Speaker 1: All right, everybody, this is Rad dad secrets, episode 14. Let them suffer the consequences.
Speaker 2: So the big question is this, how do regular dads like us but weren't given a playbook on parenting who only have 24 hours in a day to make it all happen How do we provide for our families in a way that will allow us to raise happy, successful children and have a thriving marriage while still being a man and doing the things we love. That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. This is Rad dad secrets. Okay. So everybody, I just full transparency here,
Speaker 1: got done recording the podcast and realized I didn't hit the record button. A Jefferson is on vacation and I'm recording this by myself. He probably would have caught that and called me out on it. Um, so this is my second go through and I uh, don't know if it's going to be any better. Um, but hang tight with me and we're going to get through this together. So I wanted to talk today. Everybody's heard of the helicopter parent, right Always soaring around their children. Well, I read recently an article about the lawnmower parent, which I thought was fascinating and it's a, it's a problem that I see happening with our generation raising kids. And now the lawnmower parent, um, basically they go to whatever lengths necessary to prevent their children from having to face adversity, struggle trials or any type of failure. And I know you guys have seen this and, and I know that these parents and myself included, it has happened shins.
Speaker 1: Um, but it's going to cause problems in the long run. So it basically, instead of prep preparing your kids for the challenges that they're going to no doubt face in this life, they zip ahead of their kids and mowed down those challenges to make sure that they don't ever been up against those challenges with the idea that they're going to help them to be happier and more successful in some way. But this will lead kids to panic, to shut down and to cope with addictions. There's going to be blame involved and there's going to be internal rationalization. Some people will never actually figure out how to face their challenges or if they do, it might be later on in life there they will have missed out on so much of life's opportunities because when they finally hit those trials and they weren't mowed down because mom and dad were not around anymore, that they're not going to know what to do.
Speaker 1: So truly to have successful children who experience higher levels of happiness, you have got to allow your children to experience trial to experience challenges and go through that. Right I have a five month old baby, she rolls over and she's on her stomach and she's on top of her left arm, right And her right arm is out. She's pushing up and she can't seem to get that left went out. Now I want to go and just pull that arm out and help her out. But the other part of me is like, you know, you know what Let's let her figure this out. And she kind of wobbles around, wiggles around, and finally gets arm free. And at five months old you can already see that. She feels a sense of accomplishment, right So natural consequences is what I want to talk about here today. And when, uh, when our kids were younger, they would forget their lunch and we would see it on the counter and be like, Oh man, they forgot to have lunch.
Speaker 1: And we'd take it to the school, have them drop it off for them so they'd get their lunch. We had some friends like, oh, no, no, no, no. My kids forget their lunch. They're done. They don't get lunch. I was like, that is so mean. How could you possibly do that And then all of a sudden it dawned on me, I was like, this is starting to become a problem. My kids are forgetting their lunch an awful lot and they're not learning. And all of a sudden I'm like, wow, they're becoming enabled and feeling entitled. Right Oh, it's not a b