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How To Set Boundaries With Adult Children and Grandkids (Without Pushing Them Away) · Calm the Chaos with Rich Christiansen

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a grandparent or a parent of adult children and struggling with boundaries, and I'm not talking the boundaries that uh that maybe your children and grandchildren are setting upon you, but setting boundaries as a parent and knowing how to provide your safe stable space, that is what we're gonna be addressing and talking about today.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: This comes from me raising five children, three Sherpa children, and 56 children from the neighborhood, and a bunch of others calling me father.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I gotta tell you, I haven't got this one all the way figured out.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm really looking for your feedback.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I guess the final thing that I'll say is at the end of this, I'm gonna give you three key pieces of advice that I found really helps moderate, stabilize, and bring this into balance into the balanced middle way.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And number two is gonna surprise you.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is one that even surprised me a little bit.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Most people get it wrong and it's gonna make all the difference.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go there, by the way, today.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna tenderly go all the way there.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that I would share about how two weeks ago my wife and I completely totally blew it.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then a week ago, how we actually recovered, and I think we got a good solid B plus A minus out of it.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm gonna share just a couple of very funny stories that maybe contrast the challenge of this.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And to my children, if you're listening on right out of the gate, I want you to know how much we love you, how much we care for you, and please don't stop coming.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We'll take the overabundance any day over the tightening and restraint.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times I think that's why us grandparents and us parents of adult children have a hard time setting boundaries.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So two weeks ago, we had all of our beautiful, magical little baby monsters over.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: All 12 of them under the age of 10 years old running rampant through the house.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and it we've done really good since we came with this new house.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of designed and set it up so that it was it was pretty quarantined.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have one playroom that is specifically for all the grandchildren, has a little house built into it with windows and a little balcony, little Barbie bay set.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you, my wife spends more money on those doll clothes and the dolls and the things in there than we actually, I think, spend on ourselves personally.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a lot of joy hyperloading this as a special place for our little grandchildren.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we got talking upstairs as adults, and man, we were having a great time.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: We watched a football game together, and us as adults we were just having a blast, and we've learned something.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: When it gets too quiet, uh that typically means there there's a real problem going on.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we have two of our little grandchildren, particularly, that are kind of that three or four-year-old age where they're testing all the boundaries, and I'm not gonna name who they are, although we kind of know individually they're really pretty self-modulated, but you get these two little monsters together, and all he's is gonna ensue.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And indeed, that's kind of what happened.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we we had a long evening.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, everyone was dead, all the grandkids were completely fried, and most of the time our our children and and even the grandchildren are pretty good about helping pick up and clean up and they're really good, but this time everyone was so fritzed and fried, everyone kind of left.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I went and crashed to bed and in delight and joy and dreams of grandparently sugar plums danced in our head from all the joy and delight.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then we got up the next morning.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: As I went down in, my jaw fell open in horror.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: We'd given each of the grandchildren a beautiful, delicious little treat called an alpha four that came out of Argentina as a special little surprise.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: We had a whole bunch of surprises, but that was one of them.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: These are caramel, gooey little treats with cookies and then this melty chocolate on the outside.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, two of these little monsters had actually taken their alpha four, not eaten them, but drawn all over the wall.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then covered it up with the cushions.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if that wasn't enough, they'd taken and smeared it all through the carpets.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, it was a raging mess.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It took my wife and I six hours.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not kidding you, steam cleaners and carpet cleaners and picking the go-it took us six hours to actually clean up the Hades mess.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And as uh we got to the end of cleaning it up, there was a little bit of bubbling resentment.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the last thing you want to do is just tell your children, hey, you know, be harsh with them because we want those beautiful little baby monsters over all the time.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: We want to see those beautiful little eyes.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought and thought and how's the appropriate way to handle it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the following week when the family came over, the first thing I did is I give a little clap.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I said, All right, all right, and we got something real important.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Grandma and grandpa sad bad weather day we had.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know that we had to spend six hours cleaning up a nasty mess.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we there was cookies all over too.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a new rule.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Who will agree to a new rule?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, anyone who follows the rule and does really good gets a special surprise.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: They get a chocolate, a big treaty chocolate at the end of the night.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: But anyone who takes food and goes downstairs in there, minus three points.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what minus three points is, but it was minus three points.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they all gasped at horror.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: No one wants minus three points.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it was remarkable what happened.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Remarkable.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: They they paid attention to it, the boundary was set, and at the end of the night, I came down and I saw a pretty good mess, and all I had to do was start saying, clean up, clean up, everybody.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do and the parents even scurried, and everyone jumped in, and man, the house was clean and it was a 15-minute setup.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we went from a full-raging F minus holding resentment to actually a pretty good moderated, and I think did it in a balanced way.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I did it the in a fun moderated way, and it made it so, man, we're really excited to have the grandchildren back.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that this is a something as the parents really struggle, is where is the boundaries?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And particularly, you know, as is when they're children, we can say, stop that, or oh, this is whatever else.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: But when they become adult children, so sensitive actually not to step on buildings and to moderate them.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Have a couple of other fun little stories I uh I might share here just to illustrate this point.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I again I do this all to love and reference, but I think your grandparents may uh appreciate this.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my wife and I, just after all our children had finally got raised, and they were all out of the house on their own.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was going on a business trip, and I married my wife quite young, and from the age of like 18 or I think my wife was 19, and in college, grinding out, just oh man, we were just working it hard, and then we had five sons, and then we uh raised three Sherpa kids and then half the neighborhood.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: So at any point there was every night there were 15 to 20 kids in the in the house.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And my wife was appropriately joyfully excited to have this this uh week where she got to pick what food she was gonna eat, what TV programs she was going to watch.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she even had it all planned out, and I I celebrated because I very much understood she had not really had that opportunity.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, like in 35, 40 years she hadn't had that.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so she planned it all out.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: She was super excited.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then when our children, and again, children, we love you with all our heart, please don't stop coming.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: But when they discovered that uh my wife was going to be alone all week, they said, Oh, mom's gonna be so lonely.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And a schedule was organized where each one of my sons came over and spent a couple of days with her to make sure she wouldn't be lonely, and she was very gracious and received it.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: But we underneath the table were laugh, laugh, laughing about that.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I now are calling ourselves teenagers with a checkbook, and sometimes we're even a little irreverent.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're going back and living this passionate, big, vibrant part of our life and exploring that.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And with that does come appropriate boundaries.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Last week on the uh podcast, I I had a guest, Kevin Davis, and we were talking about how his daughters kept showing up right in the middle of the time where he and his wife were gonna do the the love dance, the love tango, and you know, I just gotta tell you, all you young people out there, that doesn't change much.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, it gets even better when you get in your 50s and 60s.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd hate to break your hearts, but it's still a really good part of life.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And his daughters kept showing up.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so he finally sat down with his daughters and said, I love you.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I love you so so much, but I love your mother even more.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I love your mother in ways that you probably don't want to know about.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: So to save us both some therapy here, particularly you, not me, but you therapy.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably a good idea to just do a quick call-in, a quick check-in before you drop by, or else you're probably gonna see something with your mother and I that is gonna permanently cause you damage.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point, his daughters were very good about calling.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one funny story that happened with my wife and I.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: We'd moved into this no home, and it's just it's just a magical gathering place, exactly what I want to be.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh uh one uh night we were having a romantic evening on a Friday night, as a Friday nights are appropriate to do.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was midnight or so.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: We thought we were safe.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: The doors were all locked.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you're enjoying this episode of Calm the Chaos.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to receive more tools, frameworks, support, and resources, go to rich Christiansen.com and they're all there available for your free use.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And wham! Open comes the door with Doby, a Dobie head talking like Dobie and our youngest son, completely clueless to him, had jumped into the room with us in the bed, and we might or might not have been naked.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just will leave that open to interpretation, but nonetheless, a boundary was probably pretty significantly violated.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've we've navigated.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: How do you navigate those complexities?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I got two more very fun stories.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think I'm going to give just a c a couple of summary thoughts, and and I'd r I'd love to hear your thoughts back, because honestly, this is when I don't have all the way figured out.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have a sister uh-in-law, uh, amazing, and and they're so loving, and man, they love this family more than you.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're so actively involved.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and at one point, the um they had two two adult children living them with them, their children, and their children came to them and said, Hey, we need a little bit more room.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Would you mind moving to the basement?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So they did.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: They moved to the basement and uh let them take the master room so they'd have a little bit more room with their their uh grandchild and did so lovingly, although it's a little bit like it's getting a little tight here, and then another grandchild moved in, and pretty soon their house, and so their solution was, well, we're just gonna kinda go on some cruises and kind of get out of here.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: When the kids found out they were going on cruises, they all started to say, Where are you going?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they took turns going on the cruise.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty soon there was not even room for them to wiggle.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so finally their solution was we're gonna remodel the house.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: That would get everyone out.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna completely the house needed remodeling, but more than anything, we can get it re-keyed this thing.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So they they uh started the remodel and pushed everyone out while they went and kind of lived where else, and and as it's remodeling, they had the doors re-locked and re-keyed as you would, and and much to their delight, they kind of ooh they had a safe place that they could go back to.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh then as they uh they had Christmas in the new house, one of their son-in-laws gave his gift, and his gift was he had snuck the key to the house off the key ring of his father-in-law and made a special key to the house for all the family members so they could freely come and go.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: At what point, wah uh, destroyed.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you can see the complications that uh that arise out of that.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we love our children with all our heart, but it seems to be the other significant challenges is the kid not show the kids not showing up, or the grandchildren not showing up and being uh sequestered out of their life.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: We were with three couples at dinner this past week.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: They'd invited us to dinner, and it was very apparent this particular one couple was exceptionally lonely as they expressed their children just don't come over anymore.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they'd said, yes, we have rules and boundaries, and I think that maybe they were set so tight that it actually was set up.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I experienced the terrible, awesome part of that, and for the record, we'd rather have the chaotic, completely alpha force spread all over the other.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: The other option, uh, as we were building our new home, we took our sabbatical, our phase three, where we went away together to rediscover life and who and what we really were, and and we call that our wandering in the wilderness space.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was deeply meaningful for us to bond together and to redefine who and what we were, but man, that time was lonely.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: We had a little uh uh home down about four hours away from our children.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh gosh, my wife and I, as much as we love each other, we'd just lick each other in the eyeballs, watch TV, go, you know, kind of go walks.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: We really didn't have any friends, and it was terribly, miserably lonely extreme.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think many grandparents and parents are living that.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then this other extreme, and I think that there's this beautiful, happy, balanced middle way.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I at the end I'll talk about what my uh solution to it is and then wait to hear back what yours.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm gonna tell one more, maybe two more funny stories, just because these really, really are good stories, and we don't dare talk about them.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: But there's this deep, deep, bold, old ecclesiastical leader that everyone looked to uh as leadership, and he he taught uh the men, the priesthood of the the religion.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so they gathered together like maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty, and it was right after uh the the Christmas uh break, and he boldly got up and he says, uh, brothers, there's two kinds of all-inspiring lights in this world.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: The first is you've got to experience both of these reverent experiencing lights.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: The first is who has seen the Aurora Borealis, the northern lights, the magic of the atmosphere as it pulls back in and makes waves and colors, and you absolutely can't deny the creative powers of a higher being after seeing the Aurora Borealis.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the first most spiritual light I wanted to talk about.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the second is is the tell lights, the tell lights of our children and grandchildren after the Christmas vacation, as they're leaving and we're utterly exhausted.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: No one was expecting that.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: We irreverently laugh about that, but I think that there is a balance where we do get a little older, our nervous system gets a little bit frinst and then getting so that we understand what those boundaries are.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one last fun story as I have a dear friend that I think contextually it's good that we go through both sides of this because life is the fabric of learning and growing and expanding our souls.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm grateful we don't always have to be, you know, my grandchildren chewing on the play toys and the puppies playing.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And on the other hand, uh how meaningful it'd be if we're just working all the time in the middle stage.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then as grandparents, we get a chance to reflect, and as we get older, we get a chance to think on some of the deeper things of life.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: So all these phases aren't good and bad, they're just soul stretching.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I have this a good friend and his wife, and actually I have two really good friends, their brothers, uh Steve and Curtis.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And every Sunday when they were in college, they'd take the grandkids and they'd go over to visit the uh the grandparents, and they'd have a dinner that was prepared, and uh they'd play board games.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was their one chance to get together, and these couples uh four the husbands and wife would sit down and play some really fun board game as the grandchildren got the the opportunity to interact with the grandparents and have that delightful, joyful experience with the grandparents.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And his comment was, I didn't really think much of it, it was just like kind of normal how it was.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this went on for a year, a year and a half, and then one day the uh who was typically a pretty level-headed tempered guy and a really a pretty good guy, but the grandfather came storming upstairs and said, quote, clean up your damn mess, take care of your damn children, and go home.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they were shocked in total horror, particularly the wife of my of my one friend, to the point that she was like, ah, oh, retracted so much.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: He said a pretty intense boundary.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Probably I might just suggest probably a little too intense.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: But then nonetheless threw down to Bendry at what point they realized, oh my gosh, they were trashing the parents' home, eating the food, leaving complete messes, and just creating total mayhem as this uh grandfather was probably just wanting to watch a football game.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what he was wanting to do, but honestly, it was definitely inserting upon a little peaceful quality time.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So uh this little riff went on with this daughter-in-law and this father, and gradually over five, six, seven, ten years, it kind of healed and stabled down a little bit.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then fast forward 30 years, uh, this uh this uh friend, Curtis and his wife, were hosting for like a a whole two weeks.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone had flown in for the Christmas vacation.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they had a uh one of their grandchildren was named Danger, and I kid you not, his name was Danger.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, I haven't met this kid, but having known his father, I I see where it came from.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I guess he was punching holes in the wall, he was swinging off the banister, every single vase was broken, there wasn't a glass piece left in the house, and uh that that wasn't left uh damage by the time they gun.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: There were markers, permanent markers drawing all over the wall, just complete, just completely had by the end of the two weeks had destroyed it.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And as they left, they held it together and they were so gentle and kind and held it together, which by the way, I think that's the optimal way to be is hold it together above all else, but maybe set the proper boundary.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: But after they'd left, then the first thing that his wife had said to him, Oh, oh, I I I the first thing I'm gonna do when I get to the other side is I'm gonna go to your father.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I understand, I understand.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: The father had passed away, but I'm gonna tell him I'm so, so sorry.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I understand now.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that there are these uh boundaries we need to figure out.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's okay to have the motions as grandparents of what is the appropriate boundary and where do we end up setting the frame on these things.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: So with all these fun little stories, uh, I'm gonna tell you the conclusions, a couple or three of the conclusions that I've come to.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: The first is is don't do anything quick and reactive out of emotion.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Take a little bit of a moment.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing is ask questions.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe ask questions of your children and adult children and ask what their perspective is of, hey, we're kind of struggling with this.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: How do we handle the situation?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think this works generally, even how you handle like a Thanksgiving dinner dinner in off years.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: But just ask their input and advice, and I'll oftentimes that opens at least the dialogue of coming up.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the third piece of advice that we've discovered is this kind of what I did there, is just to make it playful, abstract it, and turn it into somewhat of a story with an abstracted reward.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that I handle it perfectly all the time, but what I will say is, man, I love these little grandchildren more than life itself.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing, nothing more meaningful than when my little Amelia Rose gives me a kiss or lies at Lisa's eyes brighten up and knows that she's protected with pure confidence.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I never want that to change.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I think rather than saying pick up the damn kids, blah da, that's just too harsh of a thing.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think we can do it much softer by saying sad, bad, what a day grandpa and grandma had.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we're kind of sad because we had a messy mess to pick up.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think we should do about that?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what we're thinking.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's a new new reward for anyone that does this.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what's minus three points?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Seriously, what is minus three points?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I think oftentimes we abstract it.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: One of the real powerful things that I've taught you, and we talked a lot about in Legato family, is the power of having a color and the power of having a spirit animal and a shadow animal.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes, if we can talk in the metaphor of a spirit animal to a shadow animal or talk about those things, that provides this texture, rubber band that can actually make it so that it's not quite as bone on bone in response.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I don't do this perfectly, but I think uh it's profoundly powerful any way that you can abstract it, slow it down, and always lead with love.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime that there's one problem that needs to uh be addressed, even if it's difficult, make sure that three graces beautiful interactions of what's right and beautiful goes into it before the one thing you need to work on occurs.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: In the situation with the beautiful little uh grandbaby monsters that we we had.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing I said is this grandpa grandpa and grandma love you this much.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, this much.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, they all know no grandma and grandpa love you that much and more, no eternity.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so they know that this is pure done in pure love through that beautiful little metaphor that we have of grandma and grandpa love you more than that.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna be talking a lot more as I work into wisdom of a grandfather.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: How freaking fun! And by the way, what am I doing with this mystical little sea creatures that are roaming around, each with a different little personality, that are getting into mischief or having a real problem when working through it together under the sea.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's another way that I'm able to abstract.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: We actually learn a lot better through stories and interactions of learned experience than we ever do directly one-on-one with a lecture.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's exactly what wisdom of a grandfather is gonna be fun.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it is so freaking fun to hide these little characters and let them come out.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I know, and you know, that these kids are gonna re react incredibly to it as well as adults and hopefully also you, your grandparents.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as we walk through and figure this out, and I I spend more time talking on this topic, I'm gonna be vulnerable, I'm gonna be honest, and we are going to calm the chaos.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm particularly looking forward to this next set of content because it's gonna be super beneficially for me.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not that I'm saying that being a parent is old hat and that it was boring, but you know, kind of figured a lot of that game out.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was like kind of playing Monopoly and really loved that phase.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was an amazing phase, but after our five sons, three Sherpas, and 56 children from the neighborhood kind of got that pretty stable.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: But this grandparent thing and figuring that and getting that right, maybe, just maybe, is the most important work that we have ever done.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because can we have the influence?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Can we stabilize into the next generation, then a generation beyond that, and the generation beyond that, holding this container of family values and stability.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: If we do that, if we really do that, then I know Legato Framework works, I know that the values blueprint really work.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And quite frankly, there's gonna be nothing more that brings my wife and I great stability and peace and joy in life.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So join me on this journey and look forward to hearing any thoughts that you have about setting boundaries with your adult children.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll look forward to the next version of Calm the Chaos.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks and have a great day, and we'll see you on the other side.