Are We Hardwired to Connect? Part 1-Ep.71

0:00 [Music] welcome to the connected families podcast I'm Stacy your host I am so glad that you tuned in today in our episode today I'm going to be talking with Jim and Lynn Jackson co-founders of connected families about one of the things that makes connected families unique from others we're going to be talking about how the biblical perspective and science science of the brain and other therapies are integrated into how we approach paren

0:30 and connection within parenting so welcome to the microphone Lynn and welcome Jim hey we're glad to be here love this topic Stacy it's good to be with you again us in our room you and yours this time it is ever since Co we've often been in different locations and it's it's worked okay hasn't it almost as good as in person we would love to connect in person wouldn't we Jim and Lynn which we do in other times I get to

0:58 talk to lots of parents Jim and I remember talking to one mom who was a doctor I talked to another dad just a couple days ago actually I was interviewing him he said he was very analytical and I hear over and over again from parents I think that you know we hear this all the time but parents are so grateful when they read our books when they listen to the podcast when they take the online courses that the

1:26 parenting information that we teach particularly through the framework is such a solid combination of both Bible biblical principles for parenting for living our lives like solid Bible but also science science and then practical tips that come out of that also and so that's the conversation that we want to have today we just want to dig a little bit deeper into that and I know that it's really interesting because you know through Zoom I'm looking at the two of

1:57 you and I'm seeing that one of you is a little more sciency than the other isn't that true no no come on I'm hatching monarchs in a jar in the kitchen right now tell me how that works with the two of you and your personalities and so how has that worked and then in the creation of the framework such an interesting question actually I mean honestly I'm not sure we've ever like had long conversations about that you know I think that for me

2:27 in a manner of speaking parenting working with young people was always a fashion of science only I just didn't think about it that way it was a an effort to figure out what works and what complicates things when it doesn't and to learn from my mistakes and to learn from my successes and to repeat things that worked and to not repeat things that didn't work and then to learn and grow and it and it made it look to the

2:50 outside world watching and even felt to me in some respects like that was really intuitive when in fact it was trial and error tested you know throughout my youth really I mean I worked in my mom's Child Care Center she enlisted me to work with these youngsters that she had a hard time with the challenging children and Jimmy could you go you know 10 to that one or this one and and I'd try and it would be miserable and it

3:11 would fail and they'd yell and scream and kick and I it's like well I better do it different next time I did and then it worked so you know there's a fashion of Science in my Approach even though I don't even think of myself as scientific necessarily whereas I love learning about the brain that's just my little thing and I'm no scientist either but I just love little tidbits and I feel like scripture is our North Star yeah there

3:37 for sure it sets the paradigms it tells us what our end goal is it really keeps us on track in the big picture and then we also often find little tidbits in science about how to best be on that Journey towards the North Star it fine-tunes our scriptural principles you know because God created our brains and bodies and he wants us to understand his creation so I love the intersection of that like I said I'm no scientist but I

4:07 sure have fun reading studies and kind of developing little practical ideas but I always see them in harmony with with scripture and if I ever see anything that's not which I can't remember but then I would not pursue that well and I want to get really practical even about what Lynn just said is in terms of how this all flows like I learned early on for me to calm down it was really helpful to do a certain set of something

4:30 for me it was take a walk or take deep breaths In the Heat of the Moment like I learned oh I got to take a breath and you know even our my parents would say Jimmy take a breath settle down be okay and I'd be upset about you know some teacher striking out in the Little League game or whatever Jimmy take a breath you're crying you hurt your knee take a breath settle down and then sure enough I calm down

4:53 and it worked well you know we often will tell parents you know it's important to take a breath and they're like yeah I'm not a take a breath breath type apparent but then you do the research or you do the work what does research say about breathing well it says that five deep breaths change brain chemistry so just even that you know giving parents the specifics of how to implement Proverbs 151 a gentle answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stir

5:18 up anger okay that's the North Star but then how do I do that and through science we learn about mirror selves we learn about practical self calming strategies that motion changes emotion sh away from energy in the amydala to energy in the frontal lobe right right then taught me that one Jimmy you're in your amydala [Laughter] today it just sort of ties the beauty of scripture with a with a bow you know to be able to see the two working together

5:48 and and to see the like the detailed pen Strokes with science in this beautiful you know collage of scripture that was beautiful that was the perfect example example of what our community gets every single week when they open their email and they read this email that I know both of you and then some of our other team members are very much involved in is what's the scriptural basis for this what is the North Star that we want to

6:17 be our foundation in our own identities and who we are in our perspectives in our worldview and then how can we bring science along to give us practical tips of how it actually works I loved that I love that the five deep breaths not just one we need five yeah and I've actually had a parent just tell me recently because it you know brain science says if you involve more sensory systems there's a greater calm impact so I

6:44 suggested that she run her finger up her thumb stop and look and find something in the environment then down and then back up to the tip of the index finger each finger represents a deep breath but pausing at the top to find something in her environment and she said that was that combination of deep breathing and orientation to the visual environment just really was extra calming for her yeah so then we give parents practical stuff where they can

7:11 really do the the gentle wise peaceful loving respones they want to do right and see so I listen to Lynn say this stuff and like I don't want to read the books and learn all the numbers but when she tells them to me it's like oh yeah that makes so much sense and it makes me it makes me wonder like all right what's the brain science of how the Holy Spirit speaks well to us what is that how do we

7:34 get into a place where the still small voice of God's spirit combined with the fruit of God's spirit that's planted Within Me by The Miracle of how this all works to get to a place of love joy peace patience goodness kindness gentleness faithfulness self-control in the parenting of my children like what does my brain have to do and if there's some physical things I I can do that science says that I could try to get my

7:57 brain in a place where God Spirit can access it then then tell me what that is so that I can do that and that are you going to tell us Jim well I mean I've kind of referen some of it already but for you know for me my brain gets into a more receptive space when I slow down my whole body my whole approach to whatever it is that I'm dealing with in most situations there's times when things

8:20 have to move fast because something's happening that requires fast action so how do I keep my brain in that place in a state of receptiveness even to God's leading in the midst of a crisis that I have to quickly it's not by yelling it's not by using intimidating words or intimidating postures it might be by sitting down and being loud it might be by taking a step forward and looking around quickly but breathing and keeping my eyes open and attentive and aware

8:45 maybe it is about you know for me I think it's more like like clenching my hands tightly that helps sort of moderate some of the emotion that might go out of control and keep me into a place where even though there's tension going on and my brain is fighting to just go into fight or flight I can stay in that logical part of my brain that reasoning part of my brain and that's the spot I believe where I can respond

9:09 to be responsive to the to God's prompting yeah I actually read a book on that can't remember the title right now that when we if we want to be in a listening posture for the Holy Spirit we have to subdue the fight ORF flight amydala centers and we have to get our frontal lobe online because that's where we can process that kind of communication so I don't know about you guys but I just feel like I can hear the

9:31 Lord better when I'm exercising and it's always been that way isn't that crazy yeah yeah and Lynn why is that um because there's a heightened energy but it's a calm energy and it's emotion changes emotions so big heavy muscle work Keeps Us in a really often Keeps Us in a in a just right arousal state but we're alert so it's relaxed alert because I'm don't we love Lynn for this we love you Lynn for this that you bring

10:00 all this and it's so interesting because for me what what motivates me is what works for Lynn what motivates Lynn is not just what works and you're always and we have arguments about this like like Lynn I don't need to explain why it just it we're gonna here's we're gonna do this thing yeah she's like but why what's the what's the rationale for this why would that be better than some other thing that we do and I'm like Lyn is

10:25 always You're always digging for the why and then the why helps you justify the what for me the outcome is you know and not to say outcomes aren't important to you and not to say why aren't important to me but it's just this leaning that we have that's different and it really is I mean mostly fun to butt heads about things all the time we doing the Forward Thinking what we're going to do and Lyn doing the the more present and sort of

10:50 actually past thinking about what's been said and studyed to show why this matters yeah and then we figure out how to both hand inand move forward into things whether that's the founding of a Ministry or dealing with couples or or stressed people that we're having conversations with or our own parenting or our own families of origin issues you know it's like it's kind of that way through all of the things through all the things I just want to say publicly

11:16 right now even though one day you brought a science book to a wedding that I was delivering oh I appreciate no no no no I appreciate your tenacity about the wise I really do we all appreciate it we all appreciate that input into all that connected families does it's beautiful and you know I have the framework magnet in front of me we sell it on our website if if people have taken the discipline that connects online course and received

11:48 the welcome packet comes in in the welcome packet and we have scripture on each of the levels of the framework and so the scripture on Ephesians 1:3 which just seems fitting to mention right before we go to break because it's the underg guring it's the north star that Lynn was talking about of all that we have just talked about and and the verse is this blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us

12:13 in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly places it's we have all of these tools available to us to learn how to calm and to learn that we need to you know rub our hands together to get calm or to learn that I need to on the treadmill to be closer to the Lord and hear his voice like all you know to be able to read research like you do Lynn and be able to apply it to the work that

12:39 God has given you we love that we're going to go to break and we're going to come back and we're going to talk more about how the Bible and science comes together in all that we teach and do here at Connected families hey friends this is Stacy I want to take a quick break in this episode to offer you one of our popular free resources called the four most important messages you can send your kids what messages do you want to send

13:08 your kids in your parenting are you sending them do your kids know they are loved no matter what even during moments of discipline the discipline that connects parenting framework has transformed countless families like Allison's she says I never wanted to be an unsafe parent seeing these four messages made made it clear what the foundation is safety I wish I had felt safe and I know I want my kids to feel it I resonated with these messages and

13:39 they remind me that there is hope and Grace to be found as we parent the four most important messages you can send your kids is free I encourage you to go to our show notes for the link to download this free ebook and like Allison let it begin to transform your parenting too all right jimn we're back from the break and we're going to move on to the second layer of the four in our framework and that is to connect this is

14:12 part of our name isn't it connected families and there's a lot of Bible here and a lot of science so who wants to start with which one well I think I want to say this and I think it Bears the audience knowing that connected families uh is actually named in great part because of the confirmation of the science to this idea of connection that was already kind of building in our Ministries DNA early on you know before

14:43 we even started connected families this idea of connection was really important to me uh in my work with youth and I read a book written by Larry Krab in 1997 called connecting and I can't remember the by line exactly but it was about the power of of connective relationships for healing in the context of the church I applied the principles of that to our work with youth really in two ways one was it affirmed an awful

15:10 lot of what I just had discovered worked well and then the other was is that it gave me new ideas to connect with young people even more effectively and their parents more effectively and it wasn't long after that that God was quite clear with us that we needed to start a Ministry that was aimed at helping parents connect better with their kids and we named that Ministry cross generation when we launched in 2002 and that name was confusing for people they

15:38 didn't understand it we got phone calls about things that had nothing to do with parenting around this term cross generation and so we started thinking about what should we call ourselves and this document came out published by a group called the com the commission on Children at Risk uh in about 2003 or 4 I think it was and and it was called hardwired to connect the scientific case for building authoritative community and authoritative Community is not

16:07 authoritarian Community it's community that takes its mandate to care well for children seriously and this document we read it it's only about 98 Pages it was put out by The Institute for American values and a Consortium of universities and sort of a who's who list of Scholars it just lit us up because it confirmed so much of what we had been putting into practice and learning and literally preaching to people and it's like no surprise when research corroborates what

16:36 we believe the Bible had told us was right all along but it sure was affirming and it sure became an open door for for people who didn't want to do just the Bible thing but if you're talking science well you know we we're interested in that uh and so it was early on that we sort of built our way into this combination of looking at leveraging feeling affirmed by and then promoting science about connection that led to us naming the organization

17:02 renaming the organization connected families so let me understand the article was not from a Biblical perspective but it affirmed what your faith and values were and so that was the sort of beginning of this great synchrony of Science and Bible for you exactly and so many of the things in it just had beautiful parallels in Scripture when they talked about these authoritative communities they were communities that met regularly they were

17:34 communities that cared about the kids the children within them they were communities that taught that connected well and were affectionate and relational and they were communities that instilled values and even spiritual values and so we're reading our way through this and it's like well that sounds an awful lot like a church but they would use that language yeah sure it was it was just sweet and encouraging and inspiring to read it so the the premise of the book is that the research

18:06 clearly compellingly shows that humans are hardwired to connect in two significant primary ways one is in the context of warm supportive relationships and the other is in the context of connectedness to moral and spiritual meaning and the scientists argued that connection is hardwired into our brains somehow by evolution by creation by socialization adaptation we don't know but they argued this hardwiring is is

18:37 clear and compelling and therefore we need to put policy in place that protects the need of human beings to to be in Connected relationships I mean that was just so affirming to our call to our purpose I have to say that today even as we're doing this podcast Lynn is looking at her original copy beat up earmarked oh w noted highlighted I I lost mine about three years in and so I've relied on hers ever since and I'm sure hers has all the

19:08 highlights of the important parts so you can just skim through it right and I just want to say we believe we know who hardwired that need for connection into us don't we we know that they didn't but we do because our faith inspires that and it was God the Father who created us yeah behold what manner of love the father has lavished on us that's a warm overflowing connected affirming type of love that's spoken of there that we

19:36 would be known as God's children yeah so I'm going to throw in a little quote from this lovely document about monkeys that were more sensitive intense just kind of at risk monkeys and when they were put with nurturing moms that these generally at risk moms are monkeys are raised in supportive environments the harmfully aggressive behavior disappears as does the excessive and binge drinking apparently they allowed the monkeys to do some drinking to measure their their

20:09 function but there's more these potentially at risk monkeys not only survive they flourish they do very well they appear to be especially successful in making their way to or near the top of the Reese's monkey social hierarchy what happened an improved social environment has changed a heritable vulnerability into a positive behavioral asset so it says these kiddos that struggle more when we connect well with them they can be the very ones that go

20:39 on to Channel all that intensity into positive leadership so just a fun example of just the science that inspires us and encourages us to connect well and deeply with our kids and it compels me as a parent when I hear this to look inward there's that Foundation part that we talked about earlier to do some self assessment to do some reflection on two things one is how intentional am I to truly connect every parent will say yes I love my kids and I

21:09 want what's best for them the question isn't whether you love them the question isn't about Good Intentions the question is about your action and the first part is how intentional am I about those connective actions and the second part is is what would my children say about my actions would they say yes my mom my dad works to connect with me or Works to make sure I know I'm loved or Works to make sure that that I know I'm deeply

21:31 cared about what would they say about it because our perspective is important but our kids' perspective is equally important and that's where Connection in our minds truly happens the hearts of the parent turn toward the children the hearts of the children turn toward their parents is a Biblical idea a goal of connectedness that leads to good outcomes so this is again where science comes in and gives us some specifics about effective ways to do that and you

21:58 know which is to pay attention to my non-verbal communication if I'm just saying when my child misbehaves now you know I love you but da da da da da that's not really going to connect with their hearts and so most experts agree that 70 to 93% of communication is non-verbal so as parents get in touch with what is my body communicating what are my eyes communicating I just read recently something about you know if you're if you're tense with your child

22:26 raise your eyebrows and I looked in the me I kind of practiced it looked in the mirror oh my gosh that's a huge difference and then those mirror cells can kick in and pave the way for connection again you know the big guiding North Star is scripture of keep your hearts connected to your children and then science helps us to learn more and more effective ways to do that and this is why we love connected families

22:51 because we bring it together and then we break it down into really simple ways that we can implement each day and I think about you know the phrase move toward a struggling child we say that in the courses we say that as speakers in our workshops you know we think that all the time our child is struggling and no matter how it's showing up if it's Defiance or if it's you know not brushing your teeth even after I've told

23:17 you three times to brush your teeth or get in bed or whatever it is we want to move towards that struggling child and I love that or calm face that was one of my very first things when I heard that I was like calm face it's think what is my child seeing when they look at me throughout the day how often do I have just a calm gentle face as I'm looking at them I remember smacking my cheeks in

23:44 the beginning Jim and Lynn and to just remind myself you know what's my face look like right now that's awesome oh such a good example Stacy I think I may have actually found this first and sent it to Lynn a piece of research that compelled the FBI to change their protocol about how they deal with hostage situations so there's you know there's there's the perpetrator probably has guns probably is really angry probably has lots of reasons that they are using to justify

24:13 taking people hostage and making threats and you know the FBI was struggling to figure out what how do we get better results with these people and it turns out that they as they studied it they recognized that that listening was the beginning of in of in inuence ultimately the goal is influence but but listening is the first step and then empathy which is deeply connected to know that somebody understands you and your plight is a huge thing and you know then it

24:40 travels through Rapport and influence influence and finally Behavior change Behavior change end yeah so we always want the behavior change first but here's what the FBI's research has taught them is the way to reach the heart the behavior of a hostage taker is through the portal of listen and empathy which are those are the deeply connected things and if it works for that situation how about for us as parents because I'm like just giggling inside I

25:08 think there are thousands of parents listening that feel like they've been taken hostage by their to sure so then if you've been taken hostage by your kid how do you want to model the sequence listening and of empathizing and of rapport these kids would say yeah Mom and Dad work really hard to develop good rapport with me yeah then influence and then Behavior change I love it we're at the end of our time for this episode I just want to you

25:40 you mentioned this verse a bit already but it's Luke 117 which is also on our framework under this level of the framework of the connection level and it's it says and he will go on before the Lord to turn the heart of the parent to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous to make ready a people prepared for the lord it's again the biblical foundation for this level that as parents and children

26:09 turn their hearts towards each other then we can experience the Lord in our lives we can experience connection to each other and to him and to his purposes for us beautiful yes I think it's so amazing that the job description of the Prophet preparing the way for Jesus his first directive was turn the hearts of the parents to the children just sit in that for a while it's really amazing and that's what brings spiritual Revival yeah yeah that connection well thanks

26:41 Jim ly this was fantastic I can't wait I can't wait to come to the microphone again and then go through and talk about the last two levels of the framework and this Bible science connection so we'll see you next time all righty sounds great thanks Stacey we want to hear from you what did you find helpful from today's episode let us know by sharing a comment and while you are there please rate and review so others can find us

27:09 more easily well there are many ways that you can connect with us here at Connected families over the last few months we've been using Clubhouse to have live conversations and fun interactions every Wednesday at 7:30 a.m. Central Time we open powerful prayers for our kids hour we would love to have you join us to find all of the information mentioned in our podcast or for more information on connected families go to our show notes or go to

27:38 Connected families.org we'll see you next [Music] time