Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 315 | How to Handle Competition in the Home

Transcript

Ep. 315 | How to Handle Competition in the Home · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  You got to lay the principle down, not expecting the fruit right in that moment.
• 0:07
  What's up guys, welcome to Five Minute Fatherhood. So we have an awesome online community called Homeroom, check it out, it opens up twice a year. We get lots of great questions every day in there, amazing discussions, great themes. Right now we are in the middle of a theme called the stage-based parenting, which you guys, if you've been listening to some of these podcasts, you will have heard about. One of the great questions that just came up this morning, I wanted to talk to you, Jeff, about this, because this is a great topic. Miranda says, looking for advice from those who have experienced kids who are extremely competitive.
• 0:37
  Somehow everything has turned into a race and it has gone from healthy competition to unhealthy. We have a three and five year old and they are always racing to get to the door first, be the first one in line for a walk, finish dinner, get unbuckled, et cetera. It's to the point that when one of them wins, it's a huge meltdown for the other one. We are exhausted from constantly intervening and trying to work through the meltdown. I just want to see some of these competitions. Anyway, this one hit me in my soul. Our family feels this deeply.
• 1:05
  Yeah. So she's like, any advice on how to work through this would be great. Um, so yeah, Jeff, you guys have any, uh, any future? I don't know if I have a ton of advice. Yeah. I don't know if I have a ton of advice, but I would say, man, yeah, this one hits me deep in my soul. Cause we feel it too. I think
• 1:21
  That young, which is similar... Our kids are just getting out of that age and just getting out of that stage, you know, four and six. And so we... Which isn't much older, but I do feel like it's a little bit older where we were walking through this for a couple of years. What I would say a couple of things is rapid fire. One, just stay the course. Like, it's not... Like, you got to just...
• 1:39
  I'm really big on this thing right now. Just like you got to lay the principle down, not expecting the fruit rate in that moment. You know, and I think this is one of those ones, too. Like, you just got to keep consistently showing them the principle and you will bear fruit in like a year or two. Like, I know that's not fun and that's exhausting, but that's kind of what we saw.
• 1:57
  Secondly, it's just like a lot of teaching, right? Like, um, like we call, like, I like how you said it, there's healthy competition and there's unhealthy competition. We totally believe that, right? Healthy competition. Cause that's the thing too, is I think some families have no competition and I think that's bad for them, right? Too. And it man, sometimes how you define these words, but like healthy competition is, it makes everyone better.
• 2:15
  Right. Just like in sports, like good competition. Some of the best competition I ever had in my entire life on sports teams was with people on my own team during practice. Like one of my favorite teams was in high school and it was one of the best teams. We went to state. We were really good. We were ranked nationally. I think it was because we were so good at being competitive internally.
• 2:36
  that honestly our opponents were like, and that's, well, we can dominate them because you are, you know, the game we play as a practice is way harder. Right. Um, and it was, but, but it was such a light spirited, fun, just like, um, type of competition that, you know, is sharpening and making each other better. So keep that as the barometer of like, this is not good competition. If it's, if it's lessening us, if it's making us worse, if it's pulling out sides of us that aren't, aren't healthy. So keep that as like the thing that,
• 3:03
  makes the difference between healthy and unhealthy, uh, stay the course. Um, and then especially with your older, one thing I try to do in this one with our older is, um, not like let the younger one win, but man, just you, you, it is your job to be sensitive to your younger sibling. Um, and you should never do anything that should purposely, uh, hurt their heart, diminish them and not be aware of their feelings. And so I think when we kind of lean into that and then getting our oldest to learn that, that helps a lot too. What would you say, Jeremy? Yeah.
• 3:31
  that's good competition with, uh, you know, five kids and 20 years and all that, man. Well, I, I definitely, what I think is I hear you saying, Jeff and Miranda saying here is there's just not a lot of emotional maturity to handle what's happening in the situation. So the unhealthiness is just kind of some of that coming out. Um, I, I know that, I know that for me, um,
• 3:55
  So April, man, she's just so skilled at this. She was so obsessed with constantly trying to help the kids feel like they're for each other. They're on the same team, initiating things where they had to work together, where that was what was praised. A lot of this comes down to what is praised. You have a lot of power as parents to say, okay, yeah, you unbuckle first. That's great and whatever. That's a big deal. Yeah.
• 4:20
  Well, you just help your brother. Like, that is big. That's when you get a treat or that's when we're, you know, like, so you have to be like, you know, and that's what I think you're describing, Jeff, about the principle. As parents, you celebrate the principles you want to see come to fruition in a family's culture. So you want to start defining maybe some of those things. This is part of the process we go through in education.
• 4:42
  our family teams weekends where we really help families set up pillars that they can, you know, just phrases, values that are really big for the family. They can just reinforce and come up with creative ways to celebrate. And that's what gets celebrated as opposed to, you know, whatever kind of impulsive value that your kids might be excited about. Like, you know, I'm first, I'm best, I'm whatever. So I think you really want to craft that culture, celebrate it. And then I completely agree
• 5:12
  Uh, time becomes your friend at that point. So don't freak out at three and five. If, if it's kind of unhealthy and you're still working through it, craft the culture, you know, be consistent. And then over time, you will begin to see your kids be really impacted by the values that you're training them in, teaching them in, celebrating in.
• 5:30
  Um, and, and it's so, this is, you want to have this dynamic of having the, having two siblings like this is wonderful for crafting culture, but it will take a lot of time, right. To get that right. Um, so you want to be thinking of how to do that, but those are some of those ideas. And if you guys, um, like I just mentioned, if you haven't been through one of our family teams weekends, um,
• 5:50
  We are doing a virtual family teams workshop coming up. It's in the first weekend of December. So go to familyteams.com. And one of the things we do during that time is we help families craft a mission statement and a set of family pillars. And that's what can really help over the long term with some of these kind of cultural things. So if you haven't checked that out, haven't been a part of one of those before, please join us in December.
• 6:20
  Um,