[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to feeding them out of the bite tube, a weekly podcast guide on parenting teens and launching them into the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Cynthia Gannon, and as always, I'm joined by psychologists and author Dr. Ken Wilgus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Ken, welcome to your podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for letting me hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Glad you could make it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was going to be a real awkward if I had to be the one giving all the parenting advice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Although, ask me, I feel like I've got a lot to share.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you have experience?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you missed last week's podcast where we talked about self-esteem, then you also missed where Dr. Ken.
[SPEAKER_01]: announced out of nowhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was relevant.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was French horn prowess.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I suggested we started today show with you playing the French horn, which you declined that offer.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you did say you would share a French horn story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can tell you why I won't be playing my french horn.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, this is why you should learn to play piano and get to our nobody goes, hey, break out that french horn for a solo.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, I did, you know, people knew it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember I think it was one of my, I think it was my daughter-in-law, sweet girl, it was like, you know, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we want to hear you play sometime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did find my French horn back here and and it wasn't in perfect shape.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of going and I did a little bit of playing anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was at one holiday or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, OK, here we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you can picture this little semi circle of family members.
[SPEAKER_00]: People that are for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: that are kind of listening and I'm starting to kind of try to crank out something and people slowly kind of wanted a time drift off into the kitchen and kind of with that sad kind of pain look on their face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, hang on, I got this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, no, I don't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the end of my journey.
[SPEAKER_01]: The French word isn't subtle.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's that way to like who are you just kind of in the background
[SPEAKER_00]: and hard to sing along with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not that kind of instrument.
[SPEAKER_00]: Clarenet, do you play that much?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, are you kidding?
[SPEAKER_01]: I've mentioned y'all.
[SPEAKER_01]: I live in a house full of athletes and jocks and they're real mean about stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love them, but they're real mean.
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband one time said, and by the way, whoever's gonna be offended by this don't be because Dr. Kin and I were in the band.
[SPEAKER_01]: But my husband jokingly told my kids one time, it's okay to be in a band, but don't be in the band.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, okay, that's not very nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in the band.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm still in therapy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going into Mother's Day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we decided, well, let's talk about things that apply to Mother's, which we do every single week.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was thinking about just, what are some of the lies as moms that we believe?
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's so many, I could have my own therapy session.
[SPEAKER_01]: But why would I do that?
[SPEAKER_03]: I could say later that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of made a list of maybe things with our young adults things that we struggle with as moms and so our hope is to come with this and a positive nature and let you know you are not alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then a lot of us feel that we want to encourage you not rip you apart including myself on Mother's Day, but just this encouragement that I think a lot of us feel this way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just going to one by one go through him and would you just kind of debunk him a little bit for us?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, the first one, and is, if my Tina struggling, I must have failed, and I have seen this so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually know him kidding me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you have, so, but I haven't seen that so much with my friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, and even myself at any given time, I watched it, I'm like, well, I just didn't prepare him for this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, you know, I should have seen this before, was coming all these thoughts that go through our head.
[SPEAKER_01]: Talk to us about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know what the secret correlator that is that mom that's good at her Instagram or whatever where she's kind of implying if not directly saying I am killing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have provided this and that going to get school supplies, you know, in June,
[SPEAKER_00]: you're like, okay, once you slow your roll, because that same goal that you have for yourself is very likely to end in shaming yourself, because if you think that you have that kind of power to fix whatever your teenager is struggling with, you're going to find out that you don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, that's the first one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also remind you, for most of the moms that feel that way,
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's the parrot also.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is he the one going on your fault?
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think he's bad seed, you know, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's a badly mom thing
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not my kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely your jeans.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, who?
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and there's some truth of fact that every teen is struggling and some weight pretty much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we just don't see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a thing with moms if I could encourage one thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: As if we would all be a little bit more forthright about how things are going, we don't have to share all of our kids' deepest woes, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's easy to make ourselves well better by actually like everything's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember one of mine was younger, but had struggles with reading, and I was like, oh, I know, you know, do I admit it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're at this college prep school, and this kid came.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I realized once I started saying like, me and we're struggling, we're just not reading.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's like us too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that happened last year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let me encourage you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good point.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I mean, I think everybody's struggling if we could just show up with a little authenticity in that that we probably find some camaraderie along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the time they're teenagers, it's really a, it's bad for them to hear regularly, honey, your struggle is my fault.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is bad for their own sense of efficiency in their own life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you have the capacity to make this better.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not about some historic event that your mother caused.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the second one.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I loosen my grip, everything will fall apart.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is what this sounds like, because everyone academically is less than like, I don't feel that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's that, here's what I think in reality, this is, is I'm just so busy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a minute to breathe.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just running around crazy all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, these kids I've got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's kind of what that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I loosen my grip, if I let anything go, then everything falls apart.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we guys that are a good thing of just busyness and serving our family, but there's also that underlying current of I have to do all this because if not, it will fall apart thoughts on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know where I mostly see that is a kid that's impulsive like attention to if citizen order because it doesn't mean they're not doing okay it means that they understand you know as you know we talk about EDD it's not a problem of knowing what to do it's a problem doing what you know and so they can be doing okay but a thing is going to happen they're going to drop a ball and forget completely about an assignment and that that's the most common reason I have for parents.
[SPEAKER_00]: feeling like, or mother is feeling like, I cannot let go, or things will fall apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of connected then to the first one, which is not fall apart, but it won't have the good outcome that I am thinking that my hard work will accomplish, so it's almost the
[SPEAKER_00]: business aspect of the first lie, that if my business and constant work makes me feel like I'm, it's not happening now, but it's all going to turn around well in some time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you know, I say on behalf of all the moms listening, myself included with three children, that we are in a culture that tells us that's good parenting.
[SPEAKER_01]: That you are on top of it, you're in front of it, all the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I notice the beauty of me having a 22 year old, all the way down to a 10 year old, is that I am watching parenting how it progresses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with my youngest, the school, the public school, he's in just set up like a little,
[SPEAKER_01]: send out a reminder about set up a system where you can't drop stuff off anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Other than a lunch because so many parents were bringing all the stuff to school.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, there's no this and all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they are like basically all we we have to have to have some full time to run all the little projects to the classroom and all the things they forgot and all this and I thought this is interesting that they were having to shut it down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, unless your kids going to go hungry, if they forgot it, it isn't going with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think like when you and I were growing up and even with me as my older kids like that I didn't have the luxury of my mom and dad running down to the school every five minutes that was good for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah right and I just figured it out or I went to karate not that I went to karate everybody, but I was thinking of my youngest who goes to karate on Mondays and I forgot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I forgot his karate thing and his backpack, I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did somebody did and you can't take it down there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was like, my parents would have never been running the karate uniform down to me every Monday if it was forgotten.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think part of that, this heart is we're in a culture that says that's good parenting.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't do that in your kids without or something, that's on you mom most likely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's really not giving us the most resilient, capable kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those parents should know that we who are parenting advisors, even slash experts, none of us think that you should be doing all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's almost a, it's a result of social media, amplification of all this kind of.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even your, whatever your worst nightmare of an overly gentle parent expert, I don't know any of us saying, you know, that well, it's really up to you to constantly make sure they have everything they need all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just not, no one thinks that except a kind of massive of mothers that have just this bad habit of expecting far too much from themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, friends, we'll talk here for just a second.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What do I actually want?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Their ceramic surface is naturally slick, so I'm using less oil, things slide right off, and cleanup doesn't feel like something I leave in the sink, hoping my husband takes the hint.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, I've started paying more attention to the things in our home and what they're made of.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so just remember, number one, why we talked to...
[SPEAKER_01]: If my teen is struggling, I must have failed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, if I lose my grip, everything will fall apart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's number three.
[SPEAKER_01]: If my teen is pulling away, it must be because something is wrong with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now all of these lights sound a little ridiculous like just on face value, but I think we've all felt that when our team It can feel that way even if you know better.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're like, oh my gosh, it must be me like they figured me out.
[SPEAKER_01]: They like all the other years better all those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and this one of my favorite things is that mothers that have read feeding them out the bites you, it's one of the things they know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the things I want them to know, is that that pulling away, that really almost feeling this,
[SPEAKER_00]: Irritated with especially a nurturing mother is part of the clash.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have this young adult He does not like me reminding him of stuff to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like I'm saying I just noticed another thing You are incompetent to do yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is not personal to her and I've had many moms Comforted by that knowledge, but as we just said it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt Especially it's usually either
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm close to my children and my marriages in that great, or even worse, there's this one kid that I always knew what was going on with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would get in the car and he would tell me it was so sweet all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And him losing him, uh, just it hurt so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, yeah, those are things that parents need to know, that's to feel like something or something I did wrong for her to not want to talk to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't understand young adults in adolescence.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a pretty standard reaction at some point in their life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's actually the reverse, like you're probably doing your job really well if they are pulling of way, but that's really hard to hear too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the worst is the mom that's really close to that kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I remember it's super touchy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what they say, you know, what was that, that horrible, horrible quote people always say is like,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, your motherhood is a job or preparing them to leave you or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like stop that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to hear any of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I really might have said that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if probably some of you said, Dr. Ken, I'll discuss that later.
[SPEAKER_01]: And gosh, but yeah, that idea that if you are doing it really well, I guess that is the case, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They are well, but as you discovered and if you basically handle control battles well,
[SPEAKER_00]: And know how to communicate in respectful way, then no, they're not going to leave you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will leave your nurturing, covering, I'll take care of you thing, but they won't let you're a grown-up kids or close to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: My grown-up kids are close to me, they're really close to their mom, but you know, when they need money, they call me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's good, it's close, we're tight, super tight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know what else I think has been kind of cool that I was not anticipating as a mom that it was feeling that stretch, especially with a son pulling away in high school and just be like, Oh, everything wants to just grasp and hang on and seeing that independence boy, is it rewarding when they're outside of the home and they just choose to call home.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come home for a weekend like now that it's,
[SPEAKER_01]: out of my control.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like that much more meaningful that they'd want to show up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think when I was kidding about the money thing, I was kidding about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, my kids do want to talk, they even seek our advice at times.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as you know, we know enough to be grateful for that because it's valuable.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not something we could have forced even if we wanted to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's line number four.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good moms don't feel this tired, angry, or discouraged.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hate that for women today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really do.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I did a pastor's wife's retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just me and the women.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we talked about just as girls how this expectation now that I read someone just the other day,
[SPEAKER_00]: who was writing another article on her think she was, you know, a rocket scientist and a new cookbook coming out and seven children.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but it's just this thing that is, it's really hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, women know better.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it still just feels like, all you takes is that one lady to come in the room with all that going on and you can feel the inadequacy, the comparison point that the old days that weren't so great either were women weren't allowed in to all this work place and all that stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who would have guessed that there was a level of...
[SPEAKER_00]: reduce stress that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers might have had because they didn't all have bad marriages so it was like you know it's not a bad thing to know that this is the limit of my scope but it's impossible now that that cat is out of the bag and so every woman I know worries she's a bad mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's not spending enough time with her children.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she also is not doing all she can and should be doing with her career and really even I don't know about you but a lot of the moms I know have never fully let go of the domestic sense that It's still kind of mostly her job.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, then what is not your job?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is not you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Minner much better at going not my thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know to do that and we have that boundary around it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very hard for women to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If a thing needs being done, it's going to weigh on her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if it's her friends thing that needs to be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, that's a lie that has grown and it wears me down just thinking about that on for our daughters and women.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I mean, I think if you haven't felt tired, angry or discouraging, or parenting, you may not be spending enough time with your kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just how it goes every way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the sign of you're doing a good job.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're doing a good job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I mean, the fact you care that you're tired and angry and discourage, I mean, no, that's for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's for sure, something.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that that complex of like everyone else is doing better than everybody has it more into control and and I would just challenge this too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt that a lot when I was you have a younger mom I felt that a lot especially when I was you know in a law firm and I mean like I wouldn't grade the law firm I wasn't great at home I wasn't great like I just but it's funny like once I surround myself by people like my really close friends that we're doing life with me and we're
[SPEAKER_01]: authentic and vulnerable about it whenever and I realized we're kind of all in the same boat.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a game changer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of Renee Brown isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like shame is is reduced by sharing vulnerable with those that you trust.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would just say that's one thing if I could look back on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I realized that the people I surrounded myself by early on in my parenting where people that I thought we're getting it right, we're doing all the things and they were ambitious and I'm like, well, that's what we want to be like.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's who we want to be next to.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that I realized I just felt
[SPEAKER_01]: bad about myself all the time and then when I started being around people that were cared about what I cared about faith and people that cared about raising kids that were good adults not just happy kids like you know everything kind of flipped for me and so I always say when I talked to younger moms too I'm like just evaluate who's walking the road closely with you and others yes well that are building building you towards who you want to be in what you
[SPEAKER_00]: podcast and feeling like you're there right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to stop thinking that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is not the message.
[SPEAKER_00]: The message is you need to help have others help you to kind of clear your mind and see things realistically.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a huge, hugely important way to push back on these lies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, lie number five.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I mess up now, it'll rain a relationship forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that one, that one too, and not even just a relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to add about lie.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember the worst parenting advice, and I've probably said so far on the show, but I felt like the worst advice I ever got was if you don't have your kid under control by two or three, you are not going to have them under control 13.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh gosh, I've got a wild two year old.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are we going to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, anything I do today could mess up my kid or our relationship forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: This could taxorfizing.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know that's a really good example that advice if you don't have your kid under and by the way it's for oh it's a really in trouble it's working for two but but you what you were thinking though is you so in this happens i think all the time now we we think about like now past mistakes or failures in your parenting even if they are that
[SPEAKER_00]: we've now that that's equivalent to traumatizing your kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it is not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trauma is when they watched someone shoot somebody, that, you know, or molested, that is trauma.
[SPEAKER_00]: This reducing trauma to maybe just a cumulative stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have very great concerns, even treatment wise, there's some, it can be somewhat effective.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my concern is that the side effects says that I am super fragile, I am very thin glass.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my kid that's very thin glass.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I haven't done it right by x-age, then it's all lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is never that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: what you were told was that to parents that aren't listening to this podcast, that are doing nothing with their children and by four, they're doing the easy thing which is to let them do whatever and just yell at them when you're tired of them and they have no control unless maybe you're standing there with a bat and then they leave your presence and they are, they have no self-control.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what you were hearing about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And nobody told you, oh, excuse me, Cynthia, that has nothing to do with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is not what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's also nothing of anyone listening to this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may be as surprised as I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are people who listen to this podcast every week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, wow, that is commitment just to be desiring to know things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that sense of the mother sitting there now that's going, well, there was that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was told maybe not to go back to the office that quick and or maybe, you know, I should have been more firm or more lax or I let them on the iPad.
[SPEAKER_00]: That whole thing is way overdoing.
[SPEAKER_00]: your own role in those things and I would again remind you how come there's not a ton of dads going yep we screwed that up that's just it's it's a mom thing I was remembered that this is a weird thing but for Christians and know this jusel knows this God's curse to the woman after the sin of being like God it was relational you'll seek after your husband and he'll
[SPEAKER_00]: and you'll have pain increase in childbirth and which I don't think is just in birth in your relationships with your children that will be pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is a big part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will feel this deep sensitivity to how my child is is about me and I should have and
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's both a gift and a real pain, a curse in that sense, that it's so hard for a mother to feel just a proper sense of this has been good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am blessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The things I screwed up did not cause major harm and we're good here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a hard little line to walk.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to give you just a couple of many arguments, a many lies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: That we'll just hit briefly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to win this argument.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember that was some parenting advice I got early on that like, if you let him win now, when the big things come away, and I remember thinking like, I had a strong will to my first one strong will, I was like, well, I have to win every bad third.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't play out real well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, every feeding the mouth parent knows the answer to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the age of this child?
[SPEAKER_00]: So there is a point where you, when you can, you do win a control battle.
[SPEAKER_00]: But by adolescence, good luck.
[SPEAKER_00]: that the power of giving up is so great.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you know, just tell me that you're sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be, that's all we need to hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just tell you, I'm not gonna, well that's, that's a control battle that is no, it's not worth doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not gonna win that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you know one really thinks that I've got to win this, but they get stuck in it even without realizing it Just because it feels so annoying to have that teenager and there's a lot of them that can sense Oh, you want me to do that you want me to say this Nope, not going to do it the strength of letting go of that and now I'm not going to make you do this If you can do it in smile
[SPEAKER_00]: and just go, well, I'll let you know what consequence gonna be, but good for you, you know, won the battle and then knowing that that didn't rattle you, that's a powerful, that's powerful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, another sublime I think sometimes we think we would never say this, but my teen's mood is my responsibility to fix.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what happens a lot in that is if you feel that a whole lot that's almost one way to diagnose if you're overly emotionally enmeshed with your teenager.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that's it's harder for example for single moms with maybe just one teenager.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's maybe a girl that you're pretty tight with.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know better than to be emotionally enmeshed and yet
[SPEAKER_00]: she's kind of also your best friend, that's the sort of extreme where it's really hard for you to not feel like I've got to do something about her mood.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not a conscious thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of those moms that I know, they're smart, they know better, but they need us to be okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it should be with a husband and marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what husbands feel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it where if we're not okay,
[SPEAKER_00]: He rightly feels like he should do something about it, but not with your teenage.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to, if there's power in being able to know that, oh, yeah, she's in her other room.
[SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't like me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She hadn't didn't like me yesterday either.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: To wouldn't within appropriate power.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not your problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just a sub question off of that and then we're going to wrap this up, you know, when you have sometimes I felt this with my teens when they're at foul later, whatever's going on, the change is the tone in the house and so you think, okay, well, you can be foul, but you're actually making everybody in the room suffering, so then you're trying to fix it.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the response that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I mean, that's just a reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you got a foul teenager, everything in the house feels sour.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thoughts on how to manage that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm big on non-punitive timeouts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, dude, you're not in trouble because you have custody or whatever, but we're gonna be here in the kitchen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need you to not be in here if you're like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I wanna stay in here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dude, don't make me start adding up consequences.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just making nobody happy and we would like you to leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the parent that's new to the podcast that thinks, but aren't they supposed to feel loved and accepted that's not a five-year-old?
[SPEAKER_00]: These are young adults.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a different stage of development.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is important for them to, you know, as you know, there are teenagers smart enough to know that my upsetness,
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of rules this family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's not a power you want to give them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not good for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not good for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So would you please leave the kitchen now before you get in trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just being kind of a jerk.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're going to wrap up on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was interviewing someone earlier today in a different podcast and she was talking about just how as women we set the tones in our home so much and I was thinking through that in conjunction with this and how.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really hard to set the tone you want to.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you allow yourself to believe a bunch of lies, I mean, it's suffocating.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if we could just acknowledge that these lies, I mean, these may not be your lies, but I think most moms we felt some of those, like, we don't need to own all of these.
[SPEAKER_01]: As a girl who believes everything, I do revolves around faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's just the enemy.
[SPEAKER_01]: This speaks that over us so often.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if we want to set a tone in our home, then we can't buy and all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I was interviewing this woman this morning, I thought it was really, it was insightful.
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, think about the things you want to be the tone in your home.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you want to care about?
[SPEAKER_01]: And put the emphasis there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, it is, and for my husband, we've always said we want a home that the tone is laughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: You laugh at yourself and you can have fun in the second thing as we want to be servant-minded.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just how can we serve people around us?
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know what, like, if we're getting those things right, then I'm going to have to let go of some of these other things, these other lies, and I would just encourage you moms and mothers day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just what, what are the tones that you want in your home and work towards those things?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what, if your team's struggling, that's not all in you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've listened to your grip, it's not going to fall apart.
[SPEAKER_01]: If your team is pulling away nothing's wrong with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, good moms do feel tired and green discourage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, and if I mess something up, it's not going to ruin them forever, like we can get rid of those, but let's start focusing on what do we want our home to feel like and let's put the energy in that and take it away from trying to dispel these lies that are that are circulating in our heads.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just a few.
[SPEAKER_00]: or seem to be obligatorally handing you a hand-red can-call-hard or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's critical to remind yourself that in adolescence this too shall pass and not taking that personally and looking forward to those years that are to come when they will come back around.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, if you're doing the feeding them out stuff, it shouldn't be that bad,
[SPEAKER_00]: take you down because this isn't the year for Mother's Day, you know, I would look forward to those days that are coming because it's it's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I'd like to end us with something you mentioned the very beginning, something came up about school supplies, I don't remember what you were saying, all things the school's overprepared, Mom.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted to end with this and just so everybody fills better about themselves on Mother's Day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last year, at the beginning of the year, we took our little one to school on his first day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second grade maybe could have been first.
[SPEAKER_01]: We take them in and we go in and take the picture of the teacher and the teacher has them all sit down and they have a coloring sheet out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's probably first-ish.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had the coloring sheet out and that's when I realized that my kid had no school supplies.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only one in the class.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they're sitting down after the fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, on the first day, and the parents were still there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then my husband says, did you, because you can prepay for the PTA, and they put him in their desk and it's done.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, did you prepay for the crayons?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I go, no, did you?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, well, no, but I've never done that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, well, maybe you should.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there we saw.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our poor kid is trying to heal her and she and I did what any great mom does.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just said ask that kid over there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he tapped the kid like kind of crayon and I thought, you know what that's third child.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wouldn't that upset about there's freedom and getting through your first child.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's the fact that you didn't have shoes on that was probably the bigger deal that that was a hard Long snow shoes, I don't know whatever We're all trying we're all doing the best we can people so all right We'll happy Mother's Day to everybody and Dr. Kent, thank you now Thanks Cynthia