Parenting can feel messy, beautiful, and overwhelming—all at once. In this episode of Upside-Down Parenting, we talk about daily rhythms, grace in the chaos, and staying rooted in Christ.
Episode 15: 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
In this episode, the hosts of the Upside Down Parenting Podcast, Matt and Janel, discuss the importance and practical application of establishing day-to-day rhythms in their households. They share personal examples from different parenting seasons, emphasizing how intentional routines like family dinners, prayer, and Bible reading helped form their families and guide their choices. Key topics include protecting family time from technology, modeling faith for children, the importance of a strong marital foundation, and creative methods for discipleship.
Episode Transcript
Janel Greig (00:00):
Hi. Welcome to the Upside Down Parenting Podcast from Summit Ministries. Parenting can feel overwhelming and disorienting, but you don’t have to do it alone.
Dr. Matt Jones (00:10):
That’s right.
Janel Greig (00:10):
Matt and I are here to walk with you as you raise your kids to embrace God’s counter-cultural truth, his upside down kingdom, and champion a biblical worldview. On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about the day-to-day experience of parenting rhythms that we have in our households in some various parenting seasons, and how these things have helped form our families and guide our choices. Hey, Matt, how are you doing today?
Dr. Matt Jones (00:36):
I’m doing all right. I can’t believe they had me back. I understand why they had you back, but for me to go two episodes in a row, I feel like I’m en fuego, that’s in fire, but I like to say it in Spanish, so I’m excited. How are you doing today?
Janel Greig (00:52):
Well done, Matt. Well, I’m excited to be back. I’m excited to talk about some of these more basic rhythms that we have and see if we can help our listeners, maybe, glean some ideas or maybe we can share too. I’d love to hear from you some thoughts and maybe things that haven’t worked that you and your wife thought would work so that we can share some thoughts with our listeners.
Dr. Matt Jones (01:14):
Well, here’s the beauty of it, is everything that my wife did worked, and then everything, well, everything, but one thing I tried, so this will be good that for those who don’t know, I’m being sarcastic there. All right. So do you mind sharing one or two of your central rhythms or core household habits that anchored your family?
Janel Greig (01:34):
Absolutely. We have so many, and I think we mentioned, in the last episode, we talked a little bit about why biblical parenting is important to you and to me in our households. And so for us in our household, we’ve been very intentional situating rhythms, and it’s following that Deuteronomy 6 principle, but it’s also following those other biblical principles.
Dr. Matt Jones (01:58):
Can I pause for a second?
Janel Greig (01:59):
Yeah.
Dr. Matt Jones (02:00):
What do you mean by, you said, situational or situated rhythms? What did you say?
Janel Grieg (2:05):
Situating. Situating rhythms. Yeah.
Dr. Matt Jones (2:08):
Okay. What did you mean by that? Because I’ve not been familiar with that language.
Janel Greig (02:11):
Situating rhythms?
Dr. Matt Jones (02:12):
Yes.
Janel Greig (02:13):
Making sure that we’re making time and having consistent rhythms in our household. Yeah. Got it. And it’s hard. The different seasons of parenting are tricky, depending on ages, comprehension level of kids, attention spans, each kid’s personalities, school activities, all of those things definitely have come into play. But some of the things in our household that we’ve done, dinnertime is a big one. Trying to consistently have dinner together around the table. And that definitely ebbs and flows depending on the season, but we’ve been able to situate that for the most part consistently.
It allows that great conversation, but then it also has always allowed us to move into after dinnertime, a very intentional, whether it’s a Bible story as we worked our way through the Bible, and we’ve used tons of different, even supplemental resources for that as a family over the years from when the kids were little. And it was a storybook Bible to moving through advent seasons to right now we’re actually reading Pilgrim’s Progress during our time together. And it just allows that family time, but also a focus on the Lord and his principles. And that’s one of, I think, my favorite, but most important family rhythms.
I know you’ve shared some of these on the show before too, Matt, so I’d love to hear a little bit from you. Is that something that you guys have been consistent about, or what’s a rhythm that you guys have really looked to stuck to?
Dr. Matt Jones (03:39):
Well, I really appreciated your point in terms of saying, Hey, these rhythms sometimes change. There’s some core things that keep going, but it really does look different. I mean, you bring up dinner time and for years you’re able to have dinner together around the table. And I had a question for you about that, but now my kids are either off at college or there was a time whenever all three of them worked. And so we had several nights where, alright, Monday night we have two kids. Tuesday night, we have one kid Wednesday night, we have no kids doing youth group stuff.
And so I think what was key for us is we maintain that commitment to dinnertime. And especially in the summer, we will literally sit outside and we will just talk for up to one, two, sometimes three hours. And sometimes it’s directional, sometimes not. But I was curious, what do you guys do about phones during dinnertime?
Janel Greig (04:40):
Oh, well, you know what? My kids don’t have phones.
Dr. Matt Jones (04:43):
Oh, way to go.
Janel Greig (04:45):
Yeah, I’m proud of, well, we’re still holding out. We’re in that season where we’ve got one phone for them that they share for sports, and it’s the simple Gab phone. It doesn’t have a lot that comes with it. And if they have sports, they take that so that we can track them and keep in touch. But yeah. So what would be your tips? What did you guys do that?
Dr. Matt Jones (05:06):
Well, no, I was just curious if you guys, because some people say, all right, we’re going to have a bowl in the middle and we’re going to put all the phones in there during time and there’s no phones during dinnertime. I just bring it up because I remember I got a new phone. I got a new phone, and I think my son was seven or eight years old.
And when you get a new phone, you want to mess with it, you want to play with it, and you want to take the plastic off and hear that wonderful sound of the freedom of touching the screen. And I’m doing this at dinner time, and my son, because I just forgot the family rule. And my son, six or seven years old says, dad, it’s family dinner time. We don’t have phones at family dinner time.
(05:50):
I’m like, son, you’re right. I’m sorry. Do you forgive me? And I put it away. Now, my kids didn’t have phones until ninth or 10th grade. It was ninth and 10th grade depending on the kid. But I was just curious how you guys handled the dinner time. Because we have found that we have a lot of college students over to our house. We average about 100 to 150 at our house, and we have them around our dinner table. And there will be times where we will have to tell them, hey, at the Jones Family dinner table, we don’t have phones out.
(06:23):
And I’m not sure, a lot of families are committed to saying, listen, this is a sacred time around this table. You guys are the most important people at our meal, and so therefore we are going to do our best to either not have phones on, we’re going to have ’em on the table, or if we do have to use them, we’re going to say, Hey, can I do this? And that’s very rare. So I was just curious, in terms of, because we feel like with the influence of phones, we feel like those central rhythms are really thrown off if we don’t say, hey, this is a sacred time, no tech.
Janel Greig (07:02):
Yeah. Yeah. Isn’t that interesting too, your son pointing that out to you. And that’s one where it’s that faith formation. It’s just like the habits. It’s one of those things. I think it’s important to remember things are oftentimes, are they caught or are they taught and what your actions are doing or teaching, right? Your son was very aware of that. And I think that leads in well to other rhythms.
I think in our household too, some of the things we’re very intentional about, are our kids seeing us? And not that we’re doing it to be seen, but I’m spending time in God’s word every morning. They know mom’s habits. I get up super early before the rest of the family. I need my coffee. Matt, I know you don’t need yours, but I do my coffee and I read God’s word and I’m working my way through the Bible every day so that we’re in it. We’re starting that foundation.
And our kids, that’s part of their rhythm every night before they go to bed. That’s part of what they do in their bedtime routine processes. They’re reading through God’s word in order for them to know what it says, what his word says and who he is, they have to be in his word. And if we’re using that as a filter, when we’re engaging with culture or fights in the house or friendship things at school, we point back to God’s word. What does God’s word say about it? And if they’re not in that, they don’t know. And so that’s a definite rhythm too that’s so important in our household.
Dr. Matt Jones (08:21):
That’s awesome. And I’m just curious because some couples, really doing devotions together, and other couples are like, this is not going to work. What’s worked for you guys? Because my wife and I, yeah, we spend time in scripture actually apart, she did not enjoy doing devotions with me, and we’ve not really been able to explore completely why, but we will do devotions as a family. But her and I as a couple, we’re just like, we’re kind of in different spots when it comes to that. So I’m curious what’s worked for you guys, Janel?
Janel Greig (08:53):
Yeah, we, and I get up before everybody. So my time with the Lord in his word, that intentional time is my own time. I’m working through Jeremiah right now, and that’s fantastic. My husband has a little bit different pattern in his, he’s always in Psalms and Proverbs. He does that 30, but then working his way through the Bible too.
So I’d say we’re similar. It sounds like we’re similar to you and your wife, but it all comes together. We definitely, in our marriage, we sharpen as we’re called to. It’s that sharpening, we love having those deep theological conversations in, maybe it’s theology, and how we were raised compared to what we’re doing with our kids. And so those are wonderful sharpening opportunities. Yeah.
Dr. Matt Jones (09:38):
That’s great. And so you had asked me a couple of hours, we do dinner around the table also. It is so important, and hopefully you can have more than one meal around the table. But the other thing, my wife and I, we do have regular dates. That’s been key for us. And we’ve been fortunate over the years sometimes to have people babysit for free and other times not. But even in the younger years, whenever the kids were younger, it was usually about once a month.
And as they got older to where we didn’t have to pay for sitting, it developed into two, and now we’re back to three out of the four times a week. And it’s a sacred, I’m using the word sacred a lot. It’s a sacred night because our kids have to see, first of all, that our relationship is solid. Our relationship is worthy of pursuit because a lot of times what we see is families building their family around the children at the expense of the relationship with God and the relationship with one another.
And I’m sure we’ll talk about this more in one of the episodes because I think this is so vital, but us saying, listen, we have to be one. We have to be united so that we can go and raise these kids. And honestly, sometimes our date nights were talking about, how are we doing with our kids emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, socially, technologically? And sometimes that would have to be the date, but it was for the good of the kids and our marriage. Yeah.
Janel Greig (11:25):
Yeah. That sounds like it’ll be a great future episode to dig into.
Dr. Matt Jones (11:29):
It’s pretty cool.
Janel Greig (11:29):
Some marriage tips and biblical principles. That’s great. I think one of the questions I have for you too, I mean, prayer obviously a constant rhythm in our house, but thinking back a little bit when we, and each child is so different, one of our kiddos, very logical, one of them is a very logical black and white thinker, really struggled with praying for. And so we implemented one of those prayer sticks with names to teach them at an early age, three, four, how to pray. Okay, you’re praying for this person. And of course that’s changed over time and we pray as a family. And we’re often, I love Christmas cards.
(12:10):
And so I collect, we get all the photos of Christmas cards actually, then we save them and we pray for each family. I put it on our family calendar. We’re praying scripture for those families that send us, we still pray for people that don’t send us Christmas cards, but intentionally praying for those. I’ll make sure I send you one.
Dr. Matt Jones (12:28):
That’s right. We just mark them out. We just mark them out of the address book if they say, no. I’m just kidding. I’m sorry. When you said three or four, I thought you were setting up a rhyme to sing three or four. We want some more. Not anymore children. Three is enough for me. But anyway, I’m sorry. That just got my mind thinking of songs and you.
Janel Greig (12:51):
Well, maybe let’s gear you back from songs to prayers. I’m curious if you had challenges with setting up prayer rhythms or what that has looked like in your house with your kids, because that’s an important rhythm to set.
Dr. Matt Jones (13:06):
I agree. And it’s so funny. My wife and I sat down and said, okay, what are our seven core values as a couple? And you’ve already hit on two of them. And so, priority is spending time in God’s word. And not only time, but applying it and understanding it. But then prayer, I’ll be, my wife is the bigger prayer warrior. She spends a lot of time in prayer and we pray together sometimes, but she really does a phenomenal job modeling, all right, this went wrong at school today. Let’s just drop to our knees and pray. Or she’ll be outside and she’ll interact with the kids and they’ll say, oh, we need to pray about that. And so I’m a little more structured in my prayers.
(13:54):
And so the cool thing is my kids get to see both. Well, dad’s praying at meal times and at night before he goes to bed or whenever he’s about to get up and speak or whatnot. And then Kat, just as the spirit leads. And she’s an incredible example of that. And so that’s awesome. Mealtimes are important. And we actually, the other thing too is we are very intentional about having other people over and giving our kids the opportunity to pray for others in those situations. Awesome.
And they’re saying, okay, Tyler, tonight, as you see, we’ve got about eight people over tonight. Will you pray? And there’ve been some times when they’ve said, no, I’m not comfortable with that. And we’re like, okay. So we make fun of them. And then I’m just kidding. Move on. But I’m sorry.
Janel Greig (14:47):
He’s joking, everyone.
Dr. Matt Jones (14:49):
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. But one time, I got to tell you this. One time we had a group over and my son, he really does have, he’s got a big imagination and he really has a good sense of humor. And he just says, all right, dad, you’re going to have me pray. I’m going to show you. He goes, rub aub dub. God bless this grub. Amen. I’m like, oh, son, you go from correcting me about using a phone on the table.
Janel Greig (15:13):
Oh, it’s the same kid.
Dr. Matt Jones (15:16):
To that. And he’s like, oh my goodness. But we’re grateful for him, at least on Tuesdays.
Janel Greig (15:23):
Where is he in the birth order? Is he your middle or youngest?
Dr. Matt Jones (15:26):
Yeah, he’s the middle. He’s stuck in between two girls.
Janel Greig (15:30):
Oh, okay.
Dr. Matt Jones (15:32):
There was one other rhythm that has been really important to us is what we call mirror time. And I think you can go back and watch one of the previous episodes and I think you’ve seen that too. We love that.
Janel Greig (15:44):
I’ve heard you talk about this. This is fantastic. Please share about that for those that may not have heard that episode. That’s fantastic.
Dr. Matt Jones (15:50):
So this might take a little bit longer, but we realized that again, God can redeem things. And I was thinking about things that are very difficult for my kids to engage in or will be in the future. And one of them is working with college students. It’s the mirror. The mirror is an intimidating place. It’s not a life-giving place for many people. And I thought, how can we redeem the mirror?
And so what we would do is after Bathtime, it was my responsibility to bathe the kids to a certain age. I would wrap him up in a towel and we would be up in front, and I would hold up in front of a mirror and I would say, who made you? And from the age of when they could start talking up until when it was time for me to stop doing this, they would say, God, and for those of you who don’t speak 2-year-old yet, that’s God.
(16:42):
And I said, why would he do such a thing? And they would say, for his glory. And then I would say, so you can do what? And they would say, enjoy him forever. And then I would say, well, how did God make you? And they would say, fearfully and wonderfully. They’d say,like, fearfully and wonderfully.
And then I would say, what Psalm is that from? And because they couldn’t say 139, they struggled enough with fearfully and wonderfully, I would yell 130, and then they would yell nine, and then we would yell, amen at the top of our lungs because it means, Lord, make us so or let it be. And we wanted the mirror to be a place that reminded them, wait a minute. This is not a place to be, a place of intimidation. This is a place to be, a place of celebration.
(17:28):
God has fearfully and wonderfully made. You are not the belly button of the universe. You are here to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And so if you want to hear a little bit more on that and the philosophy behind it, it’s in a previous episode, but that has been huge. And my daughter, she drew it in her Bible and then she put a note at the very bottom and said, are you listening to what God says about you or what a mirror says about you or what or the world says about you? That’s what it was. Are you listening to what God says about you or what the world says about you?
And it’s just like, oh Lord, thank you. At the age of 13, 14, she draws it in the Bible and now she has that memory. Now, whether or not they take a hold of it, that’s between them and God. But I know I can stand before God and say, Lord, we’re trying to, as you’ve wisely pointed out, Deuteronomy 6, here are the principles. Here are the truths. We’re even going to use something as simple as a mirror to redeem the time that God has given us. So thank you for asking and having me repeat that.
Janel Greig (18:30):
Yeah, that’s fantastic.
Dr. Matt Jones (18:31):
Any other rhythms that really stand out to you that have anchored your family?
Janel Greig (18:37):
Yeah, I love routine, which has helped with trying to implement certain rhythms. In our house. We do God’s word, we do prayers. But then I am a big proponent of supplemental material to draw in the kids, to get them thinking critically. And COVID actually jumpstarted that a little bit for us too. It gave us some opportunities that we probably wouldn’t have had otherwise. And some of those have stuck. I love some good alliteration.
So we actually do Worldview Wednesday, and that was something we started on the way to school. We would watch, well, the kids would watch World Watch while I was driving to kind of incorporate that component and then talk about God’s world and what the Bible says. And the current events. We implemented Theology Thursday, which is they get cocoa on the way to school, and we watch something a little bit more apologetic. They love Tim Barnett, Red Pen Logic with Mr. B, talking through that content. And then Fridays were always fallacy, and they still are Fallacy Friday. And we watched something from Filter It Through a Brain Cell.
(19:50):
Which is fantastic. But those are just more consistent rhythms where it’s, as a parent, we have to be intentional in discipling our kids and equipping them in this world that we’re living in that is constantly discipling our kids. So for Christian parents, some encouragement to be doing that at home because the world’s doing it. So if we’re not doing it, the kids are going to be discipled by the world no matter what. So yeah. What about you? What other rhythms, things that you guys have done that maybe have worked and that other people might glean from, Matt?
Dr. Matt Jones (20:25):
Yeah. Well, first of all, I love the alliteration on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Do you have anything for Monday? Is it Manic Monday?
Janel Greig (20:35):
I’ll tell you what, my kids have loved World Watch so much that it’s like that’s filtered over to Monday and Tuesday also.
Dr. Matt Jones (20:41):
Okay, alright.
Janel Greig (20:42):
But that doesn’t do alliteration, so we don’t talk about it. We just do it.
Dr. Matt Jones (20:45):
Okay. I was just curious. I love alliteration sticks with me. Oh my goodness. Other rhythms, oh, that was another thing was, Saturday mornings. My wife is an introvert, and I know this may not sound like a huge biblical perspective worldview thing, but she’s a huge introvert. And so we would have Saturday mornings where it was just dad and the kids, and it was an intentional time, first of all, for my wife to have some time by herself.
But then me and the kids, we would go and have what we call dodos together. Those are donuts. And of course we would pray, we would get to know the people that are working there. So we would go to a regular place. So hey, let’s know these people, share the love of Jesus in some form or fashion.
And then we would go and do the grocery shopping together. And again, this was intentional time with each of the kids. And I would, because it doesn’t say it like this, I think even money is spiritual. There’s a spiritual component to what we believe about money and how we handle that. Oh, I just had another idea. We’ll save that for another one. But anyway, I would have my kids help shop and I would say, okay, you have these two choices between these two brands. Why are we going to choose the one? And I would help them understand and see which one was cheaper and why.
Janel Greig (22:23):
Lovely.
Dr. Matt Jones (22:24):
And just to be teaching them the importance of stewardship. Whenever our kids were two, we got this bank. So this was another ritual. Every Saturday they would have earned money or earned money or worked or whatnot. And we had these piggy banks that had save, invest, spend and give. And we would teach them budgeting from the age of two.
And so we’ll talk more about those different ideas, but it’s just parenting. I get frustrated and it breaks my heart when people say, man, parenting is so hard, and they just leave it there. It is difficult, but it’s so much fun. And if you put the work in and the creativity you’re talking about, and maybe people can get ideas here, it really is a lot of fun.
And I know you’re at this point, but we have, like I said on the last show, we have a 22-year-old, a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old, and they love hanging out together. They love it, and they will do it without us. In fact, as I mentioned last week, my youngest daughter right now, maybe not at this exact moment, but today, went with my oldest daughter to have her nails done. So her nails look good for the engagement pictures. And it’s just like, that’s so awesome.
(23:52):
Hannah could do that with anybody. And my wife has just done such a great job modeling, hey, listen, our family can function. And actually a keyword in function is fun. And I think if we function together we’ll have fun. But anyway. Okay. I have a thought. Can we hit one more round, a couple more points on quick, what do you call it? What is it? Our speed round?
Janel Greig (24:21):
Our speed round, yeah.
Dr. Matt Jones (24:23):
And then we’ll close out. Does that sound good?
Janel Greig (24:24):
I love it. Let’s do it. Let’s do it.
Dr. Matt Jones (24:28):
Let’s see. Best book in theology you’ve read recently?
Janel Greig (24:32):
Oh, best book in theology. You know what I am revisiting? It’s a reread. And I know we both enjoy Tim Keller’s material very much, but I’m rereading his Prayer book because that’s something where I felt my prayer life lately could use a little bit of a reigniting. So I just think he’s great with regards to that in many other subjects. But yeah, that’s the best one I’m reading right now. What about you, best theology book that you’ve read recently?
Dr. Matt Jones (24:59):
Recently? Yeah. I want to put on recently, it’s more of a devotional, but it has to do with theology. It’s Navigating God’s Wisdom for Life by Tim and Kathy Keller.
Janel Greig (25:07):
Hitting on them.
Dr. Matt Jones (25:08):
Yeah. And of course there are some other folks probably, and I read it a little bit less recently, but, I talked about this yesterday, The Toxic War on Masculinity by Nancy Pearcey, phenomenal. Let’s see. What’s something people often get wrong about you?
Janel Greig (25:30):
That I’m an extrovert.
Dr. Matt Jones (25:32):
Oh really? Nobody gets that wrong about me.
Janel Greig (25:36):
I believe that. But I learned a new term. Do you know the term? Is it ambivert? It’s like a little of both. I just learned that, so I’m like, maybe that’s me. But yeah. What about you? Let’s do one more. What’s a small thing that you’re thankful for in this season? It can be a big thing too.
Dr. Matt Jones (25:57):
I was actually thinking in this season of our podcast or in the season of life?
Janel Greig (26:03):
Wow, let’s do season of life.
Dr. Matt Jones (26:05):
Alright. I am super thankful for my family, but I am thankful and we can’t tell anybody this, but, well, I guess that doesn’t work. But I actually am thankful for my future. Awesome. Yeah. I don’t know at what point in life I would’ve admitted to saying that, but I am thankful for him. And I’m not just kissing up. If you know me well, I don’t do that. So anyway. That’s great. I have really enjoyed talking with you, Janel.
Janel Greig (26:39):
It’s been awesome, Matt.
Dr. Matt Jones (26:40):
Yeah, a lot of fun. And folks, if you’re listening and you go, my goodness, there are some things that Matt and Janel are giving me to think about and are worthy of consideration, please just like us and subscribe and leave some feedback for us to think about and ponder. And we are so appreciative of Summit Ministries, caring enough about parenting and caring enough about an upside down kingdom that reflects the kingdom of God and parenting. We’re just super excited about that and we’re grateful we can be a part of that.
And so as you’re thinking, as we’re closing out, we do want to ask you, alright, what are the rhythms that may be either you can snag from Janel or Matt or that you need to create for their kids because kids do, whether it doesn’t seem like it or not, appreciate structure and reminders and rhythms and traditions. And we have both seen that in our families.
So Janel, God bless you. It’s great to see you. Thanks for doing that with me and look forward to our next time together.
Janel Greig (27:45):
Awesome. Thanks Matt.