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
Empowering Children with Trust and Responsibility
Can obedience truly lead to responsibility in parenting? Today on Death by Adulting, we explore this provocative question and uncover how small adjustments in parenting can yield significant positive outcomes for your child's future. By challenging the conventional wisdom that obedience is the ultimate goal, we reveal how it serves as a crucial stepping stone to fostering responsibility. We draw insightful parallels with the US military's focus on trust and adaptability to illustrate how these principles can be seamlessly integrated into child-rearing. Through engaging, real-life scenarios, and expert advice, we demonstrate the importance of modeling good character and decision-making skills, helping your child navigate life's complexities with confidence.
In this episode, we dive deep into practical strategies for building character through everyday tasks, emphasizing the importance of rewarding positive behavior to reinforce responsibility. Hear compelling stories, like dealing with a child's misbehavior in a grocery store, that bring our discussion to life. We reflect on the journey from guiding younger children to allowing them to take ownership of their lives, emphasizing the importance of prayer and encouragement during this transition. By the end of this episode, you'll have actionable insights into how to cultivate a sense of ownership and maturity in your children, preparing them to face real-world challenges with resilience and integrity.
On this episode of Death by Adulting. Why isn't obedience the end game? You mean there's more? Yes, it's true, you actually do reap what you sow. How the growth continuum just might save your life. And finally, how small adjustments in your parenting style today can produce big results tomorrow, plus much, much more. Roll the intro. I wish that I knew what I know now results tomorrow, plus much, much more.
Speaker 2:Roll the intro Welcome to Death by Adulting. And I'm really excited to be back to the table because last episode we talked about obedience and this episode we get to tie it to what comes next. And you said in the intro that obedience is not the end game and I hope that as parents we've got that concept, but I know sometimes we don't. You know, we think if they just obey me I have a 32 year old if he just obey me and we don't want our 32 year olds to obey us right?
Speaker 2:We want something more for them, um than obedience. Now let me say this I'm 62. I still obey things. I obey the speed. Well, no, forget that one Stop. Don't, don't, don't, don't feel free to talk I obey, I obey um red lights. How's that? Um, I obey, uh, I obey the Lord. There's a lot of segue, there's a lot of leeway in some of my driving obedience On to the next segment of the show.
Speaker 1:It's getting hot in here, isn't?
Speaker 2:it yeah, there are things. I still obey. But my life is characterized by something bigger than obedience. It's characterized by Well said Stop. It's honestly characterized by responsibility, which you know, we said obedience isn't a four-letter word. Sometimes responsibility feels like a four-letter word.
Speaker 1:You know one of my favorite things is watching you dig a hole and you've done it like right out of the shoot on this episode. It's just, it's like you know, and I'm a great supervisor I'll sit there with my shovel.
Speaker 2:I'll just watch you, all right, okay, I might maybe sometimes sort of kind of speed, all right. But in most other areas I'm pretty responsible sort of kind of speed All right, but in most other areas I'm pretty responsible, and so why don't you talk to us about responsibility and how obedience and responsibility are linked?
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, okay, so on the last episode we talked about the importance of obedience and all the things that it brings for our house and our children and our family, and it's not just a four letter word, right. So now, with that, let's build on that concept. Obedience follows a predictable continuum and I think I said in the tease that it might just save your life. Okay, and surely in the life of a small child, you want them to be obedient so they don't run out into traffic and when you call them they have to come. There needs to be that sense of urgency on the part of the child and when you call them they have to come, there needs to be that sense of urgency on the part of the child. Now let's expand it beyond all of that.
Speaker 1:Why is obedience important? And I think years ago, when we were doing workshops in front of audiences we still do them, but I mean, this was from 20 years ago when we started doing the workshops and people would come up to us afterwards and they would say, well, I know why obedience is so important to you. It's because you're a former military guy and all you military guys. It's all about being locked up in obedience. No, it had nothing to do with that. In fact, I was the least military military guy on the planet.
Speaker 2:I want you to throw something in, that's not on the script, because the truth is our, our military, especially in the officers, isn't obedient, it's responsible, and that's the difference with the United States. Correct From other countries.
Speaker 1:So the one of the things I used to lecture I did a leadership course for the Navy for about 20 years and one of the things I would teach was uh, why is the us military so, uh, effective, extraordinary and extraordinary, and we and I would say it's the greatest military force that's ever walked the planet, and there's been a lot, right, you can go back through history. But the us, is it because of our technology? Is it because of our economy? S? Is it because of our technology? Is it because of our economy? It's really. Is it because of the sophistication of the weapons today? It has nothing to do with any of those things. Those things are important and they're great, but the reason the US military is so effective is because of trust, and our system is built on trust and training.
Speaker 1:And so and let me give you an example the Chinese or the old Soviet Union back in the day, they are to this day a central command and control climate. In other words, nothing gets done in the field, on a ship or in an airplane, unless the Kremlin, or, you know, beijing, says do it. And so it's got to run through a single choke point, which is the chairman, and he's got to make the decision on everything. Well, that guy can't be everywhere all the time and he's not many times in Hitler's example, wasn't really very good at what he was doing and so got his troops way overextended to the point where they lost, and he wouldn't listen to his generals. And so that happens today. And so our system is different. It's not that central command and command. Yeah, certainly the commander-in-chief says go do, but the philosophy is adapt and overcome. You're given wide parameters on the mission that you're supposed to do, and when you get out there, if it's not quite exactly the way we thought it was going to be, we expect you to figure it out on the spot and get the mission done. We trust you. We trust you to take that ship or that submarine and go do the mission and bring it back when you're done, not go sell it to somebody or go defect to another country. That's a foreign concept to us, to a lot of other militaries it's not. The old Soviet Union used to put a political officer on every ship, along with the commanding officer, just to make sure he didn't steal the ship and go off and become a traitor. And so it's built on trust. That is really hard to combat. So trust is hugely important.
Speaker 1:So now let's segue back to why is obedience so important? O so trust is hugely important. So now let's segue back to why is obedience so important. Obedience is so important because at the root of it is trust and responsibility. And so I was given, as a young Lieutenant, a tremendous amount of responsibility and trust two sides of the same coin and I was trained to be obedient. But it wasn't just mere obedience, it was well beyond that, into responsibility, and we're going to see here ownership.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let me show you, let me take you over on the on the slide show here and talk about, uh, where obedience comes into there. Excuse me, let me go back. Hold on, um, I'm on the second slide already, all right, let's start it up again and let's start the slideshow over. Sorry, technical difficulties, it's me. Okay, let's talk about obedience. There we go. Obedience now leads to responsibility, and that's what we're talking about at the moment. It leads to responsibility and it's your ability to respond. It should be based in trust. You should trust your children and they should trust you. So you build those bonds of trust, not in all of the big things, but in all the little things. Right, right, pick up your shoes. Be obedient when I tell you to go do something. Take the garbage out when I ask you to do it.
Speaker 2:All those little chores, those things wrapped up that, wrapped up into those two concepts we talked about, which is quickly, completely without question and complaint, with a good attitude and doing it well.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's. It starts out in all the little things like put your toys away, come to the table, put your pajamas on, brush your teeth, go to bed. Those are little entry level obediences and they build up, they stack up on each other. So now you're mowing the lawn, you're driving the car, you've got a cell phone, you're babysitting outside the house, you've got a job right. Those are upper level obedience issues that build responsibility in the life of a child.
Speaker 1:Very important, mom and dad, that you capitalize on an already existing motivation in the life of the child. Your child wants to be older and have more responsibility. What does that look like when you say to your four-year-old how old are you? Your four-year-old says to you four and a half. Why is that? They want to be considered more mature. Capitalize on that. It's okay for you to say all right, a four and a half-year-old can handle this level of responsibility. And if they're irresponsible, don't reward them for their irresponsibility. If you want more of a certain behavior, reward that behavior. So every time they're obedient or they're responsible, reward them for that. Give them something that's tangible that they recognize as a reward. Now back to our yes.
Speaker 2:Let me just throw something in there. A reward can be as simple as thank you, that was so helpful to the family. Yes, rewards can be just verbal. It's not that we're giving our children a toy every time.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the easiest one is encouragement, right, right, yeah, hey, more, let's do more of that. Hey, let's say you did a great job, you're the best one out there. Right, peace out, swim like a trout Right.
Speaker 1:You know all those things I said to the kids over the years. You know, and so they were. They were awesome about all that stuff. So obedience leads to responsibility. If you want more responsibility, reward it. And its responsibility eventually leads to a thing called ownership, and ownership is key here. If we could boil, megan, if you and I could boil everything we teach in our nine practices of the proactive parent available at characterhealthcom, if we could boil all of that down into a single word, it would be the word ownership. We want to train parents, or equip parents, to take ownership of their walk with the Lord and also to train their children to take responsibility or to ownership of their walk with Christ, and ultimately that's our end goal. So back to the slide obedience leads to responsibility, responsibility leads to ownership, and when that works, it works out great.
Speaker 2:And I think ownership is what helps helps us as older parents, and those of you who are older or grandparents, from meddling too much.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because when I look at my children and I see them taking ownership of their parenting and their marriage and their jobs and their leadership in the community, I keep my hands off. Yeah, because I see that they are a responsible, mature, owning adult.
Speaker 1:Now there is an alternate universe to the one that you see on your screen right now. For those of you who are listening, this screen just says obedience leads to responsibility, leads to ownership. Pretty simple, right? There's an alternate universe and you can probably figure this one out. But if you reward disobedience and for those of you listening, disobedience is up on the screen now If you, if you reward that child who's disobedient, that is not compliant, that doesn't put their toys away, that you know, ultimately, you know, turns their back on you and doesn't do what you ask them to do, right away, all the way, the happy way, if that child is rewarded with the same rewards that a child that would be obedient gets, then why?
Speaker 1:What's the incentive for them to not be disobedient? It's natural inclination of us as human beings to be disobedient. You're not the boss of me. You can't tell me to do that. Pride is in there right from the beginning and that pride needs to be driven from the child and replaced with wisdom and maturity, and that wisdom and maturity looks like obedience, then responsibility, then ownership. If you reward disobedience, you're going to get more of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to meddle for just a minute, because that's kind of a big term, rewarding disobedience and I think parents would go well, I don't, I don't give them, I don't thank them for being disobedient, I'm not rewarding it, but when you don't get up on the couch and deal with an issue, you're rewarding disobedience.
Speaker 1:Don't get up off the couch Off the couch.
Speaker 2:Yes, what did I say On the couch? When you do whatever you asked your child to do for them because they didn't do it, and you just go do it, you're rewarding disobedience. It's not as easy, as I didn't give them a toy when they didn't do their job. Sometimes it's our in activity that is a reward.
Speaker 1:Let me. Let me speak to what you're talking about right now, megan, and that's this moms, I know something that you know. I know that you can put their toys away better and faster than they can. I know that you can clean their room better and faster than they can. I know that you can do all those things. I know that you can clean their room better and faster than they can. I know that you can do all those things. Don't do it.
Speaker 1:Why You're robbing your child of the character development that comes from insisting that they do it themselves. And yes, at first it is more work to get them to do it themselves and they might do a terrible job. That's okay. Go back later and fix it if you need to do that, but insist that they obey and they build responsibilities in their life through chores and family responsibilities. If you do all those things for one or two children in your life, you're gonna train up an irresponsible child and, as we're gonna see here in just a second, where does that lead? So let me show you the graphic again.
Speaker 1:All right, disobedience, if it's rewarded, then leads to irresponsibility. And now you've got an irresponsible child and you can't get them to do anything and it's just too much work to get them to to. You know, take on their responsibilities, and so the natural inclination is I don't have enough hours in a day to fight with you, I'll just go ahead and get it done myself. And you're robbing them of the character development that comes from insisting that they do it, hold on, and ultimately you end up in a place right that is called here entitlement. Disobedience leads to irresponsibility, irresponsibility leads to entitlement, and we live in an entitlement culture. So if you wonder why your preteen or your teen is so entitled and you're pulling your hair out, it's because over the years you rewarded disobedience, you rewarded irresponsibility, and that child doesn't know any different. They think that's the way the world works. Why wouldn't you end up in that place?
Speaker 2:Well, and I think what we're seeing more and more is that there are parents and I'm going to pick on moms, it really falls on the moms of this who don't even want to get on the continuum. They don't ask for obedience. So the child's not disobedient, right, they haven't been asked. But especially in areas of like health and safety, right, you know we, we know parents that have nine, 10, 11 year olds that they still brush their children's teeth for them because they're so afraid they might do it wrong. And in this continuum of learning obedience that leads to responsibility. There's times your kids are going to fail, they're absolutely going to fail, and that's okay. That's what you teach into, that builds character as they learn to do it correctly. But if we so baby proof their life, you know, we lay out their clothes for the nine-year-old, we brush the teeth, we all those kinds of personal responsibilities because we don't want them to learn themselves, we don't even let them get on the continuum, and it's not that they'll end up entitled at that point, they'll end up helpless, right.
Speaker 1:I wish parents would would put half as much time and effort into the character development of their children as they do into the health, health and safety issues. They're all over that. And mom and dad, here's my evidence for that Um, you're, you're knocking it out of the park when it comes to health and safety. Oh, my word, you're over that.
Speaker 1:And here's how I know when I'm in the men's room at the airport or at work or whatever place you go, and a young child walks in, that child does their business, and then they don't flush the toilet because they were trained that there's germs everywhere and they won't touch anything. They walk out of their unflushed toilet for somebody else to take care of and then they walk over to the sink and they lather up with soap. I mean, they get a ton of soap and then they wash and they wash and they wash. They're like a surgeon going into an operating room, right, they wash and wash. Right, I'm sitting there the whole time going are you ever going to finish, you know? And again, then they rinse, and then they do it again. And they've been trained at home that there might be a germ. Yeah, someplace that is going to sink the ship, and so they're all over the health and safety stuff. And, mom and dad, if you put half as much effort into their character development, they'd actually be uh delightful children.
Speaker 2:That takes ownership of their own responsibilities yeah, I think the other, the other one. We've seen that, um, you know it's hard not to, it's hard not to speak up, it just is. But when a mom goes into the grocery store and uses the you know handy wet wipes they have now, which there's nothing wrong with those Although with as many kids as we had, we knew we wanted to build immunities with some germs but they wipe the entire grocery cart. But then, as they're going through the grocery store, their child is demanding or screaming or throwing a temper tantrum or messing up the things on the shelves.
Speaker 1:Constantly grabbing stuff, messing up the things on the shelves.
Speaker 2:Constantly grabbing stuff right and there's a total bankruptcy of any type of character. But boy, they're clean and safe and buckled, and you know it's, it's our kids. Don't miss that. They don't miss it and it becomes just another, another tool for them to use to manipulate us. Correct?
Speaker 1:So there's a difference between obedience and responsibility. It's kind of one leads into the other, and so if you haven't insisted on your child being obedient, it's going to be a real chore to get them to be responsible. So what I'd say is let's go back to the obedience things keep your room clean, put your toys away. You know that that sort of the simple entry level stuff, the secondary responsibilities now will be things like chores in the family, and we're going to talk about that in the next episode.
Speaker 1:And so make sure you give them. So we'll unwrap that in our next episode, and then, ultimately, you end up with a child that takes ownership. And it's not as hard as you think, mom and dad, it really isn't. You just got to be consistent with going after the obedience issues. That's where it all begins.
Speaker 2:And maybe the question that we have to ask is do we take ownership, correct, you know? Are we taking ownership of our life and our walk with the Lord? Cause if you don't, they won't. Yeah, absolutely All right.
Speaker 2:One last thought on this, and and you know we've hit pretty hard on obedience We've last episode and this will be this episode, but obedience is really now focused, that's that quickly and completely, without question or complaint, right away, all the way, the happy way Obedience is do it now, and that's the attitude we're training into. Responsibility is much more future focused. Responsibility is a change in our character that determines how we behave, and that's what you want for your kids. You want a change in their behavior that helps them develop character that leads them through life's complicated and life is complicated decisions, circumstances and situations, and so that's why we don't want to stay in obedience. You know, in obedience, if our child gets to a circumstance that mom or dad hasn't told them specifically what to do, they're lost. But if we have helped them traverse that road to responsibility, they have the character quality to make the right decision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. That's well said, all right. Well, I think that's covered. Obedience and responsibility.
Speaker 2:That growth continuum is great and it's great to go back to personally and go okay, where were my kids on it? They're all grown now. Right, when am I on it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know, am I obedient to the place things that I should be obedient to? It's not a four letter word and and, you know, am I responsible with my responsibilities? And that's what. That's what adulting is all about.
Speaker 1:Right, the snarky name death by adulting is you know it literally can you fight and struggle against these things because we don't naturally want to be compliant or we're proud and we want to be defiant actually with things, and that can end up in a form of death, in a sense, death to all the fun and and and I think probably our first episode, or one of the very first episodes, episodes I said you don't have to like it, you just have to do it right, and that's a philosophy of life that once you embrace that philosophy, it frees you up, you're, you're no longer bound by the. It has to be my idea, or I have to see some merit in it. I'm writing a book right now called dad's rules and, and in it I'm talking about you don't have to like it, you just have to do it, and how important a concept that is. The sooner you incorporate the philosophy of that statement into your life, the happier you will be.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, you can be as happy as me. There you go. And so for you younger parents, focus on the obedience and then, at the right time, help your children walk into responsibility. For you older parents, when your kids have taken ownership, that's really it's fun. It's fun to watch your kids take ownership. But what if they haven't? That doesn't mean that you need to still come in and try and squeeze them into the obedience mold. It doesn't work that way. At some point they answer to God. Continue to pray for them. Continue to plant seeds of truth from the word of God. Water those seeds with encouragement and then take your hands off.
Speaker 1:Very good.
Speaker 2:All right, obedience and responsibility part of adulting. It is, and you know, when it comes to adulting, what doesn't kill you just makes you tired. I'm Megan Shibner, with Dr Steve Scheibner. This has been Death by Adulting. We'll see you next time. I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger.