PFL 32: Create Trust & Respect Between You & Your Children

Hi everyone! This is Connie Sokol, and you're listening to Balance Redefined Radio. I've spent over 20 years teaching people how to redefine what balance really is, meaning a more purposeful and joyful life.

 

They’ve paid off credit cards, lost weight, organize their homes, and created a meaningful life plan and they've managed their time, changed habits and experience greater success both at work and at home.

 

So now I decided to take the plunge and help about 100,000 new people who want to redefine balance in their lives. People ask me all the time, “How do I go from an overwhelming and chaotic life to more purpose and organization and joy?”

 

That's the reason why I'm doing this podcast, to give you trusted answers and create a space where you could find balance. My name is Connie Sokol and welcome to Balance Redefined Radio…

 

[00:01] Welcome back to balance redefined. It's Connie Sokol and I have a fabulous things I want to share with you today.

 

[00:07] They're in real time because I've just experienced this and I really want to share this while I'm in the moment.

 

[00:13] So for our timeframe, whenever you're listening to this, we have just had Halloween and we have experienced the day after which is the Halloween hangover.

 

[00:22] It is real people. It is real...

 

[00:24] That sugar thing that coming off that high. Honest to Pete.

 

[00:29] Anyway, so I've had four children at home and doing the Halloween thing, but this actually started before that. It's just kind of come to this apex during this time, so I want to take you back for a minute...

 

[00:40] As I'm talking about creating trust and respect with your children...

 

[00:43] I want to take you back to just before that because for some reason I had been noticing this upswing in my children. There was this kind of moodiness and this kind of entitled kind of talk and conversation.

 

[00:58] Have you experienced that with your children at all? Whether they're young or they're teenage or their adult? I have them in all three. I have elementary, junior high, high school and out of high school right now.

 

[01:09] So I run the gamut...

 

[01:10] I just kinda kept getting these pulses of this moodiness, entitled responses and expectations. These are good kids. Trust me, they are really good kids. I love them. They're great. I can say that as a mom and an unbiased person, they're good kids, but I just watched this sort of...

 

[01:25] You know when you get on the top of the hill and then it starts going downhill and I don't know why that is. Someone explained this to me because you're working at, as a mom, you're trying to keep this happy, joyful environment in your home.

 

[01:38] In fact, I'm going to do a podcast about this other piece, but my daughter just told me the other day that I was just way too positive.

 

[01:44] Yeah, I was way too positive...

 

[01:45] I'm like, "Girl, you need to get out more. I going to have you go live with one of your friend's parents that wake up their children by saying, 'Get up,' instead of, " 'Good morning, darlings.' "

 

[01:45] Anyway, so you can see this moodiness and entitlement...

 

[01:45] How do I respond to this?

 

[01:45] Well, my tendency is to be like, "Oh, are they having a hard time? Well, what can I do more to be helpful? Maybe I can help them with their chore or maybe they're just struggling at school and I talk with them..."

 

[01:45] Yeah, there's some struggles and so I try to do kind things, but then what happens? Then I noticed that because I make it easier for them, what do they do?

 

[01:45] They love it and they kind of unintentionally maybe intentionally at times they take advantage of that and they like the easiness of the way.

 

[02:27] Certainly not like me... I mean who doesn't want to have the easiness of the way?

 

[02:32] But anyway, notice this moodiness, entitlement, and this sort of expectation...

 

[02:37] That should have been my first clue that this was going to be a learning experience, but you know how when you notice something that's going on in your family dynamic and then it sort of all funnels into one symbolic representation of that.

 

[02:50] So maybe a situation, experience, or a word set this off. For me it was piles, it was these piles that my daughter leaves around the house.

 

[03:00] I have a daughter who just literally wherever she goes, kind of that pig pen thing, She's just so fun and happy and joyful that you don't really connect it until you walk around the house and you see all these piles.

 

[03:13] I've expressed to her before, kind of with the laughter, but I literally can look at and predict what she did all day long by going around the piles.

 

[03:22] "That's where she came in from school and put her stuff down, and then that's where she got her snack at the counter, and then that's where she went down in the family room and she was watching a show, and then this is where she went upstairs trying to figure out what she was going to wear and then left it all there and then went downstairs.

 

[03:34] I can just follow it and I will share it with her and I am literally spot on. I am not prophetic. It's just pretty much predictable. So these piles, these were the things that were becoming a trigger for me.

 

[03:46] Do you have that as a parent where you know it's not the thing itself, it's the repetition and the annoyance and the inconvenience all the time of this thing and so these piles were just getting on my nerves.

 

[03:59] I'd asked, had been sweet, I'd been encouraging, I'd offered that kind of incentive. I'd done a lot of different typical parental things and still the piles continue. I mean we're talking for years.

 

[04:09] Okay. So about this time I happened to see in my closet this book that I had read years and years ago it's called "Leadership and Self Deception," and it's by the Urban Institute. I know that because one of the people who is in charge of that and the founder is Terry Warner. He was a professor at the college that I attended.

 

[04:28] He actually had a friend who was in his program. When we were hanging out together he would read a lot of his stuff and share it with me.

 

[04:34] It was amazing, amazing psychology...

 

[04:41] In fact, one of the best speeches that I've heard, if you go to BYU speeches, it's "Honest, Simple, Solid and True." I believe that's the name of it, but it's fantastic.

 

[04:53] It's a talk and I've highlighted it. I've got a copy of it that I refer to and read. It's wonderful...

 

[04:59] Okay. Segway back in...

 

[05:01] So I pick up this Self Deception and Leadership book. I walked by it again and I thought I should read that book now. So I picked up the book and that night I started reading through it.

 

[05:17] I had no intention of reading a lot. I was just gonna read a little bit and just see if I liked it again...

 

[05:22] And I really did. I loved it...

 

[05:24] This is the concept that hit me. It's what this whole book really is about. It's being in the box or out of the box. Now, if you remember, this was kind of a buzzword many years ago. It really came back to me in the box or out of the box.

 

[05:39] Let me simply explain.

 

[05:40] In the box means that when you have a choice of how you want to behave, you will either do the good thing that you know you should do or you're going to stay in the box and defend blame, justify, or excuse why you aren't going to do that good thing that you know you should do.

 

[06:03] So he gives an example and this character in the book and he says, "So the other night, my wife and I were asleep in bed. We hear the baby wake up except that I'm the one that heard the baby wake up first. I'm laying there hearing the baby and I'm thinking, 'I should go get that baby and I should do that for Nancy and I should go get the baby for her.' "

 

[06:22] Then the very next thought that comes to him is, "why do I have to do it?"

 

[06:26] "I had a presentation this morning, why do I have to do. I work really hard. That's her job, like why is she sleeping through the baby and why is she still laying there when I am now feeling...I got to go and get this baby like that's not even what I'm supposed to be doing."

 

[06:38] Before he knows it, he's blaming, justifying, excusing, and doing all of these things and suddenly his feelings towards Nancy change to negative emotions.

 

[06:48] He's annoyed, resentful, frustrated, judging and what's Nancy doing Nancy's asleep. She's out. She's been up with that baby since day one and so she's out.

 

[07:01] Right? I can totally relate to that-having four kids ages six and under. Oh Man.

 

[07:04] And you're on call every 45 minutes, hour and a half and you're just thinking, "Is there a day that I will ever be able to sleep a full night sleep again?" And the answer is, "No."

 

[07:14] If it's not then and later on, you're worried about them as adult children. I don't know. Anyway, it's all good. I actually do sleep really well now because I've learned some really great coping skills that I'll share in another podcast.

 

[07:23] So back to the "out of the box in the box..."

 

[07:25] Have you ever found yourself doing that? Maybe you didn't turn in a report on time and before you know it, you're blaming so-and-so who didn't get this stuff to you in time, who didn't send you the email and you didn't do blah or you're kind of telling us sort of a truth, but not really because you're leaving out some information just so what makes you look better, but you're in that box and you're staying in that box and you are defending being in that box.

 

[07:49] So I'm reading this and I'm thinking, "Am I in the box? When am I in the box?"

 

[07:56] Guess what was the first thing that came to me? Piles.

 

[07:58] I thought about my daughter's piles and guess what I thought where did she get that from? Like where does this come from? She gets it from me. I realize full on she gets it from me.

 

[08:14] I could see right around me, before me, in my room. I've got the next to my desk, I got my stack of books to read pile below my desk. I've got a stack of books in a basket and to stack pile. I've got a pile of papers that I've been meaning to file and I started them and so I know exactly what I'm doing with them, but I just had that little bit left to do pile. I've got my scripture study stuff over by my chair, my books and my information pile....

 

[08:41] I have piles!

 

[08:42] I did not even realize that. This did not hit me until this moment and I just started laughing and I thought the first thought I had about my piles was, "Well, yeah, but I keep them in my room and they're only my room and I know what they're for. When I'm reading and when I want to read the right there and when I have my piles for my business stuff and build stuff, I know what they're for. I know what everything's for."

 

[09:05] Well then that makes it all better, right? Because I'm the mom and my piles make sense? Hello? They make sense to my daughter. They make total sense to her. So it was a beautiful learning moment. So then I had to decide what am I going to do with I am learning. Right?

 

[09:23] So I was grateful that I decided to go ahead and have a family council and we did and I said, "Sweetnesses, I really need to talk about this principle..."

 

[09:31] And of course they're all on a snoring, right? They're all like, "Do we have to talk about serious stuff?"

 

[09:36] And they're all crowded on the bed and on the chair next to my bed and it's late last night and we're talking and I said, I want to share this with you. I don't want to get your thoughts on this. So I shared the concept of in the box and out of the box and my experience with the piles and the one daughter has the pile.

 

[09:52] She's nodding off because she's just had three hours of dance and a crazy busy day at school and she is seriously exhausted. And I'm like almost pinging her like, "Hey, wake up, this is important stuff. This applies to you."

 

[10:01] It's okay because it's just not ever going to be one of those hallmark moments right in the movies.

 

[10:06] It's just going to be what it is. So we plowed on and what was beautiful is that my sweet daughter, one of them, when I said, "Have you seen this? Do you experience this? Because this is my experience. What's yours?" my sweet daughter who had been moody and rude, she said, "You know what mom? I actually was thinking about this last night and the night before."

 

[10:26] The night before it was Halloween. I had gone all over tarnation getting the right things for her party that she was having. And she wanted to have the Harry Potter butterbeer that's the cream soda.

 

[10:35] She was excited about the pizza and then these yummy treats and different things that I was gathering for everyone to have a really fun time.

 

[10:41] What happened is after her Halloween party, she came up so exhausted that she was cranky.

 

[10:45] Then she was cranky the next morning and I was like, "Hey girl, where's the payoff if you're cranky and anxiety ridden during just stressful times, but then when you have a party in your anxiety ridden, like where's the payoff for us, your family members?"

 

[10:58] So she said, "You know what mom?..."

 

[11:00] "I realized I went to bed that night and I was thinking, 'Mom did a lot of nice stuff for me today and I was actually kind of mean."

 

[11:09] Nice. She had that learning course. I kept it inside saying, "You could have expressed that to me and I would've really appreciated it," but the bottom line is she got the learning and that was a pretty amazing moment for me is that she got it...

 

[11:23] She apologized and we talked about what we can do differently to be out of the box and how we can be kind and loving and not blaming, justifying all of those things.

 

[11:33] So we ended up making a choice. I said, "If I continue to see that behavior when I've tried to be extra kind, what I'm going to do is just be kindly candid. I'm going point it out and there's going to be a consequence because I've tried it this way and that didn't work, so we'll try it that way."

 

[11:46] And they agreed. They totally agreed...

 

[11:47] So I said, "The consequences will be one of three choices. I'll either give you an chore, I'll take away a privilege, or I will charge money because it will depend if I want a pedicure or not. So that will be the deciding factor."

 

[12:01] But they were beautiful and they all agreed because this has been going on for several weeks and it's time for it to stop. I've done all the nice-nice. No more Ms. Nice-Mom. So we all gave little loves and we had prayer.

 

[12:14] It was a thing of beauty and I'm like, "Oh good job. Everybody. Nice work."

 

[12:19] I woke up this morning and they woke up happy. It was a good thing and everybody got out the door and it was beautiful and that was fantastic.

 

[12:27] Then I walk in and sure to shootin' that one daughter had her clothes dropped on the floor and she didn't take out the garbage like she promised she would last night.

 

[12:35] So I had a choice in that moment and I thought, "You know, I'm going to follow through on the consequence when she gets home."

 

[12:43] The difference was that I did not have the same anger or frustration. All of that was gone. It was gone. And I didn't have that same annoyed feeling about it. I've just felt very clear and very clean inside. We've talked about it, we've agreed on it.

 

[13:03] This is just about training and helping them to learn a life skill.

 

[13:07] That's okay. So even though I have to dole out a consequence, there isn't this feeling of, "That's it!" you know, that sometimes we get as a parent, "Okay, I have been so patient and now the hammer is down." I love that in the movie from Pixar with the, about the moods Inside Out.

 

[13:23] Whereas like the foot is down, the foot is down, and sometimes we feel that way as a parent. "Now I'm really going Parent today because you have been taken advantage of me and now the foot is down."

 

[13:33] I didn't feel any of that. I just actually felt great love and I smiled to myself and I thought she's doing great.

 

[13:39] She got up and she got up happy and that was her ability to move forward on that and now she'll be able to take it to the next level. She'll be able to pick up those clothes and she'll be able to remember to take out a garbage because now there'll be an incentive to remind her, which is what I call those consequences, those reverse incentives.

 

[13:57] So anyway, I just wanted to share this with you because it was such a beautiful experience of being able to let go of that anger and let go of the frustration that I had. And again, I've mentioned this before, but I truly feel the number one tip to remember in parenting is not to take it personally.

 

[14:17] Sometimes what we do is when they don't pick up their clothes or they don't do the things we've asked them to do, they don't come home on time, they don't do these things and they do it over and over. We start taking it personally.

 

[14:27] But if we want to create an atmosphere of love and trust and respect with our children, between them and us, we really need to go through some of these steps.

 

[14:37] So let me take you back for a second and first not take it personally and realize that what we're doing is we are training, we're teaching, we're modeling, we're giving them the opportunity to learn life skills.

 

[14:50] It's not that they're trying to be mean and rude and whatever. They're at their appropriate age levels and stages of life. And I'm expecting them to act like they're adults. And so it is important that we come at it from, wow, how can I experienced this or deal with this experience in a way that will increase the trust and respect of my children?

 

[15:14] So I could have at the very beginning when there were moody and Annoying and this entitlement thing, I could have just ripped them a new one and said, hey you guys, this is ridiculous, like you have the best life ever and you just saw that go into the orphanage. You saw that.

 

[15:28] So how can we even say those things are complaining about this or whatever. I could have just responded like that and not that I haven't in the past, but when we go at it from a proactive lens of, okay, how can I deal with this increasing trust and respect, I was able to take what I was learning for myself, apply it to myself first.

 

[15:48] Wow, do I do that? Do I have an experience like this? Is there something here that I need to learn and then be able to say, okay, let's have family council. How can I do the buying with this? How can I get their thoughts and their experiences and their perspective?

 

[16:03] Because maybe just maybe I'll give him that opportunity to see it themselves first and then they'll be able to share with me their own insights. So if you recall what I just said, I was so excited that first I saw the learning, which was miracle, right? I saw the learning and then create an opportunity for us to talk about it, which was on our big bed so that it wasn't this, "My eyeballs are in your eyeballs" and then it's all serious and look what you did wrong. It wasn't like that.

 

[16:31] It was more of like, "Okay, how can we have this discussion about it in a comfortable, safe and familiar place?"

 

[16:37] And then it was, I really am going to listen to you. I want to hear what you have to say about this. This is how this is feeling to me. Does this feel the same way to you? And I gave them the opportunity to share before I ripped him a new one.

 

[16:49] No no no.

 

[16:50] So I gave them the opportunity to share and I was so happy to see that there had been learning that I wasn't aware of and that they just had not expressed to me. Thank goodness saved their bacon.

 

[17:01] And then we came to a place of understanding. Now, again, not complete understanding because one of my kids was sleeping, but this understanding of, wow, I respect what you've said and your experience and I appreciate you respecting mine.

 

[17:13] What can we do to resolve this? You know what? I think we can come up with this X, Y, Z solution, and that's what we did.

 

[17:19] We said, "Okay, this will we agree that if we don't do these things, then we agree to these consequences and you can choose which one that is and we will know that we've agreed to it and it's fair."

 

[17:31] I love that kind of communication and connection and I felt in that moment I felt that spirit. I felt that goodness.

 

[17:39] I felt that trust and respect increased between us and that was proved out by when we had family prayer, that one child that had said, "Hey, I was thinking that maybe you know, you had done so much for me and I was kind of mean." She actually included in her prayer and she's not kind of one of those...thrill prayers or like,

 

[17:57] "Hey, let's really have prayer." Really loves it...

 

[17:59] But she said, "Wow, we are really thankful for what we've talked about tonight and thankful for the family that we have and the feeling that we have here. She said some really sweet things, so it was worth it.

 

[18:10] It was worth me thrown out that anger and frustration and doing it differently. Owning my own stuff, giving them an opportunity to own theirs, to create that increase trust and respect between each other.

 

[18:22] So if you want more on this, I have a studio five segment. If you go to http://conniesokol.com/ you can get my latest studio five segment. I talk about the relationships with your children, secure, insecure and dysfunctional attachments and how you can strengthen and increase those.

 

[18:36] You can also get it on Ksl.com/studio five, so you can get those and as always, if you want more of this kind of everyday living and upleveling that everyday living, you're welcome to go on my website and get my free masterclass, five keys to balance redefined and you're welcome to get that masterclass and learn a whole bunch of wonderful things.

 

[18:56] I'm loving the feedback that I'm still getting from people on this master class of how its blessing and changing their lives.

 

[19:02] Again, that's at [inaudible] dot com and you can just go on the homepage and it's right there. Always love to share anything I can that will help boost you and see the good you're doing and then up level where you want to up level and I love you sharing with me the things that you've learned.

 

[19:17] So please feel free to post below and share some tips that have worked for you and creating trust and respect with your children. And feel free to put #team. #teamlive, #parenting, #parent connection, #trust, respect, connection, whatever sounds good to you.

 

[19:36] Put that Hashtag on them. We want to share and get it out there. Thank you so much once again for enjoying and sharing and connecting and listening and get ready to get more Balance Redefined.

You got it. Thanks for listening and remember to rate and subscribe. And if you are feeling the need for real balance in your life, get your free 3-Step Life Plan, and get started today! Just go to conniesokol.com/download.