Hey.

So I mentioned on Instagram this would be one of those “save to file” type emails, and I mean that genuinely.

I would estimate that not all of you will have an extremely difficult 5 or 8 year old son, but that very likely a third of you (who do have that aged/type of child) will face something very similar.

How can I qualify that? I can’t. But after interviewing enough parents during this seasonal saga, I can say it with high degrees of confidence… they’re a different breed.

And here’s the deal: when one of our mentors asked me (Ben) today what do I surmise was the cause I answered - without skipping a beat - “it was 50% biological and 50% spiritual.”

Now on the surface that’s not a very original take. I mean most people, even non-believers included, would agree that all humans are fundamentally “triune” meaning they are: mind, body and soul. So maybe my splits were wrong!

But when you account for the fact that scripture refers to the heart-mind-soul quite often very interchangeably, it permits us to stop splitting hairs.

Here’s where I’m going with this: when I started explaining to our generational mentor some of the “solutions” or interventions that worked he replied, “Benjamin you really have to catalogue this for other people… I’m serious.” (And this coming from a man in his 70’s who’s done family ministry and deliverance prayer for 50 years).

Here is a semi-exhaustive list of remedies and interventions that might just be a saving grace for you someday…

1. He got on a naturopathic supplement regime… lemme save you the $300 cash visit: it was fish oil, vitamin D, amino acids and melatonin droppers… basically! That’s mostly all at night; but there’s this nice little supplement called FOCO for daytime use that is frankly quite new to us, but might be good for your sweet young ADHD’ers too.
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2. And those aren’t the only chemicals that matter… diet was HUGE for our little dude. In fact per our conversation last week on “turning the corner” - the single greatest indicator for whether he’s gonna have a super rough day or not is how much sugar he’s consumed-to include fruit sugar. It’s a bona fide fact: he is a radically different person when he crosses that line.
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3. Straight up WILD developmental milestones… if you asked “google ai” what is going on with an 8-year old boy developmentally it will spew out something like this:
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   ​“At 8 years old, boys are in middle childhood, showing big leaps in cognitive skills(logic, problem-solving, cause-effect), social-emotional growth (importance of friends, desire for independence, quick mood shifts, developing conscience), and physical abilities (refined motor skills for sports/hobbies), all while experiencing a surge in testosterone , making them curious, rule-focused, sometimes dramatic, and increasingly capable but needing guidance with fairness and emotional regulation.“ ​
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   And let me tell you the works cited is filled with generic garbage. The only thing that kinda rang true was ‘increased use of abstract thinking,’ which is true: our little guy will kick, scream and shout to better understand some stuff-sometimes he looks like he’s gonna pull his hair out at the slightest chance that he’s misunderstood or we’re misunderstood… and it‘s our job to slow down long enough, lock eyes and lean in.
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4. You MUST be aware of the difference between a “full frontal spiritual attack“ and a “growing up opportunity”… I’m a pastor so trust me when I say I’m sensitive about over-spiritualizing stuff. When this thing first broke out with our son, I had a sense very early on that a significant portion of this was developmental-and that’s a pretty stunning conviction, btw, when what you’re seeing & hearing really and truly looks like what you see on television regarding an exorcism.
   AND YET, the very first parent I told about it (whose kids are now grown and gone) said without dramatic affect: ‘oh yeah when our sweet son turned 8 he was breaking stuff and screaming and had to be restrained’ I couldn’t believe it. But it was also very consoling too. ​
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5. Run them like the dogs that they are… As we close the door on biological development here’s my clarion call to every single stinking parent of stinking boys: you run them into the ground… I mean as hard and as long as they can take it… and then run ‘em again. I am NOT kidding. This is about understanding the type of “model” you got. And if your “model” is boy, then you had better cut them loose in the wilds-ESPECIALLY if they’re sitting down half the day for school, etc. We have got to stop over-diagnosing and victimizing our boys and instead release the inner warrior poet within them!​
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6. Call the intercessors… in light of what scripture teaches about curses and generational sin (Exodus 20:5; Galatians 3:13) we wanted to make sure to cover our little man from any issues related to his biological ancestors. But we also have somewhat new deeply-formed convictions around prayer ministry and spiritual warfare. We believe the intercessors are the “tip of the spear” of the church and they exist to cover not only the church but the pastor’s family. However, anyone-whether a church worker or not-may call on the church’s intercessors for protection, healing and grace. Does your church have intercessors? Maybe you’ll be called to launch that ministry!​
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7. Hold the line with consequences... even though we mutually agreed to take some consequences off the table for our son (that worked for other children, btw) that had proven counterproductive, we still believed with all of our hearts that removing discipline would be tantamount to removing love (Hebrews 12:6). We just had to get creative. Our son still earns extra jobs and still loses privileges every time he violates the laws of our home or dishonors mother/father/brother/sister. In fact, we’ve never become so clear and convicted about how necessary holding those lines are for him in order to realize an important principle: in this world you reap what you sow AND you have the power to chose. For example, we’ll say something like this, “it’s your choice to defer morning school and morning jobs, but you will do twice as much in the afternoon… that’s YOUR choice. We didn’t chose that for you. You did.”
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8. Slow down enough to hear the still small voice of God yourself… Pete Scazzero has this wonderful title chapter, “slowing down for loving union.” That says a lot about what things like Sabbath, stillness, silence and solitude may offer (union), but it also hinges on the assumption that you’ve slowed down. Which, let’s admit, we are all generally horrible at. If I (Ben) hadn’t heard the voice of God about this issue being equal parts developmental as it was spiritual, I could have over-reacted or over-corrected in really exhausting and unproductive ways. Take time to pause- ESPECIALLY when you’re in the fight.
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9. Teach… and teach and teach some more… my preaching has never been so sharp. If you can reduce spiritual principles for small children to understand (and internalize) then you can teach it to anybody! We had to teach and train identity from the ground up. If we said you lied, he’d hear ‘I’m a lier.’ So our vocabulary changed, our delivery changed. We started saying things like, “well because we know you’re a TRUTH TELLER, you’ll do the right thing” my goodness the power of reinforcing these identity markers, labels and titles has been astounding. It requires a little extra work but once you find the triggers, it becomes easy to form new habits around the language.
   We’ve worked our tails off to try and teach him how to do “daily” (if not hourly) deliverance prayer over himself. It’s a much longer conversation (and newsletter for another day), but we believe every single believer must A, understand the authority they have in Christ (Luke 10:19); B, appreciate the power and hierarchy of the spiritual realm (1 Cor 6:3; Hebrews 2:7); C, embrace the practical mental and emotional tools of hourly “renouncing (lies) and welcoming (truth)” (James 1:21). He’s getting it but slowly and with much reservation. The other day when he “cursed” himself by threatening his own life (verbally), I (Ben) stayed in the room, completely locked in, until he verbally renounced that lie. It’s gnarly and hard fought, but bit by bit we are taking ground.
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10. Touch… as an adopted child, our son had significant family of origin brokenness, generational sin, mental illness and likely curses, hexes and spells too! And this year - year 8 - was when it all turned to foment. Every word would be twisted.
    Every memory distorted. It forced us to be slow to speak, quick to listen. We were renouncing lies left right and center. Hear me: I am already a “physical touch” love-language-person, but there can be something that happens with boys-and angry little adversarial boys too-where the enemy tries to use that constant rupturing and offense and disrespect to cause a permanent wedge. And pretty soon you’re not touching and holding and nurturing like a DAD ought (yes dads must nurture too).
    That all radically changed for us. There was twice as much hugging and kissing and head-rubbing and sometimes during the car-ride or in a tough moment in the living room or when I’m putting him to bed at night I’ll just reach out and touch his hand, sometimes when he’s really pooped he’ll lazily kick out his foot, and yeah I’ll rub that too… he’s come to count on it cause secretly I think he needs it… he’s craves it. There’s moments when I want to explode or react (and of course I sometimes do), but instead I’ll hug him first THEN talk discipline, correction, consequence. There’s moments in the car where he barreling toward the deep end and I’ll just extend my hand and say, ‘cmon man, grab it… just touch it…’ and you wouldn’t believe the instant course correction.

We hope that this semi-exhaustive list has been helpful, we hope you’ll save-to-file this newsletter, refer back as often as needed and we hope you’ll refer a friend who needs these resources-maybe more urgently than you know!

We want to end by saying: unequivocally: we believe our son is destined for greatness. 100%. We are standing in faith for him and we know that he has a GREAT call and commission on his life… that’s what makes all this hard work, taking all these pains all the more worth it 🙏

Bless you,

Until next time…

-Rylee and Benjamin