Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 116 | How Do You Have Deep Conversations When Your Kids Interrupt You All the Time?

Transcript

Ep. 116 | How Do You Have Deep Conversations When Your Kids Interrupt You All the Time? · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  Oh my gosh, you know, daddy or mommy, they're about to make their point. They've really spent time thinking about it. And now at the pinnacle moment, bam, like, can I go to the bathroom?
• 0:15
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:36
  What's up, guys? Welcome to another 5-Minute Fatherhood. How in the world do you have deep conversations with your kids around if they interrupt you every five seconds, right? This is a really practical challenge, and I wanted to give you guys a little tip that both Jeff and I use and try...
• 0:54
  Really hard to train our kids in. But this is not an easy area to train your kids in, but it's very much worth it. And I wanted to talk about this because I was actually – we've been out of this phase for a while. But Jeff and I were just in Denver, and we were having dinner with some friends. Right.
• 1:11
  shout out to Chris and Hannah. They're an amazing family, the Noppings. And amazing dinner. We had an absolutely incredible time at their house. They have three little kids. But it's clear, I didn't even talk to Chris about this, I just noticed this while we were having dinner, is that every time one of their kids wanted to interrupt them,
• 1:28
  they would walk over and just put their hand on Chris or Hannah's arm, right, and wait. And then as soon as they finished their sentence, they would look at them and say, hey, yeah, what can I do for you? That is such a huge game changer. And we spend a lot of time training our kids to do that as well. And the reason, it may seem really simple and almost trivial.
• 1:47
  But man, if one of the things that you want to do is have your children with you a lot while you're having deep conversations, because you believe, like we do, that making disciples is the mission, you want to do that through the family and with your family, then you've got to find some tool for how to have your kids present, how to have your kids even interact together.
• 2:09
  But in a way that because they don't know when some super deep conversation is happening. Right. They don't know like, oh, my gosh, you know, daddy or mommy, they're about to make their their point. They've really spent time thinking about it. And now at the pinnacle moment, bam, like, can I go to the bathroom? Can I, you know, whatever. So I think this is really important. But have you guys worked on this one?
• 2:29
  Yeah, I was like I was telling you before recording this, this one is huge, but I would actually put this one at, you know, a 10 out of 10 on the difficulty scale. You know, if it's like a triple backflip, you know, 180 or whatever. And not super difficult, but just I feel like it takes a while to really get that rhythm into a child's brain and to really get that into a child's heart. And so, yeah, there's a lot of grace there, but I would say it's totally worth it.
• 2:52
  We're still not even fully there. I'd say we're probably 80% of the way there. But it's worth it. And it's worth it because like you said, if you're going to be a family on mission and for us specifically, we open our home a lot and we're out a lot and we really care about hospitality and sitting at other people's tables a lot, but we don't just care for that to be like superfluous. Like we actually want to really engage deeply in people's lives. Usually our table conversations are, you know, all the way from hard conversations of marriages to, you know, a hard part in their life right now.
• 3:18
  So it's like that stuff you need a little bit of space for. But yet with our kids age, we kind of have to try to train them to make sure that they're okay with that. So we've done it a couple different ways. Yeah, the hand on the arm is huge. I would say only our oldest is there. So it's always really fun to be in a season when you have like a kid that's like at the age where you're like, oh, we still probably got a year or two of this. This will be fun. Right. And I would say we're probably at that right now at some level.
• 3:37
  But it's really so helpful and so beneficial, like you said. And then it's just respectful. It's kind. I feel like it teaches them 10 other things implicitly, right, with that. And then they learn conversation and all those different things. And then, yeah, and then it really protects the hospitality and the table and the ministry, hopefully, that you're doing when you're with adults and in conversations. And the other only one that we've done that's been really helpful is we just have a higher bar for like –
• 4:01
  We love having our kids. They still have to stay at the table for a while and we'll tell stories and all that. But we'll usually kind of excuse them towards the end so that we can have those conversations. And so that's another way we do that. Normally with our family – like family dinners where no one else is around, we all kind of break at the same time. Does that make sense? But when we have people over, we let the kids kind of go a little early as long as they're still staying and they still – I feel like they're kind of absorbing what I want them to absorb and it's still a good meal and stuff.
• 4:25
  Um, and we let them go a little early, but they also know that like, if they need something, come and get us and put their hand on us. But we have a very high standard when we do that, when we have people over and that, that like your excuse thing to like, I don't want to hear one fight. Like, I don't, don't bother me. Right. Like there, you guys need to handle that. And, um, and we've put that kind of, um.
• 4:45
  responsibility on our oldest where we say, Hey, kids, like we did, like, I need you to be responsible for your brother. And I need to trust that you can take care of it. I need to trust that you can kind of facilitate some type of sharing or some type of argument. Um, and I've given you that authority for these moments so that we can have this conversation. So that's kind of another cousin version of that. If we, in general, we still do that even when other people aren't there, but we just kind of heighten it when people are over that. I think the kids just know, like, Hey, if we excuse you to go play, then that really means like not don't bother us,
• 5:15
  Hey, um, you guys really got to take care of it. Like we're not going to mediate. We're not going to be the ref. Right. Um, and if you can't do that, then we will have some discipline or some training after to kind of make sure we can get there that, can you guys solve it on your own, uh, when we're talking? So I would say those two are deeply helpful, but for the exact same reason, like you said, so that you can then stay in deeper conversations for not only ministry and purpose, but then also adults know just so that like, you don't feel like you're having toddler conversations all the time. Right.
• 5:41
  There's a level of just like you're like, oh, yes, I'm actually having an adult conversation. And then you high five each other. Right. You're not changing a diaper and it's amazing. So that's what I would say. And yeah, the noppings, they are the best. And that dinner was phenomenal. So if you guys are listening, shout out to you guys. But yeah, we love you guys. You guys are the best. And hope that was a good tip for you guys for those listening.
• 6:01
  Hey guys, we know it's really challenging to try to build your family team when all the tools you've grown up with or seen essentially are aimed at only helping develop family members as a collection of individuals. That's why we launched familyteams.com, where you can find all the tools we've developed with tons of resources at different price points, free courses, videos, writings, etc. that help you build up and transform you and your family into a multi-generational team on mission. Check out all the resources we have over at familyteams.com.