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A service of say a media group 100 points of the word focus on the family is furnished by Focus on the family welcome to focus on the family's weekend broadcast we hope the following program will challenge you and encourage you in your faith journey. conversation we had last year with Michael Anderson he and his co-author Dr Timothy Johansen want to challenge some of your preconceptions and expectations as a mom or a dad and they also want to help you aim at the right things as a parent you know parenting can be a daunting task can't that it doesn't come with a manual per say you've got to do it and so often as parents we feel like somehow we're going to know the right thing to do and I would say even for Jane and I that's not true you can do so many things wrong and if you just have a little bit better inside and information about how to approach those young kids those teenagers with a little different perspective I hope a biblical perspective things can go much better and we're going to pour into you today if you're struggling as a parent this program is for you and we're going to talk about the last time these 2 are with us and kind of refresh you but it is wonderful to have our guests back and again they are Michael Anderson he's a license psychologist and Dr Timothy Johansen is a professor and pediatrician and they've. Spent decades studying kids how they grow up and they specialize in helping parents with difficult children and their book just as something that we covered last time but we want to come back to it because there was so much good stuff in here that we just couldn't get to all of it and in fact we have a free download for you if you missed the discussion last time which was outstanding We have a way for you to get that we'll link over to it from Focus on the Family dot ca Gentleman welcome back to focus on the family thank you it's great to be here thank you you know you really have hit some amazing things in this book just how did you come up with that title just let's a long story we probably went through over 200 titles the gist of it what is all well it ended up being kind of. The trend now is a one word kind of title whether it's a movie or a book and we wanted to have a title that talked about the essence of something and and so just came to us from a person who we asked to help with kind of branding and titling this book and we kind of didn't like it initially and then as we thought about it my wife out of the subtitle The essence of raising life ready kids and it just seemed to fit you know in that context last time just to recap for the listeners that didn't hear that program and again you could download it for free come to our website. It was so eyeopening because there were so many counter-intuitive things there for example you encourage parents not to try so hard and in fact you talked about stop talking so much mom and dad that's really counterintuitive to me because you want to correct you want to give your you know Godly advice to your teenager to a lot of parents really think that if they're not talking they're not parenting and I really feel that that's not true that you should parent as best you can but with as few words as possible I want to tell you a story happened it was really powerful to me. Tim and I spoke at a. High school and a woman was waited in the wings after we spoke and she wanted to talk and I could see her waiting and waiting and waiting she was desperate she was well actually it was something else she came up and I was waiting for kind of a desperate thing but she said I came here to tell you a story I heard you speak 3 months ago and I read your book and I have an 8 year old daughter and my husband and I sat down with her and we said to her we realized after hearing my contaminant reading this book that we've been parenting you without really seeing your baseline of what you can do this is an 8 year old and we told her this is a mom and a dad starting Monday morning we're going to let you get up on your own do your homework on your own watch t.v. On your own and we'll watch that for 2 weeks and then we'll step in as needed so it's kind of like the writer of a ship you know when the ships going the right direction the writer does nothing. And that's a difference about our approach worse as a parent that's parent 100 kids that are go in the right direction just as much as a kid that's not so she tells me the rest of the story Chee says. That was 3 months ago not a week or 2 or a month and she said since that time our daughter has gone to bed on her own done her homework on her own cleared her dishes on her own and we have done nothing for 3 months now unpack that and this is an 8 year old yeah describe what's happening in the brain of that 8 year old why is that working when you're trying to parent maybe over parent that's not working because happened she has a chance to show what she's made of and she wants that chance she wants that challenge and they were in essence taking at on the job you know I'm started to cry and she said. Last night we were watching the boys as a family and my daughter got up and said Dad can you d.v.r. The rest of the show because I have homework to do. And she said it break and shoot I said What are your tears about and she said breaks my heart to think of all we would have said and all that we would have controlled without ever seeing how capable she was wow it's kind of the difference between you know you hear about teachable moments all the time and we think that's kind of a misnomer to us we were talking about this is morning as a writer moment like you just described where it's a steamy moment where the parents are actually stealing the opportunity for the child to show what they're made of and we really encourage parents not to intervene and steal that and pull them along the knowledge of the ship I think is good are you going to be a writer parents are you going to tow the ship or you're going to drag your child through the water to get them to move forward or are you going to be behind them steering them in the right direction and there's a big difference and I hear what you're saying and I get it let me speak on behalf of those parents with the 8 year old that they have tried something similar maybe they haven't read your book just yet but they get the idea and that 8 year old or 10 year old or maybe 15 year old is or responding quite like that you give them that latitude that was that was a possibility or even a likelihood that that would happen with this but there's nothing to lose she told her daughter we're going to give you 2 weeks and if you need help before 2 weeks we'll even step in then. But they were trying to get a baseline on what their daughter can do without so much guidance teaching talking on the steps I really appreciate that and one of the difficulties I think we face in the Christian community I'd love for you to speak to this is you know when we commit our lives to Christ or maybe we grew up in a Christian home and we followed the rules and it worked well for us you're applying that kind of rules oriented environment because we have a high regard for that we want to be honoring to the Lord we want to do the right things behaviorally to show our allegiance to him speak to that Christian parent about the the role of rules and the importance of preparation for their launch but I think rules are important but I would just read a book I'm a big sports fan I read a book by a great football coach and he said I'm looking for players that are obedient but not too obedient because if they're too obedient they don't have the passion in themselves. To bring to the field and I thought that's a good metaphor for parenting is. Some of the stuff that about guidance are we really putting that scriptural principle on the kid in a wrong way. Tim and I were talking and I said you know imagine I have a daughter he has a couple daughters imagine that they came downstairs in their mid teens or junior high with a top on that wasn't appropriate. Ok we would suggest that we say take the top back up and keep the receipt because that's going back now I can't think of anything more to say to teach them that. I don't have to go and talk about why the top isn't appropriate because they know me and so I think all this teaching is a little bit of a misnomer because we teach just as much by an example and by the writer and by consequences and we misperceive that as a talking thing. Our guests on focus on the family today are Michael Anderson and Dr Timothy Johansen and your host is Jim Daly I'm John Fuller and you can find the book just the essence of raising life for the kids we're going to bundle that with a cd of our program last time and this program so it'll be quite an offer for you at our online store we'll link to it at Focus on the Family dot com slash radio or call us if you have questions 800 a family and again these are just some of the things we talked about last time and you can get that free download at the same spots right John Yeah I'd like to tackle the other parts of the book that we really weren't able to get into that was on communication between parents and children. Describe the idea of threats that you mentioned the book that hits home for me I probably relied. Threats then you know it's more Jean would always say to me she put her hand on my arm and say you know that's a big threat for a pretty small fraction of life if you don't pick your socks up again for the 15th time you're never eating again ever. That's not quite it but you get the idea Why are the threats really not the tool in the tool box to use but I think threats reminders and warnings are things that Mike and I would say are very ineffective and threats because a very common thing that parents use 1st of all why do we go there why is it our instinct to go there I think it's because we're frustrated with our child's behavior and we want to get fixed really really quick and that's not the right mindset in our opinion I think threats are things that are vague they tend not to have a lot of meat behind them you have to do this or else what does or else mean you know for the kid they're like does that mean I'm grounded does that mean I'm whatever so I think threats are pretty ineffective warnings and reminders equally are ineffective give us an example the warning in reminder reminder. We believe that parents who remind a lot create kids who forget a lot so it creates that dependency the very thing that frustrates you you're actually reinforce your actually reinforcing and you're feeding into it and threats reminders Norns are really telling your kid that they are failed in the past they're failing now or they're going to fail in the future what happens long term for that 17 year old now that's been lived in that kind of parenting environment described that child for me what we think about parenting intervention as whether it elevates the total behavior of the child and one of the reasons I don't like threats or warnings is that it might get a kid to go out in the front yard and bring his bike in but that just solve the problem once and if he leaves his bike out the next time you didn't really gain anything so by not saying anything without using those 3 things but using a cost. Kids you can we can count on kids to be self-serving Yes or edge counterspell just going to say you they got there were yeah. But you know any time you can count on somebody is behavior you can use it to your advantage and we can count on our kids to be self-serving So if it costs them to leave their bike on the yard they're going to remember on their own and they're not going to leave it out the next night which will take another reminder another threat so I'm supposed to find my child like a buck if they leave their bike outside is that what you're saying it might take that but there's other ways to be creative about it it just has to cost them something and give us some examples of that because I appreciate John's question there because I think again if you're living in the reminder parenting style or the threat parenting style well take the example of the bike a 10 year old doesn't put his bike way of sitting in the yard put the bike up on hooks on the top of the garage and he can't reach it per week and don't say a thing just do it when he's not around and he'll come home the next day want to use his bike that's hanging up there he can't get to it and if you want to ask about it he will and you can say you didn't bring your bike in last night you'll have it next Monday and that's it and that's it that's unfair. I don't argue with you back you know from there you just back away from that there's no reason to engage with a kid who saying that's not fair and with good kids it just takes 2 hours they could lose their bike for 2 hours you don't have to start with that week because a lot of kids should really want to be good. It's not their desire to be bad kids and they want to buy but the follow up might be the next week I'm just saying as a man only what if you know I have a friend of I write my I have a child who is. Just the parent until they scream in frustration about the if I can get the bike I can't do this I can't do that and that that that the deaf so there's a tendency to want to shut off that whining that bad dream what do I do I would say that I actually had a daughter like the. I'm going to die so. You're right and you have your daughter's permission to talk about it so. She still has got her bike but bestsellers they would have to read what I use theory now what word would work beautiful with her was to say this is the cost of what you did but that's going to be lengthened if you badger me we use the word Badger now into so it's not going to work to your advantage to stay you know so you're really let's say the bike I don't remember that was an issue but you lose your bike for 3 hours if you stop talking now. If you keep talking it's going to be 4 hours and if you keep arguing that it's going to be a day or 2 days or 3 days so you just use it like that and so disengagement is really important needs to start at an early age I tell parents in my clinic with a 3 year old who's misbehaving in a certain way they're trying to read guide them and talk to them and distract them and get them into a different mode of thought and I'd say that's a lot of work for you to do just to let them call themselves and when they're back to a normal state of mind reengage and by doing that you're giving them coping skills reading That's the beauty of learning how to. Focus on the family. In the back of my mind I didn't believe it could happen husbands and wives share their stories of renewed hope from attending focus on the family's hope or story a marriage intensive counseling program for married couples Yeah we were definitely was in crisis mode this is the last chance for us hope restored can give you in your marriage hope our premier Christian counseling program provides in-depth quality care that will make a difference in your life and your marriage we now have the direction tools and roadmap we need to productively work through our damage and to heal our relationship find out more and hope restored scholarships are available even if the divorce papers are already in process stored can help you start in the. Hope for store to help us start over. We really need to find out more restore dot com or call 186-687-5291 extension 5. Thanks for listening to focus on the family. With the balance of today's program. One of the areas in just that you touched on which I think is so critical because we sometimes laugh at ourselves the way we distort reality for our kids you know everybody gets a trophy everybody did wonderfully even though that kid struck out 14 3rd whatever it might be. Tell me about why it's important to teach your kids knowing the truth as best as they can know it it sounds like it's right out of the Scripture and it is I mean that's what Jesus said to pilot I came to testify to the truth and the truth is important to God and the better we know truth and know ourselves that way I think the healthier we are do you agree absolutely and the Scripture says not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought and that means that we have to have an honest view of ourselves and our kids get that from us and it creates a lot of problems with kids you know I've often said that the kids are running out of things that are like a track meet or a swine meet and if your kid runs track and they came in 8th you can't tell them they won. But there aren't very many things in life like that so kids need honest feedback and they get a tremendous sense of stability there's almost a ballast in their life when they know that their parent will tell them the truth and then tell them the truth about how good a singer they are how talented they are how tall they are however they are and there's a way to do that lovingly in a kids' kids a different kind of self-esteem that's what you know if I could let's just role play that a bit for their parents out there so I'm the 8 year old I did strike out 4 times today at the Little League game I'm not hitting the ball well I'm batting 9th and your dad Ok walking away from that little league game and I say to you Dad man I just don't feel like I can hit that ball kids laugh at me because I can't help it. And I would say this was not a good game absolutely now it's still we still don't know for sure if you could learn to play better with practice or maybe you're not cut out for baseball that'll take some time so it's a real honest assessment of where that child is at and what they may or may not be able to do absolutely and even if your child's face gets sad when they hear that you're still a gift kid we need to protect kids radar that's a big part of what you mean by that protect their radar Well Radar is our ability to see a room to see a situation to know ourselves. And the more we lie to our kids the more we distort their radar and so the kid says well I have these friends at school and these kids on the team and the fact that I'm writing the bench that tells me this and then my parents are telling me this and my radar is messed up now I can't pick up what's really happening here that's interesting what are those signs Tim were missing it I mean we talked about the right way to handle something like that to help the child's radar improve and to better understand who they are and what their gifts and their talents may or may not be one of the mistakes we make as parents with their kids to see that when you're walking away from that little game what should a dad or mom say and I don't think they should say you just don't play baseball you're terrible batter and they shouldn't tell them that you're the best player on the team that's the problem with your not saying Tell them you're terrible better you know I'm guard them that way yeah but be real with them say well this is something you've got to work on and Mike and I talk about how when you tell the truth your kids needs to be loving and encouraging but most importantly it needs to be accurate. It needs to reflect reality for them and some parents don't like to go there they want to build up this false self in their child and that's very damaging will it or our culture is full of that right now isn't it still the media that false self that yeah they book is social media Facebook is false off yakkity your best foot forward all the time whether you're a teenager or whether you're $65.00. So we may need a little bit that truth serum and parents generally don't realize they're adding stress to their kids' lives by doing that you know why do we need to open our eyes to that he says I don't know or I know a lot of things my career has been talking to kids and stress I don't know anything that stresses them more then a kid that has no exceptional traits being told that they're exceptional because they don't have the ability to live up to the expectation and that's really stressful and we have lost I'm going to generalize here as a culture we've kind of lost that making if a sense and the beauty and tremendous wonderfulness of being normal and that's something we want to delve into when we come back next time we're going to get there and I'm excited by that because again this is so important for parents to get ahold of but it's so counterintuitive That's why I love your book just. Before we leave today though the point I wanted to punch and you talk about it in the book is this idea of loving your kids most parents know how to love their kids and why is that so important that your child feels loved by you as a parent. Well I think kids need to be loved in a way that they know you are a straight shooter that you're going to tell them the truth it will give them a feeling of safety and security beyond anything else. And kids need one of the ways we. Express love to our kids to spending time with them one on one and that's a really important thing is to enter their life and their interests if a kid loves the Civil War history take a trip with your kid to Gettysburg or something what are those important ingredients in expressing love to your child them spending time with them is certainly one very important but spending time one on one with them so the family time isn't always you need dad but you need one on one time as well yeah Love is conveyed if when you spend time with a kid one on one often see as different side of that child in you bond with them and it creates a salient memory and when they're older when they're an adult they'll talk about that trip that Dad and I took over and they won't really talk that much about a family trip and that's an area where if you have 2 or 3 kids sometimes for Jean and I we've not done that well because we do everything together whether it's camping or whatever it might be and that's probably an area for me personally but I have to be more mindful of spend separate time with turned Troy and family time is important Sure but it's over rated Why do you say that just to piggyback on what Mike said the kids will remember the individual time with grandpa or dad or mom they have to talk about what that attends about away or any other issue they're going to say oh I just loved it when Nani and I used to cook or bake cookies or when Dad and I would go fishing you also mention the love trap and I don't want to get away today without mentioning that what did you express in the book about love trap and avoid the love trap Well we want so much to love our kids and for them to know that their love that they have the power a magic wand in their day is to say I know you don't love me because you took away the car you did something so if you love me you wouldn't. You've made me unhappy Yeah you know and search my room and you know part of that is if you love me you would create this much pain in me which is kind of a blame thing at the Love trap is that when parents buy into that and. Your job is to raise your kid and get them ready for adulthood and your job is to love your kid but that has to be a higher priority than your relationship because your child can ruin the relationship without you but they can't ruin your love so the parent is feeling that they're not loving Well yes Ok that's rich the child convince the parent that they're not. So that's because a child believes many times that their parents' job is to make them happy and the easiest out of that is let's talk about that later Man this has been so good And Michael what a wonderful conversation kind of turns your parenting world upside down we started thinking about it but I think you are tapping into something that God dealt with his people in that way whether it was David King David you know he was pretty much a rascal but the Lord dealt with him in such a wonderful way you can make your mistakes but he would come back contrite and ready to serve the Lord I think God's heart was for him because of that contriteness degree of absolute and what a wonderful parenting model that's in that he committed all the big ones but yet God was able to maintain David's heart close to him Yes and that's a great lesson for all of us as parents in fact I think this is so important this message is so good by Timothy and Michael that if you can make a gift of any amount to focus on the family mom dad grandma grandpa we want to put this resource into your hands it will open your eyes to a new way and I think one of the most effective ways in our culture today to do the parenting role this culture is trying to feed off of all these weaknesses that we have are Killie's he'll as you've just described you know that need to be a friend to your child rather than loving them in such a way that they are equipped to launch when it's time to launch get this resource this tool is an absolute winner and we want to help you in any way if you can send a gift to focus on the family for any amount we'll put this in your hands and this reminder that the book will be bundled with a cd from the very popular program we had with these 2 gentlemen last year and this program as well so that bundle of billable only at Focus on the Family dot com slash radio you can donate and. Resources Well when you call 80232645 not. Behalf of Jim Daley and the entire team thanks for listening today to focus on the family I'm John Fuller be talking about better ways to communicate with your child and these gentlemen have written a book called Just the essence of raising life pretty kids we've got that and a cd or download of the program today at our website your host is focused on the family president and author Jim Daly And I'm John Fuller Joe We had a wonderful conversation last time with my current him and I'm looking forward to more of that today if you missed it you gotta get the download or go to the website get the app and listen that way wonderful parenting insights were provided and of course they're returning as we talk to them several months back and it was a very popular program parents want help because the I think in part the culture and our own inability to parent well is creating a need that we need to help build. Your parenting ability don't feel shy about that don't feel embarrassed about that it doesn't come with a manual you know we're taught how to be C.P.A.'s and how to be doctors and how to be other things but parenting it's almost as if hey good luck with that and we look in Scripture we're trying to find Godly advice you're going to find it today and we are excited about our guests and they are Dr Tim Johansen a professor and pediatrician from Arizona and Mike Anderson a licensed psychologist from Minnesota they have spent decades working with children and families and have a passion to help parents yes mom and dad even with your most challenging parenting circumstances 10 and Michael welcome back to focus on the family thank you. It is always good to talk with you you have really tapped into something with your book just it feels counterintuitive but to recap from last time talking about backing away from some of those communication disasters and I'm sure most parents have had that situation where you have gotten into a real argument or discussion or firm talk with that teenager or maybe a child who's a bit younger 89 year old who's showing some self determination a little bit of strong will and you go whoa Where's that coming from it's refreshing to think of new ways to do this and I would encourage all of you listening to open your heart open your mind about how to do this more effectively that's the goal we talked last time about the ways we communicate with our children and I thought you had some great tools there for parents to think differently about engaging I learn many things the last time we talked one area that we didn't address is fear you believe fear can become a huge barrier between parents and children and in fact you say we use self protection strategies that I think mask that bad behavior to protect ourselves so explain what you're driving at there well a lot of things that we think our personality traits like rage and other things like perfectionism are really ways that we try to protect our psyche and. You know years ago I thought well here's the 1st 6 and then years later I couldn't add a 7th one to it so I thought well these are the ones there's blame and self contempt and perfectionism and rage and control and withdrawal and almost every kid did I see it every parent that scared about how their kids turning out or how they're doing or how their marriage is going is implementing one of these self protection strategies say them again so we can hear them clearly Well there's withdrawal rage blame perfectionism self contempt and power and how do we as parents discern between what can be normal teen behavior for example where there might be some little bit of withdraw it could be not unhealthy Where is that line and how do we know when it's becoming unhealthy in these areas well when we believe in looking at a kid's overall functioning level and when it's affect any of those or affecting their overall functioning level it's an issue somebody scared. A kid that doesn't get invited when all of his friends are getting together and they withdraw in their room they're scared that they're on the outs with their peer group yeah and we start need to start looking at these things as not that we need to do anything different but we need to look at them as their sphere going on what is really helpful to read these in fact rage as an example you said in the book you said your child is essentially saying get away from my emotions and that child is raging Babson and if any for me and when you as a parent can contest is why these emotions are coming out of your child it may give you a better understanding a better empathy are there more nuggets like that with the other emotions that our children will express I think each of the 6 forms of self-protection have kind of roots behind them and if kids are over using one of those that's where we have problems. And there's consequences to over using things like rage if you overuse rage you're telling everybody to get away from me right now you end up being kind of left alone and ultimately you're going to be lonely people who are blamers if that's rooted and they don't want to take responsibility for their actions the consequence of blaming all the time is they never mature and grow up and people look at them like here you know 28 going on 8 and we see the ones like rage and. Withdrawal as being a bigger concern but Perfectionism is a concern too and you see a kid that's a bell that Torian or something and they can't live with making a mistake and that's should be just as big a concern to a parent as something else I actually remember as somebody gave some advice you know if you have that straight a student you might want to let him know if they should get a b that's going to be Ok and I had that situation and the biggest smile broke out on my one son's face it was like it's Ok. It's important to let some of that pressure out they want they naturally are high achievers but you've got to allow them to know that failure within that right proper context is maybe a healthy thing so they'll learn things through that failure right I was speaking at a group of parents one time and a mom raised her hand and I was talking about working on one or 2 things at a time and she raised her hand and she said I don't know what to work on with my daughter and. I said Tell me about her and she said well she's an a student and she plays violin and she's the head of her youth group and she stopped talking and she started to tear up and she said My daughter knows nothing about failure and I don't even have to answer her question she answered it herself right. And that's a difficult thing if your child has never experienced failure and had to struggle through that that's a good life lesson to us and that's that's so important for our guest today on focus on the family are Michael Anderson and Dr Timothy Johansen and their book just the essence of raising life pretty kids is available from us here at Focus on the family we're going to include when you get a copy of that a cd of our program from last year which was one of our best of programs and from this today conversation as well so quite a bundle stop over it focus on the Family dot com slash radio to get that or call 1800 the letter a and the word family 802326459 then can I ask a follow up on that Michael because I'm curious what did you tell her I mean she came to that point of saying My child doesn't know how to fail but did you encourage your to put her into a circumstance where she could or what happens there I did because she just I saw the light bulb of comprehension go off in her brain and so it wasn't a sad thing but it's a very good question she could have asked and I think it would have been a good conversation to say you know you're doing wonderful in life but the thing I'm concerned about is you can't make it through life without failure or resilience and I don't think you've experienced that much so do you go off and seek an opportunity then or just have your eyes open for that well I think to have your eyes open but if you could collectively go and say let's push you a little farther you know I mean a kid that doesn't fail in normal life might fail experience failure at mit or Harvard or something like that so you can. Push them harder and get them into a community drama or a higher level of sports and let them know that's why you're doing that because they need to experience failure this is an example that might talked about several years ago when we 1st started this whole manuscript about a really high performing high achieving kid who's got straight A's and it's clearly that perfectionism is coming out with anxiety in an issues like that Michael tells a story about asking the parents to pay them $100.00 not to study for final exams. But entered through it if that's going to but that's what the kid needed to hear is I will reward you for not overdoing the studying thing anymore you know again right now parents are shaking their heads because they may have that high achieving child and they're doing well but they're missing the parent is missing what you're talking of where that's coming from why is it so critical I mean we've had it but I want to hear it again why is it so critical for that 1617 year old girl who is doing well is an honor roll every semester Why does she need to feel so inadequate to understand that in my mind you have to understand that both the high school dropout and the valedictorian can be shame based and shame is really a silent killer in our culture and what the antidote to shame is living in the middle I tell people that come to me that want to work on shame that every day they need to tell themselves that they're not as good a person as they think they are on the days they think they're good and they're not as bad a person as they think they are on the days they think they're bad and when we live in the middle we can grace ourselves and we can realize that we're not going to go through a day or a week perfect and we can forgive ourselves and when we use perfectionism to self protect we get in what is called a positive shame cycle and that's a person that doesn't feel shame because they're. Working so hard to not tell the truth about themselves to. Focus on the family broadcast will continue in just a moment. They want to be inspired connected and equipped to be a voice for life then fade the day January 18th through 20th and be a part of the evangelicals for Life Conference in Washington d.c. Attend in person or join our final cast and be encouraged by leaders that is Jim daily the more Johnny Eric's in town and many others join the experience and register today at evangelicals dot life that evangelicals dot the life. 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In the book you have a section where you talk to parents about being careful with what they say now every purchase went out because often we as parents will say things that are right out in the open very quick and then you regret saying it and so there's Grace for that situation but to help us think differently you mentioned a few of these phrases that we as parents commonly use one was just do your best and you speak to the damage that that causes it to me that sounds like a very positive just try your hardest you know do your best but your talents why is that not. The smart thing to say as a parent is just do your best is an Ok thing to say to an athlete at half time because to your best we can all do our best for a couple and we know what that means you touch the ball throw the ball walk the guy if you have a child that's going into a big unit test at school do your best on the tests but we can't do our best for life so the only 2 options left for us are to lie to ourselves that we did our best when we didn't or to feel like a failure because we didn't do our best so it's an unhelpful thing to say to our kids what's better what do we say that's more constructive a far more better thing to say is exactly what you want your child to do if you have a child that's taking basketball serious instead of do your best you say I want you to shoot 103 stay in the backyard or I want you to do 2 math assignments or I want you to clean your room. Do your best is a riddle is really what it is for the child they call the trigger a way humanity is for us too because we think that we're guiding our child when we're actually steering them off the road is it because there are too many big aspects to do your best yes yes doing your best means that I've done everything possible every waking hour of the day to have the right outcome which means if I ate junk food or watch t.v. I didn't do my best Ok so over the weekend recently please vacuum the floor well I did my best and it was a pretty bad job frankly. So should I say Well that was your best but not my best go do it again well I in that case I would think that that's been part of the family's vocabulary to that because a kid wouldn't normally say that unless there was a payoff for Caregiving a little close let's move on. And you open the door that all of the self so I would you know vacuuming or the lawn I think you'd be great to say I want you to mow the lawn today and I want you to give it the proper amount of time that it deserves. Instead of doing your best we you know everybody that returns an email knows the point of diminishing returns you're not going to spend an hour on an email when it should take 5 minutes and kids need to learn this and that's a more important thing for them to learn than doing their best so. I had a long morning thing this weekend as well so I'm really curious what do you say then I mean the job isn't done well I think you come back and be very precise about your expectations but you need to buffer that with the age of the child and kind of what would be typical expectations so my 9 year old who I'm asking to start vacuuming the basement once a week if they do a b. Minus job I'm Ok with that I think a 15 year old should probably be doing a b. Plus job and so I think it. They're not doing the kind of job you want them to do then I think you need to be very precise and I don't know what your expectations are time I think it conveys a reasonable doubts to the kid to say given the fact that we're not having any company this week and we're going to more again on Saturday it wasn't a great job but it's a good enough for this but that would not match the standard that we need if we're having people over and whenever we talk like that our kids are thinking well I have a reasonable parent that knows the difference between different situations are and it helps them minimize resentment. I want to add a little bit to the law of diminishing returns which Mike and I feel it's such an important parenting thing to teach your kids to do not their best but to do what is needed to do the job very well and according to their abilities and to teach them how to do that you know if you study 18 hours for a final and you get an a minus and you study for hours for a final and get a b. Plus and you're not so anxious about everything and you've got a life on in balance that's what parents need to tell their kids and teach them as Christian parents we see certain misbehaviors through a different lens we call it send and that's what we say as believers and we're greatly concerned as parents about our children spiritual compass where they're headed we probably take a measurement maybe 18 times a day where their campus is that are they heading in the right direction but you believe parents can overreact and even misinterpret a child's behavioral choice as you've touched on that I do want to get that real specific answer here what do you mean by that calm down he's not going to be an axe murderer just because of this one incident Well it's a completely different thing as happened in your child if they were to lie or shoplift or do something else or hit. They're trying to figure out how life works now if I were to lie or shoplifter something I would have to take the integrity that I built and set it aside to pull off that behavior they're not setting their integrity but aside to do that they want to know Ok well I'm being taught not to lie but sometimes when Mom's on the phone with her sister she tells a little white lie and I'm going to experiment with this line get me out of trouble . I didn't do my homework for the last 2 days and I got ambushed and I got asked by mom or dad and I tell Dad I did my homework they're experimenting to see if lies will pay off and they're not setting their integrity aside they're not losing their moral compass they're learning how life works and what a different way to look at that and probably a less pressure but you still got to get them motivated in the right direction right now in that case with that wire I could say that way and they're testing it you want to be careful to label your kids as well because that's really a shame based orientation but if you're saying that behavior express what's an appropriate consequence in that kind of behavior Well I think 2 things one is just how you approach it is to say I don't think right now you're telling me the truth you don't make a generalized comment about the person are you saying I'm a liar the kid might ask No I'm saying that Friday probably didn't happen the way you're telling me. Because you don't want to label the person that gets into their psyche but you can say I don't think Friday happened the way I was told. And the best consequence for lying is you if you're a patient in all of this involves a certain amount of patience as a parent but in a week or couple days the kid will say I'd like to go to the mall and I'd like to go to a movie. And you say to them I think that's a great idea I would love to see you do that but right now I can't trust that that's what you're going to do so I can't say yes because until trust is rebuilt I don't know for sure you're going to do what you just said and a lot of times it doesn't take more than that in really the importance there stick to it once you've declared it don't back down because of that that's a bad situation there and then the child's learning other things how to manipulate you. 2 or 3 things right here at the end Resilience Why is resilience so important resilience. Keeps your failures from becoming your defeat I think that's the most important thing so I'm resting a head pressing buying 30 now and standing up again trying again and this is something that parents need to really foster in their children and I've heard is that how do you encourage resilience I mean it sounds abstract to how do I Well because my child think it is abstract but I think it's coming alongside your kid when they are not doing well or if they failed at something and say you should try this again I think you can do it resilience has to move up the priority list for parents I hear parents all the time talk more about their appearance of their kid or their achievements than they do their resilience and we should be looking for every chance that a kid gets knocked down and gets back up. Because that's probably the trait ultimately that will determine their effectiveness in life that is a good reminder you also mention the joy of being average. But my kids on the honor roll he's not average Well there is an epidemic of exceptionality nowadays it's like that the epidemic of exception now and the truth is just from a statistical standpoint only about 2 or 3 percent of kids are gifted or exceptional at any one particular thing but parents really want to gravitate to thinking their kid is special and gifted an exceptional so it's more about the parent perhaps than it is and might tells a story about you know during pregnancy moms will go in and people ask them how did your o.b. Appointment ultrasound go in they'll say really good I'm just hoping for a real normal kid and then by age 4 that's gone. And we want exact Now we want to exceptional I have a quick story about a young little boy about 2 weeks old brought in by his parents 1st child and. The kid checked out perfectly fine and at the very end the dad said I've got a few more questions What can I be doing now and he came over and started running you know this kid's bicycle legs he said what can I do to really promote as athletic a bit 2 week old promotors athletic ability and make sure that he's going to be a good athlete and what things can I do some to visually stimulate him to make sure that he really is good academically and I looked at today and I said the only thing I want you to do right now is fall in love with this little boy. There will be time for all of that don't worry what college he's going to if he's going to varsity basketball or whether he's going to be on the honor roll just fall in love oh and laugh a sober thing to me that I like to think about is in our culture when. Being exceptional becomes expected being normal becomes defective. And I think that's what's happened a lot is we're so hungry and so anxious for something to be gifted or exceptional one I see teenagers all the time in my practice and one of the biggest insults that I could ever give teenagers that their normal that shouldn't be. Almost 98 percent of us from normal Yeah and it was an unfair thing to create a culture for them to grow up and where being different or being exceptional is the only thing that's celebrated Yeah and that's rooted in over affirmation in our comparison culture the way these are such good things and such deep things and you know for us as Christian parents healthy things for us to get a better understanding it and to apply in our parenting journey right and you have both done such a wonderful job with your book just the essence of raising life ready kids and I just want to say thank you as a dad thank you for helping to equip me in a better way to deal with behavioral things that my boys go through and you have done that and I think you would echo that John Yeah yeah 100 percent it's always always enriching to have these gentlemen at the table you know for those who are in this space or you know somebody in this space do the right thing man call us get a hold of us we want to put this resource into your hands and you have the full book available to you and for a gift of any amount we will send this to you as our way of saying thank you why wait I think in many ways I'm just discouraged I didn't hear this information several years ago when my boys were younger I think I could have been even a better father to them and if you're in that space where you have young kids today don't wait don't wait till they're 17 you're panicking start today and if you're the grandparent who is worried about what's happening there are ways that you can use these tools to convey to your adult children there might be a better way to go about this even though I made a lot of mistakes with you and what a wonderful way to start that discussion so get ahold of us today and be part of the solution the healing and not just for yourself but when you purchase through focus on the family and those proceeds go right back to helping many more parents do a. Better job and the place to start is focus on the Family dot com slash radio or call us 800 the letter a in the word family 802326459 now we have the book just and a cd copy of our 2 day discussion for you plus the previous program we had with our guests and so make that generous financial contribution and we'll send that bundle to you as our way of saying thank you for supporting this family ministry. We're going to recommend as well that you check out the free parenting assessment at our Web site it's a simple survey takes just a few minutes to fill out and it will help you understand as a mom or dad what's working well and where you might see a little bit of improvement you'll learn more about it and focus on the Family dot com slash radio Michael in Timothy again thank you so very much for your hard work for what you do day in and day out to help by your clients and us through the broadcast and our relationship with you thank you so much for being here thanks for having us thank you it's been a challenging but encouraging conversation to be sure. And behalf of Jim Daly in the entire team thanks for listening to focus on the Family Channel in this next time as we once more help you and your family thriving. Here in college the former n.f.l. 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It was just icing on the cake I want to be in Boise Idaho I want to be called the National Guard in the opportunity to stay right where I was serve my country and my career was the best of both worlds a girl flying bush planes in the last go with my dad I was fortunate enough to my pal's lies and don't want to get helicopters I want to be a kerching the Army National Guard in the chance to fly helicopters down some fixed wing aircraft to learn how to be part of the Army National Guard law go into National Guard dot com sponsored by the Colorado Army National Guard aired by the Colorado Broadcasters Association and this station McCormack Murphy were my attorneys after I was injured in a serious accident caused by a drunk driver I needed an m.r.i. 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