31. Parenting, Take Two!

And if you guys know our story , you know that we are on kind of round two of raising kids . We've got three adult kids from Jason's first marriage and then we've got our little guys and they are three and one , and so you know today's topic we're going to be talking a little bit about .

What are some of the things that in raising our first three kids you know . Of course , if you're a parent , you know you can just give it your all , you can do as much as you possibly know to do , and inevitably there's going to be things you learn in the end you would have done differently . Gosh , I wish I could just do that over again .

Well , you know what we get to do that over again and that is the silver lining in our little situation is that we've got three kids that we've already done this with .

So you know we're refining some things , we're figuring things out , we're making some changes and we thought it'd be fun to do a little podcast episode and talk about what are some of the things that we most recommend when it comes to parenting .

Maybe there are things that we didn't do great the first time or things that we discovered worked really great and we want to make sure that we do those again . So , yeah , we're going to talk about a couple key categories of things that we really believe are keys to success in parenting stuff that we've learned because we're on round two .

And they would be like , oh well , we were going to go play over such and such house and they were just on their way out and instead of going like hey , no , I told you this morning to clean your room , you can't go until your room's clean . I'd be like , okay , when you get back home , you have to clean your room , you promise .

And the kids would be like , yeah , yeah , yeah . Well , we know what happens when the kids will get back home . Right , they would be tired , they would go to bed , and then the room wouldn't get clean .

Or again , like soccer practice type deal , like I tell the kids , hey , you got to take care of your routine , you got to take care of the things that you're supposed to do before you go to soccer , before you go to ballet , but again , not really holding the line with the kids and make making sure that they do it , and so what would happen is , ultimately ,

the kids wouldn't believe me .

I think part of the challenge with some of that is the kids going back and forth between houses , and so I was really hard for me to create that consistent routine . But the biggest piece is I just sometimes I would pick the easy route for me . So it was easier in the moment to not like make them . Make them do it .

I didn't want to hassle , I didn't want to fight , I was tired , and so I just kind of like whatever .

Because it's so hard when you're exhausted or when you've gotten home from a long day of work and you've had all of the you know you've been grinding it out at work all day long or whatever . The last thing you want to do is get home and you know , stick to your guns on some things . It's easy to let stuff slide . But yeah , kids that believe you .

Man , I , honestly , just yesterday this is the absolute truth just yesterday , you know , we've been taking a break from TV with Edie , like I shouldn't have watched a lot of shows , but she's , you know , definitely during her brother's nap time in the afternoon .

If I need to get some work done or if I need to like take a nap myself , I'll totally let her watch a few episodes of Louis , whatever Daniel Tiger , whatever Harmless shows , right ? Well , something happens .

I promise you to her brain , when she watches shows where you turn it off , it doesn't matter if she made promises up and down that she was gonna give no hassles after TV's over . She gives hassles after TV's over . So we were on a break from any shows for I don't know , close to a week probably . And yesterday she was so cute .

She went into the laundry room and grabbed some of the clean clothes off of the drying rack and folded them . However , she folded them and then went and put them away in their little respective drawers . And she came back to the kitchen and she told me what she did and I was like oh , edie , that's such a good job .

I love it when you help me with my chores . You know what ? I'm gonna actually reward you with one episode of If you Give a Mouse a Cookie , which is this little show on Amazon Prime . And so she was like oh , thank you , mama , thank you , thank you . But I said to myself you will monitor that she only watches one episode because it's easy , right , like ?

These episodes are seven minutes long . So if I'm doing a task , it's pretty easy to let one episode turn into two , turn into three . But I decided she has to believe me , I am serious about one episode , edie , show me one on your hand . And she held up her little one finger . I'm like you will watch one episode , are you ready ?

So , anyways , but what that meant for me is I kind of had to like stand by , I had to watch . I actually didn't get as much done during that little TV break because I was committed to letting her watch only one so that she believed me . She needs to believe us . I think we're getting better at that round too .

. We , we , we . I feel like we did a structure pretty well in our first round of kids because that's just kind of how I'm built . So I don't , I don't thrive not in a structure , but I do feel like even as we go into raising babies , you know , like doing it from the ground up again , I'm reminded that all kids really need structure .

It's about brain development and attachment . It isn't like a personality thing . All kids need structure and structure just to it takes time and energy to build but it's so worth it . So I think we're kind of upping some of the structure in round two , Like can I add something to that ? Yeah .

Well , the flip side of that is if you don't give your kids structure , then they don't really feel safe and feel secure and they don't know what's coming up . And it ends up , the kids feel out of control .

So it's the opposite of what happens and I've just watched that happen so many times where parents don't , they don't put the kids to bed at a certain time , they don't , you know , just structure their day . Help them organize and structure their day .

I have a friend who's a occupational therapist and just talking through , just to reiterate , it isn't necessarily a personality trait . Kids actually need structure because it is about attachment . When they're young , they , kids , form healthy bonds and attachments when they know what to predict . They know that they're going to , you know , predictably be taken care of .

And even if you're super attentive parent but you happen to be on the yeah , more like hippie flowy side of things , figuring out ways to create some rhythms in your family time so that your kids can categorize their time , because kids link things together , you know they're linking things together .

So you know we wind down for bedtime when this thing happens and I would say that's been one of the , the one of the kind of tricks or tips that has really helped me over the last year and a half has kind of been implementing some habits . So as much as I actually like order , I don't do great at sticking to the same exact thing every single day .

I tend to . I'll do what I feel like doing , kind of thing . If it's a morning where I feel like we need to get up and out of the house , then I'm like running that ship and we're getting up and out of the house . But if it's a morning where I'm like you know what , I just want to drink my coffee on the patio , then we're kind of slower .

But one of the things that I've noticed for myself is If I just create some rhythm , like Edie's got some sensory stuff going on right now , she's just really I think it's like slightly just a three year old thing , and then also I do think some kids are even more sensitive than others .

But she's got a thing right now about her clothes , like stuff just has to fit just right or perfectly , and for whatever reason she's got a thing about shorts . She just has a hard time with her shorts .

And so our family counselor told me the other day Lauren , you just need to , you gotta put her shorts on when she gets up in the morning , before she even leaves her bedroom , so that you're not talking about putting her shorts on when you're also trying to get out the door at 10 . The shorts just make a thing .

You get up , you get dressed and then you go out and you have your breakfast and your gummy vitamins or whatever else , and that's been really helpful . We've done that in a few different iterations with her as she's grown . I don't think we did a lot of habit type stuff with our first round of kids .

Like you can do this when dot dot dot , like first you come down and do this chore and then I know you're ready for breakfast , or things like that . So I do think that creating habits it's a way to create some order for you as parents , but it's also ways . It's a way for kids to .

I think when they know what to predict and when they know the rhythm of things , they actually get to have more ownership over your family time , your space , your routine , your morning .

They get to have ownership over it if they know what's coming , if mom or dad springs something new on them every single day and they're just at the whim of whatever mom and dad feel like doing in the moment , they don't actually get a ton of ownership because they're just kind of following the leader .

But when they know Edie knows , you know , I'm gonna get up , I'm gonna put my clothes on . And so she tells me now and we've only been doing it for a few days , and she's telling me mom , I want the pink shorts , or mom , I want the heart shorts , you know ?

morning , she knows she's gonna get a diaper change , but we're gonna take her diaper off , we're gonna put her pants on , put her shorts on and then she can go . We're gonna eat breakfast when dad gets up usually , which sometimes is before them sometimes it's right when they're waking up and that's kind of that starts our day . And then for bedtime .

We have a bedtime routine that we keep every single time , especially right now . I put her to bed Almost every time , unless I'm out of town , and she knows that we're gonna brush her teeth .

She knows that I'm gonna tell her a story about a skunk Because that's what she always wants and maybe hunting , and then I'm gonna put her in her bed , pray for her , Do that thing . She literally has this whole routine down that she counts on . If you skip one step of the routine , she's not happy .

Yeah , and that's her personality , yeah and that just creates a bunch of predictability and safety in them . So I've seen how Me not doing a great job when the kids were younger , when our olds were young , created a bunch of challenges problems later on right because they didn't have that routine of taking the trash out or doing the chores .

And then you're fighting them when they're 13 , 14 , 15 , trying to get them to remember to do something that yeah you really should have been doing when they were younger .

Well , I got ice cream . Jay doesn't eat sweets right now , so I was eating ice cream and I was eating this .

I just got like a little cup and I said to him I can't remember how this exactly came up , but when I was growing up , oh yeah my family , my mom , were wired very similarly , so there's like a pretty clear list of rights and wrongs and do's and don'ts , and I grew up in a home where it was I was clear on the rules , like I was a rule .

I appreciated the rules as a kid , I liked following the rules , but my mom was just a pretty structured person in general .

Well , interestingly , we grew up where , I mean , we had ice cream for dessert almost every single night growing up and we had these certain cups that the ice cream went in and they weren't big cups , so we had ice cream every night , but it was in the certain ice cream cup . Like I grew up thinking this is the ice cream cup .

I didn't even think about there , maybe there's another bowl , maybe there's a bigger bowl in the house that I could put more ice cream in , because this was the ice cream cup and it wasn't ever a big deal and it was fun and it was something we looked forward to . We had almost every night a little bit of ice cream .

Well , as an adult , I have something in my head . We're like I don't go to the freezer At noon , open it up and take a few big , huge spoonfuls of ice cream .

But I really appreciate it as an adult because I have somewhere to put dessert in my life . It's a small amount after a great meal and it's not something that I'm ever I don't really ever get tempted to like over in dole I'm , I'm . Ice cream has a place , it has a time and a place in my little life and it's in a tiny cup after dinner .

Anyways , this is just a silly , kind of like a silly example to say .

I do think when we grow up with a , an awareness or an understanding of where certain things fit in our lives , when we get older and we have all the freedom in the world and you can technically , you know , quote do what you want with your life , if you've been raised with a sense of Structure or rhythm or normal , it's easier to find Healthy habits and

healthy rhythms of your own . Then if you're just kind of left to Sort it all out yourself . I just found myself yesterday randomly really appreciating that set of structure that my mom gave us when we were little .

Makes it so much easier to do life together with right and so that's the big thing is , as parents , when we come home , can we both parent at the same level ? Are we both on the same page ? Are the kids gonna get you know generally the same Answer out of both you . Can we both Run the ship , the routine , regardless of if the other parents there or not ?

If you can do that , then that's a massive help .

okay . So I would say , the next big category of like Things that we would definitely recommend , like stakes in the ground when it comes to raising kids , is Just the concept that teamwork is the best work . So that's true for the parents and it's true for the kids .

But to focus on the parents for just a moment you know , so often when it comes to Running the house and raising the kids , I think it's culturally Quite common for the situation to to be that like mom runs the ship , kind of like she's the Captain yeah and then the husband Feels more like a passenger On the ship , you know on a bad day feels like another

kid or on a bad day feels like the cleanup crew or something right . Yeah , it feels like another kid . I mean I've we've joked before , you know , like when we had our baby , liam Jason had had had knee surgery a few weeks after our baby was born . So my friends and I texted through that time a lot , you know they would be like .

So how are the babies , all three of them , you know ? Like saying that , jason was basically no more help than another .

Even if they've made it their job , they get overwhelmed and bitter .

Teamwork is the best work , like if you can find a way to be a team at almost everything that you do when it comes to raising kids , you're only gonna be better for it because it creates so much loneliness right in the home for a mom to be the only one who knows , understands the routine , who's calling all the shots ?

or is aware of what their kids need . Uh-huh like there's no mom that wants the dad to have to ask her what do you think he needs every time he's crying or every time you know , Like moms don't want to actually hold all the answers .

Moms want to have a teammate in the dad where they can look at each other and laugh sometimes because all hell is breaking loose or they can look at each other and strategize for a second and either one of them can come up with a solution for something that might be going wrong .

And it's not that you don't do the bulk of a lot of that , it's that when I'm home , I'm a competent partner , I'm capable . You're not wondering if I'm gonna pick up slack . You're not wondering if you have a teammate in me when I come home , I've got my game face on .

I know where the kids are at , I know what the schedule is and I can Competently pick up where you left off on any of the things . If it's cooking and you've got to run and do something , I can take over if it's putting Liam down , I know his routine . I can put him down . If it's getting Edie a bath , I know the routine for the bath .

I can do that . If you just tell me where they're at in their day , because we're such partners I know what's coming next and how to prep for it and get them through that , and I think so many marriages start to grow apart at this place .

Yeah because the dad does work and the mom does home and kids and there's no real partnership there , there's just an agreement there and . People start to grow apart . Like you said , the wife feels really resentful and the husband's typically justifying why he's at work longer hours , you know .

Then then he really needs to be , because gosh home's kind of chaotic and I don't feel like a fit .

So I think what we're not saying is or maybe I'll say this well , we are sit well . Also , what is true is that you go to work and you have an incredible amount of responsibility on your plate and I'm not at your job with you telling you how you should be doing it at home .

I'm the one experimenting with Different plans for disciplining certain types of behaviors all day long and I'm troubleshooting and I'm with the kids More hours in the day than you , and so if you were to come home and we were just supposed to do it all your way and you weren't actually coming in and asking questions or seeking to understand , that would feel awful

, because this is actually my , this is my terrain , like this is where . I'm working all day long , so trust me , let's do it this way . I ?

I know a lot of moms who can kind of feel like you know , on one hand , bitter and resentful because they feel lonely and they feel like they don't have a partner that knows what they're doing when it comes to the house and the kids .

On the other hand , I think you know Moms are gonna have to , if they want a great teammate in their spouse Number one , be willing to do it differently sometimes . Like I can't take off and have a night with my girlfriends and Micromanage exactly what you do for dinner with the kids or what you put them to sleep in .

If I'm gonna get up the next morning and criticize you know what you put Liam to bed in or the fact that you didn't give him , you know , two more ounces of milk . Or you know , oh , okay , you know . Oh , you didn't break . You forgot to brush Edie's teeth . Oh , my gosh , you horrible husband . Like it's not gonna go perfectly , because that's my territory .

I'm I have a very clear way that it should be done in my mind . But the beauty of having partnership over perfection in any of these areas . Like I'm always going to prefer Partnership over perfection . That's what's best for our kids , that's what's best for our marriage .

Ultimately , that's what's best for me , because if I could only be happy if Jason did it quote Perfectly every time , then I wouldn't actually be able to go and enjoy the other things that I get to enjoy because I have a partner , whether it's girls nights out , or maybe I want to take a class , or maybe I actually gonna work part-time or whatever it might be .

I just think , moms , we have to be careful that we're not trying , that we're not elevating perfection over having a great partner in our husband .

Definitely a lot of dads miss out on some serious bonding with the kids Because they don't want to change the diaper or they don't know how to put the sheet on the bed , or they don't understand .

You know how to cook a simple meal for the kids or whatever , and Therefore you miss out on all that interaction , all that connection , all that bonding , and it becomes , you know , a Big bummer . The mom's trying to keep the kids together In the dad close to the kids , all that stuff .

They were a horrible team and the kids just exploited that over and over and over again and it just creates so much insecurity and the kids , but Also it creates so much anger and frustration and the parents because they're not on the same team . And so you know I always say with the big kids they would say like , oh , can I go over ?

So , so and so's house . Nine out of ten times I'm gonna go . Let me talk to your mom right or or especially when , when we were first Married , in first blending the family , what in the kids know that we are a team , that we're we're figuring this stuff out together . You can't go tell mom .

I remember my dad telling me this I would go ask him one thing and he would say no . And then I go ask mom and I remember to get in so much trouble .

We worked really hard when we were blending the family to teach the kids that we were a team . We're on the same page Whatever you said was gonna go or whatever I said was gonna go , and and backing each other up , but you got to be really resilient to make sure that we are on the same page and that we're a team as we're going through .

You know all the parenting stuff day in and day out , so to me that's the big deal . It gets really practical . So , just if I can just dive one more layer deeper and I hope I'm not be kicking a dead horse but for guys out there , you really need to know and understand your kids calendar and your schedule .

Yes it's a pain in the butt , but it's worth it . Yes so that's part of the .

If you don't understand , or at least have access to know , the kids schedule and the routines , then you're gonna feel like a really uninformed parent and your wife's got a really hard time with that because she's constantly Informing you over and over again on what's happening , what's coming up .

It's not like I'm the one managing it and updating it , but anytime I want to know I can go on there and look and see what's happening with Edie Windsor swim dates , what's happening with Liam you know what's going on with the big kids and that just keeps from Lauren feeling like she's got three kids .

Yeah running around me and the other two littles or whatever , and so I think a lot of dads could really benefit in being a helpful , healthy partner if they understand just this basic schedule that their kids are operating on . Yeah so you know you're always gonna hold milk more information than I am .

Babe , you're always gonna be the one that's like more savvy with that kind of stuff , but I'm not an incompetent partner .

But it's true that connection with your kids is the thing that's worth fighting for , and I just remember when our big kids were all still in the house and those grade school age , middle school , high school age fighting for connection , keeping connection with your kids .

It can become more challenging as they get older , because there's more for them to connect to other than you .

So they've got friends , they've got their sports teams , they've got school , they've got a whole host of things that are vying for their attention , and so to learn how to actually fight for connection over everything else is just absolutely , absolutely so important , and one of the things I realized with our big kids that is still translating into life with our babies

is that you can solve any problem if you have connection . So vice versa , it's hard to solve silly , simple problems if you don't have connection

. This plays out all the time with our toddlers , right back to the shorts . It's crazy how much of an easier time Edie has putting on the shorts or the shoes , even if they're a little uncomfortable , when we have just had a great time of connection or when she's feeling really full and bonded . She's very much a physical touch love language kid .

So if we have spent some time in the morning cuddling before we try to scurry out the door , she's gonna handle the whole transition easier . Well , it plays out still with the big kids when they were much older than our toddlers . We're discovering okay , this homework issue is actually not even an issue about homework Like this conversation we're having right now .

That feels like a conflict . If we could actually focus on our connection and talk about the homework or the breakdown in communication later , it's gonna go so much more smoothly every single time . So I really do think connection is the key to most problem solving when it comes to parenting .

They want like some quality time in there , wrestling or playing or drawing , and that goes a really long ways .

And so as the kids get older , it's easier to miss out on those connection times because , well , they've got the friends they're playing with and they've got sports that they're doing and they're really busy , they don't really need me , but the truth is they really do need you .

And if that emotional bank accounts on empty , then it's really hard to bring in any influence or correction or give direction because there's not much connection going on On that note and I think this is a really important this is important to say .

One of the things that I feel like it was a pendulum swing for me , I would say growing up , correction would probably have come before connection . And then , when I got married to Jason and I'm following his lead , I feel like the lesson I learned was actually we're doing it a different way .

We're doing connection over correction , which I do think if you have to prioritize them , that is a healthy prioritization .

However , what I learned in raising our big kids in this culture and with that frame of reference is if you blanket statement , prioritize connection over correction , say there's a behavior problem or something they did that was naughty or something that needs adjusting , if you simply prioritize connection over the correction , I don't think that sets kids up very well for

the real world . That is not how the world works . So I think actually pouring in to connection so that in the moments where they need correction , you can freely and quickly give it . That would be the goal . Like in the moment of a relational breakdown or a conflict isn't the moment where you want to have to go .

Well , I can't correct them right now because we're actually pretty disconnected . So we should probably go and spend some time together and make sure we're feeling more connected before I actually correct that behavior of theirs . Now , that's not how the world works . That's not super helpful .

So I think , as parents , if we're continually prioritizing connection , then we don't have to prioritize it over correction . If we get to bring correction , it's going to land better when we're connected with our kids every time . But they need that from us . They need both .

For example , if Edie gets really overwhelmed and she's feeling really overwhelmed it will look like disrespect .

But if I stop and take a look at it , like actually what's really happening is she's three years old and she's feeling really overwhelmed with the sensory stuff and she doesn't know how to say it , and so it looks like she's being disrespectful .

But what's actually what she needs the most from me is she needs me to come over there and probably pick her up and cuddle her for a second and say hey , what are you feeling ? What's going on inside of you ? What emotion are you feeling ?

I did that , I don't know , twice , yesterday or the day before , and just really helped her work through what it is that she was really feeling . Now there are definitely times when she disrespects just to find the line .

It's easy to do and you're trying to get your kids to behave instead of first really understanding what's going on inside of you .

And just felt so sad because like , oh , the kids were whatever , really overwhelmed or feeling kind of peer pressure at school or acting out because they felt lonely and needed my attention and I didn't really understand that Right , and they do all kinds of things . You know they'll lie for attention , they'll steal for attention .

You'll get it right way more often than if you just simply try to correct behavior because we can get kids to behave but that doesn't give them a sense of belonging and love and care and concern and doesn't really solve the issue .

So for the moment you know I they'll listen and they'll behave , but in the long run they eventually just rebelled because you're not actually really meeting their real need .

You know it's hard , right , being a parent is tough , because there's endless amounts of things that you could try to go after and fix or improve or whatever , and you're always wondering if you're doing it right .

And I was just having a conversation with some friends the other day , actually , and we were talking about you know , sometimes , you , you , you recognize these patterns in your kids or and that's that's a great way to kind of recognize um , you know , if something is a cycle and it's an unsolved problem , then you know , okay , maybe this behavior is just a symptom

of something going on .

But we were talking about how , the older the kids get , the more we're convinced that taking the time to get to the bottom of the problem is worth it , because when your kids are young and they've got these little habits or these little behavior things that they get tweaked out over , or you know this , this thing that they just do , this behavior issue that they

have , if you get to the bottom of it when the kids are small , you save yourself so much heartache and trouble as they grow older , because it gets harder and harder to break habits as kids get older for yourself and for your kids . So it just feels like you know , having had big kids , you know having had having adult kids .

Now I just look back and I go , oh my gosh , any amount of time . You know there was a season where we we we've actually sent all of our kids to see a counselor at one point or another I go , I go and talk to our own family counselor about the toddlers .

Right now , when I'm trying to troubleshoot things like actually and one of the things in having toddlers is I find myself I'm asking questions like Is this a typical three year old thing going on or is there something more here ? And I want to know if there's something more because I want to do something about it .

I don't want to write all of her behavior off as just a typical three year old . I want to make sure that I really understand what's going on . Whatever time or effort or energy you have to do to get to the bottom of some of that is just always going to be worth it .

And I used to try to get the kids to listen to me when they're right , standing right in front of me , like look at me , listen to me , look at what I have to say , but they can't hear you .

They're so frustrated , they're so emotionally charged that what I would do is later on , right , I'd parent in the moment , like hey , that's not fun , hey , you need some time to go cool off , whatever , but then later go back and revisit the conversation what was going on in you when that happened , or making sure that we're connected , and then having that

conversation .

All that good stuff that really helps us to grow , and actually been growing a lot , which is so much fun because of you guys , yeah , and so this has been awesome . Guys , we will see you next week . Have a great week .