Latest / Long Haul Marriage Roadcast / The Kids Are Taking Over (Part 8 of 10) 10 Things That Can Make or Break Your Marriage

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The Kids Are Taking Over (Part 8 of 10) 10 Things That Can Make or Break Your Marriage · Long Haul Marriage Roadcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good evening, good day.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Bring us in, baby, bring us in.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: All right, are we ready? I'm tired.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: I am too, but we got this.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Isn't that been the thing? We got this, getting it
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: from the gut. Yeah, I think it's the time change.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It's the time change. Uh-huh. Can we just do daylight
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: savings time and leave it? Well, I heard they were
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: going to, but they say that for years. Oh, I
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: keep hearing that. They said that, yeah. We need to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: We need to do it. I like the daylight at night.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: For the first time in 59 years. Mm-hmm. I did
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: not remember that it was, I knew that it was
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: coming up, but on the night of, I had no idea.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: So when I woke up the next morning and looked
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: at the clock, I was like, wait a second, what?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: And then I looked at my phone and I thought,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: wait a second. Then it just hit me. So yeah,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: the time change is brutal. And I'm even thinking about
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: people with like little kids. That's when it really is bad. Yeah.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaking of little kids.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Speaking of little kids, we're going to be talking about
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: kids tonight, so y'all buckle up.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Yep, the kids are taking over. That's what we're going
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: to call Episode 8 of our 10-part series.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, first, before we kick into that.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Y'all want to talk about kids at Trick or Treat, Halloween?
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about that and then a couple of
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: things we have coming up.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Perfect.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, trick or treating is a thing in our neighborhood.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I'm glad. I'm glad. It was all over social how
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: nobody's trick-or-treating anymore. They were blaming it on maybe parties
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: on Saturday or weirdos out there and people just hunkered down. Yeah,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of neighborhoods were just reporting that everybody's light
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: was off and they didn't have any candy or they
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: just weren't participating. And then some people that did have
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: their lights on and did have the bowls of candy
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: ready had no trick-or-treaters.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But we had truckloads.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: We had a ton.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: We had, I would say, 70, if I had to guess. Yeah,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: that's a good guess.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: And they were all fun. Several won the cornhole challenge.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I would say probably the last, I don't know what,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: five or six years, you've really gotten into making it
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: a fun thing. So where it started was us sitting
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: inside the house, and every time a trick-or-treater would come up,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: the dogs would go nuts. And that just got so old,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: it was just horrible. So we thought, what would happen
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: if we just took that evening and sat outside? So
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: you kind of took it upon yourself to, and it's
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: grown over the years, but put a whole table out there.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: We have a card table that's like five foot long.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Card table, chairs with a pretty tablecloth on it, tons
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: of candy and all these different kind of bowls. And
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: a cornhole tournament with dollar bills as the prize.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Heck yeah. I wouldn't call it a tournament. They get
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: one bag. If we feel benevolent, two bags. And then
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: sometimes they even get a redo. I let Superman dunk
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: it this time. Oh, buddy. Little boy just came up
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: and just threw it straight in. But yeah, and then
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: one time all four, they were teenagers, and all four missed.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: And I said, okay, I'm going to throw one for
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: you guys. If I make it, you all get a dollar. Oh,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: my goodness. So it's the big supersized candy or a dollar.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: And man, I nailed it, drained it. And then my
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: buddy was ribbing me saying, why didn't you throw it
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: over the car? Why in the world would you make it?
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: But I'll never forget the sound of those four teenage
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: boys when that bag went in that hole.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: It's funny how excited they get about one dollar.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: One whole dollar.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Hey. It was great.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: That's about. A 25th of a bag of candy right now.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: That's true. A little bit of gas.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Unless you get it on sale at Walmart.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Like I did. Yeah, it's fun. And we got the
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: TV out there. We had OSU, all the football games on.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: And we had big old JBL rocking it with some Thriller.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: So much fun.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Actually, we did more Red Clay Strays and Turnpike Troubadours
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: than we did.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: And you brought your guitar out for a little bit
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: and serenaded everybody. Yeah.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: It's fun. It's really fun. It is fun. It's a
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: lot of fun.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, so Halloween next up.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Excuse me.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: This Wednesday evening, I'm excited. You and I are going
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: to get to go share with a group called Young
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Presidents Organization. YPO. Mm-hmm. And it's at someone's home that
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: we met. Her name's Christy, and I think it's going
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: to be really fun. And it's on navigating the season
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: of transition. When your kids become adults.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Transitioning from the relationship of you are the parent
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: to the kid versus now you're a mentor to the adult. Yeah.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: So I'm looking forward to that.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And then all the stuff that goes along with empty
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: nesting or open nesting and all that. It's going to
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: be good.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited to meet a new group of
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: people and get to share with them what we have learned,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: but also what we are learning. And then the next morning,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I leave for Evergreen. So I'll be heading to Broken Bow.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: You have been cranking, getting ready for Evergreen.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I always love seeing all the stuff that you and
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Danny and Adrena are putting your heads together, getting ready. Yep.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Sold out. All the girls are going to be so,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: so blessed. Very excited. I'm kind of jealous about y'all
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: going to Broken Bow.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: I know. This is like the best time to go.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I love fall in Broken Bow. I'll send you pictures.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: You sure will.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: So then we've got that.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: What else?
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: You know what? I haven't looked over that horizon a
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: whole lot yet.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Just finished our, I think, second to last wedding. Really fun.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Seems like every weekend we're doing that. I've got a
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: corporate fishing gig coming up. That's going to be fun
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: where I go help people learn how to catch bass.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give a prize for biggest bass and
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: one for most bass. Okay. We'll see how it goes.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: May have to extend it to bluegill. Oh. So are
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: you ready for episode eight?
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Let's do this.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Let's jump in. Episode eight of ten.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Don't keep them any longer. Here we go. Yeah. Yeah.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: This has been a good series.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: So yeah. So you started your family because you wanted children.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: And then somewhere along the way, you accidentally built your
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: entire life around them. And then your marriage sometimes gets
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: what's left on the pump handle, what the bird left
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: on the pump handle, your marriage gets leftovers and it's
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: easy to do because the kids need so much. And there's,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're growing and you're parenting. It's a huge
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: responsibility and you love them. And there's a lot to
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: get involved in. And, uh, And you're busy usually nowadays,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: both parents working as well and outside the home. And
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: then you've got all the extracurricular activities, the sports and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: just running around. And so a lot of times, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: we talked about it, I think, in the Empty Nest episode,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: but we're not talking about so much losing touch. And
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: then what happens after where people say, I don't know
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: you and who are you and who am I? But
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: we're just going to talk about the challenges of that
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: busy season, which, by the way, when people look back
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: over their lives, they say this, like parenting, young, and
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: then growing, you know, middle school, high school, and college-age kids,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: this just busy, overloaded, overcommitted, loud, messy, and you know,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: period in their lives are some of the most rich
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and the happiest time of their life. So it's interesting.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: And they don't see it at the time. None of
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: us see it at the time. But you ask, you know,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: hospice workers will say that, that they hear from people
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: all the time, that that is where they felt like
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: their life was just clicking on all eight. But man,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: it's such a challenge in the middle of it.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: When you're in the middle. Yeah. Well, I'd say even
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: for us looking back now, we're not on hospice, but
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: I would say even now just us looking some days,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: you look back and just think, man, it all just
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: goes so quickly. And I know people say that and
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: it's like yada, yada, but it really does. And there's
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: not many days that I'm sad about it because I
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: feel sad. so fulfilled now with our relationship with our
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: grown kids and then just within our marriage that I
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: don't look back and I'm not like super sad about it.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: But I can get sentimental when I just think back like, man,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: just think of, you know, especially when you see our
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: grandkids and you picture like some of them just remind
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: me so much of, Chandler, Christian and Carson at that age.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: And you're like, wow, now we're looking at their kids,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: you know, looking like or being like, you know, having care.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Like their mom or dad. And I think some grandparents
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: have the temptation to try to, you know, parent them like,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: like a do-over in parenting, but you got to shift
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: into the grandparent role because they got mom and dad. Yeah.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: But even seeing mom and dad take off, you know,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: with our grandkids to go trick or treating. And you
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: remember it's like, But I'm kind of like sitting there,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: you know, watching the game and handing out candy going, man,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: better you than me. They're dragging them around house to house.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: So there's some of that that comes with, you know.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: I think a cool perspective is.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: You miss it. Yeah, you do.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: But I think a perspective that we have as Mimi
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: and Papa now, it's interesting. Yeah, there are some of those.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: instances where you're like, whew, okay, where did we, we don't,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: we don't have the energy now like we did back then.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: But we also have this perspective of, man, it goes
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: so fast, like enjoy the moment, you know, when you
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: see like your, you know, parents getting all caught up
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: in this or that, and you're like, it's really not
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: that big of a deal. You know, it's, we're able
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: to have more patience because we see it for what
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: it is and because we're not with them 24 seven,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: you know, so it's just a fun season.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: It's a different perspective. Yep. Love it. So one, so
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: let's just get into several of the things when the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: kids are, as we call it in the episode title,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: taking over. So one of the things that they take
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: over is just your time, right? And you can start
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: to With all the activities and with school and like
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: over scheduling, I think that was always because you had
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the tendency. We've talked before about, you know, if there's
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a break in the calendar, man, hey, let's fill it.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: And I was more like, man, let's have a little margin.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: But it's almost like you can't help it. You're divide
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and conquer. You know, we just went to a game
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: of a little peewee football game of your nephew's son
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and You know, he was at one football field and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the wife was at another football field with the younger brother.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of that. And so sometimes
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: it's just that, you know, it's that you get busy
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and you can become disconnected in your marriage relationship. So
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: some just geography and time, right? But let's talk about
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: stuff that's like beyond that. So the parenting... Aspect, the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: disagreements in parenting. I wanted to touch on that because
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the year you parented one way and I parent another
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and we, you know, I wrote a little parenting book
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: that you can get. It was called Confessions of a
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Horrible Parent. The Art of Making Your Mistakes Matter. You
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: can find that on Amazon still. But it really was.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things was parent on the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: same page and become try to be a united front.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: But there's no question that our differences that we've talked
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: about a lot. And, you know, newsflash, you married someone
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: different than yourself. Mm-hmm. And the challenge is when you
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: see your way, you think you need to parent a
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: kid this way, and your spouse is maybe taking a
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: different approach. And, you know, the good cop, bad cop,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I felt like I was the hard ass, and you
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: were the lenient, you know, the pushover. And you're sometimes
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: having to overcompensate because you think I'm being too hard,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and so you're trying to back off, and I think
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: you're letting them get away with murder. Mm-hmm. Um, so that's,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: that's tough. And you get in disagreements about certain things.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: And we always talked about trying never to undermine your
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: spouse's authority in front of the kids, you know, but
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: if you, if you are, this is a good test
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: for your relationship. Cause if you're resenting your spouse, then
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: sometimes you want to take out your resentment, uh, on
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: your spouse using the kids as a pawn in the game.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: You know, I think there's that tendency. Also, sometimes your
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: kid will challenge you and remind you of your spouse. Yeah,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: that's true. And it's easy to sometimes maybe be a
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: little harder on them, especially if you're frustrated and you
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: see something in them that reminds you of your spouse.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: So yeah. Do you have anything come to mind when
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I say that?
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Well, I just remember there were, you know, quite a
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: few times where we would, be in the middle of
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: something with the kids and you saw it one way
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: and I saw it a different way. And so what
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: I tried to do in those moments is just like, not,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: not go against you in front of them, you know,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: but like, let's just have kind of an even killed,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you know, um, discussion and then behind closed doors come
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: to you and say, Hey, I kind of see it.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: this way, but I didn't want, and we would just
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: kind of have that discussion. And sometimes with the kid,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: you have to kind of table it and say, you
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: know what, we're going to talk about this and we'll
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: come back because you don't want to just completely one.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Of you rule.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Like it's always going to be me that gets my
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: way with how the kids are going to be parented.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: You know, you really do want to parent on the
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: same page. You don't want to build up that resentment
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: in your relationship when it's, you want to have that conversation,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: but not in front of the kids. So it may be,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: you know what, mom and dad are going to talk
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: about it, and then we'll talk to you later this
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: afternoon or whatever. And then behind closed doors, have that
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: conversation and see if you can come to hopefully some
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: kind of an agreement or, you know, I mean, you're
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: going to have to, Give in a little. Both of you, hopefully,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: can kind of come up with a compromise and then
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: come together as a united front. That's the best thing
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: you can do.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And the kids are no dummies. They're so smart. And
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: they know which one would probably say yes and which
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: one would probably say no. It's like, go ask your mom.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Go ask your dad. You know, that whole thing. Well,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: mom said yes. And when she didn't, she said, what
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: do you think? But they also, they sense the tension
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: when there's tension. They see what's going on. And I
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: always appreciated that because when I knew, I could see
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: it all over your face, your body language, that you
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: did not agree with something that I was saying or doing.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe even it was my attitude or maybe the volume.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: You agreed with what I said, but maybe not how
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I said it, right? But you wouldn't like, oh, come here, kids.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Like you're shuffling them out of the room, like your
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: arm around them, like we're going to go hide in
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the bedroom. Like you're sheltering them from Big Bad Wolf.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: because the kids will see that. And right then and there,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: you've undermined the respect of the father or vice versa.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: When you say, well, can I give them a look? Like, okay,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: they're a little crazy.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Cuckoo.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: If you start doing that, you're teaching the kids that
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: it's okay to disrespect that parent. And what they say
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't really mean anything. Again, they're going to pick up
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: enough of that on their own. They don't need a
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: help from the spouse. And I always appreciated when I saw...
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: That you, you were upset with me. You, you would say, Hey,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: listen to what your father said. And then you would
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: behind closed doors say, Hey dude, you blew it.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: And it was, I, we, I think we grew in that, um,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: trying to be on a united, you know, be a
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: united front in front of the kids and kind of
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: getting our crap together before we made any major decisions. And, uh,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: instead of just flying off the handle and doing something
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: in the moment.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that kind of goes into, uh,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: something else we were going to talk about is discipline.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: You know, when, when you, one of your kids is done, whatever,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: whether they're three or 13, you know, and they've, you've
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: got to discipline them so that they will know like, Ooh,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: I don't want to do that next time. And that's
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: going to show up in, you know, that, I mean, you're,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: differences in your personality will show up in that way too.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: So I think that's another big thing. There were times
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: where I remember when the kids were a little bit
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: younger and I was staying home with them and, you know, well,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: let's say they were like fifth grade or whatever. And
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: so part of that discipline was going to be, um,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: you know, you can't go to a friend's house or
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: can't go to that birthday party on Saturday or, uh,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: even when they were bigger and like, you know, give
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: me your keys or whatever. I always thought, well, great.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: That's going to come back to me because I'm going
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: to have to be the one to drive them now
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: or whatever, you know? So anytime with disciplining, um, there's
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: always kind of your angle or how you see it.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: And I think of course I'm more of the bleeding heart.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: And so I was always feeling for the kids like,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Oh man, that's brutal, you know, or, oh, I feel
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: so bad. They're going to have to miss that birthday party.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: And I know you did too, but not to where
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't do it. You're like, no, they chose to
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: do this. They ain't going, you know, where I would
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: just want to bend it. Like, well, can't they just
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: go to the party and then the grounding starts after
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: So, yeah. And I was afraid, obviously that's going to
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: set the precedent. They think they can get away with
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: anything They'll play you and all that. But you know what?
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Even as you say that, we did have different ideas
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: about how to discipline, obviously, because we're different approaches. But
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: we would talk about it. And I started trying to,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, it took me a long time to respect
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the yin and the yang, to respect the value of
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: having both. And that's what the kids need. And again,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: you may be a single parent out there. And we know,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. I just know that's very,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: very tough. I've spoken to so many single parents over
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the years. But the value in having both, and as
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: a team, the value that that was for those kids,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: I think was very, very helpful.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: I think so too.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And there's so much wisdom in having the two and us,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: you know, having a more complete team. And sometimes it
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: went more your way and sometimes it went more my way.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: But ends up, they had respect for both. They didn't,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I think at the end of the day, they didn't
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: think dad was just a hard butt. They were appreciated now,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: especially the older they get. And when they start having kids,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: they'll see the value in sometimes being the heavy, but
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: they also saw the value in the grace. And, you know,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: one of the things I think we did well We
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: heard this a lot when our adult children were talking
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: to some young parents about their experience growing up with us.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: They basically think you're a saint, and you are. But
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: they're like, Mom, I mean, look. And so sometimes they
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: didn't have the complete picture. They'd walk in on something,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and we'd have something brewing for a day or two
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: or whatever it was. And then they'd catch... What I
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: was saying at the time, thinking, oh, my gosh, man, Dad.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And then I'm like, dude, mind your business. Mind your
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: own business. You have no idea what's going on here.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: But they all did say, man, Mom is just so awesome.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: And they basically said, Dad, you were. And they said,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: you grew in this, but you were really angry. And
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: you would get angry with us. But when I went
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: over the top in the anger, they said you– to a,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: to a kid, they said, you always apologized and you
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: modeled humility and saying, you're sorry. So I just want
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: to say to all the people who are blowing it
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: out there, you will blow it. You won't always get
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: it right. But when you blow it, go tell your
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: kids you blew it. That doesn't mean the discipline that you, uh,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: enforced wasn't appropriate. Sometimes that is very appropriate, but it
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: was the way you did it. You know, the tone, the,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the anger, you know, whatever. And, uh, And they, again,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: they sense it and they know it. But when you
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: own up to it, it shows you're human. It shows
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: you make mistakes and it shows you're able to apologize
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: when you do make a mistake. Sometimes I would separate
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, so what you did is no good, man.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: And you should not be doing that. But the way
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I acted, that's on me. And so many times it
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: wasn't an excuse, but I would explain, there's a lot
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: of things that are going on in dad right now.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And you have no idea, but I took it out
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: on you. And I think that's just a good practice
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: for all of us. We take things out on our spouse.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: We kick the proverbial dog, right? When we're in a
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: bad mood over something else. But if you can, we
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: were just talking to a couple earlier this week or
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: last week about that, where you got to kind of
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: do an inventory and say, man, why did I get
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: so upset over that? Many times when dads are angry
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: or moms, Um, there's, we, we've said it a million times. It's,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: there's something underneath that anger, right? So when I caught
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the boys playing, I literally walked, walked in on them
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: playing in the pool and wrecking the pool sweep and
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I just go off.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: So all of a sudden I'm acting like a child.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: They are children. Um, yes, we need to teach them responsibility.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: You don't destroy property, be responsible, you know, and all
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that stuff. Um, But they are knuckleheads. They aren't responsible yet.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: And they need to learn. But there was the fear
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: underneath that, why I got so upset, is the fear
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of lack. We didn't have any money. So I had
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: no money to replace that pool sweep. So if you
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: can just take that internal look and say, what is
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: it that's really going off on me? Am I afraid
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: of something? Because fear, I think, is one of the
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: number one. And people say, I wasn't afraid. I was pissed, right?
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: But Again, tying it to many, many times you're getting
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: upset and you're thinking, man, you could have avoided this.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Why did you do this? Well, because everyone has to
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: learn by making the mistake. That's the way you learn.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: So many times we have this false deal of, man,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: if I can get ahead of it, I can teach
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: you not to make the mistakes I did. So somehow
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: we'll save you from all this headache. I mean, that's
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: what you want to do. That's what you're hopefully practicing.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Passing on wisdom you've learned from hard knocks and paying
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: the dumb tax so they don't have to. But guess what?
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: They are going to have to pay the dumb tax.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: And so being there when they do, and hopefully they
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: know I can come to mom and dad. And they're
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: not going to just go off on me. They're not
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: going to judge me. They're not going to call me
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: stupid or you fool, you idiot, whatever. And it's easy
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: to get caught up in that.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And side note on... discipline. And I remember a
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: few conversations we've had with people lately about this with
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: their children. It's interesting when you become curious and pay
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: attention to discipline with your own kids, because you can
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: kind of like connect the dots back to your own upbringing.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's, I mean, it's interesting. It can go swing
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: either way. But sometimes if you had like a super,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: super hard, strict parent, you will say, I will never
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: be that way. And so you're just a total pushover.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: But sometimes you may think that, like, I don't want
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: to be like that. But guess what? You become that
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: very thing just because that's like in you. You saw
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: that that was the way to discipline. And so you
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: just begin to and you're like, wow, I am my
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: father now, you know, or wow, this is exactly how
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: my mom spoke to me. And so it's sometimes you
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: just get first of all, you don't ever you don't
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: even pay attention to You might have that fleeting thought
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: and then looks like, I don't want to think about that.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: That's an unpleasant thought. It's really, I think, important and
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: vital for you to pay attention, like catch that thought
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: and go, no, you know what? Let me think on that.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: And let me take that, like, let me talk to
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: somebody about that. And because whenever you just shove it
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: down and just continue on that way, you're going to
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: end up years later going, man. I wish I would
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: have paid more attention to that and kind of gotten
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: underneath how that made me... But you don't want to deal...
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: You don't want to go back to when you were
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: 6 or 12 or 17 and that anger that was
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: inside you or that hurt that was inside you. You
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: don't want to go back and deal with that. But
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's really important because it can kind of
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: help untangle some stuff that leads you to either going the...
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: you know, to the complete extreme, which is no, no good. Um,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: or doing the exact same thing that you were taught.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: What happened to you was missing the mark, quote unquote,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Greek term, archery term for sin to miss the mark.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: And you swing the pendulum way the other side, you're
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: still missing the mark. So you got to heal that.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Like I said, do that work so that you can
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: parent more appropriately. It'd be the dad walking in and
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: seeing the mom giving, um, The kid, what he feels
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: like is just way too much grace. And deep down,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: so the six-year-old boy, and he's like, when I was six,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't get any grace. My dad told me to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: just suck it up, buttercup. Or I never got a handout.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I was working when I was nine years old. It's like, yeah,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: but was that okay?
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: And yeah, we can talk about the value and work
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff and learning. But so many times
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: you say, well, It's like you're jealous. I didn't get that.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: My parents never gave me a handout. I didn't get
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: no allowance. You know, whatever. And it's like, yeah, but
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: was that okay? Right? Maybe that wasn't the best for you.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe you needed a little grace. Maybe they should have
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: given you some allowance. Right? So it's rethinking. Yeah, it's
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: rethinking that.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: So I think when you take time to really pay
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: attention to those thoughts and process them and deal with them,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: they can actually heal you. That younger part of you
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: that's still living inside of you that's just saying, man,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: I'm ready to grow up. Let's say I'm 33. I'm
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: ready to grow up and be a 33-year-old instead of
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: the 9-year-old raging kid that's lived inside me for so long.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: It's like if you give that kid room to process
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: that stuff and really deal with it, And a lot
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: of the lies that you began to believe, I'm taking
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: this episode in a whole other zone. Take it. because
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: there's so much that comes out when you're, you know,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: when you're doing that and you don't even realize, you know, the,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: your parenting from your nine year old self or 12
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: year old self or whatever.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I always say our, we don't raise our kids. Our
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: kids raise us. If you start to pay attention, you
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: really will. I mean, that's when so much of your
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: stuff will come out. Because you're right. Our family of
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: origin stuff, man, is huge when it comes to parenting.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: And it's going to unlock all kinds of unhealed wounds
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: and some residue from things that happened when we were kids.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: And if we're not careful, yeah, we're just going to
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: overlay that and we're going to keep it going generationally, right?
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Pass it down. Pain that is not healed is transferred. Mm-hmm.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: And so you get pain from your parents, and it's
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: easy to transfer that to your kids if it's not healed.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: What if you created a safe enough space in your
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: marriage where maybe you're the one to go first and say, hey,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: the way that I spoke to Chandler today or whatever,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I had this vision of my mom when I was
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: doing it, and I didn't like it. And maybe just
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: have a space where you can process that with your
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: spouse and go, I didn't it's not who I am
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: or it's not who I want to be, you know?
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: And so I just want to grow through that. And
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I like use your marriage kind of as an accountability space.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Just say, Hey, this is something I'm discovering. I don't
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: have it all figured out, but it's just a thought
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: that I had and have a, I mean, think about
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: how your marriage can grow through parenting instead of dividing you.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I remember. So there's so much pressure when we talk
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: about the kids taking over, like, A lot of times
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: we just let them take over.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe we're suffering from peer pressure. What are other
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: parents going to think if I do this? If I
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: don't let them do what all the other parents are
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: letting them do? Or we feel pressure from our spouse.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: You're always the fun one. You're popular. I always used
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to say they don't need a friend. They need a parent.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: And I felt like you just wanted to be popular
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: with them. And so you wouldn't get involved if I
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: saw clearly. And I would ask you, I'd say, you
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: knew clearly. Like I wanted you to side with me
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: when there was some argument going on with the kids.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: This is when they were older and you would be
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: quiet about it. And I'm thinking, okay, well, if she
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: agreed with them, that's one thing. But many times you
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: agreed with me, but you still wouldn't say anything. I'm
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: looking at you like, et tu, Brute? Like I literally
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: felt betrayed in that moment. And I just, and my
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: first thought was, man, she just wants to be liked.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: She wants to be popular. And I'm going to be
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the bad guy. But I learned over time, no, you
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: have another way to process things. And you have another
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: way to, in your mind, that was appropriate in that engagement, right?
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: But I think that's a good conversation to have. If
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: you feel like you are being hung out to dry
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: or you're being made the bad cop or always the heavy,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: you need, Because man, that'll grow legs. That resentment will
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: grow legs. And again, obviously then the kids will pit
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: you against each other. And again, a house divided will
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: not stand. So they need to know you are a
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: united front.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: It plays into our personality so well. I would say
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: I'm a lover, not a fighter. And you're... You're a
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: fighter and a lover. You love to debate. You love
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: to just kind of. And so I feel like that
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: was more of your bent was to kind of go
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: at it with the kids, you know, and kind of
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: spar back and forth. And I just wasn't I didn't
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: like that, you know. And so there were there were
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: times where I wouldn't speak up. I wouldn't say anything
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: because in my mind, I'm like. Now, there were times,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: and I can't remember any off the top of my head,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: where maybe I should have stood up and said whatever.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: But more times than not, I'm over there thinking, this
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: doesn't have to be a deal. Let them think that.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: They're growing, just like you were a knucklehead 14-year-old. Don't
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: let them hurt themselves. hurt somebody else. But if, you know,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: if it wasn't about that, like there was just a
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: part of me that thought like, just let them think
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: that they, they may not agree with you or think
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: like you, I don't know. So there were more times
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: where I think you, you just naturally kind of fit
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: into that. Like, let's go back and forth with them,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: you know, or.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I don't have one. Yeah, there's that whole let them,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: you know, and then there's the other part. And especially
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: when you're thinking this is setting a precedent for the future.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: And I remember growing even in that thinking, you know what, everything,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I always thought everything was like, man, we can't give
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: here because this is setting a precedent. Well, it's maybe
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: just a one off. Don't worry about everything is this
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: monumental stake in the ground that's going to set a
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: precedent for the future, you know, and you can back
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: off a little bit. But there are the times where
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: he's like, man, the kid needs to know and we
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: do need to put our, quote, put our foot down.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things that just while we're
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: talking about the kids taking over, when you do rule
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: with an iron fist, if you control, they will rebel.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: And that's just a general, I mean, and, you know,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I know, you know, I was raised and I remember
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that proverb, spare the rod and spoil the child, right?
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: But the more you control and clamp down the more
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: they just want to rebel. So that doesn't mean that
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: love means just let them do whatever they want. That's
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: not love. But the more you allow, the more you
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: allow them to make, tell them what you think, tell
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: them what you believe, tell them what's right, and let
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: them learn. Let them say, man, I mean, good night
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: with our adult kids. How many times did they come
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: back and say, Dad, you said I could do it
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: the hard way or the easy way, and I chose
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the hard way, and you were right. And guess what?
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: I didn't say, hey. serves you right. You know, I
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: was right. And you learn, you gotta put that aside
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: and just, I remember just giving them grace and saying,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: that's okay, man, I love you. And I'm glad you
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: learned that lesson. But, uh, yeah, in the, in them,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: all this stuff is easier to, to, you know, in
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: the rear view mirror, looking back over it, you know, hindsight. Um,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: so let's talk about something that's taking over, obviously the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: iPhone screen time. This is a big deal. So, um,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Parents want to know, I mean, again, you're, I remember
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: getting given advice to some of our dear friends when
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: they were just hitting those, the, the age of the kids, like, man,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: we don't want our kid to have a phone, but
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: everyone in their class has a phone, you know, should
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: we stick to our guns? So, and again, or, or being,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: if you really, you've talked about it, you're a united
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: front with your spouse and you have a principle about
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: why you don't want them to whatever it is, do
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: this thing, man. Be unpopular with the rest of the parents.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: If all the parents are talking about you, so be it.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: And if you think the Christian community, like I remember this. So, wait,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: you let your kids watch Braveheart? I made it a
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: ceremonial deal when my boys turned 13 on their little
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: faith walk where I'd have their friends all... you know, the,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the mentors, coaches, friends of mine, people who are influential
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: in the boys lives and the boys, you know, it
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: takes a village. I would have them, uh, do this
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: faith walk and where they would all talk about, you're
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: going to talk about relationships. You're going to talk about
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: marriage or dating. You're going to talk about finances, um,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: how to conduct yourself with women or with, with your
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: friends and all this stuff. Right. And at the end,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: they would get this symbolic gift from, from each man.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: And then we'd go top it off with the steak,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: you know, at, I think La Hacienda Ranch was, was Christians.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: And then we would watch Braveheart. And for me, and
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, isn't there, isn't there some sex or violence?
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Obviously violence. But William Wallace was one of the, I
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: believe one of the best Christ figures I had ever seen,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: you know, analogized in a movie. Like, I mean, it
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: was just incredible. And so, the message was way bigger
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: than any of the little things here and there. But
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: when I said the Christian community, Oh, you let your
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: kids watch Disney or you let them watch a rated
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: R movie. Hey, make a decision based on your values,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: not on what the community thinks is appropriate. I remember
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: when parents would come to me about, and I mean,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: be very, very like thoughtful about this. Now, I'm not
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: saying I'm about to talk about vaping when vaping became
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: the thing. Um, Hey Brian, you know what your boys,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: you know what our boys are doing? They're vaping. And, um,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: so first of all, now if it's harmful, great, but
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: do you know what they're vaping? Um, do you know
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: if it's harmful?
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: So find out what is it they're vaping. And again,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: so much of the stuff, I mean, lung damage and
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, But there
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: were certain things that were just kind of a no-no,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: let's say, in your social circles with the other parents.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: And my question was, but do you let your kid
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: eat like Whataburger and McDonald's every day? Do you realize
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: that's like poison? And some people I can literally hear
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: and I heard all the people just laughing about, Brian,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: you're being ridiculous. Am I? So it's like if your
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, And you
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: want to be healthy. You don't want to damage it
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: and poison it. Be very thoughtful about what goes in
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: your kid's body, not about is vaping wrong. I know
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: that's kind of a tangent. So we were very thoughtful
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: about what we let our kids do and not do,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't always popular with other. I remember still
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: getting the looks from some of the moms. I'm like, yeah,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: we've thought about this a lot. Mm-hmm. And we made
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: some very intentional moves with our kids. And so, yeah,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: sometimes the pressure for them to take over is because
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: the peer pressure from the kids and the peer pressure
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: from the kids' parents.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: And let me say that all of this was before
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: social media. So I cannot imagine the pressure that parents
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: can feel that get so caught up in that mess.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Because now, instead of just the few parents that we knew,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: you have hundreds and hundreds of opinions, wanted or not,
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: on what you should or shouldn't do with your kids,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: or should or shouldn't do in parenting.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: It's just, I would think, just overwhelming. You may think...
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: That horse has left the barn. There's no way. Every
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: kid's got their cell phone. They take it with them
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: to bed. If you're letting your kid take a cell
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: phone with them to bed, that's a problem. I'm just
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: telling you right now, that's the biggest mistake you'll ever make.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: There needs to be a time for no phones and
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: putting them on the hook or downstairs in the basket,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: and the kid goes to bed and doesn't have that
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: screen access at all hours.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: But again, when you think, well, everybody's doing it, you
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: need to fight that. Do your research on this. I mean,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: it's all out there. And I know you've heard it.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: So you can be real unpopular. Your kids will hate you.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: But I'm telling you, yeah, there's things that are worth
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: sticking to your guns. That's a big one. And that's
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: a huge one. So, yeah, I know we could talk
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: all night about that one. So what would you say?
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, good night. Just do research about literally there's
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: so much now because of social media. There's so much
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: research that's out there. And it's not hard to find
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: on literally what it's doing to our kids' brains, how
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: it's rewiring their brains, and it's not good. So when
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: you have the kid who has always got the headphones
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: on and he's watching the little iPad, you go out
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: to eat. And they've got their little iPad on a
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: stand and the headphones on. The adults are going to
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: sit there and have adult time. And the kids in
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the car, every time they're in the car, let the
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: kid be bored. If they're crying because they're bored, they
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: have no idea. I saw a comedian talking about the
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: kids coming up. He's got his iPad in his hand.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: He's on a hoverboard. I'm bored. It's like, dude, you're
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: from the future. You don't even know what bored is.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: But that's where creativity happens, right? And I know we
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: sound old, but again, be old. There was a world
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: before the iPhone, and I'm telling you, the loss of
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: creativity and invention and imagination and intellect. I mean, being
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: able to think. I just saw a rant of a
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: teacher saying these kids, they don't know how to speak.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: They don't know how to answer questions. They don't know
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: how to write. They don't know how to do math.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah. But, I mean, the social, yeah, yeah.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: It's not good. So try, again, you want to... Your
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: kids are not going to like it when you put
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: your foot down when it comes to social media because
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: many parents aren't that involved. Or they just think, hey,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: it's a lost cause, dude. Easier said than done. And
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: guess what? It does take time. And you can't just
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: lay one huge template over the whole thing. Parenting like
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: this where you're taking each individual, it's easier just to
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: have a blanket statement. Hey, no phones or here, all phones.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: How about case by case? Same thing with like curfew.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Don't set just some general curfew. Maybe it's going to be, okay,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a little later because you are
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: going to a concert with your friends, but you're going
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: to check in. I'm going to know where you are.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: So it's not just, no, you can't do that because
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: you'd be home after midnight. So it's, you have to
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: get involved.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: You would say you're like our default answer. will be
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: yes until you give us a reason to not trust you.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: To say no.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: We want to say yes.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: We want to say yes. And if your default is yes,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: then it makes the no's a lot more easy for
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: the kid to stomach. If it's always a no, then
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: they're just worn out. Man, they're worn slick thinking you're just.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: You know. So I know we've gone over a lot
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: of things with schedules and parenting disagreements, discipline, phones. all
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: the activities, over-scheduling, all that kind of stuff. One thing, though,
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: that I want to bring up just to kind of
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: tie all that together is that you started when the
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: kids were younger, and I don't even remember when it started,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: but we would have a family meeting, and it was
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: usually before something. You were trying to get ahead of something,
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: so when we were about to have a, we had
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: a small fire at our house. And so we knew
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: it was going to put us out for several weeks.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Or let's say you, we had someone that was going
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: to come live with us for several weeks or whatever
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: it was. It just, when some change was coming down
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: the pipe, upset.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: The apple cart or huge inconvenience, whatever you knew this
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: is going to be. Yeah.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: So just trying to, trying to be intentional and pull
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: the family together and, And I'm bringing this up because
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: not only in parenting, but in our marriage, I felt
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: like that did so much because that just put a
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: whole underlying, you just felt completely supported. In our marriage,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: like a wife's, a woman's number one need is safety
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: and security. And so for me, when you took the
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: lead in that way and said, you know what? let's
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: get the kids tonight. Let's, you know, after dinner, let's
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: pull them and tell them we want to do a
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: family meeting and then we'll, you know, make brownies or whatever,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: you know, like, cause I remember growing up, family meetings
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: were like, like something is, what's the bad news? Somebody's, yeah,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: what's happening? Somebody pregnant, somebody doing something, you know? And
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: so I remember it was always like, Kind of, maybe negative.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: When you did it, I didn't feel like it was negative.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: I felt like it could have been. It could have
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: been something hard coming down the pike. But the way
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: that you couched it, it was more like a coach
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: in a huddle before a big game.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: We're about to fight an opponent, but the opponent is
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: the fire. It's the remodel. It's not each other. We're
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: on the same team. We're in the huddle together. So, hey,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: we got this. Yeah, yeah.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: So just encouragement, support. So I would say bring back
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: the family meeting and let it be fun.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: And then go out for, you know, marble slab after
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the meeting. So that's good. I think the bottom line
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: is it's easy. You know, in the inverted bell curve
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: of marital satisfaction, A lot of people talk about when
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: they start having kids is when they can become the
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: most disconnected. And that starts a lot of challenges. And
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: some people never, never come back together. There's no reconciliation
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: after that. Because, I mean, that's years. And then of
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: all this, if you're not on the same page, if
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: you're not continuing to pursue your spouse, you lose the
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: couple identity because you become mom and dad. You become parents.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: The kids require so much. of your life and of
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: your attention. And then if there's tension around all that,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: it's no fun, you know, yeah, there's the ups and
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: the joys, but that also there's so much, I mean,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: we didn't even talk about when they start getting into
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: stuff and you fear, fear for their mental health or
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: for their lives, you know, because of the decisions they're
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: making and you grieve differently. So you're going to grieve that.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: And that's going to cause strain on, in the marriage,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: you're right on the relationship. And so, You have to
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: maintain that. And so the biggest thing, it's funny, I
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: saw this in John Finch's father effect film, but a
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: guy said, the best gift you can give your kids
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: is to love their mother well. And so the kids
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: need to see that your marriage matters. Like, hey guys,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: I remember feeling frustrated every time the kid ran up,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: you would kind of just look to them. It's like, hey,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: they need something. And I'm like, no, they can wait.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: They need to see that mom and dad, this conversation,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: you're interrupting them. and so like you're not going to
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: die right and so i mean if if somebody you
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: know ran in and their leg was broken and they're
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: bleeding that happened a couple times but um then they
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: require that attention but it's like nope you're not going
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: to interrupt so mom and dad have times where we
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: need to talk and you're not going to interrupt you're
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: not the center of the universe right Our marriage is.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: You know what? No, we're not going to do that
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: because mom and dad have a date night. Hey, yes,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: we love all the family being together, but mom and
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: dad are going to do this because we need to
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: keep the main thing, the main thing. And so I
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: think that it's not because the children aren't important because
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: one day those kids are going to leave and you
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: got to have each other. Your spouse is the one
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: that's going to remain. So let's give Our big challenge
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: for the week. Let's do it.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: About? So I think if you, so can it be
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: two things?
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: One, I think if you've got kids that are, you know,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: requiring a lot of your time and attention, set aside
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: a night this week and have just 30 minutes. I
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: don't think that's too much. Sit down as a couple
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: and have a, Discussion, a talk, a glass of wine
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: out back, 30-minute discussion, no kid talk. I remember this
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: was hard because you and I would go on a date,
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: and guess what we would talk about the whole time?
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: The kids. Because they do matter.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: You care so much, but sometimes that's all you can
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: talk about, and you don't ever talk about your hopes
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: and dreams or how each other are doing. And so
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: 30-minute talk. Without talking about the kids. And the second
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: thing is plan. If you have never done a family meeting,
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: plan a family meeting.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Boom. Make it count.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We want to hear how it goes.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: That's exciting. Those are some good challenges. So couple time,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: not kid time, and a family meeting.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: And even, let me say about the family meeting, even
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: if you don't have something big that's coming down the
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: pike that you need to get ready for, then... it's
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: about to be holiday time and it's about to get crazy.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: And so it could even be that like, Hey, these
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: are some exciting things coming up for us. You know, it's,
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: it's just turned November. We've got Thanksgiving coming up. We've
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: got Christmas and it may be about, you know, like, Hey,
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: we've got lots of things coming up on our calendar.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: We want to really do a good job. We want
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: to plan some times just for mom and dad to
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: be together. We want to plan some fun, fun family
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: things before the whole month begins. goes by, you know,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: and now it's the two months go by and it's January.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: So we want to maybe a family meeting to talk about, um,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: what you want to do to, to create some really
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: special moments, or you've got family coming in town and
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: sometimes it can be a little bit weird, or one
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: of your kids has to move out of their room
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: and let grandma and grandpa stay in there. You know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's always something that you can have. It
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: doesn't have to be a huge or, you know, deal
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: coming up. to have a family meeting about. So just
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: make up something to have a, to have your first
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: family meeting.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: So I had one question before we, we, we stopped tonight.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: It's been bugging me so bad. It was a really,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: there was a great, so, you know, Ben Affleck and his,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: his brother, Casey Affleck, he was in a good, good movie.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Chandler and I were trying to think of it the
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: other day. Do you remember? It was this really, really
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: just emotional, well-acted, I mean, it was the best thing
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen KCF like in.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: It was something like, was it like Manchester something? Oh, yes.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: What was it called?
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Manchester by the sea.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: That really was.