Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 200 | Finding a Work or watch Activity for Emergencies

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Ep. 200 | Finding a Work or watch Activity for Emergencies · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  It's a little freaky, you know, probably your wife might say you're neglecting a little bit. But again, it's an emergency situation. Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:33
  What's up, guys? Jeff and Jeremy here. Another episode of 5-Minute Fatherhood. Here's a fun topic for today, and that is finding a work or watch activity with your kids for emergencies. Now, this one's really important, and I think we can – I don't know about you, Jeremy. When I read that, I don't think we mean like if someone's like dying and needs to go to the ER emergency, but just like –
• 0:54
  When kind of the house starts to break down, the wife starts to get overwhelmed, it starts to get a little chaotic, you need to have a plan because that happens actually pretty frequently. It shouldn't be happening every week, hopefully, because of rhythms and things like that. But for us, I'd probably say it happens at least once a month, right? Maybe probably twice a month.
• 1:10
  Where, and maybe it's not even an emergency, but it's just like, I can start to sense it would be helpful, right? Right, yes. And so having like, just, so what you need to, what's really helpful for us is having those things in your back pocket that take no thought, and that you don't have to think about it. And you like, basically like you just, it's just autopilot, right? So for us, I think it's like, we go to bubble tea, right? Down the street, it's like two minutes. I mean, you've been there, that little market. Yes. Down the street, by the hotels, we just, hey, let's go get bubble tea. And I get, I totally tricked the kids. Well, I don't trick them, they know that's what they get.
• 1:38
  But they get I always get water with boba. So the treat is not the actual bubble tea. It's just the little bubbles. And so it cost me like 75 cents, too. So it's an actual great investment because I like seven ways. Yeah, it's like seven dollars for a legit boba tea. But they only charge you 75 cents for like a cup of ice when the boba. And I'm like, and that's really the kids just want the funness of that. And then no sugar. That's a whole other side conversation on how like kids are more pleased than you think with little stuff.
• 2:01
  But, um, but that's ours. Right. And so I'll just be like, Hey guys, hop in the car, we're going. And then they like it because it's a treat. So they don't like say like, Oh, cause sometimes like I don't want to leave mom and all that. And then boom, I'm just like, hell, be right back. All that type of stuff. So I think having that is really important. But why would you say why stuff like that?
• 2:16
  Yeah. So, and part of what I'm trying to figure out here, and this is, you know, if, let's say you need to get, one of the things that came up in our Facebook group is like a dad was saying, I am super busy with work. I work from home. I'm overwhelmed. My wife's overwhelmed. What do I do? Like we're in emergency mode. And what I started to talk about was, because we had definitely had these seasons before as a family with five kids. And I would, I had like Jeff just described, I had sort of this sort of bunch of places I could go. Yeah, just
• 2:44
  And some of them, and this is, again, an emergency situation where it just feels overwhelming, was there was places I could go and actually get some work done. It wasn't 100% focused, but I could actually, like, there was an indoor playground in the mall close to where we were, and it was all completely contained. And so I'd take, like, a two-year-old and a four-year-old, and I'd drop them into this little playground, and I'd open my laptop, and I'd just...
• 3:08
  And I'd look up every two minutes. Okay, everybody's cool. Everybody's cool. It's a little freaky. Probably your wife might say you're neglecting a little bit. But again, it's an emergency situation. When my kids got a little older, I would do a park. I did parks all the time. I did Chuck E. Cheese. I would take oftentimes our youngest would be the most work. And so there were all kinds of times where I would just take one of them. And I would literally go to a restaurant, like Jeff just said.
• 3:33
  Boba T, someplace like that, and I would just put them in a tight chair. I'd open my laptop. I'd give them food. I'd talk to them. Yeah, just keep feeding them. I'd work, talk to them. I could keep them busy with foods, different things for like a good hour or two, get a lot of work done. I'm just – a lot of guys don't do any integration, and they start to have more kids, more work. Their wife's burning out, and they're like, ah. And the answer oftentimes is there's no more hours. And so you have to have –
• 3:56
  tools in your back pocket for integrating work, sometimes time with your kids, and get through these seasons. And again, this is sort of more emergency. I'm very much in favor of completely having time where you're present and focused. But I also think there is realistically times where you've got to get two things done at once. And I think dads have to figure out how to take
• 4:17
  uh, the, the kids along with them more often and figure out what combinations really give your wife a huge break, but don't actually interrupt your work a hundred percent, maybe just 20%. And then it works out for everyone. And so we had get through these seasons and Jeff, any other thoughts about the ways that you guys try to, yeah, I wasn't thinking through the work one too. And I think that one's important too. It's like not just emergencies for your wife, but then also for you of like, Hey, I just need to get something done, but the kids are kind of too, in this context, it's not possible. Yeah.
• 4:45
  And so, yeah, I mean, I even think like for me, I'll even sometimes that's when I'll even sometimes bust out a show or something, because I think sometimes we just do shows to veg out when I think shows are really great tools. It's like use them in very specific tactical ways. And so like if Alyssa has to go do something, but I really have to do a phone call or something like that. So I'm just like, hey, and it's a treat for them.
• 5:02
  I would say that, yeah, take him out to a park is a big one. Any type of self-learning, learning those spaces that are kind of like self-contained, kind of self-sustainable are huge. And like kind of almost like writing them down and putting them in your brain for your whole neighborhood and your whole city is really, really important. Yes. One last tool too, is that it's really important to train your oldest child
• 5:21
  to be able to help their siblings in those contained environments, because that'll double the amount of focus during these emergency times if not 100% of the problems are always coming to you, but they're able to start to learn how to help each other work through situations in the park or whatever. So this is sort of a really specific situation, but I just think a lot of guys get into this situation and their attitude is they tell their wife, I have got to work, keep the kids away from me.
• 5:51
  And then she's burning out. That is not the solution oftentimes because you're both going to go down. Like you've got to find some points of integration for your work and your time with your kids.
• 6:01
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