EpicParent.tv – Honest • On the Edge • Creative Parenting

Today’s post is from Keath Storm.  There are not really any words to describe the depth of Keath and I’s relationship.   We have been friends for years and have walked through the best of times and the absolute worst of times together.   My favorite story is when we were out of College,  he was talking to (considering dating) a girl named Jodie and I was talking to (considering dating) a girl named Angie.  Long story short…a year later he married Angie and I married Jodie.  The old switcharoo!  Keath brings the heat in today’s post, something most parents don’t want to admit or talk about.  And thanks to his son for giving permission for Keathly to tell the story!  Keath, your an incredible friend and one of the most God honoring Fathers I know!

Here’s….Keathly!

My wife and I came home one Saturday evening and found a piece of her lingerie laying in the bathroom floor.  Hmm.  How did that get there?

My middle son is 15 years old and he has an inner circle of friends that we do a men’s fraternity group with every Wednesday night after church.  How could it possibly have been that group of boys that are so committed to living a perfect, sinless life?  After all, you should hear the way that I describe him and his friends to all my friends and family.  You would think he was Jesus and his friends were the disciples.  Is that really about him or me?  (We can cover that in another post)

Well….it was my son and his friends.  Are they sick and twisted sexual perverts or just 15 year old boys that have a natural, God given change going on in their bodies that create curiosity?  I think it is clearly the latter and I have been served up a great big fastball that could either be knocked out of the park for Kingdom growth or fouled off and used to drive them into the Enemy’s camp regarding this beautiful gift of sexuality that God gave his children.

Thank God I chose to respond instead of react!  When we came together for our Wednesday night meeting, I started off with prayer and then my first question of the night was…What did you guys think of my wife’s lingerie?  It was awesome!  All of their eyes were about the size of the moon and their mouths dropped wide open.  Talk about shock!

It was my next sentence that set the stage for knocking it out of the park for the Kingdom.  I was not going to let the Enemy win this game.  “Guys, I can’t wait until each of you find your God-given soul mate, get married, and experience the joy of seeing your wife in lingerie!”  It was still a little tense, so I had to break the ice….”You just better not be picturing my wife in that lingerie”.  My son said, “Oh no Dad, don’t go there!” and his friends just laughed.

It was now time for the power punch.  Guys – the sexual relationship between a husband and wife is one of the most awesome, amazing and sacred gifts God gave to his children.  Don’t do anything to damage your heart before you present it to your wife on your wedding day.  The Enemy will do anything he can to twist and damage your God-given sexuality.  Be alert and don’t let him win!

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My daughter, Kylie, and I were talking last week and I found out that she was really wanting to write a post for EpicParent.  Kylie is a good little writer so I thought I would give her a shot at it!

So here’s Kylie…

My mom is a teacher, a lover, a listener  and I forgot to mention she is also a nursing student!!

She just started nursing school this year and at times It has been really HARD when she has been away.

So here is some of the good, bad & ugly of nursing school…

• FOOD: Let’s just say my dad isn’t so much the cook, so we usually we end up going to Doulble “Z” which is an amazing burger joint. We do this when mom is out of town with clinicls.  I will be glad when she is out of school for the summer because I am craving mom’s food not dad’s fast food!
• TEAM SPRAD’S HOUSE: So I am the clean person and neat freak of Team Sprad, and my brothers Cole and Tifton aren’t, their pigs!  Clothes are everywhere, dishes are dirty…don’t get me started! But then Mr.mom comes and helps me and cleans the house MY HERO!!  My dad is a good house cleaner and a neat freak just like me!
• MY BROTHERS: My brothers can be annoying!  They are messy, junky, aggravating and they get on my nerves.  When Cole is being obnoxious, then Tifton thinks he needs to join in!  But, at the end of the day they are MY brothers and I just got to LOVE them!
• MOM: I haven’t seen my mom much the past few months, she has been traveling doing clinicasl but they are over until next fall!! She use to have clinicals  but not anymore! It can be tough for me because I am the only girl in the house and I love my mom! Only three weeks left of school and then she is all mine!

Now the good stuff!!

• DAD: My dad has become more lenient and EASY to persuade!  Or maybe he is just exhausted doing all the Mr. Mom stuff.  He is a teacher that teaches my very long lectures that will pay off when I am older!  But he does turn everything into a “learning lecture”.
• MICAH: Is one of my BEST friends.  We go to school together and we do a ton of stuff together.  I just enjoy Micah a lot and she has been a good get away when my brothers are driving me crazy.
• LANA: Is another really great friend.  She lives down the street from me so when the boys are on my last nerve I just walk down to Lanas house or even walk down town with her.

So I know we don’t do a perfect job when mom is gone.  But, it has been nine whole months and we are still alive so I guess we have done pretty darn good!

And to all the mom’s out there!  You are amazing, needed, loved and dad’s CAN’T do your job as good as you!!

Today’s guest post is written by my good friend Joe Gumm.  Joe and I go way back in the day and have been friends since we were 5 years old.  Joe and I have laughed together, walked through tough stuff together and both of us even received double technical fouls in a basketball game and were thrown out!  LONG STORY!  Joe has also been very successful in his professional career as an Anchor and Reporter for Fox Sports, author, host, executive producer, husband and home school dad of four beautiful daughters.  Joe is also getting ready to launch a new television show called Traveling With The Tribe and his new book has just been released called 150 Secrets To A Happy Wife, you can buy it HERE.  Today we will be giving 3 copies of his new book away, you can learn more about how to enter to win at the bottom of the post.

Here’s Joe…

Have you ever tried to eat a burrito when it is flying through the air headed straight toward your face? Well, I have and it wasn’t pledge week at a fraternity house either. It was while I was eating dinner one night with my wife. I said something stupid to her and therefore, forced her to become an instant baseball pitcher. About an hour later, as I was trying to dig sour cream and guacamole out of the deepest, darkest regions of my ear, I couldn’t help but think of one of the verses that was mentioned during our wedding 14 years ago. It was Ephesians 5:25-27, where Paul the Apostle said, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.” When I originally heard the verse at another wedding years before we got married and then at our wedding, my first thought was, “Was Paul even married?” My second thought was, “Why couldn’t it be…Husbands love your wives like Christ loved a sandwich or a cookie?” That was a lot of pressure to put on men. Christ was beaten to a bloody pulp, slapped, punched, spat on, cursed and draped across an old rusty cross by us and he still ended up loving us. Men could never measure up to that. Although, I do feel (some days) like my wife would like to beat me to a bloody pulp, slap me, punch me, spit on me and curse me for the things I say to her. Obviously, what Christ did was show us the path we need to take (as men), as far as having a standard of living. That’s why it’s important to ask God on a daily basis for more creative ways that we can give ourselves up for our wives. I always tell this to young men who get married, “Next to your faith in God, make your wife the number one priority and don’t allow her to become number two, three or four because if that happens, it’s over…and you don’t want to spend time digging food out of your ears.”

If you would like to register to win a copy of Joe’s new book 150 Secrets To A Happy Wife, simply leave a comment and spread the message about the giveaway on Twitter or Facebook.

You can follow Joe on TWITTER

Find him on FACEBOOK

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I want to introduce you to our guest writer today, he is my friend Jim Higley.  I want to start by saying that JIM IS MY HERO!  Seriously!  Jim is a cancer survivor and is walking, talking and living proof that cancer can be beaten.  He is also the single father of 3 kiddos, that is reason alone to be considered HERO status.   Jim is the author of “Bobblehead Dad: 25 Life Lessons I Forgot I Knew”.   Jim also writes a weekly column, Bobblehead Dad, for Chicago Tribune’s TribLocal. He is also a contributing writer for DadsGood: The Best of Daddy Bloggers, and a featured contributor for Man of the House.  Jim’s also the inaugural winner of the World’s Greatest Dad Challenge, sponsored by Man of the House.  His kids, however, are requesting a recount.

You can buy Jim’s book HERE

You can follow him on TWITTER

Thank you Jim for the post and you truly are an inspiration!  Now here’s Jim…

I stopped worrying about being a picture-perfect dad a few years ago. And I actually think it’s helped me do a better job with this parenting gig.

As a young dad, I lived with a vision in my head about what a father should be like. Act like. And react like. I was pretty much the living, breathing version of the dad I imagined I should be—influenced by an assortment of things including my own life experiences, stereotypes in the world and even my favorite television dad, Bill Cosby in his beloved role as Cliff Huxtable.

In truth, I was a caricature of what I thought I should be. Don’t get me wrong. I was a good dad. But I realize now how wrong I was in approaching my role.

You see, a funny thing happened along my journey of dad-dom. Call it what you like. Family crisis. Emotional struggles. A dose of cancer. A couple family tragedies. In truth, what you should call it is life. A real, family life. And what I learned through it all was the most valuable lesson of parenting I’ve ever received.

I learned the importance of simply being the parent my children need me to be. Not the situation comedy dad. Or mom. But the parent. The adult. The protector. The teacher. The safety zone. The listener. The encourager. The beacon of light. And I learned the importance of being diligent in taking cues from my kids. 24/7.

Ironically, when I do that, I become not only a better parent. I become a more enriched, blessed man.

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My good friend Krysta MacGray recently emailed me a post from a parenting blog…

Blue Cotton Memory; The Faith, Love & Politics Of Raising Boys To Men

Blue Cotton Memory is a wealth of rich parenting information, check out the blog!  Today I want to show you a post regarding kids and homework!

Got a son that doesn’t want to succeed in school? Doesn’t care? Leaves you baffled with your jaw dropped on the ground? I have one.

He is an awesome worker outside of school. Frustratingly, just like the young men in my college composition course at a phenomenal engineering school, if he does not see how he will really use what he is learning, he just is not interested – and just will not try. “I was short-sighted,” is how my oldest son described his view of education in high school – of course, he was in college when he realized that. It appears short-sightedness is a common high school ailment.

Friday night found me in the van with my high school student-son. Sometimes the best discussions are when I am behind the wheel of the car. I told him that if you cannot succeed in school, you cannot succeed in life.

“What? If I don’t do well in English, I won’t succeed? How does that work with cars?” he asked in his usual let’s-tear-apart-arguments style.

I told him, “English doesn’t matter. Math doesn’t matter. History and Science? Well, really they don’t matter.  There’s something you do in each class, that if you cannot master, you will utterly fail at everything you do in life:

Without the ability to do that, you cannot hold a job. Who wants to hire someone who has not mastered the process of task completion? Would you hire someone to work in your auto shop who would not successfully complete the assignment you gave them?”

Since Saturday, he has been quizzed relentlessly on this Trinity of Success – in the car, at the table, while he is walking through the room, reading in his bed. I really ought to record it and play it while he sleeps.  I am texting it to him daily. School is no longer about subject matter. It is about learning how to get the job done – whether you like the job or not.

As a parent, you can take things away like social events, phones, games and privileges. Sometimes it works; sometimes it does not. We pray every morning that we do our best as a gift to God. I pray that God gives me the right words at the right moments. The teen years are like the Dark Ages, followed by the Age of Enlightenment and Reformation. What is obvious to me – or even obvious to them before they hit a certain age – leaves me baffled.

But I accepted this assignment (as a mom). I am going to complete it with determination (not give up and do the best I can even if all I have to get through is faith).  And I will turn it in (I will be held accountable for the job I’ve done – my grade might not be perfect – but I can claim I did my best)!

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Today we have a guest post from my very good friend Dana Byers.  I have been friends with her and Chris for several years now.  Our families have church planted together, moved across the country together, prayed together and laughed together!!  #MEMORIES  I have a tremendous amount of respect and honor for Dana, she truly has modeled what it means to loose your life to serve Christ!

What I love most about Dana is that she is a make it happen, get it done, act now ask questions later kind of a girl.  Dana is the President of BlueDoor.tv, which she co-founded with her husband Chris in 2007. Her dream is to see Christians employ the Internet globally to lead millions of people to Christ before He returns.   You have to go to her website and see what God is doing through her!  While dreaming up new and better ways to share the Gospel online, she’s mom to BC(7) and Mac (5).

Check out BlueDoor.tv

Find her on Facebook

Follow her on Twitter

Here’s Dana…

Two summers ago my children were ages 6 and 3.  We’d been living in London nearly 2 years (long enough for them to have adorable British accents).  I assumed we’d already endured the biggest culture shock of our missions adventure, but God then led our American family to uproot and become mobile for 4 months.  The first few weeks of those 4 months were spent in 10 different countries!

While asking God for wisdom on how to lead our children through this change, He showed me that our actions, comments, and decisions needed to be based upon the goal of simplifying…everything.

Let me break it down for you.

• Each of us kept only about 3 clothing outfits and 1 pair of shoes.
• The children chose only their favorite comfort items (blankets, books, and toys) for the journey.
• My husband and I took time every day to observe the kids’ behavior to watch for subtle changes or fears that might emerge in our kids to be praying about.
• While intentional family meals were already a tradition, we increased the investment to more face to face and/or family time (translation: books, games, and park visits) to help the kids process the stress of intense travel.
• Routines were an absolute necessity.  Bedtime and mealtime remained the same no matter whether we were in Paris, Poland, or Prague; whether we slept on an overnight train, on the floor of a host’s home, or in a hotel.
• My husband and I included the kids in our times of prayer asking God for help to adjust to times, foods, and culture as we served various churches and gave them opportunity to voice what they liked or wanted to change.
• We practiced grace.  (And could’ve done it a lot more, I’m certain.)  Any rude comment or bad choice was weighed against the big picture of what our family was enduring, and our approach to discipline adjusted for a season.

Though I’m still leading the ministry my husband and I began overseas, we are living in the United States again.  Having been back a little over a year now, I can see that many of the practices we so carefully tended to during a time of high stress are the very ones we must hold fast to even in the routine days.

We never know when good or difficult changes will come to pass.

What rituals do you keep in your home to help your kids endure this ever-changing world?

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Today’s post is from my friend Sam Luce.  Sam is the Uptown Kids Pastor at Redeemer Church based out of New York.  I have a deep respect and admiration for Sam because he is a pioneer in kids ministry and feels God has called him to commit his life to see kids transformed.  Sam, your the real deal and I appreciate your commitment to kids ministry more than you will ever know.

You can find Sam’s blog HERE.

Follow him on TWITTER.

Find him on FACEBOOK.

Check out Uptown Kids.

Take it away Sam…

One of the things that makes me laugh every time  is seeing a dog with the cone of shame on. I can’t explain it. I remember one time my best friends dog came up the stairs with the cone of shame on. I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud. His dog put his tail between his legs embarrassed by his situation and all he could do was hide under a chair.

In parenting I think we often use the cone of shame. Let me explain. A cone has a wide base and a narrow peak. I have seen many parents fall into this trap (including myself from time to time) We start off very permissive (wide base) and let our kids have all the freedom they want with few restrictions as they get into their teen years we add more restrictions (narrow peak), this causes major problems, huge fights and ultimately shame.

We need to turn that cone upside down (sounds like a funnel right). I believe freedom is experienced by us as parents being very constrictive in our child’s choices when they are young so they can learn how to make good decisions in the context of a loving trusting relationship at a young age. As they grow they will learn they can trust us to have their best interests in mind and we will learn that we can trust their process for formulating wise choices based on past experience.

How many times have you been to someones house and your kids jumped on the furniture, used language you don’t approve of. They throw a fit at the restaurant or in the store. Where is that coming from? Many times what happens in public that makes you feel that cone of shame is a result of us as parents not being consistent at home with the things we want our kids live outside the walls of our home.

Ask yourself where do I need to more strict now so my kids can experience freedom later? Talk with your spouse get on the same page and make a difference now. Let’s make a conscious choice to lose the cone of shame and trade it in for a funnel of love.

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