Music. Welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy, the podcast that empowers you to transform life's challenges into opportunities for personal growth and healthier relationships. We're your hosts, Tim and Ruth Olson, licensed marriage and family therapists and trauma experts. As experienced therapists with backgrounds in addressing trauma and mental health disorders, we believe there is hope and there certainly is healing.
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us today. Today's topic that we're going to be discussing is themes and messages that we're sending to our kids. Before we get started, if you haven't already left us a review on Apple Podcasts, we'd really appreciate it if you took a few minutes and gave us a review. It helps our channel to grow and helps people who would benefit from hearing this to be able to find us. All right, so let's jump right in.
Now, one of the things I want to start off by talking about is that especially when it comes to kids and it comes to parenting, I think there's a lot of fear out there. And I want to tell you right away that you never want to parent out of fear. And so what we're going to be talking about here isn't to try to instill a level of fear in you, but to give you a level of awareness.
And so when we're talking about themes and messages that we're sending to our kids, it's not a one-time incident or event. It's generally a regular reoccurring theme that you're sending to your kids. And you could be sending them positive themes and messages, or you can be sending them negative themes and messages.
And so when we're trying to instill positive belief systems and levels of understanding to our kids, the theme and message that we are pushing most often and most frequently is going to be the one that their mind is most likely to adopt. So it doesn't matter what theme you value more, but it matters the theme that you end up pushing more.
And I think a lot of times we can be inadvertently pushing themes that we don't really want to be pushing on our kids, but it's because it's something that we highly value, but we're not necessarily even trying to push that onto our kids. So a good example of this would be just this idea of excellence. And you would think, well, that sounds like a great theme. And absolutely, it is a great theme.
But if that is the top theme that you're pressing on your kids, then what's another theme that might get lost in the weeds as opposed to that well I love you is a theme that might get lost and so if your highest priority is your kids being excellent then they can become neurotic about being excellent because they think love is attached to excellence and then even when they do exert excellence they still feel like they're missing
love and so again excellence is a great theme but it shouldn't be the highest priority theme because it can come with pressing or making people feel more neurotic. And I would add on to that word pushing on them.
Where like Tim said, it's maybe not even be something that you are trying to push on them, but whatever you're modeling, whether it's intentional and on purpose, where you are trying to teach them this or model this to them, or something that may be more reactive, where you're just kind of reacting to life. And so maybe you're trying to model and your value is to model patience and kindness in the way that you speak to them, but then you're very short and quick with them.
Although your value is more of that patience and kindness, they're going to begin to pick up and respond and react to things in the same way that you are modeling it. Not necessarily what you're saying to them, but how you're behaving and what they're seeing.
Another example is if you're saying, I value family time and just relaxing and being together, but you're constantly running around and telling your kids to hurry up and get in the car, then that message might get lost in what they're actually seeing. And going back to what Tim was saying about that striving for excellence, that is such a good value and such a good thing that you want your kids to have. You want them to do their best and to be excellent in the things that they do.
But it's so hard as parents because we don't know what message they're going to receive from it. So we have to do our best to kind of have this well-rounded approach. And like you said, that missing message could have been that message of, I love you regardless.
So it's not that we have to sit down and word for word explain out to them all of that, that their achievement isn't attached to our love, but just in modeling both that excellence and you did great, but even when they're not doing great, to show them love and to. Encourage them and make sure that they did their best. Not that it's this measure that needs to be achieved that they hit this achievement or this goal, but did they do their best?
Did they have fun? and that's what you desire for them, but you love them no matter what. And this was something that happened recently. Two of our kids are in swimming. And so one of our team's best swimmers and one of their team's best swimmers were going head to head and our swimmer ended up beating their swimmer. I guess at the end, the other coach complained to our coach and was saying essentially, you know, thanks for making our prize swimmer cry because they ended up losing.
Now, not only that, but this other team was contesting any and all disqualifications that That happened for swimmers who weren't doing the appropriate stroke and they're swimming outside of the rules. So this team and the parents who are on this team, what they highly prize most is winning. They don't highly prize sportsmanship. And what happens, though, is that also translated down to their prize swimmer who was crying because they lost a race.
And you could tell that that's a message and a theme that has been sent because it's not about if they're doing right or not because they were trying to challenge all the disqualifications. It's not about making sure you do your best, but it's about making sure you beat the other people.
And that's why this poor swimmer was crying because they lost the race to our swimmer, because that was the theme that was being pressed by this whole team, by the parents, by the coach, as opposed to the idea of sportsmanship. Hey, I want to do the best that I can, but I also want to make sure I have a good attitude. Whether it's win, lose, or draw, I want to make sure that I'm being pleasant
to the other competitors that I'm there with. And so I guess some of our swimmers are even complaining that the other team was kind of talking smack and talking down on our swimmers and giving them a hard time. And you know, it's so funny to run into that because in my experience as a swimmer, I didn't run into that stuff very much at all.
And it was more just an individual sport where it's like you're busy being about your own time, you're busy about your own race, not necessarily even really worrying about the other swimmers. But it's also really funny too, because this is just a summer league. It's not a huge deal. But then this other team is making it a huge deal. Now, again, they are sending this theme of this is the utmost importance and you have to be excellent and being excellent and winning is the most important thing.
Versus another theme that's really important is, hey, we absolutely want you to do your best, but we want you to make sure you have good sportsmanship and you learn character and you're developing that character throughout this. And I can see myself as a parent and as a previous swimmer where I'm watching my kids swim and I can feel my desire for them to do good.
And when they've been in the sport for a very short amount of time, I want to jump in and I want to correct and I want to advise and I want going to help them to be the best that they can be. But I also have to make sure I rein that in. The first thing is about fun and enjoyment and wanting to be there.
If I press them too hard, and then I make them burn out, or they end up hating the sport because I'm too gung-ho about it, then they're going to lose all the benefits that they could get from being in that sport. And so when they finish, I always make sure I tell them, hey, great job. And especially if they drop time, oh my gosh, you dropped this much seconds. That's so good.
And just to jump in, And I think starting off with that good job rather than right away starting off with like, hey, make sure you move your arms this way and make sure you do this. Oh, you did a great job today. You want to make sure that you acknowledge them and their effort and that you saw them first.
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I think too, even though you might want to correct them on something to try to help them be better, if it's something that's not coming up for a while, you may as well just hold that and wait till later when it's more relevant to bring it up. But right when they're done doing something, just stick with the praise and be excited for what they did then, even if maybe it wasn't as good as they could have done or they've done in the past.
Just, hey, great job, good effort, oh my gosh, it was so fun watching you do that. Because the message and theme you don't want to send to your kids is, is I will love you if you're excellent. I will love you if you're perfect. I will love you if you're great. It's I will always love you. And then separate and totally detached from that, hey, here's how we can do a little bit better. But you have to have the time from the performance to the time of correction
for it to not feel like it's connected to it. And the time isn't just a few minutes. We're talking hours or even maybe a day or two later, where then you can bring up the correction, say, oh, yeah, you got to make sure you do this or make sure you're following through this. And just before my kids get in for their race, of course, I'm like, hey, make sure you're doing this with your stroke or doing that with your stroke. But then as soon as the race is over, it's, hey, you did a great job.
Oh, it's so fun watching you. That was so good. And then if I notice something, I'll log that away in my memory banks. And then I'll try to bring that up later. Or if we're swimming in the pool or something like that, I might take some time and I might practice with them how to do it correctly. But if you're doing it right after the time of the performance, then a lot of times then that can cause them to feel more anxious about the
performance. So I got to make sure I do good as opposed to that feeling like, oh, I did great. I finished. And, you know, whether the time was good or not, or whether the stroke was good or not, it's that good feeling of like, oh, I accomplished something. I made it to the end of my race. And even better is when you begin to see in your kids that internal motivation of them wanting to learn rather than you having to teach them and show them
like, hey, do this. And they don't really want to hear it. So Tim was a nationally ranked swimmer. And as we joined the swim team, I know he has a lot of knowledge to offer our kids. And so, you know, when we're in the pool, he does show them different strokes and all of that. But that doesn't always translate to them actually doing it. But after the first meet that we had, one of our kids was really excited because, you know, the meet is kind of the payoff.
They go five days a week and they practice early mornings. And then they had their first meet. I saw them come up to Tim and say, hey, what could I have done better? And so that is a prime opportunity for him to be able to jump in and begin to really teach because she is all ears now and she wants to learn. And that's really kind of the best place to be where they are wanting to learn.
Oh, actually, that's a great point, because before the meet happened, I was trying to give her some advice or some tips or try to like help her be prepared for her first meet. But her ears were closed. She was not interested. As a matter of fact, she'd get kind of annoyed when I would stop in the middle of something and say, hey, show me your stroke and okay, go like this. And she didn't like it. But then right after that first meet,
she did come, what could I do better? And so that's a little bit different than what I was talking about earlier. That was a very express teachable moment. She came and was specifically seeking that information for me. and there's never a better time to teach a kid something than when they come to you seeking that information.
And just when you were talking, Tim, another theme that I was thinking about or you kind of mentioned when you were talking about sportsmanship, but it's that respect for authority. So when you were saying that a big majority of the DQ calls were being challenged. That made me think of, we've been really blessed to be a part of some really great sports and we're just kind of getting into the sports realm with the ages that our kids are.
But with both baseball and the soccer team we were a part of, they had it in their rules. They made it a point to mention. Really that line of authority and showing respect and teaching the kids how to respect the calls that are made, how to respect your coaches, how to respect the refs or the umpires. And it's so encouraging as a parent to see this because these are the values that I want to instill in them. And so they made it very explicit how it was supposed to run.
The ref makes a call, the coach supports the call, the parent supports the coach, and they all are modeling that and encouraging the kids to do the same. Game. And granted, it is okay for the coach to challenge calls. A part of several of the baseball games we were in, the coaches would come together and they would have a discussion and talk to the ref about it and kind of challenge it. And sometimes things got a little heated, but everyone was all very respectful.
And so you're modeling that respect, even in disagreement. So I think there's a couple of things that you're showing them, right? Sportsmanship is showing respect to the people in authority, but also the other players. It's learning how to disagree appropriately and even being respectful as you're kind of challenging your competitor. And I think it's okay to have healthy competition. We're not saying everyone needs to always just focus on fun and that's it.
Tip is a nationally ranked swimmer. And so I know there are times where it wasn't all this just fun and games. There was discipline and there was challenge and defeat and frustration and all of that. But it really adds a lot to the character development. And you know, our kids are at pretty young ages right now. And so it's not super competitive. We're not looking or expecting them to go pro on anything right now.
But we want to make sure that they don't lose the love of learning, whether it's learning in school, whether it's learning in swim, learning the different techniques that Tim was trying to teach them. But that definitely was a theme that I saw. But that theme of sportsmanship or respect for the other players and the people in authority is really important. And the idea about themes, too, is that these are not binary choices.
If I choose this, then that means I have to exclude that. So just like you were saying, Ruth, you can still value excellence. That can still be a theme that you instill. But if it's the highest theme, then it's going to be problematic. And what determines the highest theme isn't a ranking you put in your head. It's a what are you regularly preaching? What are you regularly talking about?
So if you want your kids to highly value that sportsmanship and being kind and generous to other athletes and to be respectful of the rules, that should be the thing that you are pressing most frequent and also modeling. I'll never forget, I was working with somebody and they were upset that their kids were yelling all the time. But then they yelled all the time at their kids when their kids weren't doing something correctly.
And I remember telling him like, hey, listen, you don't like them to yell, but you're yelling all the time. Even though you're saying don't yell when you're yelling, you are modeling that yelling is okay. And so the more you yell, the more likely they are to yell back. And so the thing about it is it's monkey see, monkey do kind of an idea.
If you are telling them one thing, but then you're showing them a totally different thing, the thing they're more likely to do is the thing that you show them. And so it's good to have a mental prioritization of the themes that you want to send to your kids, but also understanding that just talking to them about those themes is not really the thing that's going to instill it.
It's just like Ruth said, modeling those themes. If you are modeling and modeling and modeling, the ones that you have modeled more are the ones they're going to adopt more or the ones they're going to more highly value.
So one of the things to be aware of about the themes that you're sending to your kids is that these themes that you're giving them, these are not just intellectual themes, but you are programming your child's mind to adopt these as ways of being or ways of experiencing or ways of filtering information that they receive. And having the wrong prioritization of those themes can make your kids feel more anxious as they grow up, more depressed.
Or struggle with body image issues and things like that if you're sending the wrong messages or you're prioritizing the wrong themes and messages that you're sending to your kids. And so I think we could stop and talk all day long about all the different types of themes that they are, but the general idea is one of the major themes you want them to feel is that you love them and that you accept them. And that should be the highest theme that you're sending to your kids.
And then after that, you can set up additional themes beyond that where it's like, okay, hey, I want you to be a rule follower, I want you to strive for excellence, I want you to have good sportsmanship, those kinds of things. But naturally, one of the things that people are most concerned with is feeling loved and accepted by their family members.
If that is not the top theme that they receive, they will always attach their love and acceptance to whatever theme you place higher in their life by how you modeled. And then that brings about that neurotic behavior where they They can feel anxious or depressed or have low self-esteem and body image issues because they think this is all attached to this, right?
If you send a message, hey, you need to be skinny or you need to be strong in order to be lovable, then they might develop some type of eating disorder or they might develop some type of neuroses around being at the gym all the time. But if it's always I love you, I love you, I love you is that major theme, they won't attach any level of neuroses to these other less valuable themes. They're still good themes. I'm not saying that they're bad, but they're less valuable than that one of
love. Everybody cherishes and values that one more highly than the other ones. And that's why whenever that one is second to something else, it always creates that unhealthy dynamic where it's a, I need to do this to get love.
Now, if you're struggling and you feel like your parents might have instilled some negative themes that programmed your brain to be operating in an unhelpful way, Ruth and I, we have a program called Coaching with Truth, where we can take you through the process of deprogramming those unhealthy themes and helping you to adopt more healthy and more sustainable themes.
If that sounds interesting to you, or you'd like to get a little bit more information, we have a link in the description below where you can set up a consultation, or you can set up an appointment time where we'll get start working right away. All right, guys, thank you so much for listening. and remember, your mind is a powerful thing. Music. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. We hope that you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful.
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