A Marine's System To Take Back Control Of Your Teenager

Every second you aren't leading your home, something else is — an algorithm, a peer group, or a bad actor. This week I sit down with US Marine Corps officer and author Olaolu Ogunyemi, who nearly became a statistic himself, to break down the exact system he uses to lead his kids through the hardest years.

We get tactical on:

• The "LEAD Last" framework for parenting teenagers
• The warning signs your teen is drifting (and what to do first)
• "Connection before direction" — why boundaries fail without it
• The transparent phone system: monitoring without spying
• How to stay calm when your teen gives you the business

If you're tired of guessing, this is the playbook.

🚀 OPERATIONAL BLUEPRINTS Download your first Parental Systems Audit: https://parenttap.io/

📚 Find Olaolu's books & Parent Child Connect — links in the episode.

#parentingteenagers #teenparenting #raisingteens #digitalparenting #defend #operate #lazyoperator

Transcript

The Leadership Vacuum: Who's Really Leading Your Teen?

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Before you scroll past, answer one question. Who is currently leading your teenager? Because here is the cold hard truth. Every second you aren't actively leading your home, an AI chatbot, an online predator, a toxic influencer, or a bad peer group is stepping in to fill that void. Bad actors thrive in a leadership vacuum. Welcome back to the Parent Tap, where we break down the real threats facing your family and give you the exact tactical moves to protect your kids. Today's guest knows what high-stakes leadership looks like when lives are on the line. He is an active duty U.S. Marine Corps officer, an award-winning author, father of three, and founder of Parent Child Connect. But more importantly, he almost became a statistic himself in his youth. He knows firsthand

Meet Olaolu: The Marine Who Almost Became a Statistic

SPEAKER_00 0:41

what happens when a young person lacks guidance and how to build military grade resilience and trust right in your living room. I want to talk about discipline because you obviously, if you're in the Marines, you gotta have discipline. So what happens to a teenager when there's no firm leadership at home?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

And I do think that uh leaders do, I think parents do have discipline. It's it's pretty cool. I think that's something that we can always explore more deeply.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah, right, right. And so,

Why Discipline Is Really Just Consistency

SPEAKER_00 1:04

yeah, I mean, like the Marines, you gotta have discipline though, right? Like walk us through a little bit of like what your daily life is, how you got into that, um, you know, it the typical person, what what they should expect if they're gonna try to go down that career path.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

And so, first of all, I would say that uh consistency is the key. And that's that's one thing I always talk about. When I'm thinking about discipline, I'm thinking about what can I do, what repeatable processes can I have that are going to lead to whatever result I'm trying to get it. And so that's really what I would say. If somebody wants to go that route, it's all about consistency. And the same with parents. I mean, you're if you're burnt out, and that was the first first question that you asked, you're burnt out, and then you have the teenagers that you feel like are sort of yeah hurting you or just you're sort of distinguished themselves from you. And I know that happens, but in reality, it's it's like hey, just it's okay. You know, we all have our our journey that we're on, and we all have our own way of being disciplined and being really looking at the things that we're doing and trying to make sure we achieve our goals.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Yeah, I love that answer. And so you mentioned earlier, like in your life, you like without key interventions, you could have ended up in a a different path, like maybe prison or worse. So looking back now, you know, as the Marine, as the father, so what are the signs that someone is drifting off course? And how did you kind of just change your

Warning Signs Your Teen Is Drifting

SPEAKER_00 2:14

trajectory, you know, as you're from your years to be able to do that? Yeah, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

So I if I were looking back at young Olalu or young Lou back in Ruston, Louisiana, where I was going, I would say the things that like the key indicators was my smile. So I love to smile. And one thing that I know for a fact, and my parents definitely picked up on, and my siblings picked up on, is that I started trying to isolate myself. I stopped smiling, or even something small, these subtle cues where I would smile, but I would cover my mouth. Okay, these are things you start looking out for. Why is your child smiling and covering their mouth? Is there something going on that you didn't know? I would cover my body when I'm, you know, people are talking about it. I'll sort of lean over and hunch. So there's a lot of body language things that happen first that I know for a fact my family picked up on. They tried to encourage, they tried to talk me through it. But in in some cases, uh, you just still need that, and in all cases, you really need that community to continue to surround you. So I would say those first cues are usually the physical cues where people feel a little withdrawn. They start to isolate themselves. That doesn't mean that they're necessarily doing anything wrong. Yeah, I was personally, but that doesn't mean everybody, every child that that sort of isolates themselves is doing something wrong. But I would say that's a key indicator that perhaps uh we need to tap in to lean into it a little bit more because for me, it was insecurities. You know, I already mentioned uh the gap that I had, and I thought, no, I can't smile because the gap that I have, and I was overweight as a kid. So I'm like, you know, I can't, I don't want to look people look at me and make fun of me. And oh yeah, my name was Olaulu Ogunyemi, and I grew up in Ruston, Louisiana, which is not necessarily the most common name there, right? So every time I talk to people, the first thing they they would come to me and they didn't want to even have a conversation before they laughed at my name. And so these are the things that sort of made me feel like I wanted to fit in elsewhere. And the people that wanted to accept me happen to be the people who were doing the wrong things. And they accepted me as one of their own. And honestly, I think that was one of the biggest things. So that's really a science. Like, what where's your child sort of fitting in? Where are they getting their identity? Where are they really enjoying? Who are they modeling their life after? If you see some strange patterns, if you look in the mirror and you notice them, then you know they came from you. But if you look in the mirror and you're like, those patterns, they don't sound right, they don't feel right. Then perhaps you need to start digging deeper and trying to figure out what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, man. Great answer. Could you explain what that is for the viewer here and how that kind of relates to um, you know, building authority and trust so kids can talk to us when they face, you know, crisis or threats?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

So leading last really

The LEAD Last Framework

SPEAKER_01 4:37

is about three things. It's about preparation, so getting ready to be a leader. That means all the things that we need to do. So that's looking internally to make sure that you know we're we're not trying to lead through our own insecurities and our own doubts and struggles. It means getting to know the people you're leading. So in this case, your children, really getting to know them, understand like what makes them tick, what makes them happy, what are their hobbies, what are their interests. Just get to know them a little bit. And then how are you leading? Understanding like what kind of environment do you want for your children? Want them to be in a home that prioritizes reading or a home that prioritizes classical music or whatever your home, like what are your values and what kind of environment do you want to create for your children? And really that's why I talk about lead last starts with preparation, and then I talk about the sequence. So you have to realize that it's really not about you anymore. The second that you decide to have a child, or perhaps in my case, it was a little bit of a surprise, but even then I still decided to have a child. And I wanted to really tell people that you know it's it's really not about you anymore. It's all about that child who didn't ask to be here, didn't ask to be in this situation. But now it's time for you to prioritize their needs and prioritize that by giving them the resources so they can thrive. That doesn't mean that you have to make sure the world revolves around them and you be a helicopter parent or any of that kind of stuff, but you should definitely realize that your role in life is now to resource them so that they that way they can be better citizens and they could be better than you were as you continue to grow and develop. That's the way I look at it. And then lastly is durability. I talk about lead last because we're thinking about what we can do to create a legacy that lasts beyond our conversation, beyond our time with our children. Because I I'm one with a 16-year-old, almost 17-year-old, and it drives me crazy to even think about because I still think about me getting stuck in Chuck E. Cheese, chasing her around in the little play area, and just think that's the kind of memories I have. And I look back at even Google has to remind me all the time of all the pictures, and it's like, wow, where in the world did the time go? You know, she's gonna be on her own, have to make her own decisions and things of that nature where I'm not standing directly over her shoulder. So, what am I doing as a leader to prepare her for her future, prepare her when she gets out of the home and she's at college or wherever she is, and she has to really face some of these complex situations. And that's really what we're what we're talking about there. That's what Lead Last is all about, is trying to make sure that we have a leadership that lasts beyond our initial interaction or our ongoing interactions with our children.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Yeah, I love that. And my my daughter's that age, she's five right now, and so like she's the Chuck E. Cheese age, but like you said, the Google photos of like her just being born the other day, and you know, like being barely barely able to walk and have a two-year-old too. And you know, same thing with him. And it's just like, man, time, you know, this time two years ago, we were, you know, having those sleepless nights, and like it just it just seems like, man, it was never gonna end. And now it's like it seems so far away now, you know, in the rear view mirror. It's just crazy how the time flies like that. But man, I appreciate that explanation. So I want to get into a little bit of the household boundaries. Let's say we've let them slip, we've you know, kind of lacked discipline, our kids are on our screen, their screens all day. Uh, you know, we've kind of lost control of the house. So what's the step to kind of you know re-establish order in the house without like raising hell?

Rebuilding Boundaries by Age (7 vs 12 vs 16)

SPEAKER_01 7:43

No, I definitely understand it. So it it depends. Let's start with the age groups. It's so I have a 16, 12, and a seven-year-old. And if I started my seven-year-old and I say that she's spending too much time on a screen and I I didn't allow for enough boundaries, it's a lot easier because she's seven. Yes, she's she's past the technical formative years of of zero to five, but she's still seven, right? And she has the ability to establish new habits and it's not going to be a dramatic change for them. Now, the 12-year-old, that's the preteen years. And if we all remember our preteen years, you you're not really a teenager, but you're really feeling like you you should run the show, and you really feel like you know some stuff. And so you have to lean into that. You have to start realizing that they are not adults yet, and they haven't made that transition into the teenage years where they feel like there should be young adults. So you still have, but you still have to give them that respect as if they are. And when I say that, I don't mean again that we're going to them and say, son, may you please would you please uh do no, it's it's having a conversation with them and engaging with them to really, you're trying to trigger their intellect, is what you're trying to do when you're having these conversations. You're trying to help them understand from their perspective, and that goes back to the word discipline. You're really trying to help them to understand from their perspective that your solution is the right way. And that requires real influence. That requires you to get into the room and get to know them. That may require you to sit down and enjoy whatever they're enjoying. I mean, if you're talking about screen time, for example, there's a time where you had to go in there and perhaps hopefully you can use one of the characters that they're using or that they're watching and encourage them using that character. You sort of take the conversation back to that. So maybe they're at the dinner table and you just finish watching Bluey or something, or maybe it's anime and there's a situation that happens in the show, which usually happens, it's very relatable to real life in most shows. There's a situation that happens, maybe you could draw the parallel to them and have them see it through that lens. Now, let's look at the 16-year-old going on 17. That's a junior in high school, and that is an individual that is now just one step away from the transition to adulthood. And now that way you have to start looking at it. Okay, how would I deal with myself as a 17-year-old? And I I use that as an example because I started thinking, what did I say to my dad at 17? I literally told him, Dad, I appreciate you, but I got it from here. And I told him that, and this is just to show you how the maturity level, I thought I knew everything. I told him that as I was started making money, I was making $30 a Sunday playing the bass guitar. And somehow I thought that now I can take care of myself. You know, I saved him some money and I probably had $300 in the bank, which I was very excited about. You know, I told him, I got it from here, you know, I could take it from here. And my dad could have said, Man, if you don't go sit down somewhere, brother, you don't you don't have anything. But what he did is he leaned into that. He said, okay, good, let me, let's, let's work on that. And he talked to me. When we talked anytime we had a conversation, for example, when I grew my mohawk out, that he absolutely hated. When I grew my mohawk out, he he made sure to like talk to me on a professional level. He said, Hey, you what did you want to be when you grow up? And I told him, and I broke it down. You know, I want to be a CEO and I want to join the Marine Corps potentially and do all these wonderful things. He's like, Well, okay, good. So I want you to look at the people that you want to be like and let me know what they look like. Start curing yourself like them. And of course, me being the guy I am, I picked up what he was saying, but I had I had nothing to come back to him on. I said, okay, yeah, uh, there's nobody out there that has a mohawk that's spiked on their head that say they're the CEO of some Fortune 500 company. And that was my goal at the time. And so that's the kind of stuff that I think you have to do. Yes, it may be tough, but you just have to lean into their strengths, lean into the thing that makes your child their child, and try your best to start relating to them first. And I got this from the key the book Hold On to Your Kids, which I recommend for every single parent, no matter how old your children are. And it is by Dr. Gordon Newfeld. And that they talk about really, it's talking about connection before direction. That's one of my favorite parts of that book. And I think that's something that we have to always think about. We have to connect before we can try to direct our children at any given time. Yeah, and I think that's important to let them know as well. I think that's I always talk about being vulnerable as a parent, and I don't think I did a great job of it. Uh, and that's something I learned from my parents. My dad came back, and this is why it's important to have these conversations, no matter how old you are. My parents came back. My mom was always investing in

Vulnerability: Speaking Life Into Your Kids

SPEAKER_01 11:53

us. You always, like, she is the one. If you want to know who made me a Marine that has attention to detail, it was my mom. You know, my mom was the one who was teaching us how to crease clothes perfectly, how to make sure that you actually can clean. And like so, that was my mom, organizing and all that kind of stuff. But my dad, one of the things that I appreciate about him is even as he grew older, he talks about being vulnerable and the way that he envisioned it. You know, his father, you know, who came, we immigrated from Nigeria. My dad immigrated from Nigeria. And there with his father, when he was within Nigeria, they didn't necessarily have that relationship where you can have the conversations that we have now, or that you may have with your daughter. And that's one of the things that we start talking about is that you can be vulnerable and say, man, you are you're awesome. Look at this baby photo, look at this. I love you at this age. I love you at this age. This is what I love about you today. And you'll be surprised how much that really helps them out because it helped me out. There are things that I was told years ago that my parents don't even remember telling me. My siblings don't remember telling me at all. But they were truly trajectory-changing conversations that we had, compliments that they made. There's people in my church, for example, who said, Hey, you had a beautiful smile. And one guy is hard, he's he's he's passed away. Now, one of the things he talked about, he said, You're gonna be a millionaire one day. You're gonna be a successful businessman. And all these things he's saying to me as I'm selling candy, uh, and it was always funny. Mr. Smith is his name, but he did a phenomenal job. Uh he always tried to come to me and encourage me to say, Man, you're going to be great. Like there's greatness inside of you. And I think that's really what it's all about. Is it's really speaking into the children's lives and saying, Yeah, I love, I love every last ounce of you, every all these years that may be flying by, but I'm embracing this moment with you right now. And I love the way you've been over these years. You've always been awesome. And I think that really pays dividends because they they're just gonna hear so much garbage in the world. Somebody's always gonna have something negative to say to them. So yeah, by you speaking into them and letting them know that you love Riley, my oldest is Biley, by the way. So I think that's cool. By you saying I love you now, and I love you year three, when you're a baby, when you gave us sleepless nights, it really speaks volumes that she's wanted. And that's the biggest thing that I think we can give to our children.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Yeah, dude, that's awesome. And Chico sticks, man. I'm going back now to like middle school age when my dad would, you know, go to the dollar store and pick those things up. And I'd I'd go into the classroom and like, you know, be like a lostler, like selling candy for money and things like that, you know, and I it just remember

The Transparent Phone System (Monitor, Don't Spy)

SPEAKER_00 14:09

reminds me of those, those, you know, young my youth, like, man, so that was such a great memory and imagery I have in my head right now. I want to get into like, you know, kind of like how do you handle cell phones or smartphones around your own kids right now?

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Yeah, so first of all, I'll tell you that I there was something that my wife and I talked about extensively. And to this day, I still don't know if we made the best decision with cell phones. Uh, because in my mind, uh, the children didn't need cell phones until, you know, let's say extracurricular activities started requiring them to require, you know, do rides and all those kind of things. That was a the trigger for us, in my mind, that we should give them cell phones. Otis got them a little bit earlier than I thought she should have. But then what we did is we said, okay, well, if we're going to get her a cell phone, because that was just, you know, there's a little bit of social pressure there, and there's a little that there's a lot of factors there that, you know, as a as a Marine, I have to be conscious of that, okay, well, this is the way it should be, and I don't think it should be this way. When I grew up, I didn't have a phone and all, you know, so I have to be conscious of my personality and make sure that I'm I'm doing this as a as a parent, a co-parent with my wife. And so as we work through that, the one thing that we decide is we'll we will do screen time and we will monitor and make sure that we're paying attention to what's going on. What music are you listening to? What shows are you watching? What apps are you downloading? You know, who are your contacts that you're trying to contact throughout the day? What are your messages saying? And what you what I found is we were going through the conversations and what we did is not a spy thing. That was what we always wanted our children to know that that these are our phones that we're giving to you to manage. And we're we're not spying on you, but we will sit down and have conversations about the conversations that you're having. So that way they understand that there's some transparency there that they have to be uh willing to give to us. In other words, if they don't they're not transparent and they feel like they shouldn't do it, then they they don't get the cell phone. And I think they were all agree that they they want rather won't have the cell phone and just make sure they monitor the conversations. So that's really what we did. We uh we do to this day. We still monitor with screen time, we still pay attention, and we still, when we're talking to people, one of the the one of my pet peeves is when I'm trying to communicate and have a conversation with you, or we're trying to have a moment, and you keep glancing down at your phone, and I will call it out. Not in a not in a harmful way, not in a very direct. I try my, again, this is me being very aware of who I am and how I am. Uh so I do I don't try to do it in a very direct way. And most times I say, huh, I'll repeat what I said, and then I'll sort of just stare at him, especially my oldest. And she knows exactly why I say that. My son, he actually does a very good job. He'll take off his headphones, put his phone, turn his phone over, and slide it to the side because he's watching me do that. These are the habits that we try to form. We try to show them, you know, that if they come in the house, no matter how inconsistent it is, if I'm working on something at the time, I will ask them, oh, can I finish this real quick and then you know save that thought, but let me finish this email real quick and then I'll I'll put my phone down and you'll have my attention. And I communicate that not because I I think they they I have to communicate that to them, but I believe it's a good example for them to say that, hey, I'm I'm working on something, but what you're saying to me is still important. So I want to get to that in a moment, but let me finish my work, finish my thought so that way we can move on. And that's what I'm trying to teach them. It it's yes, you can have your phone, you can communicate with others, you can listen to your music, because I'm I'm I love music myself, and you can engage, but you still need to be a part of the family. You still need to be a part of the community and you need to enjoy people around you. And that's what all my with all my children, I'm like, hey, if I feel like you're having too much, even with screen time and limited, if I feel like you're you're sitting around too much and I haven't seen you interact with an adult or sorry, with a human in X amount of hours, or I hear people outside playing, or something's going on, and you're sitting there in front of a screen, chances are I'm gonna say, hey, your friends are outside. It's time to go play. No, most times they understand they and they just go to do their thing, which I I have to give credit to the kids in the communities. I love, love, love parents that are allowing their children to go out and they feel safe allowing their children to go out. And I appreciate all the parents in the communities that also look out for children when you see them running around having a good time, because that is so important. We cannot lose that. If we lose that, then we've we've lost our generation, our next generation.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yeah, yeah. No, that's a that's a big thing. Because I, you know, I I'm in Arizona, so like even in the summer, we were outside playing. You know what I mean? Like, no excuses. Like we were doing stuff, you know. Like, and nowadays kids are just not, it seems like they're not out and about. Like in my neighborhood, my communities, wherever I've lived, it's just been that way. Even when the weather's nice, it's like it's very much reduced. So that's great you're continuing continuing on that tradition. Cause I know when I grew up, like, you know, in the 90s, like that was what you did. The neighborhoods kids, the neighborhood kids got together, you played hockey in the street, you played football in the street, whatever it was, you played in the street, basketball, and like, you know, like you just you hung out, you know, you you were kids, like you, you know, you did you did stuff outside. Not not saying we didn't play video

How To Stay Calm When Your Teen Tests You

SPEAKER_00 18:50

games, we didn't watch TV, all that stuff. We did, but it was like it was very much like a mix, and now it just seems like everyone is solitary and isolated and you know on the screens like 90% of the time where they just don't have that interaction. And so that's yeah, that's one of the things I'm seeing, I'm noticing too in my experiences. Like, I hope my kids get out, they do stuff, the community is like, you know, kind of watching out for them too. Cause it's like, you know, I think there's a lot of you know, like worry about kids being outside nowadays too, because it's like we have so much information at our disposal. We hear about the bad stories, or we hear about this or that, and it's like as a parent, like that that just kind of keeps you up at night, that kind of stuff. So, anyways, that's kind of how I handle it. Man, how do you stay calm when you when your teenager is kind of you know giving you the business? Like, you know, do you use like your you know your your experience in the Marines to do that, or do you sometimes kind of go over the line? And if so, how do you kind of retract that and and re I will say that yes, I've 100% made a mistake.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Uh and it's not just with the kids, it's just you know, if I get frustrated, something simple, like slamming a door. Uh you know, I walk out and I want to prove a point. You know, I I've I've said something, you know, and I want to make sure everybody knows that dad spoke. You know, you walk out, and I don't like slamming doors because if it breaks, you know, as a kid, you didn't really care about it. As an adult, you have to prepare that. So I was slamming, well, I slammed, I close it just a little bit harder so everybody knows. But I've gone back to my children. Every time I do it, I go back to them individually and as a family. But I tell them, you remember earlier, did you hear that door slammed? And whether they hear it or not, whether they say yes or not, I always tell them, yes, I slammed the door. Why did I do it? Because I was upset and I thought I was making a point by slamming the door. But I'll tell you, that's not how I'm supposed to be communicating with you all. That's not proving that didn't prove anything other than the fact that I can manhandle a door. You know, I really didn't express my emotions the correct way. So that's how, first of all, I try to communicate that. When I definitely fly over the handle, or when I have a communication flaw where I go out and I maybe lash out with my kids, maybe it has nothing to do with them, or maybe they were going, they were saying too much, and I got on to them and I went too far. Maybe it was, you know, just raise my voice louder than I should have. Whatever it may be, I always go back after things simmer down. I go back to them and tell them, you know, I shouldn't have done that. And I try to apologize and make that a habit. So that way they know that number one, nobody's perfect. And number two, there's nothing you always should go back and try to mend a relationship. In fact, I was talking to my Otis about this earlier a few days ago. It's just you never allow the night to end without mending the relationship. You don't have to agree, but at the end of the day, you should always do your best to mend the relationship. So, how do I have these conversations, these tough conversations? It's very interesting because uh what I watch in most cases, especially with my the dynamic I have, it's usually my wife and my uh oldest daughter. They they clash. And it's always funny to see that. It's sort of it's sort of funny because you start to listen to the conversation happening and it's like legitimately the same person like talking to each other. And so I know my son's gonna come up and it's gonna feel the same way, but I'm watching that happen, and usually what happens is like, okay, well, yeah, I I either I'm coach or I'm referee, and I need to step in at some point because you know, this is still you're still 16 year old daughter, and this is not the time to be, you know, trying to fly off the handle. And usually what happens though is I always try to check my. Ever since they were little, one of the things I'll say to myself is, Why are you acting like a five-year-old in my head? You know, why are you acting like a child? That's something that I always said to myself. And it was just something to trigger in my mind that this is a child, right? This is they're going to make mistakes. You make a mistake as an adult, you make many mistakes as an adult. So of course the child's gonna make mistakes, you know. I'll I'll usually I refer back to in my mind, and I know this seems like a weird, a funny thing to do, but I always go back to Matilda. On the movie Matilda, Miss Trenchable said, you know, sticky riding kids. I'm glad I was never one. And so these are things that I say when I'm starting to get frustrated, I if I feel myself actually starting to get frustrated, I try to rehearse those things in my mind or review those things in my mind, and it sort of breaks that moment for me. It makes me laugh a little bit. And I realize that, you know what? Yeah, that what they're doing or what they have done still is nothing compared to what you did when you were their age. Let's just be real. And you know what? They're children, they're learning, not doing that, they're most likely not doing it out of spite. They may be rebelling, they may be doing it because they you're doing the complete opposite of what you said. But chances are they're just trying their best to see what they're trying to push the boundaries, see what they can get away with. And so that that's the way I look at it. When you're having those hard conversations, I always try to make myself a little bit more calm. I always try to bring the calmness level down because I'm trying to teach them that we may disagree, especially with the teenager. We may disagree, but uh, we're not gonna, we're not gonna fight. This isn't a fight. This is a disagreement. This is intellectual debate. So I need you to go back and think about the the facts that you want to bring to the table. And I talk to my children just like that. Usually before the argument or before uh they they have a disagreement, I tell them, hey, I need you to go get the facts. You know, don't come, don't come and try to have an argument just with emotions. And I know that's just the way we act, we we talk, but I always try to, again, bring about that intellectual side of the children because if we always reduce them to, well, they're just children, they'll figure it out. No, you always want to bring about that intellect and do your best to try to have them talk to you, just talk to them on a personal level. And if you can get to that point, then I think you'll be fine. I think that's really what I try to do with my teenager, and it's against respect for their age, knowing that they're a budding adult, but knowing that okay, we still have to have boundaries, still have to have respect and rules for each other, mutual respect.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah, yeah. That's man, that's a complicated situation, but how you handle it sounds great, you know, because it's it's you know, there's not like an easy answer to that question, but uh it seems like, yeah, I mean, that's probably the best way to approach it is you know, like you just mentioned, like I just can't even imagine like going

Keeping the Marriage Connected Through the Chaos

SPEAKER_00 24:28

through that because right now when my five-year-old and my wife argue, it's my five-year-old's on the uh the spectrum, so it's very irrational stuff. Like she'll be like, You're looking at me, stop looking at me. We're like, honey, we're not looking at you know, you can't really like argue in that moment because it's like she's so off, you know, you know, like like she's so angry that you can't like reason with her in that moment. So it's like we have to really, like you said, de-escalate, take a step back ourselves, realize that like we're not gonna really win this argument right now. Like, but but I love what you said and going to bed, like quelling your you know, your situation, like like putting it to sleep, putting it to bed, however you want to put it, like like you know, stop the disagreements. And I feel like that carries over to relationship with your spouse too, right? Like, is that kind of how you do deal with like your wife as well? Because I know it's easier said than done in my household. Like, that's what we did before we had kids, and now that we have kids, sometimes those carry over. I'll be honest, I'll be like, oh we're still fighting until the next therapy session. Then we have a kind of a mediator to kind of hash things out. But yeah, I mean, like ideally we like we like to do that, but it does get complicated when you have the stressors added, you have the the tantrums added, you have the crying added, you have the the bills, you know, that that the daycare brings, all that stuff added to to your pressure. It just feels like a house of cards where you know kind of it call comes all collapsing down very quickly, or it can. So, anyways, how do you deal with that you know, with your relationship dynamics with your spouse? And is that kind of the same concept? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

We all try to do it, and we all know the right answer. That that's I mean, all of us know the right answers, and we do our best to do it. But in reality, it doesn't happen. But you do know that the the way that over time it just starts to pile up. And then you find yourself we're talking about the five-year-old arguing about you know you're looking at me. Well, that's an adult conversation. That sounded like an argument between a husband and wife, too. You know, it's like, why are you looking at me? You're looking at me weird. Oh no, I'm not. And and so it's just funny to think about that. Yes, that's something I do try to do. And my wife and I have had these discussions at length. It's like, okay, no matter how big or small it may seem, never, let's do my our best to not let it go down. And I think to your point, that when you have children and got extra curricula, you're just running nonstop and you finally get that moment. Sometimes, like for me, I wake up early. I wake up at 3:45 a.m. Uh so that that's my time. I mean, at the first two hours of the day, I don't really talk to anybody unless I unless I want to send a text message early to somebody, like, hey, I was just thinking about this. And normally they're still asleep, so it doesn't matter. Uh so this is my time to decompress, it's my time to read, meditate, work out, all those things. So I have that dedicated time. My wife's time is at nighttime, right? So it's really trying to figure out how do you do that, you know, to allow her to have her time, uh, to focus on what she needs to do and allow me to have my time. But then somewhere in between, we have to find time to say, okay, well, we need to reconnect. Because throughout the day, even if we didn't argue, chances are because we were running and gunning in multiple different directions with the children, we probably haven't connected. And I think that's something that we try to practice. I am nowhere in, and I will never lie to you and tell you that I'm perfect. I'm not perfect at it with children. But I will say that it is something that I strive toward. It's trying to make sure that we have a way of reconnecting. Even if it's watching a show and maybe having a conversation about a short conversation, whatever it is, we try to reconnect. And I think that's one of the things that you highlighted something that I think is important. It's finding some kind of synchron mechanism. And it's that's where you go back to that discipline parents, because it when you know your lives are like always going, especially when there's just so much going on, you gotta have some kind of syncing mechanism.

Household Systems: Calendars & Checklists

SPEAKER_01 27:55

So we started using Google Calendars, for example, because there, I don't even know how else we can manage all the stuff going on. And we laugh because it's like, all right, is that on a calendar? There's something, there's always something that happens. The problem though, that you have to do when you have these systems in place, you always have to still remember to communicate. Because saying that, well, it's on the calendar probably isn't a good defense when somebody's forgotten something or somebody or you didn't communicate it ahead of time because that's yeah, that's just something that we have to think about. But I I think having those systems in place, I'm a I'm I'm a guy who carries around checklists on my phone. I always I legitimately have a checklist for just about everything because there's just all a lot of stuff going on. Like you already mentioned, I'm I'm a Marine, I I have the parent-child connect, I have all these things going on. So it's like, okay, I want a checklist for everything that I need to do. Like if I got to take the kids somewhere and I know there's a lot of things, I'm gonna create a checklist in my notepad. I'm gonna go down the list of everything I need to do, or or at least the minimum things I need to bring to make them successful. So I think that's what some of the things that the discipline things that all parents really have, but we just have to, I think, to provide some systems in place that work for your home. So those are the kind of things that I always encourage households to do.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Yeah, we have a calendar right by the kitchen and it's it's it's you know, it's big and so it's it's we can see it, but but sometimes like things will come up, swims canceled, or you know, this got moved around, this got reshuffled, and we don't we don't necessarily don't necessarily always update it, or we don't always necessarily communicate like what changed. And so that's that's our biggest issue. So I think the digital one is is great. And I love the checklist because like I'm very oriented like that too. I love checking things off and and I forget a lot, like because there's so much we have to do. And I'm like, man, is it just my age, or is it just I think it's just having too many tasks to do, right? Because you got to think about yourself, your wife, your kids, like and they all have all these, you know, different schedules and you know, uh different priorities and different needs, different wants. Like it's just it's hard to kind of keep on keep up on and you got more kids than me. So it's you know, it's it's it's you know, I don't know how you do it, man, but but I I'm I'm appreciative of you coming on and sharing your insights into that. Could you tell us more about parent child connect and your books back there? I'm I'm assuming those the I know the lead last is your book, but uh are those other books your books too? You want to tell us a little bit about it?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Sure, so parent child connect. I started

Where To Find Olaolu + Your Parent Action

SPEAKER_01 30:10

that as a book series because I really wanted to find a way for, first of all, for me to sit down with my children and create teachable and memorable experiences. And what I thought about is that there's a lot of leaders out there, emerging leaders, that we have to continue to work to develop. But the concepts are really the same as parenting. No matter if you're at home or you're at work, really the concepts are the same. So that's where lead last came from. It's talking about what are the things that we could do to be effective leaders. It doesn't matter where you're leading, what your platform is, you still have some fundamentals that I've learned over the years that you can apply at both home and work.