Welcome to the Upside-Down Parenting podcast from Summit Ministries! Parenting today can feel disorienting, like the world’s been flipped upside down. But you’re not alone. In a culture that often pushes against biblical truth, this podcast is here to equip and encourage you with practical insight and Christ-centered wisdom for the parenting journey.
At Summit, we believe parents are the single greatest influence on a child’s faith. Together, we’ll explore what it means to raise kids who thrive, embrace God’s truth, live out a biblical worldview, and follow Jesus in his beautifully counter-cultural way of life.
In our very first episode, we’ll dive into what it means to raise gender-confident kids and why this conversation is essential for every parent today. Our guests are Dr. Jeff Myers, president of Summit Ministries, and Dr. Kathy Koch, president of Celebrate Kids. Let’s journey together!
For more practical, biblically based resources for parents, check out Summit.org/parents.
Episode 2: Summary & Transcript
Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Episode Summary
This episode of the Upside Down Parenting podcast features Dr. Kathy Koch, president of Celebrate Kids, discussing how parents can help children build confidence through identity. Co-hosted by Gabriel Pagel, a father of five, the conversation focuses on addressing gender identity issues by understanding five core needs wired into every person: security, identity, belonging, purpose, and competence. Dr. Koch emphasizes that security forms the foundation for all other needs and should be rooted in God rather than temporary things like popularity or appearance. She encourages parents to “lean in” rather than away from difficult conversations, pray for their children, and create environments where children feel secure enough to be open with their parents. The episode highlights the importance of parents maintaining authority and speaking truth in love while being aware of how language around gender issues is being redefined in today’s culture. Listeners can obtain a free copy of Dr. Koch’s book Raising Gender Confident Kids at genderconfidentkids.com.
Episode Transcript
Aaron Atwood (00:00):
Welcome to the Upside Down Parenting podcast from Summit Ministries. As parents, life can feel overwhelming, sometimes even upside down and out of control, but we are here to journey with you as you parent your kids to embrace God’s countercultural truth and champion a biblical worldview.
On today’s episode, we’re going to discuss what it looks like to help our kids build a foundation of confidence through identity. And our guest, Dr. Kathy Koch, is going to help us as our co-host Gabriel Pagel, discuss what it means to have a strong confidence in our identity and how that relates to gender identity specifically. Dr. Kathy Koch is the president of Celebrate Kids and she has a PhD from Purdue in Educational Psychology. She speaks to tens of thousands of people every year, parents and students. She’s a loved faculty member here at Summit, one of the favorites of our students and one of my personal favorites as well. Dr. Kathy, thank you for being here.
Dr. Kathy Koch (01:07):
I’m happy to be here, honored to be here.
Aaron Atwood (01:09):
And Gabriel, thank you for co-hosting this podcast with us. You’re a dad of five and a student at Palm Beach Atlantic University, so I’m just excited to have the three of us here have this conversation. It’s sort of like, I don’t know, sitting around a dinner table together. I wish we were in person, but we’re all over the country as our listeners are as well, and I think this is going to be a really fun conversation for us to talk about identity together. So Gabriel, I’m going to go ahead and hand it off to you. Fire away. Alright, thanks Aaron.
Gabriel Pagel (01:39):
Hi Dr. Kathy. How are you today?
Dr. Kathy Koch (01:41):
Fabulous.
Gabriel Pagel (01:42):
Good, good. I have been reading through some of your work and I know that we are living in an age where it can be a little bit scary for parents, especially we’re focusing on this gender identity issue, but one of the things I’ve really loved about your ministry is that you always give hope. And something I was thinking about as we were preparing for this is that we, Christians are people of good news. And so even though there might be all of this scariness and kind of anxiety over how we do all this stuff in the gender confusion of our age, I know that you might have a lot of insight into what the good news could be. So can you speak to that maybe a little bit for us?
Dr. Kathy Koch (02:37):
Oh, that’s a really fun beginning. The first thing I think of Gabriel is that parents and grandparents often feel like everything is out of control and that they have no say in anything. And that’s not true. As Dr. Jeff Meyers and I wrote in our book about gender confident kids, we need to pray and we need to pray for miracles. We see them all the time. We cannot believe in coincidences.
We need to pray for peace and joy and gratitude and the grace and truth and mercy and that the devil would be delayed and put in his proper place and that children would be reminded of the strength of God and the hope of Christ. So let’s pray and let’s speak up at the events where we can go. Let’s go to school board meetings and let’s encourage our pastors to teach the truth. And if we have a neighbor who we know is hurting because of a decision a child has made, we can go knock on the door and offer hope and comfort.
(03:28):
And I think the other really good news, Gabriel, is that within our homes we have a lot of power. It might feel like things are out of control, but that’s the double line to us In our home between our walls, there’s a lot of control. We need boundaries which are blessings when love is the goal, we’ve always had boundaries. You never let a 4-year-old eat every Oreo cookie, even if she whined and complained. I know you didn’t. And you didn’t let your 8-year-old color all day. You said, get up and go play outside for a while.
Parents have always shifted children’s attention to things that are good for them. And I think we need to remember we can do that. We’re still parents. The parent will always be your noun. Child will always be their noun. And we need to step into that space and really have the authority of Christ, the authority of God, and speak the truth in love and expect their attention because of who we are and who we’ve been.
(04:18):
If we’ve lost that Gabriel, there’s somebody listening and they realize that they’ve stepped away and they didn’t lean in. Jeff and I write about leaning in and not leaning away. If you’ve leaned away for a while because you are overwhelmed and scared and afraid and your kids have maybe really made some unwise choices, we get that all of us here at Celebrate Kids and some of ministries get that, but you have to be forgiven and you say to your sons and daughters, man, I’m so sorry, I haven’t been as available as I know I need to be and I’m coming back, would you allow me back in? And we’re humble and I think that speaks volumes to our kids.
Gabriel Pagel (04:52):
Wow, that sounds great. Something that I know we do in my family is we say prayer should always be our first response. And so I really love that you said, Hey, we can do that. As I read the chapter that we’re focusing on that you and Dr. Jeff put together, and I was really taken back by how well you guys embody 2 Corinthians 10:2-5 where he says, we take ideas captive and we make sure that we are combating those and that we work against. And so I wanted to just focus a little bit on how you guys talk about how identity is the real issue behind our gender identity issues. And then you talk about five core needs. What are those?
Dr. Kathy Koch (05:42):
Yeah, I appreciate it. So yeah, identity is one of five core needs that we’ve identified in scripture and we believe that these are wired into us. When God chooses to create us in our mother’s womb, we have a need for security. Who am I? I’m sorry. We have a need for security. Who can I trust? We have a need for identity. Who am I? Not, who was I? We have a need for belonging. Who wants me? A need for purpose. Why am I alive? And a need for competence. What do I do well? These are not wants. These are legitimate core needs and when children and adults do not have these met in healthy ways, they will struggle.
(06:18):
This is the mental health dilemma today that people are trying to put their security in their stuff, their security in their popularity. I’m very cool. Do you know me yet? Identity, I’m really cool. Belonging, I’m really cool. You should know me. And purpose, I’m really cool. And competence, I do cool really well.
But then what happens when somebody cooler walks into the room or you have a day where you don’t come across as cool, now your pyramid has collapsed and you have nothing to rely on because you chose a thing which isn’t a permanent fixture and something that God would ordain as worthy of trustworthiness. The huge mistake, I think, Gabriel, is security. What can I trust? We have kids trying to trust in their beauty, trying to trust in their grades, trying to trust in a reputation.
(06:58):
Security is in people who are trustworthy, worthy of our trust, and his name is God. He is faithful and consistent and always present and always on our side and available at the drop of a hat, if you will. And then we get to identity. Who am I? And Gabriel? We believe that the identity crisis that we have is rooted in a security crisis. Security, who can I trust? Leads to identity, who am I?
If I don’t have people to trust, I don’t know who I am, I’ll go with what the lyric of that song says I am. And I’m going to go with what that maybe public school teacher says I am or says that he wishes I was. And one day I’ll listen to my dad and then I won’t because maybe he disappointed me and I don’t want to trust him tonight.
(07:41):
I don’t like him tonight. Security is the firm foundation of everything and this is what we earn back when we’ve disappointed our kids. And this is what we work to never violate, where we are as Christ-like as possible in our relationships with our kids. And so identity is formed with the support of these other four. So security, who can I trust? Identity, who am I? And belonging, who wants me? We all need relationships and we do have maybe an epidemic of loneliness. So belonging. Who wants me if I don’t know who I am? I don’t know who wants me.
We believe there’s a lot of kids pretending to be trans who aren’t trans. They’ll be saying, I want to change my gender. They don’t want to change their gender, they just want to be popular. They want belonging. And they have found out in some public schools, if they come out as binary or trans, they’re going to have their locker decorated. There’ll be a red carpet treatment and all of a sudden they’ll have people to eat with at lunch, but it’ll only last as long until the next kid comes out. So it’s a very short-lived satisfaction and then purpose. Why am I alive? Well, biblically, we’re alive to give God glory through who we are and what we do for God.
(08:46):
In the holy word of God, we’re told that we’re alive to fulfill the great commandment and the great commission. These are purposes we all have that are exhilarating, that God would allow us into the action is just so cool. And then competence, what do I do? Well, Gabriel, this as a dad. If we have purpose, then we will develop competence. If we don’t have a reason to live, we can be mediocre and nobody’s hurt by that. But here’s the thing, if I don’t have a positive identity, I will not have a positive purpose.
And what if kids decide that their identity is to become trans? I’m going to change from, in my case, a woman to a man. If that becomes my identity, then my belonging is ripped. And then my purpose is to find out how to be a man. And then my competence, I’m supposed to be a man, but guess what? I’m a woman. I can’t be a man. As we say in our book, there’s 6,500 research-found differences between men and women. You can’t just wake up one day and decide to be the opposite gender. It doesn’t work. It won’t satisfy them. And then these core needs that they’ve been trying to meet are just warped. I hope that that made sense. I can talk for hours. Did I highlight something that was beneficial?
Gabriel Pagel (09:51):
Yeah, actually I was thinking maybe let’s go back to talking about security a little bit. You said it’s actually the foundation. All of the rest of them are built on. I know I have a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old and they’re now doing different sorts of doctor’s appointments than they’ve done before. And we go into the doctor’s office and I see these signs that say I’m an ally and this is a safe space and all of that. And I can feel that they’re trying to let people feel secure in that. But the identity crisis we have, they’re giving a lie towards that security that they’re offering, right?
Dr. Kathy Koch (10:35):
That’s good. Yes. In fact, we talk in our book Gabriel about language and about how the radical gender ideology, they’ve changed the way words are used. And so I love that as a dad, you’re informed, you’re mature, you’re alert, you love your kids well enough to look for those kinds of words and realize they might not be using the word in the same way that you would use it. And this is where dads ask questions, where we go to the window and we ask to see the form the kids are filling out. We asked, how do you define ally here? Are you my ally or only my kid’s ally? And what does that look like? Yes. So very important.
Gabriel Pagel (11:12):
Yeah, I think that’s a huge thing because the doctors will often say to my kids, and I’ve warned them that this is going to happen. Do you want your dad or do you want your mom to leave now? And my kids, because we have fostered a sense of security, they look and they go, why would they want? Why would we do that? And we have an open questioning sort of thing where they can ask us anything. I’m like, well, they might want you to talk about things that you do that they don’t think you want to tell us and all of these different things, but they feel secure in us. Amen. And they don’t feel secure with some other person.
Dr. Kathy Koch (12:00):
Let me say that you have not fostered a sense of security at home. You have fostered security.
Gabriel Pagel (12:06):
Oh, I hope so.
Dr. Kathy Koch (12:07):
Do you see that? I hope so. I’m very particular when I write. I don’t allow anyone to talk about, our children need a sense of security or a sense of identity. No, they need security and they need rock solid, unchangeable, definable identity. It’s very, very important. And Gabriel, I love that for you and your wife, when your children are securing you and you do have an opening questioning environment, that’s why Summit works because Summit students come here for two weeks and they can ask anything they want and they know that we will do our very best to answer those questions or work with them to find true answers. So I love that.
And because your kids have security in you and are able to talk with you, and they know that it’s not going to be a quick hateful judgment, they don’t need a pediatrician or a new doctor to kind of threaten them. And they need to boldly say, no, my dad doesn’t need to leave. I don’t keep anything from my dad and I need him to help me discern. If you’re telling me the truth, I know he will. I mean it’s so important that we raise our kids to know that.
Gabriel Pagel (13:03):
That’s so good. That’s so good. Let’s move on a little bit. In your book, you write that children need to have a strong sense of identity and you say God knows every hair on their head. And I felt a little attacked by that. Sorry. But can you just talk a little bit more about how God is, how they can really get their sense of identity?
Dr. Kathy Koch (13:31):
Yeah, their identity, their full identity. So here’s the thing, my friend, I believe our children should know that their security is in an intentional creator. I tell parents all the time, use the noun creator and the verb created more than you ever have before. You have been strategically thought of. You were strategically wanted. And when you were knit together, you were knit together on purpose, with purpose for a purpose exactly who you are.
You’re not too tall, you’re tall. In my case, I’m six one, I’m not too tall. I am tall. And so to make sure we listen to our kids because our security is in God is an intentional, good, loving, unique personal creator. So my identity is, I have been created. My identity is I am a good created being in the image of God, male or female. Genesis 1:27, Ephesians 2:10.
(14:23):
I have been created in advance to do good work that I would walk in them. My creator is so good that he put my future in me. I love to tell Summit students, stop expecting the future to come out of the lyrics. You’re listening to, the future’s in you. Like I was a chatty Kathy as a kid. Now people pay me to talk. It’s remarkable. And I don’t do anything I do for the money obviously, but they do pay me to talk. And because again, childhood causes adulthood and Ephesians 2:10 is true. We’ve been gifted by a loving God. So I think part of our identity is that God is good. Now that’s security.
God is good. And there are times when it doesn’t feel like he’s been good to us, but I know he’s good because the Bible declares that he is. And this is where our identity is. I’m a Bible reader. More importantly, my identity is, I’m a Bible believer. My identity is when stress comes into my world, I don’t hide it. I don’t run from it, I run to God. Can you imagine if our children could answer questions like, who do you trust and who are you with? Things like that. The linkage is remarkable. We write in the book Gabriel about gender identity. Confusion is a subset of identity. Confusion in general.
(15:40):
If your children are confused about, is it good to be creative? Daddy, are you glad that I like to color? Or would you rather have me only want to kick the ball? Mommy, is it okay that I like hanging out with dad when he’s in the garage and I think his tools are cool? Mommy, I’m a girl. Is that okay? When children know that you like them for who they’ve been created to be and you stop demanding them to become who they cannot be, they have an identity confidence.
Again, I’m tall, not too tall. I’m artistic. I’m good with math. I’m like my grandpa. I’m good with math and I’m a very good big sister. My mommy told me just the other day, I’m a very good big sister and my dad, he was watching me climb the steps and then he saw me do this kind of cartwheel thing and he said that I’m very body smart. We’ve got to help our kids know who they are and the broader, the foundation of security and the broader the foundation of identity, then the less likely that they’re going to question their gender. And I really think that’s true.
Gabriel Pagel (16:42):
Very cool. Yeah, belonging. So this is something that’s a little bit dear to me because I am a stay at home dad.
Dr. Kathy Koch (16:53):
Love it.
Gabriel Pagel (16:54):
Which is something that I actually have been ridiculed a little bit for here and there and it’s, well, you’re supposed to be out making the money and all of that. And then sometimes when we go to homeschool co-ops, it’s only women and all these different things. And so I’ve gone through some time where I’ve wondered, do I belong here? Is this where I should be? But you guys in the book very clearly lay out that God places us in places. Can you speak to that a little bit?
Dr. Kathy Koch (17:31):
I would love to. If I could first affirm you. I know of many men who have been called to the role you’ve been called to and I appreciate that it’s awkward at times and I bet you seem like the kind of guy who knows how to stand up for yourself and say, no, maybe a little. I’m called by God and I’m comfortable in my own skin and this is a really good role for me and I support my wife and what she’s doing. So I want to say that I get that. And yet I’m really proud of you for being where God has called you.
So our belonging is rooted on the first two. When I’m secure in Christ and my identity is found in Christ, my belonging will be found in God. And really I would say with some integrity and joy, if you are a Christ follower, then you belong. Are you God’s friend? And are you chosen? You’re adopted, you’re beloved. Your favorite creation. Jesus died for you. The Spirit lives within. I mean, that can just run down a list of biblical truth, that our belonging is settled at the point of creation because God wired us to have communion with him.
He created us to have worship with him. We’re created with this vertical relationship and the horizontal relationship that we have going on right now where a brother and sister in Christ are getting to know each other. So again, when kids are lonely, when adults are struggling, I would go back below the pyramid, go down one level. If somebody is apathetic about relationships, if friendships factor quickly, if they’re not confident that God is for them, go back to identity.
(18:52):
And their identity statements will most likely support a lack of true commitment and connection. And then you can also, we do teach friendship skills. That’s something that I think when Summit Ministries and celebrate kids, we’re excited about developing other resources that go along with the book.
For instance, we could develop a resource about friendship. There are people who choose to say they’re trans because they’re lonely and they’re looking for some type of intimacy. And unfortunately the liar is loud and the gay and lesbian community and the trans community, and they’ll be welcomed in. So belonging is found ideally in Christ belonging. Gabriel should be found in the family. Your children should want to be children of yours. Hey, that’s my dad over there. That’s my dad. Who’s your dad?
(19:38):
Like, oh, what a compliment. When a child wants to associate with you and they don’t go to a roller skating rink and say, Hey dad, just stay over there when they want to be seen with you. It must just warm your heart to no end. So belonging in a family because their identity is I am the daughter of that man, or I am the son of that man. I could talk on and on. Belonging is key and it’s evidence of a healthy security and it’s evidence of a healthy belonging. I mean a healthy identity and a healthy security, right?
Gabriel Pagel (20:07):
So I’m guessing that then those three obviously build to the next thing, which is purpose. Why am I alive? And I think that right now, Carl Trueman’s book where he talks about expressive individualism has messed up purpose so much in our culture, where the purpose is, I am me and I get to do me. But you have a very different idea of what purpose is like. What is that?
Dr. Kathy Koch (20:38):
Yeah, that’s such a good point. Well, purpose is again found in God for believers. We can’t hold people accountable to a standard they don’t know anything about. But for believers, our purpose is to fulfill the great commandment and to fulfill the great commission to love well, to evangelize the lost and to disciple the found to put God on display to become like Christ. These are all biblical. There’s verses to support what I’m saying, but one of the things I challenged Summit students with even last night was that when God chose to make us us, he had a vision for our lives, right? We were a lump of clay, Isaiah 64. We were knit together, Psalm 139.
And when God knit us together stitched by stitch, he had a plan. Oh, she’s going to be musical. Oh, she’s going to admire her grandfather so much. He uses his words eloquently. I think she’s going to become like a grandfather. He had a plan for us. Our purpose is to become who he thought we would be. Come on. What if children wrapped our mind around the reality that God intentionally made us us for such a time as this? And our joy and our delight is to become who he says we are not who those people out there say we could be.
That’s our purpose, to become who God chose us to be. And then for him to delight in us. For him to say, well done. Look at her, grow in her faith. If we could stay faith centered, and Gabriel, you know what? I know it’s fulfilling, right? When you stay centered on the call of God in your life, you don’t need any of this other nonsense to fulfill you.
Gabriel Pagel (22:20):
Definitely.
Dr. Kathy Koch (22:20):
Because you’ve got so much of God to live for and we’re not discipling enough in our homes about this. So I’m so happy to be on the podcast with you.
Gabriel Pagel (22:30):
Yeah, this is great. This is great. And then the last of the core needs is competence. And I think a lot of people don’t know what they’re good at today. And especially our kids, they grow up watching TikTok and all the different things and they think, oh, that’s the life, because I don’t have to do anything. My kids actually don’t realize how much goes into those people being good at what they’re doing. And so how do we lead our children to competence?
Dr. Kathy Koch (23:08):
That’s a great way to word that. So competence is defined as fulfilling our purpose. So when you know your purpose, then you will desire your competence. Because to know purpose and not fulfill it is frustrating. It’s like a sinking sand situation. Or it could happen that a child knows her competence where the child says, I’m good at art or I’m good at design, or I’m good with English. I’m a wordsmith. Daddy calls me a wordsmith. Or I’m good at telling jokes or I’m good at loving my brother.
When you know what you’re good at, you can go back down and go, oh, that’s my purpose. I invest in loving my wiggly little brother. I’m the one in my family that’s most patient with my brother. God made me very good at that. My purpose is to love my brother well and give my mom a break. It’s just fascinating. Those two are really linked. And you know what, Gabriel? Our competence is not perfection. Perfect this side of heaven is not possible. Perfection is Jesus, and we’re called to become like him. And that will happen when we’re with him in heaven.
In the meantime, we have a journey of excellence becoming who God created us to be. And I say that because I talk to way too many children, teens, and young adults who will say they’ll never please their dad. I earned a 98 and he said, what about the other two points? Or I made the B squad and he’s like, well, why didn’t you make the A squad? He didn’t say, I’m proud of you. He said, why didn’t you? It’s always a criticism.
(24:35):
And I hear that, sadly, about a lot of dads. And dads mean well. Dads have high expectations. My dad had high expectations. I have a brother with an earned PhD and a post-doctorate, which is two years after an earned PhD and a world renowned reputation in his field. And then I have an earned PhD as well, and called into the ministry. And we were raised with education, pursue education, and we were raised in a secular home, church attending secular home.
But high expectations can be good if you allow your kids to become who they were designed to be. And this is the thing, Gabriel, your children are not giving to you to be mini mes. They are not to perform for you. It is not a child’s job to make you look good. It is a child’s ministry to become who God says they are.
(25:17):
And that’s the competence that I would pray that they would desire. And in our book about specifically gender identity competence, this is why we have a whole chapter on how to raise girls to be godly women. And a whole chapter on how to raise boys to be masculine, godly men. We’re not doing it well, we’re assuming it’s happening and it’s not happening because a liar is loud.
So there’s a lot of competencies that we desire, some we need, some we don’t need and we need to release those. And we have to teach our kids not to lust after something they don’t need, but to develop what they do need to the glory of God and for you as the dad to affirm and to correct appropriately. Lemme say one more thing, Gabriel. We’re kind of presenting this as a visual pyramid for people who are listening. Where we start with the bottom is security, and then we lead to identity, belonging, purpose, and competence. But it’s a circle.
(26:09):
When children develop competence, they will also have what I call self security, not security instead of security in God, not self security instead of also trusting mom and dad, but an ability to be well and do well when no one’s looking. And that’s what we want, right? Every parent of little kids dreams of the day when they don’t have to hire a babysitter. We all want our kids to grow in, and grow up to maturity.
So when you teach children how to be competent, you teach them character and decision-making skills and how to be a boy, well then you teach them their security so that they have a firmer foundation. And Gabriel, the other thing that’s so exciting is that you become their primary source of security when you teach them, thank you for smiling. For the people who are only listening, he just broke out in a big smile. Because what dad doesn’t want to be the source of security, you all do.
(27:00):
So when you teach competence, don’t tell and yell. But when you teach competence, this is how you can be a great little boy, becoming a wonderful man. When you teach that and you model that and you explain that, they develop a security in you. And now when they’re teased or bullied or confused by some book they read, they come back to you and say, daddy, you said this, but look at what this book says. And now you talk them off the ledge and explain why that’s a lie. This is the role of a loving parent, right?
Gabriel Pagel (27:30):
Thank you for that. We’re almost out of time, so I just want to ask one more thing, but I want to start it with a quote from Paul David Tripp. Okay. In his book, Parenting, he says, parents, if your eyes ever see or your ears ever hear the sin and weakness of your children, it’s never an accident. It’s never a hassle, it’s never an interruption. It’s always grace. God loves your children and because he does, he has placed them in a family of faith so that you can be his tool of convicting, forgiving, and transforming grace.
And that leads me to my question. This is never going to be perfect. We live in a messy world. What encouragement would you give to parents if their kids are struggling with some of these things or they come and they have questions about gender identity or any other sort of issues like that? How can you help them realize this is grace?
Dr. Kathy Koch (28:39):
It’s so good. That’s a great quote. I mean, for them to come to us, the first thing we need to say is, thank you for trusting me with your heartache. Thank you for trusting me with your confusion because they are confused. I’m proud of you for wanting truth about the situation you’re in the midst of. Obviously, your response depends a little bit on age and how deeply you understand the struggle might be, but I think we say, thank you for trusting me. Thank you for being humble and vulnerable and let’s grow together.
One of the things that I will say until the day I die, parents don’t need to know everything in order to bless their children. You’re not going to know everything. So you learn with them. You don’t panic. Ideally, you don’t panic. When they come to you and you offer grace and you offer mercy and you offer another chance and you offer love, and you do offer specific praise, we write about that and specific correction.
If your kids are coming to you and they’re confused or if they have sinned, I’ll say, let’s call sin. Let’s demonstrate our disappointment. I love you forever and always. Your behavior doesn’t influence the love that I have for you. You’re mine, yet I’m disappointed. And you earn the right to say that and you say that in the right context, but I think that’s important because you want that, right? Don’t you want them to know what’s wrong so they can make it right?
(30:05):
So we need not be embarrassed by that. We need not be shamed by that or burdened by that. We’re like, whoa, you got off the track here. And then you know what, Gabriel, a good mom and dad will step back and say, okay, how did that happen? Who were they listening to? What were they watching? What were they reading? Is there a new friend? Where did that something influence these kids? Don’t make this stuff up. Something influenced your child to cause him to be confused about something. And if you can determine what that is or who that is, and you can teach him to discern that, that source of ideas is not a good source, it’s not wisdom. How can I help you come away from that?
I’ve had so many young people say, Dr. Kathy, I don’t know how to end a friendship. My dad was right. I never should have developed a friendship with this kid, but I did, and I don’t know how to get rid of him. Can you help me with that? This is not easy. So I would say, praise God that they came to you and then ask him to help you work it out. Love that question. I hope people have been encouraged today. I’ve loved talking with you.
Gabriel Pagel (31:04):
What a great word. Thank you so much.
Aaron Atwood (31:06):
You’re welcome. Gabriel, I’ve got a question for you as a dad of five kids. When you hear Kathy talking about the needs that your kids have, which of those is the one that stands out to you as the one that you feel like, oh, I really need to focus on that with my kids and why?
Gabriel Pagel (31:27):
Oh man. I’d say recently it has to do with purpose. And part of that is because having a 2-year-old and a three month old and me being the one home with them and trying to figure out how to do the schooling that I’ve always tried to do with the other ones and all of these different things, I am struggling a little bit with how does the purpose work in my life? And I think they’re feeling that a lot, to be honest. So that’s been the one that I’ve been really keying in on.
Aaron Atwood (32:05):
Yeah, I imagine that’s a lot of our listeners thinking about, how do I instill purpose into my kids when I’m not really sure what my purpose is? Kathy, how do you handle that?
Dr. Kathy Koch (32:17):
Yeah. I was going to actually flip the question back to you, Aaron. You’re the dad of four daughters, and I don’t know if you’d be comfortable sharing that. One of the things for parents, adults, our purpose, there’s a constant purpose. We have great commandment, great commission to learn, to love, to be loved. There are some constant purposes we all share, and then there are other specific purposes that fulfill our specific competencies. For both of you, it’s being a dad, and when the ages change and you add a new child to the family, you’ve got a new three month old that changes the dynamic of everything, and everybody, the 3-year-old is no longer the baby, and that changes everything.
So I respect that, and I love that you’re aware of it. If you’re not aware that purpose is the one that feels a little bit off, then you won’t know what to work on. So I love your question, Aaron, and for us to recognize that we are role models of the security in all five. We are role modeling or we’re not, that God meets these needs and that they can also be met through a spouse and through best friends and even through our children in the right way. Although we do talk in the book about not using our kids.
Aaron Atwood (33:24):
Yeah. Well, in the book that we were talking about, everyone who’s listening, is Raising Gender Confident Kids. You all can get a free copy of that at genderconfidentkids.com. That’s genderconfidentkids.com, and you just tell us you want a copy. We’ll send it to you, and if you feel inclined to help pay it forward, we’d love for you to do that. But we want to get this book out into as many hands as we can because we know the information, the message in it is that important.
Kathy, thanks for spending time with us today. It’s been a pleasure being with you. And Gabriel, thank you so much for bringing your parenting knowledge and your passion for this to the table here. Blessings to you both. Thank you everyone for listening. We’d really love it if you’d give us a review on the platform you’re listening to this on and subscribe so that you don’t miss a conversation when another one comes out. Thanks everybody.
Dr. Kathy Koch (34:17):
Yeah, thank you.