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17. Keeping Your Love On When Navigating Relationships With Missy Hydes · A Heart That Beats for Home

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: possibly cry and straight talk about the joy and chaos that comes within the four walls that we call home.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: No judgment and certainly no perfection, just real talk from my heart, a heart that beats for home.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Let's dive in.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Hey friends, welcome back to another episode here at A Heart that Beats For Home, super excited to have you here with us today for an amazing two-part interview with my dear friend, missy Hides.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Missy is just a wise, wise woman, and I am telling you what.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: There is so much goodness in the next two weeks that you are going to want to take away from this to implement into your life.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: We have been laughing at my home the last couple of weeks since recording the interview, because I keep saying to my kids hey, when I talk to Missy on the podcast, she said this, or she said that, or she gave me this suggestion or you should put up this boundary, or we literally have probably talked about Missy almost every single day in our home since recording this interview, so I am super excited for you guys to listen in.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, when we were recording, we had a major storm in our community.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: We lost power, the internet went out on us several times and my computer got fried and so we had to rerecord with not the correct equipment, and so the sound quality on this one, friends, it's not studio quality, but the content is gold and is just.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: You're going to just love everything that Missy has to say, so just want to give you that little warning.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being patient.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I know that it'll be worth you listening and just taking it all in.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: There is just heaps and heaps of knowledge coming to you these next two weeks, so we are going to jump right into the conversation where Missy and I started.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Let's dive in.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: So, miss, first of all, would you just tell us about who you are and your family and just a little bit of your background?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely Well, I just want to say thank you for inviting me to be on your podcast and just excited First time I've ever shared on a podcast, so it's a new experience that I am excited to do with you.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: My name is Missy Hydes and I have been married to my husband, sonny, for 22 years.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: We actually met doing international missions.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: When I was 18 years old, I grew up on a farm outside a town of about 300 people in North Dakota, just like an hour from the Canadian border.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: So even though I've been now in the South for over two decades, I still feel a little bit like a Northerner in Southern culture.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: But I really love being able to have the best of both of those worlds.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Sunny and I have a beautiful family and the Lord has blessed us with six children, and sometimes we laugh that he went above and beyond all that we were asking or imagining for.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: We have five girls and then we finished out our family with one little guy.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: So our children range in age from our oldest is 16 and a half and our little guy is 17 months, so we are covering drivers to diapers and everything in between.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: We have a baby, a preschooler, elementary age, middle school age and high school age and all happening simultaneously, so that has really been interesting and a parent dynamic.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything different, so that's probably good that I don't know anything different, but it just keeps our lives really full.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I love having a big family and I really just love being able to be home with them.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I homeschool the middle three girls and that's been.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: We're on year three and that's been a huge gift, an unexpected gift actually.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, we're just we're really enjoying our life.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: We're really enjoying this season of our lives and the little ones are keeping us on our toes every day.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I love that you have all those stages happening at the exact same time.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Just so fun to watch you do that and little bear man, the little blessing at the end of the girls.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: It has been so fun to see that I asked Missy to come on today because, like I was saying, I've been able to sit at her feet a couple of times over the last few years as she has shared about some transformation that's been happening in her life and some things that she's learning and really digging into.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: All kind of centered around doing relationships well, having really healthy boundaries but working from a place of connection and love and growing towards connection, not towards distance, and how just to do that well, relationally.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Obviously, you know just from hearing her story being married for 20 plus years, six kids, all different areas of development.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: She's a basketball coach, she's a homeschool mom, she herself has, you know, siblings and different relationships and so being able to put this into play into all those different relationships.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: So, missy, if you can kind of just tell the listeners a little bit about what started you on the journey to really dig into this topic and just educate yourself on how to do relationships well, so that actually was a very unexpected experience that happened for me.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: It wasn't something I was looking for, it wasn't even something that I was really asking for, but once it happened, I was able to see that I was really asking for.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: But once it happened, I was able to see that I was actually in desperate need of it.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: And what that was was in the fall of 2016,.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: I really just had a very powerful conversation which led to a very transformative experience with the Lord, and I had known the Lord my whole life, but there were just there was just a really a shift that happened in that conversation, which that conversation was really just the beginning of now what has been the last eight years of my life, and it was just making me a new person and really the Lord coming in in an intense love and intense kindness to really create in me a new identity and a new way of living and a new way of being.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: And, as that has transpired over the years, it's really unintentionally led me to this place of not only learning, because there's a difference between learning and knowing.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: We can learn a lot of things, we can read a lot of things, but knowing is when you're implementing it, living it out, practicing, and as this journey over the last eight years continued to grow and I continued to lean into the Lord and mature and really let Him continue to peel away things in me and really lead me to resources and lead me to mentors, that really helped shape a lot of this into myself and then into what I'm able now to share with other people.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: It was really just a continuation of being able to have those healthy relationships.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: It first had to start with me.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: A principle or a phrase that I read very early on in this journey was that you will always reproduce the environment that you have first cultivated within you.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: And when I read very early on in this journey was that you will always reproduce the environment that you have first cultivated within you.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: And when I read that I burst into tears because it felt like an answer to many of the things that I felt like I had experienced in my life was I couldn't often figure out answers to things in my business, like relationally or culturally, I sometimes struggled in my marriage, like how to communicate better.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Or in my business, like relationally or culturally, I sometimes struggled in my marriage like how to communicate better.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Or in my parenting, I found myself responding to my children in ways that I would have just been so horrified or embarrassed if someone would have seen me respond that way right to little kids.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone feels that way, but I would feel that way and I kind of couldn't figure out like why.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: And so when I read that it was just, it was really so freeing because it started to give me an answer and the answer was go to work on myself, go to work on me, let the Lord start to really refine out in me the things that are not of him.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: And so, as that process has then continued, it has really led to just desiring and being passionate, because I now see the fruit of being very intentional about the toolbox that we use in terms of our relationship.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: When I was first married, when I was first a mom, when I was first starting a business, I had a really small relational toolbox right, it was just a couple tools that I would just go back to every single time and so really realizing that there was a much bigger toolbox, if you will, that I could use to keep myself in the way of being that I wanted to be, which was honoring to the Lord and honoring to others, but then also how to then walk out relationships in a way that was honoring and loving and connected and respectful, and so it's just really.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: It's been in many ways an unintentional process, but it's been one I'm so thankful for.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I love that Talk a little bit about.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: So you're saying this and what you need to cultivate and change in yourself to get a different environment with your relationships with your children, with your relationship with your husband.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: What are things that you started to notice were shifting in those relationships, and how does your personal growth that you've taken correlate or pour over into what you've seen in the strength of your relationships primarily with your children and your husband, since that's kind of what we focus on here on the podcast.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: So what I started to see was a lot of what the transformation was about was my own identity and the identity that I had.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Even though I knew the Lord, even though I was in a good marriage, I was in a healthy family, I really, at some point along the way, I had taken on the identity of really what's called an orphan spirit, and that orphan spirit is just one where you easily believe the lie which really is rooted back into what happened with Adam and Eve in the garden.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: So it's not unique or special to me.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I think we're all tempted at this in some way or the other is believing.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Will God really take care of me?
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Can I really trust him?
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Is he withholding from me in some way?
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Is there something else better out there?
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: And I have to go find it, I have to go make it happen, I have to go capture it for myself, right?
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: That's the whole thing of what happened in the garden.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: And so I just I had that really deeply embedded in me, and so it.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: It led to a lot of characteristics in me that were actually praised by people, because it made me a hard worker, it made me super determined, it made me a go-getter, it made me driven.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: I accomplished and achieved lots of things.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: That was always really just a marker in my life and I got praise for that Right, and so I didn't see those things as bad things and in and of themselves they aren't bad things but they were rooted in my fear or my own desire of I had to take care of myself and I really had to protect myself and I had to provide for myself.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: And so a lot of that transformation that began eight years ago was an undoing of that and really recognizing that I needed to have an identity that was anchored in who I was, in the Lord, outside of my performance, outside of what I achieved or didn't achieve, and that he was the protector and he was the provider.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: And so what that translated into in places in my marriage was really being able to give my husband a lot more grace, being able to give my husband a lot more compassion around situations and how things were done and with my children it was really.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: It just created in me, I guess, more of a softness because I wasn't operating so much out of fear.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: We either operate out of fear or love.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Those are the two things, and oftentimes in our parenting, when we are reacting to our children instead of responding to our children.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: We're reacting out of fear, or we're yelling at them, or we're quick to react to something that they've done.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: It's really out of fear, and it's often fear of I'm going to lose control, the situation is going to get too crazy, they're going to choose to do something, and it's very fear-based.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And so a lot of the shifting.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Once I started to really understand who I was in the Lord and I will tell you.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: You're going to hear this podcast and you're like, wow, that was a lot in 30 minutes.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: The transformation didn't happen in 30 minutes.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was the most beautiful and brutal process I think that I have ever really walked through, because there was just such a purging that had to happen.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: There had to be really a recognizing and an identifying of lies and stories.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: That I believe, because we operate out of what we believe to be true and we often will make choices to keep ourselves right about those stories.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: And so I had to take ownership for I had to grieve, I had regrets, I had to go apologize, I had to go, you know, make amends in certain situations, because I had made choices all of these years based in a wrong identity of who I was and who the Lord was, even though I wasn't Christian, and so that really started to become just a new way of being.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: And I will say that it was twofold, in that there were moments in that process where there was an automatic and an immediate freeing would come for me like a freeing from a lie or a belief.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: But then the second part was then I had to start to choose new habits.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I had to start to choose to do things in a new way, and so that was a twofold process, but really started to know pretty immediately in those close relationships with my husband and my children.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I will say now, eight years later, there's a lot of fruit that I see.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: There is a peacefulness in our home, there is a joyfulness in our home, there is a goodness in our home that I'm so thankful for.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: And I'm not sure if what we are experiencing today would have been possible if the Lord and his kindness wouldn't have done what he did in me eight years ago.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: And that was part of one of the things he told me was that I was raising at a time we had four girls that I was raising up another generation, the next generation and I could only lead them as well as I was secure in the identity that he had given me.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: So I'm so thankful and, yeah, and it's fun now.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I was homeschooling the girls this morning and my eight-year-old she was needing to explain, like what some Proverbs being about like early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise, whatever and so one of them she got to was talking about how a gentle answer will I can't remember exactly how it goes gentle answer will, like soften the wrath, and I was asking, she was telling me what that meant, and she used the word feedback.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: She's like you know when you go to give feedback to somebody and just the tone or the way that you choose to say what you're going to say.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: And it just made me smile in the inside because I'm like my eight-year-old is using words like tone and feedback and just the level of awareness that they have because of some of the language that we use to create really strong relationships, particularly amongst five girls, I think is super powerful and I'm so thankful for that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I'm one of five girls too, so I can appreciate that I have four sisters and I love that you have that little guy on the end, because that totally changes up the dynamics and makes it a little different.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: But one thing, that kind of a two-part question there's a specific book that I know you have referenced a lot that was really powerful in being part of this transformation for you, and specifically in there it talks a lot that was really powerful in being part of this transformation for you, and specifically in there it talks a lot about how a powerful person operates and how a powerless person operates.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: What is that concept and how do those two things look against each?
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: other.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was actually a very revolutionary thought to me and the mentor that you know, sunny and I both just really love and we've gleaned so many things from him.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: We actually got initially introduced to him through a parenting concept and I'll be the first to tell you that my pride actually was very critical of his parenting suggestions and his parenting style.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: My best friend, who shared the book with me, was telling me about.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, just give me a recap, what's it about?
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: When she told me, I was like that's dumb, that's really dumb.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: And and now I'm, you know, obviously eating all of those words over and over again because we have been following and recommending this parenting style for 16 years, and then that led to really getting exposed to more of his tools and so this idea of a powerful person this is introduced somewhat in the parenting book and that was part of what was so revolutionary for me, because I guess I always equated a powerful person as a dominating person, as a controlling person, as kind of like loudest person in the room, and even though I would say I am a, I am now a powerful person.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: But even though I would say I am now a powerful person, but even though I would say oftentimes I'm up in front of the room or there's just a lot of God-given leadership qualities that he put in me.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: One of the traits I desire most in my relationships is peacefulness.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Peacefulness that is actually the quality that attracted me first and foremost and forever to my husband was that I knew that when I married Sonny I would have a light peacefulness, and I just desired that so much.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: And that still continued for me.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: And so all that to say being powerful, I used to think was kind of negative and it really wasn't something that I ever wanted to be.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: And so, understanding what is a powerful person, the powerless person and a powerful person is just someone who recognizes that on their very best day, on their very best day, the only person that they can control is themselves.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: And it is interesting to me, now that I have this lens of life and living, how many people don't realize that they can only control themselves.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: And we often will say things like oh yeah, I know I can only control myself, but we don't live that way, we don't live out of that way, especially as mothers.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: We do think in some way we can control our children.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Mothers, we do think in some way we can control our children as wives, we think we can control our spouses, or you know different things like that, and so just understanding that a powerful person is someone who takes responsibility for their lives.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: They use assertive language, meaning their yes is yes and their no is no, and they make commitments that they will follow through on, but they don't commit out of people pleasing, they don't commit out of fear of disappointment, and they just recognize that they can only control themselves, and this is something that I am definitely still a work in progress.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: In Nikki, when you asked me to come on your podcast, one of the first things I said was I am not an expert.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: I mess up constantly, constantly, and I'm always so aware of some of my shortcomings in in the very things that I feel like I get asked to share about.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: And so you're it's always a journey right, and you're always going to be just working to get better and to make them more that natural daily habit.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: But powerful people just take ownership for their life and they don't blame other people and they stay curious before they're critical.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: That's a huge part of that.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: They learn how to respond versus react right, and so those are things that can be super beneficial in every relationship in your life.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Powerless people, on the other hand, are often, you know, coming into situations and looking to be a consumer in that relationship, kind of do you notice me?
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Do you make me feel good?
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Did you compliment me?
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Did you recognize me?
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Do I matter to you?
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: And we all want those things in our relationships.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: But when power, what separates, I believe, powerful people from powerless people is powerful people have that identity anchored in who they are, in the Lord.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: So when I know that everything that I need is going to come from him my value, my approval, the love that I want and desire, if all of that already gets all that, buckets of my heart get filled from him first, then I can come into a room really free to love other people.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: But I don't need anything from other people and powerless people.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: They need things from other people.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: They need to be validated, they need to be seen right when a powerful person wants to give those things freely chooses to.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Where a powerful person wants to give those things freely chooses to give those things, desires to give those things to other people.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Because it's the way that we are designed to be in relationship with people.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Powerless people need those things, and when those things don't happen, or they don't happen in the way that they wanted or on the timeframe that they wanted, then there is hurt or frustration or stories of all kinds of things.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Powerless people also use passive language, language like when they're asked a question of what do you want and they'll say it doesn't matter, I don't care, you pick right.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: It's very passive.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Then there's obviously aggressive Powerless people can's very passive, then there's obviously aggressive powerless people can be very aggressive.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: They can be those people that just need to come in and dominate and just kind of keep dogging after things until they get their way, until everybody else just kind of gives up.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: And it's not that big of a deal.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: You know you quote unquote, win, but it's really just you win, so you can get away from that right, because when anxiety or control is high, love is low.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And so in most of your relationships, if control or a sense of control or manipulation or a potential feeling of being manipulated or anxiety is high, love is going to be low.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: And those are relationships that we will tolerate, those are relationships that we will endure, those are relationships that we will actively choose to want to engage in.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: And so powerless people use passive language, they use aggressive language.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: They also will use the passive aggressive language.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: And that one you know comes across is when this idea of you say, sure, right, sure, we can do that, and then you follow it up with a phrase of well, it wouldn't matter anyways, you always get your way or some other kind of hurtful dig because they're unwilling to take assertive communication and put their needs on the table and say I really got my feelings hurt when this situation happened, or I feel like when I share my opinion, it doesn't really matter, so I am hesitant to share my opinion.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: So it's being able.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Assertive communicators, powerful people are willing and able.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I think able is often within our means.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: It's the willingness.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Are we willing?
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Because the willingness requires vulnerability.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: The willingness requires exposing ourselves to say I'm hurt, I'm scared, I'm maxed out, I don't feel loved, whatever those things are.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: And even in that, even when you're communicating something difficult, still taking the ownership of that other person didn't do anything to you.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: What they chose to do created a response in you that you chose to feel a certain way about.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: It's like this idea I have talked to my girls multiple times because, as you can imagine, five sisters in one house.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: The phrase she's so annoying has come up more than once.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: It's actually minimized because we've hashed this out many times over but explaining to them that no one actually has the power to annoy them.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: That person is choosing a certain behavior, whether it's chewing with their mouth open, whether it's, you know, repeatedly singing a song as they're walking through the house, whether it's whatever it is, and that behavior that that person is choosing to do, they, as the sister, they get to decide how they want to respond to that.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: They can choose whether that is annoying to them.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: They can choose whether that is something that they want to get irritated about, but they are not a victim to someone else's chewing loudly at the table right and this is the things that my family listens to this they're going to be like mom, are you hearing yourself?
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Because I feel like I'm constantly telling my kids to chew with their mouth closed because it annoys quote unquote annoys me.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: They're not annoying me.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: I have to recognize that I'm allowing that to annoy me, and so what that does also is that a powerful person is not a victim.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: A powerless person is a victim to the circumstance, and a powerful person recognizes that they get to set the temperature of the relationships, of the rooms that they come into, and sometimes they will set that temperature by exiting that relationship or exiting that room.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: You're not required to have to stay in situations every single time, but a powerless person is really just that thermometer and they're just like responding or reacting to whatever's going on around them and they feel definitely very victimized by the surroundings and feel very like there's not a lot of control for them and it's really just a lie.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: And that's one of the things that we have been on purpose with our girls about in particular, as we have been learning this, as Sunny and I have, you know, put forth the work to model this and walk it out, to really pass that on to the girls so that they can recognize that in their friendships, when they're in team sports.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: You know all of those different things.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: So funny.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I feel a little bit attacked there.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I feel like convicted that maybe last night, when I was ready to hurl my hair out, when there was snoring happening and I couldn't sleep, I became a powerless person.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So funny, and it's true that we control the way we react and it really is 100% up to us, despite whatever situation we might find ourselves in.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: So if we take this and again I think there's just so much that we can all sit and kind of examine in our own lives.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: But what are some practical tips that you would give?
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I think specifically to moms, dads, whoever's listening that are maybe in this stage of relationship with teenagers, where there can be a lot of conflict, there can be a lot of wanting to control and as we move into adult children which I know you're not quite there yet, but a stage that we're walking through is when we do naturally I think our natural desire is to control and when, as parents, we're living in a house and we want to say, well, I pay the rent and I this and I that.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: How do you advise that people who are maybe in just a situation where they feel like we can't even have a conversation, there is no love between me and my teenage children, because it's just stressful all the time and I know you've talked about the fight, flight or freeze reactions.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: What is just some tips or suggestions that you would give to parents that find themselves in just that hard situation?
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Wow this could probably be its own podcast episode.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: So I think, first of all, if you are a parent and you find yourself in a hard situation, I think you know.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: I just want to acknowledge it's hard and it's okay to say it's hard, but I think that that is some of the language even to start using with your teenager to say this is hard.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I can recognize that this is hard for you.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: It's hard for me too, particularly as we are watching our children grow up and watching our children start to cut the cords slowly.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: As that happens, our 16 and a half year old she's driving, and so that was the newest cord.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Right now she is actually on a spring break trip with on her own, with some other families, and that was like another time of just continuing to let her step out and continuing to let her have that sense of independence.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: And so there's the tension of sadness, right.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: There's a tension of loss.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: There's this tension of like oh, this is hard to watch them grow and leave.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: But then there's also coupling that tension.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: On the other end of that is this joy of like man.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: This is, this is the whole goal of parenting is to equip them for an independent life, for an autonomous life.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: An autonomous life.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: I loved hearing this and understanding that autonomy is different than just like an independence, because autonomy is there, is this individual person, but they recognize that they're connected to something.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: They recognize that they're connected to a community, and that was something that we have been teaching our girls really for a very long time, because we learned it in this parenting philosophy is that they are free to make the choices that they're going to make.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: They are not free to be spared from the consequences of that and that their choices have a ripple effect.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: So their choices not only affect them, it affects their siblings, it affects their parents, it affects their grandparents, it affects the community that they're a part of, it affects the school that they're a part of, because they are a representation of all of those different groups of people, and so they don't get these independent choices of I'm just going to do what makes me happy without a natural ripple effect of those consequences.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Without a natural ripple effect of those consequences.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: And so I think these relationships where there are parents who are struggling with this relationship with their teenager, I think that one of the things that would be helpful for you to evaluate, as a parent is when you go to make a decision, when you go to respond and not react.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: And that is so crucial that you, if you haven't done this, if your child's experience with you up until this point in their life has not been you maturing up and responding, you have to do that and that's going to be a hard thing to hear, but you've got to grow up.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: You've got to mature up.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: This is not an equal relationship where you get to behave in the same ways as your teenager.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: You can do that, but it's going to lead to very negative consequences and your teenager will gravitate and they will find a leader.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: They will find someone who is stable.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: They will find someone that they can just be a mess around and it doesn't fear them.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Oftentimes, I think in parenting, there's a couple of things at play here.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Man Nikki, you asked me a big question because I'm going to get on a giant, giant diatribe here.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: So there is.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: I think there's often two things at play when parents are struggling in their relationships with their teenager.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: One is fear making decisions out of fear, oftentimes control.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: What is manifested is control, but it's rooted in fear.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Losing control, they're going to make a decision.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: The consequences are going to be massive.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: They're going to make a decision.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: It's going to cost us X Y Z.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: They're going to make a decision.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: They're going to get hurt.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: It's often based in fear, and anytime we are doing things in fear, love is low and kids don't want to be around people where love is low.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: They just don't.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Teenagers especially, and teenagers.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: The struggle with teenagers is now they do have more ability to leave.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: They have more ability to choose time with their friends.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: The other thing I think that's at play oftentimes for parents is that their own identity, who they are, is not independent of who they are, is not independent of who they are as their child's peer.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: So the success of the child really equals the success of the parent.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: The right decisions of the child is really the reflection of the parents making right decisions, and so when those get commingled, it's very scary for parents because if the child makes a mistake or the child doesn't succeed to the level in sports or grades or church relationships, dynamics or accomplishments, if the parent does not have an identity firm and secure outside of their child and outside of them being a parent of this child, they will end up being a powerless person, because they are actually, then, at the mercy of this 15-year-old behavior, communicating to the world who they are as a person, what their value is, what their ability of accomplishment, what their ability of success is, and that's a very difficult thing for parents to see and accept.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: It takes great maturity, if you find yourself in that place, to be able to step back and say, oh my gosh, yes, that's why this freaks me out, that's why I don't like this.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: If you are finding yourself in this situation, I think that the best thing to do, kind of like I said at the beginning, is you always recreate the environment around you that you first cultivated in you.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: So go to work on you, go to work on managing yourself, go to work on being in control of yourself to the very best ability that you have.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Get good at responding instead of reacting.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: One of the characteristics of powerful people is they get good at telling other people what they are going to do and they let everybody else decide what they are going to do, and they let everybody else decide what they're going to do.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: And so, with your kids, you can get good.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: And if you're not yet in this season of life, if your kids are a little bit littler.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: This is the littler years of the time to start practicing some of these things.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Okay and I feel like that has been a huge aid for us in our parenting is that we have been really teaching and giving the girls as many opportunities as we can to make their own choices and then for them to bear the consequences good or bad of those choices.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Because we are made for freedom as people.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: We just are made for freedom and our hearts long to be free and to make decisions and we don't want to be controlled.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: And I think what happens is many times what we call parenting these days is really just 97 different ways to control your kids control them to be happy, control them to perform, control them to get them to do what you want them to do.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: And then the pushback comes when they hit those adolescent years, because the kid realizes I don't want to do this anymore and I'm big enough and I'm loud enough and I'm strong enough and I can get scary enough that now I can present myself in a way that my parents kind of freak out or my parents don't know what to do with me and they'll say things well, I don't know what to do with you or I don't know, blah, blah, blah.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: And so I think that that's where if you, as a parent, can start to get really good at managing yourself.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: And a practical thing and this is a tip this is like a toolbox.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: This is like part of the toolbox that we started using with our kids when they were itty bitty like toddlers.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: If you haven't started using this, you can start using it with teenagers, and it really helps diffuse the intensity that can come in conversations.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: The other thing that I just want to throw in here super quickly is that every time you need to confront a situation, it does not have to equal conflict, and many times parents are terrified of confronting behavior poor responses, perceived disrespect and I use the word perceived disrespect because oftentimes kids respond and disrespect was not intended.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not, and parents get so out of whack about that was disrespectful.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Instead of just saying like, hey, I didn't really like when you said that that way.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: When you said that that way, that made me feel like you just really you know there was no value to what I was trying to share with you.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: A way where you're staying in control of yourself instead of firing off of you need to be respectful, right and so.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: But you can use phrases.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: The five phrases are, I know, I don't know, maybe so that could be a nice try.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: So when you're getting into it, if you tell your 16 year old like, hey, yeah, it's just not going to work out for you to go to the party on Friday night, and they're like losing their mind.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: You can be like I know, and you don't have to go on.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: You don't have to go on and on and on and on, and then they say that's so unfair, I know, maybe, so that could be right.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: And then when they say something really inappropriate, then you're like nice try, nice try, right.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: And we also have a small phrase in our house that's fun or real.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: And I have used this when I have traveled with groups of adults and I'm like hey, we're here for a weekend.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: This is like the basic rule.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: If you wanna be with the group, be fun.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Fun means you're managing yourself.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Fun this is like the basic rule.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: If you want to be with the group, be fun.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Fun means you're managing yourself.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Fun means you're bringing some energy.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Fun means you want to participate.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Fun means you're going to just kind of do what the group's doing.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: If you're not in a place to do that, that is okay, but then you need to go to your room or you need to go somewhere alone or you need to go make a different plan.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: But there is.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't understand.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I do understand it and I also don't at the same time.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: When you're in a group of people who are, you know, family dynamic, and someone chooses to come into the group unfun, low energy, crabby, irritated it's like you didn't have to choose to come right.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: So funner room is another one that I will use with all of my girls.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Like, hey, it's no problem if you're not being fun.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm not fun and I'll be like I'm not being fun.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: I'm going to fix up my room for a little bit, right, because I just don't want to put forth the effort to be fun in that moment or I'm having a hard time managing my frustration or managing my emotions.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: So I will take myself to my room.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: So that's another strategy that you can use with teenagers.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: The other thing I think you have to realize as parents is that you are the holder of the resources in almost every situation, so you don't have to control them and their choices.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: You just connect up for them that you are the one that controls the resources, and then they get to decide how much access they're going to get to the resources that you offer Resources often being transportation, resources being a phone, resources being ability to play a sport or not.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Right, and you get good as a parent of stating to your child hey, here's the parameters, here's what I'm going to do, this is what I'm putting on the table, do with it what you want.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: My 16-year-old, she got her license and so she has a vehicle of ours that she's driving.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: And I was following her home one night from a basketball game and it was one of those places on the interstate where the speed limit like drops 10, you know, but it's kind of in a weird spot, so you don't really know it.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: And and she did fine, she dropped, but she was still could have gotten picked up for some speeding.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: And so I realized, as I was following her home, we never talked about this, we never discussed this.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Right, as a parent, I could have stormed in the house or I could have gotten on the phone with her as I'm following behind and be like do phone with her as I'm falling behind and be like do you know you're speeding?
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: You can't be speeding, it's irresponsible to be speeding.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: And I could have been reacting and been critical instead of being curious Like did you even know?
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Did you even recognize the sign change?
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: And so we got home and I was, you know, we put our stuff away and I've learned, like you don't have to.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: I as a person do not like to be talked to about anything the moment my foot hits the door, like give me just a minute, let me put my bag down, let me hang up my coat, whatever.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: So I try to do that with my kids, like I let them come in the house, we have a minute.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: And so she was just sitting there.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: I was just like hey, this was actually something, dad, and I haven't really addressed with you before.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: But now that you have a car, you're, you have a license, you know accidents are going to happen and you know accidents are going to happen and oftentimes accidents they are just that they're accidents.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Speeding is fully within your control.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: You have full control on whether or not you are ever going to speed in that vehicle.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Dad and I would prefer that you obey the laws and that you do not speed If you choose to speed.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: This is what's going to happen, and I just said you will pay the ticket, and where we live, the tickets will be very expensive.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: I said you will pay the ticket out of your own money.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: You'll have to figure that out and you will lose access to the vehicle for 30 days.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: So when you need to get to school, when you need to get to practice and I have to take you, I now come at a cost because my time is valuable, so you will also have also be paying for my time to take you to and from school or to and from practice.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, so do with that what you want.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: I love you, do a great job at driving Right, and so it's just again.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: And I know for some of you as parents, you're like, oh my gosh, I can never do that.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: My kid would just go crazy.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: They might.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: But here's the other thing that I learned a long time ago, long time ago, in the last 16 and a half years of my parenting, I want to let my kids make as many mistakes as possible while they are living within the four walls of my home, because typically those pain points are going to be much less impactful than they will be if I try to micromanage, control, spare them of all of these making wrong decisions, messing up, not showing up on time for things until they leave my home or until they're 18 and they've decided well, now I'm an adult, because the world tells me I'm an adult when I'm 18.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: And now the consequences are out of your hands.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: And now the consequences are the police department or an employer or the government, and you don't have control over that as a parent.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: So I want to set my kids up as best as I can, making those mistakes while they're littler.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: So, because we can help, I'm not going to help minimize those consequences, but the natural outpouring is that they're going to be minimized.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Right, but if my kids don't learn to set an alarm and get themselves up on time and get themselves to school on time, where the biggest consequence is a tardy, and with enough tardies you get a detention Well, if I don't teach them that and I'm the mom that's waking my kid up and getting them dressed and hustling them out the door to get them to school what do you think that's going to look like when they're a 25-year-old adult and they need to manage themselves in a job Like this switch doesn't automatically get flipped in kids just because they turn a certain age or just because they move out of their house.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: So I would say, if you don't yet have teenagers, if you're not yet in maybe a difficult relationship with teenagers, start these things as early as you can with your kids, practicing, giving them opportunity to be responsible.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Kids love to be responsible.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: You guys, kids love to help, kids love to do things with you.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: And many times, as mothers particularly also dads, who do this often is when kids, when they are toddler age, when they are two, three, four, five years old, six years old, they want to help constantly.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Can I help make my cereal?
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Can I help make my toast?
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: Can I help unload the dishwasher?
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Can I help mix the salad?
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: Can I help do the laundry?
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: And as mothers or parents, we're often saying no, we're often saying just go play, just go play, I'll do it.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: I'll just do it because it's quicker.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: It's quicker for us to clean the kitchen, it's quicker for us to make the bed, it's quicker for us to make the lunches, we're just quicker at it.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: And we are like, no, just go play, just go play, just go play, just go play.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: And then what happens is when they become eight, nine, 10 years old and they're not helping, we get mad, we get frustrated.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: We're like don't you see the dishes are dirty?
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Don't you see that you could help?
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Don't you see that I'm doing all the things?
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: But guess what?
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: We trained them.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: We trained them for those first eight to nine, 10 years to not help, and a switch doesn't automatically get flipped when they're 10, 11, 12 years old, to now be aware, to be helpful in the household, not just for their chore chart.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: We actually don't even do chore charts in our house because I don't believe enough.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: I believe you just contribute.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: If you see a mess, pick it up.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: If there's something that can be done, help, write, contribute, ask, have that kind of ongoing community.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: But I think that those are these things that as parents, we find ourselves in the teenage years so frustrated with our teenagers about, and I think we have to be willing, as parents, to take ownership.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: To say what's my part in this?
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Where did maybe I not do some training Because it was going to take time?
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: I had somebody tell me one time when my kids were young that my parenting took a lot of time and I was like, yep, it really does.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing you're going to put time in somewhere, and I would rather put time in on the front end, when they're little and they're a little bit more moldable and they're a little less opinionated and they're a little bit more compliant, willing to try it.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Do it then when they're nearly an adult or a teenager, and you're now trying to get those things to happen.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: So I think that you have to be willing, as a parent, to own your part, and sometimes, too, it's being willing to go to your teenager and say listen, I know we're having a hard time and I know that it feels like we're constantly butting heads.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: That's not my heart.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: My heart is to stay connected to you.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: My heart, my desire, is there not to be conflict and fear every time we engage in conversation.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to apologize for my part, because I own at least 50% of this, if not more, and I'm going to start doing my best to show up with love, to show up with freedom, to show up with room for you to ask questions, with room for you to share your opinion, with room for you to disagree.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: That's another thing, and I know and I talked about that, nikki of just this idea that communication, the goal of communication is not agreement, the goal of communication is understanding.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: And oftentimes we get that very wrong in our relationships and we think we have quote unquote communicated well with someone when they agree with us or when they finally agree with us and if that is the lens we will keep going after, like a teenager, until they quote unquote agree with us and they're like well, finally, finally they heard what I was saying.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: No, they didn't hear what you were saying.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: They just gave you what you were asking for so that they could get out of the conversation.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: But they don't actually agree with you.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: But if your understanding of communication with your spouse, with your children, with anyone, is just understanding, then it frees you both up to be able to say this is what I desire or this is what I want or this is how I see it.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: You give them the freedom to say how they see it or what they desire or what they want.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: You don't have to agree, but you can say I definitely understand what you're saying, I don't agree with it.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: At this point it's not going to change the decision that dad and I have made, but I want you to know I understand why you feel that way, and and there's there's validity to that and treating them in a respectful way, right, that's the other thing too.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: It's like we, I think, oftentimes as parents, we want to treat our children in a way that we don't want them to treat us, but we are modeling for them the very disrespect that we are expecting that they would not give us.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Well, we are going to cut it off there.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: You guys, I know it's so hard.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I'm leaving you on the edge of your seats for another week until you can come back and hear the second part of this interview, where Missy talks a ton about setting healthy boundaries and just navigating in relationships from a point of love.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: So thanks so much for being here for the first half.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Share this episode with your friends that you think would benefit from it.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Mamas who are parenting teenagers, kids of any age, can take so much wisdom from Missy.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Until we meet here again next week, take care.