Stop Parenting In A Silo: Building a Parenting Village that Works

We break down why “everybody has one” is almost never true and why parenting alone makes that line hit harder than it should. We show how a simple parent pact turns vague fears about culture into clear, shared boundaries that lower pressure on kids and strengthen our homes. 
• recognising that our “village” already exists in sports, school, and church 
• noticing how modern adult friendships often revolve around kids’ schedules 
• seeing peer pressure as a handful of specific homes, not an abstract force 
• grounding community choices in Proverbs 13:20 and 1 Corinthians 15:33 
• defining a parent pact as alignment on boundaries, not parenting by committee 
• setting shared tech boundaries on smartphones, apps, and device bedtimes 
• building weekly church and youth group rhythms that reduce competition 
• creating “safe house” clarity for hangouts and sleepovers 
• picking one boundary to say out loud and talking with two parents this week 
And if this episode helped you, share it in your parent group chat, right? 

Send any questions you want answered to podcast@waynechristian.org

This podcast is presented by Wayne Christian School- A Christ-centered community school whose mission is to assist parents and churches in the education of their children from a biblical worldview to impact their world for Christ. You can learn more at waynechristian.org 

Transcript

The “Everybody Has One” Myth

Luis 0:00

But dad, everybody has one. Literally everybody, mom. I'm the only kid in the entire seventh grade without it. Every parent listening just felt their eye start to twitch. And here's the thing: for about 30 seconds, you believe it. You think, man, am I the weird one?

Nate 0:22

Am I ruining my kid? And then you find out everybody is actually one kid named Chris, whose older brother gave him a hand-me-down phone with a cracked screen and no data plan.

Luis 0:34

And Chris has been everybody for three years running.

Nate 0:38

Poor Chris. Always being everybody.

Luis 0:40

Here's what's wild though. That argument only works on you when you're parenting alone. Because the moment you can say, actually, I talked to Chris's mom last night, the argument dies on the spot.

Nate 0:53

So today, we're talking about how to stop parenting in a silo and start building a village on purpose.

Not Isolation Just Intentional Community

Nate 1:08

Welcome to Equipped for Impact, the podcast designed to assist Christian parents, leaders, and educators to raise up the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ. We're your hosts. I'm Nate. And I'm Lewis. And we are glad you're here with us today. And before we dive in, I want to set the table on this one. Because I think a lot of folks are going to hear the title, hear what we just said in that opening, and assume that this is an episode about being exclusive, about circling the wagons, keeping your kids away from everybody who isn't exactly like you. And that's not really what it's about at all. Uh we're being really clear on this, right? This is not only let your kid play with church kids. It's about the adults.

Luis 1:55

And parents, this episode isn't primarily about who your kids hang out with. It's about who you hang out with and whether those relationships are doing any actual work for your family.

Nate 2:07

Because here's the reality, right? You have a village. We've heard that phrase, right, Lewis? You know, it takes a village to raise a family or to raise a kid or whatever. I think we looked that up live on a previous episode, and it was like nobody could tell where it came from. It was some African proverb. Which I I believe. But, you know, you're you're listening to this, you realize you have that village, right? You've got a group text with other baseball parents. You've got the people you sit with at the school program and the families you always end up next to in the church lobby, and that is your village. So the question is whether you're using it or not. Yeah.

When Adult Friendships Follow Kids

Luis 2:47

So let's start with the cultural shift because I think this is genuinely different than it was a generation ago, right? Like Nate, think think about your parents. Do you remember who their friends were?

Nate 2:58

Yes. And it was a small group. It was a group that we we really like it. I think they were friends before we were born, and so then we just naturally became friends with the kids. Okay. In that just because that's that's who that that was.

Luis 3:14

I don't I don't really remember my parents' friends. You know, m like they they had pe f people that they were friends with from work. Maybe there were some people from the neighborhood that they used to get with, you know, obviously our cousins. There were some people from church that they hung up hung out hang hanged out with? Man, I can't talk this morning. Is it hung out with or hanged out with?

Nate 3:34

Hung hung out with hanged is not a tongue.

Luis 3:38

Hung. Yeah. We'll have to look that one up. Okay. And those adults, right? Like they had kids and and sometimes they didn't have kids, but but the friendships that my parents had weren't built around kids, right? Twenty, thirty years ago, an adult social circle and a kid social circle overlapped some, but but they were really two different circles, but that's different now.

Nate 4:01

Yeah, they're they're the same circle, right? Almost completely. I mean, you think about if you're a parent listening to this right now and you think about last month, where did you spend social time with other adults? Yeah, right. It was on the bleachers, in the gym lobby, in the church lobby, in car line. If your church is like mine and there's that long hallway you have to walk down to go pick up the kids from from kids' church, yeah, and like it's the adults standing in the hallway awkwardly waiting for them to get done with their last little activity to let the kids out, you know? And so you're just talking to those people, and that's that's where you're hanging out with other adults.

Luis 4:40

And what you just described there is key, right? Because all of it is downstream of the kids. Your social calendar is your kids' calendar. If your daughter plays volleyball, then you're now friends with the volleyball parents, and that's just how it typically works.

Nate 4:57

And that's not necessarily a bad thing either, because that can be a gift. It it's got, you know, a built built-in, pre-assembled community that God has handed you without having to organize a single thing. Yeah.

Luis 5:11

It's a gift that a lot of times we might even waste, right? Because what do we actually talk about? We we talk about the ref, we talk about the ref was so terrible. Absolutely. We especially the refs at the most recent World Cup final. Did you watch that? I did watch that. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't a fan of the refs in that game.

Nate 5:28

The final, I w I didn't think it was too bad in the final, except for that red card there in stoppage time. That was that was a that was a bad red card. They were both going for the ball. But it was it was a couple other games, like the US game that they got knocked out of, Germany's game that they got knocked out of, but the refs were terrible.

Luis 5:44

I was pulling for Argentina in the final. I was too. Yeah, yeah. I wanted Messi to to win and kind of go out on top. So but we talk about the codes, we talk about the weather, we talk about how expensive travel ball has gotten, and and then we go home, right? There's this small talk with people who are raising our kids alongside of each of us, and that becomes a missed opportunity. We get two hours a week sitting next to a

Peer Pressure Comes From Real Homes

Luis 6:10

mom or dad whose kid is going to be in the backseat of our car on a Friday night, and we spend that time talking about the umpire.

Nate 6:17

And here's the thing that that most of us don't think about, and and what we don't connect as parents, is that the peer pressure your kid experiences isn't coming from some vague culture out there, right? It's coming from that specific group of houses. And and we want to sit on that for a second because you know, we need to really understand that when your 12-year-old comes home and says, everybody's watching this show, everybody is not you know, TikTok, everybody is not Hollywood, everybody is the six or eight families specifically, whose names you know, whose kids you see, and you could text them right now, probably, and find out, you know, what's going on in their houses and and the the s the stories and the the movies and the decisions that they're being made right there.

Luis 7:11

And so the pressure that your kid feels is manufactured in the homes of people that you have been inside of. It's being manufactured by the kids and the people that you spend time with, which means that it's not this abstract, unstoppable force, it's a set of decisions being made by people that you have access to. And in the Christian parenting, we talk a lot about culture, like it's weather, right? Like it's just this front that moves in and and all we can do is board up the windows, but a lot of what actually reaches your kid isn't the weather, it's the neighborhood.

Nate 7:51

Yeah, that's exactly right. And you can even just pull in scriptural principles here, because this is, I mean, throughout the Bible, but especially in the book of Proverbs, like I I love Proverbs 13, 20, very wise statement. It says, Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the compare companion of fools will suffer harm, right? And so notice it's not, you know, if you hear wisdom, right? It's the it's this walking alongside, it's a proximity, it's a shared life. That companionship with other people shapes you and it's shaping your kids. And so it's true for us just like it's true for our kids. So we need to make sure the the families and the parents and the kids that we're uh developing in our social circle is helping our kids grow to be wise.

Luis 8:42

Yeah. And so oftentimes parents will say to their teenagers, be careful who you run with, right? But it's a proverb about people and it doesn't come with an age limit. So if I'm walking

A Biblical Case For Better Company

Luis 8:55

with a group of parents who are dismissive of the things I say matter most, then you're probably going to drift, not not in a dramatic way. Uh nobody has a crises of conviction on a soccer field, but you will slowly recalibrate what's normal because that's what we do as humans. Yep, yep.

Nate 9:13

And Paul in First Corinthians is really blunt when he says bad company corrupts good morals, right? You you hang out with company, right? People, yeah, parents and kids, right? Family units that are not helping your kids grow or your families grow, and it's going to have a corrupting influence. Yeah. So so let's get practical,

The Parent Pact Explained

Nate 9:35

right? So, how do you move from bleach your small talk to something that actually functions to help your family, your children grow spiritually? Yeah.

Luis 9:46

So let's talk about something that we've kind of talked about before in our last episode. Maybe it's a couple of episodes ago, when we talked about the Hang 10 movement and we talked about the parent pact, right? So so let's talk about this parent pact. Let's define it and let's let's make sure that you understand what it is, right? Because I think when people hear pact, they picture a contract, they picture this signed document and some type of monthly meeting that has an agenda with maybe it's the Roberts Rules of Parenting, but but that's not it, right? I second that motion. And that was the Roberts Rules of Order. Is it coming from a committee or is it coming from an individual? I don't know. Because if it's coming from a committee, you don't need to second it. Yep.

Nate 10:30

We don't follow Roberts' rules at my church. Most people for the church business meetings. Um the joke is that we follow Bob's suggestions.

Luis 10:37

Bob's suggestions. Robert's rules. Right. But that's not what we're talking about. Uh a parent pact is just a small group of families who have talked out loud about their boundaries and agreed to hold roughly the same line.

Nate 10:51

And I think that's important because most of us have never talked about our boundaries out loud, like parenting boundaries with other adults, right? We've got them, maybe we hopefully we've talked with our spouse about them. You know, we've we've got them in our marriage. We kind of know our kids generally know these rules, but we've never had that conversation with another family. And the problem is the boundary that's never been spoken can't be reinforced by anybody else. Yeah. And this was this was really a big deal recently. As my oldest, you know, there is she's in that phase where some of the friends are actually getting phones, not just everybody has a phone, air quote, but some of them are. And and we actually had a conversation with another set of parents, and they were like, they were wrestling with the same thing we were, you know, and we've said no phones. That's a pretty hard line in our family at this, at this stage. Yeah. Um, you know, too young still. And and then they were talking about, well, well, what about, you know, the classic arguments? Well, what about, you know, youth group trips or what about sports things? And so we started this whole like, how are we gonna solve and navigate this? And we were just brainstorming together. And that was big because both families, both sets of couples had this hard line of, no, we're we're definitely not doing a smartphone, and we really don't want a phone that is yours. And so we're kind of like navigating that out loud of how are we gonna do this. Yeah, and it and it brings up a lot there for us to understand. And so you just gotta talk about it out loud.

Luis 12:21

And that can be very vulnerable, right? That that can be scary, right? Because if I tell you my rule out loud, you might think it's ridiculous, and now I have to defend it, right? Yeah, or worse, I might realize I don't actually have a reason for it, which which is a good thing to find out, but but then it stings. And so we we avoid these conversations with other parents because of maybe we don't know how to have them, or we have fear, or we just aren't sure how they're gonna feel about what we say.

Nate 12:53

Right, right. And so before we move into maybe some practical areas that you can have these conversations, let's let's also put out there we're not saying that you're parenting your kids by committee either. Correct, yeah. What is the old saying, like a horse built by committee looks like a camel?

Luis 13:09

I've never heard that. Have you never heard that before?

Nate 13:11

Well, now it's new. A horse built by committee looks like a camel. And you think like everybody's got their opinion, and so you try and take everybody's opinion into account. Like we're not saying that here, right? Correct. You are the ultimate authority over your child. Absolutely. But it helps if you're doing this in community. So let's get practical. Let's talk about two big areas

Tech Boundaries Work Better Together

Nate 13:32

where this can help. Okay. And the first one, we've already mentioned it, it's those digital deadlines, right? Yeah, that's good. Um, the things that, you know, everybody has a phone, everybody, you know, whatever. That's a big one that is is obviously going to have an impact in your child's life.

Luis 13:50

And if you're a longtime listener, which by the way, thank you for being a longtime listener, you know that we've gone deep on this, right? We did an episode on the digital world back probably during the first year of the podcast. We recently did the Hang 10 episode where we talked about the framework. We did an episode. The different circles, right?

Nate 14:09

The outside the community, the family, and then you personally, yeah.

Luis 14:12

We did AI and kids, and so, and so we're not gonna go back and and cover all of those. If you've never heard those episodes, uh, we would encourage you to go back and listen to them, right? We've we've settled those things. What what we want to add today is that you cannot hold a tech boundary alone, right? You can try, but it's gonna be really hard and and it's gonna cost you a lot.

Nate 14:36

Yeah, so so what is an agreement with other families, kind of this consensus actually look like when it comes to this area of digital deadlines?

Luis 14:46

And so you talked a little about this just a few minutes ago, right? Nate. So in your conversation, it's when a group of families that can find common ground and agree on some some things that they are going to implement for their family when it comes to digital technology, right? So maybe it's an age or grade for the smartphone, right? Not just this vague, like, oh, we're gonna get them one when they're ready, but but a true number. Like we're not doing smartphones until they get to high school.

Nate 15:17

Yeah, and it doesn't have to be identical, like we talked about, like across all the families, like we're all saying, you know, ninth grade. Like if I say ninth grade and you, Louis, say eighth grade, that's similar, yeah, right. But neither of us is saying fourth grade. Yeah, you know, where we're giving our kids phones, and then you've got years of this external pressure of, well, they've had a phone for years and I'm hanging on late. No, it's you're still in the same ballpark.

Luis 15:44

And that's an important nuance, right? Because what we're talking about is not uniformity, right? We're saying alignment. And then the second thing is specific apps that are off the table for the whole group, right? Like we're not saying that you just simply say, okay, we're gonna be careful with social media, but you start to actually name names, right? You start to say, okay, we are not gonna allow our children to have Facebook, or we're not gonna allow our children to do TikTok. Is Facebook still a thing? It is, it's actually becoming a a bigger thing, and I think there's like like it's like a revitalization among Facebook. Oh interesting. It's it's there, yeah. Or we're not gonna do Instagram, or we're not gonna do TikTok, or we're not gonna do Snapchat, right? Whatever it is, make sure that you that you name it because just saying we're gonna be careful, it's it's not a boundary, it's it's just wishful thinking.

Nate 16:33

That's right. And so then with this, these digital deadlines, you've also got things like a bedtime for devices. Like this is one we have hammered, so we're not gonna spend a lot of time here, especially in our recent things on the the hang 10 movement, right? But if you say, you know, phones don't go in bedrooms, or you say phones go to sleep before you do, or something like that, right? Almost no other parent is gonna fight you on that. And so it's a it's an agreement where you can really get some of this consensus, and then you know, like, my kid doesn't have to worry about missing something because their friends are not gonna be texting them because I know my friends are their parents are keeping their kids' phones put away after a certain time. And so you it's a good gateway agreement that gets this conversation going, and you know, like, hey, we're putting our phones in the kitchen. It was it, Cal Newport calls it landline, yeah. Like the old school, you've got a landline, it's in the kitchen, and I'm not gonna be sitting there texting all day, every day, because I have to walk to the kitchen to get my phone. So, you know, it's things like that that put that that payoff out there because it's parents banding together and and you're able to, you know, keep all on the same page, and it it helps you as you're having those conversations with with your own kids.

Luis 17:52

So the next time that your teenager comes to you, right, because you've already had these conversations with their parents, with the parents of their friend group, and they say, Mom, dad, everybody at school has a phone, you can say, I've taught to Charlie's mom, I've talked to Sarah's mom, I talked to their dad. Neither of them are doing phones until high school either. So everyone doesn't include your friend.

Nate 18:17

And the argument's over. That's it. It's because they don't have, maybe, unless your kid's like a future lawyer. But they just don't have the leverage that that that argument they thought they had.

Luis 18:27

Yep. And it's important to know here that that you didn't win the argument, right? You didn't crush your kid, you didn't lecture, you didn't give a speech about how in your day, you know, you had a flip phone and nobody used a smartphone, right? Nobody wants to be a good one.

Nate 18:40

We had to pay for every text message.

Luis 18:42

Yeah, yeah. That was those were the days. And you had limited text messages, right? Yeah. So it was wild. Or you had to wait until like nine o'clock for somebody to call you because after nine, well, it's free nights and weekends. Yep. And so, and so nobody wants that speech. You've just removed the pressure. And here's the thing that you need to understand as a dad is that your kid doesn't want that thing, right? They they want to not be the only one.

Nate 19:11

Yeah, that's that's really important. And so they're not necessarily just begging for a smartphone, right? They're begging that they're not the weird one who doesn't have a smartphone when everybody else has one. And so those are different needs, and you know, really neither of them requires a phone. So, you know, you can help shepherd your child in this area, and and this will help solve some of that problem of the fear of missing out if you know that those parents, that company that you keep, has a very similar, maybe not the same, but a similar boundary that you have, and that'll go a long

Building Rhythms Around Youth Group

Nate 19:48

way.

Luis 19:48

So now let's talk about the second area, right? And and this one is is broader than tech. It's the environment that your kid is actually standing in. And so you've got a unique seat on this one. Nate, you're you're a middle school principal, right? And so you've probably seen this from the inside.

Nate 20:05

Yeah, and it it is it's pretty interesting because at school is where the kids kind of come together and you see where different families have made different decisions, and then the kids come together and they make that, you know, like discovery of, oh, your family says, you know, no to a certain movie or a certain TV show or a certain activity, but my family has said yes. And then like the kids come together and instead of like pitting the families against each other, which they do that sometime, what that is is it creates a gap between the two families. And so if you know the kid from a family who says no goes over to the house of a kid whose family says yes, well, they don't have to even necessarily lie or exaggerate or anything. They just kind of slide into that gap. It's kind of like water flowing, you know, through a crack. It found the path of least resistance. And so the kid knows that when I'm over at so-and-so's house, you know, the rules are different and I can get away with certain things because we've made different decisions.

Luis 21:09

Yeah. And so let's talk about these environments, right? And so, Nate, you you mentioned the school, right? Yeah. So school nights, what's the norm for out-of-the-house activity on a Tuesday, right? Youth group, is it optional or is it the plan? And then homes, what happens when the kids are at each other's houses, right? So so let's take the youth group one because I think that that one's pretty, pretty important, right? When a group of four or five families all treat Wednesday night as a non-negotiable, the sk the kids stop treating it as an event and then start treating it as a rhythm. And we've talked about that before.

Nate 21:45

There's not texting your friends saying, Hey, are you gonna be there? or they're having pizza. I don't want pizza. I wish we had Chick fil A nungets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't everybody. Everybody. Yeah. They're so good. They're having breakfast for dinner tonight. I'm not going to use pizza.

Luis 21:59

Absolutely not. We we we would probably leave that church. Would you boycott youth group if they had breakfast for dinner? We would. We would never we would never go back to church. That's one of those doctrinal lines. We don't promise.

Nate 22:09

Should I tell your youth pastor to let ha to have breakfast for dinner? Oh man.

Luis 22:13

I don't even know that I want to have breakfast for breakfast in a youth group. And and then they start going there because their friends are there, right? Which we sometimes get squeamish about. Like I want them to go for the right reasons. But but look, right, I'll take a kid who shows up for his friends and encounters Jesus over a kid who stays home with pure motives.

Nate 22:33

Yeah, that's that's right. And so, you know, just getting them there and you you make that decision. And if you've got a whole group where it's like, no, we're doing this, we're doing this, and it's protected time for your families. Whether it's you know, Sunday morning church, Wednesday night youth group, Sunday night youth group, whatever your church does, right? If that's a a rhythm and a routine, kids get it, and then there's no getting out of it. Yeah. There's no, hey, can we do this other activity instead? It it limits the competition for other things. And it really, you know, again, bringing scripture into this. This is where in the book of Hebrews, you know, it says, let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, right? Not neglecting to meet together, but you know, considering these things, leaning into that all the more as we see the day, you know, the end times approaching. And so, you know, it's an active thing where we're saying, no, we're going to encourage each other to do these things that we know are best for our families.

Luis 23:33

And it's easy to look at that verse and say, you know, we're going to preach that our kids because they need to be at church, but but it it's it's written to the whole body, right? Right. It's written to parents. So parents, you know, who is stirring you up? Who is asking you the

Creating Safe Houses For Kids

Luis 23:45

hard question about your own family? Because if the answer is nobody, then you you're running a discipleship operation with zero accountability.

Nate 23:54

Yep, yep. And and so let's move to the last piece of this section, and it's a big one, and and it's the the safe house, right? It's a home where you know, not hope, but you know that the filters are on, the adult is paying attention, there's supervision, and so you can feel better allowing your kid, you know, to go over to that house and know that they're not going to encounter things that you would not allow in your own house.

Luis 24:22

And can I say something that's probably gonna be hard for parents to hear? Go for it. Most parents have absolutely no idea. You drop your kid off at a house that you've never walked into with adults that you've talked to maybe twice, and they spend the night there for twelve hours overnight, and we feel weird asking because it sounds like an accusation, right?

Nate 24:50

Yeah. We we say we don't know what what's the internet situation? Are you gonna be watching a movie? What movie are you gonna watch? You know, like are you actually going to bed or are you gonna stay up and then there's free reign on devices for 12 hours overnight? Like, and that's an important thing that you just can't let your kids run into without you knowing what you're letting them into.

Luis 25:14

And that's why that parent pat that we're talking about matters, right? Because if you've had that conversation on the front end, right, like it's just a normal moment, right? If you've talked about it over coffee, you talked about it at church, you you've been at a cookout, you've talked about it at a game, you you you've set that up at the beginning. You never have to ask in the awkward moment because it's it's already been said. And that parent pat converts this interrogation into a shared understanding. And here's the byproduct that nobody expects, right? Your kid ends up getting a bigger world because now there are five houses they go to and you're not nervous or white knuckling the whole time.

Nate 25:56

Yeah. And so that's a that's a an alignment, right? That that doesn't cage your kids in, right? It actually helps them because you have, you know, essentially created a longer leash, right? Where where you know and you know it's safe, and you don't have to worry and stress the whole time. And so you know this is a safe place for my kid, and I can trust those parents because I know them. We've talked about it, all of those things.

One Boundary To Say Out Loud

Luis 26:20

And so here's what I would challenge parents to do, right? Pick pick one boundary that you've never said out loud to another family. Maybe it's the phone aids, an app, a device, you know, bedtime, whatever, right? And then talk to two parents of your child's closest friends this week, right? And I don't mean like in a group text, but but maybe it's an individual text, maybe it's just when you the next time you see them, it might sound something like, hey, we're trying to figure out our game plan on on phones, or we're trying to figure out our game plan. You know, we heard on this really cool podcast that Facebook is kind of coming back. And so like and you should listen to that equipped for impact. Check it out. Absolutely. So, like, what are you guys doing about Facebook? What are y'all thinking? You know, we would love to stay on the same page. Yeah, and so there's nothing else there, right?

Nate 27:07

It's not a pitch, it's just an ask and a listen. And so that's your that's your homework. We're not it back in school yet, but that's your homework, right? You know, start that conversation with another family, ask questions, and then listen. And then that will start getting you guys aligned. So, Lewis, as we kind of close this out today, what's some last words of encouragement you would give to the parent listening who wants to kind of get this parent pact going?

Luis 27:33

Yeah, parents, I know that a lot of you are exhausted. You're exhausted because you've been carrying a standard by yourself that God never intended anybody to carry alone. You're the only one saying no. You're the only one asking about the sleepover, you're the only one who reads the movie reviews or the app reviews, and and somewhere along the way you started to wonder if you're the problem. Here's the good news: you're not the problem. You're just alone. And and alone was never the plan, right? God has never discipled anybody in isolation. And so he gave you families, he gave us covenant people, he gave us a church, um, he gave us people who can help us in this process. And so find those people, connect with those people, find a way to have these conversations with

Share It And Keep Leading

Luis 28:20

other parents.

Nate 28:21

That's great. So thank you all for joining us today on Equipped for Impact. And if this episode helped you, share it in your parent group chat, right? Uh, because honestly, this really is a great way to get the conversation going. Um, whether it's, hey, listen to these guys, they love breakfast for dinner, and we do too. So we should all do it every Thursday night or whatever. Um, it will get the conversation going. So share this episode um because we just want to help as many parents as we can. Uh, and until next time, keep leading the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ.