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How do you raise kids who feel grounded in their God-given identity in a world full of confusing cultural messages about gender?
Dr. Kathy Koch and Dr. Jeff Myers join Juli to unpack how to guide young people with truth, curiosity, and presence. They talk about how to lay the foundations of identity, respond to cultural pressures, and raise confident boys and girls.
Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, or mentor, this conversation offers practical tools and biblical insight for today’s toughest questions.
Juli (00:02.434)
Hey friends, welcome to Java with Juli. I am Juli Slattery and this podcast is an outreach of Authentic Intimacy, a ministry dedicated to helping you make sense of God and sexuality. Well, I remember the very first time I ever spoke publicly to a crowd about sex. This was a long time ago and I was at a woman’s conference and somebody asked me if I would talk about sex and marriage. And let me just tell you, I was so nervous.
There were hives just crawling up my neck. I couldn’t wait to be done. So I’m speaking in this room with about 400 women and they’re just kind of glaring at me as I’m trying to address sexuality within marriage. And I remember in that moment just praying to God like, God, I must have heard you wrong. This was a terrible idea to talk about sex. If you get me through this next hour, I promise I will never do this again.
Well, I did get through that hour and although the audience was really quiet when I was talking, what happened next really surprised me. After I was done speaking, a line formed of women who had follow-up questions, who wanted to share their story with me, who were wrestling with things like pornography and same-sex attraction and trauma and betrayal. And as I was talking and praying with those women, I remember saying another prayer to God. And I said, God, I did hear you right. You wanted me to talk about sex. And it just broke my heart that the church historically has been so quiet about this topic and just how much pain just filled that one room. Boy, that was many, many years ago, a long time before I even started the ministry, Authentic Intimacy. But God has continued to call me into this space and I’m constantly just touched by how much pain there is around this topic of sexuality. While the landscape of our culture has changed, really a lot of our questions about sexuality have not. People are asking questions like, why should I stay in an unfulfilling marriage? Why does God care who I sleep with? How do I show love to my gay or trans child while still holding fast to God’s truth?
Juli (02:20.43)
And friend, I’m more passionate than ever about helping people navigate these kinds of complex questions. That’s what we do here on Java with Juli. Why? Because when we are confused about sexuality, we also become very confused about God’s heart for us. As we close out this year, would you consider giving to support this work? Every gift is being matched dollar for dollar up to $70,000 and that means your impact is double.
Your generosity helps more people discover that God is not afraid of their questions and that his heart towards them is good. You can give securely at authenticintimacy.com/give. Thank you so much for being part of this work.
Juli
And speaking of questions, one question we get more and more often here at Authentic Intimacy is how do I protect my kids from the confusing messages they hear about gender in school or on social media? How do I shape their understanding of gender before someone else does? Today we have two experts who are going to address this question for us, and I’m really excited for you to hear what they have to say. Dr. Kathy Cook has a PhD in reading and educational psychology from Purdue University. She founded the ministry Celebrate Kids, and she also has a podcast by that same name. You may be familiar with Dr. Kathy because this is her third time on Java with Juli.
But joining her is Dr. Jeff Myers, who is the president of Summit Ministry. That’s a ministry that offers 12 day student conferences that equip the rising generation with a biblical worldview and the confidence they need to boldly follow Jesus. Now, Dr. Kathy and Dr. Myers have written a new book together called Raising Gender Confident Kids. And in our conversation today, we’re combining their expertise to give you both theology, and practical parenting advice. You’re gonna hear how to guide your children through insecurity or identity confusion with curiosity, truth, and most importantly, your presence, rather than giving way to fear. You’re gonna share why it’s important to teach your kids to feel comfortable with feeling uncomfortable through those difficult years of puberty. All right, well with that intro, let’s head to the coffee shop for my conversation with Dr. Kathy Cook and Dr. Jeff Myers.
Juli (04:45.646)
Well, Kathy, thanks so much for joining again on Java with Juli. This is not your first time on the podcast, but your friend Jeff Myers, this is his first time. So thank you for writing this book with him that we’re going to be talking about. And Jeff, thanks for being on the show.
Jeff
Oh, Juli, great to be with you.
Juli
Yeah, so since people…
Jeff
Yeah, we’re both excited.
Juli
Yeah, and Jeff since people don’t know, many don’t know about you and your ministry and about Summit Ministries, I’d love to start there just talking a little bit about what you do at Summit and how that might be instructive to the conversation that we’re going to have today.
Jeff
Well, our ministry is focused on equipping and supporting the rising generation to embrace God’s truth and to champion a Biblical worldview. We do for young adults 16-22 years of age what Francis Schaeffer did back in the day with Lebrie. Except there are a bunch more kids, as Dr. Kathy knows from all of her time teaching at Summit Ministries, but we have learned over time that if you do not address the toughest issues of the culture from a Biblical worldview, then students assume that a Biblical worldview has nothing to say about those issues.
So it’s really important for us to tackle whatever the tough thing is. We take on the toughest issues, But this may be of the toughest, because it’s one that young adults arr struggling with, and their parents have no idea how to handle it.
Juli (06:13.902)
And so in the book that you and Kathy have written, you’re sort of reverse engineering. Like if you want a parent starting at the youngest ages, raising kids that have the right worldview of gender, you don’t necessarily want to wait until they get to that 16 to 24 age range.
Jeff
You certainly don’t. Now, there are going to be questions young adults will be asking. Oh, children in elementary school are asking questions.
We were in the grocery store, and there was that man with the beard wearing a dress. Why was he doing that? And then you have middle school children asking, well, I feel very uncomfortable in my body, and my teacher says that if you feel uncomfortable in your body, then maybe you were born in the wrong body.
So how do you handle that? And this isn’t just happening in public schools, this is happening all over in every aspect of the culture. And as Dr. Kathy knows, when a young person has questions, they’re not likely to talk to their parents, they’re likely to go to the internet.
Jeff
And sometimes they use Google, sometimes they use the search engines that they’re most familiar with, which is strange to think of Instagram and TikTok as search engines, but that’s how young adults treat them. And if they were to do that, they will find immediately that the entirety of the internet is dedicated to the idea that you could possibly be born in the wrong body and that gender falls along a spectrum and that the idea that God made people male and female, well, that appears nowhere. The earliest you’ll find it on Google is page 5, 6, 7, 8 in the search results.
So you can easily get the impression that your parents are wrong on this question and that your confusion means that you need to take some kind of a corrective action, even a medical action, to find peace and healing.
Juli (08:03.022)
So Kathy, how did you end up writing this book together with Jeff? How did this come about?
Kathy
It’s kind of a fun story. We both have been aware, Juli, for the longest time that this is a dangerous issue. It’s been killing people, not just children, and tearing families apart, and it’s wrong.
It’s biblically wrong, and that kind of thing frustrates, maybe even angers, both Jeff and some ministries and me and Celebrate Kids, because we believe in scripture, and we believe that God is right and has been and will forever be right. So I wanted to write the book. Didn’t really want to write the book, but probably thought, you know, this book needs to be written and I’ve got some expertise.
Kathy
Come to find out Jeff was thinking the same thing. He found out that I was thinking it and he gave me a call and said, hey, we shouldn’t compete. That would be silly. Do you want to cooperate?
And what an honor to be chosen by Jeff. He knows so many people who could have stepped into the space. And it was a fun collaboration, Juli, because he’s the theologian, biblical worldview, know, solid researcher. And I love being a part of some of my ministries. And I would say I’m more of the parent advocate in the practical piece, you know, talking to children with a little bit of a different ear, I think, than Jeff has. And when you combined us, come on, like it’s been so powerful to watch people react to both the biblical worldview theology component of the book, which, you know, I obviously support, and then coming alongside and how do you raise boys to be godly men and girls to be godly women?
Kathy
Like our book is not just a book about sexual identity, right, Jeff? It’s not, it is. But we wrote a book very unique that I don’t think anybody else can write. I say that without pride. It’s a statement of fact that the combination of our wisdom has created a book that is way more than just sexual sin. It really is about respecting gender, that you can start sending that message to children when they’re very, very young. So I love that we’ve been friends for years and collaborators for years and that the Lord allowed us to come together on this particular project.
[…]
Juli (18:11.884)
One of the things I love about the combination of you two is, Jeff, your call, your home ministry is directly going to worldview and really engaging the culture. And Kathy, I feel like your ministry is really going more towards individuals and families, and it’s less about the big culture dialogue and more about navigating one family at a time. And sometimes on this type of conversation about gender, there can be sort of a tension of how do we have the conversation differently as a cultural conversation versus how do we have the conversation pastorally for the individual or family who’s actually struggling with questions around gender. And I wonder if you two have dialogued about that at all.
Jeff
I think we have, Kathy. I mean, when we were writing, we kind of divided up the chapters that we would each take the lead on, and then we edited each other’s work, which was so much fun. Kathy is just a delight to work with.
And there were a few places where we didn’t agree on how we should proceed with something. And we just talked about it, talked about it, talked about it. And then what ended up happening was elevated beyond the expectation that either of us would have had. That tells me that there’s a connection between the cultural battles and how we handle things personally. Because there’s dialogue and it’s talking.
So more than 200 places in the book, we have given specific, here’s how to say this kind of messaging to parents. Here’s how to talk about gender. Here’s how to talk about transgender. Here’s how to respond when your friend says you have to use this name and these pronouns now.
Things like that because if we can’t deal with the toughest questions in the culture, I think our kids trust us less with personal advice.
Juli (20:14.968)
Mm-hmm.
Kathy
Yeah, for sure. And I think, Juli, one of the things that we wanted really our readers to understand is that, you know, we might feel like we can’t change the culture. Like, there is a lot that’s big and difficult that we might feel we can’t speak into, but we can change individuals. We can live differently for Christ, and we can change the children who we love and our grandchildren and our students and our, you know, the students in our church ministry, and we can influence even adults who we work with and live with and love, and when you change individuals, you change culture. You know, one of my books is about biblical character, and the subtitle is that character changes culture. Individuals don’t change, but the character that we hold toward Christ, if you will, is what can change culture. know, Jeff and I approach it as, it’s messy out there, it’s chaotic, people are messy, the liar is loud, culture’s, you know, a mess because it’s not biblical.
But we who live for Christ, who understand a biblical worldview and choose to make decisions that way can show others that, you’re different. Ultimately, Julian, you know this as a mom. We’re only responsible for ourselves, really. And then the close influence that we’re able to have, and then we watch and we affirm and we model for them the truth and we delight in your gender, et cetera. And then those people go out to their workplace and to their small groups and to their coffee shops and they live differently. And you get this ripple effect. And it’s either a bad ripple or it’s a good ripple. And we want to be the good ripple effect people.
Juli
Yeah, that’s sort of the contrast that I would say. And Jeff, you can help me understand this, but I would guess that some of its ministry, even what we saw Charlie doing, was less of an individual to individual and a more equipping you to have a voice in the cultural debate about these things. And it’s sort of both and, but I guess that’s where the tension is, I think, for a lot of people on this conversation is you know, how do I handle my kids, my neighbors, the people in my family differently around conversations with gender than I would if it’s a public debate about the truth?
Jeff
Well, most people aren’t going to ever be involved in a public debate. Almost nobody is going to sit on campus and say, prove me wrong, and then have people come up and question them. But you know, it’s interesting how, I don’t know if you’ve watched very many videos of Charlie Kirk, how he debates, you notice that he always responds to a question with a question.
This is something that, you know, he and I talked about early on, lots of people, Dr. Frank Turek, who was with Charlie when he was killed, he’s one of our instructors at Summit Ministries, have taught him that this is what Jesus did. He asked questions. And so oftentimes, we have the opportunity to shape how people see an issue culturally by how we handle it personally.
Are we rude and arrogant or are we curious? Do we demonstrate a concern for them personally? And when it comes to the issue of transgender, and Kathy mentioned this, and I just need to emphasize it, these are young adults who are deeply troubled.
You know, I’ve worked with transgender students now for years, so has Kathy. We’ve never met one who didn’t have significant mental health comorbidities, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation. They blame the gender issue.
They blame culture for the patriarchy or whatever as a way of deflecting from what really needs to be dealt with, which often, often, not always, often is a childhood trauma that is unresolved. So I think it’s really important to see how these things come together. So that’s why we wrote Raising Gender Confident Kids, which I should mention before we get too far in the show, we’re giving to everybody who watches this show as our gift.
Juli
Wow
Jeff
We had a donor who said, I want the, I’m going to buy the first X number of copies. And so I can give the website on that. But we definitely want everybody who’s watching or listening to get a copy and then share a copy with their pastor, because pastors are afraid to talk about issues like this.
They feel like they won’t be hospitable if they say anything about God’s design that counteracts what the culture says.
Juli (24:31.754)
Mm-hmm. Well, thank you for your generosity, both of you, and the donor that is providing for that. We could spend time going through, here’s what you say to a two-year-old, and here’s what you say to a five-year-old. I know there’s good information like that in the book that you wrote.
But I would love to fast forward and talk about the conversations we need to have with, let’s say, a 12-year-old or a 13-year-old that’s really starting to grapple with the changes in puberty not only in themselves, but also in their classmates. That’s when a lot of these identity questions really become front and center. So not just transgender, but how do we help a 12, 13 year old boy or girl receive and settle into the changes that are happening and all the questions that that raises about who they are?
Kathy
Well, I can start and say, first we have to be available, Juli. We have to put our phones down, be in the room with them, let them know that we want to be influential. Because if we’re not, they’re going to go to Google, as Jeff mentioned earlier, they’re going to go to watch some TikTok videos and they won’t get truth there. And that’s really dangerous. So from the time that they’re very young, let’s be in the room, let’s go for walks, let’s talk in the dark, and let’s let them know that we’re present. And it’s okay, as Jeff and I write in the book, it’s okay if you don’t know answers to these questions. Like some parents are probably, grandparents are avoiding children right now thinking, I don’t want them to ask me those questions. No, you do want them to ask you. And as we say in the book, it’s okay for you to be ignorant. Like today’s children are researching in advance of the question. And so they do have answers they think that are true, they rarely do, but they can use that to manipulate moms and dads, oh you don’t know anything, dad.
And this is when we go, you know what, I haven’t thought much about this. Give me some time and let’s research it together. And then you teach discernment of why you would look at this site for truth and not that site, et cetera. So be available, talk the truth, admit if you don’t know it yet, do your own work. That’s why we wrote the book, to be really influential in a preventative way. And then it’s so important as we write in the book that when our kids come to us and say, you I think I’m born in the wrong body, we say things like, well, tell me more. Because that doesn’t necessarily mean they have gender dysphoria.
Kathy (26:48.856)
Gender dysphoria is a clinically distressed state. It’s very rare, very rare. Gender confusion might be more common. But you know, I think I’m born in the wrong body. They might have been teased on the playground. They might have simply overheard a conversation. You don’t know for sure that they think they were born in the wrong body. They just have questions about why people are talking about their gender. So you say, well, tell me more. Keep talking. Well, what do you want? I want to understand you.
Because the more information a kid gives you before you start talking, the greater the likelihood that what you say is going to be relevant. So tell me more. I love questions like, you what do you mean by that? Because you don’t for sure know what they mean by that. I love, we love the question, you know, how did you arrive at your conclusion? Well, I’m lonely and it looks to me like the kids who come out as bi or trans get a lot of attention and nobody knows me there and I just feel like I need to be known. And so I, this is the way I’m going to be known. So if you know a little bit more, now you have something that you can say.
Kathy
We love the question, you know, how do know that that’s true? And Jeff, I love your question that you came up with of what happens if you’re wrong? Like, let’s put that out there. So again, just as Jeff was saying that a good way to have conversations is to start with questions. We can do that. We don’t have to be afraid. We can look it up and we can let our kids know, man, I’m so grateful you came to me. Thank you for trusting me. First words out of your mouth. Thank you for coming to me. Thank you for trusting me. Let’s figure this out together.
Juli
Yeah, I’d love to even back up further, Kathy. Let’s say that this isn’t a kid who’s asking about transgender or I’m not sure if I’m in the right body, but it’s sort of the normal angst that kids go through in middle school and puberty. I don’t feel comfortable in my body. I’m changing. We might have a girl who says, I don’t like developing breasts. I don’t like having a period. Like I feel awkward. I don’t know where I belong. Same with guys who maybe you’ve got a 12 year old who hasn’t hit a growth spurt and feels like the smallest person in the class and you know, all those sort of, because I think, and please correct me if I’m wrong, I think a lot of that insecurity is what leads people to start to say, I can maybe solve this problem and find myself by some of these categories the world is presenting to me.
Kathy
Let me say, and then I’ll turn it over to Jeff. Yeah, thank you. I apologize. I should have heard that question better and started there. One of the most important things I think we write about is that children have to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. There’s not a single person watching or listening who has not gone through, might even be going through right now that season of this is too small and this is too big and acne and braces and hair that’s uncontrollable. So we’ve got to teach kids that being uncomfortable is part of life and we don’t correct it with a surgical procedure, you learn to walk through that and live through that. But Jeff, I’ll let you elaborate on that, because I know you have strong feelings as well.
Jeff
I do. One of the people I talked to in the process of this was saying, when I was growing up, I didn’t like my hair, it was unruly, I had braces, I had glasses, and I kept just looking at the cute cheerleader girl and wishing I could be like her. And a wise older female mentor told this young woman, someday you’re going to figure out what to do with your hair, you’re going to lose the braces, and you’re going to get contacts.
But what you’ve developed in this time of life right now is character, and that’s what’s going to last. I think it’s really essential, and I hope I’m getting to the heart of your question here, for parents to affirm all the way along with their children, and gender is not something you have to become. It’s something that God designed you with.
Jeff
He designed you as male or female. So there’s something beautiful that’s going to begin happening when you’re in middle school, and that is you’re going to be moving from being a girl to being a woman, or from a boy to being a man. What kind of character do you need to live with to make that transition well?
Juli (30:52.014)
And how do you flush that out for them? Just the character question and all of it.
Jeff
You know, and well, in the book, we take an approach where we talk, we actually kind of use Dr. Kathy’s framework of looking at security, identity, belonging, purpose, competence, these five different levels of identity. And with boys, I tend to focus on those things. For example, with security, boys are asking, who can I trust?
And we want them to know God’s designing you to be a man of wisdom. Other people, you want to deliver the kind of character so that other boys will look to you when they’re trying to figure out what is the right thing to do in any given situation. And so I would start with the book of Proverbs and say, how do you become that kind of a man? How do you learn to stand when other people aren’t? What do you say when your teacher says something that you know is wrong? How do you handle it? So with young men, I work on those kinds of things. And once they see, oh, yeah, I’m called to be a wiser person than the people who are around me. And I know that I love to explore the world.
Jeff
And I know that I’m designed to be a warrior. And all of a sudden, all of those pieces start to come together for them. It doesn’t ever happen in a vacuum. It’s not like you can just do it in the class, okay? We’re going to have 45 minutes. I’m going to teach you the five different aspects of masculinity. And then you’re going to be all set. And that young men need to be in community with older men who are demonstrating that it’s actually possible to live that out. Hopefully, that would be a dad.
If it’s not a dad, it could be a granddad. You know, we both, Dr. Kathy and I have worked with Trail Life, the Trail Life organization. You know, they have kind of like a scouting program, but based on biblical character, you know, that kind of a thing.
Jeff
All of that is going to really help when young adults get to the place, especially young men, and get to the place where they’re asking, am I really going to be a man or not? You know, what does the culture say? Well, if you have sex, then you’re a man. That’s what I was told growing up. If, or if you can go out and get beer and get drunk, then you’re a man. Or if you can drive a car, it’s a little more of a positive one.
But what are, those are all very negative rites of passage. I don’t think they have to be negative. I think we can say, God, I’m turning you into a man from being a boy. This is part of his design. This is what you were made for. So what does a good man look like?
Juli (33:18.55)
Hmm.
Kathy
You know, one of the things that I think super important in this discussion is that we put aside the stereotypes. You I was tall as a child. I was the tallest kid all the way through grade nine. When I was about six, I told my parents I didn’t want to be tall anymore, and I’m so grateful they didn’t look for a saw and try to cut six inches off between the knee and the ankle. Like, that would not have worked. Like, there wasn’t a medical solution. No, the idea is that you change your attitudes toward the things that can’t be changed, and so they…
They were role models of height is a beautiful thing and they enrolled me in tap dance class and I became comfortable with my height. I was the center of the back row. You know, I have a low voice and low voices are fine for women. In fact, low voices carry further in a room than high voices and I’m a public speaker by profession. So it’s a perfect voice for me, but I know my creator is good. I know that he has knit me together intentionally on purpose and my low voice helps me fulfill ministry.
Kathy
So, you know, David writes in Psalm 139 verse 14, my soul knows it very well that I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. And I love knowing that about myself. So when I get hate mail or people call me sir, I just smile like God knew what he was doing when he chosen his love to make me me. And I can say that because I know that my good creator is good. And let’s teach that to our children from the time they’re very young. So I think one of the best parts about the book is getting rid of the stereotypes.
You can be a boy in like pink and a girl in not like pink, you can be tall as a girl and short as a man. I remember real quick, I was at an event, 175 preteen and teen girls and guys national conference, speaking about gender, I had earned the right to say at some particular point, 45 minutes in, I said, hey girls, how many of you would think that you’re tomboy’s? So I would say about 75 % of the girls raised their hands that they would identify as being tomboy’s. And then I boldly looked out and I said, hey, you know what, tomboy’s are girls. And they clapped.
Kathy (35:03.726)
And then the boys clapped for them and we were able to just put to rest this ridiculous idea that if you’re a girl and you like to climb a tree or play ball or sweat that there’s something wrong with you. And it was so much fun that they instantly saw that it was maybe a different way of being a girl and there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.
Juli
Yeah. Boy, I love that. And I do feel in our culture that our understanding of what it is to be a woman and different types of women has expanded. And I think even the research shows that women by and large and girls by and large are more confident than boys are today. But I’ve seen the opposite true. I don’t think anybody knows in the younger generation what it is to be a healthy guy. Like it’s just… And I hear this from my kids and I hear this from kids I talk to all the time that for a guy you either are passive and there feels like there’s something wrong with that or if you’re not passive and you try to enter into a space you get a lot of hate. So I think that’s harder in our society to actually define beyond our biology and our biology is important. Like we’ve already established that on this podcast and other conversations. What does it mean to be male? And what does it look like beyond stereotypes to walk in the masculinity that God has created?
Jeff
When I talk with young men, I do acknowledge right up front that the culture does seem to believe that boys are bad. And this goes to a hidden motivation behind those who have inspired the transgender conversation. Not necessarily young adults who are struggling with it, but those who are behind pushing it. They believe that America has been overtaken by the patriarchy, that it’s male-dominated, and that the only good society is one that tears down the patriarchy. The way to tear down the patriarchy is to eliminate any understanding of the difference between what it means to be a boy or what it means to be a girl. So we focus on how, as a young man, do you serve?
I would recommend parents say to their son, look, when you’re going throughout the day, I want you to be asking the question, what is going on around me and how can I help? Just be that kind of a person in any given situation. You do not have to be a football player to have that conversation, to help.
Jeff
You do not have to be a violinist to have that kind of conversation or to help. You can take responsibility and step in. I think also it’s important for boys to understand that the explorer nature is essential to who they are. I can’t speak for women, but I just have the sense with the young women that I work with, that they sometimes find purpose by thinking and going into themselves. Whereas young men are much more likely to find purpose by going out. They have to go outside of themselves to discover who they are. They have to actually explore the world. Some of that just has to do with, when you’re under stress, what happens in your brain? We know from the research that women, when they experience stress, their bodies upload norepinephrine, which causes them to think more.
Boys’ bodies upload dopamine, which has causes them to act more. Obviously, you need both to effectively respond to stress, but it’s important for boys to understand, we’re not going to ask you to sit here and just listen, we’re going to move, we’re going to go, we’re going to explore together, because that’s how God is going to reveal to us who we designed us to be. Whether you’re a big boy or a little boy, whether you’re hyper masculine or whether you’re not, whether you’re more interested in basketball or ballet, is irrelevant to the larger conversation.
Juli (38:53.088)
And so if I were to summarize that, you’re saying the two qualities are first of all, being servant-hearted of how do I make a helpful difference in the world that I live in, and second of all, being geared towards more action and interacting with the world externally rather than just internally with ideas. Does that sum it up?
Jeff
I think so, yeah. The young women I work with are asking, who should I be in this, if any given situation? And the boys are always asking 100% of the time, what should I do in this situation?
So helping them know what to do, and that ties together servanthood as well as that sense of exploration. You can take some kind of an action. It doesn’t have to be the ultimate final huge action.
You’re not in a Lord of the Rings action sequence here. You’re just in everyday life. It’s those little decisions you make every day that put a mark on your soul and help you become the person God’s designed you to be.
Juli (39:52.268)
Yeah, and it seems to me that a lot of boys are kind of scratching that itch with technology through video games. Like they’re acting in a virtual world because it feels safer than acting in the real world.
Jeff
Yeah, and because they’re good at it. They’re darn good at it. I can’t believe what some of these boys can do with a video game controller.
But in their world, they have become a success. And that’s important for parents to understand that what they’re looking for ultimately is not to be the best person at Gran Turismo or whatever, but to be the best. They have a desire to know that what they personally are doing is making a contribution.
Kathy (40:35.662)
And I would add, Juli, if you don’t mind, that we believe that we’re human beings before we’re human doings. We’re human beings, and who we are is what causes us to do what we do. So when young people today don’t know who they are, they don’t know what to do. That’s why we talk in the book about the general idea of identity dysphoria. Not even gender dysphoria, just identity dysphoria. They’re all confused. Is it okay to be creative? Is it okay to be a spokesperson? Is it okay to be athletic?
Is it okay to like math? Like I was teased in school. Like, no, I’m a human being. I’m created in the image of God and I’m creative and talented and gifted and designed for His glory and I’m all these beings which causes my doing. And if you don’t like being a boy, then you don’t know how to serve as a boy, et cetera. So it’s huge. What Jeff was saying was so important.
Juli
Yeah, thanks for adding that. So I want to go practical now. Let’s say you do have a kid who’s say between the ages of 11, 15 or 16 in the soup of middle school, freshman and high school, and everything’s about identity. They’re feeling insecure about who they are, about gender, about all of it. What are some things that you would say to parents, make sure you do this? And also, please avoid doing this.
Like just very practical.
Jeff
Let’s both take a swing at that one, Kathy. I think in the book we talk about asking questions, but there’s a way to ask questions. We call it cueing conversation, C-U-E.
First of all, I’m curious, can you help me understand this? I’m curious about what you’re going through. Can you tell me more?
And then you is for understanding. I understand how confusing this must be because I remember being your age and feeling a desperate sense of confusion. And then finally, envision.
I envision you becoming the kind of person who lives as God designed you to live, not the way he designed other boys or other girls to live, but the way he made you personally. So C-U-E, being curious, expressing understanding and then envisioning, giving a vision for their lives. I think that’s gonna be, that’s what I have in my mind every time I talk to a young person and, you know, my kids are all in their twenties as well.
Juli (43:02.336)
Yeah.
Kathy
I love that. Juli, I think one of the most important things parents need to do is correct the lies that their children are believing. I think we teach the truth and we embrace truth and we live with a vibrant truth. We show them who they could become. They have no clue how good relationships as an example could be because they’re satisfied with texting and social media relationships, many of them. And I think that we listen for the lie. We watch for the lie, and because their behavior is off, so what are they believing? Beliefs cause behavior. So what are they believing that’s causing their behavior? What’s the lie? And I think we call it out. I think we teach truth and we listen for lies and we say, I believe you’re wrong. Would you be open to a conversation? What makes you think that that’s true? What happens if you’re wrong? Where did you learn that? Why do you believe that’s the better option?
Again, we can’t hold outsiders accountable to a standard they don’t know. But if we’re raising children and grandchildren with Christ, and they’re Christ followers and we’re teaching the truth of the scripture, we have a right to talk about that and to call out the disappointment and say, know, Jeremy, I’m disappointed in the choices that I’m seeing you make. Why have you chosen to believe that when we’ve raised you to believe this? Help me understand why you think that’s the better option. think, because here’s the thing, you guys, if children lie out loud, and I teach this to parents of little kids as well, if a child says something out loud that is not true, like I’m stupid, or I’ll never get it right, or I’ll never be wrong. They say something that’s not true. And I’m there and I heard it and I don’t say anything. They think they’re right and they think I agree. And I’m gonna have a harder time later combating the lie, because they didn’t hear me disagree with them a week ago. So it’s hard, but this is where we want parents to be brave and we want parents to parent long and strong and say, help me understand that, because we’re concerned that you would believe that that’s in your best interest.
Kathy (45:00.728)
Let’s practically teach the truth, listen for the lie, and combat it as best we can.
Juli
Yeah, I love that. I’ve really come to learn that I think the heart of the spiritual battle is the battle between truth and lies. And yes, it exists, again, in the cultural conversation, but we all believe lies, you know, and our spiritual development is when the Holy Spirit brings those lies up that we believe and we confront it with the truth of who Jesus is. So, I love that framework.
One last question I’d love to ask you, because you talk about this in the book. You talk about the importance of boys and girls being together and why that’s central. And I was blessed to be raised in a family of six kids. So we are just kind of all thrown together, boys and girls, and learned from each other and knew what it was to be a sister and a brother. In today’s context, a lot of kids are not growing up with that sort of normal exposure to boys and girls.
And there can even be a fear of, I want to keep my kids away from boys or from girls because it’ll be sexualized. Talk about the importance of boy-girl interaction and how we foster appropriate interaction.
Jeff
Yeah, Juli, a lot of people think, oh, the only difference between boys and girls is secondary sex characteristics. That’s what’s being taught in the culture. The truth is, there’s 6,500 cataloged biological differences between boys and girls.
Juli (46:33.89)
Wow, that’s a lot.
Jeff
6,500, and the number is growing because literally every cell of your body is different if you’re a boy or a girl. So why would God create differences? You know, our ministry is located in Manitou Springs, Colorado, which is a little new age hippie town. People there believe that everything that exists is one thing. It’s all spirit. There are no differences.
There’s no real difference between male and female, no difference between right or wrong, no difference between light or dark. Everything is one thing. But God created differences on purpose. You know, the Genesis account, He created the land and He created the sea. He created sea animals and He created animals in the air. He made light, He made dark.
Jeff
God made differences on purpose. Then in Genesis 2, He made male and female. And we hold, and this was one of the chapters that Kathy and I had to really discuss because we weren’t sure how to approach it.
We realized God made those differences between males and females so that they can harmonize. I gave one example earlier about how men and women handle stress. So males upload the kind of hormone that moves them toward action.
Females upload or upregulate the kind of hormone that focuses on thinking. Well, if you only think in a crisis and you don’t act, you can’t solve it. But if you only act and you don’t think, then you’re going to make the crisis worse.
Jeff
So God literally designed males and females to need each other to respond to stress. We also give an example in the book about division. It turns out there are two kinds of retinal cells that human beings have, rods and cones.
Rods are the kinds of cells that focus on contrast in motion. And boys have a preponderance of those kinds of cells, not just a few more, like 30% more than females. Females have a preponderance of cones, which focus on color and texture, like 30% more.
Jeff
If you’re going to see the world accurately, you got to see contrast, motion, color and texture. You literally, males and females, literally need each other to accurately see the world. And I believe God designed this in the same way that you would have two pitches of a roof.
You know, either pitch is going to be so heavy it would collapse. But when they’re leaning against each other, it actually creates strength.
Juli (48:41.762)
Kathy, would you add anything to that?
Kathy
I’m fascinated by it ever since Jeff taught me all that. It makes total sense. What I’ve been out and about speaking. It is. And I talk about how God was wise to give us two and only two genders and it has much more to do than creating children. Everyone laughs, but it’s so important to understand that, that we all have a place to be and we need to be in that place and be confident in that space. And I think that’s again, we’re back to gender confidence.
Juli
So how would you as a parent foster that? Like let’s say you’ve got three girls or let’s say you’ve got an only child. How do you foster that kind of healthy interaction between boys and girls, again without being fearful?
Kathy
First thing I think of is we better be careful what we say and what they hear us say. If they hear us complain about our female boss or our male boss or, you know, there’s a thousand examples, we just gotta be careful. They’re listening to us and there’s a lot of thoughts we have that we don’t need to say out loud and we surely don’t need to say them out loud in front of children. They are listening, they are becoming who we tell them they are and it’s either gonna be good and glorious or not. And then the other thing that I thought of quickly as you were talking, Juli, was to serve, get out of the house and serve, and serve with a variety of people in a variety of situations. That’s how we discover talent, joy, the benefit of hard work, if you will. We find out there are other people living in other circumstances. And of course, there will be men and women and perhaps children there for doing something like a homeless shelter for families or a women’s home and they’re allowed to keep their babies. Let’s get out of the house. Let’s get our kids in front of other people and show them how beautiful and diverse people are.
Juli (50:19.918)
Boy, that’s great. Well, I have been fascinated by this conversation and the work that you two put together, and I’m just thankful. I’m thankful for the combination of your expertise and your care and sensitivity. And you really are the two parts of the roof right here in this conversation. So thank you for being willing to share with us today.
Jeff
We’re happy to do it. And we did promise everybody about halfway through the show that we’d tell them how they can get a copy of the book that we wanted to just give as a gift. And all you have to do is go to genderconfidentkids.com. You’ll be able to see the book there. And you can sign up to get your copy, whether you like it as a paperback or whether you like it as a Kindle or audiobook, it’s your choice. But we want to get this book into the hands of people who will use it to help their kids become confident.
Jeff
Can I just share one last story? This just happened last week. Stephanie and I were, we had saved up for a long time, two and a half weeks, to go to Europe. We wanted to go to Austria. So we arrive in Vienna, it’s late at night, got off the airplane, got onto the train to go into the city center. As we’re walking up the escalator, it’s probably midnight. I mean, it’s, and our bodies are all messed up. Stephanie had a copy of this book in her backpack, just kind of stuck in there. She’s reading it on the plane.
And it was the back of it, back of the book. And the person behind it said, that book looks really interesting. Can I see what that is?
Jeff
And so it led to a conversation with a guy and a girl who had just been married. He is Albanian. She is from Iran.
People you would, you know, a couple you probably would not meet in the United States of America. And they said, we want to be confident people. We want to be confident in knowing how to have a good marriage and all these things.
This led to a fascinating conversation. Stephanie gave them a copy of the book. But you know, that is, it’s not just for people who are raising kids. You know, newly married want to know, how do I become the kind of man or woman that is going to make a great marriage? And our culture is crying out for this.
Juli (52:30.666)
Amen. Boy, thanks for sharing that story. That’s a great reminder. We all need this and we all have the confusion around us and the fear of what it is to speak truth in some of these issues. So again, thank you.
Kathy
Thank you.
Juli
Well, I am so grateful for the wise, compassionate guidance from these two experts. Don’t forget to head to genderconfidentkids.com to get a free copy of this book, Raising Gender Confident Kids. We’ll put a link to that in our show notes.
And please stop by authenticintimacy.com/give and make a secure donation to help us continue to make these podcasts available ad free to you and to more than 10,000 other men and women around the world. Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to having coffee with you next time on Java with Juli.