Get answers to your questions about marriage, parenting and family life from experts and parents of 7 children!

Rachel Denning (00:10.51)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Man, life is good. I hope you... Grace, you're just so positive and optimistic and sickening. It probably does bother some people. But man, I'm just so grateful. You know what my superpower is, you guys? Gratitude. And you know why I'm so grateful? Because I... I just like you, I. My friends.

have been without. And when you have been without, you feel deep gratitude for the things you have. When you have suffered deeply, man, you become very grateful. It gets rid of entitlement and spoilage. And I have, I remember, I have remembered and I do remember the things which I have suffered.

It must have been a lot of suffering because it's carried over for many years. Well, no, I at least 23 years. Well, what I've done is I whether this is what I teach my clients where there's pain, there's power. And so I strategically use pain or well used it to have power. So I don't I don't feel pain anymore. I don't sit around moaning. I have no baggage. I have no like.

I'm not keeping this open bleeding wound inside my soul so it can fuel my gratitude every day. I wake up, it's all gone. It's all healed. It's all great. I'm grateful for my challenges and trials and experiences. But somehow I learned how, I know now, but back then I was just fortunate. I learned how to use the pain to turn it into power. And so I'm a deeply grateful person and all the time I just am.

Feel so grateful. Right. And I wasn't, you know, saying that the pain was carrying over, but that it must have been a significant amount of pain because it's had such a lasting impact. Because I think there's plenty of people that... Feel lots of pain. Way worse than me. Or felt the pain and maybe they learned a lesson from it and felt gratitude, but like it hasn't carried over for years. It's easy to forget. It's what I'm saying. And yet you're right. That is your superpower.

Rachel Denning (02:32.462)
you just keep on carrying that gratitude and it keeps on keeping on. You know what's interesting about that? I remember in my early 20s, going through this time period, it was several months, maybe even up to a couple of years, where I just had this intense focus on remembering, remembering what I wanted to do, remembering what I didn't want to do, remembering who I wanted to be, remembering what I'm grateful for.

I made it a part of my psyche to remember and maybe it's a combination of those things that the pain and then this power of remembrance say, you know, no, I'm going to let this be a guiding force in my life for the rest of my life. I'm going to be grateful. And so I'm deliberately grateful. You guys, it's not like this is automatic. Oh, you're so lucky to be so grateful. You're as grateful all the time. I wake up and I'm strategically grateful. You wake up like most people feeling groggy. Yeah.

or tired and tired or this is a suck sandwich. I got to get up. And then I went out this morning with my daughter and our dogs down to the beach. And again, we were the only people down there as the sun rose and it was stunning. It's so amazing. But I think it's important to point out that because even though when you say that, that sounds like idealized circumstances and people are like, well, of course you're grateful you have this.

Exactly you to walk to the beach and be the only ones on the beach right but the irony is and people who have experienced this know that you could have that circumstance and still not feel great like 100 % anyone you or anyone else could have these idealized circumstances in their life and still not feel great absolutely miserable it depends on what you focus on because you could focus on

whatever. I mean, you can focus on the sand that's in your shorts or the mosquito. Like you can choose what you focus on and still be miserable even if you have a quote unquote ideal life. Yeah, absolutely. So you can have all the money you want. You can have all the nice things you want and the great location on it. And you could still be absolutely miserable. Which that's more my tendency than yours. Or you could be in horrendous circumstances and still wake up and be happy and grateful. Right.

Rachel Denning (04:52.621)
You guys know we've told the story about our time in Nicaragua. It ended up being an extremely difficult time, but pivotal and important. I still have the fondest memories of being in Nicaragua and walking on that beach. And I still have mosquito peaches. Yeah, and you're just like, ah, I hate it. And it was, I still, even then when things were so hard, I was still like, wow, but look at this and look at that. And we have all this. At least we have each other. We have each other. We have our family. We have our health. This is great.

Anyways, I just started this because I hope you will practice gratitude and it is a practice and it does take practice. And no matter what you're facing, what you're struggling with, just stop and force yourself to feel gratitude. Because if you stop and be like, what are you grateful for? Well, I'm grateful for this and that. You might not even feel it. You could you and I, we could sit here and list out things we're grateful for without actually feeling grateful. Right. We can do it.

logically. We can do it, you know, we can articulate it without feeling it. But where the real power is, is when you stop and feel it, you fill your heart and soul with gratitude for a specific thing. And then it just radiates, it changes your whole biochemistry. Yeah. I love it. One of the quotes that I recently put up in our kitchen, and then my daughter asked to have a copy put in her room.

I can't remember exactly, of course, I'm going to paraphrase, but it's basically that it's not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. That's why I'm so happy. I know. That's exactly why. And it's key. And I put it up because I actually have to work on this. I have to remind myself, like, gratefulness is what brings me happiness, not the other way around. It's not being happy that's going to make me feel grateful, but it's feeling grateful that makes me feel happy.

Rachel has a mission, a life mission to...

Rachel Denning (06:54.509)
just have disdain for everything that's wrong in the world. That's my superpower. That's also a weakness. To notice all the things that are wrong and want to fix them. Oh, funny. And you know what's ironic about this whole thing? Maybe I was just a big baby. You know, I was out on my own as a teen and went through some hard times and yada yada, blah, blah. But then I started traveling and realized how luxury my homeless life was.

Like even being homeless in the states where I was and the quote hard things I went through were nothing. Nothing. Compared to some people's normal day? Yep, to what we've, and not only their normal days, it's day in and day out their whole life. Well I follow this account on Instagram, who knows how I found them, but basically they're trying to rehome people in Africa, I think, mostly, primarily Africans, and I don't know what part of Africa, but.

They're showing their houses on Instagram. And that's why I like following an account like this, because it's a great reminder of like, wow, I'm so privileged and blessed because they're literally living in the dump or their house is literally in four feet of water. That's some people's everyday existence. I live in the dump and my kids sleep right here with garbage everywhere and my house is underwater.

That's the reality a lot of people and a lot of us don't realize that or understand that that's actually happening right now. Yeah That's another thing. I've trained myself to be good at Remembering the people we've met and the things we've seen and experienced Because if I ever feel tempted to complain or throw a pity party I have just created this psychological framework where those things pop up immediately Like oh check yourself, sir. I

There are people that you know who live in a dump in some foreign land and have no education and no access. Oh man, so, and again, this isn't to make you feel bad, those of you listening. Although sometimes, sometimes I think we're afraid of doing that. Actually feeling bad can be a good thing. Not if you remain in a feeling of.

Rachel Denning (09:15.245)
Depression and badness. That's a bad thing but to experience That quote -unquote bad feelings That motivates you to change your framework. That's a good thing. That's a fantastic thing, right? Too many people have been bad as a great motivator, right? So, you know what? That's a great point. We should feel bad about throwing a pity party. It's ridiculous. Yeah Yeah, you're if you complain about your Your amazing life it's so frustrating

Here's another thing I do and Rachel I will get ourselves about this like oh imagine, you know sharing your complaints with somebody who's like Has leprosy right and is dying has been cast out of society and has lost their limbs Just go ahead imagine telling them about how frustrated you are that your car didn't start the other day Right, and it says oh, it's such a reality check and a slap in the face. I

And we're like, hey, yeah, I should feel bad for being ridiculous. Yeah, and then use that pain to create power to change. And we like to we like to joke about, of course, there's the hashtag, you know, like first word, first world problems. And we kind of like to joke about it because there's a story that we've I don't know if we've shared it before about essentially it was this guy who worked with, I don't know, actresses and celebrities, famous people and.

Then he happened to go and was doing some work in Africa, helping people in Cambodia. OK, helping people like knee deep in a dump. Lived in the dump. And one of his clients called and she was all upset because her private plane was missing something that she needed to have. You know, the perfect thing. Everything else perfect. But it was missing the thing. It was so important. And she said right before she hung up, my life was never meant to be this hard. And he was standing there in this dump with these people.

living in these hard conditions and thought, this is ridiculous. Your first world problems are sickening. And because, yeah, she was about to get on this Gulf Stream that had everything and missed one tiny amenity. Yeah. One little thing. And she has the audacity to say, my life was never meant to be this hard. Right. And so, you know, we love to use that in our family when we know.

Rachel Denning (11:37.581)
Because again, we're human. When you know you're complaining about something that's trivial and stupid, you know, when you think it's hard tongue in cheek, my life was never meant to be this hard. You know, like, OK, this is ridiculous. I shouldn't even be bothered by this. But it's awareness that still happens. But let's put it in a proper framework of what it actually means. Check yourself. Anyways, anyways, let's let's talk. We want to talk about.

how to discipline your children's. And early on, I guess because so much of life is kind of mindless and you don't know that it's mindless because you're mindless. And what you do is you don't know that you're sleeping until you wake up. Right. And you don't know what not to do or what to do except by your environment. Like your environment is

The driving force for the vast majority of everything we do and experience in life So however, you know your neighborhood your home your family the area the kind of things you're seeing and hearing people talk about And you kind of grew up and and we were growing up in this time of like timeouts There was still some spanking going on and now it's moved like don't spank ever and it was groundings I got threatened with grounding all the time. Yeah, it loves us. I

constant grounding in your life and the timeout thing was it was big. I you know we grew up with like just grab the nearest kitchen utensil and hit the nearest kid so the metal spatula hurt the worst. Spoons wooden spoons across our butts and then my mom gets so mad when it broke and we would laugh and then she grabbed the metal spatula because we're laughing.

our butt broke the wood and it hurt. But then she's like, Oh, broke my spoon. We're like, haha. And she grabbed a metal spatula like this fall break. So I was like, I'm not gonna we're not gonna beat our kids. You know, and I saw the belt used a lot. It was kind of old school. That was like, I think our parents generation was used the belt. I'm not using the belt. In fact, when I went to high school, you guys middle school and high school in Dallas, Texas, they still handed out licks. And licks was you go down and find the

Rachel Denning (14:01.965)
biggest, strongest coach in the school, usually former college or in my case, it was former NFL like linemen. I mean, these guys were huge, just massive, massive men. And every one of them had a massive wooden paddle with holes drilled in it in his office. And any teacher or any administrator could send a student down for licks.

and you had to bend over, hold your ankles and the coach would whap you across your backside as hard as he wanted for your behavior and usually harder or multiple times if your behavior was really bad. It worked. Like I know this is going to sound weird. I'm going to be judged for this. I think there's still a decent place for that in society. Well, especially when you look at what's happening in schools now where anything is happening and tolerated because no one's going to make a student feel bad.

Well, no, that's what I was gonna say. At the very least, it's swung too far to the other side because now anything goes. Now part of the reason that's happening, I literally saw videos the other day of kids who will run down the hallway and punch other kids just like full out. They're just running through the hallways punching kids. And that's because anything is allowed. Now part of the reason that's happened is because of this whole, I'm gonna use the term wokeness where you have to,

tolerate anything. Like if I tell you I'm a girl you have to accept that, if I tell you I'm a cat you have to accept that, so why can't I go around punching people or why can't I go like there's no there's no rules there's no boundaries there's no restrictions on what's okay if that's okay why isn't this okay? Why? Identify as a person who runs through the hall punching random people. Right so that's part of the reason for that and so you know in that name of

where now words are violence, well, of course, violence, you know, with licking someone, that's definite, definite violence. That's not allowed. And I know people, people hearing this and other people would just be like, I can't believe it. I can't believe you condone that. I can't believe you'd be okay with somebody getting their butt paddled with a board. And I mean, judge me, I guess, but I'm still there. I mean, we had, we had gang members. There was some hardcore gang members on my football team in Texas.

Rachel Denning (16:27.949)
And I mean, we lived in it. We lived in a good area, but all the good areas kind of encompass a little bit of the rougher areas, too. They kind of do that. And so we had some kids from some extremely rough backgrounds. And I mean, they would do drive by shootings on on the weekends. We had we had metal detectors on our doors. You guys, this was in the this in the early 90s. And they were still sneaking in guns and knives and weapons in school all the time. And I'd see people we'd be rolling up and the security would walk around the corner and I'd see, you know, guys at my school hiding their.

pistols or nine millimeters or whatever in the bushes outside the door so they could go in through the metal detectors and then come back out and get it at lunch or something. It was crazy, but it kept order. And there was still plenty of fights, but it kept order where now, I mean, insane stuff's happening. And anyways, it's a tangent. It may have not been an idealized solution in an ideal society, but in some cases, that type of...

enforcement is better than not having it. Yeah, there has to be. There has to be somebody that's bigger and stronger and who's going to say, no, that's not acceptable. And there are consequences. And so what that allowed was for these teeny little petite female teachers who could do nothing against the massive wrestlers or football players on the team. I mean, they were so big and so intimidating and in gangs. I mean, there were some scary dudes.

And this cute little teacher, she had somebody to back her up. She's like, hey, I'm going to send you down and get licked. And so he would tell her, you know, F off or whatever. And he's like, hey, go down and get your licked. And the kid come back. He couldn't sit for a couple of days. Right. He, man, he was like, yes, ma 'am. No, ma 'am. There was respect. And it was a, it was a beautiful thing where that for in so many ways has been lost. It's so sad. Anyway, so point being.

That's how we had all these different things. And like, we're good. So as we're starting our family, I'm like, well, I'm not going to hit my kids. I'm not going to get my kids licked. And I thought, I think we'll do again, not thinking. I was mindless. So you just grow up and you don't think about other strategies. You just, you just almost absorb. And I remember just this subconscious or unconscious thing of like, yeah, when our kids are acting up, we'll definitely do timeouts and probably grounding. And that was just the default.

Rachel Denning (18:50.029)
mindless thinking. Essentially, because, and I think that this is the norm, discipline, disciplining your children, your children was associated with punishing your children. And like you explained with the, you know, the school situation, in some cases, discipline, aka punishment is necessary. I think that there is definitely a place for punishment in society in general, and at times in family.

You need to have punishment. I that's why jails and prisons exist because there needs to be a system for people who cannot Control themselves cannot make good decisions. They need to receive extreme consequences in order to protect other members of the family That's also true in did I say family? Yeah members of society. That's also true in family But what we want to talk about today. Well, hold on. Wait, I'm gonna throw something down here on that one

I would say that if there are serious discipline problems to that level where punishment is necessary, I think there's been a failure. Well, that's what I was going to talk about because what we want to walk through today is that in reality, most discipline should be more about teaching and relationship building than punishing. Punishing should be the very last resort. Right.

And so, and like you hinted at, it's happening because there's a breakdown in these other exactly quote unquote. Yes. So we want to create a whole new framework and you can write this down unless you're driving or biking. I've tried to take notes while I was biking. It is sometimes very dangerous. Um, but I want you to just chew on this for a while and create a new framework. So when we talk about disciplining our children and from now on, from here on out,

for you and your children and your grandchildren, your great grandchildren, discipline is not punishment. We want to create a totally new framework, a new definition, a new paradigm for you. Not that we've created this. Yeah, but this is a new re, yeah, it's not our creation, but I want you to adopt this with us. Discipline is teaching, not punishment. Punishment is a different thing. And punishment is the very, very, very last resort. And punishment in my estimation and in our experience is only necessary.

Rachel Denning (21:15.405)
if you have failed in the other areas in correct discipline. Yep. Let me, let me tell you, share a story. So I was trained in some of the best pedagogy in the world. Uh, and that's like the science of teaching. And I went through very intense training for years on how to be a very effective teacher. And one of the things that I learned that was so pivotal,

is that if things are going well, if you are teaching very effectively and help, this is the framework Rachel, I use all the time, helping things go right. So if you're doing things well and making it go right, most discipline or punishment problems, most behavior problems just go away. They take care of themselves, which is a very important and fundamental framework that if you are parenting well,

you're doing marriage well, you're doing family life well, you have your home set up. Most behavioral problems are non -existent. They're just prevented or they don't even rise. So much of poor behavior is because needs are not being met. Exactly. And so like if you meet the needs, then the behavior goes away. So from toddlers to teens, you guys, bad behavior is a symptom of something being off, something wrong.

where if things are taken care of, the kids are taken care of, there's a truly genuinely loving environment that's done well with the competence and systems and strategies that actually work. The behavior problems aren't there. Yeah. And it's like peace and harmony is the natural state of met needs. I was literally just listening to a podcast an hour or two ago with Jordan Peterson and some guy who studied baboons for like his whole life.

And Jordan Peterson was asking, like, why did you study baboons? And he said, well, really, they're the perfect example of humans in our affluent Western society. Because baboons, he said, they have very few predators. They only have to spend three or four hours a day finding food and eating food. So he's like, they actually have a lot of free time.

Rachel Denning (23:39.597)
And what they do with all their free time is they pick on each other and they cause each other stress and distress and like they're literally just mean to each other because they have so much free time. And so he said, it's so fascinating to study them because with all of that free time, all they do is cause each other more problems. He said, except that he observed this troop. It was his troop that he'd been studying for years. Something happened where a whole bunch of the baboons caught the bird.

and they died, but it was primarily because of the situation, it was the males who were the meanest and jerkiest and most aggressive males that died off. As a result, the nicer males were left and there was an abundance of females and the entire troop culture changed so that they became more peaceful, more loving.

their stress levels were lower, you know, like all of these things improved. And the reason why he said, we noticed, and even new baboons would come into the tribe and they would adopt this new way of doing things, this new way of being. And he said, the reason why is because the mean males weren't there. So they weren't picking on the other males and picking on the females. As a result, the females had less stress. And so when new males came into the group, whatever they call them,

rather than in the old way of doing things, it would take them months until they would begin grooming the new males, which is a way of bonding and accepting. They started doing it within a week. So then the new males were less stressed. They were calmer. Everyone just had less stress. And so the natural state with less stress was that everyone was calmer and more cooperative and nicer to each other. And so, you know, and as you were talking about it,

That's essentially the same in our families. When everyone's needs are met and everybody's less stressful and less anxious and unsure about, you know, mom and dad and this and that and the other, the natural state of things is a sense of peace and calm and harmony and like, yeah, we're going to work together. We're going to get along. We're going to do things together. That's the natural state when we learn to meet the needs of family members rather than.

Rachel Denning (26:00.173)
taking your own stress that we get from work or from you know whatever community church. I'll just chime in here stress doesn't come from outside it always comes from inside. I know. So it's an inside job. The stress you get from your head. That's a whole nother topic. And you're blaming outside things. Yes exactly but but it's essentially that's essentially what people are doing they're taking this outside stress quote unquote.

and then they're bringing it into their relationships. They're bringing it into their interactions with their spouse and then their interactions with their children. And all of these things are contributing to higher levels of stress, which then produce behavioral issues and then which then results in the parent's punishing, right? Because it's not true discipline, it's punishment, which then results in more discipline or more behavior issues. And it's this drama triangle or this...

you know, um, cyclical pattern. Yeah. The sickle pattern that's feeding itself and it's creating, we're creating the very things we don't want. We are creating it ourselves. And I know that's hard to hear, but it's important to hear the vast majority of behavioral problems in children are caused by the parents. Not on purpose. It's subconscious. Probably not your fault. You may not even be aware of what you're doing or you might be aware of it, but not sure how to prevent it or correct it.

But hands down with so many people we've worked with are observing across continents, most behavior problems are caused or facilitated or exacerbated by the parent. So if there's a behavior problem with a child, the first place to do the thing, the first thing to do is to stop and say, how am I contributing to this? That is so fundamentally important. And we did that early on.

Well, and in the last few months or so, we've had people tell us of different examples that they've seen firsthand, and we've of course seen it before too, of where you see this play out, where the child will behave in one way, and then when the parent comes around, it's almost immediately like that behavior changes. Because the child has been conditioned. Yeah, they have been conditioned to...

Rachel Denning (28:22.221)
behave in a certain way with their parent because of the way the parent treats them. Yep. The mom and dad just, I mean they just have to walk in the room and the behavior can change. Exactly. Because of the conditioning. Right. And it's so subconscious, unconscious. It's the deep, the neurological, we heard such a cool word yesterday, neuropharmacological. I think that's what, that's so awesome.

It's neurological, it's deeply ingrained in train. I mean, it's in a subconscious way. It's biochemical in a way because your body learns, and this happens to children, to all of us, your body learns that, oh, when this outward stimulus occurs, my body is supposed to feel this way and so I have to produce these chemicals within my body in order to create these feelings. And so, oh, there's mom, that means I'm supposed to feel this way around mom.

So my body produces all these chemicals. So I feel that way. So I was spent in these ways. I've been trained in condition to participate in this drama triangle. So when mom or dad walks in, Oh, I know, I know what's going to happen now because it always happens. Yep. Right. And it's amazing. You'll see. And the way to test this is just watch how the child will behave with other adults or other people. And we often see, you know, the, the quote, the,

the misbehaving child, just awesome, peaceful, fun, engaged, intelligent, bright, just eager, great attitude, everything's there. And then whoop, the shift and you see it like, oh man, there's the dynamic. Now parents might be like, well, yeah, of course he's going to be better behaved with, you know, other people. They're not the ones that have to discipline him, AKA punish him. They're not the ones that have to enforce things.

And therein lies the problem. And so when we want to discipline, remember discipline is teaching, when we need to correct, when we need to enforce, when we want our children to do things that are good for them, help the family, we as the adults have to behave like adults and take on the responsibility of figuring out a more effective way to do it. Yeah.

Rachel Denning (30:46.861)
I think it's fascinating if you look at it from the other viewpoint because if the child is behaving and pleasant and happy in a situation with someone else, it's because they don't have that history. They don't have that background with this person. And so it's almost like they're starting from this fresh, clean slate. But that is a clue to the natural state of the child. Yes, exactly.

That really should, you shouldn't be excusing it away and say, well, of course they're gonna behave like that. You should be saying, what am I doing wrong that causes them to not behave in that way when they're with me? In the natural state where they want to be. They want to be happy and pleasant and helpful and engaged and feel good about life. Right, because your children want to have a good relationship with you. I just did a reel about this on Instagram. It's a quote from Jordan Pearson, but essentially, your children want to have a great relationship with you. They do not want to have,

a difficult, unpleasant relationship with you. Now you might not believe that because you're like, yeah, look how they act all the time. Well, they even want to please you and make you proud. Absolutely. Even if you guys fight like cats and dogs, they want you to be proud of them. Right. And so because and the reason why this essentially falls on the parents shoulder and if it sounds like we're placing blame that we're placing on the parents, we're... We are. OK, we are.

but we're doing it in a loving way. Because how could you honestly blame a child? That's what I'm trying to get to. With an underdeveloped brain. If you can't do this, if you don't know how to do this, how do you expect your four -year -old? Or your 14 -year -old. How do you expect your 14 -year -old? They don't have the capability, the consciousness, the articulation to be able to handle this at a higher level if you can't. So ultimately, yeah, it falls on you. You are responsible. You are the one to figure out how to do this.

how to change the dynamics in those relationships so that it can function in a way that it's at a natural state of peace and harmony. It's not their job. So you get to be the adult in this relationship with your child, which is a great thing. Now, some of you listening might be like, oh man, this sure hurts. Well, yeah, it hurts a little, but it's also really great news. Some of you might be crying and in tears. And I understand that because I know that when I...

Rachel Denning (33:13.677)
Well, when I came to this realization. We have cried. I have shed tears over this. Right. Because when you come to that realization and have this sense of like, I'm ruining my kids because I don't know how to parent them. It's extremely painful. It's horrifically painful. But it's it's also so powerful because you realize, oh, it's not the kid. There's power. That is where the pain, the power lies. Yep. And it's not the kid. And if we want to blame a child who's literally

in the daily transformation of their brain and body. Like every day they're growing and transforming for 25 years and you catch them in a moment of development, which is at any moment and every moment. And we have the audacity to be upset that our six year old is acting like a six year old. Like what? But now if a six year old is acting like a four year old, that's on you.

Not on them. And again, this is painful but powerful. And this is what we want to talk about today, where if we'll just change our strategies, it changes everything. It changes the outcome. And so, then of course, people are asking, well, what do you do? What do you do instead? Because you obviously can't just allow your child to hit you or hit other people or to bite or to run in the street or to do all these things that are.

not good behavior and that's essential. Of course we're not promoting that. We're not promoting poor behavior and saying, oh, it's okay in the name of having a good relationship with your child. That is not what we're promoting at all. In fact, we are all about having good behavior, but you can get good behavior from your children. With better. By meeting their needs and having better discipline strategies. Which is teaching. Because ultimately when their needs are met,

Like we referred to before, good behavior is the natural state. Before we dive into that, I want to bring up one instance that comes up. It used to come up for me, and it comes up often for people. In fact, it came up yesterday on a post we shared. As humans, we want to say, yeah, but my situation is unique. You don't understand, because my marriage is different.

Rachel Denning (35:41.197)
You don't get my kids. My kids are different. They're not diverse. They're this. They're that. Your kids are different than my kids. So you can't, you don't understand. And to all that we say, yeah, absolutely. We understand. And these practices and principles are universal. There are very few, extremely few, I'd say less than 1%. And let that sink in less than 1%.

is there's something that needs to be treated and diagnosed and treated very differently. And okay, and we also need to be clear. I know a lot of you listening have kids that maybe have autism or are on the spectrum somewhere or something else. I get that, but that's a different strategy, but the same principle. Which is different than ADD, because we're definitely including that in these strategies. Oh, 100%.

My personal take, the ADV and ADHD is just crap. That's just bogus. Well, not that it's not a real thing. It is a very real thing. The way it's being... But using it as an excuse. Yeah. Well, no, the way it's being labeled and treated and diagnosed in the US is absolute garbage. Yes. The way they're... Oh, it is so infuriating. In some ways, I would say maybe even half of our kids are AD. Because half of the population is. It's just a different way that a brain operates.

It's totally different thing. So those kinds of things don't, don't use those excuses. And even if, you know, let's say you're one of your children has autism, well, you already know this then, you know, that you have to use different tactics and strategies. You have to have different tools and it's true for every kid. So don't just dismiss it and be like, Oh, well, well, this can super easy. And so then you don't use any tools at all. You don't have any strategy at all. And you know, one kid gets all the attention. Usually it's one or two kids in the family that are,

causing the vast majority of the problems because they deeply need more attention. They want more attention. They're not getting it. So they use poor behavior as a way to get it. And so it's, it's being cognizant that just because you are different or your situation is different or your location is different or each of your kids is different, that's, that's no excuse. That doesn't mean that these strategies won't work for you because we've

Rachel Denning (38:06.637)
we see a lot of people say that essentially. Like, oh, well, this isn't going to work for me because my situation is totally different. This actually proves our point all the more because what we're going to say is that every child needs individual attention and understanding and they need to have all of their needs met in their way. Like one kid might, well, this is true in our family. Like one, some of our children are very hands -on, very project -based.

When Rachel and I want to make deposits into our relationship account with them, so to speak, we do that with very tactile things, project -based things, hands -on things, experiences, where others are very intellectual or emotional. And so making a deposit with that child would look very different. Down to simple things. A couple of our kids love sushi. Oh my gosh, they love sushi. And a...

The rest of our family hates sushi. They won't put it in. They won't let it get near them. And so if we were so foolish to say, well, we're taking the whole family out to sushi. Well, duh, that's going to go over like a turd in the punch bowl because it doesn't work. It's so lame. We're like, well, but but so -and -so loves sushi and I love sushi. We're all going out for sushi. And we are using as an example. Why? Why do you have a what's your problem? Why aren't you grateful? You're just a troubled kid, aren't you?

You're like, that kid hates sushi. Why drink him to sushi? Why are you forcing him to have sushi when he knows he doesn't like it? And that might seem like a silly example, but in some ways, that's what a lot of parenting strategies are like for most parents. They're using this one size fits all approach of, hey, buying you sushi makes a deposit in our account, you know, when that just doesn't work.

And it's usually an approach they picked up from their parents or grandparents or saw on some TV show somewhere, read in some random book and they're like, oh, I'm going to do that. Yeah. And it doesn't work. And I'm going to do that with all of my kids. No, you have to individualize the approach. And going along with this example here, some of our kids love Indian and the others love Thai. And so for each child, if we are wanting to build the relationship with them, which is one of the key pillars to disciplining the right way is you're building a relationship with them. So we take our kids out.

Rachel Denning (40:31.693)
one child out every week. We don't take them all out because we have seven kids and that's seven nights a week. That's a lot of dates. So we take one a week and they repeat every seven weeks. We go to different restaurants depending on the child. We take them to the restaurant that they care about. Now we do food because all of our kids like food. We are foodie people so we do restaurants. But you don't have to do a restaurant. Maybe your kids would hate that. This is just a metaphor for that very thing is we ask each child like what would you like?

And we'll take them out and try different things and they'll say, you know what, of all the places we've been, I think I like this the most, or I like doing this thing with you. And so we'll try lots of things. And there's this phase of experimentation. I think it happens multiple times where it's when they're young and then kind of in their tweens again, they kind of reset and then later. And so they keep trying things and you're asking and engaging, you're paying attention.

And so you know how to make deposits and you know how to correct and you know how to teach your discipline. Some of our kids, you just have to ever so gently say, Hey buddy, that was out of line. That you could have handled that better or even, Hey, how could you have maybe handled that one better? And that's enough for them. That's enough. Or, and they start to tear up.

And then other ones are like, hey, buddy, that was serious out of line. Don't ever do that again. That's not the kind of man you want to be. That's not the kind of woman you want to be. Or we'll ask, hey, is that behavior in line with the kind of person you want to be? And that's been the fundamental basis, kind of the philosophy behind raising our kids is always asking them, well, what kind of person do you want to be?

Yeah, so there's a couple pieces here. The foundational piece, and we're in a way here, we're referencing to something we call the pyramid of peace adapted from the Arbinger Institute. They have an entire book called the Anatomy of Peace, which is highly recommend. But when you're trying to help things go right, which is the primary purpose of discipline done well, is you're helping things go right. Then the very top of the pyramid is fixing what's gone wrong, which is what,

Rachel Denning (42:57.101)
a lot of parents are doing when they're punishing. There's a place for that. But most parents are spending 80, 90 % of their time punishing for things rather than spending 80 or 90 % of their time helping things go right. And so they've got the pyramid flipped and that's what's causing all of their problems and their suffering and their stress and their pain. So if you look at a, how do you see it? I mean, you could see it as a pie chart.

However you like to visualize this, you can see it as a scale. You just see it, the vast majority of your time, energy, and effort to be in helping things go right. And as long as we're doing that, most things will go right with a very occasional misalignment that we then teach, we discipline through teaching. And it can even, we've gotten to the point, as you alluded to here, it can even happen in very gentle ways where we just have to say, hey, that's not, that wasn't appropriate, that crossed the line.

And that can be enough. That's enough. In fact, I would say for the vast majority now we're there. And we need to circle back to this. Oh, let me finish this up and we'll start on that. But the vast majority of parents are spending the vast majority of their time in correcting, disciplining, punishing. And it's just constant firefights and playing whack -a -mole and it just is mayhem and chaos and...

Stress and tears and anger and yelling and screaming and insulting. It's just it's so sad. It's so so sad. It is a dumpster fire Where we because because we've been really intentional about this from the very beginning So we've we've never grounded our kids Like oh you did this terrible thing you are grounded for the next You see her out of her months. Yeah, I don't know like

three months or three weeks, like, well, it's crazy. And sometimes it was just totally, the punishment was completely unrelated to the offense. That's normal. And that's part of the course with just random parents like, oh, I'm so angry. I'm going to throw out this punishment. It has nothing to do with this offense. But we don't, like, we don't have any discipline problems. Like where we just have to really crack down on stuff. Yeah. And, you know, and we did, it's not that we.

Rachel Denning (45:16.973)
never have, we definitely did, especially with our oldest child, that's always the guinea pig, right? I was the oldest child and then our poor oldest daughter got it too. We went through some of that. I don't know that we ever grounded her, but I know that we had consequences of like, oh, well you lose your phone or you, you know, if she missed use the phone, she loses the phone. But that also helped us to learn that those are the least effective strategies. You know, what you have to focus on,

is the helping things go right. Now I know a lot of you are saying, well, but then what do you do when they do something that they shouldn't do? You can't just let that go. And of course, you can't do that. But I want to finish emphasizing this point here that if you, and this isn't something that necessarily changes in a moment, because your kids are used to you behaving in one way. And if you start behaving in a new way, they have to give you some time to be like, is this?

for real, is this gonna last? Like what's going on here? You know, I'm confused. So it takes time for this new strategy to take root in order to be truly, firmly effective, right? But you focus on helping things to go right. Now, there's obviously, we could do an entire podcast episode just about that and maybe we should, but.

It's essentially focusing on the things that build the relationship that can be cuddling. Even in my 28 day challenge, I have them like you start out every day by greeting your kids with a hug and a kiss and a smile. I'm like, how are you? How did you sleep? Like that's how you begin the day. So it's a very intentional process of throughout the day, you have these touch points of helping things to go right. Now, another level of that is that when things, this is a key piece. When you notice things,

starting to go wrong. So before they even get to the gone wrong part, right? Because if you pay attention, you notice. You can notice when things start to go wrong. And you don't notice unless you pay attention, but when you pay attention, you notice, oh, before my child has a meltdown tantrum, they start doing these things. I pay attention to that, and as soon as they do the first thing, that's when I address it. I don't wait until the end. No way, because then you're waiting for trouble. Because now you're in trouble.

Rachel Denning (47:40.301)
If you start addressing things when they begin to go wrong, you prevent the tantrums, you prevent the meltdowns, you prevent all of the ugliness because you begin meeting their needs as soon as things start to go wrong because when it starts to go wrong, that's because they're feeling like needs are unmet. And I'm going to throw down here a little bit, ladies and gentlemen, in order for you to even notice what's happening to your kids, you've got to put down your dead gum bones.

or whatever else is distracting you. Turn up. You have to pay attention. I was going to say turn off your TV, but honestly, just throw it away. Just get rid of it or whatever else. Some of you are so caught up in in the news or some drama or you're so caught up in your neighbors, your extended family. Like you have some erroneous idea of like, well, if I'm a good person, I'm going to be spending tons and tons of time serving my neighbor to the neglect of your own children.

That's insane. And then we see it all the time by people trying to be good by neglecting their own children. Give me a break. You got to get your crap together and wake up and pay attention. So you have, and I'm being intense here because like some of you, because we see this, we see it all the time. I gotta rattle you a little bit here and say, wake up.

And you're like, well, I didn't know. We're like, how could you not know? Because you weren't paying attention. That's why you weren't aware. That's how you didn't know. And then when you notice it, you have to do something about it. Like, yeah, but I was busy. I don't give a crap about your busyness. This is your child. Well, I was tired. I don't give a crap about you tired. If you're, man, you feel the rant coming?

Some of you are tired because you're so daggum lazy and you eat too much crap and you don't want, uh, you didn't, sorry. I need to give warnings before I rant, but this is, it's true. And there's massive, massive amount of society. It's just fat and unhealthy and they don't take care of themselves. They don't get their butts out of bed. They don't get up and get dressed. They don't eat well. No wonder.

Rachel Denning (50:07.405)
Single bit of it because it makes you tired or hangry or on rear lazy or frustrated or clueless you you literally blind yourself With your poor behavior and so you're like why I didn't know I didn't see it. Well. Yeah, you didn't see it because you were lost in your own crap so get your crap together all of it and You might be blinded by your own little pity parties or trying to keep up So you're so worried about competing with the neighbors?

that you don't even notice your own family fires. Because, well, the neighbor's been wearing that, so I'm gonna go look for one of those. Oh, the neighbor got a new car, so what am I gonna do? Stop! Who gives a crap about your neighbor? Focus on your family and be so good at running your own family. It doesn't even matter what anybody else is doing. Well, and then the other thing that we see is when and if people start to pay attention.

and they notice that something's off or it's going in the wrong direction, they don't do anything about it. That's what kills me is because that is certainly an approach we don't take. Especially when we or somebody else points it out. They're like, hey, there's a real danger, there's a real risk here. Something's really off. Oh yeah, I should do something about it. And then they don't. Well, we've even had people or clients or whatever friends tell us like, oh, I've noticed that. Maybe I should do, and they'll say something,

that they come up with, maybe I need to take them out of school and homeschool them, or maybe I need to, you know, maybe we need to move. And a lot of times it can be a drastic action because sometimes the only way to save your kid is a drastic action and they recognize that, but they're not willing to do it. Now not every solution has to be drastic. In fact, that's why we promote this act early on thing because then you avoid the drastic action. It's when your kids are on drugs and tanking their life that you have to take drastic action.

But you could have prevented them getting there by using the right strategies, right? But then when they are there and we still see parents not willing to do the hard work that's required to resolve that problem, that's what kills me is because they know it's a problem. They even know what they need to do because they get a revelation or whatever, inspiration about that, and then they won't do it. They won't do it. And then they say, well, my hands are tied or whatever.

Rachel Denning (52:30.829)
And it's because you don't take the power that's rightfully yours. You have the ability within you. You just have to dig deep and find that power. Now, of course, the better course of action, of course, of course, is prevention. That's always been our take. Preventing is prepare and prevent is better than repair and repent, right? Like it's always better. And even in when you're trying to correct something that's really bad,

your first step, the first plan of action is helping things go right. Exactly. So I, if, if one of my children were in real trouble, the first thing I'm going to do is just clear my schedule and start investing in that relationship. Invest like crazy. I'm going to do everything I can that that kid wants and needs in a positive loving way to rebuild that child and rebuild our relationship and just feel like literally.

again, picture it right? If, if there's a void, maybe you have some kind of container, and there's just void of love and attention and affection and positive things, there's a lot of darkness, then I'm going to overwhelm that cavity with goodness. And it forces out any darkness. So light, you bring in light into a dark, you take a completely dark room, walk in there with a flashlight, boom, turn on the light, boom.

All the light is gone. It's forced into the darkness. All the darkness is gone. It forces it away. Same thing in this cavity, right? I want to call it a cavity on purpose. You get a cavity in your head, psychologically or emotionally or spiritually, it's in the soul. And you fill it so full because it can only contain so much. You fill it so full of light and goodness that it forces any darkness and evil out. And I got a super tragic, so sad message last week again from this.

young woman is wonderful young woman who's cutting herself and having suicidal thoughts and wrote struggles and troubles again again and it's it's a repeat pattern and It's like come on man The needs aren't being met if the needs are being met. This wouldn't even be an issue So

Rachel Denning (54:52.333)
lean into your kids and disciplining them is teaching them. So we should be constantly teaching. That's what parenting is. Parenting is good teaching. Good parenting is good teaching. Right. So while you were talking, one of the thoughts and objections we've seen come up is that parents, they have this way of thinking, and I get it, like I've been there, but they have this way of thinking that goes along the lines of, well, I don't want to do XYZ with my child because then I'm essentially

rewarding them for their poor behavior. I don't wanna, you know, cause I often teach if your kids are misbehaving, you should cuddle with them. You should spend more time in physical contact, especially if they're young, but it works with teenagers too. And parents will sometimes say, well, I don't wanna reward them for their poor behavior by cuddling with them or by giving them more attention. Same with teens, they're acting out. And we've told parents before like you're.

Your team needs to go on this trip. Your team needs to have this transformational experience. You need to take them to have this thing that's going to be a pattern in their life. And their response is, well, I don't want to reward them for their poor behavior. When they're not realizing that they're totally missing the point. If they spent more time and money investing in that sort of way, more time cuddling, more time taking them out, more time having cool experiences with them.

it would solve the behavior issue. The reason why they have the behavior issue in the first place that's driving you crazy is because you're not doing these things. Now I'm not trying to say that because you're not spending money on them or because you're not taking them on cool vacations that they're acting out. That's entitlement. I'm not talking about that. But because you're not investing in their development and in the development of your relationship with them,

That's why they're having the behavior. Absolutely. And you have to stop in those moments and question your philosophy. Yeah. You're like, no, I don't do that because that would reward their behavior. Say, well, how's that philosophy working out for you? Exactly. Because it seems like you have you're having trouble with your kids. Right. So question your strategies, question your philosophy because they're not working and get to a place where you can use more effective strategy, more.

Rachel Denning (57:13.837)
Again, more deposits, more investments, more connection, more teaching, and it has to be effective teaching. What does that look like, right? Effective teaching. That's worth.

all of mass. Well, it's worth an entire podcast, hundreds of episodes even. What I mean is like how to effectively teach. I would highly recommend as a fundamental framework, a book called

No, Parker Palmer. Oh, Parker Palmer. The Power to Teach, the... No. Oh my goodness. What is it? We'll have to link it. The Courage to Teach. The Courage to Teach. By Parker Palmer. Yes. Oh my goodness. And he wrote a second book that's worth it too. He just nails it. Well, it's talking about teaching, but it's directly applicable for parenting. For parenting. And because parents are teachers. Don't ever forget that. And discipline is teaching. Teaching is discipline. And teaching is mentoring. It's all wonderful. So...

But ultimately he says, you teach what you are. None of us can escape or avoid or change the fact that we teach what we are. Who you are. Yeah. So whatever I'm teaching, whatever I'm saying, it's always coming through the filter of who I am. So if I'm an angry person, if I'm a bitter person, if I'm a resentful, lazy person, if I'm an underdeveloped person, if I'm an undereducated person, no matter what I'm teaching,

That's coming through. So the only way I can be an effective teacher is to be an effective human being. And the more I change and improve myself, the more effective I become as a teacher. Right. As you're teaching what you are. Another one that's absolutely fundamental, worth reading and rereading is, um, why can I not remember titles books today? It's by Carol Dweck. Uh, mindset, new psychology of success, which again, it's not a parenting book.

Rachel Denning (59:15.949)
but her entire framework there is crucial for parents to understand because by default, most parents are teaching their children a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset, which she outlines in the book, why that's so much healthier to have a growth mindset. And the vast majority of parents, probably including you listeners, have been inadvertently, without knowing it, not your fault, you've been inadvertently teaching, deliberately, day in and day out, teaching your kids to have a fixed mindset without knowing it. Well, because...

you have a fixed mindset also. Right. And you may not know it. So again, again, not your fault. But then this is why you find out and you go, oh, oh my goodness. I've been doing that. I'm the problem here. I'm the problem. And this is how I fix it. Which came from your parents. Right. Not knowing what they were doing. Exactly. So you keep doing it. But we have to lean in and be really effective teachers. So first and foremost, work on yourself harder than you do on anything else, because that'll make you a better teacher. And then make your teaching engaging. And.

fun and enticing and attractive. Too many of us try to teach in a way that no child would ever want to endure. The teaching itself is like punishment. So make your teaching engaging where the kids want to listen and learn. Well, and what Greg is essentially outlining here is a completely different approach because you've probably been used to, I don't know.

Maybe you just ignore your children or interact in a minimal basis until they act out and then you try to discipline them, AKA punish them for their misbehavior. This is a new approach where you're actually paying attention, you're not caught up in your own world and your own little issues and problems and you're devoting time every day, ideally, to teaching your children things that help them become better people.

along with spending time investing in developing that relationship. Yes. And this is not a dad lecture, gentlemen. And this is not - Because some of you think, oh, I know how to teach. I'm going to give my kids a dad lecture. Right. And those fall on deaf ears, man. They do not work. And this is not easier than what you've been doing, although it's not necessarily harder either because it's not easy to punish your kids. And it's not easy to have misbehavior. No, it's horrible. So yeah, in that framework - You think that's hard.

Rachel Denning (01:01:41.773)
If you think it's hard to do this, try not doing it. And then you have to deal with behavior issues for their entire life. So right now, like our family lifestyle and our parenting, it's totally easy. But we do these things every day because they've become a natural part of just how we do life. And they're enjoyable and fun and wonderful. So we're constantly teaching our kids, spending time with them. Jumping on the trampoline with them. We have scheduled time and unscheduled time that it fills up. So it's kind of natural now because we've conditioned ourselves to do that.

And the kids expect it. They know it's there. They can count on it. So they have a massive sense of certainty. They also have this fun sense of uncertainty because we do crazy fun things. They have tons of love and connection. They, they feel how important they are and how they have this sense of self -worth because we shower them with that. And, and they, we have siblings do it with each other. So.

So we have this beautiful environment where they feel whole and safe. Many of your children only get your attention when they've done something. That's when you would. That's when you give them time and you're like, well, I'm not giving them time. I'm yelling at them or I'm disciplining them or taking like, I'm going to pick them up from jail. Yeah. That's how they're getting time from you because otherwise you don't give them time. If you're constantly regularly giving them good time that they enjoy,

They don't have to seek it another way. It's so important. So another level here then of this is when they actually do misbehave, right? So even if you do all these things, there's still going to be circumstances where, and it doesn't have to get to the point of the really extreme misbehavior, but when things start to go wrong, like I mentioned before, you begin to see things starting to go wrong. That's when, for us, that's when we like to jump in to,

It's essentially intervention. We like to intervene. And our approach is we intervene as soon as possible. As soon as we notice anything is off, that's when we like to intervene. Because as we learn from experience, our own, plus working with your clients, is that if you don't intervene at an earlier stage, that problem doesn't go away. It just keeps growing and growing and growing from a baby dragon into a giant dragon, right? So you wanna intervene as soon as possible. And...

Rachel Denning (01:04:09.389)
We do that by... Let's just walk through that. Well, one... That's what I am. I'm about to do that. Give me a chance, babe. Come on. And then you can add your piece. That's so sweet. I know. So one of those ways that we do that, of course, is doubling down on this type of behavior. Because sometimes a kid will start acting out and we realize, oh, he hasn't been getting enough attention. He hasn't been getting enough of the right attention. We have one son who loves playing board games and you and I abhor.

board games and yet we will make ourselves play board games with this kid because that's like his love language right and so sometimes we realize oh we haven't been playing enough board games with this kid we better play some board games so that's one method the other especially did wait did you notice that you guys as soon as we see something off we lean in big time oh let's take him on a date oh let's go play time with her he's one that loves sushi oh let's go do this like you you go right into it and and your first thought is why rewarding bad behavior no you're not

You're fixing things. You're making things go right. You're realizing why the bad behavior is happening, and so you're taking those actions that fix the bad behavior. You're addressing the cause, not the effect. Right. So please, please, please disconnect the cause and the effect. Don't think of that as a reward. And focus on the cause. You've got to stop thinking of that type of thing as a reward. It's not a reward for good behavior. It's preventative medicine to prevent bad behavior. Yeah. Well, it's...

basic fundamentals of having children. Exactly. Or having a relationship with someone. Like if you have a relationship with your spouse, you should be doing these things. If you're not, that's a problem. You should be going out on dates. You should be spending time together. You should be cuddling, touching, you know, all of these aspects of having a relationship. That's essentially what it is. Relationship one -one. If your spouse is acting out like you need an overnighter. Exactly. No, we're not a reward of bad behavior. No, you're going to fix your relationship. You're investing in your relationship. Exactly. So we...

That's the first step is we double down on that kind of show. I would say maybe first, first or second somewhere in there. I'm going to look for any source of negativity or darkness, and I'm going to try to remove anything that might be a catalyst. It could be music. It could be movies. It could be too much device time, too much device time could be friends, so -called friends that are actually frenemies.

Rachel Denning (01:06:36.749)
it could be public school and we're like, nah, we're out. Government school is garbage and we're out. So some of you, if you haven't done it yet, we encourage you to pull your kids. I used to not be this bold and I used to think, oh man, it's not for everybody. Now, the condition of the world, pull your kids out, man. Find something else. It is bad. So pull your kids out. Well, I want to back up a little bit here because...

Like you said, I said the first step was doubling down. I would actually say the first step, because when you're in the moment, of course, of a discipline issue occurring, you can't necessarily drop everything right then and take them out on a date or play a board game. Although sometimes that's what happens. Sometimes you have to. Sometimes you have to drop everything and say, this needs my attention. Right. But what I would say actually is probably the very first step that I take in the moment of some sort of misbehavior is I ask myself,

question and I like to use the phrase I get curious. So I'm not trying to get upset and be like how do I punish this child for doing this. I get curious about why is this child acting this way because the natural state and that's at least how it is in our house the natural state is peace and harmony for the most part. So if something is out of peace and harmony I'm asking why and and usually this is across the board it's lack of sleep,

Lack of food or hangry or You know, maybe they've been offended or hurt in some way by their sibling like their sibling did something even if it wasn't intentional that made them feel bad and so then they responded in kind and so it's this little bit of a drama triangle going on or some negative input just like yeah, whoa, we notice you've been talking hanging out so and so or watching this and now we're noticing you're getting snarky and kind of rude like that's not cool. I

Yeah, and so my first step here is curiosity without feeling the need to have to take immediate action. Now sometimes you have to, like if they're wailing on the kid, you've got to intervene. You don't always have to though. Sometimes you can just allow your kids to resolve their problems while you think and observe for a few minutes. Considering the cause, not the effect. Considering the cause of why it's happening and then trying to find another solution. Now sometimes the very best solution,

Rachel Denning (01:09:03.341)
is just redirection. So, you know, they're acting out and you realize, you know what, maybe they're hangry and so instead of punishing them for acting out, you just simply say, let's go get a snack, kid, you know? And then do you know what? That's gonna actually resolve the problem. They get the snack, they feel better, they no longer act out, problem solved. And no punishment was required to fix the situation, right? So those are some of my very first approaches.

in the moment of, hey, this discipline thing needs to be fixed, so I'll redirect that. And I'll even do that with my older kids too. I'll redirect their attention to like, hey, you're supposed to be working on your studies right now, and if you were doing that, this interaction wouldn't be happening, problem solved, right? So redirect to where you're supposed to be putting your attention and energy. So then, I mean, those are kind of three things we mentioned. Just fundamentals of starting to reframe all of it.

But then let's say now we need to do some actual correcting, some teaching, which again is discipline. Rachel and I are going to be extremely thoughtful about how to do this effectively. Because as is always the case, and you want this too, but we don't always stop and think through it. Sometimes you think, well, I'm just going to tell them. Well, telling someone may or may not work. It usually doesn't.

asking a question where they answer. If you can get them to say the answer, like that's effective where they come up with the answer. Like, Hey, how could you have handled that better? I don't know. They just did. I'm like, well, let's think through it. And, and you, maybe you know the answer, but you walk them to it until they go, well, I guess I could have done that. Bam. That's going to be awesome. Cause next time they're going to use your own brain and the brains go like, Oh, we came up with a solution to this before.

That's effective, but there's even more effective ways. I think some of the best things we've done is we'll watch a movie that teaches the lesson. We'll read a book or share a story. We love stories. Human beings love stories. We'll tell a story that illustrates the principle. Sometimes it can be very directed to that child. Like, Hey, let's, I want to tell you a story. And in the story, here's this principle that applies directly to you.

Rachel Denning (01:11:29.293)
Sometimes it's just generalized. It's the next morning or a couple days later, a morning devotional, we tell a story, teach the principle. We don't point out any, and this is why you, this applies to you child, child should never do that again. Cause you look stupid, right? We're not insulting ever, ever, ever, ever. We're not insulting. So we'll teach the story, teach the principle and like help them walk through some application. They're like, Oh, but.

Yeah, that's preventative. Yeah. But do you see though, I want to point out to people here that this is a very strategic approach. Too often we want to have a discipline punishment solution right then, right in that moment, happened, I have to punish you now. And what we're talking about is something that's, it's very strategic. You're looking, you're paying attention, you're watching, you're observing, you're planning, you're researching, you're coming up with something that's powerful.

and then you're addressing it maybe a day or two or a week later. So it's not that you have to, and I don't know why, and I remember that feeling that as a young parent, I felt like this almost drive. There had to be immediate consequence. That there had to be this immediate consequence or else I was a bad parent. And the kids would learn. Like if my child did this thing, if I don't discipline it now, I'm a bad parent. I'll even see this, you know.

Because now that we have more of this approach, I kind of will feel this pressure and I resist it when we're in a situation with other people or other parents or sometimes even people that live in an older generation are used to that kind of parenting style and they expect your child just did that, what are you gonna do about it? As though you have to do something right now to address it or somehow you're failing as a parent. No, that's not the case. In fact, the best parents aren't gonna do something in the moment.

And we need to have the courage and to say, yeah, I'll talk to him about it later. Yeah, I'll handle it. Don't worry. It doesn't mean it's going to go unresolved. They're like, no, you have to do something now. And what's interesting is this whole idea of immediate consequences, oh, you're timing out, oh, you're grounded, oh, I'm going to yell at you, I'm going to insult you right now, ooh, the punishment style, it doesn't work. Right? If it worked, like,

Rachel Denning (01:13:47.565)
Wow, we wouldn't be having this conversation because none of us would know that there was a problem because it all worked because we had immediate consequences for all these behaviors of it Magically corrected all the misbehaviors. It doesn't the opposite is true when we're thoughtful about it and kind and tactical and

Rachel Denning (01:14:08.973)
It's competent, it's done very, very effectively. That eliminates problems. So then when we taught these things years ago to our kids, it's been a non -issue ever since. As a certain behavior in a certain child, we correct it, we teach it effectively, that problem never arises again. It goes away for good. And that sounds kind of like a fairy tale when you say it, but especially I think the point is when they actually understand it and then they adopt that as their own...

way of being, it doesn't become an issue anymore because they now self -regulate. They now are like, oh yeah, well that's not who I am. I don't identify as a person that does that kind of stuff. So I don't do it because I've adopted that belief. And so when you do effective teaching and you share stories and principles and movies and whatever in an effective way, that's what happens. They adopt that belief, that viewpoint on life, and so they don't.

Misbehave in those ways anymore because they're no longer that kind of person. I think the best example is our son Kimball You would have a hard time anywhere in the world meeting finding somebody who has a better attitude than that kid. Yeah He's an amazing kid. His attitude is absolutely world -class and you'd meet him and think gosh you guys are so lucky to have a kid like this and that as a teen all his teen years

He's just had the best attitude. He will do whatever it's asked of him again and again with a smile, crappiest sandwich. He'll eat it joyfully. And like, Hey, we need you to this. Oh gosh, this didn't work out. Oh, total epic fail. Let's do it. And he's like, yep, let's go. Let's got it. And he's super helpful. Anytime, night or day. I can go wake him up anytime. And I'd be like, let's go do this in the cold rain. It's like sweet. Let's go. Right. It doesn't matter. But the beauty of this story is that he,

had the stinkiest attitude as a kid. Oh my goodness. He was resistant to everything. He just fought. Certain age frame, especially probably from, I don't know, maybe eight to 13. Yeah. Was just very... Dug in. Maybe not even 13. Like on purpose. He would not smile and stand still for a family picture. Like every family picture for years was him like rolling his eyes back in his head.

Rachel Denning (01:16:36.909)
making faces just and would just do things on purpose just to spite us because we knew it bugged us like he would just dig it it was just this resistance all the time and we didn't like make him feel bad we didn't insult him we didn't we didn't punish him because we knew he was age appropriate we quote disciplined through teaching and modeling we taught and taught and taught and taught and then he just embraced it.

fully and and of his own accord just like you're talking about he internalized it and he's like nope i'm going to live with great attitude independent of everything and everyone else i'm going to live with great attitude and so we have literally zero none not a single instance of a bad attitude from him his whole teenage years i mean he is just an asset to our family and to humanity and and i'm taking him soon to this um in a couple days here we're going to this brutal

What do you call this? I'm taking my two teenage boys. It's a training, but it's more like a torturing on purpose. It's just four days to see what you can handle. It's a selection process put on by former and active special forces guys. It's to apply to be able to do humanitarian disaster relief, but they want to make sure that you can handle.

Anything and everything they throw at you irritation frustration they purposely try to get you to to step out and And they're going and my boys they're gonna rock it. They're just so stoked They I'm like you guys this is gonna be so hard. You're gonna suffer so much and they're like Yes, I can't wait and they're gonna there's gonna do so well and that Right there. I think this this coming weekend is it is a perfect example of everything we're talking?

like leading through teaching, disciplining through teaching, modeling, showing them the way. And now here's this culmination. We're going to put these boys to a test, an extreme test that very few people can make it through. And I don't say that lightly. I went through it. I know exactly what it's like. There was tough people in our group that didn't make it through. Like very, very few people can get through this. And I know these boys. Let's fly right through it.

Rachel Denning (01:19:02.349)
Whistling and skipping like this is the best because we have done what we're teaching you guys So we've we've walked the walk And I'm not saying this the boats. I'm saying this so there's we have some credibility here like we're just we're putting these two boys through the ringer as as teenagers and and the the proofs in the pudding well, and I think it's important to put up to point out because I

even in this example we gave with Kimball, there were a few years where I was deeply concerned about his well -being and how he was going to turn out as a person. And we've told him, and he knows, he was an annoying kid. Now I loved him to death. For some reason, we all did. He was so goofy. Yeah. He was just, he just had the sweetest baby. I just bonded with him. And so I never felt annoyed by, not ever.

sometimes by his annoying behavior. But we, you're right. At some points we were worried like, Oh gosh, what's gonna happen? I remember through his child's on my wonder if we need to get him tested. Because he just was so contrarian. But because but he is he's the third kid. And there's something to that. All of you your third kid, if your third child is has behavioral things, it's because they're trying to get attention.

Right, but I guess the point is, I'm trying to make, is that we kept the end goal in mind. And that's what we're trying to emphasize here, because ultimately, discipline is not about getting your kids to behave in the moment. It should be about helping them to develop into the human beings you want them to. Yes. You want to help them become. Not that you're molding them into some little model you have, but you're guiding and directing them to their full potential.

It's not about obedience either. Right, it's not about obedience. We think, man, we think parenting is about obedience. Like if my kids obey, they're good kids. That's not true. And I remember, especially, I think this is why Kimball's a great example, because I specifically remember when Kimball was probably like nine or 10, one of his most annoying faces, and an extended family member who, you know, older generation, they expect this sort of obedience, and they said to me, they're like, why haven't you taught your children to obey?

Rachel Denning (01:21:30.861)
specifically referencing Kimball because he wasn't like this obedient child, right? He just had his own thing. And I remember telling them, and I truly believe this at the time, and I believe that this is the underlying foundation of this approach that we're taking. I said, I'm not worried or concerned with my children obeying me. I'm concerned about having mutual respect.

So I'm gonna respect him both because he has a unique personality. He has a unique view and approach to life. And I'm teaching him to respect me. And even during his annoying phase, I still was able to get him to respect me enough that he wasn't violent. He wasn't. He was never bad. He never out. Yeah, he wasn't a bad kid. He didn't do things to be bad.

He did things to be funny or silly or annoying. He definitely could have. If we had pushed it the wrong way, if we'd have pushed it the wrong way, it would have driven it to bad behavior. Yeah, he could have easily had been that kid. But he never was a bad kid. He was always just a funny, goofy, silly kid that would be annoying. But when it came right down to it, when it came right down to it, he would do the things I asked him to do because we had mutual respect. He knew I loved him. He knew I would do anything for him. And we were investing. He knew I didn't punish him just because. He was the kid that, you know,

Of course, I homeschooled them all and he would say, why do I need to do sentence diagramming? And I ultimately said, I don't know. I guess you don't because I can't think of a good reason you need to do sentence diagramming, right? Because I would always give him a reason. He was the kid that always needed a reason for everything. He fought his studies. Yeah. And so when I could give him a good reason, he would do it. And that's the approach we've taken with our kids. I'm going to give you a good reason. I want you to wash the dishes. Why? Well, because...

You eat and you contribute to the mess and I made the food and so I would like you to contribute and show your gratitude for me making the food by washing the dishes and that might not mean he now wants to wash the dishes, but at least he gets the logic and is like fine I'll wash the dishes. So it's that type of approach of of having this mutual respect and because of that that has contributed to his To who he is now. He is like you said an asset like he's the kid

Rachel Denning (01:23:53.581)
It doesn't matter what I ask him to do. And I'm very, and again, I'm careful not to ask him to do everything because I'll know he'll do everything I ask him to do, but he'll do anything. It doesn't matter what it is. He will do anything I ask him. And I think, I think that whole, that whole approach is such a fundamental and important part of this entire discussion. It's never about obedience. Like, please, if you're listening to this, re create your framework. It is never about.

obedience, just for the sake of being obedient. It's about the child becoming who they were born to become, which is maximizing potential, just being the very best version of themselves. Obedience, this fits perfectly to our entire discussion. Obedience is a non -issue when you have a child or a person that is just absolutely driven towards their highest and best self.

Like you don't have to even talk about obedience. You never have to bring it up. It's a non -issue. Like we're saying, like misbehaving, poor behavior is a non -issue when you have a child that's needs are met. When a human being whose needs are met, poor behavior is not an issue. Well, exactly. I was actually going to say that obedience is the side effect you get by focusing on these other things. But if you focus on trying to get the obedience, you actually destroy everything else you're trying to achieve.

So it's this irony that if you try to get that, you're not gonna get it, plus you're not gonna get the rest of it. But if you try to go for the other, obedience is just a natural outcome, right? We have obedient children, not because we try to get obedient children, but because we focused on actually disciplining, AKA teaching, and developing their character, which then leads to obedience. But the obedience comes because of mutual respect, not because of...

I'm the father, do what I say. It just happens naturally. Right. It's not even an issue of should I obey, should I disobey. It doesn't come up. You're like, well, I want to be this kind of person. So I'm just going to do those kind of things. And I respect my parents. And they need my help. So I'm going to help out. Well, and I think that's really important. They respect us in part. There's lots of reasons. And all influence that you have with your children or lack of influence is all built on respect. But in part,

Rachel Denning (01:26:21.069)
Respect peace comes from not asking them to do arbitrary stupid things. They don't make sense. Some parents have come up with the dumbest, dumbest rules. And they've heard them from famous speakers and teachers or leaders, even church leaders or pastors. Like, well, I did this. I'm like, that's the dumbest idea on the planet. And other people implement it. And it makes no sense at all.

And I'm like, oh, I'm going to do that. And you just immediately lose respect. And you drive your kids to disobedience because they're like, that's it. That's the dumbest rule I've ever heard. Well, I like, and I don't even know if I should bring this up, but to me, what comes to mind is this perfect example, because it happened during my teenage years of this. And it's a thing in our church, I guess. I don't know why, but this idea that.

at midnight, nothing good happens after midnight. So midnight should be the absolute curfew of any teenage child, I guess. I don't know. And, you know, I had a midnight curfew, but it was this strict arbitrary. Like if you come home at 1201, you are in trouble and you're grounded because you got home after midnight. And somehow it was like this line of good and evil. Yeah. And from I think even a teenage for

teenagers perspective, they're like, that's dumb. That doesn't make any sense. How could one minute make a difference, you know? Well, or the fact that at 7 p .m. you could be doing drugs and having random sex and committing crime. And at 3 a .m. I've been in random countries saving lives. Yeah. So, hmm. Right. It's not. Doesn't quite line up with your dumb rule. Yeah. And so we're using this as an example. But I'm sure there's plenty of others, too. But and we've seen parents act this out where.

They have this hard and strict rule we've hung out with them before and at midnight Even if they're at our house hanging out their kids are done They have to go to bed now because it's now midnight and whatever their reasoning is like that's it hard and fast rule and it doesn't It doesn't build respect for the parent because it's a rule that doesn't make sense even a kid just because you came up with it and Think you need to hold to that as a family rule because that's what we do

Rachel Denning (01:28:44.461)
If it doesn't make sense, then ultimately you're losing respect, not gaining it. Because respect comes from being able to think and critically think and have a discussion about things and say, well, what do you think? And so if your ideals, your standards, your rules, your, the laws and your family, like all those things make sense and they're leading towards goodness and greatness, then the kids will see it naturally. And if it's not, they'll see right through it.

And so either way that that's building on this respect and so well and you might you might said, you know Maybe you have a double standard. You're like well kids we never do that and then you go do it Don't eat that garbage and then you're eating some other crap or or whatever you like kids You need to get outside and exercise the dog and while you sit there and you know You got Cheeto stains all down the front of your shirt and your big gut like If you have a double standard congruence, yeah totally congruent and they'll see right through it. Yeah, even little kids will see right through that

And so part of that respect is like you're living it and what you say makes sense. And you can back them up. It's congruent with not only with what you say, but what you say and what you do are incongruent. So you're backing it up with both logic and results. Right. Because results don't lie. Anyways, love you guys. Thanks for listening. I hope this has been helpful. What we do with our kids is the greatest work we do in life. Everything else can be set aside.

and must be set aside when our kids need us. And we have to make them the priority long before there's some crisis that demands it. We voluntarily give them our attention and make those investments and change that whole framework that we're here to love them and lead them. And that all discipline is your teaching and effective teaching is the most powerful thing there is to help our kids become the best. Love you guys. Reach out for it.

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