conversations with believers and unbelievers.
00:01:46.880 | I mean, we're raising soldiers, we're raising missionaries.
00:01:50.940 | Our job is to get these kids to where they can get
00:01:54.080 | into the world and start conversations with people
00:01:57.680 | and bring the light of Jesus and the message
00:02:00.600 | of the gospel to them.
00:02:02.440 | And so to me, the big crime in the video game stuff,
00:02:06.900 | it's not just that they're attached to the screen,
00:02:10.320 | but that they're not being useful for the kingdom
00:02:14.240 | in conversing with people.
00:02:15.520 | And it distracts them in their prayer lives
00:02:18.540 | and they can't have that singular focus
00:02:22.280 | of what it looks like to just be quiet in a room
00:02:26.040 | adoring Jesus and enjoying his presence.
00:02:28.680 | - That is wise counsel to end on.
00:02:31.920 | Thank you, Francis, and thank you for joining us this week.
00:02:35.080 | Francis and his wife, Lisa, are the authors
00:02:37.440 | of the new book, You and Me Forever,
00:02:40.100 | Marriage in Light of Eternity.
00:02:41.720 | It's definitely worth checking out.
00:02:43.720 | And we will return tomorrow with Pastor John Piper.
00:02:46.840 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:02:47.720 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:02:50.400 | (gentle music)
00:02:52.980 | (gentle music)
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