Melanie Wilson (00:00)
How do you teach your kids to make wise decisions in a world that feels increasingly morally gray? As homeschool parents, we worry about being too controlling on one hand or letting our kids just figure it out on their own on the other. So how do we strike that balance? Welcome to the Homeschool Sanity Show. I'm your host, Dr. Melanie Wilson. Today, I'm talking with Dean Zuleger.

a father of four, grandfather of seven, and someone who has spent decades mentoring kids through coaching, teaching, and ministry. Dean homeschooled his own children, and now his son and daughter-in-law are homeschooling their five kids. Dean has developed a framework for teaching decision-making to children that gives them structure and security in an uncertain world.

He uses classic literature and powerful questions to help kids move from observing characters' choices to owning wisdom themselves. Whether you have wiggly elementary boys, decision-averse teens, or kids somewhere in between, this conversation is going to give you practical tools and biblical wisdom for raising wise decision-makers. Let's dive in.

Melanie Wilson (01:27)
Dean, it is so nice to meet you. And before we dive into our topic today on decision-making, I would love to have you tell us more about you and your family.

Dean Zuleger (01:39)
Well, I'm the father of four, married for 40 years. ⁓ And grandpa now, or papa, to seven, ⁓ we are from the Midwest, Wisconsin and Minnesota. All the kids have now landed around Minneapolis area, so it's been some fun current event times lately. ⁓ But we homeschooled our kids up until ninth grade in Wisconsin. ⁓ You can't...

play sports in Wisconsin if you're homeschooled. And we didn't have the advantages of co-ops back then. ⁓ And then now my son, who's a pastor here in the cities, and his wife are homeschooling, five. So we've been around homeschooling for a long time. My wife was, ⁓ when my kids got into the public school system, my wife was proclaimed as the best elementary school teacher by teachers ⁓ in the school system, because our kids were well-prepared.

especially in the basics. ⁓ And so we've been a lifelong advocate, even one over grandparents who thought we were crazy when we started, but then saw how our children turned out to be good young adults. So that's a little bit about me. Coached in football and basketball, been an FCA huddle leader. So God has put me around a lot of sixth and seventh grade boys for about 30 years.

So I've been able to work with the wiggle and work with the testosterone and all those things that come along with coaching and teaching boys.

Melanie Wilson (03:08)
you

Well, bless you for that. I have five boys and my husband and I have this last year been teaching Sunday school to second and third grade boys. So ⁓ I get it. Lots of boys. Okay. So you have spent decades mentoring kids. It sounds like from your story. So from that perspective, what do you think children most

Dean Zuleger (03:26)
There you go. Yep.

Melanie Wilson (03:42)
need in order to make wise decisions, especially now because our world just feels increasingly morally gray.

Dean Zuleger (03:53)
Yeah, I have found that if you can give structure and order to kids early on and use that to teach how that's God's design, all right, it's like swaddling them in a blanket. Okay, it gives them security and safety that right now the world doesn't give them. ⁓

The world is uncertain and relative and ambiguous. And I think if you can give structure and order and teach that we have a God of order through your ⁓ decision making and mentoring and ⁓ helping them kind of along the continuum of thought, ⁓ you're successful. A lot of that comes from my sports background. You teach a play or you teach a fundamental and they have success.

and they like it. ⁓ It's fun. It's enjoyable. So I really believe that through good order and structure early on, you can basically give kids a big hug every day.

Melanie Wilson (05:05)
I like that. And I'm gonna ask you to give more details about the structure that we can give to kids with respect to decision making. But now I wanna ask you about your ⁓ approach to asking kids questions about characters in classic literature. And ⁓ if you know anything about the materials that I have

authored and created, you know I am a huge proponent of story as a teaching tool. Why do you think that story is so powerful in helping to shape a child's decision making? And along with that, what kinds of questions help kids move from observing characters choices to owning wisdom themselves?

Dean Zuleger (06:02)
⁓ that's a great question. ⁓ As we've watched homeschool curriculum develop and we've watched, I've got a daughter that's a reading expert. She teaches reading, reading recovery. works with kindergartners and first graders. We've seen that there has been kind of a ⁓ dumbing down or a simplicity in the public school system with respect to language, with respect to allegory, with respect to those types of things.

So a few years ago, ⁓ and we're a home full of books. We actually have books everywhere. ⁓ And sometimes when we're trying to decide what to get rid of, we look at a book and go, remember that, when we went through that book with the kids. So I like to use story because there is a character progression, there's an arc, there's a conclusion within the story. I've got a son that's kind of writing a modern day version.

of Chronicles of Narnia right now about a small sprite named Pom. ⁓ As you put characters in decisions, I think it's easy for kids to kind of take a step back, maybe not see it themselves, but see it in that character, kind of the suspension of disbelief, so to speak. And then rather than take them through kind of a personal decision, you're walking them alongside a character.

that ⁓ they can relate to but not necessarily have to feel any guilt or any conviction to. And it allows you to kind of work through that. Why did he make that decision? Why didn't he? You know, I've got three books that I've gone through with my grandsons. One's called The Wolf Story. It's absolutely my favorite for boys. ⁓ The Wind of the Willows, ⁓ which is just so, and in a changing society where

They have to leave their safety and go into a changing society. It's a great preparation. And then finally, my granddaughter and I just went through ⁓ Watership Down, which is just phenomenal. ⁓ And through that, you can see how the characters make decisions that are right or wrong. And if they make a wrong decision, you can kind of teach the consequence in correction. So I think classical literature, ⁓

which I'm a big fan of, getting ready to take my granddaughter ⁓ through ⁓ a couple of, she's a teenager, through a couple of books that are gonna ask some moral questions. You can have them take a step back and examine the character without necessarily feeling any guilt or persecution or conviction. Make sense?

Melanie Wilson (08:49)
Mm.

Yes, absolutely. It gives kids a more objective view of the decision making. Mm hmm. Right. Right. I love that. And I love how you're mentioning the character arcs ⁓ as well. So we can integrate our teaching about decision making with our

Dean Zuleger (08:58)
Right, no condemnation, no judgment. Let's just take a look at this. So, right.

Melanie Wilson (09:15)
teaching of literary concepts at the same time. So I love that. And when it comes to decision-making for our kids, I know because I've been there that many of us parents worry about being too controlling over our kids' decisions or on the other hand, letting our kids just figure it out on their own.

How do you think that we as parents can strike a healthy balance between biblical guidance and age-appropriate independence?

Dean Zuleger (09:57)
I think there is a natural progression. ⁓ And I am a big fan of a couple of books that have helped inform me as a teacher. There was a book in the Multnomah Critical Concern series called Decision-Making and the Will of God by Gary Friesen, who talks about the ⁓ moral will and the sovereign will of God and how to walk ⁓ kids.

young adults, adults through that. And then, you know, in terms of ⁓ the progression of letting go or not, ⁓ I think there has to be a balance in that you let them to make decisions that aren't gonna put them in harm's way. And then when you correct, you don't look at it as a failure. And I do this with my employees. I have over 600 employees.

You don't look at it as a failure, you look at it as an opportunity to learn. And so we also say, we say a lot in my business practice, you know, there are no problems, there are just opportunities. Let's work through a continuous improvement process to get better. Big fan in business of using something called success looping, where you focus on success as an incremental way to get better as opposed to the old quality systems where you looked at defects.

Melanie Wilson (11:26)
Mmm.

Dean Zuleger (11:26)
So it just is a mindset and as they start to get successful in making the little decisions, you know, what do we want to eat tonight? You know, ⁓ you know, my granddaughter is getting ready to babysit and what steps do we have to go through so she can make good decisions with her siblings? ⁓ Incremental success in the decision-making reinforced by how we got there ⁓ and then a little by little, all right.

And by the way, I know some parents who are very controlling. What kids can wear, what they can listen to. You know, we're dealing with the whole social media thing. And I think there's a lot to gain in problem solving correction. Alright? I think there's a lot to teach in how we approach that. And I also think for parents who homeschool, you can't beat yourself up with failure if it doesn't work.

You know, especially with homeschoolers, you know, I know the moms that try to do it all. Perfect house, perfect meal, try to get the four to six hours of teaching in, and at the end of the day, if something didn't get done, they beat themselves up. So the whole grace and balance of that, you need to teach your kids too, all right? That's really my approach is incremental, successful gain.

Melanie Wilson (12:48)
Mm-hmm. And ⁓ expecting, it sounds like, that kids are going to make your decisions.

Dean Zuleger (12:55)
yeah.

Yeah. I mean, when I coach a lot of times, kids will try to do things in sports that their body's not ready to. So I see a lot of dads that try to live vicariously through their kids that criticize them for that mistake. And we always try to say things like, that's a great idea. And next time or when you get older, it's going to work. Right now, it's not because you're just not strong enough or big enough or whatever. So...

You know, always take a look at the effort as maybe a good idea or something that they're just not capable yet of doing and say later on that's going to work. So ⁓ I learned that from coaching girls with boys. You can say do this and they do it with girls. They have to know why they're doing it. And it's a good idea ⁓ is always a really good enforcement or that's just not going to work at this time yet. So don't don't don't beat up the mistake or yourself.

Melanie Wilson (13:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Dean Zuleger (13:51)
for allowing the mistake.

Melanie Wilson (13:52)
Mm, that is so good. I love that you are affirming them, ⁓ their intentions, ⁓ their ideas, as you say, without shaming them. ⁓ And I imagine that there are times when you can say, ⁓ you you made that choice, you're not quite there yet, but you will get there.

You're going to keep practicing it and it will work ⁓ in the future. ⁓ And that kind of leads me to ⁓ having you explain the framework that you use for kids. You talked at the beginning of our conversation about an order that gives kids security for how to make decisions. Can you talk with us about that?

Dean Zuleger (14:50)
Yeah, I've kind of created a success triangle ⁓ that starts with just deductive reasoning and ordered thinking, especially before what we would call the age of accountability or the age of decision with kids. And start out by teaching kids that we have a God of order and we've got a God of structure. He's certain, he's detailed, and you can rely on him.

⁓ especially as we get ready for them to make that personal decision to follow God or not. And we start with what we call the discipline of truth. A big fan of books on discipline, Dallas Willard and Foster and guys like that. nothing, C.S. Lewis said, nothing is really original, don't try to be original. So I borrow when I build my models. But the discipline of truth is quite...

Just three things. One is, is it a fact or a feeling? Is it a something that you can see, smell, touch, or is it just an intuition or an emotion? Now, I'm not saying feelings are bad. They're good when they're developed. Instinct, knowledge, wisdom are all part of the whole feeling process. But is it a fact or a feeling? Okay. Next thing, is it true or false? Is it something that we can say is true, we know it,

You know, it could be something that we see, ⁓ or is it just something that kind of crept into your mind or you heard from somebody? Is it something you heard from a peer? Is it gossip? Is it a lie? Those types of things. So we go fact or feeling, true or false, and then we start to get into the, what I would call the moral will of God, which is right or wrong. Is it righteous or is it outside of God's will?

And remember, a lot of people think God's will is this linear line and Gary Friesen taught us, you're in a circle. And in the moral will, you can go a lot of different ways in the moral will, but is it right or wrong? Okay, and that's where we start. think that deductive reasoning, all right, kind of working through a process, and you can do this. By the way, the best literature and the best characters are Bible, are Bible people. David, Daniel.

Mary Martha, you know, if you can go there early and talk that way, that's the best literature. But we work through what I'd call that discipline of truth, okay? Then what we do, and I think this is an area that might be lost in the broader church right now, we work with the discipline of the Trinity, okay? Especially after you lead a child to Christ or into a godly ⁓ relationship.

Melanie Wilson (17:17)
Mm-hmm.

Dean Zuleger (17:38)
Are you being led by the Spirit? Now, being led by the Spirit, remember, we're new creation in God. And so, we no longer have the fleshly Spirit, we have the Holy Spirit, and that's gonna point to things in Scripture, point to examples in Scripture. So we need to start to rely on that Spirit rather than our own. It'll dampen down the feelings, okay? It'll make us be very quick.

Melanie Wilson (17:44)
Mm-hmm.

Dean Zuleger (18:06)
to go to the word to find an answer. And that takes us to the second part of the Trinity, which is, does it imitate Christ? ⁓ We saw in Minneapolis here the last couple of days, people saying Christ flipped over tables. ⁓ That is totally out of context for the way Christ did things, but the Spirit will point to our greatest example. know, Ephesians 5, 1 and 2 says, be an imitator of Christ, all right, model.

He modeled for us, you model after him. ⁓ And you know, it could be working your kids through the Sermon of the Mount, which is obviously flipping the world on its head. But you know, the second part of the Trinity in decision making is there are examples in the Bible of how you can imitate Christ and be more Christ-like. And then finally, ⁓ out of the right or wrong part of the first part of the discipline,

Melanie Wilson (18:55)
Hmm.

Dean Zuleger (19:02)
Does it glorify God? Does it magnify God? Does your decision please God? Does it bring glory to Him? ⁓ My son is a pastor and he often talks about bringing glory to God as our ultimate service to God, ⁓ as an ultimate kind of display of our obedience to Him. And that three-part Trinity, a lot of times gets fragmented by either messages or who people want to, the Jesus people or...

Melanie Wilson (19:04)
Mm.

Dean Zuleger (19:30)
or God the Father, I'm led by the Spirit. This is a combination ⁓ of rationale, led by the Spirit, pointed to Christ, imitating Christ, having that righteousness glorify God. And then, in your question in the beginning about progression, all right, have we properly taught the meat, all right, or the milk, excuse me, the milk, all right? Have we given the basics? Our kids all went through a wanna growing up.

Melanie Wilson (19:59)
Mm-hmm.

Dean Zuleger (19:59)
where they hid scripture in their heart. ⁓ There are other types of ways of basically memorizing scripture, hiding scripture, so their first inclination when they hear a prompt word is to go there. So have we taught the milk, all right? And for me, milk is obedience. We're just going there first. It's the best place to go. As they get older, especially teenagers and then young adults, I'm talking to some folks later today from Young Life about

military teenagers and young guys going into the military, are we presenting the meat? Are we working from God's moral will to his sovereign will? Are we starting to understand those bigger issues? This is where you might want to get into doctrine ⁓ or you might want to get into some of the deeper meanings of scripture that ⁓ transcend the practicality of Paul's letters. Hey church, this is what I need you to do, right?

⁓ So then we get into the whole idea of holiness, which, Bobby, by the way, will take you back to imitating Christ. And then finally, the milk-meat progression, excuse me, will lead you to mission. All right, how will you serve God, serve your family, serve yourselves? I'm not gonna take any credit for this last box, it's my son. We were talking about the word mission or ministry, and we like the word mission.

because it kind of keeps you on task and it takes you right back into this kind of loop or triangle that takes you back to right, wrong, true, false, ⁓ you know, fact or feeling. it just basically, and that would be called, by the way, the discipline of testimony. Is your testimony getting better? So discipline of truth, discipline of trinity, discipline of testimony, is your testimony getting better in the progression?

Melanie Wilson (21:53)
Yeah.

Dean Zuleger (21:59)
So that's what we're looking at.

Melanie Wilson (22:02)
Well, I just, I love that. Okay, so I have a final question to ask you about ⁓ decision making. And I think our adult listeners, our parents who are listening can be in this situation too. What if you are considering alternatives and they're both good? They both would.

⁓ give glory to God, they both would ⁓ be Christ-like, ⁓ they're both ⁓ based on facts and not just feelings. And I mean, I can even put it into an example for ⁓ a team who is trying to decide between sports teams, which sports team should I join, right? What would you say to

Let's use a young person. What would you say to a young person who is trying to decide between two good alternatives?

Dean Zuleger (23:12)
Yeah, that is my favorite question. ⁓ And it really takes me back 30 years when I started to take a look at the whole concept of godly decision making. ⁓ We talked a little bit about God's moral will and a little bit about God's sovereign will, once again, Gary Friesen's concepts that are out there. ⁓ I think when you start to take a look at the choice between two goods or two paths, all right,

you need to fundamentally look at am I serving myself or can this help serve others? If we're gonna progress to the testimony, which is the mission, all right, I think you take some of the more, what I would consider to be subtle, but kind of dangerous characteristics of pride and selfishness and those types of things out of the equation. People will say, this car or that car?

All right, they're both codders. All right, well, what do you want? Well, I I like the way that one sounds, okay, but is it practical in your life? All right, do I wanna be a single sport athlete? Because I really love basketball. We had this decision with my grandson. I played football, my son played basketball, my son chose basketball, or my grandson chose basketball, excuse me. And the reasons were, nobody wanted a concussion, I get that, okay?

Melanie Wilson (24:39)
you

Dean Zuleger (24:40)
I might be

a good example of concussions, right? ⁓ And my son is a really good basketball player who gets to be his coach, who gets to spend time with his son. So we said, neither one of those are a bad decision. Why do you want to do it? Well, I'm really good at this. I get to spend time with dad. All right. ⁓ It worked relationally out for them. So I think if you take a look at pros and cons, ⁓ which, know, if we were going to be scientific about

Melanie Wilson (24:43)
I'm out.

Dean Zuleger (25:09)
decision making, was this thing called the hypothesis of, or the analysis of competing hypothesis. You know, you make the plus and minus list, right, that we've talked about, But to me, it always comes down to am I making this for myself because of pride or selfishness, or am I making this because it's good for the family, it'll be good for my learning, I don't think learning is a pride thing, I mean, I think there are, you always have to try to,

take the flesh out of the two goods. And if you can do that and they're still equal, sometimes with kids, what's gonna be more fun? What's gonna be more enjoyable? You know, I often tell coaches, especially before high school, your job is to make this fun so they wanna keep playing. All right? I mean, you wanna win, winning is fun, but your job is to make sure that all those kids that came out and played for you this year will come out next year.

Melanie Wilson (25:49)
Thank

Dean Zuleger (26:08)
⁓ You wanna keep the continuum growing. ⁓ The other thing, and I don't wanna plug anybody, but ⁓ there is a book out for teenagers that I'm giving to teenagers these days called Think Ahead by Craig Greshel. He's the author of the U-version Bible. Not the author of the Bible, but of that version, right? And Craig really has a nice process of always keeping yourself thinking ahead of that next decision.

Melanie Wilson (26:29)
you

Dean Zuleger (26:37)
which I think is really important for teenagers. My granddaughter is gonna get this book. ⁓ And it just really keeps your mind on things above, not on things below. ⁓ And tries to keep you really more in a godly mindset going ahead. So you're anticipating, you're hoping, you're dealing with a lot of those things as opposed to reacting and correcting.

Melanie Wilson (27:04)
So good, and you've mentioned several resources that I'm going to be sharing in the show notes for this episode. But I want to hear about your plans for creating materials to help kids in their decision making. Can you tell us about that?

Dean Zuleger (27:23)
Yeah, well if you look over my head you'll see in script the word Keras, that's grace. And we've started ⁓ a small company called Keras Dynamics. Hopefully the website will go up this week. It's been kind of a, me and WordPress are having a little struggle right now. But Keras Dynamics, and that's quite frankly gonna focus on decision making tools, not only for kids, but in business. Working on devotional for Christian business guys.

which will basically point their decisions, the 52 week devotional, about how to keep your mind on Christ. So it's karestynamicsllc.com sometime this week when the servers go up. And then right now the email is dean at karestynamicsllc. Hopefully we'll get out there and talk to more folks like you. I'm seeing in Minnesota, and this might be something for,

for all your listeners, Dr. Wilson, is that a lot of, believe it or not, the immigrant families, the minority families, the BIPOC families in Minnesota are giving up on the public school system and starting charter schools all across the city. So we just want to make this available to folks. it'll be faith-based. It will not try to use any...

You know, any, and by the way, I'm not a child psychologist. I'm just a dad. I'm a grandpa ⁓ who tries to find ways for my, my, my, my kids to learn. know, I got my, you know, and it's not just always classical literature. My grandsons have Jacko Wilnick's books on the warrior's way, ⁓ which are, you know, work with that whole physical aspect of kids. ⁓ It just really wanting, wanting our kids to have a chance in a, in a world that is just scary right now.

Melanie Wilson (28:49)
you

Mm-hmm.

Dean Zuleger (29:14)
⁓ We will

have a Bible ⁓ app decision-making app. I'm not sure about that yet ⁓ But ⁓ my granddaughter and I are working on a social media app called Lazarus bringing social media back from the grave And and and trying to raise some money for that so it's just in this later stage of my life trying to help as many kids I can

Melanie Wilson (29:38)
Well, that's wonderful and I always have to ⁓ smile about people who feel like their experience and wisdom is not as good as someone like myself who has a degree because ⁓ the most wisdom that I have gained is just like you.

It's through experience, not through my coursework. So ⁓ I'm just so thrilled that you took the time to share your wisdom with us today. And I will be putting your contact information, your website ⁓ and email address in the show notes so people can get in touch with you. Thank you so much, Dean, for sharing with us today.

Melanie Wilson (30:28)
What a gift Dean's wisdom is to all of us. I love how he emphasized giving kids structure and order as a way to give them security, like swaddling them in a blanket. And his framework for decision-making, that's something we can all use, both for our kids and for ourselves. If you want to learn more about Dean's work or get in touch with him about the materials he's creating,

I've put all his contact information in the show notes. You can also find links to the resources he mentioned during our conversation at homeschoolsanity.com slash decision. If this episode encouraged you today, would you share it with another homeschool parent? We all need wisdom when it comes to raising kids who can make good decisions in a confusing world. Have a happy homeschool week.

This has been a production of the Ultimate Homeschool Radio Network.