Death By Adulting
A podcast focused on helping you make decisions today that you won't regret tomorrow. Hosted by Dr. Steve and Megan Scheibner. The Scheibners share wisdom and advice regarding marriage, parenting, dating, communication and even sex.
Death By Adulting
Unlocking The Secrets of Steering Kids Toward Success in the Parenting Cockpit
Ever wondered how parenting can feel like trying to land a plane on a bustling street? That's exactly where we start this episode, as Dr. Steve Scheibner shares his experiences with the peculiarities of Gibraltar Airport, where airstrips cross paths with everyday life. From there, we seamlessly transition into the pandemonium of parenting, drawing comparisons to the colorful chaos that parrots bring into our homes.
As seasoned pilots in the vast skies of child-rearing, my wife Megan and I unfold the map of our parenting journey with eight kids, offering you navigational tips that steer clear of celebrity fads and focus on tried-and-true methods. We'll teach you when to use "must" and "now" to give your kids a clear runway for success, and we'll decode the language of thinkers, feelers, and doers, so you can communicate effectively with your child, no matter their personality type.
Wrapping up, we share how to harness the boundless energy of 'doer' children and integrate it into a family dynamic that's as diverse as a party guest list—without the need to hand out favors to everyone. Stick around for a comedic salute to the unsung heroes of birthday parties (hint: it's not who you'd expect), and a parting adulting tip from Megan that's as refreshing as an unexpected upgrade to first-class. Fasten your seatbelts; this is an episode that promises to elevate your parenting approach and lighten the load of adulting one anecdote at a time.
On this episode of Death by Adulting parrots and pandemonium. And what does that have to do with the two most important words in parenting Thinkers, feelers and doers? Which are you and why should you care? Plus our thoughts on who thought that was a good idea. Megan is going to help us with the adulting boss tip of the day. Get ready, roll the tape. I wish that I knew what I know now.
Speaker 2:When I was younger. Welcome to Death by Adulting. I'm your host hostess, I suppose, megan Scheibner, and I'm joined, as always at the Death by Adulting table by my co-host and expert in all things airports and airplanes, dr Steve Scheibner. Now, steve, we just spent some time yesterday at Boston's Logan Airport, which is okay, but I wanted to ask you what's your favorite airport?
Speaker 1:All right. Well, as Megan alluded to, my other job, my day job that pays the bills is American Airlines, and I'm a captain. I play the Boeing 777. And that's a good question, because I've. There's an old Johnny Cash song called I've Been Everywhere man and I've been everywhere, man, and I've been all over the world, almost every major and minor airport that you can imagine.
Speaker 1:I would say my favorite airport was Gibraltar, and Gibraltar Airport is interesting. It's a little spit of land off the end of Spain and the Spanish hate that it's there. And the reason that they hate that it's there is because the British own it and the British won't give it back to the Spaniards, so the Spaniards won't let you fly directly from Spain, for instance, to Gibraltar. So when I was in the Navy and I was based in Spain, we would have to fly. This is no kidding, these are adults running the world. Okay, we would have to fly to Portugal. Do a touch and go landing. Just touch the pavement in Portugal, which started a new flight plan to Gibraltar. So we had to go an hour in the wrong direction to turn around and come an hour in the wrong direction on a flight that would have been 15 minutes, it was two and a half hours. Now. That's the backstory behind Gibraltar.
Speaker 1:I've been in Gibraltar probably five or six times over the years and there's no room for a runway there. So the big rock of Gibraltar that you're used to seeing on all the Prudential commercials, it's pretty accurate. It's huge. It juts out into the sky and out in the ocean. It's absolutely just breathtakingly gorgeous. Well, over the years they've hollowed out the mountain and it used to be that they had housing for troops in there. The British did. Then they stored munitions in it. I don't know if they do anything with the inside of the mountain now, but when they bored out the inside of the mountain, they took all that rock and they built a runway there. So the runway goes out into the ocean one way and goes out into the ocean the other way, and the one main road that comes into Gibraltar drives right over the runway. So it's the only runway I've ever landed on that.
Speaker 1:They had to stop traffic. So when you get cleared to land right. So you come into Gibraltar. The runway is oriented like this and you're coming in like this, and if you, I don't know if you can see this very well on the camera, but it's a hard 90 degree turn and then you land on this really short runway. It's only about 5,500 feet long, it's pretty short, um and uh, but then the, the basically kind of the guardrails are down and there's cars waiting and you, you roll out past the cars waving to everybody, hey, everybody and when you get past them they bring the guardrails up and the traffic starts again. So then when you taxi back to go back to the, the hangar and all that with your airplane, they have to do the whole thing over again. They have to stop the traffic.
Speaker 1:You have to taxi back across that would be a big nope for me, but it's just it's absolutely breathtakingly beautiful there and I remember one day in particular we we took off it was kind of early in the morning there and there was a us submarine that had been, you know, basically kind of refueling there and and that sub was just heading out to sea. And it was just heading out to sea, it was still on the surface and all these dolphins were in the wake on the front and we're climbing out over them with the rocket, gibraltar on the one side and the sun on the other, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, there you go. I don't even know if I should admit this, but when I was in high school, we used to run the railroad tracks. Yes, you know, when you saw a train coming, you would drive across as fast as you could. I wonder if the kids in Gibraltar try and go past before the gate comes down with airplanes.
Speaker 1:I don't know if there's, or are they smarter than Americans? I don't know if there's a lot of kids in Gibraltar, but I suppose there's some people that are natives there. Yeah. I guess, yeah, that's interesting Well there's a little bit of background, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would not. I probably that wouldn't be my airport. I don't think I like the ones that are like shopping meccas, like before I even get where I'm going, I can start my shopping.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're one someplace. You're not there to shop.
Speaker 2:They have a thing called a mall for those sorts of things, lots of things, all right.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's jump. Let's jump into it. Parrots and pandemonium.
Speaker 2:Yeah, more nature facts from Steve.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I mentioned parrots and pandemonium, uh, in the tease at the beginning, and so what do uh? So, all right, I love little trivia, things I don't know about you, but I love stuff that has kind of a little deeper, richer meaning and things that you wouldn't think are connected with each other. Parrots and let me, let me show you a picture here of these are beautiful, all right, you know, but there they are out in the wild. There's four of them and they're they're like your four kids, if you've had teenagers. They have that look on their face like all right, when do mom and dad leave? The door is closed now, wait for it. They're in the car. It's backing out the driveway.
Speaker 2:You can see the oldest one looks nervous yeah.
Speaker 1:And then the oldest one is in the background going. I don't know if this is a good idea. The other three are talking him into it or her into it, and then they finally go go yes, they're gone, and all of a sudden the party starts at your house.
Speaker 1:Right, that's so a group of parrots, a group of parrots, is called a pandemonium. I'm not making that up, that's for real. A group of parrots is called a pandemonium and I think that's so appropriate, because the definition of the word pandemonium means, like noise that's out of control and in a situation that has basically kind of gone from bad to worse and it's it's escalating out of control. Well, when you think about parrots, parrots are the type of animal that uh, they're gossips oh, and they're judgy judging.
Speaker 2:My judge pants their nature's gossips?
Speaker 1:they don't. They're not. They're intelligent, for sure, animals, but they what do you think about with a parrot? They repeat what they hear, right? So they'll repeat word for word, no context, and they'll say it over and over again. You know, probably want a cracker, probably want a cracker, and but they repeat everything that they hear. So if they overhear a conversation and they're that type of parrot, they'll repeat it wherever they go. Well, gossip creates pandemonium wherever it goes right because there's no context for it, and so I think parrots and pandemonium are that's a fitting and appropriate um title for a group of parrots I have another connection you do when do you gossip when you don't have better things to be doing, right?
Speaker 2:you're not doing the thing, so that's why parrots gossip, because their calling in life is to be piratey right and when they weren't out being pirates. What are they going to do but gossip?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, and yeah, what is a pirate's parrot do in his off time? Gossips? He gossips about the other pirates. I guess he judges them, he judges them. So anyways, there's a little funny trivia background. Now, what does that have to do with the two most important words in parenting?
Speaker 2:Well, okay, so one of the things that we have found as we've traveled teaching parenting is that as parents, too often we go from expert to expert, just kind of parroting what they say, and we'll try it for a little while and if it works for a little while, good. If it doesn't work, we'll move on to the next expert and we'll really boldly parrot what they say. We're very confident I've heard it from an expert, but the truth is we haven't learned the wisdom of parenting advice out there absolutely. And if you google an issue a temper tantrum with a child, you're going to get 1.6 billion.
Speaker 1:You're going to get 1.6 billion different ideas about what to do on it. All right, let's explain who we are, because you know we've been doing this podcast now for a little bit, but but I don't. If you're new to the podcast, you might not know who steve and megan are. You say I never heard of you guys before. Okay, here we go. We're nationally recognized parenting experts. We've written books on parenting. We've written books on marriage. We lecture all over the place, and when I say that, we've been everywhere man lecturing on parenting. We've talked to tens of thousands of parents over the years.
Speaker 2:We, um, we, I guess, let me do it this way.
Speaker 1:We have experience and we have education right, and we have eight of our own children. That's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2:We have eight kids four boys, four girls, an adopted child. You know we've got we've got kind of the well-rounded parenting portfolio, if you will, which has given us a lot of experience. But we also poured time and energy and sweat and a lot of tears into our education. And Steve has a doctorate and wrote his thesis on the role of parents in the character development of children. I have my master's in counseling and so it all comes together in the parenting marriage helping parents, helping couples live these Christlike, character-healthy, successful lives.
Speaker 1:Or, on the snarky, cynical side of things, helping you to avoid death by adulting. Yeah, exactly, which is why we came up with the name of this podcast. And there is another side to the parenting Right, which is why we came up with the name of this podcast.
Speaker 2:And there is another side to the parenting. I mean, we could talk about children and this is a simple application of mom and dad. Whatever you say, whatever you do, they model you. And you know that, because when you're at church and you say, oh hi, sue, it's so good to see you, and your child says you said you didn't like her yesterday. Okay, they parrot what they hear at home. So we're always being modeled. But I think the more dangerous side of it is how we pair it So-called experts and sometimes those so-called experts don't even have children their.
Speaker 2:their field of expertise is not child training, but it's an area where they they have found a niche to get published, and so that's where they're going be very careful about what you.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to say something that's going to seem counterintuitive be very careful about what you click on on the internet. Um, I used to say parent magazine was a bad source of parenting advice. Now, parent the magazine itself doesn't exist, but they still are online with a online parenting magazine, parent magazine, parenting magazine all of those types of venues were are still entry level publishing opportunities for up and coming journalists. So, let's say, you're at college, you're not married, you don't have children, but you want to get published so that someday, when you graduate, you can go get hired someplace. So you're writing articles on everything. You're an expert on every subject that you don't have the first clue about. So you write a article on parenting and what you ought to do with kids. Well, you're reading it on the other end going oh, that sounds like great advice. Well, wait a minute, hold on. You don't even know if that person has children.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right. So we're here to tell you we'd only have the pedigree. I wrote my doctoral thesis on the role of parents in the character development of children. Not only do we have the pedigree, but we have eight kids. Now, eight children doesn't make you a parenting expert, but it does give you a lot of experience. Okay, so that's what helps us to be intensely practical on this. So that's why we want you to like and subscribe and share what you're getting here, because when you subscribe, you're not going to miss any of the great content that we put out, and over the years now, we're going to put out a ton of stuff that you can go back in your library and look at and go okay, I need some help with my child throwing a tantrum. I need my child.
Speaker 2:They won't eat dinner or potty training or whatever the subject is or when your sister calls you and says I'm pulling my hair out, instead of the two of you going.
Speaker 1:I don't know what to do.
Speaker 2:You say, we've got someone to help. I think even more troublesome than the young people writing articles honestly just to get a job is the celebrity culture.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And a celebrity drops a tidbit of oh, I do this and my kids turn out great. Well, careful time out. Do some research.
Speaker 1:Right, one of the I don't know if she's still on. I think I'm going to be out of league here, but it was like Good Morning America or the Today Show, I think it was and one of the Bush girls, george W Bush's daughters, jenna, I think, has a. George W Bush's daughters, jenna, I think, has a. She's a recurring person on that show talking about parenting, and that's wonderful.
Speaker 1:She can talk about parenting and she is a parent. But when she got that gig, her kids were really little. Yeah, all right, really little. All of our kids are grown and gone. Now what does that mean to you? Does it mean we're yesterday's news and we don't know about it? No, it means we've been through everything. We've seen every phase of child training we can imagine, and then we apply our expertise to help you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, so this isn't just a parenting show. There's a whole lot more on this, but we are talking about the two most important words in parenting. And so, with that set up and that tease, megan, why don't you share with our audience what those two words?
Speaker 2:are Okay. This is really so simple. The two most important words are must and now, and what must and now do is it's an imperative and it's a time frame. It helps our children be successful. Our goal as parents was not to discipline all the time. Our goal was to help our kids be successful so they didn't have was not to discipline all the time. Our goal was to help our kids be successful so they didn't have to be disciplined All right.
Speaker 2:So when we use the word must, we're telling our children this is exactly what I expect of you and we. When we use the term now, we're saying and here's when you have to do it. For example, you must go upstairs, get your pajamas on, brush your teeth and get in bed. Now it tells them what I want them to do and when I want them to do it, and you can say that so sweetly. Right, there was nothing harsh in my voice. Now, could we turn that into something harsh? We could. That's not the children's problem, that's our problem. That's probably a whole nother episode dealing with anger, right, right, but we want to give our children the opportunity to be successful now with our own kids. I always added to it and what did mommy say? I had them repeat it back because that told me they heard, they understood and, in a sense, they were making a contract with me. Mom, I understand what you want me to do and now, now I can go do it. Um, steve, you have a story about this, don't you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's really great stuff. I mean I'd say, write all of that that down. But uh, so the the let's talk about bedtime for a minute, cause you brought that up. Is that the story you want me to tell? Yeah, okay. So, uh, megan said go upstairs, put in your pajamas, get into bed, brush your teeth. Now she gave the child two or three instructions of things to do. The neat thing is it was more than just one instruction, it was actually two or three. So she had the child repeat back the three things, and that's age dependent.
Speaker 1:And age dependent. So that they comprehended what she was saying, their opportunity for success just skyrocketed. So you want your children to be successful. We don't want to get into this constant turmoil pandemonium of always having to discipline our kids, and the easiest trap to fall into the one that parents fall into all the time is this one. They ask open-ended questions when they mean to give clear and unambiguous instruction.
Speaker 2:Wait repeat that.
Speaker 1:All right. They ask open-ended questions instead of giving clear and unambiguous instruction. What's the difference between the two? Let's talk about bedtime for a minute. What do most parents say when it's time for their kids to go to bed? They say something like this when are you supposed to be right now? Or aren't you supposed to be in bed? Isn't it past your bedtime? Don't you know where you're supposed to be? Those are all questions, right? And we ask the question because we don't want to seem like an old sergeant, major, and we want to soften the blow a little bit.
Speaker 1:And you've trained your child to just ignore you because they know that that first round of questions they don't even have to respond, right, because if they milk it for another 20 minutes now, you're going to come back with a second round of questions. Hey, I thought I told you to get upstairs in bed. Well, no, no, you really didn't, mom. You. All you did was ask me a couple of open-ended questions, where, by the way way, the answer could be no. I know if I say no I'll get into trouble, so I'll just ignore you.
Speaker 1:It's the same thing. I get another 20 minutes out of it, and after that second round of questions. They milk it for another 20 minutes. Now, after about 40 minutes, you finally come in and you go. You disobedient children need to get upstairs and get into bed. All of a sudden they see the veins bulging on your neck for the first time. Now they know they need to get engaged and you're semi serious. They can milk that for another 20 minutes and that's the whole game that y'all play every night and everybody goes to bed at night with a bunch of pandemonium yeah, can I speak?
Speaker 2:to that for just a minute. I think all of us um, I fathers too, but I know for mothers um, kind of our, our dream moment is oh, it's going to be so sweet, my, my clean, fresh-smelling children in their jammies. I'm going to tuck them into bed and read them a story and say their prayers with them and kiss them goodnight. It's going to be so sweet. And then the reality becomes. There's strife and there's discord and there's tears. And then there's tears for your children too, right, because we're crying. There's unhappiness, your children too, right, because we're crying. There's unhappiness and our natural thought is if my children would just obey, if my children just did what I told them, if my children weren't so naughty when the fact is, we need to look in the mirror and go. If I was clear with my instruction, if I was unambiguous in what they need to do, they would have the opportunity to be successful and we would have the opportunity for that peaceful, secure, calm, quiet, loving end of the day.
Speaker 1:Enter the two most important words in parenting must. And now. As Megan said, it's a time frame, it's an imperative must that any age child can understand. It's a time frame that any age child can understand. You use this, put a smile on your face. You must go upstairs, brush your teeth, put on your pajamas and get into bed. Now background story on that Years ago we were at a weekend conference and we do a lot of weekend conferences.
Speaker 1:If you'd like to have us come to your church or your organization, just go to characterhealthcom and click on the contact us tab. We'd love to talk to you about those events. So we were doing one of those events and it was a Friday night and everybody was going to come back again on Saturday morning and the last thing we did on Friday night was must and now with our audience and I said go home tonight and try it with your children as you're putting them down, say must and now to them. So the next day it's Saturday morning, about eight, 30 in the morning, everybody's wandering in. This guy comes through the door and he looks very agitated and you know when somebody's there got radar lock on and they're coming right for you, right, and he's coming right for me and I'm like oh my God, this guy going to hit me.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know he was he squared off right in front of me.
Speaker 1:And uh, and I was kind of like Brayson and he said he said uh, look, he said uh, I got in the car last night and I said I told my wife. I said we're not coming back tomorrow morning. This is such a waste of time I can't believe it must. And now, what a ridiculous idea that is. I can't believe it. She didn't say a word and fortunately he said for me it was about a 20 minute drive home and he said I got 20 minutes to kind of finally calm down. And he says so.
Speaker 1:By the time I got home he said I thought, oh, I'm going to show that guy, dr Steve, that he's wrong. And so he said I've got a nine-year-old daughter who, by the way his description, he said never does anything the first time I ask her, ever. He said so I walked up to her and I said he said I folded my arms like this. I walked up to her and, as sarcastically as I could possibly say it, I said you must go upstairs, get in your pajamas and get into bed. Now, he said she took a step back from me and she looked at me and she said yes, daddy. And she went upstairs and got in her pajamas and got into bed and the guy. The guy looks at me and he takes a step back and he goes. Oh, he goes, I'm not worthy he said we're back today.
Speaker 1:I want to hear everything you have to say. And I said to him I said it's not rocket science. Say what you mean and mean what you say. If you're clear and unambiguous, the kids can be successful. If you ask an open-ended question, they have the option to say no. If you don't want them to have the option to say no, don't open-end a question to them. And here's the other little tidbit Don't tack the expression okay at the end of what you say. You can say must and now and then when you say okay, you just made it optional, right, listen to each other, right? Mom listen to dad, dad listen to mom. If you hear the other person saying okay, okay, you just made it optional, because the child's going to say in their heart no, not okay.
Speaker 2:No, and you gave them that off.
Speaker 1:That is not their problem. It's not their problem.
Speaker 2:So being the adult in a parent-child relationship is not hard, but it's not easy. It takes work. We're not wired to think that way, we're wired to think like children and we have to rewire.
Speaker 1:It takes a lot of work and it may cause, you know, yes, death by adulting. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's very good, Steve.
Speaker 1:Two most important words in parenting. Write them down.
Speaker 2:We're going to move on to the next section, but I do want to tell you all ahead of time this next topic, that we're going to talk about ties in with must and now because we're going to talk about three basic personality types. Now, different people have broken it into all kinds of different things, but we honestly believe this may be the simplest explanation you've ever heard. It's going to open up your eyes to your spouse, your children, that annoying co-worker. But there is one personality type we're going to talk about right now that may find must and now more difficult. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, but you may have to discipline yourself a little bit more than the other two personality types. Think you can help with that, steve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can help with that, and there's lots of different personality types. There's books and volumes written on it and you can break it down into dozens of different categories. I like to be as simple as I can be and we've broken it down into three. I'm a tiger fox with an overlaying parrot, sorry and I know all things Sorry. Do not and.
Speaker 2:I know all things sheep.
Speaker 1:Do not get me started. Do not get me started on that. Okay, yes, you can be all of those things all at once, but let's keep it simple, right? And so I teased at the beginning of the episode about thinkers, feelers and doers. And thinkers, feelers and doers are the three easiest ways to kind of categorize people Now. And thinkers, feelers and doers are the three easiest ways to kind of categorize people. Now. You're born very strongly one of these. Now, the idea with this whole drill that we're going to talk about just now is that over time, as we become adults right, we enter from, we go from that child world that we were in to the adult world, that we become a nice balance of all three thinker, feeler and doer. You like being around people that are balanced in that way thinker, feeler and doer. Now, what's a thinker? Okay, over here, that person right there she's a classic thinker.
Speaker 1:Mrs Scheibner has a brain about as big as Baltimore and inside that substantial brain of hers are all sorts of dominoes. So thinkers have dominoes lined up inside of their head, and if you were a kid on a rainy day at grandma's and she brought out the domino set, you would set up the dominoes and you would knock over that first domino. You'd have to wait for all the other dominoes to fall. It was low grade, low tech fun, at least for me when I was a kid.
Speaker 1:Now, think of the brain of a thinker. They have dominoes lined up all of the time. They always have to know what is the plan and what are we going to do next, and then they rearrange the plan a little bit, but it's always got to be their plan right, because they've got all these dominoes. When you ask a thinker a question, it's just like knocking over that first domino. You're going to have to wait for all the other dominoes to fall down before they get an answer. It may be 20 or 30 seconds right, which is like an eternity to a doer. We'll get to doers in a minute, but the thinker is processing and so their head will tip off at 20 degrees and their mouth will go open and you'll get this.
Speaker 2:Rude.
Speaker 1:Just nothing. And they're processing. Right, you gotta wait for the dominoes Now in all in all transparency. All in all, transparency in all transparency. When I first started dating the fair and lovely Mrs Scheibner, I would ask her a question. Her head would tip off at 20 degrees. Her mouth would go open. I thought. I thought she was a little slow, so I would repeat the question. That's a bad idea. That's like starting the domino process all over again. I learned to to be patient and wait for Mrs Scheibner to answer the question.
Speaker 1:Now, when you ask a thinker a question and they don't have time right at the moment to think about all the things that they love to think about in the universe of thinking, they will default to no. You won't even get the question out of your mouth before you hear no. You're like wait a minute, I didn't even get the question. Nope, nope. They're not saying no to your idea or no to your question, they're saying no, I don't have time to process that right now, and they stop the whole process right there with the answer no. So again a thinker. They love to think about all the things that they could think about in the universe of thinking. And if they don't have time to indulge themselves in that thinking process, they will default to no.
Speaker 1:And so if you're married to or you're in a significant relationship with somebody and they're kind of a no person, they're probably a thinker. That's how they process. The garage of a thinker is a beautiful thing. Everything is labeled. Every drawer, when you pull it open, has exactly what is labeled on the drawer. It's clean, it's tidy, their desk is not cluttered, their inbox is empty, their outbox is empty. Why? Because they're constantly organizing, they're constantly making lists, they're constantly cleaning things out and they're very organized, very structured people.
Speaker 2:That's a thinker? I think an easy, concise way Thinkers are structured, habitual, organized. Those three things go with a thinker.
Speaker 1:Those would be the best possible ways to describe a thinker.
Speaker 2:You're rotten.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just being accurate, sweetheart.
Speaker 2:I'll do the three best for a doer next. Okay, don't weigh in on a doer.
Speaker 1:We don't really care about that. Now, one of the things that you did mention in your setup for this was the one personality type that's probably not great with the must and now thing. We'll talk about that right now. So, at any rate, the second now are feelers. Feelers are interpersonal relationship people. They see everything through the filter of relationships Very important that the relationship is paramount in their life, that you don't want to do anything or act in a certain way that might jeopardize or hurt a relationship. They're very deep feelers. Obviously there's a lot of drama. They have very high highs, very low lows.
Speaker 1:And I'm not just talking about your teenage daughters. That's a thing that happens a lot of time with teenage girls. But I'm talking about people that are kind of wired that way. They, they see everything through that, that empathy filter. But they overdo it, they overindulge it.
Speaker 1:They'll go watch a movie and the dog in the movie dies and most of us would shed a tear at that and we'd walk out of the movie. We'd say that was so sad, the dog died. They. For the next week or 10 days they just spontaneously break into tears. Why doesn't Boomer the dog die? That was 10 days ago, but I know it's just. They feel things very, very deep. I know you're a feeler If you'll come up to me afterwards, like I'll give a lecture or something. You'll come up afterwards and say, oh, I know a book that you ought to read or I know a person you ought to meet. You're thinking in terms of connecting people. So feelers are the natural connectors in life and but they're very merciful people. They see everything through that filter of mercy and must and now don't always fit into that well, but you said very high, highs, very low, lows.
Speaker 2:They're very merciful, except when they're not, because they are also the harshest of the personality types. If they are upset in a relationship because of that drama, it comes out as harshness. They can be very toxic very quickly, yes, Because they were hurt because everything is a big emotion. There are no little emotions, right? So they.
Speaker 1:They also go from major event to major, yeah, and many times, and now you're thinking about, well, the they. Well, they love to feel all the feels. Okay, and you would think, well, that's the good feels, right? No, not necessarily. If they can manufacture bad feels, it still is feeling all the feels.
Speaker 1:So many times, especially in our victim culture that we're in today, a feeler will manufacture a victim status for themselves and they'll. They'll go from bad to worse, though They'll talk about how awful things are and terrible, but they're wallowing in the feelings. So again, the feelers. There's really a lot of positives because I, I'm a doer and, as a doer, and Megan's a thinker. As a thinker, we need to be surrounded by feelers to help us be in touch with how this is going to play out with other people. Rather, we can be rather harsh and sort of, you know, task oriented. As a thinker and a doer, we need to round out our portfolio with thinking well, how is this going to play with people? How's this going to make people feel that there's nothing wrong with that? But if that's all you do, then you can wallow in that and you can turn yourself into a victim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just thought of an application that we probably haven't really delved into before. But with your children, if you have a real feeler child, in the same way that any feeling is feeling right, Whether it's good or bad, I still get to feel. If you have that child that you're like, it just seems like they don't care if it's good attention or bad attention, as long as they're getting attention. That's that same batch. Now, honestly, when our children are little, they're all three and they're all three very heavily right. But you'll begin to see, as they get to be 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, that you go, you know what that child is more of a feeler and we'll talk before you're done. I think about kind of how to help them, because we do want to be well-rounded. But if you have that child that you're like, they would just as soon be in trouble as be praised. As long as I'm paying attention to them, Right as long as I'm paying attention to them, Right?
Speaker 1:So I'll talk about a doer here in a second and then we'll talk about the application with all three of these with children, but certainly in our own relationships.
Speaker 2:With each other, with each other, right Okay.
Speaker 1:So the third now is the doer. Now, I'm a classic doer. Doers are idea people, they're dreamers, no-transcript, and they run from one idea to the next just as fast as you can go. And that's why I say they kill you to death with how many ideas they throw at you, because if you're married to a thinker, the thinker is trying to take the last idea you threw at them and put it into motion. Remember lining up all the dominoes? Well, I don't have it. I have one domino.
Speaker 1:Maybe, I have one domino. Okay, I won't tell you what that is, maybe if we do an episode on that sometime, but um, you know it's so. I, I'm, I'm a very simple man and but I do have a lot of ideas and and so I kind of did some damage in our relationship in the beginning because she would try to put these ideas into motion and uh, and I was off to the next one. Now the. The garage of a of a doer is just an absolute disaster. Why Cause they have 12 projects all started at the same time and none of them finished. They love starting the latest thing, but not so much the follow through to get it done. The desk of a doer is an absolute disaster why Cause I've got a pile for everything and I know where 25% of 40% of all my stuff is Right.
Speaker 2:This is my side.
Speaker 1:I look at Megan, she's got a cup right. Well, you know, sorry for you that you're not a doer right Cause you'd have more fun, but so doers are. I think doers are just more fun, um, but they are absolutely dreamers and idea people and and. But they've got to get disciplined right. Being connected with the thinker has helped me to to focus now on seeing an idea all the way through before I jump into the next idea Right, because I do actually like getting things done. Now let's talk about thinker, feeler and doer children. How does that apply? So you're looking and you're thinking well, I've got little kids and some medium-sized kids maybe around, or maybe you don't have children at all, but you've got younger brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2:You work in the church nursery.
Speaker 1:Right, you've got nieces and nephews, right, and you're thinking OK, well, how does this apply to them? Well, all right, a thinker child. Now. Thinkers, they love to think about everything they can possibly think about, so they are prone to delayed obedience. You'll ask a thinker child to do something and they never get around to it. Right, they never quite get it done. And they go upstairs and they draw you a nice little picture and they show you that's you and them walking in the park and you're like hey, I didn't ask you to draw a picture, I asked you to make your bed. Oh, but, mommy, I just love you so much. Here's a picture of us and they're thinking about doing the bed.
Speaker 2:Well, think about a teenager who needs to study for a test. Right? So they get their notebook, they line up all their pens, they make sure they have the right highlighter. They get a coffee oh, but they should have a water too. They get the lights just right, and then they're like I'm exhausted.
Speaker 1:I got to go to bed. They surf the internet for best study techniques. It's like just study, right. So they're thinking about all the things that they could possibly think about and they never get around to. What do you do with a thinker child to help them? Give them a deadline, right, whatever's appropriate for whatever it is five minutes, 10 minutes, an hour a day. Say to them you must have this done by this time tomorrow, right? And if they don't, then there's got to be some discipline. We'll talk about discipline. In fact, discipline is a difficult topic to get into on podcast episodes. We will try to dabble in that as much as we can. But let me show you this. This is our parenting course. It's called the Nine Practices of the Proactive Parent. It comes with a wonderful workbook. This is 28 hours of stuff and it's available through characterhealthcom.
Speaker 1:We get very in-depth into discipline in this much more so than we could ever get into on a podcast. So appropriate discipline, uh with children is many and varied. We get into all the different types and uh and how to get your kids to have a more satisfying existence for themselves and be happier ultimately is the goal of all that let me throw a little piece of candy in here yeah because we know we have some homeschoolers who watch us, just because people know we homeschooled and you watch our podcast.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we have heard from non homeschooling professors at universities and actually at um higher education than that is that homeschool kids don't understand a deadline and so for your thinker kids. A deadline needs to be a deadline, like oh, you didn't get it done, I'll give you another week. No, no, no, no, no. They have to learn that, and so make your deadlines and stick to it.
Speaker 1:And this Nine Practices of the Proactive Parent is available on DVD, obviously, I've got that in my hands, but it's also available as a downloadable course for a fraction of the cost. Right, yeah, I'd go that way. So if you go to care, if you go to characterhealthcom it pops up on the front page you can get our I think it's called awesome kids bundle or something. Yeah, um, and it's downloadable. It's very, very affordable. Okay, so that's shameless promotion. Okay, so, back to now, that's a thinker child, feeler children. Um, there, you have to help them take every thought captive yeah right, because their favorite word in the universe is what if?
Speaker 1:their favorite expression is what if? What if this happens? What if that happens? What the sky falls, what the you know? And they'll just get wallowed in worry and anxiety and they're wringing their hands all the time.
Speaker 1:Um, the Bible is very helpful with this one. Uh, the uh best verse I can think of is uh, second Corinthians, 10, five. It says take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. You say, wow, what does that mean? That means that's the discipline of taking thoughts captive and not running down the road of what if? God will give you the grace to bear up under the realities of life, but he won't give you the grace to bear up under all of the what ifs. There's too many potentials with all of that and it's counterproductive for us. So help your children to to take a big deep breath, maybe fold their hands. Okay, let's, let's focus for a little bit and let's take that thought captive. We're not going to deal with the what ifs today. What's the reality? Keep bringing them back to, to dead. Center on that. That's very helpful for them.
Speaker 2:And feel our moms and dads. That's why we say must. And now may be more difficult for you, because you think what if they think I'm too hard on them? What if they don't like what I had to say to them? What if I have to end up punishing them? What if? What if? What if my relationship with them? No, no, you have to align yourself with the word of god. Take your thoughts captive. Um the the scriptures tell us that we do things decently in an order, precept upon precept. Must and now helps you live that and honestly, we can promise you your kids are going to feel secure and your relationship is going to be great. So take those thoughts captive to make them obedient to Christ.
Speaker 1:Right, and Steve and Megan will help you in the balance in all these areas of adulting. Right, because those articles might have been written by feelers, yeah, and they're just going to feel all over you and feel all over your kids and that's not necessarily a healthy or a balanced approach, and you see, that right now on social media, because gentle parenting is all the rage.
Speaker 2:But what's coming? Gentle parenting is probably three or four years old since it really became popular and what you're seeing are the parents who are absolutely laden with guilt because they're failing at gentle parenting, because that's not what scripture lays out. Now, was I a gentle parent? I was, but gentle parenting was not my, my goal. My goal was to raise kids who would be successful adults.
Speaker 1:Right If it sounds like a gimmick.
Speaker 2:It probably is.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to give you the straight shot here. We're going to give you the straight information and we're going to give you a balanced stuff, and sometimes it means rolling up your sleeves and getting to work. Yeah, right, and we're not. I'm not going to sugarcoat that for you, but that's okay. Anything that's worthwhile is worth the work and effort to be put in and your children, you're absolutely right, so all right.
Speaker 1:So that was thinkers, feelers and now doers. All right, done. Doer children, uh, doer children, you better have deep pockets because they're going to cost you some money. All right, if you have a child. If you have a child or children listen, doer, shy, nurse if you, if you have a child out there that says, hey, dad, we could strap a v8 to that and it would really go that's a doer, all right, and uh, and so they're. They're the crazy cowabunga dude kids, uh, that don't know any limits and they don't think gravity really exists and all that stuff. And that's wonderful. Folks, don't obsess over them. They're going to be fighter pilots someday. They're going to make you proud. They're going to be tall and handsome and have a slack jaw and they're going to be flying that jet all around. But you know what? In the meantime, you got to bear up on your scar.
Speaker 2:We'll just make them more attractive that scar down their face will just make them more attractive.
Speaker 1:When did you get that? I jumped out of the tree when I was eight years old. So, anyways, that's, that's your um, your doer children. Now, um, what do I say? You have to have deep pockets because they're going to try stuff out and they're going to try it on in your house on your things. So what is it?
Speaker 1:You have to do with a doer. You have to say to a doer until you do it exactly the way mommy or daddy told you, I'm not here to entertain your better idea. A doer will always throw a better idea at you, right. They'll argue with you and as soon as you say to do something, they go wait a minute, I got a better idea, right. And they throw that on to go no, no, you're six years old, you do not have a better idea. No six-year-old on the planet has a better idea. And if your six-year-old does have a better idea, take a big deep breath, walk around the corner, come back in and introduce it as your idea. Do not give the doer the benefit of the satisfaction of it being their idea. Don't worry about stepping on their little doer thing.
Speaker 2:It's in there.
Speaker 1:It'll be, Don't worry about that Right. Help them to be more of a thinker and a feeler. So you say to them until you do it exactly, you're characterized by doing it exactly the way I tell you. Then, and only then, am I going to entertain your better idea. They have to earn the right to have a better idea. The feeler has to earn the right to their feelings and the thinker has to earn the right to over process things. And all of those things need to be in balance. There's thinker feelers. Now that's the children application. Now some of you are elbowing one another and going oh, that's you. You're thinking about your spouse or yourself, and the light bulb is going on when we do this conversation about thinker, feeler and doer in public at lectures. Oh, my word, I'm watching the audience and women are elbowing men, oh, even more so on the counseling couch.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:People are sitting there going.
Speaker 1:That makes total sense now. Now I get you All right. Well, the part of this exercise is now I get you, and if you give this some insight to you or the person that you're hooked up with, then that's great.
Speaker 2:they're a thinker, they're a feeler or they're a doer, and you can make the adjustment now to be a better and the beautiful thing that God does is he puts us in families and, like Steve said, he's become more of a thinker, I've become more of a doer. I think I say to him often now I have an idea, and it kind of throws you for a loop. But he also gives us children that don't fit Right. So Steve and I are thinkers and doers. We have a couple feelers that are our children and we have had to balance in that area as well so that we didn't brutalize the feelers, because in a family of mostly thinkers and doers those feelers could have been run over very easily. And so you know, pay attention, pay attention to your family and don't see it as a challenge to change them, but a challenge to change yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, feelers, stop, stop Sorry, but a challenge to change yourself. Yeah, yeah, feelers, stop sorry. Still still trying to work on that one.
Speaker 2:But obviously you're a thinker, I'm a doer and we do have a couple feelers we do, yeah, and the drama lives there and they have helped us to be better people.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, through all the drama. Okay, so that's thinker, feeler, doer. Now let's move on to our next segment. All right, I want your thoughts to start with on this one, and the segment is who thought that was a good idea?
Speaker 2:Okay, meg, all right, so I'm going to step on a sacred cow here. But who thought it was a good idea to give every child at a birthday party a gift? If we're having a birthday party for the special child, then let's make it the special child wait a minute, hold on, that's a thing that is, that is a.
Speaker 1:Thing see, dads don't go to, I don't go to a lot of birthday parties so is that that's now a thing where every child has to get a gift?
Speaker 2:Yeah, ever since our kids were little.
Speaker 2:And I fell into it for a long time. But I think there's a real benefit in teaching our children to be happy for someone else, you know, especially if you're doing a family birthday party. Oh my word, why would you give every child a gift when it's one child's special day? Now, I do have strong feelings about birthdays. I honestly think that mothers should get the gifts on birthdays children's birthdays because who did all the hard work? Me, me.
Speaker 2:But if you're going to have a birthday party, make it fun, do games, maybe have prizes for games, but don't feel that need to go up and above, to go overboard and have a gift for everyone and make it a special day for the child that you're celebrating, and especially for your own children. You can't do this for anyone else's children, but for your own children. Say, are you happy for your brother? Are you happy for your sister? That's such an important character quality Because, remember, we're not raising children, we're raising adults, and adults who can't be happy for someone else are miserable, miserable people. That's not my goal for my kids. It never was. I wanted them to be happy, others, oriented, secure in who they were, and a lot of that comes from learning to be happy for other people.
Speaker 1:So if you wanted to raise adults that were miserable people, you would give them a gift every time they went to somebody else's birthday party so they didn't feel left out, yeah, yeah okay and I'm sure we will talk about this later but, fairness is not necessarily a biblical character, it's not a character quality, because there is no such thing as fairness. Life is is not fair, and the sooner you learn that lesson, the better adjusted person you are. And yeah, okay, well, that's great. So not every kid should get a gift.
Speaker 2:Not every kid should get a gift at a birthday party.
Speaker 1:Be happy for somebody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it, yeah exactly, but I want you to remind our viewers and listeners what they need to do at this moment.
Speaker 1:Well, give us a like. If you've made it this far, do us a favor, click that thumbs up down at the bottom and subscribe, because you don't want to miss any of this content, and it's really good stuff. If you've made it this far, I know you'll like it and subscribe. It helps us out. You know how this works and then share this with your friends, right, and not just your. Share it with everybody, just send it out to your Facebook friends and so forth, and that helps us to grow and it also helps other people to get in on this free content, especially this episode.
Speaker 2:Share it with your local feeler.
Speaker 1:Yep, absolutely All right, we love that. All right, megan, we're going to wrap it up here at the end with Megan's adult bossing tip of the day. Okay, here is Bossing tip of the day, okay, meg.
Speaker 2:Here is your boss tip of the day, and one of the things that happens when you're an adult is you make a pivot from being a child, and children are always asking the questions what's in it for me? Who's doing this for me? What about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me? And adults ask the question what can I do for someone else? So my boss tip for you for today is this find someone to ask them how can I help you? Maybe it's your spouse, maybe it is your child, maybe it's your parents. And instead of saying what can you do for me, ask what can I do for you.
Speaker 1:Okay, awesome stuff. So if we go back and review what we did today, we talked about parrots and pandemonium, we introduced the two most important words in parenting must, and now we talked about thinker, feeler and doer and how to become a nice balance of all three you gave your thoughts on. Everybody gets a gift at a birthday party big thumbs down on that and the adult bossing tip of the day really really good okay, so next time on death by adulting.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about expectations and how they're nasty little things, or how to ruin your next vacation. Won't that be fun for us?
Speaker 2:it will. Well, I'm your host, megan scheibner. This has been death by adulting, and remember, when it comes to adulting, what doesn't kill you just makes you tired.
Speaker 1:See you next time, yeah.