Streetlight Angels Podcast
Creating safety awareness and mindfulness to the nation to help our children take back the ability to play outside "until the street lights come on".
Streetlight Angels Podcast
Rebuilding the Village: Raising Kids in a Digital World
Three passionate advocates explore how technology is replacing physical interaction for today's children and examine the impacts on social development, leadership skills, and community building.
• Children today interact with peers through screens rather than in person, missing crucial social skills development
• Kids who primarily engage with technology struggle to read facial expressions and social cues
• "COVID kids" often show discomfort with outdoor activities and physical play
• Involving children with adults helps develop leadership skills alongside peer interaction
• A "village" approach to childrearing provides diverse adult influences and balanced development
• Liability concerns have created barriers to community involvement in children's activities
• Parents and coaches/teachers need to work together rather than against each other
• Setting clear expectations with parents before activities begins prevents misunderstandings
• Solutions include parent-coach meetings, transparent communication, and shared responsibility
• Walking the walk means taking action to rebuild community connections around children
Find us on Facebook and social media. Email us at streetlightangelspodcast@gmail.com with questions or comments.
Welcome everybody. This is episode 15 of Streetlight Angels podcast. I'm your host, Josh. I got my co-host here with me, Eugene.
Speaker 2:What's up everybody?
Speaker 1:We got a special guest here today, her name is Lisa and she's coming to us out of nowhere. Really, we kind of asked her. Today I'm going to give her the floor and let her tell you all what she is all about.
Speaker 3:Hey guys, it's great to be here. I'm Liza or Lizo. Liza sells the coast, I am in real estate, but I also do various other things. I'm part of the Angel Forest Foundation, which is amazing, and I'm a huge advocate for the safety of our children, because I have a little one too, and didn't realize how much of an issue it was until I had one myself.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right, and that's true, huh yeah.
Speaker 2:Nothing gets on your radar more than when it's in your home. Very much so, even with food. Like somebody will say something if you don't eat that, then you don't even worry about it. But as soon as it's something that you do eat like it's something in a cereal you start looking at your cereal box in the house.
Speaker 1:I know it's dangerous.
Speaker 3:That's a good point you don't think about the kids so much as to until you have one right. Yeah, exactly. Even if you're around them all the time, it doesn't hold that importance.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 3:That it does when you do have your own, and then you start to really look at it.
Speaker 1:That's very true. That's very true. I feel like it was an episode in the making, but we want to talk about something that actually Lisa brought up. What was that topic that we wanted to discuss today for a little bit?
Speaker 3:Well, the fact that kids don't have to be around other kids anymore to be with other kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have FaceTime.
Speaker 3:They have Xbox, PlayStation.
Speaker 1:Sure VR VR.
Speaker 2:All of VR, all of the technology that kids didn't used to have access to the physical interaction is kind of fading away to a digital interaction, is what you're saying?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:It's really breaking up the ability to get us to where we need to be and that's where you know to get the kids outside and playing outside until the streetlights come on, and that doesn't allow it to happen because they're stuck outside. You know, somebody told me yesterday, or maybe it was even this morning, and they had said that it was weird to interact with a couple of children because they would come to an event. But you know, they were kind of freaking out about just the sun itself. You know what I mean. And being outside, oh, it was the guy that does um. He teaches kids how to golf. Well, their parents drug them out there to do it and the kid acted like it had never been outside. You know what I mean, and so that's probably part of it, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I run into that a lot Coaching baseball. Oh, I could imagine, right I mean I coach five and six year olds.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 3:So I mean you see it at even a young age. I mean I'd probably say at least three kids on the team, minimum just aren't used to that kind of interaction.
Speaker 2:And that age group man. Some of them don't even know how to use their feet yet.
Speaker 3:Exactly, we're talking COVID kids Right. Covid kids yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, only run if somebody's shooting at me in my video game, that's right, they're sitting still. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like real grass. Yeah, you know what I mean. Like that is grass and that is dirt. Go ahead and grab your mouth full of that stuff. You know that's what I would say. Right, but I can only imagine how it is coaching an actual sporting event. That's, you know, exclusively outside to a young, you know, young child dynamic of that. That's got to be difficult.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And something we have to be aware of too is that the more they're interacting with the screen as opposed to a real person, they don't learn those social cues. As far as facial expressions, this is similar to how it is with autism, where you're fully functioning, but sometimes you don't get those those social cues. Sure, you know even that little grimace that you make you know when somebody says something that's not true, that you make you know when somebody says something that's not true, and so that that's really one of the tougher things to really notice that's happening with your kid when they're on a gaming system all day is that they're not picking up certain things Like with us. We talk about situation awareness. It's like if you're not in situations where you have to pay attention socially, then you don't pick up those things, and it makes it kind of odd work that everybody else picked up and they're looking at you like you just see that happen.
Speaker 1:Right, right, you're like what you know, like oblivious. And you're right. I think in a decade from now, if we maintain exactly the flow of rate of what we're going right now, it's going to be even worse.
Speaker 3:oh my gosh, I can imagine yeah, so what happens when you have an entire generation that's like that yeah do they even know how to interact with one another in person?
Speaker 1:oh, it's gonna be, do they?
Speaker 3:lose it entirely. How did they build a business when they're adults? How do they trust or not, not know who to trust?
Speaker 2:right or dating. It's like if you're not socially interacting with girls, like you know, when we're younger we're scared of girls, and then finally we learn the certain look that's welcoming like come and say hello to me. If you don't learn those social cues, you don't even know when to say hi or when to go away, because she gave you that look like no, I'm not interested.
Speaker 1:That's right. How are you going to learn that on vr? You know what I mean, and if you do, yeah, you may not want to be learning that kind of stuff on vr, but yeah. So what do you do, lisa, uh, for your little one, to make sure that they don't follow in that toxic flow of path?
Speaker 1:I try to involve him in the day-to-day with adults more so than with just kids a lot of kids they don't know those social cues, they don't know how to interact with other children, so he's used to being around adults and he's learned a lot of those tactics from adults and that alone is a huge leadership. Development for a child is to be able to to be integrated with an adult, as well as local village children, so that they can feed off of it and they can learn off of it.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, yeah, exactly, and you have to balance it too. That's why he's in baseball and we do all the kid things too, but I think it's really important to make sure that they're around adults.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And they know how to speak to an adult.
Speaker 1:They know how to interact around adults, proper adults, but we know probably adults that don't know how to yeah. But that's the thing is?
Speaker 2:is that part of good parenting and co-parenting is you know who you can and cannot bring your kids around. Doesn't mean that that person is a bad person. It just means that they may need a little briefing like, hey, when you come to the barbecue, this kind of conversation, you know we're not talking about politics around my kid, right right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, religion politics gots to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because some people get so energetic and animate about it that you know, and kids, whenever you bring an adult around your kid, you co-sign that adult behavior and so it's like it's okay because you're supposed to create the environment for your kids. So if you allow anybody in that environment, then the kid is assuming that person's okay right until they get to a certain age and then they realize, oh, that's just a drunk uncle, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean they can divide, it's like yeah, based there, yeah, their interpretation or make their own decisions on whether it's some a valid person to be around or learn from. I should say right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, they're little sponges, right? So if they see something and they see that other adults are okay with that something the adult is doing, they're going to assume it's okay too, no matter what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and that's where one of the big village things come in, right. You know what I mean, because you're really like you said, you're cosigning that ability to be around another adult or another child that you want your child to either mimic or learn from or build with. You know, and you know you're not allowing your child to have these ridiculous bias opinions based on someone else's judgment or education, right.
Speaker 2:Right, based on someone else's judgment or education, right, right. And then I think if we could put our pride to the side for just a second and think that if we don't have a tool or something that our kid needs, then we seek out people or adults who have it, so that that way it can maybe even rub off on yourself, like sometimes you may not like with baseball, you may not have the patience.
Speaker 2:So we know, when it comes to sports, if I don't have it, let's find somebody who does yeah but that could work with as far as math, as far as social skills are concerned, especially like music right, and we know music helps kids brains develop. So why not seek out those tools that, if we don't have them in the home, bring them around? Adults and young adults who do have them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sports building. I mean you're coaching, that's a volunteer, straight up right.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, all volunteer.
Speaker 1:And you coach kids that you may have never even met ever, until just recently or until you started coaching them.
Speaker 1:So that trust factor is huge from a parent to not only bring them out of the comfort of their home but then to put them in the hands of someone that they don't even know, under the impression that they're just going to coach my child and help significantly. And so then, as long as you're that good leader, that good face for them, I think that that is what we're constantly trying to find and grow within Streetlight, angels and the vision of it, I should say, to build the village that we want, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think another example of building the village. One thing that I am a huge advocate for is growing up, I never had parents that came to my games. I had friends that you know didn't have parents that took them to games and the coach was kind of like that backbone. But the new age, they don't allow it. You're not supposed to. The coach isn't supposed to watch a kid unless there's a parent there. This is something that I recently learned.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry. I'm going to go against the grain and say hey, if the parent can't make it, drop the kid off, I'll watch him.
Speaker 1:Right. Use that collaboration, that growth. It's synergy, collaborative synergy. It's a conflict of interest and you have these families that think that they come to that solution first, instead of looking at the idea that they can actually be synergetic or they can actually work in a collaborative way. So if a parent could say you know what that trust factor is there, that coach has that child for this time, and then allow them to utilize their aspect of it for the child's growth, right? Right, you know you're saying that the coach themselves have the ability to parent as well as coach to an extent, Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, to an extent. I mean, you just become the responsible party and a lot of people don't like to take on that responsibility. Yeah, or give it or give it, yeah, or give that responsibility, give that trust, sure. So a lot of kids end up missing out because their parents can't make it.
Speaker 2:And part of that is we've allowed liability to come into the family dynamic as well as the school dynamic. If you look at it, a lot of things that happen in sporting events have more to do with liability, and so it's not really the coach saying that I don't want to be responsible for this kid, it's the organization as a whole saying we don't want the financial liability. If the kid gets hit in the head with a baseball and the parent's not there, it's our fault when that kind of stuff happens.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, it's all about liability.
Speaker 1:Man and that takes insurance money, liability. It's taken over so much. It's ridiculous, right, you know like we're trying to host event coming up soon in October. It's horrible because you know there was a couple of venues that we couldn't go to because the liability factor of it. And we're like we're talking about a nonprofit where we're trying to do good things within the village and we can't do it because the venue is either not going to take the responsibility of the liability or the liability falls on the nonprofit that now has to fork out a ridiculous amount of money in insurance because of it. And I feel like that's the same with the kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or those are insurance altogether.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Most events that I've put on requires me to have a million dollars worth of liability and I'm like if only have 10 people show up, then they didn't even pay for what it cost me for that limited insurance.
Speaker 1:That's right. The 10 people that show up's combined income is probably $100,000.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So what are we looking at a million for? And you know that trickles down into a level of where our children are at, like sports, even on a community level, like what's your baseball? That's community driven right. It's not done by a school or anything like that Right yeah.
Speaker 1:And so even at that level where our village is trying to come together, we can or don't feel comfortable because liability issue Like get out of here man, it used to be a time where it was easy to raise money to buy the baseball shirts, but I bet you guys have a difficulty with just raising money as far as equipment and gear and stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, thankfully our registration fees are high enough where we get those given to us now well, so, and that's another thing registration fees, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean like I don't remember my parents ever having to worry about how much it was going to cost me play, you know, or t-ball, or anything when I was just sign right here, yeah, yeah, come on in and my grandmother was like to get them out of the house, of course, every sport.
Speaker 3:How many sports can I sign you up?
Speaker 1:for that's right to drop them off and let the coach deal with them.
Speaker 2:She would even find a blank sheet of paper and just sign it and just tell them write whatever they need you good it's like, are they? Gonna feed you. It's like, well, here's a juice box. What I even they didn't even have juice boxes at when I was growing up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, exactly Like, but now it's a financial burden to even allow your kids to even go out. So you know, if you're a listener and you're listening to this comment in the box give us some solutions to where I don't have to pay $180 a month, you know, for my kid to play a sport or something.
Speaker 2:I mean, kickball is not that expensive. To play a sport or something, Kickball is not that expensive. You know, even though you do have those kids who have that little bit of bullying in them, that they wait until they get the ball, and then that's when you know you're going to get tagged. It's like don't let.
Speaker 1:James get the ball, because if he do he's going to put some heat on it.
Speaker 2:But you know that used to be. Our thing is that if we didn't have a sport at the time, we would just play. It'd be like our own little neighborhood league where you knew all right, this person goes to this school, let's go get them and we'll. We'll play kickball and see who's the best and have bragging rights for a week or until the next.
Speaker 1:So you pivoted and you made it to where you go outside, regardless whether you could go to a sport or not that's so.
Speaker 3:You unlocked a whole memory for me about kickball. We had a neighborhood kickball league.
Speaker 2:Did you really, when I?
Speaker 3:was growing up, yeah, and all the neighborhood. It was kind of in pockets, right Blocks. And there were so many kids on each block, you could have teams per block. I bet it didn't cost a penny either. Oh, not a penny, we didn't have to worry about liability issues. The stipulation is, we just couldn't come inside until it was nighttime, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Until the streetlights come on.
Speaker 2:Exactly Our uniforms, because we wanted to be like we were kind of organized. It was like oh man, you got to tuck your pants into your socks, y'all. That way you knew this person's on that team and he always had that one that would get a hard time because he knew his block. He lived on the kids wasn't that good, like no, you gotta play with your block and then people see how good he is and be like oh man, if you want to, you can come over here.
Speaker 1:he just kicked three home runs in a row.
Speaker 2:He's scoring all the points on the team yep, there you go.
Speaker 1:They're like poaching right like under under the rug poaching for for some players within the neighborhood. But that's leadership development, man. That's learning how to play the intricacies of building a team. You know, that's all kinds of cool stuff that is just going on.
Speaker 2:We learned math from penny candy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Pennies didn't matter any until you knew you could buy some candy with it. Now you can't find penny candy. To save your life.
Speaker 3:You can't find dollar candy.
Speaker 2:That's true. It's $1.25. Now, that's right, that's right. Inflation is ruining the family dynamics.
Speaker 1:It's one of them, it's one of the things ruining. That's for dang sure.
Speaker 3:On the leadership note, we were talking about the things that technology is taking away from kids, right?
Speaker 2:How do you learn leadership then? Well, some of it. You know. Kids mimic their parents. So if you got good leaders in the household, then there's an opportunity that kids are going to absorb that you know. And so it's like if you have terrible leaders in the house, that's where you get that sometimes that aggressive behavior and dynamics, from where they don't even realize what they're doing. They're just thinking that it's normal. But it's tough to learn those behaviors when most of your parental or adult interaction is just sit here and do what you're told and then you get to do what you want when you're online. So some people find freedom, or some kids find freedom being online because they feel like they can be somewhat themselves, as opposed to us. We felt free when we got outside because then we knew we could run, play, do whatever we want, as long as we didn't break any laws or rules.
Speaker 1:You know, I look back at it. We had a hierarchy in our neighborhood. We had our own leaders. You always had that one that was the leader. We always had a couple that were older that my weaknesses were learned off of their strengths. You always had that one that was the leader, or you always had a couple that were older that my weaknesses were learned off of their strengths. You know what I mean. I didn't need my parents to teach me leadership skills, because I was learning that on a peer level and then moving that up, and you know a lot of the classes that I'm going to be teaching soon. That's what we're going to be covering. So another thing that you bring up that would be super awesome firepower to be able to instill. How did you learn when you were a kid? You know what I mean to be a leader, or did you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, for me it was self-taught. I mean, I grew up in a big family, I was one of the oldest of eight, so I was kind of forced to leader. But you know, not everyone has to learn the hard way.
Speaker 2:There are easier ways to learn. That's right. How long did it take you to learn how to pick your friends? You look like you could pick good friends.
Speaker 3:Honestly, I'm still learning that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, you think you got a good one, oh yeah, and then all of a sudden it's not such a good one anymore. You realize a little bit more in depth of that. And that's us as an adult. You know, as kids you shouldn't even, they shouldn't even have that issue.
Speaker 2:But well nowadays, because kids are bullying at a younger age is sometimes you don't like, even know that your kids being bullied because they want to be liked so much they accept it.
Speaker 2:you know that's true and so you know it's kind of like the kid would be like. You know, oh, it's OK, they didn't mean that. Or you just don't even know that is going on, because you know they want that person as a friend, or you know whether it's because that person is popular or because that person seems to be cool, or they think, oh well, if I become that person's friend, then that bully will keep the other bullies away.
Speaker 1:You know so that's another good point. When I was a kid, if I got bullied, my parents would be like deal with it. Now it's if my kid gets bullied, I'm going to go in there and I feel like I need to go and deal with it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, well you do, because it's a different dynamic, right, well, if we had the same teaching system, because teachers were more invested in the kid, it was like it was like. I know teachers now who feel like I'm a badge of honor because I was one of those kids who came from a rough environment who kept pushing and pushing it to make it Sure environment, who kept pushing and pushing it to make it sure, and so when they look at my career, yeah, you know, one of my teachers reached out to me when I was in paris and was like we are so proud of you and I was like I was messing with, like who is we? She's like everybody who's still working.
Speaker 1:That's cool but they, they. So they devoted themselves and actually put their own pride and joy into the outcome of, of the of that child, in conjunction with the family. Now it's not like that. Now it's like the parents want to have their hands clean of anything because as soon as one little thing goes bad, they're going to be held responsible. And next thing, you know, you know they're getting held accountable for things that they shouldn't be really so, teachers, that's a hard place to be right now.
Speaker 2:as an educator, it's kind of like how what you're saying as far as coaching is that we want them to teach but not parent.
Speaker 1:But then the parents are not parenting Right, and then they expect the coach to do it and then get mad at the coach, or when they're lacking in the ability that they're not even allowed to do.
Speaker 3:you know, do you have that problem? Yes, yeah, absolutely. Are your parents like yelling at you? Not necessarily yelling, but I definitely feel some looks you know A little bit of heat. Yeah, I can feel the heat from across the field.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and it's such a fine line too, because if you're too stern and you can feel those eyes on you right, like why are you being so stern on my kid?
Speaker 3:And then there's other parents that do want you to be stern.
Speaker 1:Beat them.
Speaker 3:So it's like this balance that I can't even imagine for a teacher, right? There's so much pressure, and then they don't just have pressure from parents, they have pressure from the school district. Right? They have to meet all these metrics and this criteria to be called a good teacher, and some of them are almost impossible to meet.
Speaker 2:They have to focus on the numbers instead of the children.
Speaker 3:Instead of the children. Exactly, yeah, and it's even worse with karate schools.
Speaker 2:Man, I used to teach karate and you could tell the difference between like an old school parent and new school. Like it was like I want you to teach them karate but I don't want you to touch them. I don't. I don't want them to have any. How you put your kid in a contact't, I don't want them to have any. How you put your kid in a contact sport but don't want them to make contact. That's like putting them out in the world but don't want them to interact with people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh man, that's impossible. Yeah, and it's a necessity, it's. It's something that obviously has to be driven now and then makes the changes. So it kind of makes you wonder if you could do something like maybe have a meeting before you start.
Speaker 2:No, add it to the contract.
Speaker 3:Well, that's what I was going to say.
Speaker 2:It's like this is part of the contract.
Speaker 2:You know, this is what we're going to do. If you do this because you know now, like in a lot of places, like the parents are aren't even allowed to be there, like a lot of activities, parents are not allowed to be there specifically because of the one who doesn't know how to act, right, you know what I mean? It's not. They overreact on certain situations, right or into, and yeah, and, or they just don't let the coach handle it right. You know I would have. When I coached baseball, it tripped me out how many parents were okay with getting kicked out of the game.
Speaker 2:It's like you know I stood up for my kid, it's like but you didn't. You just removed yourself from possibly a great moment for your kid, especially a learning moment, because even failure can be a success if you look at it at the right angle and sports give you that opportunity to grow. You, you know, just like in business is like you look at what works and what didn't work and you tweak, you keep tweaking until it's a smooth running machine.
Speaker 1:I mean I can't do any, I can't raise my kids by myself, man. I mean I can make it perfectly clear. I'll be extremely transparent in that.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. If I open myself to the world, I'm going to go ahead and say I can't do it by myself, I couldn't do it without you know, my wife. I grew up with a mother. I could not do that without my friends and the family and the people that I trust. Same thing with coaching. I'm sure you can't. You just can't do it by yourself. You could. You may not get the positive outcome that you want as a coach, but it's got to be difficult if you try to do it by yourself, right?
Speaker 3:Well, it has to be a team effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right, there are multiple coaches on a team. If the other coaches don't show, it's hard. I mean, it's like herding little sheep piglets whatever is harder to herd I think it's hard to herd little piglets? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:I feel like that would be really difficult.
Speaker 3:But I mean it really. It's possible, but it does does become more difficult, Right. And then if you have a dynamic where the parents aren't helpful, then you've got another deterrent there for a successful it's like, obstacle after obstacle, yeah, obstacle, when it should all be cohesive. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Everyone should be cohesive in that sense.
Speaker 2:Some coach after the first year are done and it's not, it's never the kids. Yeah, it's never the kids. It's either the organization and the rules or whatever, or the parents, and I think it's that way. As far as teaching, as far as elements in our society get kind of thrown away because of how I don't know what happens to us as we grow older, we literally forget where we came from. As far as kids, you know from kid, what does that child need that we didn't have? And if we got back to providing that, then to provide more rules and more rules, and you know, restrictions.
Speaker 1:So what are we going to do to walk the walk? So I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Wheels are spinning, we got to go forward with it, right? So the question is is, like, what could you do as a coach? And you're saying that, have it signed in the contract, right? Almost like let's go a step further in post contract, right? Almost like let's go a step further and post-contract reiterate the fact that, hey, listen, I want you all to know I'm not going to take away from your parenthood. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like as a coach, I would say this with my leadership classes I'm going to do for these kids. I'm going to assure the parents that I'm not going to take away anything from the parents, whether you know their leadership, from the parents, I'm not. I'm going to be non-biased. I'm not going to take any of the prestige level of from their parents. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:The parents are most important thing in the world. I'm going to work in conjunction with them, parallel with them, just like a coach would be, and just you look at them and they're wide of their eyes. The parents and I would hope, as a coach, you could be like I am going to take care of this kid now my leadership supervision. I'm an adult, I have a, you know. I have my own child. You can trust in me. Let's watch how we can work together on this. And I think if you had a meeting before the entire sporting event and made that just with the parents and made it perfectly clear this is how this is going to be, and not in a bad way, not in a contradicting way, not in a way where they're going to feel intimidated or angry or whatever you come at them like hey, I'm a mother, right.
Speaker 3:I'm a co-parenting pep talk. I'm a co-parenting pep talk, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's almost like it's a necessity, now, right. And then, because I think if you guys are on the same page from the very beginning, could you imagine the amount of output positive output you could have on that child in the upbringing, right, right, so that's, I would say that would be a walk to walk.
Speaker 3:You're setting expectations.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Which is important because everyone has so many different viewpoints on so many different things.
Speaker 1:Right Minimum standards.
Speaker 1:And it gives you the ability to do what you're supposed to do Right. And I think teachers, if they came at the school systems, came at the parents like that a little bit more aggressively and saying hey, we need your help. I know my school that my kids go to and they do that. We have a parent teacher conference at the very beginning. It's a parent night at the very beginning of the school year and they come out to us say we need your help. You know they're very transparent about it. We need your help. We get emails constantly from those teachers and it says hey, you know your son had a problem with this. What can we do together to make sure that your son doesn't have a problem with this anymore?
Speaker 1:And then we find that immediate solution, we move forward, and I feel like coaches could probably do the same thing. The problem is, is a lot of silly ass parents out there are not abiding by that. What they're doing is they are immediately putting up the blockers, the defense mechanism you know what I mean and not allowing and affording the opportunity for growth for their child based on their own personal feeling right.
Speaker 2:I think that if parents got to hold them accountable and if they want to be a part of the village, this is what it takes and then trust the process. It's not this versus your child, it's we're with you all the way. And in a sporting event, there's a process that, even when the coach is being stern or, you know, some people consider fussing at a kid. It is a process. It is a pressure that the kid has to learn to overcome. We will always get those pressures. We'll either have exam time coming up, standardized testing is a pressure for kids. It's so many pressures that if you interfere with the process then the kid doesn't know how to handle the pressure.
Speaker 2:Sure, if, ultimately, part of walking the walk is really developing a reputation where parents know that the training that they need is giving an honest love. You know, and that's what really, ultimately, what we're talking about is sometimes parents need to be taught so that they can not necessarily do better, but just observe sometimes. And sometimes it's be quiet and trust the process, and sometimes it's staying up and against the process if it is detrimental to your kid, but not only your kid, everybody else I mean that's why I became a coach, because I watched the process my kiddos first time playing and I didn't like it.
Speaker 3:I did not like it and, um, I didn't feel like the kids were benefiting from those hours, like they could have benefited. So from that point forward I started coaching.
Speaker 2:Right. So what's up? She ain't just talking about it, she was going to be about it.
Speaker 3:Well, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1:That's walking the walk. I mean that's why I asked her to be on the foundation man. I know she has an offer. So I believe if you're a listener out there we say this all the words, you know what I mean and listen to your children and listen to your peers and your family and just kind of see if you are a statistic, if you're one of those that you know are against the grain or for the village building that we're trying to push out.
Speaker 2:You don't have to be all in at one time. Take baby steps, sometimes just self-reflection and listening to this podcast for different types of tips and pointers of how to come together. Not everybody's going to come together the same way we talked about in another podcast that sometimes the best neighbor is that quiet neighbor that keeps to themselves. But they're also concerned about the kids. They're just quietly observing and making sure the kids are OK, staying out of the street, quietly, caring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, quietly caring.
Speaker 2:Sometimes that's what a great grandparent does, until you need a little help, and then you step in and give advice. As far as the grandkids you know, you don't have to be the second group of parents, but that's why their grandparents is that they're there when you need them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, it's very fundamental. All three of us are parents. I'm a super parent. I don't know about you guys. Yeah, super something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you got 10 kids, you supersede your expectations of parenting. That's why I love the idea of the village Well, not even the idea. I love my village because I know nothing I would have been able to do or accomplish if it wasn't for the people in my home and outside and around my home.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Working in conjunction with oh yeah.
Speaker 2:My kids didn't walk home from school right away. Yeah, the neighbor was like he they went down to the store first before they came home. Ok, that's why it's sunflower seeds all over the place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's one of those wonderful fluid things that we need to accomplish, we need to bring back Right and I think, with you coaching, you know what I mean and doing what you're doing, walking the walk like it's a beautiful thing, lisa, and I want to thank you for doing that, for taking some awesome steps into a village that you're not only very, very new to and you're already, you know, kind of planting the seeds of what we're all about. And you know Eugene with his 10.
Speaker 2:With my 10? What we're destroying environments here?
Speaker 1:No, honestly, man, like every child that I've ever met that's come from you have been wonderful, beautiful things. So it's something's working. And as long as we are imposing that on everyone else and starting to build that, and the listeners are listening to us and actually implying what we're trying to say not dictate what we're trying to say, what we're shedding light on, that's what we're all about. So this is Three Light Angels podcast. Find us on Facebook, find us on social medias. Make sure you're commenting. Make sure you're commenting. I'm pretty sure there's been a couple of free tickets handed out on comments and a couple other things. So again, lisa, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks guys.
Speaker 1:Hit us up at streetlightangelspodcast at gmailcom. If you need anything, you reach out to us. We, if you need anything, you reach out to us. We're going to walk the walk, the Streetlight Angels. Thanks for stopping by. Take care of yourselves and be safe Peace.