Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
How To Navigate Parenting Disagreements
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In this powerful episode of our ongoing series on managing life’s disagreements, we dive deep into one of the most challenging topics for couples: parenting disagreements. Joined by expert guest David Mathews, we explore effective strategies for disciplining children, understanding each other’s perspectives, and fostering marital intimacy through these challenges.
Parenting isn’t easy, and disagreements on how to discipline children can strain even the strongest marriages. In this discussion, we shed light on common disciplinary conflicts and share personal anecdotes that emphasize the importance of unity and mutual respect. Whether it’s dealing with the consequences of differing upbringing styles or navigating the complexities of co-parenting, this video provides valuable insights and actionable advice for all parents facing similar struggles.
Key Highlights:
•Understanding why parents disagree on child discipline and how to address it.
•The impact of personal histories on parenting styles.
•Strategies for aligning parenting goals and enhancing spousal support.
•Expert advice on transforming parenting conflicts into opportunities for growth.
David Mathews lends his wisdom and experience, discussing the transformative potential of acknowledging mistakes and the power of reframing challenges as opportunities for strengthening family bonds. Tune in to learn how to navigate parenting disagreements with grace and achieve a more harmonious home environment.
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We have got to look honestly at ourselves and our spouse and realize that both of us have the same goal, and that same goal is raising fantastic kids.
Speaker 2:We are continuing our series on how to handle life when you disagree about things, the things that we tend to disagree on, and we've covered politics, we've covered religion and in this next episode. In this episode, we're going to be talking about what do you do when you disagree about kids, how to raise them, how to handle them, how to support them. Lots of things that we could cover here, and I'm joined again with our favorite, david Matthews better than the band person.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm older, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Older and wiser, older than the band person. Older than the band person. Where do we even begin on this topic?
Speaker 1:I know where I want to begin.
Speaker 2:Go for it.
Speaker 1:Normalize what you're going through. Normalize Most parents I know feel like failures.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, Isn't that the truth? Yeah, have you ever felt that way? A hundred percent, kimberly Holmes.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes of course so, and I'm sure you and Rob have disagreed on discipline of the kids, yes or no? Yep, okay. So what you're going through out there is normal, normalize, normalize. You might be crazy, but probably most of us have an element of craziness because when those kids were born, or adopted, whatever, we were so excited. You know, I watch TV shows and they give birth and they're so excited. I say, little do they know what's about to happen?
Speaker 2:Little do they know yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know, like I always say, we have two wonderful kids out of four and those two change. They change all the time. Right, who they are and I say that facetiously a little bit, of course I do. They are wonderful. But looking back I said, gosh, it's a lot harder than I thought and Debbie and I have disagreed mightily on discipline, like most people do. There's very few couples that agree 100% on how to discipline.
Speaker 1:So your father made reference to a sign he saw at a clinic when he was doing kind of a workshop for a therapist, and it said it's never too late to have a happy childhood. Well, you've heard that it's one of the classic quotes of all time. In my opinion, because that means my past mistakes, I call it spit, my spit, debbie's spit, other spit, life spit happens, it just happens. And when kids come in and we, you know I was raised in the James Dobson, you know child-rearing and we you know I was raised in the James Dobson, you know child rearing, philosophy and you have to be old to know who he is. But we all make mistakes and when we make mistakes it's never too late to do something with our past mistakes.
Speaker 1:In other words, I can let my past mistakes and others spit on me from childhood on. I can let it define me and defeat me, for if it defines me, it defeats me, okay. Or I can say what happened, except that it happened. Don't be in denial, but accept what happened, except that I screwed up as a parent and I did. But I love my kids and I'm not going to let the past defeat me. I'm going to let it propel me to greater things in the future. So I'm a much better grandparent than I was a parent, and my kids would probably say I was a good parent, but we made tons of mistakes, especially in discipline. And so I think we start there Normalize what you're going through. There's not something wrong with you, even though there's plenty of wrong with us, but you're not crazy. We all struggle with disciplining our kids and agreeing to it. That's the topic of the day. What do we do to agree on how to discipline?
Speaker 2:So what do you do after?
Speaker 1:you've normalized. Well, number one, you'd be honest with yourself. You'd be honest with your mistakes and be open to change and be honest that maybe you've been bullheaded about discipline. And the third point I have down there is reframe it. Reframe what you're going through, because when I say be honest with yourself and I said in our last episode about religion is there are reasons why people act the way they act, and I've got to know the story and I was a controller. Why was I a controller? So I had one method of discipl disciplining and it was learned by my, my mother right, and she got drunk all the time and she ended up stopping drinking. And if if my sister brother's listening to this, I'm not throwing mom under the bus because she's a wonderful mother, but I went through a period of time when she was an alcoholic and my brother and sister were away at college and what happened was that that's part of my spit.
Speaker 1:The life that I lived in, those four or five years were very tumultuous for me personally. So when I got married and Debbie had an adopted mother that was very controlling and loving, but controlling, and she let me control her. It wasn't her fault, it was me, but I controlled out of fear. I controlled out of fear and I'm making a point about discipline. If I think my way of discipline is the only way, then what's going to happen is I'm going to come across again disrespecting my spouse, or she'll come across disrespecting me if her way or the highway spouse, or she'll come across disrespecting me if her way or the highway. We have got to look honestly at ourselves and our spouse and realize that both of us have the same goal and that same goal is raising fantastic kids and, in my case, faithful kids okay In your case. So that's my belief system and I value that. We have the same goal.
Speaker 1:And Marriage Helper helped me so much realize I was a controller. I said this in the last episode and I believe that's a core issue. It keeps me from being. This is the way we've got to do it, debbie, and you're an idiot if you don't discipline the way I discipline. And in my coaching with Marriage Helper, I used to coach all the time. I had so many clients. This was an issue, religion was an issue, and control and then child rearing and control. So we had a couple at a recent workshop that Debbie and I led. I still remember where he's sitting and when we went through all the stuff on control, everybody in that workshop admitted they were controllers. I mean, by the end of the workshop, everybody. And we know it's a core issue with everybody.
Speaker 1:And he actually asked the question about what does this workshop mean to you? Like Saturday, what have you learned from the workshop? He said I've learned I'm a controller, and I did not realize it was. I learned how to discipline because my father beat the crap out of me all the time and I grew up that was the model I had to discipline and we have fought and fought and fought about that. But the real fighting was on control and plus, he disagreed with his harshness with the kids and he started to see it. He started to see it and that softened him and then he learned to get rid of those four horsemen right, and to stop criticizing and creating a safe place for them to say, okay, let's talk about, let's come to agreement on discipline.
Speaker 1:And I said he said well, it's been such a problem. I said, okay, you admit that you're a controller. That's good. Admit that you, I mean recognize that you both have the same goal in mind and reframe this thing. Reframing is powerful. So what do you mean by reframing? I said reframe it as an opportunity to grow in intimacy with each other, because you have the same goal out here. The goal is the kid's welfare, and so why don't we reframe it as an opportunity for you to grow in intimacy?
Speaker 1:Because the number one thing every child expert will say this I'm not a child expert, but every child expert says it right you have to be unified and when disciplined you can't be disagreeing with it. And if your spouse disciplines when you're not there and you disagree with it, you better stand by what she or he said, right, right, and then you can talk later. But those kids do not need to be confused any more than they already are, because we we grow up in confusion, don't we as kids, and when mom and dad are not together, we learn to manipulate, we can learn to be very selfish, which takes a bad turn when you get married. It takes a really bad turn there. So this affects marriages in the years to come.
Speaker 1:So, looking at yourself honestly and realizing you don't have all the answers, let's learn together. If you both come to that, and it is an attitude shift and it's like rebuilding trust you know and are forgiving somebody. Oh, I forgive you. You know good and well if the spirit is broken, and it's the same way here. So how about going to each other and saying, hey, we both screwed up, we both need help. Let's work together, let's create something together for the benefit of our kids and let's come up with a plan. And so the last thing I would say is grow in your knowledge, work together.
Speaker 1:Though doing that, if one of you doesn't and the other doesn't, well, you could still have problems. That's why I'll push the workshop on everybody in a good way, because you deal with the core issues that can help you discipline the kids. We've had people who come to the workshop just to be better co-parents, as we know and we say. Everything we teach at the workshop has to do with every relationship, and it will have a lot to do with how you discipline your children together. And, by the way, as they grow older, it's a different kind of discipline, but it's still needed, even when they grow up. I mean, it's different. I can't tell them not playing the street anymore, but you get it. I think you get it because your relationship with your mom and dad is still very vital to your life, and sometimes those boundary lines are crossed right, there's crossover and everything, and so what we're talking about today can go on and on and on for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:You mean like there's times now, even though I'm in my 30s, my parents discipline me. Yeah, I don't know if I think of it as discipline, but yeah, there's definitely times he's like you know you really need to work on this, that or the other, Exactly. I guess that's what it is when you're an adult. Yeah, and it is different. And I know when he's not happy with me or something I've done, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:That's okay, cause that's love, yeah, but when you're together with your spouse on it and I gotta give you this story, all right, I'm going back to graduate school at the age of 40 to get a degree in counseling and, and I had a teacher. My first teacher in grad school was dr martha wilson, and I don't even know if she's still alive. She's fairly old then and it's 40 years ago and and so you know, three hours a week we had class and I was going to class at 9 o'clock that morning but getting the kids ready for school, and our oldest was about 10 years of age and it's cold outside and he had this brand-new coat that we had gotten about three weeks earlier for him.
Speaker 1:Spent a lot of money on that coat back in those probably $10, you know, back in those days and the carpool lady was there because we carpooled and she's honking the horn and I said, okay, get on your coat. He said I'm not wearing that coat. I said you are wearing that coat. He said I am not wearing that coat. We had a fight.
Speaker 2:I mean how old was he?
Speaker 1:about 10 he refused to wear that coat. Yeah, and I wrestled him to get the coat on. No kid of mine is going to backtalk me and Debbie's over there saying just let it go. I said no, I'm not letting it go, I'm not letting him win. James Dobson says don't let him win. So I said I am not letting this kid win. I argue fault, drug him out the door.
Speaker 2:I can see it.
Speaker 1:Okay, he did not wear his coat and he yelled at me I will leave it in this car. I said don't you dare leave it in the car. I'm yelling at him. It was an awful fight. 30 minutes later I go up to school, sit in a class and Dr Wilson had us divide up in groups about something and somehow I came up with discipline of kids and so I'm sitting there and she's coming around each table. She says what are y'all talking about? I said I told her the story of Adam. I said I mean the kid just blatantly disobeyed me and she looked at me and said what's wrong with you? And I said what do you mean? What's wrong? She was very blunt. What's what's wrong with you? And I said what do you mean? What's wrong? She was very blunt. What's kind blunt? And why did you make him wear a coat? I said because it was cold. She said let him get cold. Let him get cold when he's ready to wear.
Speaker 2:Pick your battles david and not the truth.
Speaker 1:Yeah and I said oh, and we talked about logical and natural consequences with kids, about disciplining. And then I read a book on natural and logical consequences. It's so simple and so hard, but it's simple and the natural consequence of him not wearing the coat let him experience it, which means if he gets cold enough, he's going to wear the dadgum coat. The next day we did get the coat back from the carpool lady whose name was Debbie, and the next morning it's like 28 degrees and he's getting ready for school and he says where's my coat? I said your coat's over there in the closet. We got it back from miss johnson. She brought it back. He said okay.
Speaker 1:I said you wearing the coat? He said yeah. I said why are you wearing the coat? Because I froze to death. Last yesterday we went outside of recess, I didn't have any coat and I said can you tell me why you didn't want to wear the coat? He said the first time I wore it a couple of weeks ago. I got made fun of at school and I felt that's part of my failure as a father, being so hard-headed. And so my point in that is I was wrong.
Speaker 1:Debbie was right and I needed to listen to Debbie, but I didn't, because I was headstrong and I was young and stupid. And now I'm old and stupid, but I mean, I was young, I was stupider then, that's a word. And I learned a great lesson about natural consequences. Let them experience the natural consequence unless it kills them. And so if they're playing in the street busy street and they don't need to do that, the logical consequence is take away their time to play outside. You violated that time. Now Debbie and I need to agree on that right. We need to agree, and so increase your knowledge.
Speaker 1:There's a great book by Dr Kevin Lehman. I don't know if you've ever heard it how to Keep your Mind, how to Make your Kid's Mind Without Losing Yours, is a classic, classic book. It's a lot about what we just said. It's funny, it's very good. There's other books out there, but the greatest thing to do would be come to Marriage Helper.
Speaker 1:Seriously, I'm not just pushing that, but because of the core issues here, of not thinking you have all the answers, of looking at yourself honestly, of creating a safe place and reframing this problem as you grow older, because it's not about you and your wife, it's about a goal outside of you and your spouse that you're both going toward. Well, most of our goals and when the kids are little is raising great kids. That's a common goal that we all have, common goal that we all have. And so, keeping that in mind, then being intentional about reading something good or coming to a workshop or taking some courses online that Marriage Helper offers some toolkits is a phenomenal thing to do if you only did it for the sake of the kids. Seriously, yeah.
Speaker 1:Even if you have a good marriage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the foundation seriously, even if you have a good marriage, because the foundation of control, of respecting each other and I'll repeat what Dr John Gottman writes people divorce because they feel unloved, unliked and disrespected and in disciplining a child I was making Debbie feel disrespected, not listened to.
Speaker 1:She has a voice too. But we both bring our experiences from childhood into the discipline decisions we make with our kids and let's take the strengths from both of those, toss out the weaknesses, work together on that and turn conflict that is natural and normal turn it into intimacy by listening to each other and working out a plan and having fun together doing it. And you can disagree and if it gets to be too much, seek some help. And we got coaches that have had this question come up all the time and some of our listeners might be separated from their spouse and they have struggles disciplining the same and that's a new set of problems. I mean it makes it a little bit more difficult because there's hurt and pain there, but that's what our coaches are there for can really help you on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, david, that is a fantastic way to approach this topic.
Speaker 1:Oh well, thank you.
Speaker 2:I would say I kind of heard women are right, men are wrong.
Speaker 1:But you kind of heard that.
Speaker 2:But in all seriousness, it's about understanding why you discipline the way you discipline, sharing that with each other, coming to an agreement of a better way to move forward where both people feel heard and respected, and taking what could be something that wants to pull you apart as a way to come closer together and build intimacy. I love that.
Speaker 1:And as we wrap this up, even as the kids grow older, we had an incident with one of our kids that Debbie wanted to confront. I did not want to confront and it's very similar to when they were little. She wanted this way, I wanted this way and when we went through this, probably seven or eight years ago, it was a real serious issue and she was so good because she said I really want to do this, I have it in my heart to do this and I prayed about it. I said let's do it your way Because of all I learned in Marriage Helper and continue to learn every. Every time we lead a workshop, we learn something, but putting those principles into action.
Speaker 1:So sometimes you decide to say let's do it your way, but if you always say that that might be avoidance agreement, we've got to stay away from avoidance agreement agreement where I agree, just to avoid conflict, because if I'm always the giver there, what happens is I'll build resentments and I'll feel walked on and that's very important. But again, that's part of the marriage helper philosophy too. That's kind of a core thing about working together, respecting each other, listening to each other. Everybody's got a voice. That's important and me backing up from trying to control my wife by trying to fix her.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't have to fix her. So when I gave in and she's given in too when I gave in, how did she feel Loved, loved, honored and respected, which, in turn, helps her give in too.
Speaker 2:And how did it go?
Speaker 1:Oh, it went great. In fact, when we and, by the way, we use marriage helper principles of not using horsemen and criticism, we didn't attack the person, our kid's character. We said, when you did this, we felt very neglected and hurt and we felt dismissed and we love you and and when we, when she did it and we worked on it together. So there's no criticism and there's there's no attacking character. There's no saying you always do this right, or or or are you know you're the one that's selfish. We didn't say any of that.
Speaker 1:we said, when you did this and this happened, we really felt hurt and and abandoned, but not abandoned, but dismissed yeah and our, our child said I am so very sorry, I had no idea I did that to you and it beautiful, and it was putting in marriage helper principles, of getting rid of those four horsemen of criticism and contempt and doing it with respect to the individual we're having struggles with. That's kind of what I meant by discipline. Goes on, even though it's a different type. It really wasn't discipline, it was working on.
Speaker 2:Confrontation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, problems with adult kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, confrontation that can still lead to intimacy building.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I love that Amazing.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for joining me on this episode, David, and to our listeners. Hope you come back next week as we tackle even more topics we disagree on, and until then, remember there is always hope.
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