Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / How To Be A More Emotionally Available Dad

Transcript

How To Be A More Emotionally Available Dad · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  One of the dominant primary factors that research has supported through studies of a successful family, but specifically a family that passes on the faith. So has a high percentage of their kids becoming believers, the kids' kids becoming believers, etc. One of the dominant predictors is this one thing, and it's called...
• 0:18
  Hi, welcome to the Family Teams Podcast. Our goal here is to help your family become a multi-generational team on mission by providing you with biblically rooted concepts, tools, and rhythms. Your hosts are Jeremy Pryor and Jefferson Bethke, and we can't wait to chat about all things family.
• 0:35
  Welcome everyone to the Family Teams podcast. We are in a series right now where we're talking about winning your children's hearts. And this is such an important thing. I think that for any parent out there, when they hear this topic, they're like, yes, how do I do that? What do I do that? We spend so much time thinking, how do we make sure that we keep our children's hearts? Because you really can't create a beautiful family, an orderly family. You can't have an impact in this world if the team isn't cohesive, right?
• 0:59
  And so today we're talking about one of the big threats to this that unfortunately I think all of us have some experience with, which is what does it look like when the father is maybe not emotionally available, right? And so when that happens, like you kind of become the ceiling for your family, right? And so we want to talk about what does it look like to grow emotionally as a father?
• 1:20
  in order to serve the family and connect them. So Jeremy, help set this up, frame this for us. Why does it matter? What does it look like for a father to be emotionally unavailable? What are some signs that might be happening?
• 1:31
  Yeah, I got really convicted about this. I think our friend Josh Straub said something like, a child will not surpass his father's emotional intelligence or emotional availability when he's in that household. So this is creating kind of a ceiling for our children, like you're saying, Blake. And I'm going to put myself on the couch a little bit on this episode because this is definitely the number one thing I struggle with as a dad. People ask me, what's your biggest weakness? Or I'm like, this is it. This is what I struggle with the most.
• 1:57
  And part of what I always want to be thinking about, and I want dads who are listening to this to understand that when you're asked the question, are you emotionally available to your child? You can't answer that question without trying to understand how your child is experiencing you. Like you can say, oh, I'm totally emotionally. I'm an open book. That does not matter.
• 2:20
  This was really hard for me. Like, I feel my emotions a lot. I mean, I'm an emotional person. That doesn't, again, the question of emotional availability comes down to what the child is experiencing. If the child does not experience your emotions, then you are not being emotionally available. There's a disconnect there between you and the child. And so how do we overcome that? That's really what...
• 2:41
  This is trying to figure out. And this is really the other side of a father's superpower. Like a father's superpower is our ability to disconnect emotionally, to just get stuff done. Like that's what makes us a good provider, a good protector. That's what allows us to go to war and try to not completely emotionally be destroyed by it. So but the problem is that we can turn all of those superpowers almost against our family.
• 3:05
  by saying, hey, I just need to disconnect from you guys right now because, oh, this is too much, too chaotic. You know, it's triggering me in all kinds of ways. And so those experiences of trying to retreat into yourself or into other activities to try to emotionally distance yourself from your children, that's what we're talking about. That is something you need to overcome. There's huge alarm bells when it comes to that area and how it will affect your family team in the future.
• 3:26
  Can you double click on when you say emotionally available? Like, what does that mean? Because I'll be honest, there's some kind of John Wayne version of father in my head that I'm like, isn't that the goal to not be flustered by my kids? I don't want to get upset by my kids. Like, what do you mean by what is healthy emotional availability look like?
• 3:46
  Yeah. Yeah. I'd love, Jeff, for you to define that. I definitely feel for me, again, it's the child's ability to feel like they can affect my heart. That's like the literal way I think about it. Like if my child says, oh yeah, I could, you know, something terrible could happen to me and my dad literally would just go to work and not care. Like, or I can be struggling and my dad is right there with me. You know, Paul says, rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.
• 4:12
  He's constantly saying that as a church body, you need to be interdependent in a way that your emotions are impacting one another. And so men are constantly being tempted to distance themselves from that experience in order to protect ourselves emotionally. And so if your child is convinced, like, I want my kids to say, if something were to happen to me, my dad is not going to fall apart emotionally, but he's going to be the most emotionally impacted.
• 4:35
  Like I have no doubt that if I am struggling, my dad is feeling it deep down and I know he's feeling it. There's no doubt at all that he is emotionally connected to me and he's able to do it in a healthy way, in a differentiated way. But he is affected and he is connected. That's what I want my kids to know. And I think if your kids know that, it creates a completely different dynamic in the family. Excellent.
• 4:59
  That's very helpful. Okay. So it's not about that you're emotionally reactive. It's more of the fact that you're like, you are emotionally present. And so you're sensing what your children are feeling and you're not just cutting it off so that you can kind of have a good day, no matter the state of your, or your children. Jeff, you, you work with men, right? You have an organization forming men.
• 5:18
  And in that, you've dedicated the 10,000 hours around the campfire, helping men become more emotionally intelligent and even more aware of what's happening emotionally for themselves. Why is this important? Why have you dedicated so much of your time towards this?
• 5:34
  Yeah, I think one thing that's really interesting, Nancy Piercy talks about this in her book on masculinity, that one of the dominant primary factors that research has supported through studies of a successful family, but specifically a family that passes on the faith. So has a high percentage of their kids becoming believers, the kids, kids becoming believers, etc. Is one of the dominant predictors is this one thing, and it's called the warmth predictor.
• 5:56
  of the father. It's that simple. And I love that phrase, the warmth of the father. And what that means is pretty self-evident, is there is a warmth of the father that warms the home, that brings heat to the home, that brings heat to the kids' hearts. And we know what warmth is. It's a man who smiles. It's a man who's gentle. It's a man who can laugh.
• 6:19
  It's a man who can joke. It's a man who's pretty sturdy and confident in himself. It's usually a man who's competent and has a ton of skills. And there's a warmth about that man, meaning they're approachable. Like when you think of Jesus, one dominant thing that usually people think of is he was warm. He was warm.
• 6:35
  He had a warmth about him. Now, he wasn't probably warm to the Pharisees. I think that's an interesting point. But he was warm to those other people that came around him while still holding himself in power and holding himself in authority. And so to be a man, to be a father that kind of produces external warmth, you need to be a man who has internal warmth. And so I think it's really, really, really important for guys to soberly look at themselves and their emotional availability with their kids and say, man, man.
• 7:02
  I am not available to my kids probably because my inner world is in turmoil. You have to find warmth in your inner world before you can project it in your outer world. And you find warmth in your inner world by sitting at the, to keep the metaphor going, at the fire of the feet of Jesus.
• 7:18
  It's not a coincidence that when Moses comes down off the mountain, then he comes back down off the mountain, he's glowing. There's like a heat about him. Paul references in 2 Corinthians that might we be men who are transformed from one degree of glory to the next as we behold him. And so we must be men that behold Jesus so deeply that his fire, his heat, his warmth, like leaks on us in our inner world and then comes out in our outer world. And I think that's really, really, really important.
• 7:48
  That's excellent. Maybe April pulling you in here. You've seen Jeremy at his coldest, grinchiest moment. And you've seen Jeremy at his warmest moment, right? And you've seen him when he's open hearted and warm and abundant, his Fezziwig moment from The Christmas Carol, right? Yes. Tell me how that affects the family.
• 8:10
  Well, there's the spirit of Elijah that gets described in, is it Malachi, Jeremy? Yeah. As the heart of the father turning toward their children and the heart of the children turning towards their father. And I think that that is such a beautiful description of a warm-hearted man that…
• 8:32
  like creating the form, like Jeff said, and like a father who turns his heart, you can see him like physically turn his heart towards his kids. And I think I've seen this, you know, we have four daughters and one son. And so I think all of the girliness that Jeremy has been around, you know, God's the one who chose to give us that those genders and to kind of
• 8:57
  to load us up heavy on the girl's side. And I think that a lot of that has helped him turn his heart towards the kid because the girls are just so emotionally desire. They want his attention. They want his focus and they are not ashamed to cry out for it when they're little.
• 9:17
  And for him to be like, oh, oh, oh, like you still want my attention? You wanted it yesterday and today and I bet you're going to want it tomorrow. Was like the repetitive nature of having that many girls in our family has really helped a lot with tuning Jeremy's heart towards the kids and making him be emotionally available. Yeah.
• 9:41
  for them. And I think that I had to learn how to kind of aid that, like play my role in helping him pay attention. Like I had to kind of state the obvious for him sometimes, you know, what's obvious to me is obvious to me, I found out. And so I needed Jeremy to like, I needed to kind of clue him in on some things sometimes. And at first I did that in a disrespectful way, but then I learned how, like, no, he actually needs me to say like,
• 10:09
  I think when you were on your phone. Yeah, he actually doesn't get it. I think when you were on the phone the whole time she was crying talking to you, she might have felt a little, you know, ignored or unheard. So next time maybe put that down. This is a hypothetical. Totally hypothetical. I would never do that. Yeah. Right. I'm kicking him under the table, getting him to like.
• 10:34
  tune in, you know? So yeah, I I've seen him grow a ton in this and I think it's, it continues to be a struggle. I don't think there's like a, um, I don't think there's like a,
• 10:44
  victory moment where now he's got it for the rest of his life. I think it continues to be like a choice to engage in a different stage of the kids' lives. But I think that he understands the fruit of it. He's experienced the fruit of having daughters who are attached to him. And then a son who likes a completely different dynamic, but also making sure that he's emotionally available for his son who needs that kind of attention.
• 11:11
  Yeah. I'll say one thing, too, that April does so well. There has never been one instance that I remember, you know, in our 27 years of parenting where I ever felt like April was competing with me for our kids' affection. Like, she was always jealous for those connections more than I was. Like, there was not like, oh, I could maybe...
• 11:34
  build more of my identity in the family as a mom because I have the superpower. I can see right now what's going on in this dynamic and I'm going to use that subtly against my husband. Never, ever once. And I feel like she's always used that superpower to build up my relationship with Mike because there's times where I'm like, wow, that is such a gift that you gave me
• 11:52
  By pointing that out, that's something I need to lean into. And I can tell that she ultimately, at the end of the day, she's like fighting for my relationship with that daughter, you know, fighting for my relationship with my son. Like she wants what's best for that relationship. And that has been made her so safe. And in this way, where it's just like every time she points something like that out.
• 12:13
  I know that it is in all of our best interests to listen to that and to lean into that. So I think that sometimes that weird competition I've seen happen between couples, and oftentimes I think wives need to be aware that, yeah, you have a very dense husband who needs a lot of help, and there's weird ways that that can play on your heart. And I think if just continue to understand to be for the family first, and I think that's what she's demonstrated. Yeah.
• 12:41
  Well, I have to give a quick shout out to my dad there, because I think that's a multi-generational blessing, honestly, because my grandpa, my dad's dad, said she wanted the kids, she can raise them. And then my dad became a believer in his adult life and started to let his heart be turned towards kids.
• 13:00
  The children, he was obsessed with Elijah and the idea of blessing and turned his heart towards us. I think my mom had a big role in that too. And so I watched that happen. I watched him turn his heart more towards us. And so I had this great compassion for him, like, oh, I can tell he's trying. I can see that he wishes he wouldn't have said that. And now he's trying to kind of, you know, apologize for it. And so I think I really watched that in him. And so I wanted that also for my husband.
• 13:30
  This is great. All right. I'm thinking of the guy who's listening to this right now. Maybe he's lifting weights in his garage. Maybe he's driving to work or something like that. And he's like, I hear you. I want this. What do I do? How do I actually take one step towards becoming more emotionally available? I don't know, Jeff, do you have any tips for somebody like that?
• 13:50
  Yeah, I would give three really quick ones. I would say the first one is you need to create and protect space and time in your schedule to process your emotions. Another way to put it is if you do not let your emotions consistently pass through heaven, then they will consistently produce hell in other people's lives in your own. And so you need to make sure you're letting your emotions pass through heaven. Let God touch heaven.
• 14:11
  the feelings you are having in the day of anger, anxiety, frustration, sadness, and loneliness. Number two, I would say you need to be an emotional circuit breaker of your family or else you will be a conduit of your family. A conduit passes on the energy, a circuit breaker stops the energy. And so I think one of the primary duties of a man is that you will have a lot of emotional reactivity in the home, in the workplace, and around you
• 14:38
  And instead of allowing it to pass through you, create a surge and go through you to other people and back into the other person, you are a circuit breaker that flips the switch and the electrical charge can no longer pass on. You can only do that if you have a solid inner world with Jesus where you are processing those things and allow them to metabolize is probably another word I would use for that. And then I think number three is the encouragement, but also the challenge is you can only have
• 15:06
  hold other people's pain to the capacity in which you can hold your own. And so you need to increase that. Meaning, I think one of the jobs of the man also in the father is to have an ability to hold your own pain and hold other people's pain well, lovingly, gently, and warmly. But if you can't even hold your own pain, then you're not going to be able to hold other people's as well. And so that's what I would say is difficulties or things to pay attention to.
• 15:33
  Dude, so good. That's great. I love specifically that circuit breaker thing. We've been using that language even with our oldest son of talking about this idea of like, hey, your first step is to not be reactive as the kids are starting to act out. So we actually want you to be able to set the tone
• 15:48
  as opposed to simply embody whatever the tone of the least mature person in the family is going to be thrown out there. So this is great. Guys, this is so wonderful. If this is of interest to anybody who's listening to this, we are actually going to be diving deeper into these subjects for the month of January, talking about how is it that we capture or win our children's hearts. And actually, we have a special guest who's going to be coming on the podcast and then leading us through that.
• 16:12
  His name is Philip Dosa, and he actually has a ministry around winning kids' hearts. That's the entire focus of his ministry, and he's going to be kind of giving us his very best stuff and kind of helping us go through a process doing that together. We'll be doing town halls with Jeremy and April.
• 16:28
  We'll be doing a special handbook that he's created. In fact, he's already given us some of his very best stuff for free. If you go to familyteams.com slash hearts, he's already given us some of his very best stuff that you can do for free to kind of start on that process on your own. And then we really hope to have everybody in January as we do that.
• 16:45
  I think we're at time for today, but thank you so much for joining us. Our next one up coming in our next episode is going to be talking about doing one-on-ones. This is something I do with all of my kids, which is weekly one-on-ones where you kind of focus on connecting with each of your kids at a heart level. So look forward to talking about that. And thank you, everybody.
• 17:02
  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.