The Father Factor Podcast
The Father Factor Podcast
with Byron Ricks, Joshua Warmbrodt, and Brandon Ricks
What happens when fatherhood leaves a void—or when it shows up with strength, wisdom, and love?
Join Byron Ricks, author of Searching for Dad: The Nine Side Effects of Growing Up Fatherless and How to Overcome Them, alongside co-hosts Joshua Warmbrodt and Brandon Ricks, for honest, transformative conversations about fatherhood, identity, healing, and legacy.
Whether you’re navigating life without a father, striving to become the father you never had, or raising a child impacted by fatherlessness—this podcast is for you.
With real stories, research-backed insight, and heartfelt wisdom, The Father Factor Podcast creates space for growth, understanding, and redemption. Because no matter where you start, healing is possible—and legacy can be rewritten.
The Father Factor Podcast
The Delicate Dance of Encouragement and Accountability
Ever wondered how parental enablement shapes our children's futures? Join us on the Father Factor Podcast as we unpack the delicate balance of letting our children spread their wings and the heart-tugging joy of their return. We reflect on personal stories, like Brandon's childhood adventures with different modes of transportation, to highlight the contrasting enablement styles of mothers and fathers. Our discussion traverses diverse socio-economic landscapes, revealing the unique ways various communities express and navigate enablement.
Shifts in parenting styles across generations have left many pondering the right approach to discipline and respect. We take you on a reflective journey into our childhoods, where respect for elders was a given, contrasting it with today's evolving societal norms. Our conversation explores whether modern parents, in an attempt to avoid the perceived harshness of their upbringing, have swung the pendulum too far, creating an imbalance in children's discipline. The effectiveness of traditional methods like spanking versus contemporary approaches like timeouts takes center stage as we question what truly cultivates a well-rounded upbringing.
The power of words, intent, and tone are more influential than we often realize, especially in parenting. We delve into the consequences of enabling behaviors from childhood into adulthood, stressing the importance of setting boundaries and fostering independence. Our real-life examples highlight the challenges and triumphs parents face in nurturing authenticity without stifling individuality. We invite you to engage with us by sharing your thoughts and experiences, as your feedback is invaluable in shaping the Father Factor community. Remember, fatherhood transcends biological ties and requires dedication and character. Join us on this meaningful exploration of parenting's ever-evolving landscape.
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https://www.amazon.com/Searching-Dad-Effects-Fatherless-Overcome/dp/1934812129
Hello and welcome to our podcast series, the Father Factor Podcast. I'm your host, byron Ricks, and joining me is my co-host and good friend, josh Wombrot. The objective is to give a voice to fathers who are not able to be with their kids, mothers who are raising kids without fathers and children who, unfortunately, are growing up without fathers in their lives.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it take more. It take more, more, more, more.
Speaker 1:Hello, hello, hello everyone. Welcome to the Father Factor. I'm your host, byron Ricks, and it's so good to be back with my posse my posse, that's what it feels like. It's been a while. Brandon is riding with me shotgun today, and so is Josh. How you guys doing, man, I'm good, good good Doing well, can't complain, can't complain. So summer's passed, we're in fall. Now I feel like summer.
Speaker 3:Man, that's testy. It feels good to me it feels good to me.
Speaker 1:How was your summer? You got college students now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I got a college kid now. Both of you all. Yeah yeah, yeah, wow, like every weekend since she went.
Speaker 3:I'm cool with that, though no, I am too Minus the airline miles that are being eaten away. Yeah, yeah, see mine's local, so you know it's just a drive down the street.
Speaker 4:See, mine totaled her car her senior year and I told her she won't get another one until at least her sophomore year of college with A's. Okay, she's five and a half hours away, so she's still finding ways to get home Roommate airline miles, which tells me I did something right, because at one point I was worried she was going to go to college and never come back.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, the food was better at home.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, she's been told us. Can we not eat out or anything? I just want, like she's trying to give, demands of what we should cook. Okay, it's funny, you like she's trying to give demands of what we should cook.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's funny, you know, she misses what she used to have, right?
Speaker 4:Yes, man, we're eating that now. Can we just get Thai or something? No, we're going to eat this Now. She's like I don't want it. Can you make this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, she wants you at home cooking, yeah.
Speaker 3:When they live at home.
Speaker 1:you cook, yeah exactly Talk about enablement. The grass is not always green on the other side. No, you know I thought these kids today. You know people say that often we didn't have a choice. My mother cooked and whatever it was, that's what you ate. I ate my tears. So today's subject matter we're going to talk a little bit about enablement, and I don't think that is done intentionally. I know in my case and I'm about to tell me a branding story because I think I enabled him a little bit we want better for our children than we had for ourselves, and oftentimes that means that we will go out of our way and do things to try to somehow ensure their success. Yeah, Ensure that they have something. And I remember when Brandon was little, Brandon had five modes of transportation. He had like a bike, he had a big wheel, he had a scooter and a wagon. And I'm missing something.
Speaker 3:Skateboard man, it's California Skateboard. Okay, I know you got to have a skateboard in California.
Speaker 1:It was five modes of transportation. And he had a little friend down the street, robert, and he said dad, I want to go visit Robert and I would let him walk to the Roberts. But I would let him walk down the sidewalk and then I would peek out and look, because Robert literally was a straight shot. But I didn't want him to know. I was watching him because he wanted to be a big boy, and so I waited a few minutes and I went outside and he was still in the patio. We had a front patio with all these. I'm like well, I thought you was going to Robert's. He said I am. I said well, what are you doing? What are you waiting for? I said well, what are you doing? What are you waiting for? He said well, I'm not sure what mode of transportation I'm going to take. He didn't know if he wanted to take the bike or the skateboard, you know, and she didn't have all those things. Anyway, he's five years old.
Speaker 4:Hey man.
Speaker 1:One kid.
Speaker 4:You said, should yeah. Well, I mean, I'll tell you from this perspective of the kid that would have wanted to play with Brandon because he would have had extra so he could ride.
Speaker 1:There's other kids that may not be as fortunate. Now he's not an able-none, he's a very independent man, got his own business and that's fine. But we know that some people, some parents, have adult kids that they've enabled.
Speaker 4:Grown, grown kids that are not like principals, who say being good, functioning members of society.
Speaker 3:Yeah, do you find that more kids?
Speaker 4:that are enabled in certain types of communities. Hmm, I think the enablement is different. I'll say this Oftentimes the mom enables especially if it's a son more, and I think a father will enable a daughter a little bit more.
Speaker 1:I think in the middle class and upper class you probably see it more because they have the money to enable them. I believe so 100%.
Speaker 4:Yes, and I mean I guess it depends on what you define as enable, Because if you're enabling any type of behavior, right, I've seen in the, you know, in the hood, right, we do have certain enablement. We see these young kids that are already getting chains and fronts and they teaching them how to you know, play with the Nerf pistols.
Speaker 4:You got some things where I've also seen where mom will go and spend all their money so that they look good. All the Easter outfits everything has got an outfit in the black community, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, and then you struggling on your bills. But your kids are always in designer or name brand and I still see that as a formative enablement as well, especially if you just don't got it and you're putting yourself in harm's way over it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's economic enablement. Why don't we read the definition?
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3:So the definition of enablement is the action of giving someone the authority or means to do something, the action of giving someone the authority or means to do something. So to Josh's point, you can have enablement in all communities.
Speaker 4:You can enable disrespectful behavior. You can enable, based on that definition, to do something.
Speaker 1:No, I agree. I agree, I was speaking of material enablement More so economic enablement, Economic enablement exactly that's what I was speaking of when I opened up. But yeah, you can enable in many areas Poor grades bad behavior.
Speaker 4:You know those individuals that think bad behavior is cute.
Speaker 3:Behavioral enablement, I think, is a big thing that I see in this generation.
Speaker 4:Which is usually tied to the economic right, you know what you said, josh.
Speaker 1:earlier my daughter crashed her car, but you didn't go get her another one right away. No, no, you put some parameters.
Speaker 4:There was very little body damage at that. You know, it was an impressive wreck.
Speaker 1:No, but what I'm saying? You could have been an enabler there. No, no for sure, right.
Speaker 4:That was an opportunity and that I mean that could have been my justification. You know she tore up the mechanical, it wasn't you know, maybe one more shot Right, and a lot of times we do that. What? Because it was an inconvenience for her to go from driving to not driving on me. But I didn't want her to expect that oh, you break something, you just get a new something.
Speaker 1:Right, brandon, to your point about behavior, and you were saying in the kids today and you know you coach today, yeah, yeah, you see a lot of enablement.
Speaker 3:It's bad. I mean at school as well. You know these kids, the parents are complicit in their delinquency to be quite honest, tell that story about that kid that was dropping them bombs.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, you know, there was a scenario in which I was coaching a game. There was a scenario in which I was coaching a game and after the game, you know, you can see that there were some parents or players and parents rumbling about, complaining about something that occurred in the game, and so it was brought to my attention. There was a kid on my team that was, you know, I guess, cursing profusely during the course of the game, dropping F-bombs constantly. The kid had complained to his coach that this was going on. The coach said well, you know, one of my parents was getting into it with the other team's coach and I stepped in and said what's going on here? And he was trying to say well, you know, the player was cursing, so on and so forth. And the parent literally said to me well, I don't care if my kid drops F-bombs. And the parent literally said to me well, I don't care if my kid drops F-bombs, you know, that's not a problem, he's got freedom of speech. He can say what he wants.
Speaker 3:Wow, and he's about how old he was a seventh, sixth or seventh grade Wow.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean I can tell you that I've been assisting with some of the games, right, you know, getting them hit, stick out for baseball, getting the guys going, you know, one of the individuals just explodes with anger, f-bomb, what the F. And I'm like, oh chill. But I remember my son said, oh, his parents don't care. I'm like, wow, okay, they don't care. Now, mind you, the parents were present and they're just like calm down, dude, is all that was said. So you know, for me, they want to raise a kid like that. That's on them, right. However, what people don't realize is they don't care, but other parents do. I'm not going to want my kid just being all around, a kid that can do whatever he wants and say whatever he wants. Parent, that's saying I'm okay with him cussing. You don't realize how much your kid's probably being excluded from from quality friends and other parents because they see that type of behavior.
Speaker 3:Well, in this generation I actually think it's quite the contrary. I think that the kids that act in that way are perceived to be cool. You know, there is a edginess about those kinds of kids that other kids are attracted to.
Speaker 4:Right, I mean I think that's been forever, because I was one of those kids, right, I was terrible. However, I don't want that for my kid, because I know what I had to fight through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but did you disrespect your elder? Yeah, absolutely. Wow, okay, oh absolutely.
Speaker 4:I would threaten violence. You want to square up Middle school? I was ready to fight, but I was also highly abused. Not justifying right, but putting hands on people was what you did, but nobody taught me.
Speaker 3:You don't speak to somebody like that, you know so, byron, from your perspective, you obviously have a lot of experience. You got a degree in human behavior and you know you're very versed in emotional intelligence. What do you think are the big differences generationally, from your vantage point? Now, I know you're not interacting with children in a high volume in this generation, but you are a citizen of the society, you have grandchildren and you've raised children. You've raised children. Do you see any noticeable differences in parenting styles from, let's say, three or four generations ago, from when your parents raised children, till now? What are the key differences that you see? That is, allowing some of this enabling behavior.
Speaker 1:Well, I think you both just mentioned it earlier. The parents today do not teach their kids to respect anyone else. Kids now run the household. You know they can do what they want. They say what they want.
Speaker 1:See, even when I was growing up, there was a wine head. They called him Any Day. I don't ever know what his name really is, but they called him Any Day Because he was drinking any day. And one day I was walking home with my mother and I was about nine ten somewhere in there. He was sloshed and he was laying up, or know where he was laying, about courtway building, and we passed the courtway building.
Speaker 1:We lived in a graystone two flat and he kind of whistled at my mother, kind of flirted with her. Now my mother knew him from the neighborhood and I got upset and I looked at him and I said something to him and my mother said, hey, that's a grown man, you let me talk to him, you let me handle that. So even though he was inebriated, she told me he's a grown man, you don't talk to grown people that way. And even if someone talks to you in a bad way, you come get me, let me handle it. So she taught me to respect my elders. I don't see that being taught in today's generation. As often I'm not saying it's not a blanket. There are some parents that are doing it.
Speaker 3:Well, but what's the why, though, byron? What's changed is what I'm trying to get to the genesis of that. What do you think has changed? I'm not sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:What is?
Speaker 3:what is the why? Why was there a greater emphasis on respecting elders then than now? What has changed in society, in American society as we sit here?
Speaker 1:I don't think I know how to answer that.
Speaker 4:I might have an idea. We've talked about overcorrection, right and parenting and generations. So let's say that in a different world, somebody did something or said something to you. You tried to say something back and then she shut you down like she did like respectfully right, but you didn't feel like she did like respectfully right. But, you didn't feel like she had your back. No, and I'm not saying, that's what happened.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't feel like she didn't have my back at all.
Speaker 4:I don't know. A lot of these parents will come up from childhood wounds and say I'm not going to let that happen to my kid, so if you come. You know a lot of kids come from the seen, not heard generation and these parents are wanting to give their children voices.
Speaker 3:Okay, I see what you're saying overcorrection, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, the pendulum has swung. I know what's on the social media, where the police knocks on the door and the woman comes to the door and asks what's going on, officer? And the officer says well, someone called the police for this apartment and she said nobody called the police. And the little says well, someone called the police for this apartment and she said nobody called the police. And the little boy. He's about five years old, he said I called because she hit me with this belt. And the officer said did you hit him with that belt?
Speaker 4:Come on, you know, today you can't discipline your kid Right, because I think the overcorrection, because you got like the, because I went through some of that when they had that, maybe you went through that Play it Safe. Do you remember the Play it Safe program for your daughter? If you even suspect you might be abused, report it. And I took my daughter's phone, of course, the day they had that thing. That night. I took it Next morning no CPS coming to the house and all that she just said.
Speaker 4:I wasn't sure if I was abused and da, da, da, da, Wow. So that's a whole story I could get into.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The question for me, gentlemen, is what is the why behind this? Well, most of the time, when-.
Speaker 1:Are you looking for a spiritual reason?
Speaker 3:No, no, I'm looking for a tangible there has to be something that has changed.
Speaker 4:I genuinely believe it is. We're trying to do better, it's the enablement thing. We're trying to do better for this kid and they weren't here for me necessarily. So if I was abused then I'm going to go out and be an advocate for abused children. And now any side of this is oh, that's extreme.
Speaker 3:So from Josh's perspective, you're saying that parents in this generation are overcorrecting because they perceive.
Speaker 4:They're undercorrecting, undercorrecting, they're overcorrecting system and all of that.
Speaker 3:But because their interpretation is that the previous way of doing things was actually abuse.
Speaker 4:It was abuse it was abuse and in some cases it was Right wrong. It was abuse and in some cases it was right. Now I think that there's many ways and levels that you can correct a child. I don't think hitting them is the first step, but in some cases they need to get whooped. In my opinion, when they're young you're not abuse, not beating, but I can tell you. You asked my son, who is now 13, how many times have you been spanked in your life? And he probably can't answer it. It's going to be under one hand, but it's not because he's not able to be corrected. My daughter is a little bit different and I was also a teenager at the time, so there were some issues I had too. Not necessarily abuse, but overreaction, and if the child doesn't feel safe and they carry that into their parenthood, they may eliminate that. I know people I'm not going to reveal them who will not, will not raise their voice, will not discipline. They try to have a calm reasonable conversation with two-year-old.
Speaker 1:I remember when talking about when I was back in college, the timeout came out and our culture used to laugh at that Timeout.
Speaker 1:It's effective for certain kids, you don't get no timeout or go sit in the corner in your inside voice. I remember those days. Use your inside voice, go sit in the corner until you can interact with people. That kind of discipline never happened in my environment and I'm not saying it was bad either. I'm just saying that you asked the question about what you think has changed. I think parenting has changed, and baby to your point, josh, because maybe there was some over Overreaction.
Speaker 4:Overreaction, overdiscipline, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1:That a kid must be seen and not heard. And you had kids, you know.
Speaker 4:But you can flip that into social popularity Because a lot of the kids that are cussing their parents weren't the cool kids in school. They wanted to be the cool kids. That's one thing I've seen. So they're almost like I'm going to set you up with the right clothes, shoes to give you that experience.
Speaker 1:Okay, brandon, I'm going to use you and me as an example, since you know, we got to be real. You don't mind your kids calling a person a liar. I struggle with that, and once I came to you about that, I said I'm their grandfather. They shouldn't say you lied. And in my mind they couldn't distinguish a story you know, a joke from the truth, so that everything would be a lie. And so when I asked you, I said hey, they said they called me a lie. Then you asked me well, what did you say? And in my mind, it doesn't matter what I said. I'm their grandfather and my expectation is that my grandchildren should never call me a lie. So you tell me what's changed.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, I don't know if, from my perspective, those are the same. If we're going to tie the bow around the conversation of enablement, I think that's a little bit different from my perspective.
Speaker 1:We started the discussion around enablement. We are, but you are enabling them to be what I believe to be disrespectful to me, but yet I didn't teach you that, so I don't know what a switch is.
Speaker 3:See, that's one of the things that I think is interesting. Right Around the idea of of respect, there has to be an objective perspective on what it means to be respectful or disrespectful. That's to me. That's part of the problem is that we have a relative idea of what is appropriate and inappropriate in society and everyone has a different perspective on that, which is why, you see, you know the one kid that's allowed to curse and one that's not. I think that's different than enablement, necessarily, as a concept of how we parent kids. Right, typically, enablement has to do with allowing a kid to get away with something that's detrimental.
Speaker 3:In my mind, in regards to what you're talking about, what I'm instilling in them is not disrespect, but yet a hard line on acceptable boundaries around deception and truth.
Speaker 3:Telling so from your perspective, because there was a heavy emphasis in your generation on making sure that a child was in their place and didn't say anything to an adult that would be perceived to be maybe accusatory or the like, whereas in my mind, in my kids' mind, they're not looking at it I'm being disrespectful. What they're looking at is I'm recognized when something is not truthful. Now, if the correction is that, okay, they need to discern whether this is something that is made, a statement that's made in jest. Now, that has to do with their cognitive function at certain ages, right. And then that's just a small minor correction. That's not a manner of disrespect, that's a manner of hey, let's teach them to differentiate and identify and have discernment of what is storytelling right, what is joking and what is actual lying in terms of intentionality, right. And so I think that is not enablement, though that's just more so. How do we teach certain themes and concepts in a way that the child is able to grow and learn from them?
Speaker 1:I wouldn't call this grown man a lie. I wouldn't call you a liar. Well, if you lied to me, I'd call you a liar Well, I would not. It would have to be a scenario by which I can't pitch a scenario right now. I'm sure that I would, in fact, if you did, but I wouldn't come out outright and say you just lied.
Speaker 3:Oh, I definitely would. Yeah, because let's just say you did indeed lie and I caught you in a lie.
Speaker 1:Well, you, I mean, I may say, are you sure that's correct?
Speaker 3:Well, you're being nice but I, of course, I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's. But that's what's happening in our society. Nobody wants to be nice anymore. They want to say everything that they want to say instead of couching it properly.
Speaker 4:Well, I mean, I think again we're talking similar. We're talking about a similar thing, right, because part of it is teaching the kids to discern, learn, call things, certain things out, which may be on this side to what you're used to, right? Whereas what we're saying is like there's, there is a middle ground where you can basically call somebody out without the name calling aspect, right?
Speaker 3:The term liar is an English word. We have to be able to use it. It has to apply to something.
Speaker 4:Right, I get what both of you are saying. But if it's a situation where if I say, hey, if I ask you a direct question, you're like, yeah, and it's an absolute lie, and I go and you know something. Hey bro, why'd you lie to me? I'm gonna ask you, why did you lie to me? I'm not gonna call you a liar, I'm not gonna you're a liar. I think it's that the, the energy on the intent behind it, right, right, is for me, I'm more of a resolution hey, let's find the resolution, whereas just calling a spade. A spade because you know the grace aspect. But I agree with you in the discernment piece because it is a child trying to learn these things, these communications, these tales, these you know, you're trying to teach them to be aware of the world.
Speaker 3:The kid is not trying to be disrespectful.
Speaker 4:Right and I think that, where it came through and just for perspective and I'm not saying right, I'm just throwing this out there right Is. I think that some of our children, they have the security where, like for you, your grandpa, they love you, they're're secure with you, they feel safe enough to to go there with you, even though it may not be the right way about it, but I think there is a level of flattery that they felt safe enough to come to you directly rather than to go home and say, hey, grandpa's a liar, right, it's hard because there's such a big gap between this and this over here, but I want to reiterate I think there's one thing that I think is interesting about our society in this regards right, so you know, your perspective is that everyone just says what they want.
Speaker 3:I don't think that's the case, actually. I think that people are actually afraid to say what's true. Well, no, that's what I'm calling out is you're teaching. No, no, I'm saying that you know. I don't think that's the case at all. I think that there is actually an apprehension to tell the truth in our society at large, and people actually want to coat things in a way that is either passive or conflict-avoiding, and so I don't agree with that.
Speaker 1:I don't know what you've been watching. They lie all the time. Turn any show on any social media, anything on right now. All you hear is people just make stuff up. They just make stuff up and they'll say what they want about anyone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I think that we're actually in agreement.
Speaker 4:Basically, authenticity. People are scared to be authentic.
Speaker 3:Which is the reason why I think that it is okay, when somebody is lying, to call out what you see. You don't owe anybody. Being nice is not like a requirement. I would rather hear a bitter truth than a sweet lie. I agree, and I think in our society we like to actually hear things that are sweet. We don't like things that are bitter.
Speaker 1:It's about how you handle things, how you couch things. If you're in a court of law and a person don't understand things, if you're in a court of law and a person don't understand absolutely, you just lie. You're a liar. Okay, I get that, but because I didn't say I wouldn't call a person out, you don't like the way I called that person out. It's being tactful. You are straightforward. You would have just said you lied.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if a person lied because, because words have meaning. So if the word liar is offensive, then we have to take it out of the English lexicon, if we can't ever use it.
Speaker 1:I never said you don't ever use it.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm saying. So then, who dictates and determines when it's appropriate to use it or not?
Speaker 1:I think I go back to what Josh said earlier. It's an intent and it's also in tone. You know how do you use it. Words are weapons.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So we are listening to the Father Factor with Byron Ricks and Josh Wombrough. We are getting into, you know, about 30 minutes. This is a good conversation. We're going to actually have to continue this because we started with enablement. I think it's turned to more like a societal and cultural conversation around norms of parenting and accepted what's accepted what's not. I think that we still need to probably circle back on the enablement side of things.
Speaker 4:I mean enablement. You said it earlier. Enablement is encouraging a behavior that's derogatory or something like that. Right, so I can use my daughter, past friend. They were great friends but the parents were prom king and queen. They were the most popular kids. They were killing it through college. That's all they knew is they were that couple. Well, their daughter was not that right Beautiful, sweet, but we just didn't meet the mold for today's standards of, I guess, coolness.
Speaker 4:And there's a lot of pressure put onto her to try to be in that it crowd, but not realizing that you're trying to give them what you experienced right, not understanding that it's at a detriment because it's not working for her. So again, authenticity, transparency. And they're trying to say, hey, I don't want to do this. Or she's saying it's hard for this. But what are they doing? Okay, what type of clothes do people like they're trying to buy and enable her to become something that she's not and is voiced. But I've also seen the flip side of that, where the kids are the parents that didn't have a voice, that they weren't cool in school, they didn't go to stuff. Those a lot of times end up being the cool kids, the cool parents and, mind you cool. Parents to kids are irresponsible adults A lot of times.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, I see enablement when I think of it. I think of it in adults. I see it in adults. I know of a woman that I used to hang out with and it was a group of people and she was upset. Her son lived at home and she could not afford to pay his car payment anymore. She paid his insurance, he paid no rent, I mean anything he wanted. She got it for him and then when she got laid off she didn't have the money and she was more afraid of her son than she was of her circumstances.
Speaker 4:Yeah, started in childhood, Like that's. That's the hard part. People don't realize, like and I use a two-year-old as a great example, because a two-year-old's job is to test your every boundary they're trying to figure out what's acceptable, what's not. And if you're a parent that is scared to, I don't want to hurt their feelings or I don't want to tell them no, I don't want to raise my voice. You're trying to have a high level conversation with this baby.
Speaker 4:And if you can't get past that stage and you continue to enable that type of parenting, and then all now they're six and we're trying to, but he's not taking well to it, Of course not because you didn't set the standard from the beginning. He's not taking well to it, Of course not because you didn't set the standard from the beginning. You're all of a sudden sick of the behavior and you're trying to transform this kid's behavior with nothing but resistance, and this kid doesn't know anything but you giving in to them. So there is a starting point and there should be an ending point once a parent recognizes I'm enabling. You know there are certain things I noticed with my son. I was enabling because I'm trying to. Oh, you know, he can't really reach the microwave. I don't want to make a mess, I don't want to and I'm like dang, how come you need me to do everything? It's because I didn't empower him to do anything else.
Speaker 3:That's good and I think this is where we probably need to pick impact them as they move through the stages of life and childhood development into adulthood. Byron, what are your final thoughts?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad to be here. I think that we've struck up on something here and that we're going to have to pick this up on the next show, because there's a lot more to unpack, as they say, as it relates to the stages of adolescence and enablement to adults, because I have a couple of stories that I like to share about adults who parents still take care of them.
Speaker 3:So, with.
Speaker 1:That said, I think that that's our time. I'd like to thank you guys for listening.
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Speaker 1:Remember you've been listening to the Father Factor. All your children are equally yours. Hey, thank you. This is Byron the Father Factor Podcast. Thank you for listening. If you like what you heard, subscribe and share and tell us your thoughts. We'd like to hear from you. Perhaps you can be on our show. And to the fathers out there remember, all your children are equally yours.
Speaker 2:It take more than age to be a man. Oh yeah, it take more than sex to be a dad oh yeah. It take more than good to beat the bad oh yeah, it take more. It take more, more, more, more.
