The 3 C's of good parents

If you think you're doing pretty good as a parent, are you using the 3 c's?

Doc David

Transcript

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Hey friends, happy fall. Let's talk about some parenting things.

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You are listening to Hedge Drinking, your answers to life, relationships, and daily living.

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Hello, hello, hello. It is a happy fall. Now, fall was yes fall started yesterday, I think it was. But I can tell we're in it. You can tell if you're in a place that has seasons, you I'm fairly certain you can probably tell. Right? The air, there's just this crispness in the air. If it's warm out during the day, it immediately gets colder at night. Um, some people love it. Pumpkin spice lattes are available at Starbucks now. That's like the biggest sign, right? That that we're about to go into fall. Pumpkin spice lattes. I've I've had one of those once. I wasn't a big fan, not a fan of those. Um some of you may be, and that's great. If you uh enjoy them, great, good for you. Um I just found out this summer I'm I'm what's called a super taster, and there's a way you can test for that. But look at Google it, it's a real thing. Um so I wanted to talk about kids are back in school. Um, some kids are doing hybrid learning, some kids are I I have not heard of any schools that are actually doing remote like they did last year. Um, so you're so either kids are doing like in school now or they're doing some kind of hybrid school and online thing. Um but like like every year, you know, there's a transition and getting back getting kids back into school, kids and anxiety starts up, parents get nervous, parents get protective, parents often maybe breathe a collective sigh of relief. Yes, my kids are back in school. I have some freedom again. Um so that so that's going on. Um I wanted to talk about three three things that I think are useful for parenting. Um now I didn't I I these these uh three things all start with the same consonant, C. Um, and I did that I think just I didn't do it originally because I wasn't trying to be witty, but then it just kind of worked out, and so then oh, it's just it works out. It's these three things that I think are key parenting things to have um or to do with your kids, and they all have C at the beginning of them. So um I'm not that witty, but this was this just worked out great great for me. Um what I I some of you maybe know that I enjoy posting memes and creating memes related to um therapy and things like that. If you follow my Instagram, you'll see a lot of um memes that I make. Um and and you can know that I make the memes because at the bottom or somewhere it'll say Doc David on it. So that that's an indication that I've made the meme. Um but I just put one up about parenting that and I Googled at first to because I thought someone had to have said this before. Um, but I could not find anywhere on Google that someone had said it before. So I uh I could be the author of this phrase. I know that I'm not though, because it had to have been used before, anyways. Um I was thinking about parenting in regards to um physical racing, like running a race, and uh the the meme essentially is um parenting is not a quick sprint, it's it's a marathon, and just that's it, right? So someone has probably said that before um in the history of mankind. Um but I really think the idea is is appropriate because when when a person is a marathon, they train for a marathon, they get partners to help them uh get better times in marathon, they eat differently when they do marathons. Now, I'm not I don't know this information because I've actually run a marathon before. Um, I know this information because I've talked to people and I know people who have run marathons and I've seen what they do. They they prep for it, they don't just one day get up and think, hey, I think I'm gonna run 28 or whatever it is, 27 point whatever it is miles today. Um no, and then there's the ultra marathonners who will do uh lots, a lot more miles, or the people that will do a marathon every day or every other day, anyways, that kind of boggles my mind. But the point is um if you were to prepare to do a marathon, you're gonna do a whole lot of different kinds of preparations. Um, I don't think it's very different when when we think of parenting, right? A lot of times I'll get parents that come in and say, Well, there's no manual for parenting. You're right, there is no manual. I agree. Um, I did I couldn't find one, and I and I looked very diligently, and I could not find a manual. But one of the things that I um tried to do was I tried to look to um older parents who had kids that were doing well, and I wanted to understand why why what's making those kids do well? What did those parents do? And I want to take from what they did and kind of incorporate that in how I parent my own kids. Um, and so that's one thing I I would if you don't do that, it's one thing to consider doing. Now, you may come from a family that is just super uh traumatic that you don't have a relationship with your parents or your parents have passed on. Um that's that's fine because uh what what I did actually is like there were people that um went to the church that I attended, and they I I don't have any relationship. I mean, I don't have any familial relation to them. Um they were just people I saw and I knew I saw their kids in the youth group, and then I've seen their kids um as older adults, and so I've really thought, wow, I want to know what the secret sauce is there. Um and I've and so I befriended them and and I'm still good, pretty good friends with them. Um my wife and I are, and it's just been interesting to have good conversations with them, and I'm friends with their adult children now, also, and I one of their adult kids is just like whenever he's in town, I want to do something with him because I think he's so cool. Um, but that's it, that's a thing. If you have the opportunity to connect with parents who have older kids that you think those kids, I I want my kids to be like those kids, get with those parents and let them know, hey, I want to know what what you guys did as parents um that helped your kids turn out the way they are. Um maybe it's embarrassing or whatever, but like again, if you ran a marathon, you're probably gonna look up somebody that wanna find someone that else that has run a marathon. Or um, let's if you don't want to do running, we take hiking, right? And I'm in the northwest and there's a Pacific Crest Trail that runs from, I believe, Mexico to Canada. And there's people that will take a whole summer and uh hike that trail. And I I talked with somebody that did it once, and it's pretty involved. You have to like if you're hardcore about it and you're gonna just stay out on the trail, you send food to yourself at different locations. Like that takes some planning. Um and Google's probably your friend, but another person that would probably be your friend is someone that's actually done it before. So so finding a finding someone to help you kind of focus in on being a better parent is ideal. So I want to get to the three things that I think are keys in parenting. Um, I mean, you you could Google and say, what are the good things that I need to do in parenting? And there's going to be any uh there's gonna be tons of articles that come up that they'll say how to be a good parent, this is what you need to do to be an effective parent, etc. etc. Um as I've met with people over the years, everyone has lots of different ideas on um how to be a good parent. You know, never spank, spank sometimes, ground, uh never uh take the door off its hinges, um let let kids have TVs in their room. Like there's all sorts of things that I don't subscribe to, that people come into my office that subscribe to. And ultimately, there's three things I think I've come up with that I think everyone can agree on. And so the first one is consistency. Kids need consistency. Um that seems like a no-brainer, right? But it gets challenging when you grow up in a home, let's say, where there was no consistency or there was too much consistency. Because oftentimes we try to balance our we try to figure out how to parent based on how we were or were not parented ourselves. And so consistency, um, while it's a key thing, um, can be really hard to do. I know for me, um, if I ground my child for doing something, um, and I say, okay, I'm grounding you for three days or whatever, I want my kids to enjoy life, and so I'm putting a restriction on them that's going to uh cause them to not enjoy life in that moment. And um it's I I don't like it, right? And so there may be times that I have possibly been inconsistent um with my kids. Um, I have. I and and I recognize that that's not great. And so I think it's what you're able to do the majority of the time. If you're able to be consistent um the majority of the time, that's gonna be good. There's gonna be times when you're not, just because maybe you're sick, uh, your your partner's not able to help out, you have to go to work, any number of things. There's there's gonna be um something that comes up. But I think overall the the goal is to be as consistent as you can be. Um a second one is to have consequences. Um there's this book out called The Coddling of the American Mind. And if you haven't read it, I'd encourage you to read it. Um because one of the one of the biggest things that I've seen happen over my year, my 20 plus years in doing family therapy is that there's it seems like there's this slow uh degradation of consequences um for kids because I don't want to be mean. I don't want my parents, I don't want to squash my kids. And what has happened is like it's turned kids into um wimps, essentially, and and maybe that's too strong of a word, but we need to raise resilient kids because someday they're gonna be out of our home and they're gonna be in a workplace or they're gonna be with roommates and they're not gonna be able to handle things, handle confrontations or handle um consequences of their actions at work. And so the the the home is kind of the training ground for kids, if you will, for them to launch successfully off into real life. And so consistency and then consequences is is the is important, right? If your kid does something wrong, there's got to be a consequence for it. Um oftentimes we hear these crazy stories about a kid doing something wrong, they face a consequence, and then usually it's like a school district, then the school district gets sued by the parent because how dare you tell Johnny what he did was wrong. Well, what Don what Johnny did was wrong, and he needs to have a consequence for that. And the parents that immediately just protect their kid when their kid does something wrong is not doing their kid a favor. Um you when your kid does something wrong, they need to have a consequence. Just point blank. Um now, what that consequence is could could vary, but people need to know that when they do something wrong, there's a consequence for it. If you speed and you get pulled over by a police officer, chances are you're gonna get a ticket. That's your consequence. Um, you're you're not gonna be able to go into a judge and say, That's not fair, judge. The judges will kind of look at you and say, Okay, you're guilty, pay your fine. Um, and so that needs to be replicated in a family. And the a loving family is the best place for it to be replicated because hopefully you're able to give a consequence, but then have a good conversation with your child about that consequence and the reason for it. And that goes into our third C, which is compassion. Um, so a lot of times compassion gets left out of families, and so then um there's just a lot of consistency and consequences without compassion, and that um creates trauma in kids' lives. And so, compassion is something I I kind of envision it as if you're having to talk to your kid about something difficult, it's getting down on your knee and meeting them at eye level to have a conversation with them. Um it's them feeling comfortable coming to you and talking about emotional things because they know that you're a compassionate person. Um between my wife and I, my wife and I, my wife is much more compassionate about things than I am than I am. I tend to be very um straightforward and not the most compassionate. Um, I can be compassionate, but it's not my immediate go-to reaction to things. And I recognize that, and I try to work, I try to always be working on that as much as I can. And it's why it's why I have a great wife, because she reminds me to be compassionate. Um so if you find that you're not compassionate, chances are you're probably married to somebody that has some compassion. And so having a good conversation about that would be important. Like, hey, I want to be more compassionate to my kids. Can you help me do this? Um, that's what our partners are there for. Our partners are there to help us. Um, so for me, those are the three biggies. Like, if if I don't see eye to eye with parents on things and and they're pretty stuck in their way of thinking, or they're not gonna move out of their way of thinking and parenting, I find that these three C's of parenting are most people can agree on those. So if you're a parent that's not seeing eye to eye with your um with your co-parent, uh use these three C's as kind of a foundational place to operate from. Um consistency, compassion, and consequence. And they're in no particular order, but I think if you use those as a foundational place to um operate from with your other parent, um, if there is another parent, you probably could have more productive conversations. Where it gets challenging is like, what is the consequence gonna be? Um what does uh what does consistency look like given your certain set of circumstances? And that's where it gets more challenging. But these three C's uh uh are super foundational for you. Um hey, uh thanks for listening. I appreciate it. Um fall is here, I don't know where my next podcast will be. But I one of the things I'm going to try to do, I want to try to get some people on that I think are interesting. So if there's anyone that you think, hey, this would be a good person to interview, to have a conversation with, um, send them my way, headshrinkinc at gmail.com, headshrinkinc at gmail.com. And or you could go to my Instagram or my Facebook page or just Google Dr. David Simonson and I'll come up everywhere. Um, but yeah, I'd love to connect on any of those platforms if you want. Have a great weekend.