#34 Being an Effective Father in Challenging Times, with Kimball Lewis

Gentlemen, welcome to the Be The Man podcast.

I'm your host.

Greg Denning.

I am the Creator and Coach become a master class in tribe.

Tell us today.

My guest is Kimble.

Louis and he is running a site in a program called empowering parents.

And man our conversation covers, a lot of things about raising kids, their site gets over, 600,000 visits a month and a third of those Our Failure to Launch challenges where teens and young adults aren't launching as adults into the world, which is, which is a really big problem right now, but we cover all kinds of things.

And ultimately really comes down to how to be more effective as parents and how to give our kids, the skill set.

And the problem solving abilities, they need not only has kids and, and in our homes, in our life, but to prepare them to Out into life and to figure out what is most effective especially when it comes to correcting them and using discipline with with tact and diplomacy and skill.

So it actually works.

In fact, one of my favorite things we cover here is why it is so ineffective to have long-term consequences for their behavior out.

That was an awesome one and what to do, how to how to make sure that all the family Dynamics are happening.

NG and we're raising our kids in a great way.

So, jump in gentlemen, if you have children, listen to this and think through it and spend time talking to your spouse about it and writing about it really, really dig in be more strategic and more thoughtful in the way we are.

Raising your kids.

This is one of the most challenging and most important things there is in life, man.

We've got to be more thoughtful and effective amount.

So jump in gentlemen, if you haven't subscribe to podcast yet, please subscribe and share it.

The friends family colleagues.

Let's jump in.

I know you're enjoy this episode.

All right, Kimball glad to have you here brother.

There are very few topics that are as important to me personally but important in life than parenting man, like wholeheartedly, I sincerely believe this like parenting is the most important work.

We do like the the privilege to have another like living being in your care and to raise them to be a good successful adults.

Massive, brother massive.

So, but this is this your whole world your business, right?

So, give us a little bit background about yourself, and then let's dive in and get some really relevant stuff for today.

How we can do this, do this better.

So I'm Kimber Louis and I am the CEO of a company called empowering parents.com and our, the parents we work with come to us typically by there.

You could, they go into Google and they've had a huge fight with their kid, like the up for the umpteenth time and they Google, I'm at my Wit's End.

I can't even talk to my son anymore.

My daughter anymore.

Like we have communication problems, you won't.

Go to school like, you know, basically parents that are at their wit's end dealing with Defiance backtalk motivation, issues, whatever, and these are typically teenagers but not always.

Sometimes they're like, 9 10 and then up into the into early 20s and they Google that and they find us, we have hundreds of articles on our website empowering parents.com.

And then, and then most importantly, what we are is we are the, we are the home of something called The Total Transformation program, which is a parenting program that was developed in the late 2000s by Named James Lehman, who was wildly popular in the in the late 2000s.

If you, if you listen to the radio in your car during that time, you would have heard them because all over the airwaves with his ads where he would say to parents.

You know, if you, if you've had, you know, the the 10,000 argument with your child and you're driving home right now and you're like, it's just going to happen again.

Just remember you don't have to attend every argument that you're invited too.

Yeah, that was like that was his first piece of advice.

I remember that because I had met him before and he was from he's from the Area where I lived.

So.

So anyway, he was wildly popular.

He sold this thing called a total total transformation programme, which was the culmination of his 30 years of work as a as a counselor and therapist working with Define kids and it's a tool set.

What do you do?

What do you say?

And and and he worked with kids in therapy and stuff and parents but he liked that was 50 minutes a week.

It's not enough.

The parents need to have the tools that he had, so he had this ends up being, like an eight-week kind of course where you you'll learn the Basic tools.

But how do you talk and interact with the find kids?

And because their mindsets a little bit different and what I love about it.

And so he, so the reason I'm involved in this is heat at the height of his popularity, he died.

So in 2010, he passed away and the company kind of flowered floundered after that, and they were selling books and DVDs and stuff.

So I came in and 2016 as a technologist background and also a researcher in child, child, welfare, foster.

Care issues, all that kind of stuff.

I used to.

Work at a think tank and we we brought it all online and wanted and wanted to make sure that we are the evangelists for James Lehman in The Total Transformation program because it kind of stopped in 2010, when he passed away, but his messages, his message is perfect.

And you know what I like about his message?

It's honest because he was in 2010.

He could say what he really thought without worrying, like what's going to happen to him.

So so when you hear, they can't be canceled because it's 2010, he's died.

He died, right?

So you can't cancel Straight Talk, man.

Yeah, it's complete Straight Talk.

And, and it's, and it's what do you say?

And what you do, it's not theoretical, but it's just like, like, parents are struggling.

They don't, they don't know what to do.

And it's not their fault because some kids are hard, some kids are just hard.

It's not like, and they just need to build with little.

Yeah, let's let's dive in.

Well, okay first, yeah, well, I want to dive into that.

The kids come differently.

But first like, and you already touched on a couple of wonder, what are the biggest problems that you're seeing?

I'm like, what is it?

A parents are struggling with most and I think it changes.

Maybe there's some common denominators over time, but I think is, as Society kind of changes and goes through phases, even if you studied, there's a book called the fourth turning, right?

Every 20 years is approximately is another turning and we're a different earnings and the behaviors different.

But now we have technology in the world has changed, but what are you seeing are the major problems, what are people facing?

So the major problem we actually feel this is this is kind of consistent and that So first of all, I could just go through the Google terms of how people come to us its Defiance it's backtalk laziness lack of motivation constant fighting my son punches the walls, he lies to me.

My son is swearing at me and then it gets even, it gets even bigger gets darker after that.

It seems seemingly darker but it's so honest because it's common.

I don't like my child.

Yeah we get that because when you're fighting all the time and your child says tears kids say terrible things to you and you Might say terrible things your kids or whatever when you're in the heat of the battle.

Yes.

And you get to the point where I don't like my child, it's so hard for parents to say that.

And actually one of the reasons why Behavior matters a lot and as a parent like like making sure you have a good system to ensure behavior is that you run the risk of not liking your child if they don't behave well like and that's a hard that's a really hard place to be.

And, you know, we counsel parents are either at that stage that, you know, just realize that it's a behavior problem.

Not like a person like love your child, but you don't have to like their behavior and try to separate the two things.

Yeah.

And then a huge portion of the, of the parents coming to us have kids.

From the 2225 age range that are that are.

And we talked about this, just before the podcast started there, the Failure to Launch kids, here are still dependent at age 21, 22, 23, huge problem.

Man.

It's a, I've heard psychologist called the the Failure to Launch epidemic.

It's just its massive, it's it's huge.

It's probably, it's probably a third of our website.

We get about, 600,000 people a month on our website, coming in to read our articles and About about a third of it is coming in for, for failure to launch issues.

We have an entire series of Articles from Philly to launch which which comes from that movie, there's a movie right way back.

I don't know, I'm dating myself, but I think it's like the early 2000s.

There was a failure to launch movie anyway, but it's hard.

And you know, what is this is?

I mean, I have to be honest, if people are going to come to us, if their child's over age 25, we don't work with them.

Because the basis of all of our work is that there's as a parent, you won't like you're in charge of the household.

Like a lot of this is in a breakdown of like legitimate Authority within the household, like the parents, the legitimate Authority in the household and that's okay.

Like it's someone has to be in charge and our recommendation, that is not the child but it's the parent some people disagree.

And if you disagree that's, you know, there are other other approaches, whatever.

But when a child's over age 25, We typically don't recommend our programs because at that point, we will say that it's basically a roommate issue.

You've got a bad roommate who's not paying the rent.

Now, I know it's more complicated than that because because it is your child but you almost at that point you need to start viewing your child as an adult who's like not paying the rent or whatever.

And you have to figure things out that it's a difficult situation.

No matter what.

So I don't want to, I don't want to minimize that but But but the relationship after age. 25 and some point you just have to be like because you know, parents are going to live forever to you.

Don't I mean like we're not going to live, what's going to happen when when you pass away, who's going to take care of, you know, the state?

I don't know.

Sometimes I heard a story recently.

That is saddened me.

This gentleman into his 50s and 60s.

His mom was still supporting him a good guy.

Super good guy, but his mom up in her 80s and early 90s was still sharing some of her Come with him and I thought that if we don't ever put a stop to this, it can just keep going chronically and then actually things got worse after she died, you know, very old age.

Like you were struggling financially because you've been leaning on her.

Yeah.

And sibling various sibling takes over his wild and so there you have to draw these lines.

And some of the things you're saying it's just simple.

Fundamental things of like hey like who's in charge here who's going to make the decisions and it's not Your authoritarian necessarily you don't have to, yeah, rule with a heavy hand or or do it without diplomacy or tact, but somebody has to be in charge, and there has to.

Yeah.

And that's what life is to.

We're all accountable to someone, like, I'm accountable to my spouse, like my wife, I'm accountable door.

I'm accountable to my kids.

I'm accountable to my employer.

I'm accountable to like, we have accountability in our life.

There's no such thing as living life without having some sort of accountability.

And you have to, you have to learn to deal with the fact that Accountable to something and someone effectively that's fundamentally.

The problem we're seeing with, with a lot of these behavior issues.

And this is what we teach in The Total Transformation program.

Is that it's fundamentally a problem solving skill.

So be learning how to be accountable to.

Someone has a problem in life dealing with frustration is a problem in life, dealing with anger, is a problem in life and and you there's a few ways you can deal with that, you can deal with it effectively or you can act out And what we find is that the kids that are behaving poorly.

Let's say they're dealing with frustration, or they're dealing with what we call a functional issue, which is, which is they don't, they're not able to meet responsibilities like, get their homework done.

It's a problem.

Solving skill like you have you have a responsibility, you kind of don't want to do it because it makes you feel uncomfortable.

And one way to deal with it, is by acting out and being defined and not doing it.

And in the problem is it works.

That's the problem, is that it works because you're And then and then the text, the teachers will like give up on you and they'll stop holding you accountable and then the responsibility go away or, you know, parents have this whole time, like like if your kids have chores or supposed to do and they fight about it all the time.

It's actually quicker for you to do the chores yourself and easy then to have the argument about the whole thing every night.

So you do it yourself.

And for the child, that acting out a problem solved.

I didn't feel like doing those chores because it's effort, I don't feel like doing it, and I argued about it.

Now, I don't have to do that.

So that actually solve in their mind that whether they're whether they're articulating that or not that acting out that bad behavior, solved the problem, But it's not a good problem solving skill, you don't want to enter the world with your problem-solving skills being acting out and yelling and screaming and throwing stuff and breaking stuff, because life gets more complicated.

The problems get more and more complicated as, as you get older, as you get married, as you as you try to hold down jobs.

Like, if you don't have effective problem solving skills for dealing with anxiety, and frustration, and and people who are angry at you and like, if you don't have those skills, you're not going to make it very well in life and you're going to end up at home with Mom.

You know, so that's that's fundamentally like we want to get kids to be able to solve the problems of basic life skills.

You know what?

One thing that James Lehman in the program talks about, he says, is when you talk about, like, what do you mean by a problem?

Like, problem solving skills, he says, when the alarm goes off in the morning, you have your first problem that you have to solve, which is you have to get out of bed.

And that's a product, like a lot of the parents that come to us.

We have several articles on my kid.

Won't go to school.

That's like, that's problem.

Number one, the alarm goes off, the more you gotta get out of bed.

Like, and and kids don't know how to solve that, they don't know.

They don't have the discipline to go to bed a little bit earlier or two to do whatever and they end up in that place.

So anyway, so a lot of our program is is around making sure that a, they're ineffective problem doesn't work for them anymore so they'd actually don't end up getting their way.

By acting out which is kind of a challenge.

Well, Dragon comes down to the way, the parent responds.

Yes, yes.

You have, you have to have consequences.

So that when they when they act out or are using Behavior, that's not appropriate that that their life actually gets more uncomfortable, not not more uncomfortable, not more comfortable.

Exactly.

It doesn't create the result.

They're hoping for yes.

Yes.

So that they don't like doing so.

So now they have an alternative and and then you have the other half the program is when things are calm.

You need to like These kids need coaching and some teaching or whatever, they may not want it or whatever, but they end up listening, you know, like you want to give them alternative responses for when they're having this problem the next time gasps.

Oh hi.

And he got it out of him entering and yeah.

Yes.

And you have to be like with these defiant kids.

Like you have to be very businesslike about it.

Like you have to bring your emotions down like and this is.

So there's an entire approach to it that it's not just one thing you do.

You need to like have this sort of that sort of our These are sort of a comprehensive set of like how do you approach this, and it's been really effective.

So, and the beauty of this stuff, there's so much parenting stuff out there like, you can try different things, you know what I mean, there's a lot of, like, flavors of this type of thing, but we're definitely in the category of, like, kids need to learn how to be.

You need to hold them accountable and they need to learn responsibilities.

And they do, you do that through effective consequences, we don't call punishment, we just call it cock their consequences to your actions and you try to make legitimate.

Effective consequences and then that coaching and teaching role.

Exactly.

And then the consequences must be relevant and and fitting, right?

So, you're right.

It's like, it's interesting.

I see a lot of stuff out there.

I've been paying attention to this for a couple of decades and the whole parenting thing and watching and it's interesting how many there's a lot, there's a lot of programs out there, a lot of stuff, very popular things and it seems like on the surface, it seems great but In my experience in the coaching a to do and I get to work with families.

Like so many of those programs are straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.

Like, it's the happiest bigger problems going on this level stuff and, and it's symptom management, but it's not fixing the problem, and it's not even I love your approaches, like solving problems.

Like okay, everything we were just learning how to solve problems were training, our kids, how to solve problems.

And, and even if we solve some of the smaller ones, that's great.

We've got to learn how to solve the big ones.

Yeah, the biggest Stuff that's going on internally and externally, and approaching life and making sure that what we're doing.

Actually makes a difference.

Let's dive in on a circle back to something.

You said earlier about you know some kids are just tough and you and I had touched on that a little bit before before the recording share, share.

Some of the thoughts and experience with that.

So There's a lot you know when you have it when you have a child Who's acting out in school or at home like who's just got behavior problems and everyone knows it.

As a parent, there's like so much guilt involved in that.

You feel like I'm a bad parent or, or whatever.

But the truth is, we have so many parents coming to us that have two kids who are just able to figure it out without much effort, and that's that's probably most kids, you know, maybe like that's a 60 or 70% of kids.

Learn effective problem, solving skills on their own without doing this massive acting out or whatever.

But then you just get a hard one and we have so many parents, have two kids are perfectly getting along perfectly fine, and there's one that's really difficult.

And what do they do?

Like today, did they suddenly parent this other kid completely differently and like, like they were genius parents of the first two but like with his last one like they're now, they blew it differently.

You know, what are they doing a clinical trial, where, like, well, I'm gonna try treating this these two this way, and this one this way and see if I can turn out a really bad kid.

Don't work that way.

What's different is the child's different.

The child would have been and and God help the parents that that I mean, God bless the parents who got easy kids.

But you give them the difficult kid and they'll be in the same boat as the other parents.

So it's and there's so much judgment going on around the parents of kids that that are that are struggling and and so much of it is that the kids just tough and those those are those are the parents and we're dealing with parents that are what we call good enough parents.

So we're talking like just you're a good enough parent.

You're trying, you care about your kids, you love your kids or whatever.

So there's an entire world out there of like parents are dealing with like serious substance abuse and Use issues and all that other stuff.

That's not our.

But that's not our, that's not where we were.

We work with what we call the good enough parents, which is the bulk of the parents that are just normal people.

They have jobs or just trying to get by and they got a kid.

It was really difficult.

And it's not the parents, not the parents fault, they got out.

They got a hard kid.

It's, and they know, you know, what?

They know it when the kid was too, they knew they knew early on that this one's different.

And, and these kids are awesome.

Actually, because there, they, they walk to the beat of A Different Drummer.

Yes, they do.

They're willing to do things differently.

There that Defiance.

If it's channeled effectively become like, like they become leaders in the world.

Exactly.

Like, you know who like one of those to find people out there Steve Jobs or Almost like they're totally defined people, right?

They do whatever they like incredibly.

They Channel it productively.

So either they're going to be criminals in jail or they're going to be like CEOs or whatever we're doing something really really different.

So, so there is we point out the parents, there is something special about about kids that are like that, but you got to make sure that you're doing your best to channel them into an effective place.

So, and what, what have you seen in?

I mean, you're dealing with a lot of families, a lot of parents, when and Unite No, I can.

I immediately can think of families and circumstances as well.

I have seven children.

So, you know, my children, they're all different, right?

They all have different responses and personalities, and same the same parents, right?

You're raising all them right in like you like, well, hey, we've been doing the same thing and like it worked in subcontractor work with that one, right?

And I think of families that I get a coach and work with and it's like and I can think of specific examples or I got yeah, that one kid is just the wild card and I want to emphasize here.

It doesn't make the kid bad.

Or wrong or it doesn't make your other kids better.

It's just different.

And as I drove into the brain research, we went and met with a specialist here in Atlanta and it was fascinating to sit down with her and she said look like the population is divided into different brain types and and she said she referred to as there's a hunter's brain, it just as active and it's taking all kinds of stuff in and it's very active brain.

And she said, you know, forty or fifty percent of population 100 spring, but we try to treat everyone.

The the same way as like we treat him like this is like that's just won't work.

It won't work.

And I think that's there's some relevance here to some of these kids show up in there.

Just they just operate differently and so it can make it quite difficult.

So so what do you see is working?

So what one thing and we tell parents is over and over again, which is you're not responsible for your child's Behavior.

Your child is, and you can't make your child do anything.

So, and that's actually a little bit liberating because if your child is acting out or whatever the parent feel like, well, that's my, there's incredible guilt going on.

They they think they're at fault for it's.

A child is doing.

We teach them that that you need to hold your child accountable, when, when your child is standing in the middle of your kitchen, at that moment.

And they choose to say FU and scream at me and scream at you, like, look at you in the eye and swear at you and say something, terrible to you, they had a choice at that moment.

To either either not start throwing f-bombs at you or punching the wall or breaking something or not do that and handle it and handle it more reasonably and they chose to do the acting out way that was your child's choice.

You don't have it, you don't have now, obviously you have some influence and how you react to that other stuff, you have to realize that your that your child's Behavior.

You need to hold them accountable.

Don't don't make yourself.

Don't don't blame yourself for that.

And make yourself guilty for that because a you actually can't control your child's behavior on your child again.

Andy your child, this is the worst case scenario when you, when you start feeling guilt for and responsibility for your child's behavior, when it was your child who made the choice to do that thing, your child will start to believe they, they figure this out, they will, and they will start to believe that the reason that they are not getting along well, and they're acting out and they're having struggles is because of you.

And that is a horrible place to be because now the child believes they're defective and that they can't fix it.

Their problem is they had a bad parent and they Can't fix anymore because now they have a bad parent and the parent is taking the guilt on and saying, I'm guilty, whatever we parents, we try to tell them.

It's this is really hard to do, but get rid of the guilt, hold your child accountable and and you can't make them do something.

Good, that kind of mindset of like it was my parents fault that can that can last for decades lifetime's right for Generations.

You could say, the reason I'm a bad parent because my parents were a bad parent like where does it end?

It doesn't.

It's not helpful, it might be, it could be true, it's not effective.

So we're all about what's effective, not like what's what's, you know?

What might have caused some like, what's effective and what's effective.

As there's only one person that can change making that bad decision about swearing or breaking something or whatever at that moment.

Moment when they get frustrated and that's the child.

And that's what we are whole thing is they need to be held accountable for that.

They're going to make mistakes understand.

They're going to make mistakes, but but you have to hold them accountable.

You have to have, you have to have what we call effective consequences.

And, and you have to like just make sure that they're accountable and because they're the only ones that can fix it and we have, you know, A lot of parents.

This is really common thing that people parents come to us is like I'm using consequences and I think I'm using what you guys call effective consequences but my child doesn't care about the consequences and we have a couple things.

One is maybe the consequences and quite right too.

Is maybe they do care, they're lying to you and they're just they're they're pretending not to care because they're hoping you're going to stop doing the consequences.

And and three we say to them is It's that expression you can you can bring a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

Your consequences and holding them accountable is doesn't force them to drink.

It makes them thirsty.

That's all you can do is make them thirsty and then they will choose to drink.

Sometimes they need to be thirsty for a while, and sometimes they need to be thirsty for a while.

And, you know, people that some people, they get one speeding ticket.

They're like, that's it.

I'm gonna drive the speed of now like that, like my insurance went up and I was speeding ticket.

Some people have to, you know, get six tickets and lose their license before they finally, you know, they that's what I figure it out, you know what I mean?

But yeah, So hey what a circle to Circle back to something real quick before before we continue on?

Because there's something in there that that I think is worth digging a little bit deeper into, so ultimately.

And this 110-degree core philosophy is each person is responsible for their behavior.

What we did early on with our kids, we always saying like just make sure that what you're doing is in line with the kind of person you want to be.

Like this is you I'm going to be at my kind of person.

The way you behave is going to determine the kind of person you become.

So Make sure that what you're doing is in line with the kind of person you want to become and it that just weren't because there was like, well yeah, I don't be like that.

I don't treat my kids like that.

I want to be that kind of person, and so we put it back on them.

But but, is there a point?

Kimball, is there a point that parents are responsible for their kids Behavior?

I mean, because there's a fine line here, I totally get your salmon philosophy but Wonder like what responsibility does a parent have just philosophically just just as part of this conversation here.

You so that's that's a that's a that's a good question.

So you're responsible for your response to their behavior.

And it could be that your lack of effective response promotes more of their behavior.

And you can make the philosophical argument that that lack of effective response actually cause that behavior.

Yes, but your lack of effective response with the other two kids that are perfectly fine, didn't cause that behavior.

Right.

There's, there's, you're the parent of three kids.

One of them is really tough, the other two are fine.

And you and you, you, you deal with in the same way, which is that your kind of wishy-washy about stuff and the two of them, two of them.

Figure it out.

They're fine.

And the third one's a problem.

Yeah, I'm not wishy-washy.

It's still, it's if you want to be effective and solve the problem, You still have to approach it as if, when they're standing the middle of that kitchen and they have a choice as to whether to swear at you or not.

They swore at, you have to hold them accountable, even if even if even if if you had been If you had been really good about accountability for the four years before that, maybe they would have been swearing at you in the kitchen, but at that moment, they still had that choice.

So that's the way we want to.

That's the way we, you know, we approach it.

So there's the philosophical side and there's the, what's effective.

Now that it's happening aside is exact and we always, we always talk about like, I mean, the past matter.

It's nice to think about the past because the why things are happening, but we're always like, what's the next thing you're going to do, like, like, like that's that's history.

Now what do you do now?

When they do that?

And so that's so that's where we sort of divided up the philosophical, in the sort of the effectiveness there.

So give us give us some, some tools that you've seen kind of just work.

And again, you know, each individual's unique and each family is unique.

So there's going to be some variance.

But what are some things that just kind of comment honors?

What are the things that just work?

Because okay, what I hear you saying, my big takeaway is right here, at least what I'm saying is like we have to coach and teach the kids and we have to be.

I love how you said this be responsible for your sponses and then that brings in the accountability piece and saying, look, you own this like we're in a hold us accountable.

What are the, what are the effective practical things that that work?

Okay, so I can go with you one of them.

Let's, let's talk about a concept like just briefly, what's an effective consequence?

So an effective consequence.

We like to be task-oriented and short term.

So if they do something that's not quite right?

They they like if they're swearing at you.

We then they lose their phone for three hours.

And during that time, they need to behave appropriately and if they don't the clock starts all over again.

But after that three hours, they get their phone back.

You want you want to get that?

You want to get that thing back in their hands because that's your currency.

If you bankrupt your child they have nothing left to lose then then who knows what's going to happen.

So you want to have short-term consequences, preferably related to the to the actu to what's going on.

So that's where I was going to go.

So in my experience, it's the more closely related.

Dated it is, the more effective.

It is where I've seen.

Sometimes we just come out with arbitrary consequences like oh you did this over here.

So I'm doing this over here and yeah that's more like that because more like a punishment.

Yeah yeah.

It's a punishment of some kind of manipulation like what?

And if the kid can't see the connection then they just resent you.

Yeah sometimes you can't tie the two like the consequences of not doing You know, getting good grades over the years can have something down the line and that you're aware of that they're not its long-term.

So you want to, you want to tie something like Electronics or or free time or whatever to to something else.

But make it clear that this is the currency like in or like to earn free time, you have to, you have to be getting your work done.

But like if your son throws their phone and breaks it or they're like, you know, we play Electronics, right?

Kids get frustrated, they throw the thing or whatever like they need to replace that somehow come to of an allowance comes like, we actually like allowances because allowance allows you to then doc their pay.

If they're not meeting their responsibilities.

Again, there's this other form of currency and yes it's another form of currency.

Now, like likewise, if we actually, don't think you should pay your child for chores.

Agreed like they have responsibilities in the household, but we also think you're having allowance and if they don't do their chores then they lose their allowance.

Now in their mind, they might be thinking well, they actually paying for chores but but you don't present it that way, you put it that way, you get an allowance no matter what.

And then someone so you have you've actually created more currency for consequences by by mail to take their allowance Away by that and and and as we put a so we had basic responsibilities and then we had you know extra things that are available for earning.

So like you're bringing value to the marketplace which is family Marketplace.

They earn that and then yeah then there's you break something or you want something.

You get into this Europe, you're participating in an economy that has natural consequences now and that's and so we have parent coaching also, with our with our program and one of the things that Then we have conversations about is you can create a menu of consequences and can do it ahead of time and be thoughtful about like, what's the, what's going to be the incentive built into this?

And that's a big part of the program is, these parents are come to us.

These are behaviors that are happening over and over again.

The parents are at their wit's end, so it's happened before it.

So, you know, it's going to happen again and if you know it's going to happen again, then you can prepare ahead of time for it and and having a menu of consequences which you can then share with your Old as well.

So they don't so they know what the price is even even when this behavior before it gets to that point, right?

You do you think through it thoughtfully calmly, clearly business.

Like like you said earlier and then you present it.

So, here's our menu of consequences.

Like what?

We want to level up around here and wait till the moment, start throwing things and, and creating problems.

Yeah, so here in Florida, when there's, they have these red, light things.

If you, if you went through a red light, you know, you can get a ticket because it takes a picture, and it says $256 white.

Some weird numbers like 256 dollar fine.

Running it.

They've told you ahead of time.

Here's the consequence.

If you run, if you run the red light, like I never liked try to force my way through yellow lights in Florida, like you're gonna get busted.

Like it's not like it actually works, like I don't like, you know, I don't I don't I'm not that I ran red lights before anyway, but sometimes like you might, you know, they made it obvious like yeah, don't do this.

Or I used to step on the gas with a yellow light.

Now my going, kind of slow down.

Yeah, I thought yellow light.

Mint speed up for a long time.

I found out, it means, slow down, so, but but that's like that's tied to it.

And Then some of the other things that like long-term consequences are not good.

Like, taken taken their phone away from month, not a good idea.

Because, again, you bankrupt your child and all that.

All they learn from that, James Lehman says, it's over and over again, and James Lehman in the, who's the author of The Total Transformation program he spent from about age, 18 to 25 in and out of jail.

I mean, he was, he was this bad kid.

And, and, and in fact, he ended up His career because when he was 25, he went before a judge and he was about to get a long-term prison senses.

I think was a robbery charge and he said, we have this new accountability based program.

I'm going to, I'm going to offer that.

You can go into the program.

If you graduate successfully, you won't get a prison sentence.

And he went to the program that changed his life.

And then he went to Fordham University.

And, and then the Boston University, you got a masters in social work.

And he started his counseling career, but it was that judge when he was aged 25.

Facing some pretty significant jail time that changed it and what what?

He What he says is long-term consequences, only teacher, you're only teacher-child one thing which is how to do time and you do not want your child to be good at doing time.

He goes, I learned how to do time when I was younger and he goes and I saw that as an option and is not a good option that it's not a good place to be because you don't want your child go to do what.

I'm so short term consequences, it is and a great Insight me.

Yeah.

Because it just teaches the kid how to do time and usually they're sitting there just enduring it with A they're not Learning lesson but you and I both see parents often that like this one, just I just kills me.

Like, they'll be like the kid does something to maybe it's pretty, pretty bad and they're like you're grounded for the next six months.

Right.

Because they want to give it some weight and manage.

This is not a fact and then they don't then and they don't follow.

They never follow through anyway.

So like and if they if they do then they're psycho, they don't and apparently the kid knows that like you're not your words, don't really need much because you know No way, you're gonna get grounded for six months.

So so you want, you want to be consistent, you want to be like you want to make your words matter, so that when you say this is the consequence, like you got to follow through every single time and then you don't want the long-term stuff.

So there's a whole science around and it's not complicated.

But if you just if you're thoughtful about it, there's a there's you know, things that are clearly effective and ineffective consequence and it can vary by child.

So you know part of it is is you try something for a few weeks.

It doesn't seem like it's working.

You might, you might want to readjust your trying to figure out what's going on.

And But yeah the long-term stuff's not not helpful, you don't want your kid to get good at doing time, that's just not and the other one.

The other tip we have for parents is don't don't don't cancel special events but if your child does something don't like in the problems coming up don't let them go to the prom.

Find another consequence.

Yes, because you don't want to create resentment in the process because because that's you'll never get that prom day back like oh so yeah ma'am.

I'm with you on that and in fact there's some I'll lead trips Soooo around the world with with youth and families and looted Retreats Great South.

And in the past, we like, well, I'm not going to reward my kid with a special event or something.

Cool.

I'm like nah, yeah this isn't a reward.

This is these are the things your kid needs.

Your child needs to be having these special events and these experiences like don't take away the very things that could could really be formative in their growth and development.

I'm really glad you brought up this is with a child needs because this is the other thing that we that And again, when you're when you're in like The Total Transformation program, we remind you of all of these things.

So now you have a you have a tool set and one of them is kids that are having behavior problems and haven't figured out how to solve basic life problems like dealing with responsibilities dealing with anger and frustration issues.

Is that they're getting yelled at all the time.

They're getting probably getting bad grades in schools, maybe the teachers they might have problems with with their classmates.

Certainly having problems with mom and dad like they're struggling and they're getting negativity, thrown it all the time.

Like you're doing this wrong, you doing this wrong when they do something, right?

You got a point it out because if they're if they're struggling 90% of the time they're just they're getting just negativity thrown at them all the time when they do something right you have to point it out don't and don't make a big deal about it.

Say hey like yesterday when you know we had the discussion about your chores, in the kitchen you were like you didn't blow up.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it.

I really liked how you handle that and leave it at that and just and just point it out to them.

It's in now they know they've had a success and you noticed it because otherwise you're right.

There's so the the negativity is so overwhelming the poor kids, like, look, I just can't figure out.

I can't figure out how to solve this problem and then it's just all - and then they, Are themselves.

Something, I'll never figure this out.

I'm nobody, I'm laying on.

This is I just get used to this and they just operate in that in that world.

They start to think.

Yeah, they start to think they're defective.

Yeah, or what we talked about earlier or they start to think they're defective because of what you did to them as being a bad parent and and that what that does, it puts them in a place where they're a, they're not accountable and be, they feel helpless.

Yeah.

Like they can't change their situation and the truth is they're the only person who can effectively change their situation, they're the only ones that can do it that.

I mean, they had three strikes against.

It doesn't mean that they had a difficult issues, doesn't mean any of those things, but the fact of the matter is, only one person can change that.

And that's, and that's them.

And and what might have what they might have been dealing with with a parent or something else, might not have been fair, but fair in it.

Like, we're not like no one said.

Anything was fair like in our family?

We we say.

Hey Affair is where pigs win ribbons man?

Exact, there you go.

They're like that as we know what those are.

A here.

But love, that doesn't.

That's not a justification.

That's not a justification as a parent to not be fair.

You try to be fair, but the point is, like a lot of things in life aren't fair.

And you just have to, you have to learn how to deal with it and ugly.

So let's, let's shift gears a little bit to the Failure to Launch side.

So, I mean, we're talking about here.

I think is applicable across the board and helps with entire family Dynamics.

Let's, let's shift to the the kids are Older.

Now like what are the things that need to be happening in teen years?

And well it may be.

It may we get into like what do you see is the Catalyst or cause?

Why is this happening so much?

But what about those years?

Those teen teen years, young adult years, like, what are you guys seeing and recommending to help young adults launch.

Again, it's a little bit of this accountability thing, which is that you know, by time, if you're in your early 20s and and you don't have a job and you're still living at home, Your?

You're the only person that can go out and get that job.

And you may not have this, you may not have developed a tool set and the skills when you were younger for effectively dealing with, how do you get out there?

But still, at the end of the day, you're the only one who's, who's capable of changing that?

So we urge parents not to underestimate their kids ability.

They will when push comes to shove they will they will be able to do that stuff.

I mean if they have like a, we're talking kids that don't have like some major mental problem or or or you know absent some other some other issue going on.

But but if it's that if The sort of typical kid, that's never really had a job or, you know, doesn't hold down a job and there's at home, or whatever.

And the, and the thing that the thing that ultimately happens, is that It's more Comfort.

Even if even with the conflict, the child's more comfortable at home, not getting the job than they would be going out and getting the job.

So you need to make get uncomfortable right there.

Exactly at home needs to be and not having a job needs to be very uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that they want to get out of the house.

And but it's still, it's still a challenge because these kids don't necessarily have good skills, but they have to start somewhere and so they might need a little bit of help and like a lot of parent, you know this is where the there's some personal choices here because it's hard to just kick.

You can't just I mean you can't just leave your kid on the street and some parents get to that especially when it becomes violent because these kids, you know, a lot of parents come to us.

They're scared in their child.

And and kids in this situation.

So, sometimes are a little bit desperate and they, you know, they, there's violence sometimes going on, but but it needs to be uncomfortable in the house that you can't be paying for their phone.

You can't be paying for their internet connection.

You need to be like you need to be cutting things off as as much as possible and have faith, you didn't have faith in your child if they can figure it out, it seems like there that, you know, A lot of parents like that.

My kids are such a loser.

But you have to have faith in them.

They can get.

They can get past that.

And and and they can like they can like it's and the kids aren't happy like, you know, it's uncomfortable or not.

They may not like you not happy either.

That that thing they're avoiding is the one thing that's going to make them much happier.

Yeah.

Which is weird, which is weird, we think about it, which is there they're doing everything they can to avoid having responsibility to go to work but once they figure out and do that, they're much happier piece of everything they need.

So the thing they're voicing that is the thing they need is and I think excellent.

Parenting is anticipating this and helping like strategically and proactively helping our kids develop what you mentioned earlier, the skill set and the tool set to be able to do these things.

And the more we do that progressively over time and consistently like the more likely they'll be, there's just hit it.

And then if we segue a little bit into, just not the behavior problem.

But like, as your if you know, parents were listening, who are like, how can I help?

Eat this.

Or one of the things, one of the things that it's in one of our articles and we point this out is that there are certain life skills, you know, be on learning math and writing and all that other stuff that that are helpful for kids to learn.

And one of them is, and I think people underestimate the importance of this one, which is how to talk to adults.

Particularly like adults strangers and and I'll give you a little, a little story about what happened in our family illustrate.

What I mean.

So we live in Florida but originally we're from the Northeast, we moved out here about 10 years ago but we still have lots of family up there and every summer would take a would take a trip up there and then we drive and we had a dog and we took, you know, we had to stay overnight in a hotel and we're driving and I would have my 12 year old son.

Call up the hotel.

When it's a hotel.

When we went is getting close to the time to stop and ask them.

A, if they have any rooms available and B, are they pet friendly?

Yeah.

And he's like, you want me to call the Hodes like, was mortified, like I can't call I can't, I don't even know that person.

And I'm like, you have to call them and we actually rehearsed what the conversation looks like and tasks and like they're sweating like all they're doing is making a phone call to ask if there's a hotel available.

Just a clerk.

Like it's not they're not talking to the president like it's the guy who's the clerk at the hotel.

Yeah, you know, and and they were just petrified to actually have to work those words out and learning how to talk to people like that and put yourself out.

There was actually a big step for them and the first one was like horribly like you have any rooms like what and then they date, they go through a few of them.

They actually got a little script down there.

She got pretty good out of their pre, you know, they got good at it.

So they were the ones I'm driving and there, and they got Google Maps open and like, oh, there's a hotel like 20 miles down the road, I'm going to call them and they call, and, you know, do you have rooms?

Available and are you pet friendly?

And how much are your rates?

And they have little script on the actually got pretty good at it and they weren't nervous anymore.

Perfect.

And and my other son, my son worked on McDonald.

Awesome, job.

If you if working at McDonald's is a great job.

So my son at age 16 I said you got a good job and there's a McDonald's on the street and working at McDonald's is fine.

He he learned how to work there and find the hardest thing about that was, how do you apply for a job?

And I go away just walk in there and he's like What do I say?

So he's just was like like you're shy like you know you walk it like you have to walk in and go kind of job.

The first was like You want a hamburger and go do I want a job?

Oh, you need to talk to the manager?

Like, he doesn't even know like to say, like really mean so angry at fumbling through that and trying it getting uncomfortable and getting and being uncomfortable and putting yourself out there and I would tell my kids, I go look.

You are you're 12 or 13?

15, 16.

Everyone's expectations of you are very low and when you fumble over your words and you sound like a dope when you're saying this stuff, everyone's going to give you a break because you're like a cute kid.

You're not like whatever.

But when you're 24 and you've never done.

That before you still don't have the skills to actually talk to someone who might be a boss.

Or, you know, I'd like to talk to the manager at McDonald's.

You know?

I'm interested in working here, possibly, you have 80 have any openings and like, what's the process look like, like to get those words out, and you've never done that before.

And you're, and you're like your early twenties like you're struggling.

Like just that alone is how do you even?

And that actually prevents a lot of people.

The anxiety of going out and talking to a stranger when you're in your 20s and you haven't had, you know, worked on those interactions this May, this may not be popular, but that right there, I think is an epic parenting fails our where we could have and should have been teaching our kids so skills in their early teens.

So that by time, they reach the later teens or early 20s, they better be able to be articulate and getting those things done and so, but again, if I mean, if you're if you're a parent you're listening you haven't done it.

Start right now, start now, just go for it and, and understand if you have a 20 year old or 21 year old also, say, and they're not getting a job to say like, Understand that they might need some coaching on the lake.

How do you even approach the situation?

Like, like, like I'm willing to talk to and just be nice about it or you know, if you have a family friend that might talk to them that would be, that might be a little better.

Just say, hey, you know, you are you anxious about talking to someone?

I know it's hard like applying for job is hard, it's more difficult.

I don't know.

Like I don't, how long, how long you been doing this podcast.

So even podcasting for a couple of years, a couple years I bet your first one, you're like a little nervous.

You're like absolutely right now, like you see you seem pretty comfortable Greg.

So I'm sure Was it like that?

Even resulting, like it started.

I started my first podcast, like in 2008, man.

And I remember being petrified, right?

Yeah, exactly.

In fact, just turning on camera was terrifying, but, but back when I was a teen, I was ended up out of my own at 16, and I was so timid and so shy.

I literally could not look another person, the eye.

And, and, you know, this kind gentleman one day was like, great.

You have a look in the eye when I'm booking.

You I'd look up and he was still looking me in my home.

And I cannot do this and he's like, you got to keep eye contact.

I'm like, yeah, but you're Looking back at me, right?

And it was that it was like we have to you have to work through that to where you can be able to communicate.

And and I like to help people like learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable for both, right?

Because this is where you need to do things and get in there settle because that feeling of going to get a new job or doing whatever it's not like when you're 50 that if you have to switch jobs it's not like your own.

It's not like your knee nervous and uncomfortable again it's just that you've been through it a few times so you're like, okay I know this is like a yeah we're like I remember.

The first time first time.

Like like a girlfriend.

I really like dumped me like I was like 17 or whatever.

You know, like I couldn't eat for like, like a month, I could eat and I was like, I maybe I'll never eat again in my life but, you know, after you've had a few breakups, like, it can be painful, but at least like, you know, you're going to eat again.

You just know, you just know what the process looks like.

They're like, yeah, it's so it's the same, the sooner we help our kids get through the processes, right?

And I love what you're saying here.

The whole time is theme of like Giving your kids the skills they they have the responsibility, like helping them.

Get through this process helping learn how to solve problems.

And I think excellent parenting.

If we were to like kind of throw up a measurement here of like, this is epic fail and mediocre and excellent.

Like, excellent parenting is making sure our kids understand the accountability coaching them, right, helping you through it, and then getting them as many experiences as possible.

So, the early on like, They're ready to hit it.

Well, all my teens spent the summer working and got awesome jobs, entrepreneurial type stuff.

Learn a ton of money.

Interact people learn all these skills, that was amazing.

And it like the 40s.

Right now, all of them are ready to launch, right?

But that's because we've been super intentional for years.

Yeah, it's the whole time.

The whole time, you're saying that I'm saying it's intentional intentional, you to be intentional about it because if you do, not if you're not intentional and you just sort of like hope things will take care of themselves, like you'll miss you.

They'll miss out on that they still might turn out fine.

Like a lot of times like even without Direction a lot of kids, turn out.

Okay.

But it's helpful to be, it's helpful to be intentional and and you have to carve out the time, you have to make sure like this is how I'm going to do that.

And and and be thoughtful about it actually lists people listen to this podcast, like that's half the bat like listen to different ideas about those types of things.

So I always point out the strategy.

Yeah, I've pointed out that we have a, when weird, When we had to The Summer's up north, my aunt has a lake house and we can stay at and we have there's a boat up there and you don't need a license to drive a boat.

And um, and we're water skiers and stuff.

So in fact, when you're 12, In the state of Maine, you can drive any, you can, you can drive any boat of any power.

Like there's no, there's no licenses No Limit.

That's Most states are like that.

The only limitations they have now are basically on those like, jet skis like personal watercraft.

Yeah.

Those you have to be 16 in the license because there's just caused a lot of problems but otherwise there's like both.

So, so, you know, we have a like a ski pole in my, I wouldn't had my kids.

When they were twelve, I taught them how to how to drive it.

I used to make them go out and drive it and then I made Pull me water ski.

I made sure they were trained but they're the reason it occurred to me.

Like they would be perfectly fine.

With the boat is a there.

There were basically responsible not going to cause any trouble.

In fact, they're more likely to cause trouble when they're 17 and when they're 12 or 13, right?

That's that's more of a chore, the Troublemaker age a little bit older.

So they're actually fairly responsible and are younger.

But if you look at the sophistication how hard video games are, I just play video games with my kids like it's really hard driving.

A boat is way easier than any of the video games available and like like you know, I've only Got like a few dials on the boat or whatever, but in a video game, like it's super complicated, some likes from a brain, you know, coordination standpoint, they're perfectly capable of doing it and I train them how to do it.

And then I also train them how to launch the boat.

And and so me.

So, and I had it back a trailer.

Oh my gosh, they were they my kids brought this up the other day, which was.

There's like, this long driveway that's kind of windy.

And I made them every day as a chore that they had to hook up and back the trailer, all the way down the driveway.

Then come back because you can only You can only learn how to do that through repetition.

And I said to them, we're going to be going to boat launches and you don't want to be the guy.

That doesn't know how to back Trail it on the boat launch.

Yeah, there's there's actually an entire YouTube videos out of you.

If you don't want to be, that guy is to learn a skill to do something that makes them Nervous actually.

And launching a boat in front of an audience of people that are waiting is like nerve-racking.

Even as I'd like is me, it's a nerve-wracking.

Yeah, that's a perfect example.

So and what I found across the board is when, when you kind of, you can put that up on your, your wall of successes, but that helps you try something else.

Something different?

You're like, wait a minute.

Okay, there's made me nervous, but I was nervous when I did that, but I learned how to, I learn, how to act on the ramp with people watching, like I can figure this out and it starts building the scaffolding of Identity for our kids, that's all ya dice.

I did, you know, in a previous life years ago, I did a lot of startup works with some health care companies are small companies and one of the pictures when we were recruiting people, I would say to them.

Look, you can go work for that.

Big insurance company to come work for us.

And the difference is the main difference is is we're going to make you do stuff that they wouldn't even let you do with that company.

So we get, you know, young, you know, young motivated, kids coming in and we give them responsibilities that like they never thought they would, they don't dare.

Are not ready for it and we give them that responsibility.

We believe in them.

We coach them a little bit but they got to do it.

And then when you work at these, these bigger companies, you only have a chance of that.

And I remember, I talked at my church, that I have a friend who he was, he had was a career in the Navy and he went to the Naval Academy.

And when we got out, he was on destroyers for most of his career and he said the best thing was that they had these like new fancy destroyers that came out but he Assigned to an old crappy one from like a previous generation strategy.

So that was because that was the best thing because as a young Ensign, I wouldn't have been able to do anything but on the new stuff, but on the old destroyers, no one really cares.

Like I learned, I got so great example, so that, that helped his careers that you actually early on.

He was able to like do stuff and I'm sorry.

Anyway, let's see last thing here, man.

It's like how, how important have you seen the?

The relationship is a relationship between parent child.

I mean there's there's Parenting Dynamics.

There's coaching Dynamics.

But the relationship piece that let's talk about that for a minute.

Well obviously, that that matters and you want to have a relationship, but I would caution that parents.

We we Advocate that the parent-child relationship is special and different and there's no, your child doesn't have any other parents.

You're the only parent.

So you need to be the parent to the child.

Not not, not there, like Fran, not there, you can be friendly with your child that's perfectly fine.

But, but if you, Need a friend.

It's nice.

Your childhood friend but it's like better as an adult to have like other friends.

If you can.

But but you you have a you have like There's a parent-child relationship that can't be taken by anyone else except you, when you have certain responsibilities as a parent.

And you need to take that seriously.

And that's and that's often being a, in a position where you do things.

Your child's not going to like, yeah, which is kind of like being a boss like bosses have to do things sometimes that, please don't like, like, it's just you, sometimes, you're the bad guy and, and sometimes your that with your parent.

But the other thing we, you know, we keep in mind is that if your child has a behavior problem, you need to confront that because I think I mentioned this earlier, Is that if your child is misbehaving all the time, you're going to start not liking them and that's a bad place to be and they'll kill the relationship kills a relationship.

And then and this is this is kind of related.

This is one thing I like to leave with a lot of parents which is that you know we we urge them to not take their child's Behavior personally or don't personalize your child's behavior and view is the behavior problem.

So even when they even, we had like one of our most popular articles is called.

I hate you Mom.

I wish you were dead and it's a picture of us girls screaming at her mom.

And you know, demanded mother-daughter relationship is a very close relationship.

And when you're 13 year old daughter and I actually later on life like there's just mothers and daughters, I'm like really tight tend to be very tight.

You know, I have two kids.

We joke like who's going to take care of us?

We get old because that's our kids will be taken care.

It's usually usually the daughters are taking other parents.

So anyway, but We say, don't don't take it personally viewed as a behavior problem because a it is a behavior problem.

They're screaming at you because you're the you just represent that Authority.

That moment they're having those problem-solving skills or whatever but be if you take those terrible things they say to you or that they, you know, the defines they exhibit ever.

If you take it personally, It's you're going to have a really hard time forgiving your child, when when they turn their behavior around and most kids.

Most kids, if you, if you apply these principles, most kids turn the behaviors around.

They figure it out.

And if you're taking it personally, it's going to be awfully hard for you to forgive and forget those horrible things that they said to you, when they were behaving poorly.

So you want to view it as a behavior problem and don't take it personal.

Yeah, so true.

So you need to be To offer them have a Christian background like Grace Grace is all part of Christianity which is which is defined as undeserved forgiveness like you forgive your child regardless of whatever and you can't.

It's so hard to do that.

Figure personal you took personally, this things that they said to you.

So just view it as you Behavior.

Problem spot on brother is pure gold.

Beautiful.

Awesome, will give up.

Work.

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So if you're having any parenting problems, like it's going to be there and then we urge you to sign up for our newsletter where you get a couple emails a week with with some featured articles and then it's right there that you can sign up for The Total Transformation program.

Also if you've got that difficult kid and you sort of need and you need that comprehensive approach because piecemeal things aren't working, you need to sort of change how you're approaching the whole thing.

You can sign up there as well.

And so that's empowering parents.com.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.