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The EXACT System We Use To Train Our Kids To Do Anything · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  She said, wow, I love my life. That's right. And it was incredible to think about the difference between the chaos of that hour, taking what for Chandler was the hardest hour of her day and turning it into her favorite hour of the day. That is the power of this tool.
• 0:18
  All right, welcome back to the Family Teams Podcast. I'm Blake Allsmith, and I've got Jeff Bethke, Jeremy Pryor, and April Pryor. We got some parenting and family leadership experts here that we are going to be talking about how do you create a training system within your family. We've talked before, talking about the importance of training and how the Bible really just described one of the primary roles that we have in our family is that we need to be training our children.
• 0:44
  And so that's different, obviously, than discipline. Discipline, very important, right? When your kid does something wrong, we should discipline them. But that is actually a different topic of conversation. Today, we're talking about proactively training your children, not just to not do bad, but how to live into the mission and culture and tasks that your family has been assigned, right? And so that's what we're going to be talking in here today.
• 1:06
  Jeff, maybe to kick it off, talk to me a little bit about the importance of creating a training system versus just having maybe a training philosophy. Yeah, the difference in having a system versus having a philosophy is a system just has clear details. It has, you know when you start, you know when you're in the middle, you know when you've finished, you know what a reward is, you know when you don't succeed, and you know how you're gonna do it better.
• 1:28
  And so this is really, really important. And I would say, make sure you have those things when you are training. So in our family, the way this looks like is I don't tend to have endless energy to train, and I tend to have a little bit of type B in my personality. And so I kind of have to go after these sprints, where rather than just always being really good at training, I have to focus for a season. And when I focus and say, hey, this is going to end at this time, if we do well, it actually does better for me, and it does better for the kids.
• 1:54
  And so one recently on the table that the kids are doing right now, and I just get out a pen and a paper. We usually hang it up on the wall. And right now it is, you know, each kid gets a point every time they kind of listen immediately, quickly, with joy and like with honor. And so we just, throughout the day, we're like, oh, go give yourself a point. Oh, go give yourself a point. Oh, go give yourself a point. Right. And then it usually might take them three to four weeks to each get 25 or 50 or whatever. Right.
• 2:15
  And at the end of that, this one is fun right now, we're doing where they all have to get, I think, 50 points. And once they, so they're all encouraging one another to do it, by the way. And once they all get 50 points, the prize is they all get to have a huge friend party, where they get to invite three friends over, pizza, all that stuff. And by the way, it's also a little hack to have multiple play dates and friend parties all at once. So we're not having four days of play dates. It's just knock it out with like 12 friends all on one day. And then they're all happy for a long time.
• 2:44
  But that's the one right there. It's a clear reward. It's clearly being measured. It's a piece of paper and a pencil on a wall. And that's the difference between a philosophy and a system. Oh, that's excellent.
• 2:54
  If you're listening to this right now, and maybe in the past week or two when you've had a marriage meeting, maybe you've put on the list something like, we need to start trying harder to train in this. Or we need to try harder to do that. I don't know about you, but often my wife and I, that's our solution to the problem. We just need to try harder as opposed to maybe we need a system. If that's you, I want you to go to familyteams.com slash train.
• 3:16
  and say, okay, before we try harder as the solution, maybe we should try a training system. Maybe we should systematize or come up with a framework for this. And so we actually have some tips. If you're looking to do that, go to familyteams.com slash train and check that out. Totally free PDF that you guys can talk through. And I don't know, maybe it'll make it a little bit easier as opposed to just put more sweat into it.
• 3:37
  So, okay. So we're talking about system versus just having a philosophy. Like we should be training. We should be trying to train. Let's talk a little bit about maybe what's at stake. What if you don't have a system? Maybe you want to just say, you know what? We adhere to this general idea and I try to train whenever I get to it.
• 3:54
  This is a big passion point for me personally. I feel like there are three big reasons that I really believe in having a framework or a system when it comes to most family operations and in particular training our kids. Number one, I think, is that there are really smart parents who have gone ahead of us. I mean, Jeremy and April are a great example of that. They're 10 years older than Jeff or I both. And they've tried a million things and failed.
• 4:22
  whatever system that came out at the end for them, we should start there and optimize from there. Rather than just invent from zero, we should stand on the shoulders of those who stood before us so that we can build on something. And so that's one big reason for having a system, is that if you're just doing it based on trying harder, you're not actually harvesting the wisdom that came before you.
• 4:46
  Second is I do think it's really important. One is wisdom. Second is accountability, which is that in order to be consistent, both husband and wife, we really need to know what we're holding each other accountable to. What is the system we're trying to implement? Because otherwise it really comes down to you have to make an accusation of integrity or just not trying hard enough if someone doesn't live up to the system that you guys have mutually agreed on.
• 5:07
  But if you have a system, you can say, hey, we're supposed to do steps A, B, and then C. You didn't do step B. Let's make sure that we do that. And we have something that's a third-party thing we can point to rather than having to point fingers at each other, right? So first is wisdom, second is accountability, and then last is a big favorite of mine, which is optimization. No system's perfect. It's gonna have to change. And so you need to know what you're changing, and then you need to be able to say, what was the result of that change that we made? And so if you're just trying based on effort,
• 5:35
  you don't really know, was that just a bad day or is this a bad system? Right. And so that's why I really believe in like, we want to try to document something down. This is what we're going to do this week when it comes to this behavior, what we're trying to train for, this is how we're going to do it. And that way we'll have, I think the, the best actual changes in our family. So question to, I guess, to Jeremy, what's maybe a basic outline of what a good training system could look like?
• 6:01
  Yeah, I'd love to walk this through with you guys. And if our failure can lead to all of y'all's success, it will be all worth it. So please put this into it. I wish I had this. Yes, that is definitely what part of what we're here to do for you guys. So any training, if you were to go be a part of a sports team or you're going to on the job training, there's always these three components that just kind of get mixed in somehow. And I just they all start with D. This is the simplest framework, demonstrate, drill, defend.
• 6:28
  So demonstrate if somebody shows you exactly what to do, right? That's the first part of any kind of training. Like here, this is how you do it. I'm going to do it. Now I'm going to have you do it over and over again, depending on what it is. If it's like a very physical activity, then sometimes it has a lot of precision. Then there's a lot of drill that has to happen. You got to practice over and over again, have somebody watch you, have somebody correct you a little bit. You'll learn to play the piano or whatever. This is obviously like what 98% of it is. So drill and then defend is just like, Hey, Hey, remember, you're going to have to do
• 6:54
  I taught you this. And so sometimes there's, you know, there are consequences that you can create for somebody who's just deciding to blow off the whole thing, just do whatever they want. But those are the three parts of any like healthy training system. And so we want to be really thinking through what does that look like in our own families? Are there things that we need to be training our kids towards? I think one of the first ones that we like to do with like really little kids was just come the first time I call you.
• 7:23
  Now you can think about that as just strictly discipline, you know, like you're going to discipline your two year old every time they don't come when you we call. But you can also make a game out of it. You can show them what it's like. You can have one of their siblings or, you know, or do a little theatrical like somebody calls and then you can do it over and over again, like come home and then ten times have them go play and just call them by name. Just if you want your child to come the first time you call. Now, a lot of people are like, I don't really care about that. But man, you have a large family. That's incredibly valuable.
• 7:50
  And another element of this, you guys, by the way, is that the larger your family and the less intuitive this is to you, the more you need a system. I have met people that are just like born coaches and they laugh at this whole conversation because they just do this so instinctually, so easily, so constantly. They're like, that's just like, that's so easy to me. 90% of people I know don't have that strength at that level. And so a system is really important for them.
• 8:18
  Or if you're going to have a large family, having your kids really well-trained, coming exactly when you call them, learning to respond to your voice, having ways that trigger them to immediately obey and participate or help. Wow. It doesn't just transform the family. It's also a lot easier on the child. It's a lot easier to be a part of a family where the expectations are really clear.
• 8:41
  We don't want to be in situations where we don't know, okay, I'm watching my parents' mood. They seem like they're really happy right now. I think they can get away with all these things. Then all of a sudden, uh-oh, mom's grumpy. Everything gets very restrictive. That is not a more healthy environment, although a lot of times we pretend as if that's somehow better. Why not just lay out the expectations very clearly to demonstrate?
• 9:05
  Drill, go over those for five or 10 minutes, kind of remind them of that, make sure that they get to a certain level of proficiency. And then you can say, look, here is the consequences. And so sometimes we need to have some kind of to just really put like a backstop to the system.
• 9:22
  You can have something physical, especially with kids between the ages, like maybe four and 10, you can have like, uh, we, we use something called the marble system. So if, if we were training them on something then, and they were doing it like the first time after we'd done the demonstrate, after we did, we did the drill, then would they just get a marble in their bowl, you know, for a couple of weeks, every single time they did that consistently. Well, that was just a nice little reinforcement mechanism. It also made correcting them really easy. Right.
• 9:47
  So in that area, they know exactly what we expect and they're not doing it. You know, if they don't do it, they can take a marble out of their bowl. Now you got to get your kids to really fall in love with the system. Get excited about it. And so like if your system is get 10 marbles, you go for ice cream, get them to 10 marbles really fast.
• 10:04
  and get that ice cream in their, you know, system. Because then it'll trigger that, oh, wow, this is for real. I can do this. This is simple. Some people make the mistake of, they make the system too hard. They wait too long before the kid gets, like, the reward at the end of the system. So...
• 10:20
  You can use tokens. You can use stickers. There's lots of things you can do. I think for kids in that arena, it's a really great thing to do. Something physical. Three to 10 years old. I would do something a little different for preteens and teens. I'd do something a little bit different for really little kids. I think it's a lot more physical with really little kids, how you reinforce these things and how you train them. With older kids, it's much more heart-to-heart connections. I think we're going to talk about that in the next podcast. But for the system kids, man...
• 10:47
  It is prime training time when you get your kids around 3 to 10, 3 to 11. That age range, they are so trainable. They usually enjoy being trained. And so make it fun and engage them in that way. Jeremy, I'm remembering the time you trained our kids in elvish stairwalking. Yes.
• 11:09
  You can train your kids in anything, guys. So this was the era when our older kids were old enough that they were going to bed later, much later, like 10 o'clock or something like that. But I was still going to bed at like maybe 9 or 9.30. So I kept getting woken up by our older kids tromping up the stairs to start their bedtime routine. And so Jeremy did a training on walking up the stairs like an elf.
• 11:36
  And this is a Lord of the Rings elf. So very quiet. Not Keebler, not Santa. We don't do those kind of elves. Not the Keebler, not the Santa. Yeah. Lord of the Rings elf. Yep, Vladriel. Yeah, that's what we were, yeah.
• 11:47
  Yeah. But I feel like something that we need to remember is that it's okay to have high expectations of your kids. You know, we need to make sure we have the high support there, like set them up for success. But, you know, especially as moms, if we happen to be around our kids more often than the dads are, to remember that we are the main person that is going to set the bar for them, like us and our husbands. And no one else in the world is going to
• 12:17
  really care if your kid meets an expectation that they have on them. So maybe there might be one year they have a great coach who really cares and calls them up to toe the line. But generally speaking, we are the main people that are going to call them up to this expectation. And so just remembering that it's OK to have high expectations for your kids.
• 12:41
  in this area, but also to make sure that we do set them up for success. So training is such a, such an important part of this. And, um, I know that the, the Marvel system worked great. There are some things that you can, um, drill and defend sometimes.
• 12:57
  demonstrate and then drill and defend that are things you thought of ahead of time. And it works to do that. And sometimes things just happen in the moment. And that I liked our system with the marble system kind of encompassed the things that it was like, oh, wow.
• 13:13
  I didn't even think about that particular thing that you just did. Wonderful child. That was amazing. I'm going to have you go put a marble in your bowl. We didn't train on that. We didn't drill on that. And you just did it. That was amazing. So I liked having a system that had some flex to it. And we weren't trying to constantly keep track of exactly like it didn't get overcomplicated. It was just like a general problem.
• 13:35
  Like, okay, that's great. Now that's something we've trained you in and we expect you to do that. And here's a little reward for, you know, doing the thing we've asked you to do. And then it also left room for the things that were a bit of a surprise.
• 13:48
  Yeah. I could throw out another example. We were doing a larger event for families in Cincinnati and Blake, I remember Chandler mentioned a particular training that you guys did in order to have your kids clean the house at a certain time of the day. Could you explain it?
• 14:08
  Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's still going strong for us. Yeah, we yeah, I would say we were having the difficulty. I don't know if any other family can relate to this. End of day, our house is starting to feel like a mess a little bit. You know, we got little kids. We have seven kids aged 14 down to one year old. Right. And so some of those kids pick up after themselves, others a little bit less so.
• 14:29
  And so our house kind of tends to get to be a bit of a mess at the end of the day. And it's difficult to enter into dinner time and feel good if the house is a mess. So my wife was like, how can we get the kids to enthusiastically and quickly pick up the house? We don't have to deep clean, but just pick it up.
• 14:45
  And what we found as a motivator was we set a timer. Pickup starts at five. Dinner happens at six. If you can get your pickup done, whatever time you have remaining before six, you can use that time to play video games with your siblings on the TV together. So whoever's done, it's an individual challenge. As soon as you're done with your pickup, you can play video games until dinner.
• 15:09
  And so what's great about that is that if you take 55 minutes to do your pickup, you only get five minutes of video games. But if you picked up after yourself throughout the day, you get that full hour, man, that you can do that. And so it took what used to be very difficult for us to motivate and kind of get them to do it. Suddenly, our kids were asking, would it be okay if I did my pickup during our quiet resting time just so I could do it beforehand? And we're like, yes, I think that would be okay.
• 15:33
  And I think what, I think what Chandler said, I can't remember the quote exactly. She said, she presented about this and she said, oh, what was it, Jeremy? Do you remember? I remember. Yeah. Yeah. She was, she was talking about how frustrated she was. Um, and this was like her absolute, like the worst part of the day for her every day. And after you guys had trained your kids and they were all in some side room playing a video games together quietly while she was making dinner, she just said, oh,
• 16:01
  I love my life. That's right. Like, and it was incredible to think about the, sort of the, the, the difference between like just the chaos of that hour, the hardest taking, taking what for Chandler was the hardest hour of her day and turning it into her favorite hour of the day. That is the power of this, this tool. And I, yeah, I love that, that, that happened. And so many families are burnt out because of chaos because they, they haven't really yet sat down and thought about, okay, how do we train our kids in this area?
• 16:30
  Yes. Yeah. What's so great about that for me is that I got to invent that system, right? So I got to be the hero, which I think every husband really wants that to be able to come in with a solution, implement, motivate, and then see them thrive. And so I would say that it's such a fun thing to be able to bring your problem solving ability and then to create a system that results in thriving. So yeah, very satisfying for sure. Yeah.
• 16:54
  All right, Jeremy, we've got two types of listeners. We got someone who right now is like has already clicked the share button and has sent this to their spouse. Who's the other type of person who's like, are you kidding me? I have to listen about systems and frameworks. The family is supposed to be organic. Can you talk a little bit about what are some of maybe the difficulties that these two types might be kind of facing and maybe how to get past those?
• 17:16
  Yeah. Some people are worried that their family is going to turn into some kind of efficiency machine. And we totally get that. We don't want that to happen. The family needs to be a place that's warm and relaxed and really reflects the culture that you want to create. And so whatever you want to train towards, it should reinforce that culture.
• 17:31
  If you want it to be a fun, spontaneous, relaxed culture, it is important to have that as part of the training. But that doesn't mean that there are not certain things that really serve that, right? I mean, what you guys were, what we just described, having a completely chaotic house doesn't actually allow you to have those organic, fun, relaxed times. And so...
• 17:51
  So much of this is not necessarily taking what another family might think is perfect for them, but it's really bringing into your family something that reinforces those core values, those things that you really want your family to feel like. And I think that what we just underestimate is that small bits of training where we all are on the same page. Again, this is just sort of basic kindness, right?
• 18:18
  Like, can we please tell our kids what success looks like? Can we show them what that would feel like? Can we give them that experience together of what it's like for us to actually have that culture in the family? And then you can kind of just pause and say, guys, you guys feel what this is like? Look at this room right now.
• 18:38
  look at this, look what just happened at this meal. We just had dinner. And then you guys, how you cleaned up from dinner, what we just experienced having those friends over. And now everything's back to where it should be. Let's just take a minute. And that is what we're trying to build a household of peace, a shalom in the home. Like that's not easy to get to, and it requires some level of training. So whatever you guys want your family to feel like,
• 19:04
  We don't want to violate that in some way by creating a system that is going to turn it into a boot camp. That's not the goal. It should look and feel like whatever you guys really want it to look and feel like. But that takes some intentionality. Like we somehow, when we get into the family, we think all that's going to happen by accident.
• 19:22
  Like if I just want this to happen and then these kids just keep, you know, destroying everything, my otherwise beautiful plans. And we don't realize that we have a mandate to train our kids and that it's kind to train your kids. So do this, however, is going to most bless your family. But please don't underestimate how much this can support whatever culture you're building.
• 19:43
  That's great. That's fantastic. Man, you guys have so much wisdom on this stuff. If you're listening to this, go to familyteams.com slash train. Jeremy and April put together their kind of top 12 tips that you can actually kind of walk through together with your spouse and kind of start to think through what does training look like in our family culture. So I would say go to familyteams.com slash train. Check that out. Jeremy, any other resources or tools that you'd recommend as folks are starting to explore this for themselves about creating a system for training?
• 20:12
  Yeah, one thing that is going to blow your mind if you get into the accelerator with Grant and Kelly Stein is they've actually, they found a way to visually describe what they're training their kids in and with these post-it notes and this white like poster board. And it is amazing what they've created. They also have a whole system for what they call routines, which is like they say one word or ask their kids to do one thing and it actually leads to like seven things. In other words, how did I get out the door? That could be like a six, seven, eight step process.
• 20:41
  You could train that entire process. Imagine how much peace that creates in a family. You know, April and I really worked on this in terms of how to go to bed. Like April just mentioned that she was going to bed at 9.30 and people are like, wait, how did that work? Like, I thought you had to stay up until your last kid fell asleep. No, no, no. Like train your kids how to put themselves to bed.
• 20:58
  At a certain point, that is possible. If that's the culture you want. Some people like to spend an hour singing over their children and, you know, like blessing their kids. And we're like, that's amazing. April and I are complete zombies by about 830. So we're like, okay, we need to press a button, you know.
• 21:14
  And the kids need to like brush their teeth, pick out their outfit, you know, the whole, the whole thing. So anyway, they're, they're again, whatever culture you want to create, train towards that, but routines and, and then a visual way to, to sort of see the, all the entire training process. Those are things you're going to get as you jump in and get some coaching from the Steins who have just, you're really mastered this.
• 21:34
  Excellent. That's great. Thank you guys so much. Next week, what we're going to be covering is we're going to be talking about training at different stages of parenting. I think in this call alone, I think we've got ages one to 20 something. So we can talk about training at all different angles. So if that's interesting to you, we will talk to you next week. Thanks, everybody.
• 21:53
  Thank you for listening to the Family Teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend. To stay up to date with our events, new content, and products, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Family Teams.