Welcome to the Marriage Today podcast. I'm Jimmy Evans. This is my wife Karen.

This podcast exists to help every single couple thrive in their marriage relationship.

We want you to know you have a 100% chance of success in marriage when you do it God's way.

And we got married at 19 years old. We didn't know how to do it God's way. When we learned how to do it God's way, we have been happily married ever since. And you can be too, regardless where you are today or where you've been, you can succeed. And we're talking in this program today from Marriage on the Rock. This is the first book that I ever wrote. And in this book, I talk about

many different issues, but we're talking about children, how to have a great marriage while you're

raising children. And that's the trick, is to raise great kids, but also to have a great marriage

at the same time. So you can have a great marriage and not take care of your kids, or you can sacrifice your

marriage on the altar of your children. Many people do that, and they regret it later in their

life. So the trick is to do both. Before we go to this teaching, though, Karen, let me begin by

asking you a question from one of the viewers. My kids are greatly influenced by other children's language, attitudes, and interest. We try to set a good example, but our children frequently repeat what they see in here. What can we do about this? Well, it's a common question. I think every parent goes through this with their kids. And, you know, we've always been really big about their peers are going to have more influence on them than they can ever imagine.

You bet. And if you see your child acting out in a way that doesn't please you, I would check

the friend and put parameters or boundaries around them having a relationship with them.

Because even our kids when they're growing up, I can always tell when they were around

certain kids that they'd come home with his attitude, even though they can have attitude on their own, they would come home and be different.

And so I think it's very, very, very important to know who the kid's friends are, know their families, and just put those boundaries around them.

I mean, honestly, kids want those boundaries.

They may act like that because they had that rebellious nature anyway, naturally.

But when they see those boundaries, to them, that's love.

That's a feeling of security.

Well, 1st Corinthians 1533 says,

Do not be deceived.

Bad company corrupts good morals. You can put all the good morals you want to in your kids. You put them around bad company. It will corrupt the good morals. And I've heard parents say, well, my kids are missionaries. You know, we know they're around some rough kids, but we just want them to be missionaries. Your children should not be missionaries. Your children are growing up. They're disciples. And they need the best environment possible in the way we believe, Karen, when our kids were growing up, was no one has the right to play with my child, to be around them. I don't care if you're a next door neighbor. I don't care if you're a cousin. I don't care who you are. If you don't have good character, and no one's perfect, you're not going to be around my kid. The other thing is, Julie and Brent, when they were going, our kids are in their 40s today. But when they were growing up, they had some friends that we thought were fine. Their parents went okay. And so we would let them be with their friends in our home, but we wouldn't let them go to the other home. And sometimes the other parents would kind of get upset at that. We didn't care. Brent had a friend one time that, you know, a good kid. And he said, hey, Mr. Evans, my father wants to take us to the movies.

...