How to guide your children to right their wrong - Connected Families Podcast Episode #26

0:00 [Music] hello everyone and welcome to this final edition of the connected families podcast series called the magnet says it all I'm Stacy belward and I'm so glad you're joining us today this is the last episode of five where co-founders Jim and Lyn Jackson explain the core of the connected families teaching our framework as it is captured on a refrigerator magnet today's principle from the framework is correct and you'll learn how to guide kids to take

0:32 responsibility for their actions and make right what they've made wrong this is a packed conversation and I'm sure you will learn a lot welcome everybody to this last session it's the one people usually would like to be first you want to figure out how to correct my kids misbehavior and the reason that we don't do it first is because it's important to cover this ground that's on this magnet and steep parents' hearts and Minds in these ideas of building a strong

0:56 Foundation of connecting of coaching proactively before we get to the correcting part so we don't rely so heavily on correction to be our big teacher in life right but even in the midst of misbehavior we can still sort of zip through those four principles they show up again and our foundation becomes how can we be safe with our kids and calm ourselves down and not go in like a Raging Bull and before we address the misbehavior how can we just let them

1:21 know we love them not so that we manipulate the behavior that we want from them but so that we just take that opportunity to express uncondition and it calms ours and it calms our kidss when we have a goal to truly have our land on them when theyve messed up and what has helped parents the most as they navigate this Turf and how do I put stuff in place that really helps my kids learn to take responsibility for what

1:46 they've done wrong to make it right is to ask a question about what you do already and what kids are really learning and and that's that's the key question that we're going to start with here is what does your corrective discipline really teach your kids kids and what we've learned in the context of our workshops as we've worked with parents and Lynn in your coaching and you know the little bit of coaching that I've done as well we've learned that if

2:09 we think below the surface of the Good Intentions parents have for their corrective discipline that we discover parents are teaching their kids some messages and some lessons that they don't want to be teaching their kids yeah and I just had a coaching session yesterday with a couple that they realized that their son was internally out of control cuz he was super super bright super sensitive and so he was controlling everybody with big explosions and Loud demands and just all

2:37 the things kind of as a way to sort of stay internally balanced if I feel out of control I'm going to be controlling I think we can all relate that that's common for all of us for us as parents and so then the parents felt like my job is to control our son because he's out of control and they just realized wow I'm sending messages that you have no hope of growing in self-control you need me to control you and that was like the

3:00 aha moment from the whole session is like how can we begin to shift that so that little by little the sun is empowered to learn to control himself and to make wiser choices when things get difficult yeah and and it's it sounds like even that story plays into a number of the different other lessons that we've seen parents have uncovered as they assess this and we really need to be honest with ourselves as we look at that cuz I'm guessing these parents

3:26 you were coaching at the outset it's like we do what we do cuz we want what's best for our kids absolutely and it's it's well intended but the messages that you revealed that little guy was getting were not the messages they wanted and one of them might be you need to submit to angry power right or another one that I hear in the story that you tell is that the the most dominating person wins or the most controlling or right there's

3:50 a winner and a loser in the interactions and they realize too that the younger brother who kind of has a sub more submissive role in this so to speak was learning to be a sneakier the sneaky one gets off the hook that's what he was learning so I watch what my brother does to get in trouble and I've even heard kids say this my older brother is so stupid he does it right in front of my

4:12 parents but even the older brother like if I keep getting hammered for what I'm doing because I get caught I'm going to get smarter about not getting caught which is really another lesson that kids learn about I got to get smarter to hide my sin and so we depend on parents to intervene and engage and correct everything that just means I might have to misbehave when they're not around or I might have to do things when nobody's

4:32 looking yeah the mom even said one of our sons is learning to be more aggressive and the other one is learning to be sneakier yeah and that was kind of what was happening as they kept trying this top down we got to it's our job to suppress this misbehavior another things we hear parents talk about as we really dive into this is what kinds of identity messages they believe their kids are getting from them as they discipline

4:54 them right yeah and there's a lot of parents that have aha moments of oh my gosh my son is getting or my daughter is getting such a message of I am the Troublemaker in the family I'm the problem child I'm the bad kid so to speak and then they live that out it's like my identity is the source of my future Behavior yeah but then on the flip side of that there are kids who learn to behave in order to be okay like

5:18 if my behavior is good then I'm good right and it's a way of sort of escaping this notion that wait a minute God Alone is good we're all sinners in need of God's grace and our value and worth is not based on how well we behave it's based on the work of Jesus At The Cross and our willingness to repent of our sin and ask for forgiveness yeah yeah the shinier child often is is not in a

5:39 better position actually or a better condition they're just easier to deal with so parents tend to cultivate that but the child that thinks when I'm shiny I'm loved and I'm good and all the things and when I'm not I'm not they're set up to be little Pharisees little legalists and to just at best have a hollow relationship with God and an insecure relationship with others right and what we find is that these sorts of outcomes happen when parents focus on

6:03 correcting Behavior they go after Behavior you behave badly you need to behave rightly without assessing what's going on underneath this without assessing really a whole different value system for correction instead of correcting my kids to get them to behave rightly we invite parents to think about correcting their children so that they begin to believe rightly about who they are about the problem of sin in all of our lives and about what God's Gra and Truth can bring into our lives if we

6:32 submit to him right which is why on the magnet our verse for correction is Galatians 61 if someone is caught in a sin you who live by the spirit should restore that person gently and it reflects back to all the fruits of the spirit that are just a few verses earlier that talk about love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control and bringing those into the discipline of someone that sinned or strug and boy what a better place to do that

7:02 than the discipline of our children so this is really nothing at all about letting kids off the hook which sometimes parents will say well boy this this feels you know pretty Namby pamy or kind of light or soft but the truth is no we're going to hold kids accountable for what they've done but not by just punishing them but by inviting them into a restorative process of confession of forgiveness and of reconciliation right and sometimes it's not super indepth but

7:29 it's just a heart to practice a a wiser more kind response and I was just reading through some old notes from some coaching sessions and found this story of these parents who had a very intense difficult child and this child was lots of explosive behavior and aggression and they just were at wit's end they were trying to to deal with this and stop it and it just kept getting worse what were some of the things they did to try to

7:54 stop it you know yelling and punishments and timeouts and all the things so most parents are pretty familiar with right right but they began to get a view for teaching and training their kids to make a better choice as part of the corrective discipline yeah so let's think about that through the lens of the framework for a little bit because I think what you just said is really important basically they changed their mind about something what was it they

8:18 changed their mind about their role in the process and what their goal was so their goal wasn't to just punish or stop the misbehavior that way their goal was truly Ephesians 64 to train kids up in the instruction of the Lord to train kids in a better way as part of the correction and discipline the root of it is to disciple and that is about teaching learner Mentor yeah so I don't know if these parents did this journey

8:45 but the first part of Ephesians 64 says and it's one of the few commands in the whole Bible That's directly to parents only says parents don't exasperate kid and so I'm guessing they took a little ownership of the fact that maybe what they'd been doing had been disobedient in its own right right and needed some confession and some repentance and some Journey so in their Foundation they're doing this work to understand maybe their own sin that they brought to this

9:10 right and then the development of a deeper Vision than just correcting Behavior they were looking at their typical pattern for engaging in sibling conflict and they realized they had a cycle of and we'll call him John and their son Wilson and they realized they had this broken cycle of JN would hit Wilson they would rush in tend to Wilson and throw Jon in a Timeout and that just fed resentment and it went over and over and they somehow thought this timeout

9:41 was going to really change what JN was doing but it was only building the resentment of I'm always getting in trouble and Wilson is let off the hook so through the lens of the framework what they were doing was jumping right past Foundation connection coaching and right to correct right and it wasn't getting them where they wanted to go they recognized it did some work in their Foundation to establish a new vision a new strategy a new sense of

10:04 purpose for what they were doing what happened next well they just really began to shift towards responding to the sibling conflict in a way that both kids felt cared about which is kind of the connect principle and then the coach is helping them to think in terms of a better response that they might feel better about themselves the boys and so what they ended up doing was and they wrote this down it's like we videoed the

10:28 boys role role playing leading up to their conflict and their conflict had been like they were upset they were throwing toys at each other they were screaming so they reenacted the whole thing wow and videotape so this is like okay boys do what you did until it got really bad yep and so they videotaped them playing and then they videotaped them starting to argue and then they said okay cut stop all right now what could we do differently how might this

10:55 go differently from this point and everybody problem solved and they figur figur it out and they said okay you ready to try that all right here we go roll them and they videotaped that better action gosh this is crazy so they had the whole videotape can we get that video tape I don't know they had the whole videotape of how it often goes but then how you could work back out of it yeah and even in that one thing you just

11:20 see real quickly without I'm going to do each of the four messages those boys particularly John that was the most struggling of the two felt loved and safe and he felt understood and he felt like he was capable of learning a different way and the consequence was just like let's practice a different way yeah and they reported later that they just were breaking that cycle of we punish John and we dot on Wilson and we

11:50 are now teaching and training both boys in essential life skills and guess what John was starting to not hit as much and be less aggressive because he felt so believed in and encouraged by his parents so and we hear this kind of story all the time sometimes there are results much more quickly sometimes it takes a while and sometimes parents don't see the results they want but they're more satisfied with the parents they're becoming right and that's really

12:17 at the heart of what we're talking about here isn't it it's like I want to be a parent who grows a strong Foundation who connects better more thoughtfully Guided by God's spirit mhm so after the break Lynn you've told this story about parent who really was struggling to assert herself confidently as a parent that I think will relate to a lot of people kind of on a different end of the spectrum than where we talk often and so

12:39 you know what does it mean to think through this lens in a way that builds your confidence to combine firmness and kindness in your parenting a little bit more intentionally so that's what we're going to talk about after the [Music] [Applause] break hey everybody are you wondering what the connected families framework refrigerator magnet that Jim and Lynn are talking about actually looks like are you interested in using it to help you parent with peace and purpose we'd

13:10 love to get one in your hands the magnet is only $5 and shipping is included you'll find all the information in our show notes or go to our website connected families.org many parents have found that the magnet has been a great quick reference that guides them through heated parenting moments for for me it's been a valuable tool that I've used many times and has completely changed the way that I've shown up in hard parenting moments it's really changed so much in

13:40 my family I just can't recommend it enough be sure to check out our show notes or go to connected family.org and get your framework magnet today we've been talking about this framework for the last five segments we know that there's one more sort of parent that we really haven't addressed yet in this series and that's the parent who really considers thems a a graceful parent but maybe struggles to step in with confidence when it's time to do

14:07 some more accountability work and I know that you work with parents like that from time to time and you've got a really compelling story that you shared with me that I think would be helpful on a number of levels for our audience yeah it was one of my favorite coaching moments in the recent months and this is a mom who is just very gentle sometimes timid and gets a lot of criticism from extended family you just need to be

14:31 tougher on these kids but she's not that type of a person and one day her Mother-in-law asked her two twin boys we're very intense sensitive kiddos why do you scream at your mom like that and they said because then she gives us what we want ah and we've heard this a lot right from parents one or the other who's like yeah the kids go to that parent when they want to pull a chain and and manipulate and get their way

14:56 right and that just sort of flipped a switch in this Mom's heart and she thought I am not doing well by them in this way by being so gentle and giving into to them and she had an opportunity to practice a different response when she was driving in the car and the boys were listening to their favorite story on tape or whatever and the dad called and took over the Bluetooth was his phone call and they're the dad and mom

15:19 are chatting and Prett and the boys are starting to yell and demand their book back and hang up on him we want our book and they're getting really disrespectful I'm imagining the dad is not taking very kindly to this well actually the dad go kind of in the same frame of mind and he goes oh okay sorry honey I'll get off quick so you can get the boys book back for them and the mom thought oh no not

15:42 so quick and she remembered what her boys had said and it was just like this kind of holy confidence that grew in her and the husband got off the phone but she looked in the rearview mirror with a strong expression and she said boys that was not respectful how you were interrupting and demanding and so before the book comes back on you need to wait peacefully for a little while and then ask me respectfully to put the book on

16:12 tape back on and I'll never forget her little smile on our video chat in the coaching session she goes and they did it wow so that's actually what I was expecting you would say and this is very common when parents decide for the first time to take that sort of confident stance that the kids dug their heels in and went even more ballistic to get their way and that does happen sometimes but I think they UND she had been doing

16:38 such a good job of the the you know your loved no matter what and your loved enjoyed messages that when she was confident and she was still kind but firm she wasn't like that was not okay boys and you're not getting your thing back until cuz that probably would have facilitated that it was very calm that was not respectful and there'll be no book again until you wait patiently and then ask respectfully it was kind it was

17:02 calm and it was confident I think the Dynamics of this are so compelling because I know that that as one myself who kind of can just assert my authority to get what I want because I'm big and I'm dominant and I have a very you know strong sort of a countenance that you know part of me is thinking well of course she just got tough and they complied but this is not one who the kids understood as tough and were afraid

17:26 of and would comply to be something else going on here that motivated those kids to understand the importance of what mom was saying and abide by this instruction about being respectful right we just had a fun conversation about her and I said you know you kind of stumbled on really the exact way that I talk about responding to whining and demanding in the appendix of our book and we talked about that for a bit but then helped to

17:51 sort of distill out what are those key skills that I want my boys to be practicing so they can access those skills and we really isolated that peaceful waiting and respectful asking and I gave her some strategies about that and she said this has just been changing a lot in our home our boys now know how to go over and set the timer and if they come and they whine and they demand I say well you can go set the

18:14 timer for a couple minutes and practice Peaceful waiting and when the timer rings then you can come back and you can have a chance to practice respectful asking wow I'm going back to the situation in the car and a part of what I'm seeing and understanding and think important to say is that Mom didn't apply all of the framework all at once in that situation which I think sometimes parents here is the thing they're supposed to do she'd laid a

18:37 foundation or she'd laid an ethos if you will of Grace unconditional love Foundation confidence confidence in the Lord that I'm going to do some new things and when the opportunity came for her to stand strongly to correct to invite a coaching sort of a choice right she went right to that yep and it was kind so it was still bathed that Grace but but it was firm still I wish I could get in the in the head of these twins

19:03 and just understand why did you so quickly comply to that what was that about and I'm only imagining that it's about there's something different about Mom and I respect her this isn't about I'm going to do it because I'm afraid of her this is about I I respect this person who's inviting me this new way yep and it's really about the confidence to say you can make it right by practicing the very thing that will help

19:28 you to do better next time so it really combines coach and correct you are called and capable of making wiser responses when you're frustrated about not having your book and you're responsible to practice the very thing that will show you care about being more respectful next time and all of that I'm going to call it a script for lack of a better term all of those things that you just said don't just come to us because

19:52 we looked at the magnet and it came to us they come to us because in our foundation we take thoughts captive we embrace new ways to think we invite God to fuel us with his purposes for our parenting we maybe even talk about our ideas with others as we sort of try them on and then we do the work to get connected and to make sure our kids know your behavior and my connection with you aren't related to each other MH yeah for

20:17 sure and then you didn't say anything about this but I'm guessing maybe along the way there's some coaching where Mom is saying I'm G to be a different person and there's some there's some new values that I'm going to be more thoughtful about absolutely and she's done a great job of helping the boys understand God's unconditional love for them when they mess up that's really fun stories of she's working that piece really strongly too and she's passionate about that and

20:42 then obviously then the corrections it's true Authority it's not scary Authority it's respectable Authority and I love that and honestly folks that's why we teach this stuff because there's so many different ways that parents can learn and embrace these ideas and live them out uniquely under God 's guidance under the prompting of the holy spirit it's not a script it's not a method it's not here's how you should do it it's here's some principles to live by and then let

21:08 God fuel you uniquely to work with your kids where they're at and where you're at so I wish we had more time cuz we love talking about this and and hearing the fruit of when parents have experiences and become more the parents they want to be but we're out of time and so we're going to invite you to consider all of the different resources connected families has and we're going to close it down Lynn why don't you end

21:30 our series with a prayer I'd love to father I just pray for each parent listening that they would sense how these principles these messages are so true in their relationship with you that you are their Rock their foundation and you love and enjoy them throughout the day and you love them when they mess up and you're right there with your grace and mercy and you are so engaged in coaching them and growing them in the skills and value they need to wisely

22:00 parent these precious intense challenging kiddos that you have blessed them with you lovingly hold them accountable to make right what they've made wrong with their kids and so may each parent that's listening walk in confidence in that that that's such a good thing that they are safe and loved and they are capable and responsible in their lives with their kids and just I just ask you to show up in wonderful encouraging helping compassionate ways for them in Jesus name amen amen so good

22:32 have you enjoyed this series on the core principles of the connected fames framework do you have questions or suggestions for future episode topics we would love to hear from you you can leave those suggestions in the comments and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode for more information about connected families or to pick up your own connected families framework magnet visit connected families.org [Music]