Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E116: Essential Parenting Principles with Dr. Meg Meeker

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E116: Essential Parenting Principles with Dr. Meg Meeker · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  How do you make sure that your child feels loved by you,
• 0:04
  especially when you're having to enforce boundaries?
• 0:06
  We don't give our kids enough attention.
• 0:08
  We may be in the same room, but cell phones and screens kill the
• 0:12
  attention we give our kids. Kids feel ignored and invisible
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  when we don't pay any attention. Kids need affection, and if you
• 0:20
  have a negative interaction with your child repeatedly, it's hard
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  to give that child affection. They need affirmation.
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  Not, Gee, you're great at everything, but they need
• 0:29
  affirmation of their character. You get those, right?
• 0:32
  Your child will listen to anything you have to say.
• 0:39
  Hello, hello, welcome back to the Lila Rose podcast.
• 0:42
  We're going to get into parenting today on the episode
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  with an amazing pediatrician and best selling author, Doctor Meg
• 0:48
  Meeker. I love this episode because we
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  get into all of the tough stuff of parenting, spanking,
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  timeouts, how to deal with the sexualization of teenagers,
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  sexual abuse, really tough topics that in today's climate,
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  unfortunately, some parents are having to navigate more than
• 1:03
  ever. So buckle up and enjoy this
• 1:05
  episode of the Lila Rose Podcast.
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  Doctor Meeker, welcome to the podcast.
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  Oh, thanks for having me, Lila. It's great to meet you.
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  You are a pediatrician, a best selling author.
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  You've written seven books, I think, if I counted correctly.
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  That's it. That's right.
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  Awesome, well I'd love to 1st just hear what got you into
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  writing about parenting and becoming a pediatrician.
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  Sure. You know, many years ago when my
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  own kids, we have 4 kids, three daughters and a son, I was
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  practicing Pediatrics and my kids were teenagers and I was
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  seeing a lot of sexualizing of kids going on in the media.
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  And this really disturbed me because behind closed doors and
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  in the medical literature, I was seeing this explosion of
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  sexually transmitted infections amongst teenagers.
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  And I thought, wait a minute, there's a huge disconnect
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  between what's happening in reality and what kids are being
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  marketed. So I started speaking out
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  against that and saying sexualization of our kids is not
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  OK, It's really harming them. And literally as I was giving a
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  lecture at an acquisition editor for my publisher was sitting in
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  the audience and she said, I've never heard this before, why
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  don't people know about it? And I said, well, it's not
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  popular news and there's a lot of money to be made in
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  sexualizing kids. And so that was the beginning of
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  my writing career. And they published a book that
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  was Regnerie Publishing and and and off I went.
• 2:42
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  single month and get 25% off your first order by using the
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  code Lila at checkout. So I want to talk about the
• 3:27
  sexualization of teens topic because I think it's a really
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  important one. I also want to get into some of
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  your parenting advice, especially to moms and dads, to
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  how to encourage each other to play different roles in the home
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  because you have this term that I like called dad inclusive
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  parenting, which I think is really important and and
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  valuable. So let's start, though, with the
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  sexualization of teens, because it sounds like that was part of
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  your genesis of even writing, getting into writing.
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  What? What if, where does that come
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  from? First of all, why?
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  Why do you think that that has happened, that today young girls
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  more than say, four or five decades ago are encouraged
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  through fads and through media. You know what's shown in media
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  are encouraged that they should show be more we're more
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  revealing clothing and that they should be very sexually
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  attractive in this very obvious way to other people.
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  You know, unfortunately there's one word for it and it's called
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  money. If you track the sexual
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  revolution and feminism in the in the 1970s, they kind of
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  paralleled one another. And the idea with the sexual
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  revolution is, you know, we are women with the feminist
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  movement. We wanna have the freedoms, if
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  you will, that men do. And so there was this an
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  explosion of this idea that we can do anything we want and
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  there are no consequences. And to some degree, physically,
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  that was true. In 1970, you know, we only had
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  two sexually transmitted infections.
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  By the turn of the century, 2000, we had over 30.
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  So as you know, the sexual revolution took off and many
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  people became much more sexually active.
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  Then the culture said we need to be more accepting of this.
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  This is the norm, you know, teenagers, young adults having
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  multiple partners. And what happened then is
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  marketers caught on to this trend and said, now wait a
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  minute, this has become a popular trend.
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  You know, this, this kids wanting to be sexually active.
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  It's it's, it's accepted. And they said we can make some
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  money off of this. So if we take any of our
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  products, movies, clothing and we lace them with a sexual
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  messages, people will buy them. Now we they weren't targeting
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  the 25 year olds, they're targeting the 14 and 15 year old
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  kids. And unfortunately they started
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  to make a lot of money. Soap companies, clothing
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  companies, perfumes, anything that a person can buy is laced
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  with sexual messages. And that has only grown over the
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  past 10 or 20 years. And unfortunately, it's, it's
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  everywhere. It's, you know, sexual messages
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  have saturated everything that kids read and look at and see
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  social media and so forth. And, but it really is all about
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  money. And this is what I try to
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  explain to teenagers when I go out and talk to them.
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  There's one reason you feel pressured to be sexually active
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  in high school. It's because there's a lot of
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  money to be made by you buying into all of this by major
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  corporations. How do you define, Doctor
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  Meeker, this idea of a sexual message, using sex to sell
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  things? Because, you know, I think
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  there's even a debate sometimes among conservatives, you know,
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  what is sexualizing versus just showcasing beauty, physical
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  beauty or romance? When does it cross the line?
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  And to know this is now objectifying and sexualizing.
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  Yeah, I think that that's a that's a great question.
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  But whenever a picture or clothing or a message is
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  conveyed to people and it is sexually arousing to them or it
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  entices the viewer or the listener to become to take on
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  this sort of sexy persona, that's when it's sexualized.
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  If you look at real beauty in art, you know pictures of nude
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  women or men that were painted centuries ago, it's not sexual
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  because it isn't intended to arouse sexual feelings and to
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  entice people to become sexually active.
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  It is just beauty and it's art. So that really is the
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  distinguishing factor is on the effect it has on the viewer.
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  So if there's art that shows a scantily clad woman, but it's,
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  you know, done, it's a Renaissance piece that's, you
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  know, beautiful and it's not arousing, but there is porn that
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  shows a scantily cloud or partially cloud woman and it is
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  arousing. The reality, though, is in both
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  those situations, there's a scantily cloud or partially clad
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  woman, right? So why is it that some art can,
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  let's say, let's not call it art, some content, media content
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  can inspire sexual incitement, incite sexual feelings versus
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  other art with the same kind of body parts on display.
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  Don't. Mm hmm.
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  I think that there's a lot of nuance that marketers can use or
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  the artist can use to tweak it and make it look sexually
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  inviting again. You can have a scantily clad
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  woman, but it's her position. It's the music that may go along
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  with it. It's labeling that may go along
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  with it. And so there there are a lot of
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  nuanced messages that come across in a picture or a movie.
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  And this is really up to the creator.
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  I think that you can always tell the intent of the creator by
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  looking at the creation. And I think that when you had
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  beautiful Renaissance women with beautiful, you know, lingerie or
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  whatever on it, the intent of the creator was not to be
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  sexually exciting, but it was, it was meant to show the beauty
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  of the woman. If the creator, however, is
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  trying to make something safe for pornography, there's an
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  overlay of the sense that it is meant to be sexually inviting.
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  And, and again, that all comes through body position, position
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  of the clothing on the person, you know, facial expression.
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  There's a lot that goes into that says I am here to get you
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  to do something, to act. And that's a big difference
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  between that and the beautiful romantic paintings of the past.
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  So putting on kind of your mom or your big sister, you know,
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  hat how do you talk to a young girl to help explain these
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  differences in practical use? You know, for her, she's trying
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  to choose what to wear. She's she's shopping.
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  I mean, I'm shopping, we're shopping.
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  How, what, what would be your guidelines for encouraging
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  modesty both in dress and action that is designed to showcase the
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  beauty of the person and, you know, encourage healthy
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  relationships versus exploiting the beauty of the person and
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  ultimately driving people to want to objectify that person.
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  That's a great question. First of all, I think it's very
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  important for parents to communicate to their daughters
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  and to their sons that they're the ally, that they are the
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  person who will teach the best things to their child.
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  Often I think that we take the approach of talking to kids
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  about sex and clothing and so forth.
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  As you know, it's US against you.
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  You and the culture want to go in this direction.
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  Don't be one of the those bad kids by wearing that scantily
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  clad clothing. That really is the wrong
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  approach. The best approach is to come
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  alongside your child and say, you know what?
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  Start with magazines. You have a 1213 year old
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  daughter and you're looking at magazines and say, what do you
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  think about that picture of that scantily clad woman?
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  What do you think they're trying to convey?
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  Ask them questions and start to get them thinking and then say
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  why do you think they have her in that position or why do you
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  think they have her in those clothes?
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  I don't know, mom. Well, clearly they're trying to
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  sell magazines. So as you go through this, you
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  teach your kids that in some ways they're being preyed upon,
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  that the reason they are seeing so many sexual messages and
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  everything that they see is for one reason, and that's to get
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  them to pay for something. And kids don't like that.
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  If they feel they're being used by a marketer, they will stand
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  up and rebel against that. And then I think you go on and
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  you talk to your daughters about the beauty of their body, that
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  their body is a creation from God that's made perfectly.
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  Whatever it looks like, it's wonderful, perfectly crafted by
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  God. And when you have something
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  that's that beautiful, you protect it, you care for it.
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  And the best way to care for it is to keep it covered in certain
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  areas because you don't want boys looking at you in certain
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  ways. You wanna be respected.
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  And I just kind of go from there.
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  But really, by asking a lot of questions and getting girls to
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  come up with the answers on their own by your sort of
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  directed questioning. So you want to make sure you get
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  the answers you like to, but you really can get girls to
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  understand. Wow, you know, my body is
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  remarkable and it isn't to be given to anybody.
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  And it isn't. And I don't I, I don't, you
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  know, dress with modesty because something's wrong with me.
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  I dress with modesty because there's something right with me.
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  And you know, I talked to them about taking care of something
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  that they really treasure. I said, say you, you, you get a
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  car when you're 16 or 17 and you're so proud of this car, The
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  last thing you would do is let it sit in the rain and rust and
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  never change the oil. You care for it and your, and it
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  has rules and you and you're protected.
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  And I say, how much more valuable is your body than and,
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  and an old car. And you know, young kids get
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  this because it's true. And when you speak truth to
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  kids, they recognize it, they know it.
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  And if they know that you're on on their side and teaching them
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  truth that makes them feel good, they'll they'll, you know,
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  they'll oblige. They will be right on board with
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  you. I think if you open many
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  Instagram feeds, if you open your Instagram and look at your
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  Instagram feed for many people or TikTok or whatever it is,
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  yeah. Especially when it comes to
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  fashion or influencers. There's a ton of scantily clad
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  content or, you know, wearing, you know, posturing and wearing
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  clothes and a posture that I think are very intended to be
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  sexual and, and look very sexy and all of this.
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  What do you say, though, to the girl who's like used to looking
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  at that? I mean, I think so many people
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  are just desensitized to just, you have to be sexy.
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  You have to dress sexy, all of this stuff.
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  And they think, well, we're just having fun, you know, it's just
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  fun. I don't think it's wrong.
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  What do you do with that kind of a response from a potential
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  girl? Well, that's a great question
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  too. I think that what I would dig
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  is, you know, I think that we take, we don't respect it, a
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  child's ability to sort of think more deeply on a deeper level.
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  And I would say again, why do you think those images are being
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  thrown at you? How do they make you feel?
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  What effect do they have on you? And I think that a girl would
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  really admit, for instance, if she sees a lot of pictures of
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  emaciated and skinny women, she would say, you know, that makes
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  me feel as though I need to get skinnier and get on a diet.
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  And so I go, well, how do these pictures make you feel?
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  If this this girl who's looking sexy and she's, you know,
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  doesn't have much clothing on, how does that make you feel?
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  And she said, well, I feel like I should look like them, too.
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  And then you just press, you know, why do you think that's
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  going to take you to a healthy and good place?
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  And you don't have to ask questions very long before the
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  girl will quickly admit, no, that doesn't make me feel good.
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  Because even a young teenager knows that looking at, say,
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  social media too long makes them feel creepy.
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  It makes them feel bad about themselves.
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  They feel too fat, too stupid, you know, it.
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  It really plays on their self esteem and brings it down.
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  So it's just a, you know, a small leap between that and
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  talking to them about how those sexual images make them feel.
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  It's such a good point. There's the new book out by
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  Jonathan Haidt called The Anxious Generation.
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  I don't know if you've seen it yet, but he basically breaks
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  down the mental health decline, especially in young girls, but
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  young boys connected directly to the rise of the use of
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  smartphones as the form of socialization when it's actually
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  antisocial, right? And why that's making the whole
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  generation anxious. And I think that's good using
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  the Socratic method as you're describing with your, you know,
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  it doesn't have to be your daughter.
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  A lot of our listeners are younger.
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  Their kids aren't maybe teenagers yet, but or if they
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  don't have kids yet, but it can be with, you know, your niece or
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  it can just be with your friend or whoever to say why?
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  Why does this interest you? How does it make you feel going
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  down that line of questioning? Because in the end, the person
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  has to come and the child ideally is coming to the
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  conclusion themselves, right? As opposed to being imposed on
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  them from someone else. Exactly.
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  And you know, kids will do that. They'll get there a lot faster
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  than you think they would. I can get them to realize that
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  in my office, and I'm not even a parent by just asking them
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  questions as though they're an intelligent person, as though
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  they can understand you and realizing that you're having the
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  conversation with them because you don't believe they're bad.
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  You believe they're good. And it's you and the person, the
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  girl against a culture which is trying to drag them down.
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  Again. I think one of the big mistakes
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  parents make or teachers, anybody, is that they talk to
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  the teenager as though they're the bad one.
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  And it's just all your friends that are on that horrible social
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  media. What's wrong with you?
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  Rather than saying, you know, I'm your ally, I'm a partner,
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  I'm with you, and I'm gonna teach you how to negotiate an
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  area that is gonna bring you down.
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  It's very bad for you. And kids quickly realize that
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  social media is bad for them. It, it, it, it's really
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  remarkable how you know when you talk to a teenager, a young
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  teen, very quickly they will agree with you that social media
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  brings them down. So I think Jonathan Hate, one of
• 18:48
  his recommendations is that you should not give a smartphone to
• 18:52
  a kid until they were 16 years old as part of this, you know,
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  his parenting philosophy or how to deal with all of the
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  sexualization and the social media toxicity.
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  What's your take on that? Absolutely. 16 is the youngest,
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  you know, I think some parents say, well, let's wait at least
• 19:10
  till they get high to to high school.
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  You know, handing a 14 or 15 year old kid whose brain is
• 19:17
  nowhere near fully developed, who is still extremely sensitive
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  and gullible to any message out there.
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  They don't know who they are. They're willing to try on
• 19:28
  different persona. They they need to at least have
• 19:31
  more brain development, abstract thinking development, which we
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  know doesn't really complete itself until the early to mid
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  20s, so 16. Still you have six or seven more
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  years of brain development left. So I would even push it a bit
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  further. I would not want my 16 year old
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  daughter on a cell phone. But I think we're going to seize
• 19:55
  a trend happening here because parents are wising up.
• 19:58
  Parents are starting to realize this really has a bad effect on
• 20:02
  brain development, emotional development, socialization,
• 20:06
  relationships. So they're realizing there's
• 20:09
  trouble. And I really beginning to see
• 20:11
  that parents are coming together and going, wait a minute, we're
• 20:14
  going to push back on here. But he's absolutely right.
• 20:18
  So this a lot of what you're describing about being the ally
• 20:21
  of your the ally of your child. And and we're talking about
• 20:24
  older children here to develop connection with them.
• 20:27
  You're on their team, they're not bad, You're trying to help
• 20:29
  them navigate life. I think a lot of that mentality
• 20:32
  is behind also this idea of gentle parenting for younger
• 20:35
  kids as well. And I want to actually go back
• 20:37
  to the beginning of lifespan for a kid and talk to you about your
• 20:40
  take on gentle parenting. What?
• 20:42
  What do you think about gentle parenting?
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  Well, I, I think, you know, the biggest problem with gentle
• 20:48
  parenting is that the kids are running the show, Kids feelings
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  are running the show. And I think that it's basically
• 20:56
  about avoiding conflict with your child, which is completely
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  unrealistic because life is conflict.
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  And a big part of maturing and a parent's job is to teach a child
• 21:08
  that there there are boundaries in life, there are rules, there
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  are things that are right or wrong and that they can't always
• 21:15
  decide what is right and what is wrong.
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  And they can't, they have to realize that there are limits to
• 21:22
  their world. There are parent imposed limits.
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  And I think that this is really come about because parents are
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  afraid of their children. They're afraid of damaging their
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  children. Parents don't believe in
• 21:36
  themselves. They don't believe in their
• 21:38
  God-given instincts. And I think that when you take
• 21:41
  God out of the equation and say, no, God isn't the one who says
• 21:45
  right and wrong. I am or my kid does it.
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  It it, it's terrible for a child because when you give a child
• 21:53
  that kind of power, it terrifies them.
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  And I think the biggest problem with gentle parenting is it
• 21:59
  gives too much, gives power to to kids at far too early of an
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  age. Such an interesting take on
• 22:06
  that. I think the gentle parenting
• 22:07
  person would say, because I think there's aspects of it that
• 22:09
  I agree with and like you're saying, aspects that seem to go
• 22:11
  much too far. I think the gentle parenting
• 22:14
  advocate would probably say in response to what you're saying.
• 22:16
  What you're saying is, Oh no, we do provide boundaries.
• 22:19
  We absolutely have boundaries and gentle parenting, but we
• 22:21
  just have to do this, you know it connection with the child
• 22:25
  first or affirmation of their feelings first in order to help
• 22:29
  them understand the boundary and, and understand how loved
• 22:32
  they are when they're even with a boundary in place.
• 22:35
  What? What do you think about that?
• 22:36
  Well, a lot of kids don't understand the boundary and you
• 22:41
  can explain to a three or a 5 year old, you know why they
• 22:45
  can't ride their bike in the street, but they can't
• 22:48
  understand what what is what's wrong with that?
• 22:52
  Because they can't conceive that they could die if they're hit by
• 22:55
  a car. So I think that, again, we do
• 22:58
  kids a huge disservice by over explaining to them.
• 23:03
  We want them to understand a boundary before we implement it.
• 23:09
  And the truth of the matter is we can't do that because
• 23:12
  sometimes there's just a boundary.
• 23:15
  They can't do it. It's bad for them.
• 23:18
  And that's just the way it is. You know, there are a lot of
• 23:20
  rules that we live with that I don't fully understand, but it
• 23:25
  doesn't matter because I know they're there for my good.
• 23:28
  And I think the important thing for a child to understand is I
• 23:33
  can rely on my mom and dad to watch out for me, to take care
• 23:38
  of me because they love me. They're smarter than I am, and
• 23:43
  therefore the rules that they set are OK because mom and dad
• 23:47
  did it. So I think that kids don't need
• 23:50
  to understand a rule as long as they trust mom and dad, they
• 23:55
  respect mom and dad, and they feel loved by mom and dad.
• 23:59
  That's very different than having to than explaining things
• 24:03
  to them. Because again, if you're trying
• 24:06
  to get a child to understand a rule that they cannot
• 24:09
  understand, they become exasperated.
• 24:13
  And I see this a lot, you know, parents over speaking to their
• 24:17
  kids, stop having this temper tantrum because you're going to
• 24:20
  embarrass yourself. You know, we're going to have to
• 24:23
  leave the store or you're going to hurt your head.
• 24:25
  If you throw your, you know your, you throw yourself down in
• 24:28
  the ground. The kids hysterical.
• 24:31
  Well, I think that the gentle, the gentle parenting person,
• 24:34
  sorry to interrupt, but just to clarify that point, I think
• 24:36
  they're, again, I'm putting on that hat of what they might say
• 24:39
  in this situation. I'm doing it imperfectly, I'm
• 24:41
  sure, but they might say, oh, if they're temper tantruming,
• 24:44
  you're right, you can't explain anything to them.
• 24:46
  You just hug them. And in fact, I, I had a, an
• 24:48
  Instagram post, It was a very popular gentle parenting
• 24:50
  account, 'cause this is where a lot of, I think good families
• 24:52
  are wondering, you know, how many boundaries are too many?
• 24:55
  How do I build connection and trust?
• 24:57
  And I wanted to ask you about this post in particular about
• 25:01
  that tantrum situation. In this post it says this
• 25:04
  morning my toddler started having a tantrum.
• 25:06
  She was laying and crying on the kitchen floor.
• 25:08
  My husband went over and knelt on the ground and then in a
• 25:10
  quiet whisper said, do you want a hug?
• 25:13
  And apparently she refused it. And then he said, it's so it's
• 25:17
  OK, I'm here. She kept crying.
• 25:19
  And then he picked her up and sat around the couch and hugged
• 25:22
  her. And that was the way they dealt
• 25:23
  with the tantrum. I don't know if you could do
• 25:26
  that in a grocery store, but what do you think?
• 25:30
  That's a very smart move, and I'll tell you why, because
• 25:34
  they're not trying to stop the tantrum, because once a tantrum
• 25:39
  is coming out, it's an explosion.
• 25:41
  You can't stop an explosion. You can't reason with a child.
• 25:45
  So what you do with a child who's out of control is you take
• 25:50
  control. So the dad picked the child up
• 25:53
  and hugged her tightly. And the message she got is I'm
• 25:57
  out of control, but my dad isn't.
• 26:00
  So it's going to be OK. So, you know, in in that sense,
• 26:04
  that's not discipline. That really is love and it's
• 26:08
  communicating. Honey, I've got this.
• 26:11
  Don't worry about I'm not mad that you're having a temper
• 26:14
  tantrum. Temper tantrums are part of life
• 26:17
  when you're this age. Let's let's March through this.
• 26:21
  So that's an excellent move. What have you, You mentioned
• 26:26
  earlier you can't always explain the boundary to the child, but
• 26:29
  if they feel loved by you and connected, I think you use the
• 26:33
  word respect to, then it should be OK.
• 26:36
  I mean, that's just part of childhood and growing up.
• 26:38
  How do you make sure that your child feels loved by you,
• 26:42
  especially when you're having to enforce boundaries, you're
• 26:45
  having to discipline them. Ultimately, what what, what are
• 26:48
  your recommendations for that? Yeah, I think the biggest
• 26:51
  mistake that parents make in disciplining is that they that
• 26:55
  they don't have any balance there.
• 26:57
  You know, they just say no, no, no.
• 27:00
  And they feel I don't need to explain myself because I'm the
• 27:03
  parent. Well, that's not necessarily
• 27:04
  true. It depends on how old your child
• 27:06
  is. Kids feel loved when you
• 27:09
  basically do four things and they sound simple, but they're
• 27:13
  very hard to do. You need to give your child
• 27:16
  enough attention. And in our day-to-day lives, we
• 27:20
  don't give our kids enough attention.
• 27:22
  Yeah, we try to control them and we helicopt.
• 27:25
  We make sure this, but I mean, sitting down, look them in the
• 27:28
  eye and say let's sit down and read a story.
• 27:31
  Let's sit down and just talk. I haven't heard about your week.
• 27:36
  How have things been going? Really.
• 27:39
  Letting your child know that you want to hear what they have to
• 27:42
  say. You want to hear how life is
• 27:45
  going. It depends on, you know, the
• 27:47
  age. We don't give our kids enough
• 27:50
  attention. We may be in the same room, but
• 27:51
  cell phones and screens kill the attention we give our kids.
• 27:56
  We can be in the same room, but kids feel ignored and invisible
• 28:00
  when we don't pay any attention. Kids need affection often if we
• 28:06
  have a child who's difficult to raise, a strong willed child,
• 28:10
  we're reining them in. We're saying no, we're, you
• 28:13
  know, checking on this and checking on that.
• 28:15
  And if you have a negative interaction with your child
• 28:17
  repeatedly, it's hard to give that child affection.
• 28:20
  And particularly if there's something that you dislike about
• 28:23
  the child. Affection, particularly from a
• 28:26
  dad, if it's it's a daughter and a son is extremely important.
• 28:30
  They need affirmation, not, Gee, you're great at everything, but
• 28:33
  they need affirmation of their character.
• 28:36
  Wow, you're so patient. You know, you were so courageous
• 28:40
  in doing that. I know you hate algebra, but
• 28:43
  boy, you persisted and persisted.
• 28:45
  You know, that's such a strong character quality.
• 28:49
  And then they need to be accepted just for who they are,
• 28:53
  not because of the stuff they do.
• 28:55
  You know, we mistake this, that if my child is an excellent
• 28:58
  soccer player or plays in the orchestra, I'm going to come
• 29:02
  along and clap really hard. Kids see right through that.
• 29:05
  They know that the way they get attention from a parent is to
• 29:08
  perform. But what you want to do is
• 29:11
  accept your child and let him know.
• 29:12
  Look, if you sat in a closet the rest of the day, you couldn't be
• 29:19
  more loved in my eyes. I love you because you are you.
• 29:24
  You are my daughter. God gave you to me and that's
• 29:28
  what makes you so special. So, you know, we have to all
• 29:33
  four of those put together again, they sound so simple, but
• 29:36
  if you get those right, your child will listen to anything
• 29:40
  you have to say. Life can be chaotic, life can be
• 29:43
  busy, but it's so important to make time for prayer every
• 29:46
  single day. And that's why I love Halo app.
• 29:48
  With Halo app, you can be listening to meditations, Bible
• 29:51
  verses, you can be doing spiritual guided prayer
• 29:54
  sessions. You can do all of this while
• 29:56
  you're doing the dishes or you're driving using Halo app.
• 29:59
  There's an incredible inventory of guided prayers, meditation,
• 30:02
  sleep stories, Bible readings, and in the month of June there
• 30:06
  is a focus on the Book of John with meditations led by Bible
• 30:09
  scholar Jeff Cavens and Jonathan Rumi of The Chosen.
• 30:12
  You're going to love the Halo app because it's the best prayer
• 30:14
  app in the market and it's a way for you to deepen your
• 30:16
  relationship with God. So you can get the first three
• 30:19
  months of the Halo app for free using the link in the bio.
• 30:23
  I love that last one too, about the unconditional love and using
• 30:26
  even words to, well, particularly using words to
• 30:29
  remind them that you love them no matter what.
• 30:32
  You love them because they are your son or your daughter.
• 30:35
  Are there affirmations, words that you recommend that parents
• 30:39
  say regularly to their children, especially the young children?
• 30:42
  Again, a lot of our listeners are in the younger stage.
• 30:45
  I mean, some have, you know, older children too.
• 30:47
  But what would be some affirmations you recommend?
• 30:50
  You know, I think that even young children are capable of
• 30:53
  feeling shame, and they know if they do something wrong, they're
• 30:56
  embarrassed that they feel shamed in front of their
• 30:58
  parents. So I think that as a parent, to
• 31:01
  read your child and to say, you know what, honey, you broke your
• 31:04
  sister's doll or you broke that toy.
• 31:07
  And I know you feel bad about it.
• 31:09
  You know, you can tell them even if they they look like they
• 31:11
  don't and say, you know what? Nothing's going to change the
• 31:15
  way I love. You're going to make mistakes.
• 31:16
  And that's perfectly fine because nothing can shake my
• 31:20
  love for you. And to to reiterate that when
• 31:23
  they feel they failed, nothing can shake my love for you.
• 31:27
  If your child is out, you know, even doing gymnastics and
• 31:31
  they're four or five and they fall or they feel silly or
• 31:34
  they've made a fool of themselves, they're still
• 31:36
  embarrassed. Honey, it's okay, you know,
• 31:39
  because I loved you and that kind of stuff is going to
• 31:42
  happen. So when you see them fail even a
• 31:45
  little bit, that's the time you come and you reinforce how how
• 31:50
  much you love them. How do you balance that with
• 31:53
  maybe they just did break their sister's toy, right?
• 31:56
  Or, you know, they hit their sister and you know, you're, you
• 32:01
  say don't do that. I mean, how, what, what is the
• 32:03
  proper response? Because I think, you know,
• 32:05
  depending on how the child responds, maybe they do
• 32:07
  immediately feel ashamed. Maybe they were just acting out.
• 32:10
  It wasn't malice involved and weren't maliciously intending to
• 32:12
  do something harmful, but they did something harmful.
• 32:15
  So you need to make sure they understand that that's a
• 32:17
  boundary they cross that's wrong.
• 32:18
  But you also want to affirm them.
• 32:20
  You know, you don't want them to think, oh, they get extra
• 32:22
  attention positively from mom or dad when they do something bad.
• 32:25
  How do you navigate that? Well, I think it's really
• 32:28
  important to separate the behavior from the child.
• 32:32
  What I like to do is if you've got a strong willed child, for
• 32:36
  instance, who is back talking you, you sit down and you say,
• 32:40
  listen, this is a a problem for you.
• 32:44
  You have developed a bad habit and the habit is that you are
• 32:48
  back talking me. So if you back talk me, this is
• 32:53
  what's going to happen, you know, and you said a very, very
• 32:57
  clear, you know, consequence for it.
• 33:00
  But again, you treat the kid as though they're not bad.
• 33:05
  The behavior is bad because often we, you know, combine the
• 33:09
  two and we treat them like they're a bad kid.
• 33:13
  You know what? Why are you always doing that?
• 33:15
  Why are what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you?
• 33:18
  Well, that makes the child feel terrible.
• 33:20
  But if you separate the behavior from the child and and you say
• 33:24
  I'm helping to correct your behavior because your behavior
• 33:27
  is going to take you to a bad place.
• 33:30
  You do that even with a young child, they know they're not
• 33:33
  supposed to. For instance, you have two kids
• 33:36
  and they're constantly fighting because siblings fight and you
• 33:40
  say, OK, I know you're going to fight, but here are the rules.
• 33:43
  You can't say anything mean, you can't hurt the other person and
• 33:46
  you can't break their stuff. OK, now if you do those things,
• 33:51
  this is what's going to happen. So in an instance like that, if
• 33:54
  the child breaks another kids toy, what he has to do is he has
• 33:59
  to earn some money and go get the another child a toy.
• 34:03
  So you don't have to be mean, but you have to say this is what
• 34:06
  happens when you break those rules.
• 34:09
  And if kids know what to expect ahead of time, they're much
• 34:14
  better about taking the consequence.
• 34:17
  What's your take on time outs, especially for toddlers?
• 34:22
  I love them. You know, I used them because
• 34:28
  when toddlers are misbehaving, a a lot of it is they're
• 34:33
  challenging you. They're trying to figure out how
• 34:36
  far they can go. And often they get out of
• 34:40
  control very quickly. You know, you'll see a, a
• 34:43
  toddler go from, you know, just being kind of impish to all
• 34:50
  sudden they're being mean and they're destructed, they're
• 34:52
  destructive and they're yelling. And so a time out is really is
• 34:57
  not as much a punishment meant. But hold on, calm down.
• 35:02
  Let's let's start over a little bit.
• 35:06
  And so they really need to be set apart, not so much for them
• 35:10
  to figure out what they did wrong, but they need to be
• 35:12
  calmed down and to stop crying or whatever.
• 35:16
  And then after the time out is when you sort of sit down with a
• 35:20
  child and say, you know what, honey, I can't let you do that.
• 35:24
  You can't grab the pot, you know, on the top of the stove.
• 35:28
  You can't hit me. You can't call me this.
• 35:31
  And I know you get out of control, but you can't do that.
• 35:34
  You never want to do it in the midst of a problem because the
• 35:37
  child's too wound up. So I think, I think time outs
• 35:40
  are great. I think they're also good for
• 35:42
  parents and here's why. Parents who are exhausted, if a
• 35:47
  child begins to push their buttons, they can go over the
• 35:50
  edge really fast. They can start to yell, they get
• 35:54
  out of control. They want to hit their child.
• 35:56
  A time out keeps the parent away from the child.
• 35:59
  So all of the anger and the disruption is diffused and
• 36:05
  there's calm is restored to a certain degree.
• 36:08
  What do you do if your toddler won't stay in time out?
• 36:12
  You sit with them, it's, it's torture, but you literally have
• 36:17
  to. And I remember doing this with
• 36:20
  my kids. They're hysterical, they're
• 36:22
  thrashing, they're doing everything.
• 36:24
  You sit on the chair with them facing outward and you
• 36:28
  crisscross your arms across the child.
• 36:30
  Again, I'm in control. You're out of control.
• 36:34
  But we're going to work through this.
• 36:36
  And then when they calm down, then you try to walk out of the
• 36:39
  room, but it make may take you a number of weeks to sit with them
• 36:43
  until they realize, OK, this is something I have to do.
• 36:46
  She's not going to give in on it.
• 36:48
  She's just going to join me. And that's kind of a pain.
• 36:50
  I'd rather be here by myself. So.
• 36:53
  So that's what you need to do. What about tone of voice?
• 36:57
  I think this is something I know I struggle with as a mom.
• 37:00
  Like, when should my tone of voice?
• 37:02
  Is it too intense? You know, if they're really
• 37:04
  about to hit weather on purpose or accidentally, their
• 37:06
  babysitters, they don't, you know, it's almost like you're
• 37:09
  directing, you're using your voice and the urgency in your
• 37:12
  voice to signal to them that this is a big problem, their
• 37:15
  behavior, what they're about to do or what they did.
• 37:17
  But you also don't want to be yelling at your kids or
• 37:19
  screaming at your kids. And you also don't want to be so
• 37:22
  stern in your tone of voice that you're shaming your child.
• 37:25
  But you also want them to know this is serious and it's not
• 37:27
  just like a walk in the park, whatever the behavior is.
• 37:30
  So what would be your advice about tone of voice and the
• 37:32
  manner in which we speak to our children, especially in those
• 37:35
  kind of intense moments where you need to create a boundary or
• 37:39
  stop some bad behavior from happening?
• 37:42
  Yeah, I don't think intensity is a bad thing.
• 37:44
  I don't think urgency is a bad thing because kids do need to
• 37:49
  know this is a dangerous situation.
• 37:52
  So you can say no to your child if you know they start coloring
• 37:56
  on the wall, which most 3 year olds do.
• 37:58
  No, don't do that. That's not okay.
• 38:01
  But if they're going to do something dangerous, you're
• 38:04
  going to say no, you can't do that.
• 38:07
  That's okay. Where you cross the line is when
• 38:10
  you start yelling and screaming at the child.
• 38:13
  And the reason you're yelling and screaming is not necessarily
• 38:15
  because of their behavior, but you've lost, you've had it,
• 38:18
  you're exhausted. You know, it's the 15th time
• 38:22
  that day you've said no to your child.
• 38:24
  And really, you should never yell at your child.
• 38:27
  We all yell at our kids, but yelling is really more about our
• 38:32
  own frustration and the fact that we have not either gotten
• 38:36
  enough sleep or that we are angry at something else or angry
• 38:40
  at her husband. It's usually not about the
• 38:43
  child. The child is just the dartboard.
• 38:46
  And but I think that certainly using a deeper voice, a lower
• 38:51
  voice, a louder voice, a firmer voice is absolutely 100% OK.
• 38:56
  That doesn't mean you're being mean.
• 38:58
  You can do that very respectfully.
• 39:01
  And I think we should always talk very respectfully to our
• 39:04
  kids. We don't swear at them.
• 39:06
  We don't call them names, we don't call them stupid.
• 39:09
  We don't treat them again like they're bad.
• 39:11
  We don't talk down to them. But, but they need to know that
• 39:17
  when we, when we say, no, you can't do it, we mean it.
• 39:21
  So we can't just go, no, that's a really bad thing for you to
• 39:24
  do. They'll just walk right past
• 39:26
  that. Cause a lot of it is challenging
• 39:29
  and the parents authority, because in order for kids to
• 39:33
  feel safe, they need to know that you're in charge.
• 39:37
  You set the rules. And it's within those rules that
• 39:40
  they can live safely. Because again, if they think
• 39:43
  they can motor over you, change your mind, or pester you to the
• 39:47
  point that you just throw up your hands, they are terrified
• 39:50
  because they feel they're in charge and not you.
• 39:53
  And that's a bad situation. You said earlier, Doctor Maker,
• 39:57
  that there's a danger to over explaining to a young child
• 40:00
  because they can't process the depths of the under of the
• 40:04
  explanation even with something potentially as simple as you
• 40:07
  could get run over and killed. Because what does death mean to
• 40:10
  a young child, right? The way that an adult may
• 40:12
  understand it? Where would you, can you explain
• 40:15
  that a little bit more? When is it too much to explain
• 40:17
  something to a child versus it's actually useful to explain?
• 40:21
  You know, we'll throw it in an example.
• 40:23
  The three-year old is, you know, wanting to experiment by
• 40:27
  throwing things at the baby, right?
• 40:29
  And you're saying, no, that's going to hurt the baby.
• 40:31
  That will injure the baby. Do you say, do you explain that?
• 40:34
  Is that level of explanation OK? Or would you say no, just tell
• 40:37
  him no, you can never do that? What what?
• 40:39
  How do you How do you gauge what to explain and what not to
• 40:42
  explain as a parent? I think it's really, well, it
• 40:44
  is. It's age dependent.
• 40:46
  The younger the child, the less words you use.
• 40:49
  Kids who are three don't really have the ability to empathize.
• 40:54
  Just so you say if you throw that plate at your sister, it's
• 40:58
  going to upset her and she's going to hurt.
• 41:01
  Well, that doesn't really resonate with them.
• 41:04
  What they need to know is it's really in your home.
• 41:07
  It's not allowed to throw things at other people.
• 41:10
  That's a family rule. And as the child gets older, now
• 41:13
  they're five and they're throwing plates and forks and
• 41:16
  all sorts of things at their younger sibling.
• 41:19
  You say, you know, we don't do this in our family because we
• 41:22
  don't throw things at each other.
• 41:24
  But when you throw something at your sister, it hurts her
• 41:28
  because by 5 or 6, they're starting to realize, Gee whiz,
• 41:31
  there's consequences to my actions.
• 41:34
  And then, you know, when she's 8 and she starts doing something
• 41:38
  mean to, you know, her sibling, you sit down and then you can
• 41:42
  have a deeper discussion. You know, we don't do that in
• 41:45
  our family because we hurt one another.
• 41:48
  And we always want to be respectfully of each other.
• 41:51
  And that's really important, our family.
• 41:53
  One of the ways you respect your siblings and dad and I is to not
• 41:58
  throw things at each other. We don't throw things at you.
• 42:02
  We protect you from other people throwing things at you and
• 42:07
  that's why we do so. You use more words as the child
• 42:10
  gets older and you once they can begin to empathize 8:10-ish,
• 42:15
  then you can start to use the don't do it because it's going
• 42:20
  to hurt them. I have seen this, You know, a
• 42:24
  lot of two or three-year olds bite.
• 42:27
  They can't communicate what they want.
• 42:29
  They get angry, they get frustrated, they go up and they
• 42:31
  bite a friend and parents will say, well, what I'm going to do
• 42:36
  is bite them back because they need to understand that it
• 42:40
  hurts. Well, kids can't get that
• 42:43
  because to them, biting another person doesn't resonate with a
• 42:48
  hurt feeling. It's just them biting because
• 42:51
  they can't empathize. So when a parent bites them back
• 42:54
  or hits them back or whatever, all they know is why did my mom
• 42:59
  do that? If my mom bit me or hit me, that
• 43:01
  must be an OK thing to do. So this is where you really need
• 43:05
  to understand where your child is developmentally.
• 43:10
  What you're saying makes me think about spanking because I,
• 43:13
  you know, we don't spank in my family.
• 43:15
  I will just share that on the podcast.
• 43:16
  There will be lots of, I'm sure comments in the comments section
• 43:19
  about different opinions on this.
• 43:20
  I know a lot of kids who were spanked and as when they were
• 43:23
  little and they're doing great now.
• 43:24
  So I'm not saying that if you were spanked, it's going to
• 43:26
  destroy you forever, of course. But I want your take on
• 43:29
  spanking. We actually don't think we've
• 43:30
  addressed this on the show yet. What do you think?
• 43:33
  Is there ever a case for spanking to be OK?
• 43:35
  Is spanking always a problem? Why or why not?
• 43:38
  I don't like spanking. You know, it's, it's interesting
• 43:41
  because I used to think it was OK, probably when my kids are
• 43:44
  little. I thought it was OK because I
• 43:45
  wanted to. But I don't really like spanking
• 43:49
  because I think we need to. We end up spanking when we can't
• 43:54
  figure out what disciplinary action is really going to work
• 43:58
  for our child. And the reason we don't know
• 44:01
  what is really going to work is because we haven't found their
• 44:05
  Achilles heel. Every child has an Achilles
• 44:07
  heel. There's something they don't
• 44:09
  want to do. There's something that's that
• 44:12
  they don't want taken away. So we need to find some, do some
• 44:15
  detective work to say, you know, OK, my three-year old just did
• 44:21
  something and I'm very angry. And rather than spank you say,
• 44:24
  you know what, honey, you did that.
• 44:26
  And so now you have to, you know, you're going to have to go
• 44:31
  to your room for an hour. You can't play with so.
• 44:33
  And so we, we have to find out what the child doesn't want
• 44:36
  taken away. So I really do think we use
• 44:39
  spanking as a default and we use spanking when we feel what that
• 44:44
  what we're at the end of our rope.
• 44:46
  And and that's and that's we get to the end of our rope because
• 44:50
  we have we need to back up a lot more and say, how do we get
• 44:53
  here? Well, we got here because we let
• 44:55
  the child do this and this and this and just said, I'm not
• 44:58
  going to say anything. I'm not going to say anything.
• 45:00
  And then whap at the end of the day.
• 45:03
  So now some parents will say spanking is the only thing my
• 45:07
  child will respond to. Those kids are few and far
• 45:12
  between. But fundamentally, I just don't
• 45:15
  like hitting kids because we are living in a very violent culture
• 45:22
  and I think bringing even a small of that amount of violence
• 45:25
  into our home is not a healthy thing for our kids.
• 45:28
  We've got to be able to be more creative in our disciplinary
• 45:33
  actions and find out what really is going to bother our kids
• 45:37
  aside from physical punishment. Do you think that spanking does
• 45:43
  or can emotionally damage kids, including when it's done by a
• 45:47
  parent who's in control? Because I think I've heard some
• 45:50
  spanking advocates say, well, yes, it's a problem.
• 45:52
  If you're like so angry when you're spanking and you're doing
• 45:55
  it out of anger, that is a problem.
• 45:57
  If you're going to spank, you got to do it a very controlled
• 45:59
  way. You have to explain why you're
• 46:01
  doing it and it has to be kind of the systematic way.
• 46:04
  I, I personally disagree with that.
• 46:06
  Is there a Is there an emotional harm to spanking for for a
• 46:10
  child? Yeah, there can be.
• 46:12
  And again, it depends on what the parent is communicating
• 46:17
  beyond the spanking. If a parent is communicating,
• 46:21
  you are such a bad kid, I can't believe it's the only way I can
• 46:25
  get you under control is to hit you.
• 46:28
  Or if the parent's saying, you know what, this is such a
• 46:31
  serious thing that you did, and I hate spanking, I don't want to
• 46:36
  do it. But your behavior has gotten to
• 46:38
  this level. And you give one swat and then,
• 46:44
  you know, the child cries and runs off to his room.
• 46:46
  And then you come back half hour later and you sit down and and
• 46:50
  talk about why you did it. No, I don't think that's going
• 46:52
  to emotionally harm a child. If, however, when you spank a
• 46:56
  child, you're clearly out of control.
• 46:59
  You're clearly angry at the child, not just what they did.
• 47:03
  Yes, that can do a lot of harm. And if you shame the child, pull
• 47:07
  the pants down, swat them on the on the Fanny, that's that's very
• 47:11
  shaming to a child. You should never do that.
• 47:15
  So yeah, again, it really depends on the intent of the
• 47:18
  parent at the time of the the spanking.
• 47:22
  I'd like to explore the question of shame.
• 47:24
  We talked about it earlier a little bit with regard to the
• 47:27
  sexualization of teen girls. And you know, I think shame, it
• 47:32
  could sometimes confusing for people.
• 47:33
  What does it mean to feel ashamed, be shamed?
• 47:37
  What's the role of the parent in helping protect children who are
• 47:41
  getting into very damaging behaviors?
• 47:43
  And by telling them that this behavior is very bad, whether
• 47:46
  it's an older child or a younger child in an age appropriate way,
• 47:49
  the child may feel shame about the behavior.
• 47:52
  So in that case, you could say, well, I felt I felt I was being
• 47:55
  shamed by my parent, right? I think in our culture today,
• 47:58
  anybody having any moral compass is shaming other people, right?
• 48:01
  Especially when it comes to sex, actually.
• 48:03
  What's your take on avoiding shaming your child?
• 48:07
  Well, still delivering the age appropriate moral message that
• 48:12
  they need to hear and the boundaries that they need to
• 48:14
  live by. Yeah, well, first of all, 100%
• 48:18
  of children and adults will feel shame because that's that's the
• 48:24
  world that we're living in. We're fallen people.
• 48:26
  The world is a fallen place. Shame is different from guilt.
• 48:30
  Now, there are times it's very healthy to be guilty because we
• 48:33
  were wrong and we did something egregious and we need to say
• 48:38
  we're sorry to somebody and you know, repent and move on.
• 48:42
  Shame is a little bit different and that cuts a bit deeper.
• 48:46
  Shame means you feel like you are a horrible person.
• 48:51
  It wasn't just a bad thing that you did, but you did a bad thing
• 48:54
  because you're a horrible person and you always will be a
• 48:57
  horrible person. So shame is deeper.
• 48:59
  We shouldn't live with shame. I believe biblically we
• 49:03
  shouldn't live with shame, but we will have it.
• 49:06
  And when we can expunge the shame but we will need.
• 49:10
  But in order to do that, you know, we need to recognize what
• 49:14
  it is that we did wrong. And and then as a parent, if
• 49:18
  we're shaming our child, it involves humiliation and should
• 49:22
  never humiliate your child, never cause them be too
• 49:26
  embarrassed. I don't like sarcasm with kids
• 49:30
  teasing. I hate teasing because teasing
• 49:34
  when a parent teases a child, they really are invoking a
• 49:37
  certain level of humiliation and shame because the whole thing
• 49:40
  with teasing is part of it is actually true.
• 49:44
  And, and, and so I think that we need to learn how to deal with
• 49:49
  our own shame, wonder when we're dumping it onto our kids and
• 49:52
  then helping our kids get past it and to realize they're not a
• 49:57
  horrible person. Even if they did something
• 50:00
  terrible, there's redemption for them and moving on.
• 50:03
  Is it appropriate to shame behaviors?
• 50:11
  Let's say the one thing that this maybe helps, it's not
• 50:17
  infrequent for 910 year old boys to want to look at each other
• 50:22
  naked and to poke around and say, you know, look at this or
• 50:26
  look at this or can I look at you naked?
• 50:29
  That is not sexual abuse. That's sort of curiosity and
• 50:32
  play. I think that when parents, which
• 50:36
  they often do, will come and say to their son, don't ever do
• 50:40
  that. That's horrible.
• 50:41
  That's a horrible thing, You know, never shame them.
• 50:44
  That's normal curiosity. So what you do is you say,
• 50:48
  honey, I understand you're curious, but that's private.
• 50:52
  And it's really important for no one to see, you know, your
• 50:55
  private areas except for mom or dad or the doctor.
• 50:57
  That's what I always tell the kids in my practice.
• 51:00
  So there's an, an, an instance where you could shame a child
• 51:04
  very easily. But no, I, I, I think that when
• 51:08
  you shame the behavior in a child's eyes, you're shaming
• 51:12
  them because it's even, it's even hard for adults.
• 51:17
  If we have committed, you know, we've done something really
• 51:21
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  Bacon for life. How do you deal with exposure to
• 52:20
  pornography and sexual content and so many young people are
• 52:24
  being exposed to it. It's everywhere.
• 52:26
  Connected to this too, is just the fact that the rates of
• 52:28
  sexual abuse are so high among kids, meaning kids sexual
• 52:33
  abusing other kids because of exposure they've experienced and
• 52:36
  then other unsafe adults praying on children.
• 52:39
  I mean, it's everywhere. But I think, you know, part of
• 52:43
  this is, like you said, making sure children understand that
• 52:45
  their bodies are certain parts of their bodies are private.
• 52:48
  They're not to be touched or looked at by other people.
• 52:51
  You don't want there to be shame involved, but you also want
• 52:54
  certain behaviors to be seen as terrible and unacceptable,
• 52:58
  right? So how do you how do you
• 53:00
  navigate that? Sure.
• 53:02
  Well, typically a parent will come and say and you know, I
• 53:05
  have an 8 year old and my 8 year old saw pornography on the
• 53:09
  Internet and they keep going back and looking and I'm
• 53:12
  terribly concerned because I don't want them to become
• 53:15
  perverted or whatever. First of all, when a young child
• 53:19
  sees pornography, it's usually not their fault they didn't.
• 53:22
  Pornography finds kids, it just finds them.
• 53:27
  If you're a little boy and you're looking up, you know,
• 53:29
  Legos or trucks or whatever, again, you know, Google or
• 53:33
  whatever senses your voice. So they're going to hit you up
• 53:35
  with pornography. So sadly, very young kids will
• 53:39
  see pornography. And again, because a lot of
• 53:43
  parents rightly see pornography as shameful, they will bring
• 53:49
  that shame onto the child and say, don't ever see that again.
• 53:53
  That is a horrible thing. Don't ever look, rather than
• 53:57
  saying to the child, I get why you wanted to look at it because
• 54:01
  it's very disturbing. How did you feel when you saw
• 54:04
  that? Oh, I just felt gross.
• 54:05
  Exactly. But the problem with seeing
• 54:08
  something that is shameful, that is wrong, that will harm you in
• 54:14
  some way, I need to help you avoid that.
• 54:19
  But the problem is when something is that foreign to
• 54:22
  you, you want to go back and see it again, to see is it real?
• 54:25
  Is it real? Is it real?
• 54:27
  So you talk to them about the fact that they saw it doesn't
• 54:32
  mean they're a bad kid, it was bad stuff, it will harm them.
• 54:37
  And that your job is to help them not see it anymore because
• 54:42
  even a young child knows it's shameful.
• 54:44
  They'll look at pornography and something in them will go,
• 54:47
  that's not right, you know, that's wrong.
• 54:50
  And so I think that we have to have ongoing conversations with
• 54:55
  our kids, particularly boys, about pornography.
• 54:58
  And we need to be very upfront about it.
• 55:01
  You are not the perpetrator. You are being sought after.
• 55:07
  You're a victim. You're being preyed upon, and my
• 55:11
  job is to help you not be preyed upon because it's not uncommon
• 55:16
  at all. I think the tip, the average age
• 55:19
  for a child to be exposed to pornography, a boy, I think it's
• 55:22
  9, something like that. You know, that's second grade.
• 55:27
  And these kids are shocked and they're upset.
• 55:29
  And if we come at them and go, oh, that's a terrible thing, why
• 55:32
  did you do that? What's wrong with you for
• 55:34
  looking at that? There's nothing wrong with a
• 55:37
  child, they're just responding to what they saw.
• 55:42
  What would be your recommendations for protecting a
• 55:44
  child against exposure to sexual abuse?
• 55:49
  Oh well, first of all, keep them away from situations where they
• 55:56
  might be sexually abused. Now this is going.
• 55:58
  You'll probably get a lot of bad letters from this.
• 56:01
  I don't like sleepovers. No sleepovers, you know kids.
• 56:06
  Not even with relatives. Oh, relatives, OK, if you know
• 56:09
  them well yeah however, if if your 10 year old son has a boy
• 56:16
  cousin who's 17, he's still a great kid and they're sleeping
• 56:19
  in the room together. Even though the 17 year old boy
• 56:23
  is maybe normal and healthy, he may be curious about the the son
• 56:28
  and he may want some sexual play.
• 56:30
  That is sexual abuse because the child is the child and the 17
• 56:34
  year old's almost a man. So again, you have to be very
• 56:39
  careful and I think sometimes we're just too naive.
• 56:43
  If you know the family members very well, that's fine.
• 56:47
  But as far as just friends and going to friends for sleepovers,
• 56:51
  maybe the friends are fine, but you don't know what their
• 56:54
  parents are really like. You don't know what friends the
• 56:57
  parents are going to have come over.
• 57:00
  And often when there's abuse that goes on, sexual abuse that
• 57:03
  goes on in a home, it's by a family friend or an uncle who is
• 57:08
  never around but comes in. So that's why, you know, kids
• 57:14
  don't say no to sexual abuse. They're stunned.
• 57:17
  You know, even a 15 year old girl, they're stunned, they're
• 57:20
  scared, they're ashamed because it is a shameful act.
• 57:25
  And so all the only way they know how to respond is to
• 57:29
  withdraw and pretend it didn't happen.
• 57:31
  So this idea of teaching kids to go to school and tell their
• 57:34
  teacher that I was sexually abused, it's not going to happen
• 57:36
  because it's cloaked in so much shame and a desire and instinct
• 57:43
  to hide so. You mentioned the 17 year old
• 57:47
  boy man. I mean, it's I would say at that
• 57:49
  point you're a man and you know, obviously your brain is still
• 57:52
  developing and everything else. But would you then say no, there
• 57:56
  should not be male babysitters for children?
• 57:59
  What's your take on non biologically, especially related
• 58:02
  males? And you know, biologically
• 58:04
  related males can also commit obviously sexual abuse.
• 58:07
  So it's not like it's just that as a protector.
• 58:09
  But what would be your rule of thumb for babysitters?
• 58:13
  You know, again, you're going to get a lot of hate mail.
• 58:16
  I am not for boy babysitters. Now I have a son.
• 58:21
  My son would have been a pretty good babysitter.
• 58:24
  I wouldn't have worried about my son abusing.
• 58:26
  Most boys are not going to do it.
• 58:28
  But here's the thing, if that if that one out of 50 boys abuses
• 58:35
  your child, there can be irreparable damage.
• 58:39
  Why take the chance? We know that most abuse is
• 58:43
  perpetrated by males, not by girls and, and women.
• 58:48
  So, you know, call me overprotective, but I don't care
• 58:53
  because I, I felt if something would have happened to my
• 58:56
  daughters when they were young and it happened at the hands of
• 59:01
  a babysitter that I hired to come into my home, I'm at fault.
• 59:05
  So that's, that's my personal take on and, and, and remember,
• 59:11
  I've, I've seen a lot of this and so I'm very hypersensitive
• 59:16
  to it. Are there any red flags?
• 59:18
  What about with female babysitters?
• 59:19
  I I bring that up in part because unfortunately, deviant
• 59:23
  sexual behavior, porn exposure, and addiction is rising among
• 59:28
  females too. So it's not just that males are
• 59:31
  involved in this. Because our culture is so
• 59:33
  sexually confused, sexually addicted girls are getting hit
• 59:37
  by it too. So red flags?
• 59:39
  I guess my question is, are there any red flags or rules of
• 59:42
  thumb you have for even when selecting a babysitter in
• 59:44
  general that's a female. Yes, and I, and I, I'm glad you
• 59:47
  brought that up because I'm not just trying to target boys and
• 59:50
  I'm not demonizing boys and I'm not trying to say that all, you
• 59:54
  know, 16 year old boys are perverts.
• 59:57
  Yes, as far as red flags for a babysitter, and this goes beyond
• 1:00:01
  just the babysitter who's going to, you know, watch your child
• 1:00:03
  on Saturday night when you go to dinner.
• 1:00:05
  I'm talking about selecting a nanny.
• 1:00:07
  Use your instincts. I believe that mothers can size
• 1:00:13
  a person up within 15 minutes if you listen to their tone of
• 1:00:16
  voice. You watch how they're watching
• 1:00:18
  your child. You know your child should
• 1:00:21
  always be there. See how they interact with the
• 1:00:23
  child. Do they look at your child?
• 1:00:26
  If they're not interested, Do they swear?
• 1:00:29
  Are they, you know, callous and cold hearted?
• 1:00:33
  Are they wanting to be on their phone all the time?
• 1:00:36
  You know, those are some of the red flags as far as worrying
• 1:00:39
  about an abusive girls or women potentially abusing kids.
• 1:00:46
  I would worry about physical abuse more than anything.
• 1:00:48
  And so I'd want references, even if it's the 14 year old coming
• 1:00:52
  over to babysit your child on a Saturday night, call people that
• 1:00:56
  she's babysat for, know her parents, know her friends, you
• 1:01:01
  know, her friend groups will tell you a lot about her.
• 1:01:04
  So I really believe that if you just trust your instincts and
• 1:01:08
  you know her background and where she fits in, you know,
• 1:01:12
  with her peers and her family, you're going to you're going to
• 1:01:16
  notice some red flags. One more question on the sexual
• 1:01:19
  abuse front, because it's so it's so horribly prevalent in
• 1:01:22
  our culture today and young kids are so targeted.
• 1:01:25
  I mean, there's some statistics. I think it's one in every five
• 1:01:28
  kids or one in every four girls are sexually abused as children.
• 1:01:32
  I mean, it's just horrific, right?
• 1:01:34
  Horrible. And I'm sure you see this all
• 1:01:36
  the time in in your practice. You're dealing with the kind of
• 1:01:38
  wreckage of it as as our psychologists and psychiatrists
• 1:01:41
  and therapists. What would be some things you
• 1:01:45
  can do? Are there things you can do
• 1:01:47
  besides no sleepovers to help protect your children from
• 1:01:51
  predators? And especially when,
• 1:01:53
  unfortunately, the predator could be somehow in the family
• 1:01:57
  and you don't know it, or they could be another child, you
• 1:02:00
  know, a child on. Child abuse is increasingly
• 1:02:04
  common, especially as more children themselves are abused
• 1:02:08
  or exposed to it. Then they can act out and abuse
• 1:02:10
  others. What are your thoughts on that?
• 1:02:12
  Well, I think that, you know, when we talk about child to
• 1:02:16
  child abuse, it's important to distinguish curiosity and play
• 1:02:21
  from abuse. And usually that comes when you
• 1:02:24
  have an older child dominating a younger child and making the
• 1:02:29
  child feel that he doesn't have a say, he can't back out, he
• 1:02:32
  can't say no. And so but, but that absolutely
• 1:02:35
  does happen. I think that.
• 1:02:38
  One quick question on that actually before before you keep
• 1:02:41
  going, let's say there's a situation where there's like a
• 1:02:43
  prepubescent or adolescent, you know, pubescent boy and he is
• 1:02:47
  doing what he considers maybe play, but it's abuse on a
• 1:02:52
  younger female or male family member or child.
• 1:02:56
  And that child, they're engaging in it because they think that
• 1:02:59
  this is how to interact with this older child.
• 1:03:03
  And, you know, they're not maybe running, you know, being held
• 1:03:06
  down by the older child. They're kind of playing along.
• 1:03:09
  But it's clearly sexual behavior that is abusive towards this
• 1:03:12
  child. Again, if a child is ever in any
• 1:03:16
  situation where they feel they can't run or say no or, or get
• 1:03:21
  control of the situation, it's abuse.
• 1:03:24
  And I would consider any, you know, 10 year old, 9 year old
• 1:03:28
  who is having sexual play with a three-year old, it's abuse or a
• 1:03:31
  5 year old because there's dominance.
• 1:03:34
  And that's the key thing. There's, there's a dominance
• 1:03:37
  there. I think it's just really
• 1:03:40
  important. And I do this with my patients.
• 1:03:42
  I talk to them and I over and over.
• 1:03:45
  If I examine a three-year old, I cover them with a sheet.
• 1:03:49
  And when I examine a little girl's chest, now you know, why
• 1:03:53
  do you wear a bathing suit here? Because you covered up, because
• 1:03:56
  it's so beautiful and nobody should touch but mom, dad or the
• 1:03:59
  doctor. And you have to be even be
• 1:04:01
  careful with that. But doing those kinds of things
• 1:04:05
  is really important. And then with a very young
• 1:04:08
  child, just to try to keep him out of any situation where they
• 1:04:12
  might be abused, that's really the only thing you can do.
• 1:04:16
  Because until a child's a lot older, they're not going to
• 1:04:20
  speak up. They will feel ashamed because
• 1:04:23
  even a three-year old who's touched, you know, sexually by a
• 1:04:26
  10 year old, they feel shame that that's just our instinct.
• 1:04:31
  And so I think that parents just have to keep aware and monitor
• 1:04:36
  things. And again, you don't want to be
• 1:04:38
  overly paranoid, but at the same time, like I said, if your child
• 1:04:44
  is that, you know, one in five, it's 100% for your child.
• 1:04:49
  And if there's any way you can avoid that, you know, to do
• 1:04:52
  that. And so I also think I don't
• 1:04:56
  terrify your your listeners, but we need to think about this too.
• 1:04:59
  I really believe a lot of the child abuse, the sexual abuse is
• 1:05:02
  going up because we have such a distorted perverse sexual
• 1:05:07
  culture and our kids are being exposed to perverse sexual
• 1:05:13
  behavior. They're being sexualized and,
• 1:05:17
  and, and I think that when you grow up like that, you are more
• 1:05:22
  likely to become an abuser because to you perverse sexual
• 1:05:27
  behavior, though you may feel it's normal, can be very harmful
• 1:05:32
  to another person. And so that's what I, I think is
• 1:05:35
  the, the real harm in having no sexual rules for anybody
• 1:05:40
  anywhere, which is really a, to a large degree what our culture
• 1:05:45
  embraces. There should be no boundaries on
• 1:05:47
  sexual behavior. Our kids pay the price for that.
• 1:05:51
  Do you have a little one in your life, A new niece or nephew, a
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  off your order. It's such a good point.
• 1:06:34
  It's like the culture is grooming a whole generation,
• 1:06:38
  abusing a whole generation through the sexualization and
• 1:06:41
  media and content and even in school curriculum and everything
• 1:06:45
  to and effectively grow up to be abusers.
• 1:06:48
  You know, it's easier, it's easier to desensitize someone
• 1:06:52
  once they've been abused or objectified themselves and then
• 1:06:55
  that can be a tendency they may have towards other people.
• 1:06:58
  It's such a such a good point. This has been so awesome.
• 1:07:01
  But I really want to get to one more thing too.
• 1:07:04
  These are great topics and, and your thoughts here are very
• 1:07:06
  helpful. You talk a lot about the dad
• 1:07:09
  inclusive parenting stuff. And again, we have a lot of
• 1:07:12
  younger moms listening and, you know, a lot of women and men who
• 1:07:15
  one day hope to maybe be a parent or get married.
• 1:07:18
  And there's a lot of debate today around gender roles.
• 1:07:22
  And, you know, Harrison Butker, the NFL player from the Kansas
• 1:07:27
  City Chiefs, you know, he gave this commencement speaker speech
• 1:07:29
  recently at Benedictine College. And he talked about praising his
• 1:07:32
  wife for being a homemaker, saying she really felt her
• 1:07:35
  vocation was to be a homemaker. Got kicked back, a lot of
• 1:07:40
  blowback, I should say, from that.
• 1:07:42
  I think that there's clearly roles in a home when it comes to
• 1:07:47
  mothering and fathering. I think there's a lot of Gray
• 1:07:49
  area too for how we play this out based on different
• 1:07:52
  personalities and skills. But I am curious what you mean
• 1:07:55
  by dad inclusive parenting And what are some what's some advice
• 1:07:59
  for especially for women listening how they can include
• 1:08:04
  the dad, the husband in parenting for the best outcomes
• 1:08:08
  for their kids? I think there's several things
• 1:08:11
  going on and I think that, you know, as a result of, you know,
• 1:08:15
  the, the feminist movement and I keep bringing it up because I
• 1:08:18
  was in the college, I went to an all women's College in 1970s and
• 1:08:23
  I can't believe it, but at one time I was pro abortion.
• 1:08:25
  I, I can't, I can't believe it. Talk about shame.
• 1:08:28
  But anyway, and but what happened with fallout of that
• 1:08:32
  was we elevated, elevated, elevated a woman's position
• 1:08:38
  abilities. We pushed and pushed women,
• 1:08:40
  pushed women to take career roles that were that were very
• 1:08:47
  hard, very challenging, financially rewarding.
• 1:08:49
  And that's fine. But along the way, dads were the
• 1:08:53
  casualty because what happened is when women were elevated, men
• 1:09:00
  were put down. And that was a big problem
• 1:09:03
  because there was this belief that we can't elevate women and
• 1:09:07
  have men on equal footing at the same time.
• 1:09:10
  There's only room for one on the stage.
• 1:09:13
  And because women have been slighted for decades, we're
• 1:09:17
  going to keep them up there. And you, you see this, you see
• 1:09:20
  women who are wealthy in Hollywood saying I'm just going
• 1:09:24
  to have a baby. The child doesn't need a father.
• 1:09:27
  You know, I, I want a baby just because I want a baby.
• 1:09:30
  Well, first of all, the child does need a father.
• 1:09:34
  A child needs a father. The masculine influence and the
• 1:09:37
  feminine influence. And anybody who says they that a
• 1:09:41
  child doesn't need a father, I would ask them to look at their
• 1:09:44
  childhood. If they didn't have a father,
• 1:09:47
  they know they wanted a father. And if they did had a good dad,
• 1:09:51
  they knew the difference between mom and dad and they needed that
• 1:09:55
  balance. I think that.
• 1:09:58
  So anyway, I think that dads have been marginalized and in
• 1:10:02
  the family structure. They've been thrown into orbit.
• 1:10:05
  You know, many women want to do it all, be it all, be the
• 1:10:09
  primary attachment for their child.
• 1:10:12
  We're taught this from the time we're pregnant, you know, nurse,
• 1:10:15
  feed the baby and forever, you know, and, and, and that's
• 1:10:18
  great, but because you need to form those attachments, but the
• 1:10:21
  child needs attachment to dad too, because that's a critical
• 1:10:26
  relationship. Even an infant knows the
• 1:10:28
  difference between a mom and a dad.
• 1:10:30
  A six month old, a three month old, there are differences
• 1:10:34
  between a mother and a father that every child knows.
• 1:10:38
  So we can say there aren't differences, but everybody knows
• 1:10:41
  that there are. And so father attachment is, is
• 1:10:45
  critically important. And one of the reasons I'm such
• 1:10:48
  a father advocate is because I love kids and I have literally
• 1:10:52
  listened to thousands of kids over 33 years talk to me about
• 1:10:57
  they want what they want or missed from their dad.
• 1:11:02
  And it's coming straight from their mouths.
• 1:11:05
  And So what I mean is I think that inadvertently strong women
• 1:11:10
  like you and like me can push our husbands out of the way
• 1:11:15
  because we feel we've got this. You know, we're intuitive,
• 1:11:19
  particularly if we have daughters.
• 1:11:21
  You know, we feel, well, men don't know how to talk to girls
• 1:11:24
  as well as mothers do. So we're just going to sort of
• 1:11:27
  push them out of the way without pushing them out of the way.
• 1:11:30
  And that's a terrible message to the kids because the message is,
• 1:11:34
  you know, you need me only. And so, you know, now there are
• 1:11:40
  a lot of dads who are stay at home dads and the mom has a very
• 1:11:44
  high-powered career. Terrific.
• 1:11:46
  There's some dads that are better primary caregivers than
• 1:11:50
  mothers. But here's the bottom line.
• 1:11:53
  Children need a parent and you know if, if, if a woman is going
• 1:11:58
  to have a high-powered career, work 60 hours a week, great.
• 1:12:02
  Someone needs to take care of those children.
• 1:12:04
  And as an advocate for children, I say the reason you have two
• 1:12:08
  parents is so that you can split roles.
• 1:12:11
  You know who has what role and the other, it doesn't matter.
• 1:12:15
  But children need to be nurtured and parented and loved, and they
• 1:12:19
  need to attach to fathers and mothers.
• 1:12:22
  Then we also know that dads have a profound protective influence
• 1:12:29
  over kids as they get older, particularly with girls.
• 1:12:33
  You know, fathers, girls who have a father in the home start
• 1:12:36
  their periods later in life. They're less likely to be
• 1:12:39
  sexually active in an early age. They're less likely to drop out
• 1:12:43
  of high school, more likely to go into college, more likely to
• 1:12:46
  have less depression, less anxiety, less self esteem
• 1:12:50
  issues. This is well documented in the
• 1:12:53
  research, so we can sit out there and say dads don't matter,
• 1:12:56
  but it's documented in research very, very, very clearly.
• 1:13:01
  And that's why we need to work hard to pull dads back into a
• 1:13:05
  very integral part role in the family.
• 1:13:10
  All right, well, top What's your top two or three tips for
• 1:13:12
  inviting dad and relying on dad, quite frankly in day-to-day with
• 1:13:18
  kids? Yeah, that's great.
• 1:13:20
  First of all, tell him how well the kids respond when he said
• 1:13:25
  when he has time with them. OK, If he goes out and even
• 1:13:29
  plays in the backyard soccer with one of the kids for 15
• 1:13:33
  minutes and they come in and they're a good mood, you say,
• 1:13:36
  you know, I noticed what a good mood so and so was in after they
• 1:13:39
  came in playing soccer. Even that little bit of a time
• 1:13:43
  you spend with them, he loves it so much.
• 1:13:45
  Boom. You have to praise men in order
• 1:13:48
  to get them to do what you want. If you believe it's good, you
• 1:13:53
  have to show respect. You know, one of the worst
• 1:13:56
  things we do is we complain about husbands that they don't
• 1:14:00
  do things, don't do things, and then they do something and then
• 1:14:03
  we complain about how they did it.
• 1:14:05
  I mean, this is classic for competitive people.
• 1:14:07
  Mothers are competitive people, so you need to praise a father
• 1:14:13
  for, you know, being with the kids and how well the kids
• 1:14:16
  respond to him being there. And then you just have to ask
• 1:14:19
  him to do things in a positive manner without saying, you know,
• 1:14:23
  you never do this. And so I'm so tired of you never
• 1:14:26
  doing it. It's your turn.
• 1:14:27
  That's what we do because we're tired, but nothing ever works.
• 1:14:30
  It has to be positive and respectful.
• 1:14:33
  Such good stuff. Thank you, Doctor Meeker.
• 1:14:35
  This has been awesome. We've got to have you on again
• 1:14:37
  and I'm really grateful to get to introduce my audience to you.
• 1:14:41
  Where can people find your work? Meekerparenting.com is my
• 1:14:45
  website. I also do coaching for fathers
• 1:14:50
  and it's really very cool because I, I'm, I'm not a dad
• 1:14:53
  expert, but I'm an expert in kids and I can tell dads what
• 1:14:57
  their kids want from them and then they're off and running.
• 1:15:01
  Beautiful. Thank you.
• 1:15:02
  Thanks so much, Doctor Meeker. Thank you.
• 1:15:06
  Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Lila Rose
• 1:15:08
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• 1:15:10
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