Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 336 | Your Voice Matters

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Ep. 336 | Your Voice Matters · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  I really believe that it's ideal for a father never to raise his voice to his children.
• 0:10
  What's up, guys? Welcome back to 5-Minute Fatherhood. So I would say, and we've talked about this a little bit, but I wanted to kind of go one layer deeper. One of the things that you are stewarding as a father is the weight of your voice. How much do your children respond to your voice?
• 0:30
  And so that is one of the things that you are either building more strength, more equity, more respect around between you and your children where your kids are like, whoa, dad's voice really means something, or it's something that you're eroding subtly. And so I want you guys to think about that and think about what are the things that erode the power of your voice?
• 0:53
  And what are the things that really enhance it? And when we talk about this in this way, it's not for the sake of, you know, dominating your children. It's for the sake of giving your kids a real sense of grounding and like, wow, I really want to learn to obey my dad. I trust my dad. So there's obvious things that erode your voice. Things like saying, if you do that one more time, you're going to get in trouble. They do it again. All right. Now, if you could do that, you know, it's like the problem with that kind of stuff, there's obviously...
• 1:22
  kind of that's bad training. But I would say that even the bigger, longer term, bigger picture problem is it erodes your voice. And one of the things that you can do if you really want to increase the strength or the weight of your voice in the ears of your children is to play games where they respond to your voice very quickly. So there's the traditional Simon Says game that we all played when we were kids.
• 1:51
  Um, and, and you can, you can play dad says, you know, and like get your kids to have a little bit more of a knee jerk reaction to, oh, dad says, you know, grab that thing or do this. I'm going to do that. You know, sort of, um, those kinds of games I think are really, really great for young children. Um, and in, this could be, you know, done as really simple 10 minute drills. You come home.
• 2:17
  And it's important that when you do this, you set your kids up for success and say, okay, we're going to play a game. It's going to be fun. I'm going to tell you to do something. I want you to do it as fast as you can. And so you play a game where your kids are really getting used to responding to your voice. You reward them. You praise them. It's all positive. There's no negative associated with it. It's not about punishment or anything.
• 2:40
  But then at the end of that game, you kind of explain, look, this is the way I really, I expect you to respond to when I'm asking you to obey my voice. And so you kind of associate what you have sort of gamified in their response to your voice into your normal day-to-day activity or interaction with them. But yeah, Jeff, why have you thought about that whole topic of like stewarding your voice as a dad?
• 3:06
  Yeah, well, I think you nailed it. And then I'll add a second one that I think is I'm working on that's hard. But yeah, I think the game one is super fun. The kids love it, especially in the younger years. And it actually is genuinely really fun. Like you said, only make it positive association, do fun stuff. And it's funny how fun it is, actually. You can kind of be silly and stupid, but it subtly creates these connections of just I listen when I hear dad's voice. The second one I'll say that I've been working on is, yeah, it's usually a spirit of laziness where...
• 3:34
  when I use the phrases of more like warnings or don't do that again, because I don't want to get up or I don't want to do that or I don't want to enforce. So first, kind of like call yourself to account on that. And then two, I've learned it just sets a way better culture of gentleness and tone in the house when like you don't have to say stuff sternly or seriously. The consequence is what says it sternly or seriously. So like, you know, I've just noticed where, you know, practice saying stuff, something different,
• 4:02
  try saying a command very gently and like normal and like firm, but like, you know what I mean? Just like say it in a very normal talking voice. And then if it doesn't happen, just calmly administer the consequence. And with that, it's, it's something about that spirit of just, I calmly said it. And then I just calmly go and minister the consequence. Okay. Well, I guess that toy just has to leave your room for the next three days. Okay. Thanks so much. Let's keep moving. It does something really weird to just, it just does not devolve into, because it's very easy for anger, frustration, shame, guilt, guilt,
• 4:32
  sad, all these things to just rush into the whole dynamic, but you, but setting the tone of just like gentleness, uh, I think keeps a lot of those at bay. Well, of course, still sometimes you can administer a consequence and the kid freaks out, et cetera. But I've noticed if I set the tone in that way, it kind of actually still holds it down a lot lower. So, um, I would just say, yeah, like just administer the, let your consequence be kind of the firmness, you know, rather than your voice having to, you know, make up for that.
• 4:57
  That's right. Yeah, I think one thing to check is that I really believe that it's ideal for a father never to raise his voice to his children. Now, we all get frustrated, we all do that, but if you start getting into a pattern of raising your voice to your children, and then they kind of wait until your voice gets to some fever pitch, for example, before they actually take you seriously, then that's evidence that you've emptied your voice
• 5:27
  And you've done that by not following through on the consequences, like Jeff's describing. And then, of course, there's the opposite of that, which is sometimes, you know, with some relationships with your dad, your dad just kind of looks a little disappointed. And you're like, oh, no, no.
• 5:42
  And you really respond because your heart is so knitted in a really positive way with your dad's heart. And this is how I think about my relationship with God as my father. I don't think of him yelling at me. I think of him—there are verses that specifically say, talk about the sort of disappointment that God feels around our sin—
• 6:04
  And I think that that's real, and I think that it's important to—we're not earning His love, but there is an emotional reaction that the Bible describes the Father having as we are pleasing Him or not pleasing Him, and I think—
• 6:20
  that that kind of atmosphere is really positive in a home where there's a sense of your kids are really aware and they really treasure that relationship. Now, that doesn't happen right away. You're going to have toddlers and strong-willed kids who are going to care less about...
• 6:41
  disappointing you. You know, some kids, they're going to be, you know, you'll look disappointed and their heart will melt. That's just their temperament. Other kids are, you know, have wills of iron. So it's important not to sort of think that kids are all the same. But even with the kids that are really tough...
• 7:01
  And that take five, 10 years of relationship building before you really win their heart and before your voice has a lot of strength in their life. This is how you get there. You don't get there by emptying the power of your voice. You get there by continually cultivating that relationship and then making sure that your voice has weight behind it, that you're following through with what you say in a way that also really resonates with your child's heart.