Beyond Sunday

First the Broccoli Part 5: Motivation: Sorting Out Can't Do and Won't Do

King of Kings Church

Dr. Tim and Peter discuss some important distinctions such as Education vs. Training, Jumping in vs. Jumping Ahead, Active Non-Compliance vs. Passive Non-compliance, and Can't Do vs. Won't Do.

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Thanks for listening!

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to Beyond Sunday Podcast. This is another parenting edition. It's actually session five of the broccoli series. If you haven't listened to sessions one through four, go back. Listen to those first, because they all work together and lead us to this point where we are with session five, again with Dr Tim Riley, who wrote the book first the broccoli, then the ice cream, a new edition coming out later this year. Tim, welcome back to the Parenting Podcast Beyond Sunday and Dr Tim, tell us something new. Tell us something new about you that has to do with either your credentials or something that you've been able to do in your job as a child psychologist.

Speaker 2:

I hope I've been able to do quite a bit in my job as a child psychologist, but it, or psychologist in general, most of it I can't talk about because it's confidential. So I've been a professor of pediatrics. I've taught at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln-UNO. At Bellevue University, I've been a consulting psychologist at the Omaha Home for Boys. I did a lot of work with them on program development, as well as working with individual kids, and I've managed to get three kids out of my house.

Speaker 1:

There you go, which is our goal. To get the kids out of our house is a strange goal when we first heard it, but as we've learned more about intentional parenting, being consistent with our kids regardless of the unique personality God has given us, we're starting to learn. I know I'm learning what this goal really is about getting our kids out of our house in a way that they are ready to take on the world and not floundering and scared like a helpless leaf in the wind. So today we're going to jump into we just learned the four really truly useful principles. And then the next part of your book is this is just the most ridiculous thing. We're going to jump into the four actually five truly important distinctions. So some of the most ridiculous titles, but great content here. So, but before we get into these four, you kind of talk about punishment versus discipline.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's the first distinction, and I want to start that with an idea from Scripture and that's this, don't be stupid.

Speaker 1:

Where do you find that?

Speaker 2:

in Scripture. I find that in Proverbs 12 1. All right, let's hear it Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid, stupid. Stupid is not a word. You find in the Bible a lot, but it's, it's yeah.

Speaker 1:

I wonder what the original Hebrew for that what?

Speaker 2:

that is so what we're really talking about here, when basically everything that we're talking about is discipline. But I think it's important to make a distinction and be clear about what we're talking about. When we're talking about discipline, a lot of people get stuck on the idea of discipline and believe that discipline and punishment are the same thing, and punishment can be included in discipline, often is, but doesn't have to be. The idea of discipline is training or teaching. It's an activity that develops, corrects or improves a skill. It's not just punishment. So when we're talking about correction, we're not talking about oh, I'm going to stuff some bad behavior you're doing. I'm going to teach you something good and productive and useful. If the bad behavior gets in the way, we'll deal with that, but that's not the end of what we're doing. The goal is every disciplinary interaction involves me teaching you something productive and positive.

Speaker 1:

Right well and you think about discipline, disciple someone who's learning, and and as Christians, we know about the disciples, the people who followed Jesus and learned from him on the daily. And we too are disciples of Jesus. We're disciples of God's word, as we learn from God's word not to be stupid and we can be. We ought to be disciples of parenting, that we're constantly learning. We don't think we have it all figured out, and that it's a process, more so than a one-time fix.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I mean discipline is not involved in training or teaching. Discipline is training or teaching and certainly my parents generation tended to get stuck on the idea of punishment a lot and I think that's an important distinction to make before we launch in any first. So that's the free number five.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so that's number five. So going back to number one, this is like Star Wars, so truly important. Distinction number one the empire strikes back. The empire strikes back. Yes, education, verse, training.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So imagine that you wanted to teach me to play the piano. Teach me, teach you. Yeah, yeah, imagine that. And so you say, tim, here's a book about piano, I want you to learn all of the keys. I want you to learn what notes go with the keys. I want you to learn what the pedals do. And here's some video of some of the great piano concertos played by some of the all-time great pianists. And I can do all of that and I can study it diligently and I can know everything, and I still don't know how to play the piano. Alec, I'm educated, but I'm not trained. Training requires me to do something. It requires me to have the experience of sitting down at the piano playing, getting some feedback on my actions. And so when I play, notes that sound good, right, that go together, that's positive feedback or reinforcement that we talked about last time when I play as I'm prone to do on guitar and mandolin notes that don't sound so good.

Speaker 2:

Whatever, they're pretty consistent, then that's another kind of feedback and that helps me know what not to do. But there is no version of learning to play the piano that doesn't involve playing the piano. You can't educate me into doing it, and parents often fall on the side of trying to explain things and talk to their kids and lecture their kids about things, rather than helping them just have the experiences that will actually demonstrate what it is that we want from them. So we talked about kids learning from their experiences. That's really what's required in training.

Speaker 1:

Got it. And that's also why we've all had those teachers who were just brilliant. They knew the material inside and out, maybe they were the leading whatever in their field, but then couldn't teach with a lick Because they weren't able to get their incredible knowledge into a way that actually trained us to learn about it or gave us practical principles on doing it. So we can do that as parents too. So that's something with this. As you're listening to this podcast, don't expect that you'll just infuse these things and know them and now you'll be a great parent. You actually have to put them into practice. There's a biblical principle in there as well. There's a Bible verse I've forgiven you which one it says, but it says do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourself. Do what it says. Same thing in parenting Don't merely listen to these guides, these principles, and deceive yourself. No, actually put them into practice daily. So far.

Speaker 2:

You've been educated, but not necessarily trained. I've actually heard parents say something like I've told you this 500 times and you're still not doing it. Well, the 501st time is not going to be more effective than the first 500.

Speaker 1:

What if I say it louder?

Speaker 2:

Or louder or longer or whatever it's like. Do something to help them learn by changing their environment if they do or don't understand. As parents we're stuck in the position of having to do things for kids or do things to kids that they, it doesn't matter how much we try to explain it to them. I mean, you talked about trying to explain, you know, shootings to your son. You can explain that all day. He's not going to get it. I'm not sure I get it, but he's certainly not going to get it. And sometimes we just have to do things because they just need to be done. So you take your kids and you get them shot. You let doctors do things to them that are painful and uncomfortable because you know in the long run there's a benefit to this. There's no way to explain to an infant why you're going to let them get shot. You just have to do it because it needs to be done.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, sometimes kids. So there are times when they just need to listen and obey and we don't have to explain everything to them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean there's probably good guidance for adults in that too. Sometimes we just need to listen and obey, whether we understand it or not.

Speaker 1:

Which is easier for some people more than others.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so education is good, but it's not enough.

Speaker 1:

Right, so really truly important. Distinction number two you talk about jumping in versus jumping ahead.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so um again, as kids are. When kids are younger, we have to jump in a lot Right, if the toddler is heading for the top of the stairs, we jump in and stop them from going there. If they are going to stick a fork in the outlet, we stop them from doing that. We don't let them pull the dogs here. We get between them and the potential consequences of their actions because they're not aware enough to do that for themselves. The problem comes in when we keep doing that or doing that at times that are inappropriate. So we put ourselves between kids in richly deserved consequences. So you know that.

Speaker 2:

Use the term a lot of times already. You know helicopter parents or whatever. I mean. I have parents who. I have a parent I will see next week who has interfered with their child's legal issues time after time after time after time, and because they do it, the behavior continues to escalate, the behavior gets worse and eventually they won't be able to do that anymore and the consequences are going to be horrible. So jumping in is is putting ourselves between the kids and consequences, and it's fine as long as those consequences are potentially harmful to the kid, but when we get in the way of things that are just going to be uncomfortable or a little bit painful because we don't want to have to deal with that, then we do them a disservice, and so the example I use is, you know, the kid learning to ride bike without the training wheels for the first time and the parents running along next to them.

Speaker 2:

Yes grabbing the seat every time they want a little bit. But at some point the kid has to ride the bike, at some point you have to let go and the risk in doing that is they're going to fall down and they're going to scrape their knees. So instead of jumping in and stopping that every single time, you jump ahead and say I will be there to pick them up when they fall down.

Speaker 2:

I'll be, there with the wet washcloth and the bandaid and some encouragement and keep them going, but they have to ride the bike. I can't ride the bike for them, any more than I can make them stronger by lifting weights for them. This is something they have to do on their own. So the parent who looks ahead sees the consequence coming but can see that it's going to be painful, it's going to be uncomfortable, but it's not going to harm you and you're going to learn a bunch from this. That's a parent who's jumping ahead.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we talked about successful failure in one of the earlier episodes and allowing our kids to experience discomfort because we know that it's going to benefit them in the long run. It's kind of nature's way of educating them as well. So, jumping in versus jumping ahead we ought to be people who jump ahead. Yeah, think about the long term rather than just the immediate for our children.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's kind of counter to the way the culture operates now right. Which is to insulate kids from consequences, insulate ourselves from consequences, to get in the way of that, to make the kids consultants in what goes on in their life, instead of just like you know what. I know stuff. I'm an adult, I've been around the block, you need to listen to me, just because you need to listen to me, and I can't explain why, because you're not ready to learn it yet. So that's the way it's going to go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I had an example of this. So in 2017, we had a house fire and it was traumatic and wild and whatever. The next, very next day, I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old at the time and I was like, what do I do? Like they need to know why we're not going to be in our home for a long time. We didn't know how long it would be. It ended up being nine and a half months, and so the very next day, I took my three-year-old and one-year-old back to the house.

Speaker 2:

I was nowhere near your house, by the way, before I had fire.

Speaker 1:

Okay, good, it's on you. I think I chased a possum out of my garage, so I think it was possum.

Speaker 2:

The possum had matches with the possum. Yes, I think so.

Speaker 1:

I think the possum, because they never truly found out what it was. Other best guess was electrical, but I don't know. We don't really know what was the cause. So I think it was possum arson.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I bring my kids back to the house and walk them through and they get to see why they don't have their toys and why they'll be living in another house and why they don't have their chair, and so on and so forth. And then I went to basketball a couple of days later and one of the guys said so what are you going to tell your kids? I said well, I've already told them. I brought them through the house, I showed them and they said oh, I would never do that. What would you do? Well, I would just. I would just tell them that we're living in another house for a little while to have some fun with it.

Speaker 1:

And that was such a bizarre way of thinking for me, and now I'm learning. The reason that was bizarre for me is that'd be a way of jumping in to try to like save them from the discomfort of the reality, whereas for me I wanted to jump ahead so that they knew why we weren't going to be there for a long time. And it wasn't because we're just having fun somewhere else. Yeah, because something really wild just happened and that's like no, you're not going to get your whatever it was your toy back next week or the week after that, or the month after that.

Speaker 1:

No, it's gone forever.

Speaker 2:

And oh, by the way, we're okay, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And we're going to get to pick out appliances together. Just you wait.

Speaker 2:

Every kid's dream.

Speaker 1:

They love doing that. Little kids love stainless steel.

Speaker 2:

What type of?

Speaker 1:

finish you want on this handle, benton. So truly important distinction Number two number one it was education versus training. Number two it was jumping in versus jumping ahead. Yeah, and number three. Number three Active noncompliance versus passive noncompliance. I mentioned in an earlier episode that one of my daughters is kind of experiencing both of those right now, so I'm really excited to learn about this Active noncompliance versus passive.

Speaker 2:

So the easiest way to talk about this is to tell a story again from one of my clinical experiences. Love it. We had this clinic in Columbus. I worked with the hospital out there in a pediatric group and it was set up as a teaching place. We had a little house at the hospital and they remodeled for me so it had an observation window. In my clinic rooms were the former bedrooms, so it was this nice little setup and I would take students with me, psychology students, medical students with me to observe what was going on.

Speaker 2:

So this little girl comes in, alyssa. She's four or five years old, pretty great kid. This is like one of my all time favorite kids and so I'm just checking to see how she does with compliance. Right, can she follow instructions? Can she not follow instructions? Because if a kid won't follow instructions it's hard to get them to do anything else.

Speaker 2:

So I knock over some blocks and then a little like Legos in this container and say Alyssa, please pick those up. Nothing, no response. She just gave me a blank stare. So I put her in timeout. Couple minutes. I get her up, grab her by the hand to say Alyssa, please pick up the blocks now. Nothing, another timeout another two minutes.

Speaker 2:

I get her out the third time. I take her by the hand. I say Alyssa, please pick up the blocks now. And she looks me dead in the eye. She folds her arms, she stands up straight and says face it, I'm not picking them up. So I put her in timeout again, except this time I get her out. I take her little hand in mine and I grab the block with both of our hands and we put the block in a container and I'm like Alyssa, thank you so much for doing that, you're doing such a great job. And we do that five or six more times and eventually she starts picking up the blocks herself and every single time I'm praising her for doing that. And then she got all done with that and I kicked over the container again.

Speaker 2:

I said now pick them up again, and she did so, and every single one she picked up. I congratulated her, I thanked her for doing that, and we understood each other at that point and we got along pretty well from then on.

Speaker 1:

So that's an example of active non-compliance. It's pretty obvious, toddlers do this all the time, yeah she was not in any way shy or guarded about.

Speaker 2:

She was clear about what her intentions were.

Speaker 2:

I am not listening to you, I'm not gonna make me. And some kids do that. Toddlers are particularly good at that, most toddlers but that's not what every kid does, and one of the main reasons they don't do that is that most parents won't tolerate that. Right right, they will react in a big way. If your kid says, no, I'm not doing it, usually that's gonna get a response from the parent. So kids learn an alternative approach. You can think back to a session or two ago. We talked about Josh, the kid who's downstairs watching TV and dad comes to the top of the stairs and says, josh, time to go to bed now. And Josh says okay, dad, but doesn't do it. But doesn't do it. So he appears to be compliant. He's making noise like he's compliant, but he doesn't follow through.

Speaker 2:

Passive non-compliance, passive non-compliance. So when kids act that way, I mean they learn to not be actively non-compliant because the parent will respond, and they learn to stall or to agree to do something and then never do it. I'll do it as soon as I'm done watching this show or when I get to the next level in my video game or whatever, and maybe they get out of doing it altogether because a parent gets distracted and forgets. At the very least, they get to keep doing what they wanted to do for a little bit longer, and if there isn't some meaningful compliance attached to that or a consequence attached to that, then they'll just they'll keep doing it.

Speaker 2:

The biggest point is that active non-compliance and passive non-compliance produce exactly the same result. You're not listening to me, right? The kid learns to be sneakier about it, learns to be more underground about it, but they're still being non-compliant. And if there's one thing that should be part, in my opinion anyway, of every parent's playbook, it's that you need to listen to me. If a kid can't be compliant, you have very little chance of teaching them anything else that's useful.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So whether it's active or passive non-compliance, we still need to take action on it just because they seemed obedient. But then later we found out that they were sneaking around and still being non-compliant. They still need to be called out on it. We can't congratulate them for being sneaky. Gravity, gravity, gravity, gravity. Be like gravity. So you had another story in your book about Olivia, and I thought this was an awesome example of the passive non-compliance.

Speaker 2:

So Olivia was a little kid, probably in that similar age range, maybe four or five years old, and unfortunately she had some developmental issues and she did not speak at all. She was mute, and so parents had a variety of behaviors, they were working on variety. How are we gonna manage language, all of those kind of things. And because I think compliance is an important thing, I asked the parents well, how does she do following directions? And they looked at me like I was stupid that happens to me a lot now that I think about it and they said, well, she doesn't speak. And I said, okay, but how does she do following directions? She doesn't speak, she doesn't know how to speak.

Speaker 2:

I said, okay, well, olivia here, and there was this, you know, one of those little wooden puzzle things with little pieces on the handle, and I said, here, give this to your dad. And she gave me basically the same look her parents did, which was like what are you stupid? And did nothing. So I put her in time out, said you're not listening, wow, which might have seemed cruel to the parents. Yeah, and the parents, like, I think, probably horrified at that point, and then I got her out of time out and I handed her the piece again and I said give this to your dad. And she did. She walked right over to him and handed it to him. She was perfectly capable of doing that. Everybody had assumed she was not Um, so they didn't ask anything of her. They had deprived her of a lot of learning because they didn't really ask her to do anything, they just assumed that she was incapable of it. So my basic rule is I assume a kid is capable of anything until they can demonstrate convincingly to me that they're not.

Speaker 1:

So whether it's passive or active, not compliance. It should always be corrected. It requires immediate and assertive response. Intentional parenting be like gravity, which brings us to our truly important distinction. Number four can't do versus won't do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so um, there was never a time in my life where I was going to be a major league baseball player. I had the potential to do that, Wouldn't matter how much training I got, how much coaching I got how much money I invested in it.

Speaker 1:

What if you really believed?

Speaker 2:

Eve, wouldn't matter how much I believed, it wouldn't matter how much I dreamed and prayed and worked at it, no matter how many hours I spent at the batting cage, I didn't have the raw material to be able to do that. Okay, I can't do it. And there are some things for some kids that are legitimate can't do problems Right, I can't do this because I've got some developmental issue. So for Olivia, it didn't matter how much of a reward was offered or how much of a punishment might have been threatened, she wasn't going to talk. And there are a variety of reasons. Kids, or adults for that matter, might not be able to do something. So, um, but when we think about kids, we think about skill deficits. So sometimes we ask kids to do things they're just not up to, or we ask them to consider why their behavior was what it was, or we ask them to think about things that just a little brains just aren't ready for you Right, and we can connect with those parents as well.

Speaker 1:

You get a new job and you just haven't learned how to do something.

Speaker 2:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

And they're like, hey, we need you to input these things into ClearStream or whatever um program you're using. And you're like I don't even know what ClearStream is.

Speaker 2:

So you can imagine what it'd be like to have somebody keep telling you to do that but never train you with a skill set that you need to do it. And that's what happens with kids. Why do you keep acting like that? You keep doing that, I keep telling you not to, and maybe the kid doesn't know the skill they need to be able to accomplish it. But since you assume they do, then they think well, I should, I should know how to do this, because dad thinks I should know how to do it. And then they end up like feeling bad about themselves or whatever is the result of that and these are some of my favorite light bulb moments with my kids.

Speaker 1:

My oldest son light bulb moment is particularly appropriate. Yeah, one of my favorite light bulb moments with my oldest son is he's a really good little kid, he's a listener. He gets frustrated about things but he's a really good listener. So he was frustrated because um cause kids at school kept um during recess, which is by son's most important time of the day. They would yell at him or or say that's a terrible throw, or and, and he didn't like that. But what he was doing with that behavior is he just brought it home. So when we play kitchen in the backyard, I made about three and say that's a terrible throw, and I'd and I said, benton, I don't want to play catch with you if you're going to just tell me that I'm doing terribly.

Speaker 1:

And and he said, and it was interesting. He said well, he said that's what my friends tell me at school. I said oh, okay, I said so, just like I told you I don't want to play catch with you. If you're going to talk to me like that, you can tell your friends that at school. And he didn't say okay, dad, he just was quiet and he listened, yeah. So then the next day I said uh, how's recess? And he said well, my friend said I was terrible. I said oh, what'd you do? I told him that I don't want to play with them if they're telling me I'm terrible, what did they do? They didn't say I was terrible.

Speaker 2:

again, yeah, and I was like yes.

Speaker 1:

I did something right, but but it was something that he needed to learn those words.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And an extension of that is I also don't let kids say those things about themselves yes, right, yes, you're not, you're not allowed to say negative things about yourself that I wouldn't allow you to say about somebody else.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, find different words and that we have that same talk, because he'd be like I'm terrible and I'm like Ben, are you terrible? No, I'm not actually terrible, but when you say that that's not good for you, so I'm fine with you saying I'm frustrated, yeah, because that's, that's more accurate, that's kinder.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean and that's I mean giving kids directions for things and then not doing them yourself is again, it goes back to the issue of consistency. Well, like you know, if I tell you to behave like this, but I'm not behaving that way, that's a great point. Same thing. I mean lack of lack of consistency, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And we see that as adults too, where we'll put ourselves down and so stupid yeah. Why did I do that? I'm so stupid yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean that's, I've done this, you know, right, three times today already. Yeah, I've seen it. So a skill deficit? Right, so I could do it. I just don't know how to do it Right. I haven't been trained for kids in particular. As they develop, sometimes there's a maturity deficit. They're going to be able to do it at some point, but they haven't developed it far enough yet. And again, I think there's some cultural influence here We'll talk about this later on as kind of the space between adult and kid gets blurred. We end up expecting kids to have a level of knowledge and understanding that they just don't have.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And then we expect these behaviors out of them, and then they don't. They're not equipped for it yet. Sometimes it's just we just have to wait and let the maturity happen and develop, and then we can train them with the skills.

Speaker 1:

So there's a skill deficit, a maturity deficit, and then there's a third one in your book, a true deficit, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And some kids, like the kiddo who, olivia, who couldn't speak. I mean that just that's a legitimate deficit. Some kids have developmental issues that are they're not going to recover from. We don't ask a kid with an orthopedic impairment to be the fastest runner in the class, right? Those are the times when we look for ways to accommodate those issues or look for alternative ways to manage those, rather than just demanding a particular kind of behavior, and that's sometimes that's a good time to get a professional involved.

Speaker 1:

So these are the can't do problems. What are the won't do problems?

Speaker 2:

Right. So I, as part of my practice, I have encountered lots of kids who have can't do issues right. They've got developmental issues or medical issues or whatever. That's some kids. I don't think I have ever met a kid who doesn't have some won't do in them and won't do is. I'm not doing this just because I don't want to, right. And so if we think back of the example of Olivia, the kiddo who wouldn't hand the piece to her dad, she was perfectly capable of doing it, she understood the command, she had the necessary skills to be able to do it. She just didn't want to. And that accounts for a lot of child behavior. You talked about your daughter wanting to go outside and you told her she needed to stay in. Well, she didn't want to stay in.

Speaker 2:

Right, and so she went outside. Those are behaviors that need to be corrected, right? So the problem is we can't tell what's a can't do problem until we deal with the won't do problems. Okay, I don't know how many jumping jacks you can do. If I can't get you out of that chair, you can tell me you know your math facts, but until I give you a test, I don't know that you know your math facts. I could tell you I know how to play the piano, but until you sit me down in front of the piano and have me do it, you have no way to tell whether or not I'm telling you the truth.

Speaker 2:

Won't do is a consistent problem throughout childhood. But if I had said to Olivia's parents okay, fine, we're not going to ask her to do anything, I would have shortchanged that kid so she would never have learned a lot of skills that she otherwise did, because nobody demanded of her that she tried to do that and tried to motivate her to exceed her reach a little bit. If we're not doing that with our kids, if we're not challenging our kids, then we're doing them a disservice.

Speaker 1:

So, as a listener, though, I'm hearing this and I'm like, okay, this makes sense, this is helpful, but how do I sort out what's a won't do and what's a can't do? This feels like a bigger conversation, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And that's really the next sort of big topic and the one that's going to get us really into the meat of like okay, we've got this information, we've got this knowledge, we've learned some new stuff and we've been able to draw diagrams with seasonars and triangles and all of that. But what do we do? Right? The sorting out can't do from won't do is a question of motivation. If I can get you out of your chair trying to do some jumping jacks, then I will know how many you can do. If I can find a way to motivate you to give your best effort at solving math problems, then I will know what kind of math you can actually do. And that's really where motivation comes in.

Speaker 1:

So are you saying that in our next session session six, I believe, coming up we're going to actually get into the discovery mode of what our kids can't do, or what our kids won't do, and which will help us learn how to better motivate them to do the things that we desire them to do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, whoa, it's coming together we're going to shift gears into some more like finally, a chapter or episode six. Get into some of the practical. Do this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So, folks, if you've been with us through all these sessions, one through five, and you're like when are we going to get to something? And I mean like I've taken some great tidbits here and I've retooled my mind, but I actually want to see results, if you haven't seen those yet which I bet you've seen some of those, but we're going to see more as we continue. There's some groundwork that's been laid. Some takeaways from this session, session five one, don't be stupid, right, this is a biblical takeaway from Dr Tim.

Speaker 1:

Don't be stupid. Another takeaway for me is was, just like these truly important distinctions, the one that really stood out to me although they all did was jumping in versus jumping ahead, thinking like allowing my kid, because I'm teaching one of my kids to ride their bike right now and I'm holding on to that chair too long. They're going to be okay.

Speaker 2:

Have the band aid. The trick is to know when is the right moment to let go Right Right.

Speaker 1:

So that was a good takeaway for me, Tim. What's one more takeaway from you?

Speaker 2:

I like those. I mean. To me, those are the primary things, but we're going to keep going back to them and keep pounding on the idea you got to be aware of where your kid is developmentally and make sure that what you're asking them to do is within their reach, rather than demanding that they do things that they're not ready to do yet and then being upset when they can't do them. If I ask you to start speaking Russian and you don't do it, I can either be mad at you for not doing it or I can teach you how to speak Russian. Right, right.

Speaker 1:

Well, and then finding out, yeah, when are they be non-compliant and when can they just not be able to do it? And if they can do it and they're actively or passively being non-compliant, to correct that each time, every time, be like gravity.

Speaker 2:

I'm always going to default on the side of can. You can do this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Right and sometimes there are a lot of reasons and kids get reinforced for saying I can't do it. I need help, I need whatever my default position is. I believe you can do this. Let's find out, and the way that we're going to find out is by increasing the motivation.

Speaker 1:

Right. When we look at the God's Word, we read that I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength. That doesn't mean that we can pick up the bolder, that's heavier than we are, or whatever, but we can battle through. We can do hard things, not because we are truly mighty, but because we serve a God who truly is mighty and because what Christ has done for us, died, rose for us. He's given us new life and new reason for us to be intentional, to work really hard to do this well, so that one day our kids can go out and do the very same thing. So thanks for tuning into another session of the Parenting Podcast on Beyond Sunday. We will see you for session six. We're going to keep this thing moving.

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