Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E272: When Your Kids Won’t Listen: Dr. Ray's Must-Know Tools | Lila Rose Show
Transcript
- 0:00You love them with all your might, but you cannot raise kids
- 0:03if you don't have discipline, confidence, if you don't have
- 0:06the ability to mean what you say and say what you mean.
- 0:09Gentle parenting is a way to be a nasty parent.
- 0:11What do you mean? Kids from big families by and
- 0:14large, grow up to be better adjusted, more giving, less
- 0:17selfish. The matter you get, the more you
- 0:19lose credibility because the child looks at you and thinks,
- 0:21hey, you're a lunatic. You know you can discipline
- 0:24mean, but discipline itself is not mean.
- 0:31As you guys know, I grew up in a big family.
- 0:33I'm one of eight kids and my parents were always interested
- 0:36in how to parent better. Here at the show, we're really
- 0:39passionate about how to build healthy families and what does
- 0:41good parenting look like, and I'm grateful to my parents for
- 0:44setting that example. I'm really excited about today's
- 0:47guest because he's been giving parenting advice for over 4
- 0:50decades and he specializes in big families.
- 0:54Welcome back to the Lila Roe show.
- 0:55Today I'm sitting down with psychologist and author Doctor
- 0:58Ray Gorendi, father of ten children, all adopted, and we
- 1:02discuss principles and philosophies of parenting, as
- 1:05well as the beauty and struggles of large families and what he
- 1:08calls the blackout technique in parenting.
- 1:10He's also hilarious. We discuss how much consistency
- 1:13is actually needed in parenting. Hint, it's actually less than
- 1:16you may think, and how to be both gentle and confident as
- 1:19parents. This episode isn't just for
- 1:21parents. It's for aspiring parents or for
- 1:23people who want to help other parents in your life do their
- 1:25job better. At the Wyla Rose Show, our
- 1:27community is keenly aware of the importance of strong.
- 1:29No strong nation is possible without strong families, and if
- 1:33you want to join us in this battle, the quickest and easiest
- 1:35way to do that is to ensure that you've already hit that little
- 1:38subscribe button. Please double check.
- 1:40Also, leave this video alike in a comment and join us over at
- 1:43patreon.com/lila Roadshow where we have behind the scenes
- 1:46conversations, add free episodes and more.
- 1:49Doctor Ray also answers some of the questions from this
- 1:51community for a special bonus segment over at patreon.com/lila
- 1:56Rose Show. Also, you guys might be noticing
- 1:58it. Some of you have mentioned it in
- 1:59the comments. This is one of our new sweaters,
- 2:02our merch here we've got Onward and Upward, We've got Seek
- 2:05Heaven 1st and so many other beautiful designs.
- 2:08You can go check that out at shoplilaroshow.com.
- 2:11Doctor Ray Garandi, welcome to the show.
- 2:13Thanks, Lila. I'm so happy you're here.
- 2:15You are. And Oh yes.
- 2:17That's nice. An Italian. 100%. 100%.
- 2:21All four grandparents through Ellis Island.
- 2:23Wow. Wow.
- 2:24My name was not Gorendi, it was Quadrante.
- 2:27But my 17 year old grandfather who couldn't speak English
- 2:31mispronounced it to No, that's how they did.
- 2:34It they just wrote the immigration.
- 2:36Officer just wrote it down, That was it.
- 2:37So I got a new name. They.
- 2:38Lost the original. So wait, how did they?
- 2:40How was the original Grundy spelled?
- 2:41I think it was QUARANT. E with a Q.
- 2:44I think so. Wow.
- 2:46Yeah. OK.
- 2:47So you're first generation, that's your second, your second.
- 2:51Your we had to go to Mamo's house every day till I was 23.
- 2:55That's the way it was. And I couldn't move more than
- 2:58maybe three blocks away from my mom because that's a law in
- 3:00Italian. You can't move far away from
- 3:02your mom. That is a law.
- 3:04Yeah. One of my brothers, you know,
- 3:05the youngest brother, of course, is the youngest son.
- 3:07He's like, you know, 20 minutes is, is the, is the Max.
- 3:11He was in Boston, My my parents in Northern California.
- 3:13And his team moved back. My parish was Saint Anthony's in
- 3:17Canton. And do you know know who went to
- 3:19that parish? A woman named Rita Rizzo.
- 3:22This the Saint to be. Mother Angelica, my dad, was a
- 3:28freshman when she was a senior at McKinley High School.
- 3:31So did they meet her? I don't know if they did.
- 3:34He may have not known that that was going to be Mother Angelica,
- 3:37but I knew of her when I was 14 years old because there's a
- 3:41woman in Canton that's right. Now her cause is being offered.
- 3:47Her name is Rhoda Wise. Yes, I've heard of her.
- 3:52And I was taken there when I was a freshman at that house, and my
- 3:55mom told me about this little nun that had a miracle cure at
- 3:59Rhoda Wise's house and became a nun in Canton, OH for the
- 4:03longest time before then she moved down to EWTN.
- 4:08So when did you decide that you wanted to let first introduce
- 4:13yourself? Give us your background and you
- 4:15have a you have a fascinating personal story.
- 4:17What I love about you is you're hilarious.
- 4:19So we're going to tell jokes. You promised me we'd do some
- 4:22knock knock jokes, so we'll do that.
- 4:24Your work, your body of work is amazing. 20 books on parenting,
- 4:27marriage, all the things, you know, relating well with other
- 4:30people. You have a beautiful show that's
- 4:31helped decades of people. One of the gals here in the show
- 4:34the Office today saying her mother helped raise her off of
- 4:37you, off of your stuff. Yeah, but if she goes bad, she's
- 4:40not going to sue me is. She she's going pretty well so
- 4:42far, right? I mean, she's they're pretty,
- 4:44pretty amazing people. She's doing great, pretty
- 4:46amazing people around here. And but then you're also got
- 4:49this, you know, your personal life is just really special how
- 4:52you've raised your own family. So give us the background on
- 4:55Doctor Ray Garandy. I'm a shrink psychologist,
- 4:57clinical psychologist, started out in engineering.
- 5:00I always wanted to live in the caboose, you know, but I got
- 5:04blown out. I got blown out of engineering
- 5:07when I was a freshman because I got an awful score on my physics
- 5:09test. So I called home, I said, hey
- 5:11mom, transfer and transfer into psychology.
- 5:15And I thought, well, what do I do now?
- 5:17So I just kept going got a PhD in psychology for 20 years.
- 5:22I did practice school districts, Head Start programs, all those
- 5:25places. I have a private practice now.
- 5:27And then ultimately drifted towards media because I was an
- 5:32entertainer in nightclubs and restaurants before, before all
- 5:36this singing, singing, playing the organ and entertaining.
- 5:40And that's kind of how I got into all this.
- 5:42I used to do all the secular shows, Oprah, Jenny Jones, CBS
- 5:45This Morning. I did all those and.
- 5:47Singing. No, I was.
- 5:48A shrink, I was going to say I don't remember that no as as so
- 5:52you were singing in the nightclubs, but then you were
- 5:54you were doing the shrink work, including on Oprah and then.
- 5:58I was on Oprah multiple times before she went to Phil Phil was
- 6:02kind of her therapist and so she kind of moved him into the show
- 6:06and he was there about every week until he went out on his
- 6:08own. But what a mistake.
- 6:10Prior to that I used to go there a lot.
- 6:13What a mistake. Yeah, but I got to be with you
- 6:15now and that's better. All right, I'll take it.
- 6:17I'll take it. You know, and I, I have a soft
- 6:19spot in my heart for Doctor Phil, but there's no one like
- 6:21Doctor Ray. So we've got we've got the real.
- 6:23You've got to get out more, woman.
- 6:25I well, I, I, I feel like I'm out a lot.
- 6:26I'm out too much. And it made one sense.
- 6:28So, so you, so tell me about your family.
- 6:32We're going to talk about your work and you're, you're going to
- 6:34give some the best advice that people listening may have ever
- 6:36heard. We're going to get to that, but
- 6:38it's coming from your faith in your family.
- 6:40Tell me about your family. Came home from Cleveland Clinic
- 6:43one day, told my wife they said if we conceive children it'll be
- 6:49a miracle and go on the talk shows.
- 6:52So we said, what do we do now? Can we adopt?
- 6:56Yeah, but the wait could be 567 years.
- 7:00My wife always wanted to have 5 or 6 kids and I guess we'll try
- 7:04to adopt. Well, back then, Lila, if you
- 7:07didn't care about the race, you could adopt very quickly.
- 7:11I asked an adoption worker one time.
- 7:13He said, how long would I have to wait if I wanted to adopt A
- 7:16little black baby boy? She said, what are you doing
- 7:22tomorrow? So I have 3 white, 2 Hispanic, 2
- 7:26biracial, 3 black. Now the picture when my wife
- 7:29used to take him through the store because at one point they
- 7:31were all under. 1210 total 10 total.
- 7:33Wow. All adopted.
- 7:34All adopted, all different ethnicities, all different.
- 7:37Well, boys and girls. I suspect my wife on the black
- 7:40kids but I can't catch her. So given that she'd take him
- 7:43through the store and people would look at her and they'd see
- 7:47these kids of multi colors and I could hear them thinking I
- 7:52wonder if that guy knows those aren't all his.
- 7:55And then some of them would come up and say, is this some kind of
- 7:58club or something? Daycare.
- 8:00Yeah, that's what. It is.
- 8:01It's a yeah, It's a preschool daycare.
- 8:04So yeah, the kids, they're all grown now.
- 8:06And I got to tell you, if you let me brag, let me.
- 8:08Brag. The parole officer says some of
- 8:12the nicest kids he has. So when you hear that, you feel
- 8:15warm inside, you know. Any grandkids?
- 8:1710. 10 grandkids already and they're all grown and launched.
- 8:22All your kids. Why?
- 8:24I'm not sure I'd use the word launch.
- 8:27I mean, they know where we live. So my wife and I are getting
- 8:31into a parent protection program where they're going to alter our
- 8:34identities and relocate us in Montana.
- 8:38So some of them are around the country, some of them are close
- 8:40to. Home people listening to me like
- 8:42what is real? What is what is this right now?
- 8:44But that is hilarious. But so so 10 adopted children,
- 8:48all different backgrounds. And were they all babies when
- 8:51you adopted these these beautiful kids?
- 8:52OK, we got four older and we can talk about that because they had
- 8:56some pretty rough upbringings. I bet very very dangerous womb
- 8:59had three of the children where birth mom was considering
- 9:02abortion and they didn't and we let the kids know real clear how
- 9:09much their birth mom loved them to basically go against her
- 9:12whole world to give birth to this child that was at risk.
- 9:17I I have a son who initial testing in the womb said that he
- 9:21had corpus callosum agenesis. Now that's a serious
- 9:25neurological birth defect. Worst case scenario, that's
- 9:28institution for life. Birth mom was 35.
- 9:31I got to believe everybody told her, you, you can't give birth
- 9:34to this kid. She did.
- 9:37And that young man just mustered out a Fort Hood as Sergeant G
- 9:41after 10 1/2 years. It was a shadow on the
- 9:43ultrasound. The test was wrong.
- 9:44Wow. That's amazing.
- 9:48I've got to ask you and we're going to get into discipline
- 9:50parenting relationships, but I think this the the the act of
- 9:56love of adopting this beautiful, these beautiful.
- 9:59Children. All right, all right.
- 10:00But beyond the tax deductions, the act of love and your and
- 10:04your wife's love to adopt all these kids, I want to talk about
- 10:06the risk. And you knew in part, I think
- 10:09what you were getting into as a shrink.
- 10:11As you say, you know, you're you, you have the clinical
- 10:13background, you've you've counseled all kinds of families
- 10:15kids. So you've seen the the whole
- 10:17gamut of things, right? Did you, do you feel like you
- 10:20knew what you were getting into when you chose to adopt 10
- 10:22children, some of them older children who had all the trauma
- 10:25that they came into the family with?
- 10:27Did you go into it with you and your wife saying, listen, these
- 10:28are the challenges we're going to face and the beautiful
- 10:30blessings. This is how what we're going to
- 10:32do as a family. Was there sort of like a a whole
- 10:34plan behind it? It all depends upon the context.
- 10:38For example, one of the worst things that can happen is drugs
- 10:42and alcohol in the womb. What that does is it alters the
- 10:47brain structure. It alters the thinking.
- 10:50It makes the individual harder to socialize, slower to form a
- 10:54conscience. Now, I'm not saying it can't
- 10:55happen, but I'm saying it's much riskier.
- 10:59And what's happening now, Lila, is the the days are gone where
- 11:02the young Catholic girl gets pregnant and goes and lives with
- 11:05the nuns until she places the baby.
- 11:07Nowadays, a lot of adopted kids are at risk.
- 11:10They come from foreign countries.
- 11:12They've been taken from birth mom because of neglect and
- 11:15abuse. They're older, they've been in
- 11:16foster care. So as a result, and I always
- 11:19tell this to folks who come to me who want to adopt, yes, it's
- 11:24a beautiful thing. Our Lord says take care of the
- 11:27little ones real clear. But know that this could be a
- 11:34bouncy upbringing as long as you know that you're prepared.
- 11:38I knew that we were going to have some turbulence.
- 11:41I knew that I didn't realize how much the brain can be altered.
- 11:47The research says it can by the drugs and the alcohol in the
- 11:49womb. But most adoptive parents think
- 11:53love, stability, religious upbringing and will shape this
- 11:57kid into a beautiful human being.
- 11:58And that does happen often. However, I deal with a lot of
- 12:03adoptive parents who are struggling because this kids
- 12:05tough to raise doesn't mean he's not valuable in God's eyes.
- 12:09It just means he's tougher to raise.
- 12:10And as a parent, you got to be even better at this.
- 12:13You got to be more supervisory, better discipline, more stable,
- 12:18watching over the input from the culture that is misshaping their
- 12:22souls, those kinds of things. That's part of it.
- 12:26I think a lot of parents are afraid of adopting or fostering
- 12:30a certainly with older children where there's maybe trauma and a
- 12:34background that is more complex, so the needs are greater when
- 12:37they have other young children in the home.
- 12:39One of the rules we had, we didn't adopt anybody older than
- 12:45our younger kids. Now, at one point we adopted 2
- 12:48four year olds and we had a three and a one year old in the
- 12:50house at that point. The four year olds, we knew
- 12:54somewhat the history, so we felt really secure about their
- 12:58worldliness. But if you adopt an 8 year old
- 13:01worldly child who's seen all kinds of stuff and then you
- 13:05bring him into your home with a 2 year old in your home, yeah,
- 13:08you're, you're taking some risks and you got to know that.
- 13:12But by and large, the children adapt well.
- 13:18One of the things I hear from parents who say, we have three
- 13:20bio kids and now we want to adopt.
- 13:23OK, how will the kids accept this?
- 13:26Well, most of them they do. Initially they may say, why did
- 13:29you do this to our family? We didn't want somebody else in
- 13:32here. We had a nice family.
- 13:33Why are you doing this, mom? But over time, the kids adapt
- 13:37well. However, the key thing you got
- 13:40to watch is the worldliness of the child that you adopt,
- 13:45especially if you have younger ones.
- 13:46You got younger ones. So for you to go out and adopt A
- 13:4910 year old who's seen 50 times what all three of your kids have
- 13:53seen from a worldly perspective, yeah, you got to be real
- 13:57reluctant. And what are some examples of
- 13:58that that you think people should be aware of, but when you
- 14:02when you say the word worldliness and how that might
- 14:04negatively impact your younger children or any younger children
- 14:08in the home? Sexualized.
- 14:10The kids have seen much. Perhaps they themselves have
- 14:12been sexually abused. I think one of my sons has was
- 14:15sexually abused. And when we adopted him and we
- 14:17didn't know that, I sensed it. I didn't know it.
- 14:21Now as I look back on it, all the puzzle pieces fit together.
- 14:24So you got to watch the sexualization.
- 14:26You got to watch how much they've been exposed to sewage
- 14:29and junk. They spent hours in front of ATV
- 14:35or video games or on the Internet.
- 14:38What they've seen so that this little 6 year old has the
- 14:42worldly mind of a 16 year old. And that's where the risk comes
- 14:47in. What was been the best thing
- 14:49about adopting 10 children for you and your wife?
- 14:53Chaos it is. It was a good chaos though.
- 14:57I look back on it. My wife homeschooled.
- 14:59Wow. Well, well that's really amazing
- 15:01because her her education level only goes to the 4th grade.
- 15:04So I told her I said stay one week ahead in the answer book.
- 15:07That's all you got to do. It was, and you graduated the
- 15:095th grade, right? I was fifth, Yeah.
- 15:11I was at the top of my class. I was 16.
- 15:14I was up here in Heights and the other kids were.
- 15:16Here you just got a little print out of your degree and that's.
- 15:18On the wall you can get it yes open cover before before
- 15:21striking school of graduation. So the thing was I look back on
- 15:26it now and for well I don't know maybe 7 years all of them were
- 15:32in the house. So because of that, it was just
- 15:36chaos. But yet if here's here's the
- 15:38key, Lila, here's here's one of the biggest things my wife had
- 15:41discipline control. A woman from our church one time
- 15:45asked her, what would you do if you gave one of your kids
- 15:50discipline? You know, go to the corner, go
- 15:52to your room, put your head down at the dining room table, write
- 15:54an essay, whatever. What would you do if they
- 15:56refused? And my wife said, I don't know.
- 16:01And the woman said, what do you mean you don't know?
- 16:04And my wife said they never have.
- 16:06And she said, how could that be? And here's why.
- 16:10Early on, she showed the kids you can't refuse discipline
- 16:14because if you do, there's going to be all kinds of other
- 16:18consequences are going to happen to you.
- 16:20And we'll talk about how to get parents 11 time compliance.
- 16:25And because of that, the kids, even with all of their
- 16:28background, even their tough temperaments, knew that their
- 16:31mother meant business. And if she says go to the
- 16:34corner, you better go to the corner because if not, all kinds
- 16:36of things are going to happen. She Italian.
- 16:40She she's, I don't know what she is and I'm surprised my
- 16:42grandmother let me marry her. She's I, I I.
- 16:44Actually, I'm surprised too. Oh, easy, easy.
- 16:48But she's a she's an amazing lady.
- 16:50She's a tough lady. As we enter into one of the most
- 16:54beautiful and holy times of the year, Advent Hallows Pray 25
- 16:58challenge be still as an invitation to set aside the
- 17:01endless to do lists and to build a daily habit of quiet prayer.
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- 17:13thousands of other prayers, meditations and beautiful
- 17:16Christmas music. So if your heart is longing.
- 17:18For a more prayerful. Christ Centered Advent, I
- 17:21encourage you to join millions around the world in Hallow's
- 17:24Pray 25 Challenge. Be still.
- 17:26You can download the Hallow app today and get 3 months free at
- 17:30hallow.com/lila. Take this Advent to slow down,
- 17:33listen and to rediscover the peace that comes only from
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- 18:29OK, we've got to hear the secrets and I know these are
- 18:31your secrets. You've written 20 books, and
- 18:33some of them are about. You love them with all your
- 18:35might. But, and this is so key, you
- 18:39cannot raise 10 kids if you don't have discipline,
- 18:43confidence, if you don't have the ability to mean what you say
- 18:47and say what you mean. If you don't have that.
- 18:50Lila, I can't tell you how many parents come up to me and say I
- 18:54wanted to have four or five children, but I stopped it too
- 18:58because I can't handle the two I have.
- 19:01And that's tragic. That is sad, but it's so common
- 19:04nowadays. It is so common.
- 19:07I I hear it everywhere. I hear it when I'm out with my
- 19:09kids and I only have three. We hope to have more.
- 19:11But when we're out and people say, oh, you've got your hands
- 19:15full, Oh, it's so great and you're done, right?
- 19:17You're you're done, you're done, you're done.
- 19:19I'm like, where, where, where, where, how do we get here?
- 19:22We. Live in a culture that says you
- 19:24can have physical relations with anybody, anytime, any way anyhow
- 19:29you want. The only people we will attack
- 19:33is you, a mom who has more than 1.86 children.
- 19:37Then we will comment on your motherhood.
- 19:41You know what you say if they say to you, are these all your
- 19:45children, Lila? You look at them and you say, of
- 19:49course not. The oldest is at home with the
- 19:51triplets. Too funny.
- 19:55OK, what's the secret, though, to walk us through?
- 19:57Because I've got three. I think about some of my closest
- 20:01friends who have many more than that.
- 20:03And discipline it. And it's not just about like,
- 20:06don't do bad stuff, right? It's about forming a child to
- 20:09become who God created them to be.
- 20:12And this is the dream of every parent.
- 20:14And yes, I do think some people don't have more children than
- 20:17one or two because they're afraid of their ability or lack
- 20:20of ability to do it well. And there's other selfish, more
- 20:23selfish reasons than that too. But what give us the
- 20:26foundations, the Doctor Ray foundations for how to raise a
- 20:32strong set of children? And I really want to hear it
- 20:34from this lens of a big family because I know we've got some
- 20:37listeners to the show who have really big families.
- 20:40You know, I know the principles can be the same for some small
- 20:42families, but how did you and your wife do it?
- 20:44And what do you recommend to get the to to discipline ten
- 20:48children? The people who listen to you,
- 20:51Lila, by and large are faith filled people.
- 20:55They want to raise kids who are going to go to heaven.
- 20:59As a consequence, they are out of sync with the culture.
- 21:05The culture around them is much more permissive, much more
- 21:08amoral, much more quick to allow kids to grow up too fast.
- 21:15So the kids of the people who watch and listen to you are
- 21:21likely as they get older to say, hey, mom, how can all those
- 21:26people be wrong and you be right?
- 21:29So the first thing I say to parents is you got to have the
- 21:31confidence to know that what you're doing in your best
- 21:35judgement, not according to some expert who doesn't believe in
- 21:38God, in your best judgement. This is what is good for your
- 21:43family. And if you say, well, we don't
- 21:46have television during the week, well, Lila, you're about in 1%.
- 21:52If you say my daughter is 15 and does not yet have a smartphone,
- 21:57now you're way less than 1%. If you don't have the confidence
- 22:01to make those kinds of judgments, you're going to be
- 22:04buffeted by the winds of the culture.
- 22:06So that's the first thing. Second thing, and I, I send this
- 22:09straight to Dad's, be affectionate.
- 22:13Be very affectionate. Those kids know that your
- 22:18standards are different from the cultures and you can't expect
- 22:21them to understand why all the time.
- 22:22They're kids, they don't understand this.
- 22:24I remember the first time I told my mom I don't like you.
- 22:28She looked at me. She said, Raymond, you're a
- 22:31little behind. Stop liking you.
- 22:33Last year, that was before you could psychologically smack
- 22:36parents around. So you can't be afraid of being
- 22:39misunderstood by your kids. You cannot.
- 22:43Third, when my son was 17, he played basketball for school.
- 22:50Before the games, I would go down on the floor and I'd grab
- 22:55him and I'd hug him and I'd kiss him. 17 years old. 17 years old
- 23:00now, I'm kiss him. Kiss him at his practice in
- 23:02front, at his game, in front of his.
- 23:04Friends front everybody and I'd look up on the stands and you
- 23:07could see the collective gasp of parents, of teenagers.
- 23:10They're going this guy's breaking every team rule in the
- 23:14world. I hugged him and I kissed him
- 23:17and I had I had to affirm him. I had to say something very
- 23:20positive. So I said, Petey try not to
- 23:24stink the joint out and he'd laugh later on.
- 23:28I asked him, hey Pete, that bother you when I do that?
- 23:33He said would it make any difference Dad?
- 23:35I said no, it wouldn't because no son of mine, I don't care how
- 23:38old you get is ever going to tell me I can't be affectionate
- 23:40with you anytime, anywhere. Anyhow, you know what he told me
- 23:44later, Lila? He said a couple of his
- 23:46teammates came up to him and said I wish my dad would do
- 23:50that. So you see that that affection
- 23:53is, is the older I get and the more I see it, especially those
- 23:57families raising their kids counter to the flow of the
- 24:01culture. You got to be affectionate
- 24:03because otherwise the kids, they don't understand why are you
- 24:05doing this? You're so weird.
- 24:08OK, that's that's huge. Another big one, you got to have
- 24:12discipline control, because if you don't, you get ugly.
- 24:15I'm fond of saying dent gentle parenting is a way to be a nasty
- 24:20parent. What do you mean?
- 24:22Because you're going to get frustrated.
- 24:24Presentment builds parenting. Doesn't work because it assumes
- 24:29something that's flawed. How do you define really quick
- 24:32because this is a this is a hot debate.
- 24:33Yes it is. Yes, it.
- 24:34Is. How do you define gentle?
- 24:36Parenting, dental parenting, is reasoning, understanding, being
- 24:42very slow to discipline, but in fact giving choices.
- 24:46Now, all that's good, all that is good.
- 24:48The problem is, it implies that if you do it that way, then your
- 24:54kid is going to cooperate, and when he doesn't, you get
- 24:58frustrated. And when you get frustrated, you
- 25:01get ugly. You go to confession.
- 25:04Bless me Father, I'm impatient. Before children, 4 occasions I
- 25:09was, I was. I made that.
- 25:10Confession before children. Now I'm not pretty.
- 25:14Old nice Doctor Ray. And then you say, Father, would
- 25:18I be wrong thinking about shooting my kid with a bazooka?
- 25:21Haven't done that one, but that, yeah, you get.
- 25:23Frustrated And for you Lyle, you got 3 little ones right?
- 25:28You'd you need the ability now. I think the youngest is how old?
- 25:331. OK, so this really not in. 18
- 25:35months she's she's she acts like she's.
- 25:37Two, Yeah, you're inching your way toward some kind of
- 25:39discipline, which parents say. What is discipline?
- 25:42I say, well, discipline very Simply put.
- 25:44Is this an expectation backed by a consequence?
- 25:49In other words, you're not allowed to mistreat your
- 25:51brother. You can't mistreat your brother.
- 25:54Now, sometimes a parent will say, but wait, I want to teach
- 25:56him to treat his brother right. I go true, but you have to first
- 26:01stop mistreatment because we as Christians know that the bent is
- 26:06toward mistreatment. We have a fallen human nature.
- 26:08We're going to do what's in our interest, and our interest
- 26:12collides with his interest, so you can't mistreat your brother.
- 26:15It is true, the original thing, just quick side ball.
- 26:18I don't bar on this and I'm curious your thoughts because I
- 26:20see with this kind of the fallen nature, you know, at the very
- 26:25young age, there's like angels, but then they can peel like
- 26:29demons, but not because they're intending the sin.
- 26:31It's not like, Oh, I'm in because before the age of
- 26:33reason, there's no moral culpability.
- 26:35But it's just like, you know, they're I'm I want that toy, I
- 26:38want this, I want that. And you know, it's a human
- 26:41nature thing and it's again not an act of sin for a child, child
- 26:44like that young because they don't have reason, right?
- 26:47They can't will as a consent to the sin.
- 26:49You know what I believe is the most overused and sad adjective
- 26:57to describe children? Strong willed.
- 27:01I hate that the implication is that because he wants to do what
- 27:06he wants to do, Because he's self-centered.
- 27:09All of which our Christian teaching would say is innate to
- 27:13the human. Before we are socialized,
- 27:16immortalized, We look at this and say, why is he so strong
- 27:20willed? And I want to say, mom, he's not
- 27:22going to cooperate with you. If you've got one that's more
- 27:25cooperative, count your blessings, say thank you, dear
- 27:27Lord. But if you get one like that
- 27:29first, Lila, it'll ruin the rest of your parenting because you'll
- 27:33think you're God's gift to parent.
- 27:35And then Cujo comes along. Conan over here and all of a
- 27:39sudden you've got a normal child, but you then describe
- 27:43that child as strong willed, so strong willed mind of her own. 6
- 27:49gone on 16. See, we use these kind of
- 27:52adjectives when in fact, I want to say you just got a kid and
- 27:55we've forgotten what kids are. And part of the reason for that
- 27:59is that the experts have convinced parents that your
- 28:03kids, if you, if you parent properly, are going to say, oh,
- 28:08mother, I've been so blind. Of.
- 28:12Course, let's hold hands sing kumbaya around the campfire.
- 28:16OK, but but and I and I took you on a sidebar, so let thank you
- 28:19for the patience with me on that, But you were laying the
- 28:21foundations for what discipline is and you just said, Oh well,
- 28:25they're not going to do the kumbaya, but sounds like your
- 28:27wife had it locked in. They weren't kumbaya ING maybe,
- 28:30but they were obeying. Yes, and sounds like there was
- 28:33harmony. I had a client come to my office
- 28:37and her husband said one of the more humble things I've gotten
- 28:40from clients. He said I disagreed with my wife
- 28:44the whole time we were raising our oldest son.
- 28:47I thought she was too strict. I thought her standards were too
- 28:50high. I was much, much, much more
- 28:52permissive. I thought he would outgrow all
- 28:54of this. He's 21 now and his life's a
- 28:57mess. So we have a 14 year old and I
- 29:00don't want to make the same mistakes.
- 29:01So we're here, Doctor Ray, give us some guidance and I'm going
- 29:05to agree with what you say. And my wife, So I asked them if
- 29:11you told this 14 year old that's disrespectful, you need to
- 29:15please sit down and write a nice essay on why you're grateful to
- 29:20live here and why you should not be disrespectful.
- 29:23And that's some minimum 300 words handwritten.
- 29:26Would he do it? And the mother said, oh, of
- 29:29course not. Oh, no, Be an automatic fight.
- 29:32Be an automatic brawl or an argument.
- 29:33Awful, I said. Well, here's what I think you
- 29:36need to do at that point, until you get the essay, all perks and
- 29:41privileges cease. Every single thing That means
- 29:48there is no outside, there's no computer, there's no friends.
- 29:52If you go to Pizza Hut, he doesn't eat.
- 29:55He eats at home because he's eating out.
- 29:57Some privilege. A favorite sweatshirts.
- 29:59Go on. But anything technical is gone.
- 30:03If you have to drive him to school, well, that's a privilege
- 30:09so we can pay him some mileage. In other words, you don't
- 30:12understand how many things as a parent are in your leverage.
- 30:16And she said, you mean that's kind of like a blackout?
- 30:21And I said, what a great word. And I talked about that in my
- 30:25books. And I also talked about that
- 30:26from our own perspective as parents.
- 30:29That's the reason why the kids didn't refuse going to the
- 30:33corner. If they did.
- 30:34My wife said, OK, blackout. Mom, Mom, I'm going to go
- 30:40outside. No, I didn't get my corner yet.
- 30:43Ma with my thought, the Elmo, Oh, it's on the refrigerator.
- 30:46I didn't get my corner yet. How come I don't get no cake?
- 30:50Oh, no, you don't get any dessert at all.
- 30:51You didn't go to the corner yet. In other words, until you do
- 30:54what we asked you to do, you're going to realize all these
- 30:57things are gone. Not mean, not nasty, not Jack
- 31:00booted. Kick the door down.
- 31:02No, just a very calm, I told you need to go to the corner of this
- 31:06is going to happen. And it didn't take too many of
- 31:08those before. Finally she just said, put your
- 31:12head down at the dining room table, please.
- 31:13I'll set the timer. And they did, because a few
- 31:16times they said no, they saw what happened and they didn't
- 31:20like that. So she so she did that enough
- 31:23early on enough, consistently enough.
- 31:26And also, it sounds like calmly enough.
- 31:27Oh. Yeah, she wasn't yelling at
- 31:28anybody. She wasn't screaming.
- 31:30She wasn't threatening them. You little brat.
- 31:32Get over there. No, nothing like that.
- 31:35I always tell parents, the madder you get, the more you
- 31:38lose credibility because the child looks at you and thinks,
- 31:41hey, you're a lunatic. You know I'm living with a
- 31:43lunatic. OK, I'll go to the corner.
- 31:46Look what I did to you. I ruined the next two hours for
- 31:48you. I can stand in a corner for 4
- 31:49minutes. That's a nice trade off.
- 31:52That's what happens. Sure.
- 31:54Now, if you have, I'm not going to ask you personally.
- 31:56You. Can go for that.
- 31:57I could use a little evaluation. Older ones.
- 32:00You're two older ones. Oh, they are.
- 32:01They're thick as thieves, and they also can fight like Kathy
- 32:03Cox. So you have you have a house
- 32:05rule, boys. Rocky Bruno.
- 32:11You're great names, good names. Conan Cujo, you're not allowed
- 32:16to mistreat each other. There is no pushing, there's no
- 32:20shoving, there's no name calling, there's no jumping off
- 32:22the ropes. There's no soap in the eyes,
- 32:23nothing. If you do, guys, it's automatic.
- 32:27I'm not going to try to figure out who started it because I
- 32:29wasn't in there. You both go to the corner.
- 32:33Even when the four year old he just turned 4 has it in for the
- 32:36five. Year old now, if you know Lila.
- 32:40They they they reciprocate, so I'm not.
- 32:41Saying it's all the three, you know the younger kids fault but.
- 32:44And you know, I'll digress for a second.
- 32:46Experts give really dumb advice on this.
- 32:48They say let them solve their own conflicts, let them work it
- 32:54out on their own, let them have conflict resolution skills.
- 32:58Now the problem is your older kid is going to dominate because
- 33:01he's bigger, smarter, faster, stronger.
- 33:03Even though the four year old provokes your older son is like
- 33:07no, no, I'm not putting up with this.
- 33:08Or he loses his mind because he tries conflict revolution and
- 33:11the three-year old does not care.
- 33:13Exactly. That's exactly what I mean.
- 33:15Many of these theories don't work.
- 33:17So you have a rule, can't do this.
- 33:20So you tell both boys, you sit on a couch over there, You sit
- 33:23over there and they don't. They get off the couch or they
- 33:29do this. Am I still on the couch?
- 33:33Am I on the couch now, mom? Are they sit there in the
- 33:36discount? Ice cream.
- 33:38That's right. They will do what I call
- 33:40escalation. It's very common.
- 33:42That's why parents will say I don't, I don't really like the
- 33:45discipline because it gets ugly. And So what happens is it it
- 33:48builds in inconsistency. I'll try to get you to take your
- 33:53discipline, but if you don't, I'm going to try to work my way
- 33:57through this or negotiate or do something or ignore you or
- 33:59whatever, because I don't want to have 6 minutes, 8 minutes, 20
- 34:04minutes of a brawl here. OK, boys, you don't have to sit
- 34:11on the couch. Everything's gone.
- 34:15No Legos. No.
- 34:17Oh no, those are gone. Oh my gosh, those are gone.
- 34:19Favorite shirt is gone. Favorite cup is gone.
- 34:21Favorite hat is gone. Outside is gone.
- 34:23Toys are gone that consistently though.
- 34:25Do you have like a list premeditated of the 10 things
- 34:28that go when the discipline is not taken, it's?
- 34:30Really easy. Anything that remotely is a perk
- 34:33or a privilege. Anything that means if you're
- 34:38getting juice, his favorite juice, his favorite orange juice
- 34:41for dinner, and you put milk or water in front of him and he
- 34:46said, well, my juice, you haven't sat on the couch yet.
- 34:51It's kind of like Columbo. You're going well, well, wait a
- 34:55minute. Don't you understand?
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- 36:49Just to play this out right, practically speaking.
- 36:51Yes, hypothetically of a mother of three who has two boys that
- 36:56are old. Before a hypothetical mother of
- 36:58three or a mother of seven, I'm thinking about my sister-in-law
- 37:01right now. Or who could be any number of
- 37:03people, right? But let's say you do this.
- 37:04So you're like, they're not, they're not following the
- 37:06discipline, They're not enforcing, They're not
- 37:08listening. You know, they're showing some
- 37:10weakness. But it's going to be the brawl.
- 37:11You don't have the 20 minutes. You have other kids.
- 37:13You've got a baby that's crying in the other room that you need
- 37:15to take care of. OK.
- 37:16So you're going to do this blackout thing because this is
- 37:18the new standard here. That's how we'd handle things
- 37:20around here. How do you enforce the blackout?
- 37:23Because for example, let's say they're like, OK, they wander
- 37:25off like, oh, we got out of that one.
- 37:26And then you're like, well, no juice, no dessert, you know, no
- 37:29going to the park right now. You're just, you sit here, you
- 37:32sit here. Well, they've get their books.
- 37:35They're like reading books on the couch.
- 37:36Do you take the book away? If you want your mom, you make
- 37:39the rules. There's.
- 37:40The difference, OK. You you don't go to the you
- 37:42don't go to the expert manual flip.
- 37:44It in, but at some point it's something that hurts, like the
- 37:46Lego set is a big one. So yeah, no Legos until you mind
- 37:49mom and do you sit in the sit on the couch and do your time out?
- 37:52Something that hurts. Parents will always say that I
- 37:55got to find something that makes a difference to him.
- 37:57He doesn't seem to care about anything.
- 37:58I try it, nothing works. No, no, no, no.
- 38:01It works the instant you do it. You taught a lesson.
- 38:05If A then B. Now, will that change the
- 38:07behavior? Well, that comes in time.
- 38:09So he may have to find out if I try to sabotage blackout.
- 38:12In other words, he's going to go get his stuffed animal.
- 38:14He's going to go like this. He's just going to hold it and
- 38:16stare at you like I got my stuffed animal.
- 38:19What are you going to do? You can just look at him and
- 38:21say, well, I'm not going to try to yank it off of you, but I
- 38:25will tell you this. It's going to be gone for a long
- 38:28time now. And then as soon as he goes to
- 38:31sleep or he forgets about his stuffed animal and you put it up
- 38:33on the refrigerator and hide the ladder so we can't get up there
- 38:37and get. It how long do you do the
- 38:38because the other thing with the younger kids, they forget things
- 38:40after hours. Right, but you're reminding
- 38:43them. OK, if he says I'm outside.
- 38:46Oh, you. No, you.
- 38:48You didn't put you put your head down yet.
- 38:50So basically the removal of the privilege is until they fulfill
- 38:53the discipline for the original the original misbehavior.
- 38:56OK, now let's add something to it.
- 38:58You said they'll go sit on the couch and scream if you go over
- 39:02and say, you know, the longer you scream, the longer you're
- 39:05going to sit, son. And let's say that he screams
- 39:08and finally has had enough and he gets off.
- 39:11So what he did was scream for 12 minutes and then get off before
- 39:14you told him he could. OK, now I'm not concerned about
- 39:18that. I'm not looking at that kid and
- 39:20going, what an obnoxious little brat.
- 39:22No, no, no, no. Kids are kids.
- 39:23They do this kind of stuff. What I'm concerned about is what
- 39:27the parent does. In other words, well, look what
- 39:32he did and you could look at him and say, you know, before you're
- 39:37off blackout, you got to sit twice as long.
- 39:42And not scream and. Not scream.
- 39:44Or at least do 12 minutes again, but no scream.
- 39:47Quiet time. Quiet time, Yeah, No.
- 39:50You got to hold the line though, like you can't ever give because
- 39:53here's the question. I can imagine myself, you know,
- 39:55trying to employ this approach and we've done some similar
- 39:57things and then getting distracted or busy with mother
- 40:01kids or other responsibilities and then not remembering, oh, we
- 40:05got to stick to this thing from a transgression that was, you
- 40:08know, at this point. 1964. You know, you know hours ago,
- 40:11which is 1964 to the child. You don't have to be 100%
- 40:16consistent. Wow, that's the child expert.
- 40:20OK, this. And now we're getting to the
- 40:22encouraging advice. Absolutely.
- 40:24The average parent is anywhere between 10 and 20% consistent,
- 40:28and that's usually good enough. For example, you tell your son
- 40:32to pick up his Legos and you check and he hasn't picked him
- 40:35up. Leo, Legos, please.
- 40:39OK, So he putzes around, he throws a few in there, and then
- 40:42he wanders off. Leo, how many times?
- 40:45I'm going to tell you now. You've already told him three
- 40:47times, so you're down to 25% consistency already.
- 40:50Yeah. And at this point, there's
- 40:51escalation because there's like a.
- 40:53You don't exactly raised yes, you don't say.
- 40:56Voice, which is not a good thing.
- 40:57You. Don't say, Leo.
- 40:59If I tell you 12 more times, I'm afraid I'm going to raise my
- 41:03voice. I'm feeling anger pangs.
- 41:05Leo. No.
- 41:06You want to kill him, OK. And you feel so terrible.
- 41:09I'm supposed to be a loving mom. I feel so awful.
- 41:12That's what will happen if you allow that to go on.
- 41:15These are ideals, Lila. This isn't.
- 41:17This isn't something that any parent can reach.
- 41:19So, so in that case, you would just say, listen, you didn't
- 41:22pick up your Legos. I am picking them up and they're
- 41:24going in the and they're gone. Just bye, bye, OK.
- 41:27Very, very quietly, very calmly, just that's it.
- 41:29Let me let me share with you something that happened in our
- 41:31home once and I'll this will give you some idea of my wife's
- 41:34strength of will. Now, obviously, children vary in
- 41:37strength of will. I wouldn't consider any of my
- 41:41children strong willed. Now that, yeah, I know that.
- 41:44That's the look I get because you're thinking, oh, come on,
- 41:46wait a minute, 10 of them under certain circumstances.
- 41:49And here's why the strongest willed of my 10 kids is not
- 41:56stronger willed than his mother. I'll show you.
- 41:59That's a that's a good one. That's the goal.
- 42:02One time they were fighting over Serial, they're battling over
- 42:05the box, and you know how it is. They bring out the caliper and
- 42:08the metric scale and they weigh out and you got two more flakes
- 42:11than I did, and box went all over the floor just every which
- 42:16way. So my wife had him clean it up.
- 42:19Next time she went to the grocery store, she only put corn
- 42:22flakes in the cart for one month.
- 42:29Instead of the nothing else, the nice stuff or whatever they were
- 42:32having. I begged her.
- 42:34I said honey please I'll give you a 50 bucks for one box of
- 42:38Golden Grahams 1 box. That's what you.
- 42:40Ate Fruity Pebbles? Come on.
- 42:42Yeah, stuff is bad for you, Doctor.
- 42:43I know, I know, I know, I know, I know because I'm only 16 years
- 42:48old too, and look what they've done.
- 42:50But given that, she made a point, she said.
- 42:52You see what I you see what she did when they just fought like
- 42:56that over the cereal one month in the cart, nothing but
- 43:01cornflakes. And they took it and was there.
- 43:03So you're saying that approach? It sounds like it worked really
- 43:06well for you, for you both. Well, they realize you do that
- 43:09at the kitchen table again, you're going to do it again.
- 43:12You know, that's the key. You're going to do it again.
- 43:14You go to confession and I got to believe you say bless me,
- 43:18Father. Here's the list.
- 43:20It's the same stuff I've been telling you for years.
- 43:23So we do that, but we get frustrated at the kids when they
- 43:27don't learn as quick as we think they should.
- 43:28You know, I have sent him to the corner 27 times this month and
- 43:32he's still doing it. I go, what do you expect?
- 43:36You're teaching him. Eventually he's going to get
- 43:39tired of the corner. Eventually he's going to say,
- 43:41you know what, the 1st 16 times I went here, it wasn't so bad.
- 43:45It's starting to be a drag now, you know.
- 43:48What would be the, the, I don't know, the gut test or something
- 43:52for knowing where you're at and your parenting then?
- 43:54Because I think people listening to you are going to are thinking
- 43:56maybe, OK, well, the wife at the beginning, she's like, they're
- 43:59all really well behaved. But then he's being realistic,
- 44:01like they're going to still make mistakes.
- 44:02They're human beings, right? They're not like, you know,
- 44:05they're not machines. And so you can't like train the
- 44:07robot. They're human beings with free
- 44:09will. My wife always said we're
- 44:10raising people. Yes, like how would you assess a
- 44:15child or a group of children and family for yeah, they're,
- 44:18they're on the right track in terms of discipline and
- 44:20behavior. This stuff is normal.
- 44:22And then how would you be able to assess and be like, no,
- 44:24you've got to really work on your consistency, mom.
- 44:26You got to really work on holding the line, Mom.
- 44:28You draw a parallel to adult diagnosis.
- 44:33Typically, one of the conditions of getting a diagnosis is how
- 44:38much it interferes with your life.
- 44:40So if you as a parent are saying, I am not enjoying this
- 44:44at all, this is frustrating. I'm not liking my own kid.
- 44:50This is this is just every day is a potential battle, a
- 44:54struggle. Then you reassess, you say, what
- 44:57is going on here? Now here's the catch, Lila.
- 45:01And again, I put this back at the foot of experts.
- 45:04We tend to look at the child. Something's wrong with that kid.
- 45:09Why is he like that? You know, he doesn't listen.
- 45:12He's not cooperative. He's stubborn, he's strong
- 45:16willed. He's got ODD.
- 45:19ODD, yeah. So we we start, we start blaming
- 45:22the child, I would say roughly 90% of the time with
- 45:27alterations. And we medicate them then too.
- 45:29Oh yeah. Oh gosh, yes, oh, of course.
- 45:33Because something's wrong with the child 90% of the time you
- 45:36can improve the dynamics of the parent, whether it's more
- 45:40affection, whether it's better discipline, whether it's
- 45:43learning to act before you get mad.
- 45:45All of these things will affect the child.
- 45:49I get parents coming into my office and they will say, this
- 45:53kids tough. This kid is just tough.
- 45:56And I'll ask what does the what does the school say?
- 46:02I don't understand that the teacher doesn't see any of this.
- 46:06The teacher says he's a sweetheart.
- 46:09What did you do? Well, I got out my phone and I
- 46:12said, is this the boy, little brown haired kid with a gap in
- 46:15his teeth? I got the right school here.
- 46:18And I said, you see, it's in the dynamic.
- 46:21He goes to school. Now that teacher doesn't have a
- 46:23fraction of a parent's authority, but he doesn't know
- 46:25that. His perception is she has
- 46:27authority. So therefore I will be
- 46:29cooperating and I'll be pleasant.
- 46:31That's the other thing. Well disciplined kids are
- 46:33happier and more pleasant. They're not suffocated.
- 46:38So the parent alters things and the child gets better.
- 46:42One of the more common things I hear from clients, after a
- 46:44couple of sessions, they'll say it's like I'm living with a
- 46:48different child. You only did the other day.
- 46:51He came up and he sat in my lap and he hugged me and he said, I
- 46:54love you, Mommy. He hasn't said that to me in 3
- 46:57weeks. And he's so much more pleasant.
- 47:00I go, yeah, because you're not fighting with him.
- 47:05You're disciplining him, which is true.
- 47:06And you're doing better discipline than you did, but
- 47:09you're not fighting with him. But I feel mean when I
- 47:13discipline. I just feel mean.
- 47:16You can discipline mean, but discipline itself is not mean.
- 47:21Discipline is a loving gift. I always tell parents this If
- 47:24you don't do it because you feel guilty or you're afraid he won't
- 47:28like you or you're afraid of doing something psychologically
- 47:30incorrect, you'll be turning that child over to those people
- 47:34out there. A judge, a landlord, an army
- 47:37Sergeant, a police officer and employer.
- 47:40Somebody will discipline that child.
- 47:42And he said the world doesn't love him like you do.
- 47:45So please, you got to go against your instinct, Lila.
- 47:49I hate to discipline. I hate it.
- 47:51I don't like it. I want to get along with my
- 47:54kids, but I knew I had to. I knew I had to go against my
- 47:59feelings to do what was right. We had a we had a 0 tolerance
- 48:04for disrespect you. Oh my, that gives that gives you
- 48:07the heaviest consequences if you mistreat A sibling or your
- 48:11parents. Heavy consequences.
- 48:12I mean, we're talking maybe 5 days straight of blackout or
- 48:16we're talking a 500 word essay. You, you don't roll your eyes at
- 48:20your mom. I came home one day and my wife,
- 48:25I picked up that she was unhappy.
- 48:28Now, Lila, I am a trained therapist.
- 48:33I am able to read the subtle cues of a spouse and I don't
- 48:39want any of the women listening to this program to think, well,
- 48:43my husband can't do that because I'm a professional.
- 48:46So I came home and I picked up that my wife was unhappy.
- 48:52She was coming down the driveway holding two children by the neck
- 48:56going, I do not like them, Ray. I am.
- 48:58I do not like them here or there.
- 48:59I do not like them anywhere. I do not like them.
- 49:01I don't care. I picked up on that.
- 49:03I thought, hmm, I'll bet she's upset.
- 49:08So Sarah, the 13 year old came out of the house.
- 49:11What do you want me to do now, Mom?
- 49:14Well, Sarri, I need you to sweep out the garage.
- 49:17After you're done doing that, you're going to empty the
- 49:19dishwasher, put it all away, and then you come back to me and
- 49:23I'll tell you what was. She one of the ones with the
- 49:25neck or she was mistaken, She. Was an extra 1 no the next one
- 49:28she was the. She was she was doing good
- 49:30things. She was obeying or No, she
- 49:32wasn't. You'll find out.
- 49:32OK, I'll let you keep. Going, I said.
- 49:34So what'd you do, honey? She said.
- 49:35I gave Sarah an hour's worth of Labor.
- 49:38Now that was a consequence in our house for the older kids.
- 49:40You're going to misbehave. You're going to get labor hours
- 49:42worth half an hour, whatever, I said.
- 49:44What did Sarah do to get an hour's worth of Labor?
- 49:47My wife said she rolled her eyes at me.
- 49:54Now, many parents accept rolling of the ice because the experts
- 49:58tell them children are expressing themselves.
- 50:01They're not throwing a brick. They're not cussing at you.
- 50:03They're just rolling their eyes. Lily, you're delightful.
- 50:07But if you ask me a question that I don't like and I do this,
- 50:13you'll never ask me back. I.
- 50:15Mean. Ever because you'll think what a
- 50:17jerk that's what rolling eyes is It's.
- 50:21Depends how good the other advice is.
- 50:22Well, yeah, you might use it, but you won't ask me back.
- 50:25You might cut out the roll eye. Rolling eyes is disdainful.
- 50:28It is. It's very.
- 50:29So she got an hour's worth of Labor for rolling her eyes.
- 50:33Is that because it's so bad? No, it's because your mother's
- 50:37so valuable. You don't do that to your mom.
- 50:41And I think that's where that kind of understanding was for my
- 50:47wife, which is there certain things we expect?
- 50:50We love you desperately and we don't want to fight with you.
- 50:53We don't want to argue. Parents will say to me, I talk
- 50:59worse to my kids than I talk to any other human being.
- 51:03And I see you want to do that. Do you?
- 51:05Well, no. Well, probably because you're
- 51:08getting frustrated because of discipline or because of stuff
- 51:11they do. Sounds like it's a mix of high
- 51:16expectations. Very high.
- 51:19According to the culture anyways.
- 51:20Very. High.
- 51:21Oh, you're off the charts. Intense affection, intense
- 51:24affection and then a willingness to calmly have consequences and
- 51:29follow up as best you can. It's not going to be perfect,
- 51:32the consistency, but to take control with the consequences,
- 51:35not violent, angry consequences, the consequences that have a lot
- 51:39to do with removing, as you say, blackout privileges or
- 51:42opportunities or things that the kids like.
- 51:44Very well summarized. This is not rocket science.
- 51:48See the experts. My first book was a book titled
- 51:51You're a Better Parent Than You Think.
- 51:53I love that one. It was because I saw so many
- 51:57parents when I worked at the mental Health Center who were
- 51:59insecure, unsure of themselves, second guessing, lost authority.
- 52:05And I'm wondering what is going on here.
- 52:07Well, that was pretty much at the very beginning of the
- 52:10onslaught of the experts and all their theories and all their
- 52:14notions, and they were confusing parents.
- 52:17Parents were trying to be psychologically correct.
- 52:21And in so doing, they were losing authority, they were
- 52:24losing resolve. They were second guessing
- 52:27themselves. And I thought, this is this is
- 52:29bad. This is this is hurting a lot of
- 52:31good people. People will say to me, well,
- 52:36yeah, you're an expert, though, so why should we listen to you?
- 52:39And my answer is you don't have to listen to me.
- 52:42Take what I'm saying and judge it.
- 52:44How well does it work for your family and your house?
- 52:47See if it works. See if it squares with your
- 52:50instincts and reality. If it doesn't, dump it.
- 52:54But I'm not going to say if you don't do it my way, let me tell
- 52:58you what's going to happen to your kid, which is all too often
- 53:01the message. I think a lot of parents are
- 53:05very deep down on a primordial level, afraid of messing up
- 53:08their kids. Absolutely.
- 53:10Especially if they had were messed up at all in their
- 53:12childhood. It's like extra, extra intense,
- 53:15that fear. Yes.
- 53:16What do you recommend to parents?
- 53:19Because I'm meaning even suffer from the expert stuff.
- 53:21They're just like, really worried about making a mistake.
- 53:24In the beginning, I used to say parents are dominated by the
- 53:29fear of not being psychologically correct.
- 53:33After doing this for 40 plus years, Lila, I am now convinced
- 53:37that parents are dominated by the fear of their child's
- 53:41reaction. Will he hate me if I don't give
- 53:45her a smartphone when she's 14? Is she going to be resentful?
- 53:50Is she going to be sneaky and defiant?
- 53:52Is she going to be socially stunted?
- 53:55Am I going to have all kinds of trouble with the relatives and
- 53:58everybody else who thinks I'm a throwback Neanderthal?
- 54:01So now their parenting scared is what they're doing.
- 54:04And there's a couple of brief answers to that.
- 54:06One, God knew that kids were going to be raised by us with
- 54:11all of our frailties, all of our humanness, all of our emotions,
- 54:15all of our uncertainties that we have.
- 54:18He knew that, so He built them to withstand us.
- 54:22They're not spun glass. They're steel belted radials.
- 54:27I see so many kids who come from vicious environments.
- 54:31Some of them have become priests.
- 54:34Some of them are among the most delightful, well adjusted folks
- 54:37I know. Now, how did that happen?
- 54:39Well, the durability of the human spirit.
- 54:42There's a lot of research coming out now, Lila, that says that
- 54:46we, we can survive and thrive really bad environments.
- 54:51So if in fact we can do that, just think how much more.
- 54:55So we'll do it in a loving home with parents who are trying to
- 54:59be good parents. Here's what I always tell
- 55:01parents. If my children go astray, I want
- 55:07to be able to say it's because they had to go through me, not
- 55:14because I stepped aside. That's beautiful and you're
- 55:18praying them, praying for them. Even if that step aside, it's
- 55:21part of a long path to eventually back, come back home.
- 55:24Because even if they go astray, that's not the end.
- 55:26There's jump ahead. Let's jump ahead to something
- 55:29I'm sure you see a lot of. And now I see this in so many of
- 55:34my clients. These are parents who have
- 55:37raised their children, and the children have left the church.
- 55:40A. Lot of people.
- 55:42It's an epidemic. It's really heartbreaking for so
- 55:45many families. Unprecedented in human history.
- 55:50So what I have had now starting to do with the end of a lot of
- 55:52my talks is Ioffer this, I say I'm going to take your guilt
- 55:56away. I want to prove to you logically
- 56:01that your days of beating yourself up over this, that your
- 56:03children have left the faith they were raised with, that you
- 56:06tried your best to impart the faith to them.
- 56:10And now they're either drifting, rejecting, maybe they've cut off
- 56:14ties with you because they don't like your religious beliefs or
- 56:16your political affiliation. Will you help me with this?
- 56:20Lila, I'm going to ask you a set of questions.
- 56:21Would you answer them? Let's do it.
- 56:23Is there a God? Yes.
- 56:25Is Christ God? Yes.
- 56:27Was he sinless? Yes.
- 56:28Could he perform miracles? Yes.
- 56:30Did he have a perfect understanding of human nature?
- 56:32Yes. Could he get most people to
- 56:35follow him? And I always tell these parents
- 56:41so. Maybe most, but not all.
- 56:43I don't think most, I don't think they killed him.
- 56:46Oh, I see. I see what you're saying.
- 56:47Yeah, you're right. So I want to say to these
- 56:49parents, you think you're better at this than the God man, Can
- 56:53you do a miracle? Can you even do a crummy card
- 56:55trick? That's a good one.
- 56:58Our Lord himself couldn't get most people to follow him.
- 57:00We think there's some kind of spiritual formula that we must
- 57:03have missed it. You know, I want to pray the
- 57:05rosary in Aramaic, kneeling on broken glass while I levitated.
- 57:08You know, my husband, let him sit on the couch.
- 57:10Spiritual sloppiness. And we think we just failed.
- 57:14My 10 children are grown. I got some probably going to
- 57:18serve a church. I got some probably going to
- 57:20serve time. You know, they're all so
- 57:22different in the way they absorb the faith.
- 57:25How would you encourage parents to be self aware where they both
- 57:30accept their limitations and imperfections and the reality
- 57:33that their child has free will and we live in the world that we
- 57:36live in. But then they are also there's a
- 57:39balance of them acknowledging, oh, I've really got to work on
- 57:41my patients. I got to not lose it or oh, I
- 57:44need to be. I'm at 25% consistency.
- 57:46I got to bump up to 50 at at minimum here.
- 57:48Or oh, I'm spending too much time or our family is spending
- 57:51too much time on sports or work or whatever other thing that's
- 57:56not distracting from consistent family time or time with the
- 57:59children. How, how do you give us some
- 58:03tools for how parents can run this analysis?
- 58:07And you, you said something earlier.
- 58:08So I'm kind of asking it the kind of double I guess, because
- 58:10you you said, well, if something looks like it's broken, then you
- 58:12really start evaluating then. Let's take a couple of those
- 58:16that you said. Let's take patience.
- 58:18When parents say I need to develop more patience, I'm not
- 58:21patient. I can't believe this.
- 58:23There are several key things that parents are doing to
- 58:26themselves that make them feel like they're not patient.
- 58:29OK, First is they forget that they're raising a child, a
- 58:35self-centered, the universe revolves around me, impulsive
- 58:42human being who has to grow out of that over years and years and
- 58:46years. And I dare say I haven't
- 58:48outgrown it and neither have you.
- 58:50So you remember that you're raising a person, a soul who's
- 58:54capable of pretty much anything, and as a parent, you're going to
- 58:58have to try to anticipate or deal with.
- 59:00That's first thing. If you realize what you're
- 59:02dealing with. Parents get frustrated when
- 59:04their kid acts like a kid and they have to discipline him.
- 59:07Why are you getting so frustrated?
- 59:08You know he's going to do stuff like that, so deal with it.
- 59:12But I've been dealing with it. It's OK.
- 59:14God's been dealing with you for how many years now?
- 59:16So true. OK, so that's first thing.
- 59:19Second thing, they wait too long.
- 59:22Your two boys are bickering and you've warned them.
- 59:26Boys settle. Please.
- 59:28They settle for. 12 seconds, no fighting.
- 59:30Yeah, they settle for 12 seconds.
- 59:32They start up again. Did you hear me?
- 59:35Did you hear me? Are the totally meaningless Our
- 59:39family doesn't fight. Oh yeah.
- 59:40Yeah, yeah, yeah. You better tell.
- 59:42Your family. Tell your boys.
- 59:43That tell them to get off the boxing gloves.
- 59:46Third time you go, I'm coming in there.
- 59:49Now. By the 4th time you're feeling
- 59:51pretty frustrated and pretty impatient.
- 59:52Why? You went on too long at the
- 59:56first sign of mistreating each other.
- 59:58If you act, you act before you're frustrated.
- 1:00:01If you just let this continue to badger until you finally I can't
- 1:00:04take this anymore, then you go, Why do I get so impatient?
- 1:00:07Well, I would too if I let it go on that long.
- 1:00:10That's another factor 3 you take it personal.
- 1:00:17I am trying to raise these children and I love them and I
- 1:00:20do all kinds of things for them and this is how they act.
- 1:00:24This is what they do. Do they want to just make my
- 1:00:26life miserable or what? No, they don't want to make your
- 1:00:31life miserable. They want to do what they want
- 1:00:33to do. You just happen to be in the
- 1:00:34way, that's all. So you don't take it personal.
- 1:00:38You know, if you're going to screw up, it's you screwed up.
- 1:00:41I'm here to try to deal with it. So those are some of the
- 1:00:44elements of of losing patience. OK, That's a fact.
- 1:00:47That's a big factor. Another factor in terms of
- 1:00:50standards, this is what the experts have done to parents.
- 1:00:54And this makes them insecure. Lila, you know, if you put your
- 1:01:01standards too high, your children are going to rebel.
- 1:01:05They're going to just spit out those standards.
- 1:01:07You know, if you make them go to church by the time they're 19,
- 1:01:11they're going to puke up religion.
- 1:01:12They're just going to decide, you forced me to go to church
- 1:01:15and now I don't have to because I'm an adult.
- 1:01:19So the first thing is that's nonsense.
- 1:01:23You put your standards where they belong, knowing you're not
- 1:01:27going to reach them. But that's by definition what a
- 1:01:30standard is. If I don't want you mistreating
- 1:01:33your sister ever, that's a standard.
- 1:01:36That's a perfect standard. Now, I know you're not going to
- 1:01:38reach it, but that's the standard.
- 1:01:41I'm not going to go. Well, that is kind of high,
- 1:01:44isn't it? All right, I'll tell you what.
- 1:01:47You're allowed to push her down twice a week and you can scream
- 1:01:50at her once and no kicking. OK, Below the knee.
- 1:01:54Below the knee. You can kick Below the knee.
- 1:01:55I don't want to have too high a standard.
- 1:01:57Well, what is this if you're not allowed to be disrespectful to
- 1:02:00Mom? Well, oh, boy, that seems kind
- 1:02:03of high, doesn't it? All right, I'll tell you what.
- 1:02:05You're allowed three. Yeah, right, Mom.
- 1:02:08Or whatever. Or get a clue.
- 1:02:12Mom, you can have three of those a week.
- 1:02:14OK, but that makes no sense. A standard, by its definition,
- 1:02:19is something you reach for. Either that or our Lord didn't
- 1:02:22know what he was talking about when he said you must be
- 1:02:24perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.
- 1:02:27Then I want to go. Jesus, have you been listening
- 1:02:30to the experts? That's a standard.
- 1:02:32Now we Christians are going to rebel.
- 1:02:35Oh, and we do of. Course we do, but it's not
- 1:02:38because of the standard, it's because we want to do what we
- 1:02:40want to do. Wow, yeah, it's so true.
- 1:02:43Do you think it's important to communicate the standard?
- 1:02:46Like what what's what would be your recommendation for the
- 1:02:48communication of the span, the standard to the kids?
- 1:02:51Most of the stuff that kids do, that's normal misbehavior and
- 1:02:55most of the stuff that frustrates parent is repetitive
- 1:02:57stuff. Bedtime, bad times, meal
- 1:03:00ordeals, chore shirking, sibling quibbling, Homer castles,
- 1:03:05curfew, just it's repetitive stuff.
- 1:03:08So they know the standard. I mean, you've already talked to
- 1:03:11him about it. You've already disciplined it 6
- 1:03:12times. Not rocket science.
- 1:03:14It's no. They know the standard.
- 1:03:15You know when you don't. Fight yeah with your brother.
- 1:03:17When you fight with your brother, you don't have to keep
- 1:03:19telling him. Now, do you know the rule?
- 1:03:21You're not allowed to fight. Well, I think that's the
- 1:03:22experts. It's like every single time
- 1:03:24they're like, don't hit. We want to take good care of our
- 1:03:28little sister because you. Know what?
- 1:03:30When you say we don't hit, I could just picture the average
- 1:03:32kid gone. Maybe you don't.
- 1:03:34I do OK. It's just like what?
- 1:03:36What are you you're talking? About I mean you can still say
- 1:03:38don't hit, it's not good to hit, but your point is you don't like
- 1:03:41make it a whole coaching session you.
- 1:03:43Don't make it the child. Explain it that's what you're
- 1:03:45saying. Kylie, you don't have to keep
- 1:03:46reminding him. You've told him 212 times.
- 1:03:50You. Think they understand the idea,
- 1:03:52even if they're not living it out in their behavior yet.
- 1:03:54Do you have a dog? No, we don't have a dog.
- 1:03:58I told you I get 1A. Big one, big one.
- 1:04:00We kind of want one. I don't know.
- 1:04:01Those are. Those are.
- 1:04:02They're sweethearts. Dogs they are.
- 1:04:04I don't. Trust rats.
- 1:04:05They're wonderful. They love.
- 1:04:07They love my grandkids. Are you a pit bull guy too?
- 1:04:09No, I'm all right. No, I mean, OK, you're saying
- 1:04:11here's what I say about a dog. I'll say to a parent, do you
- 1:04:14have a dog? Yes.
- 1:04:17Did you wait until your dog understood not to pee in your
- 1:04:22house or did you train him not to pee in your house?
- 1:04:26I trained him. Is your 3 year old smarter than
- 1:04:30your dog? Yes.
- 1:04:33I said well not unless it's Lassie, then he's not.
- 1:04:36I said well you're you're you're teaching your 3 year old.
- 1:04:39You you. You've sat him on the steps 12
- 1:04:42Times Now for kicking his brother.
- 1:04:45He knows you don't kick his brother.
- 1:04:47You don't have to keep telling him every time.
- 1:04:49Do we kick people in this house? Is that your brother?
- 1:04:53That is not a soccer ball. That is your brother.
- 1:04:56I mean, we do these kinds of things.
- 1:04:57It's exhausting. It really is exhausting,
- 1:04:59especially if you have 7 kids. It's exhausting.
- 1:05:02Instead of just be like if you kick your brother blackouts, you
- 1:05:05did it. No more Legos.
- 1:05:06There you go. No.
- 1:05:08No Emotion? No.
- 1:05:09Excitement just like this. I just want to get past it.
- 1:05:11Yeah, yeah. So that's that's.
- 1:05:13Can they earn the Legos back? Well, sure, of course you can.
- 1:05:15Can get out of blackout by doing positive chores.
- 1:05:18You can You can build any system of economics you want.
- 1:05:21OK, you, you, you. He says, you OK, Mommy?
- 1:05:24I I sat on the steps, not going to have my Legos.
- 1:05:26You know what, son? I was going to give you your
- 1:05:29Legos, but you screamed for a long time.
- 1:05:34So no, I maybe maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, I don't
- 1:05:37know. But don't scream when you're on
- 1:05:39the steps like that. You're 19 years old.
- 1:05:41OK? So yeah, you that's the thing.
- 1:05:44I want to get the parents, most of the people who listen to you,
- 1:05:46who even listen to me, they're loving people.
- 1:05:49And we want to have the perfect rubric and and make sure we do
- 1:05:53it right where. You want to be Hallmark family
- 1:05:55card? You've forgotten you're not
- 1:05:58dealing with something easy like a rabid timber wolf.
- 1:06:01You're dealing with a child who is unpredictable and could do
- 1:06:04all kinds of stuff. And it doesn't mean that age 22,
- 1:06:08they're going to be sitting in Springer talking about you and
- 1:06:11the time you left him on the pot for 4 minutes too long.
- 1:06:14OK, well, I got to ask when they're a good negotiator.
- 1:06:17This is where I see this going sideways.
- 1:06:19OK, I've got one child. He is a phenomenal negotiator.
- 1:06:23His anchoring, like he anchors way beyond what you could ever
- 1:06:27dream of, like, and then he he's willing to walk away at any
- 1:06:31point. I mean, this guy, he will not
- 1:06:33budget right. Very.
- 1:06:34But he's all kind of winsome about it too, right?
- 1:06:36He's very excellent at it. I'm imagining with what you're
- 1:06:39describing with the blackout. OK, Well, if you do the Legos,
- 1:06:41da, da, da, you know, I'm going to take away the Legos.
- 1:06:43OK, Well, can I get them back? OK.
- 1:06:45Well, Mommy, I'll go sit right now, and then I'll tell my
- 1:06:47brother I'm really, really sorry, and then I'll make you a
- 1:06:49Lego and I'll build something that you really like, Mom.
- 1:06:51OK, of course. Well, maybe maybe that's fine.
- 1:06:54Maybe that the answer is sure, then he's going to go above and.
- 1:06:56Beyond, but here's a couple of things you could do.
- 1:07:00I personally think one of the finest techniques that a parent
- 1:07:04can develop is a dumb look. So when your son starts to
- 1:07:09negotiate, you go like I, I, I don't understand, you're just
- 1:07:17giving him a dumb look. And when we say they're
- 1:07:19negotiators, what we're really saying is we have to negotiate
- 1:07:22back. You can't be a negotiator.
- 1:07:23Somebody's not negotiating with you.
- 1:07:25You. Don't play Here's.
- 1:07:26What my wife did, My wife used to do this.
- 1:07:28She'd say, are you arguing? Like she was confused?
- 1:07:36Are you arguing That meant if you say another word,
- 1:07:40something's going to happen? Well, like the like the like the
- 1:07:43cookies before dinner as an example, Right.
- 1:07:45I want a cookie. No, we're it's not before
- 1:07:47dinner, please. Just one little piece.
- 1:07:48Please. Please.
- 1:07:49No, no, we're not doing cookies before dinner.
- 1:07:51Please please. Why you keep repeating that?
- 1:07:53Why don't you just say to him, you know what, honey?
- 1:07:55Please don't ask me again or you won't get a cookie after dinner,
- 1:07:59OK? That's why I don't care.
- 1:08:00I go. I mean, I just own it.
- 1:08:02Sorry, son. You blew the cookie.
- 1:08:04Maybe tomorrow. See, it's just kind of.
- 1:08:06A easy Yeah, it's kind. Of a kind of a go with the float
- 1:08:09kind of thing. I love it.
- 1:08:12So off you know what it is. So much of it comes down to, and
- 1:08:14this is what general parenting has a problem.
- 1:08:18I want my kid to understand. I want him to see that I.
- 1:08:22Don't want to hurt him feel. I don't want to make him feel.
- 1:08:28I know he's going to argue with you if you let him and you're
- 1:08:30not a Jack booted autocrat that says hey, my way or the highway
- 1:08:34punk. That's one of the biggest
- 1:08:36misunderstandings people have that if you're a constant, I'm
- 1:08:39not constant. If you're a consistent firm
- 1:08:41discipline, then that's mean. No, the meanest parents I've
- 1:08:47seen are the ones who don't discipline well because they get
- 1:08:50frustrated and then they say and do things that they they just
- 1:08:54can't believe they're doing. That's the part that.
- 1:08:59All right, what do you recommend, Doctor Ray, for
- 1:09:02developing a healthy family culture where you enjoy you
- 1:09:07enjoy your kids, you enjoy your family dynamic.
- 1:09:11And I do hear from a lot of moms and dads, but especially the
- 1:09:14moms that they're just like, it is a, it's hard, it's hard, it's
- 1:09:18hard. You know, the discipline's one
- 1:09:20big part of it, but it's like the endless To Do List the
- 1:09:23endless responsibilities. And so they're not feeling like
- 1:09:26they're enjoying motherhood. To the degree that you can
- 1:09:29eliminate or reduce discipline time, which is what you will do
- 1:09:35if you're consistent and you mean it, now you have more time
- 1:09:38just for the normal interaction. OK, Once kids are not going to
- 1:09:42be bad if they know what the rules are, OK, they're not going
- 1:09:47to challenge them. So that's the first thing.
- 1:09:48Now you got more time for the good stuff.
- 1:09:50Secondly, you're going to have to prioritize all these
- 1:09:55activities. I have called in one of my books
- 1:09:58chasing the good at the cost of the best.
- 1:10:02Yeah, it's not bad to be in these sports five nights a week.
- 1:10:06That's not bad in and of itself. Something was robbed.
- 1:10:11Maybe some dinner was robbed. Maybe the fact that was she's
- 1:10:15over there playing soccer and he's over there with Little
- 1:10:17League and one of you has to be over there and one of you has to
- 1:10:19be over there and we can't even be together to watch the game.
- 1:10:22You got to sit back. One of my earlier books I
- 1:10:26introduced strong families and 1 mother said she felt trapped
- 1:10:30into that. Oh boy, we don't have any family
- 1:10:33time. She told her boys.
- 1:10:36All right, guys, get yourself a nice hot shower, because when
- 1:10:40you come out, I want you to pick two activities.
- 1:10:44All the rest go to interfering with our family too much.
- 1:10:50When we had 10 kids at home and at one point they were between
- 1:10:5316 and four, well, there's a lot of activities there.
- 1:10:57So what we did is, first of all, only certain kids were allowed
- 1:11:01one activity and we made sure we picked activities that allowed a
- 1:11:07lot of free time in our family. I'm not going to put you on a
- 1:11:09Little League team that practices 6 nights a week and
- 1:11:11has tournaments every other week.
- 1:11:13That's not going to happen, OK? You're not some superstar.
- 1:11:17The odds of you being a pro or one and 1.26 million, the odds
- 1:11:23of us losing family time are pretty close to 1.
- 1:11:26So a parent has to make those decisions.
- 1:11:28And I think the culture has convinced them children have to
- 1:11:32experience these things. You want to whirl around a
- 1:11:34child, Yes. And it's nice to pick and
- 1:11:38choose. But you ask yourself, is this
- 1:11:40robbing our family? Because that's where that's
- 1:11:44where the morals and the values are given.
- 1:11:47This is where the culture makes the case that you shouldn't have
- 1:11:50more than a small handful of kids 1-2 give them.
- 1:11:53Enough attention. Yeah, you can't give them enough
- 1:11:55opportunities, attention. And so better to have less and
- 1:11:59pour into them more than to have more and pour into those more or
- 1:12:02less. I said to my wife after we
- 1:12:05adopted our 4 year olds, at that point we had 654431.
- 1:12:08We adopted the four year old and they had some rough history.
- 1:12:12And I said to my wife, I said, you know, they're taking up a
- 1:12:15lot of our time and I'm feeling like I can't, I can't
- 1:12:19individually interact with the kids as much as I would want.
- 1:12:24And my wife said, Raymond, you big dummy.
- 1:12:28OK, no, she didn't say that. But I read the look on her face.
- 1:12:32She said, Ray, that's why they have brothers and sisters.
- 1:12:38That's a lot of the interaction is with their brothers and
- 1:12:40sisters, you know, Yeah, it's nice to get on the floor and
- 1:12:42play with them that their brothers and sisters are going
- 1:12:45to get on the floor and play with them a lot more.
- 1:12:46And besides that, Ray, you can't get up half the time you get on
- 1:12:49the floor. You have to press your life
- 1:12:50alert button. So given that she was right, you
- 1:12:54know, the bigger families and there's research, it says this
- 1:12:56Lila, that says kids from big families by and large grow up to
- 1:13:01be better adjusted, more giving, less selfish.
- 1:13:05When my daughter went to college she went to an all girls school
- 1:13:09and the president of the college said we have trouble with some
- 1:13:13of the freshman girls because they can't get used to having a
- 1:13:16roommate. Now my daughter grew up with
- 1:13:21four of them in one room and she said just just one roommate.
- 1:13:27Wow. She entered Nirvana.
- 1:13:32I love that view and the way you articulated that, Doctor Ray,
- 1:13:36because it's so encouraging and it's so countercultural.
- 1:13:39Oh my gosh, it's so countercultural.
- 1:13:41But you're giving your kids the gift of their siblings that
- 1:13:45that's what's like not in the equation, right?
- 1:13:47Like, oh, we're going to only have one or two or three because
- 1:13:49we want to be able to do the soccer practice and the dance
- 1:13:52practice and the music practice and the this and the travels to
- 1:13:54European destinations and the right and get the car and the
- 1:13:58house. And but you didn't give them
- 1:14:01another best friend. You didn't give them that other
- 1:14:05two, 3, four siblings to play with and to be.
- 1:14:08I mean, I am our family. I've got seven siblings and my
- 1:14:11my husband and his seven siblings.
- 1:14:13These are this is our family. A wild Christmas Eve.
- 1:14:16Oh, yeah, it's always a wild and sometimes like this, you know,
- 1:14:19this holiday, some holidays, different people do different
- 1:14:22homes because it's getting so big and crazy and different.
- 1:14:24But yeah, when we get together, it's it's amazing.
- 1:14:26But would I trade one of them for what?
- 1:14:28An extra music lesson? Like what?
- 1:14:31No, I did 3. 100 more square feet in your house.
- 1:14:33Right. I mean, for what?
- 1:14:34For what I mean, and my parents like, thanks be to God and my
- 1:14:38husband's parents, like they poured into us.
- 1:14:40We were given so much right? But there's always going to be
- 1:14:43something that is a is a trade off, right?
- 1:14:46And there are real trade-offs and there are real challenges.
- 1:14:48But what are you going to do? Trade another soul?
- 1:14:51Get rid of one of those souls, boot them out because they were
- 1:14:53like tip the scale a little too much.
- 1:14:55I've been doing this a long time, Lila.
- 1:14:57Long enough to talk to parents whose children are 3040, fifty
- 1:15:01years old. I've heard this so many times.
- 1:15:07I wish I would have had more kids.
- 1:15:09I have never yet heard a single parent say to me I had too many
- 1:15:14kids. Yeah, it's an eternal soul.
- 1:15:18How Can you imagine that soul that?
- 1:15:20Culture doesn't value kids. It doesn't.
- 1:15:22And you know as well as I do, somewhat over 100 countries
- 1:15:26right now have negative birth rates, and they suspect that in
- 1:15:30a few more decades it's going to be pretty much the whole world's
- 1:15:32going to have a negative birth rate.
- 1:15:33Well, what's going to happen then?
- 1:15:35Because all of the predictions that said we're going to drown
- 1:15:38ourselves in people, we're not going to have enough food.
- 1:15:41We're going to turn on each other.
- 1:15:42Well, the predictions were wrong.
- 1:15:45And what has happened is that we've stopped having children.
- 1:15:50The modal number of children right now in the US is 1 modal
- 1:15:54meeting the most common number. Now that's probably in part
- 1:15:57because they haven't had a second yet, but that is the most
- 1:16:00common number of children one. So the question becomes.
- 1:16:05The birth rate is 1.7 I think. Yes, it is.
- 1:16:08We've fallen below the 2.1 for the first time.
- 1:16:11We have for for a while there we sustained ourselves right around
- 1:16:142.1. Not anymore.
- 1:16:17And there are several countries below 1.
- 1:16:19You can't recover from one. After a couple generations of
- 1:16:22one, you're in big trouble. So as a result, we've, we've
- 1:16:27lost sight of the value of kids just have, and there's many,
- 1:16:33many reasons for this. Unfortunately, you now got to go
- 1:16:38against the culture if you're going to have more than 1.8
- 1:16:40kids, six kids. And I can't tell you how many
- 1:16:42mothers have told me. My own parents are getting on
- 1:16:45me. My own parents are saying when
- 1:16:47are you going to stop? I had one dad tell me we don't
- 1:16:51tell our family anymore that we're pregnant.
- 1:16:53We don't want to hear it. That's so sad, that's so tough.
- 1:16:58Now, how do you balance, and we're talking about this from
- 1:17:01the Christian perspective now, of course, and all of this is,
- 1:17:04but how do you balance being open to life and generous, right
- 1:17:09with OK, we've got these real, you know, situations of dealing
- 1:17:14with the needs of our kids, economic realities.
- 1:17:17Maybe one of the spouse is really ill.
- 1:17:19Whatever is going on and potentially spacing children or
- 1:17:24having more of a gap between children.
- 1:17:27And I'm going to add one other piece to this.
- 1:17:29I've had this controversial discussion lately with some, you
- 1:17:32know, friends and people that some good people are having.
- 1:17:35OK, well, if I get to 7 kids, is it OK to practice NFP and avoid?
- 1:17:42And if God still gives us a baby, great.
- 1:17:43But to avoid having children, we're not contracepting because
- 1:17:46contraception is immoral, but we're going to generally
- 1:17:49speaking, avoid and not try to have a baby.
- 1:17:52And but we had seven, so we're generous.
- 1:17:54We did. We did the generous thing.
- 1:17:57It's OK to practice NFP before 7.
- 1:18:00That's the church's teaching. You can practice NFP for a
- 1:18:04legitimate reason for your family.
- 1:18:07If you, if you have, for example, a mom who every, every
- 1:18:10pregnancy she's got terribly sick, she's been bed bound, she
- 1:18:13hasn't been able to move and now she's got 3 little ones and
- 1:18:16you're going to expect her to be pregnant, that's a legit reason.
- 1:18:19Or if you absolutely cannot pay your bills, you're struggling.
- 1:18:24Bet that's a legit reason. The church would never say you
- 1:18:27have to take any kid at all times no matter what.
- 1:18:30No, NFP is very successful. It's more successful than the
- 1:18:33pill. You know that.
- 1:18:35And so as a consequence, the church would say this with
- 1:18:38judicious guidance, you can make this decision.
- 1:18:42Now, those who say, well, we've had seven, so we've done our
- 1:18:44duty. I think maybe they were
- 1:18:47operating out of a false idea, which is that there's some kind
- 1:18:51of minimum number that removes you from being sinful, that
- 1:18:56removes you from not welcoming life.
- 1:18:59No, no, there, there isn't. There is a situation for a small
- 1:19:04example with the adoption. I mean, you had 10 you.
- 1:19:08Had ten. I was on a plane and I saw a
- 1:19:11movie that broke my heart and went home and I told my wife,
- 1:19:14honey, can we adopt again? She said, OK, all right, Ray,
- 1:19:21see what you think. So we went through all the
- 1:19:23process. Hardball, a little little inner
- 1:19:30city boy was shot by a random, random gun.
- 1:19:33And I thought that kid didn't have a chance.
- 1:19:35OK, I was crying. I was crying on the plane, man,
- 1:19:37just like this little lady next to me looking at me like what a
- 1:19:40weirdo. And I said I got something in my
- 1:19:44eye. She took me to a restaurant and
- 1:19:47said, Ray, if you want to adopt again, I will.
- 1:19:51But I have to tell you, I think I'm at my load limit.
- 1:19:56And Violet, I'm a very sensitive guy.
- 1:19:59I said, you Sissy, I work for a living.
- 1:20:04No, I didn't. I said honey.
- 1:20:06Your call, you're lifting the heavy load here in this family.
- 1:20:10Your call, You raise kids. All I do is write parenting
- 1:20:14books. You got the tougher job.
- 1:20:17And so we didn't adopt again. We made a decision that.
- 1:20:20Would have been 11. That would have been 11.
- 1:20:22Was there a conversation about, I don't know if this is too
- 1:20:26personal but oh, let's get a cleaner to come twice a week or
- 1:20:30let's let's get a nanny in the house going to live in a pair.
- 1:20:33I can afford it. I said, honey, we're going to
- 1:20:35get bringing somebody to come in here and and clean when you got,
- 1:20:38when you got 10 kids under 12. It smells in there.
- 1:20:41It's like a, it's like a landfill.
- 1:20:42It's a swamp. You know, it's like, oh man, get
- 1:20:46somebody in here, honey, put out the candles.
- 1:20:47Get the candles out here. Yeah.
- 1:20:49So yeah, we did there for a while.
- 1:20:51We we had that, but. It's still I mean 10 even with
- 1:20:53all kinds of help 10 and and with potential extra challenges
- 1:20:57with behavior stuff or whatever if there was some woundedness in
- 1:21:00some of the kids background. So it's a, it's you are very
- 1:21:03generous you. Can't worry about what's what's
- 1:21:08the word I'm looking for here, Lila, you, you you can't worry
- 1:21:10about something going wrong. You got to go.
- 1:21:13OK, This is this is the way it is.
- 1:21:16And yes, I've, I've had some kids get in some trouble.
- 1:21:18Yes, I have some serious trouble.
- 1:21:21All right, So we're there to love them.
- 1:21:24We're there to to always be open to them.
- 1:21:28But at the same time, OK, I'll show you something very, very
- 1:21:32personal. Two of my sons I had to ask to
- 1:21:36leave the house. How old were they?
- 1:21:3918 and 19 and I always wondered if I could do that because many
- 1:21:43parents can't do that. Many parents live with kids who
- 1:21:46are disrespectful, uncooperative, unpleasant, even
- 1:21:49violent, but they will not set a rule that you have to cooperate
- 1:21:54or you can't live here because they're afraid what will happen.
- 1:21:57Where will he go? Will he crash and burn?
- 1:21:58I couldn't live with myself. If he does anything to harm
- 1:22:01himself or somebody else. I knew that for those boys at
- 1:22:05that time, given what they did, I would be hurting them if I
- 1:22:11said, well, you can continue to live here under those
- 1:22:13circumstances. Because they weren't respecting
- 1:22:15the rules of the home or the the I.
- 1:22:17Mean there were younger siblings, yeah, yeah, no,
- 1:22:20fortunately those boys now are grown and and we have a very
- 1:22:23tight close relationship. But at the time and my wife
- 1:22:26agreed we had to do that. What did they do to get jobs and
- 1:22:30just go rent A room? My one son was 19.
- 1:22:34He said where am I going to go? I said, son, you got a car.
- 1:22:39Wow. Tough.
- 1:22:41Love and and was it bad? I mean, was he being really
- 1:22:43disrespectful or just not? He had he had done something
- 1:22:47wrong and we had to, we had to stand our ground.
- 1:22:53And he he ended up living with a friend.
- 1:22:55And right now he's in his 30s and he's a fine young man.
- 1:22:59The other one, I put in a homeless shelter.
- 1:23:02Wow. He called me that night.
- 1:23:04He said, dad, dad, dad, dad, you got to Get Me Out of here.
- 1:23:07I said James, I said I tried to tell you son.
- 1:23:10Now, obviously we helped him. We set him up in an apartment
- 1:23:13and we we got him help. We didn't abandoned him.
- 1:23:15Not going to go. You're on your own, kid.
- 1:23:17You're on the street, you're in the gutter.
- 1:23:18No, we're not going to do that. But yet at the same time, given
- 1:23:21what he did repeatedly now we're not talking.
- 1:23:24OK, He screwed up once. Sure.
- 1:23:26No, it was something made it clear.
- 1:23:28He's like, you know, he thinks he's 18, he can do whatever.
- 1:23:31He. He.
- 1:23:31Wasn't learning his lesson and he was, he was freeloading,
- 1:23:33Yeah. So at that point, now he's a
- 1:23:36very, again, a very nice young man.
- 1:23:38Now I'm curious, not that it matters in one sense, but if I
- 1:23:42were to ask him and then this is personal.
- 1:23:44We're getting all personal here, but.
- 1:23:45I'll tell you what he's going. To say yeah, what would he say?
- 1:23:48Both of them understand it now. They said it.
- 1:23:52They said, dad, I didn't get it then, I get it now.
- 1:23:55And my one son is very loving tortoise.
- 1:23:57Very both of them actually are very, very loving tortoise.
- 1:24:00Now, I'm not saying they run their lives as, as I would like
- 1:24:03them to run their lives because I think their attachment to
- 1:24:06religion is kind of just like a thread.
- 1:24:09But at the same time, you know, they got their mother praying
- 1:24:12for him. And I try not to pray for him
- 1:24:13because I don't want to counteract her prayers, you
- 1:24:16know, So at the same time, you, you, you watch them and you and
- 1:24:21you see the things start to sink in.
- 1:24:23My my son said to me recently, he said, dad, when we were
- 1:24:27growing up, I didn't, I didn't get all the stuff that my
- 1:24:31friends had and I thought it was because you couldn't afford it
- 1:24:36because there were so many of us.
- 1:24:39He said, I realize now that's not why is it Dad?
- 1:24:42And I said, no PD it's not. He said you could afford it, you
- 1:24:45just didn't want to spoil us that way.
- 1:24:47I said, yeah, I hope it worked. We had three bikes for 10 kids.
- 1:24:54So you had to share the bike. Wow, Do you looking back on your
- 1:24:58own parenting? Is there anything that you would
- 1:25:00change? As I get older, my greatest
- 1:25:07gratitude is that I was born where I was at the time, where I
- 1:25:12was to the people I was. I had no choice in that Lila.
- 1:25:17I could have been born anywhere else in this world at any other
- 1:25:21time. And had I not, had I not been
- 1:25:24born where I was, I, I, I wouldn't have known the faith.
- 1:25:27I, I wouldn't have been told. If you think about the odds, I
- 1:25:30mean, they're, they're less than that.
- 1:25:32They're minuscule that I'm going to grow up in a family who
- 1:25:36taught me the faith. Now, if I look at my mom and dad
- 1:25:37and I say, well, you know, dad did this or mom did that, or I
- 1:25:40didn't like when they did this. So what?
- 1:25:44That's my mom and dad. They gave me life and they tried
- 1:25:48their best. I get so many adult kids now who
- 1:25:53write their parents off because they look at the way their
- 1:25:56parents raised them and say, well, I don't like that.
- 1:25:59Well, you could have done that different.
- 1:26:01I don't really need to be around you anymore.
- 1:26:04And you know, one of the great tragedies, often times some
- 1:26:09therapist told him to do it. Can't tell you how often I hear
- 1:26:13that where the therapist says your parents sound like they're
- 1:26:16toxic. You need to set boundaries.
- 1:26:20You need to sever the relationship until you feel
- 1:26:23confident enough to be able to deal with their pathology.
- 1:26:27And the parents don't have any pathology.
- 1:26:29They were people like you and me trying to raise great kids.
- 1:26:33And the kids look back on them and say, yeah, well, I don't
- 1:26:35like the way I was raised. You know, Lila, even if I didn't
- 1:26:40like the way I was raised, I was given enough that allowed me to
- 1:26:44have the life I have. And I got to say my parents had
- 1:26:48a big part in that. And when you look at your, your
- 1:26:51upbringing of your kids, so you wouldn't change your childhood
- 1:26:54because you're, you're grateful, which is a beautiful posture.
- 1:26:57Oh my gosh, that's the honestly, that's if you want to have a
- 1:27:01successful future, be grateful for the road that let brought
- 1:27:04you here and you know, instead of fighting it for your
- 1:27:08parenting now that you are where you are looking back, if you're
- 1:27:11in your 20 books, you've been in practice for now, you know,
- 1:27:13dozens of years at this point. How many years total?
- 1:27:15I'm sorry, I don't know off the top of my my head here. 40 plus
- 1:27:18years. Is there anything you and your
- 1:27:20wife would change in the parenting of your 10 kids?
- 1:27:22Boy, I got asked that once by a guy named Matt Fradd, he said.
- 1:27:26Really, he said. Matt, you beat me too.
- 1:27:28And. He said in that accent, I always
- 1:27:29tell him, he said, Matt, you sound smart 'cause you got that
- 1:27:31accent. That accent makes you sound so
- 1:27:33smart. Yeah, IQ point.
- 1:27:34And is smart. Hello.
- 1:27:37And Matt said, you have no regrets.
- 1:27:38And I said something that made him mad.
- 1:27:40I said, I don't think so. How could you not have regrets?
- 1:27:45And I said, well, you know, Matt, if you're saying that I I
- 1:27:48deliberately did something that I knew was going to be bad for
- 1:27:52my kids, that would be a regret. But if you're saying in my
- 1:27:55humanness, I did things that looking back on it and I go, you
- 1:28:00know, I wish I had more information.
- 1:28:01I think I would have done different then.
- 1:28:03No, but here's a regret. I do have two things.
- 1:28:08Actually two things. Did you tell Matt this or is
- 1:28:11this exclusive for the Lila Rose Show?
- 1:28:13Well, he came to me later and he said.
- 1:28:15We love Matt Fred here. I'm.
- 1:28:16Going to work on the accent then if you think.
- 1:28:18Of me we're doing. We're now I'm interviewing Matt.
- 1:28:20Fred, let's go. He came to me later and he said
- 1:28:24I now understand what you were saying because his kids got
- 1:28:27older. Oh, so was he?
- 1:28:28Was this an interview you did with him or he was talking to
- 1:28:30you privately? We were at a conference together
- 1:28:32and he privately said to me, if you have any regrets, I went.
- 1:28:35No, we're hearing this. Oh man, he got upset.
- 1:28:38He said how could you not have any regrets?
- 1:28:40I was implying, you know, that I was perfect.
- 1:28:42I said no, no. Depends how you define regret.
- 1:28:45But I do have a couple that I look back on one.
- 1:28:49I would have explained the faith better to my kids.
- 1:28:53We live in a culture that says why?
- 1:28:56I'm not going to believe this just because the church says it
- 1:28:59just because dad says it. Dad, why does the church have
- 1:29:02these moral perspectives? I want to know now.
- 1:29:05I explained a lot, but I would have done more.
- 1:29:07That's one. This is this is simple.
- 1:29:12When I said my prayers at night, I always got in bed and I had
- 1:29:16the covers over me and my kids couldn't tell if I was sleeping
- 1:29:18a print. If I had it to do over again, I
- 1:29:21would kneel by my bedside so my kids could see their old man say
- 1:29:26in his prayers that that indelible image of this guy
- 1:29:30kneeling by the bed say in his prayers.
- 1:29:33I would change. I would change that.
- 1:29:36Did you pray together as a family?
- 1:29:38Yes, and that's why we had 10 because the rosary, the decade
- 1:29:41is 10. Perfect.
- 1:29:42So that's right. Now the girls would get on me
- 1:29:45because I'd lose track. I'd just, I'd drift off during
- 1:29:47the rosary, you know, I'd lose track and I'd go.
- 1:29:51They go, Dad. I go.
- 1:29:52Oh, OK. Hail Mary.
- 1:29:53Dad, it's a glory bee. Oh, OK.
- 1:29:56I I knew that. I just wanted to see if you were
- 1:29:58paying attention. I screwed up to rosary.
- 1:30:01I can't count how many times. It's always scary when I'm
- 1:30:04praying the rosary with someone else, you know?
- 1:30:06Especially if it's a not so personal, like more
- 1:30:08professional. I'm like, I'm going to forget my
- 1:30:09own words. It's like you get
- 1:30:10self-conscious, you know? But Mother Mary's so patient
- 1:30:14with us. Just pray it in Aramaic.
- 1:30:16There you go. Just do the.
- 1:30:17Just do the original tongue. That would be easier to do.
- 1:30:20Yeah. I got to ask you.
- 1:30:22You were talking just a few minutes ago about this trend of
- 1:30:27adult children rejecting their parents.
- 1:30:30And I had on Noel marrying on the show.
- 1:30:32And she's actually working on a book about this trend where
- 1:30:35because of political or ideological differences and
- 1:30:38sometimes accusations of childhood neglect or abuse,
- 1:30:41which those can be really significant and legitimate.
- 1:30:43Of course, parents are increasingly getting iced out by
- 1:30:48their children and sometimes vice versa.
- 1:30:49But it's mostly the children icing up, icing up the parents.
- 1:30:52But I want to ask you, in some cases it's legit.
- 1:30:57In some cases you could like, like I, I'm thinking of a case
- 1:31:01right now, semi personal, somebody that I know, parent,
- 1:31:05single dad involved in really bad stuff, very abusive
- 1:31:10behaviors. They are doing a bit of a nice,
- 1:31:12they're saying that we got to take a pause on this one because
- 1:31:15it's not good for the grandkids. And but somebody might hear of
- 1:31:20that story, I don't know, and be like, oh, it's the toxic trend
- 1:31:22of, you know, getting rid of your, your, you know, your
- 1:31:24sweet, poor old parents who are not perfect, but, you know,
- 1:31:26let's just be more nice to them. So how do you draw those lines?
- 1:31:32I had a lady e-mail me once and she said I don't appreciate you
- 1:31:37talking about how we're writing off our parents.
- 1:31:40If you knew some of the things my father did, you'd realize we
- 1:31:44should have written him off. And I clarified said I'm not
- 1:31:49talking about pathology in these homes.
- 1:31:52Like what's an example of that? Abuse, neglect, alcoholism.
- 1:31:55Just just just. Serious stuff.
- 1:31:57Serious stuff. Well, what is serious stuff?
- 1:32:00Well, for the most part, you can make the gauge I'm talking
- 1:32:04about, I believe the much more common situation of people who
- 1:32:10did their best or, or they weren't easy to live with.
- 1:32:16I mean, you can have parents who aren't easy to live with.
- 1:32:18You could have a nagging mom. You could have a mom who's put
- 1:32:20you down. You could have a lot of these
- 1:32:22things. But that is that enough reason
- 1:32:25to say, especially if you're a Christian, I want no more.
- 1:32:29She's a narcissist. Yeah, all that.
- 1:32:31She never has anything. That word to me she's
- 1:32:33hypocritical. That that goes up there with
- 1:32:35strong willed narcissist is horridly overused.
- 1:32:39It basically means self-centered.
- 1:32:40Everyone's a narcissist. Everybody's a narcissist.
- 1:32:42That's right. And there are like, maybe a lot
- 1:32:43of narcissists today too, but. If you read the clinical
- 1:32:47definition of narcissist, it's a very serious personality
- 1:32:50disorder. A narcissist is not someone who
- 1:32:53is difficult for me to get along with.
- 1:32:55A narcissist is someone who just can't sustain a relationship
- 1:32:58with anybody. OK, but that said, these are
- 1:33:03parents who they either tried or they weren't perfect or or even
- 1:33:08in fact they were difficult. Does that justify saying get out
- 1:33:15of my life? That's the point I'm making.
- 1:33:18And here's something I said once on the radio.
- 1:33:23I said that parents were worried about being psychologically
- 1:33:29incorrect with their children and that affected their
- 1:33:32parenting. They were insecure.
- 1:33:34They were not sure of themselves.
- 1:33:35I said, what has happened now is that that generation that was
- 1:33:39raised, the young adults now are turning on their parents and
- 1:33:43saying you weren't psychologically correct, so I
- 1:33:48want you out of my life. I said.
- 1:33:49Boy, did that come back to bite you.
- 1:33:52That is, yeah, the modern era where we have psychological
- 1:33:56psychologized everything and there's no space for, I think
- 1:34:00grace and mistake and everything else.
- 1:34:03But but back to something you just said.
- 1:34:05They weren't perfect or they were really hard to deal with.
- 1:34:08At what point do you make the analysis of, OK, this is
- 1:34:12borderline. This is like like there's a 10
- 1:34:15list of the narcissist, Like they, you know, everything comes
- 1:34:18back to them. They can't ever admit
- 1:34:19responsibility. What?
- 1:34:21Whatever the list of it, they don't show empathy, right?
- 1:34:23They can be hyper charming and then all of a sudden like turn
- 1:34:26on you on a dime, but maybe that's more BPD or whatever the
- 1:34:29list is right? And you're like, Oh well, check,
- 1:34:31check, check, check, check. Oh, sometimes do they go.
- 1:34:33To the Internet and it'll tell you.
- 1:34:34Well, yeah, but but they're really, you know, they're
- 1:34:36they're how do you would you just say at that point you got
- 1:34:40to pray about it, talk to a good, you know, Christian
- 1:34:43advisor who's not some woke therapist who's going to just
- 1:34:46tell you to go burn bridges and, you know, divorce yourself from
- 1:34:50your family, etcetera. And then if it's a real serious
- 1:34:53issue, yeah, treated like a serious issue.
- 1:34:55But generally speaking, we are too much in the direction as a
- 1:34:58culture of just pathologizing everything.
- 1:35:01It's more common for adults, young adults, or even
- 1:35:05middle-aged adults who've written off their parents to do
- 1:35:08so because of words. My mom's critical.
- 1:35:14My dad's opinionated. They talk politics.
- 1:35:17I don't like their politics, yes.
- 1:35:19Or they oppose my LGBT steps. Words.
- 1:35:21It is words. And because of that, therefore,
- 1:35:25I don't want to be around my mother.
- 1:35:26I mean, she's so difficult, and she says things and she
- 1:35:29critiques my parenting. You know, I've had it.
- 1:35:34Is she punching you in the face? Oh, no.
- 1:35:37Was she setting fire to your house?
- 1:35:40No. What is it then?
- 1:35:41My stuff? She says, OK, now I've written
- 1:35:46books on this, on how to get along with people.
- 1:35:48I was going to ask you about that book, actually, that's
- 1:35:50coming right up. Because what we do in
- 1:35:53relationships is that I don't like the way you talk.
- 1:35:58I don't like the things you say. Lila, you know the most common
- 1:36:02question I now get as a psychologist.
- 1:36:04What? Would you please tell me how to
- 1:36:07make somebody else be different? It is classic.
- 1:36:11And then if my mother or my mother, how do I make them not
- 1:36:15be like that? And I say, I I have a hard
- 1:36:18enough time making you not be like that.
- 1:36:19Now you're removing it a person. And that's that's part of the
- 1:36:23big reason why these these adults turn on their kids.
- 1:36:27I don't like what you say. I don't like how you say it.
- 1:36:29I don't like that you put me down.
- 1:36:30I don't like your manipulative. I don't like that you're
- 1:36:32critical. I don't like that you brag.
- 1:36:34I don't like that you disagree with me.
- 1:36:36And it's like, you know what, I shouldn't have to put up with
- 1:36:39that. And I always say, well, if
- 1:36:41you're a Christian, you do have to put up with it.
- 1:36:44And secondly, this is not the lady who lives down the street,
- 1:36:466 doors. You could drive by her house and
- 1:36:49just go like this. This is your mom.
- 1:36:53Only got 1. This is your brother.
- 1:36:56This is your father-in-law. This is this.
- 1:36:58This is your wife's dad. It behooves you to figure out
- 1:37:03how to let some of this stuff go in one ear and out the other,
- 1:37:06because they're not going to change.
- 1:37:08This book is very special and we have, I have all these notes of
- 1:37:11we got to get into this book at least a little bit, if that's
- 1:37:13OK. How to deal with difficult
- 1:37:15people? Yeah, How to get along with
- 1:37:16almost everybody. Notice the key Almost.
- 1:37:19Because you can't get along with everybody if if they don't want
- 1:37:22to get along with you, no matter what you do, forget it.
- 1:37:27It's not going to happen. If your mother says I don't want
- 1:37:30to have any part of you, then no matter what you do, no matter
- 1:37:34how kind you are, no matter how much you pray for her, no matter
- 1:37:37what you do, if she remains rigid, you can't do anything
- 1:37:40about it. However, we can go a long way
- 1:37:45and getting along better with people.
- 1:37:47Now, there's a couple things that are premises in the book.
- 1:37:50One look at yourself. I always, I always say, well,
- 1:37:58that's. No, it's easier to look at.
- 1:37:59Yes, it. Is that's right, I look out this
- 1:38:01way. That's a difficult person.
- 1:38:04Well, she's difficult. I've never had anybody say, you
- 1:38:08know, I think I'm difficult. I think I need to work on me
- 1:38:11because I can be difficult. I can be opinionated, I can be
- 1:38:14crusty, I can be obnoxious. No.
- 1:38:18So we need to start looking at our.
- 1:38:19Patient. Exactly.
- 1:38:20That's first thing. Second thing is, let's say that
- 1:38:25you decide you want to raise your kids a certain way and your
- 1:38:28mother-in-law. And by the way, the, the, the
- 1:38:30number one point of friction in generations is mother-in-law,
- 1:38:33daughter-in-law. That's the most common one, OK.
- 1:38:36And your mother-in-law just really doesn't agree with what
- 1:38:38you're doing here, Lila. And she's going to she's going
- 1:38:41to give me some digs. And you've been married how
- 1:38:44long? Seven years.
- 1:38:47Well, this is not your mother-in-law, but this is
- 1:38:48hypothetical. She's I got, I kind of lucked
- 1:38:50out. I mean, she has her own
- 1:38:52personality, her own thing, but she's lovely and you know.
- 1:38:54She's not. She's always supportive.
- 1:38:56You got to use this for the show.
- 1:38:59So in this seven years, if you were to count it, she's made 264
- 1:39:04snarky remarks about your motherhood and your parenting.
- 1:39:09And if I say to you, Lila, does 264 bother you as much as #12
- 1:39:16you'd probably say yes. Why is that?
- 1:39:21Because the accumulative effect, I'm getting tired of it.
- 1:39:24It's building up. Here's one technique on getting
- 1:39:27along better with other people. Drop your expectations.
- 1:39:33You know she's like this. You got 264 pieces of evidence
- 1:39:37that she can do this. Chances are she's probably going
- 1:39:40to do another 264 the next seven years.
- 1:39:43So if you keep upsetting yourself over these snarky
- 1:39:46remarks instead of saying to yourself, and that's her, that's
- 1:39:50what she does. Not very nice about it and she's
- 1:39:53got to be unhappy in her own skin.
- 1:39:54But OK, I'm not going to be as upset because this is nothing
- 1:39:59new. This is the same old same old.
- 1:40:04Why am I distressing myself at 264 like I did at 77?
- 1:40:10May still have been well. I hope she changes 264.
- 1:40:14Not likely. That sounds like such a obvious
- 1:40:19good principle. If something's annoying you and
- 1:40:22but this is a person that you're not going to like, ice out.
- 1:40:25You just accept it and you put your attention and focus
- 1:40:28elsewhere and you just learn. You get a thicker skin,
- 1:40:30basically. However, I think about in a
- 1:40:34marriage as an example, maybe this is a little different.
- 1:40:37You want to be able to share vulnerably.
- 1:40:39Oh, this is affecting me this way.
- 1:40:41You want to create as much harmony as possible.
- 1:40:44You want to be authentic and not pretend like something's not a
- 1:40:46big deal when it does feel like a big deal to you, right?
- 1:40:49So how do you weigh all that? We're not saying you don't bring
- 1:40:52it up. We're not saying you don't talk
- 1:40:54about it. And it may have been through
- 1:40:56snark remark #1 through 12. You did try to say something to
- 1:41:00your mother-in-law and you got nowhere.
- 1:41:02Because rarely are people going to go.
- 1:41:06Lila, you're right. I do do that, don't I?
- 1:41:10Well, I need to control myself better for the sake of our
- 1:41:13relationship. A difficult person doesn't know
- 1:41:16they're difficult. If they knew they were
- 1:41:18difficult, they wouldn't be as difficult.
- 1:41:20So that's the first thing. Second thing in a marriage, the
- 1:41:24closer you are to somebody, the more time you spend around them,
- 1:41:27the more likely things are going to happen that irritates you,
- 1:41:30that bothers you. Wives will say to me, my
- 1:41:34husband's so critical. He's just critical and I've told
- 1:41:37him how I feel, how it hurts and how it bothers me, but he
- 1:41:41doesn't seem to care. He just kind of does it.
- 1:41:45I'll say, well, we've got a couple things here.
- 1:41:47One, if he's not going to stop and obviously you don't want to
- 1:41:51leave the relationship because there's a lot there that's of
- 1:41:54value, then you're going to have to let his critical words start
- 1:41:58to bounce off of you and you're going to have to interpret them
- 1:42:01as he's insecure. He's not superior.
- 1:42:07Anybody that felt self confident wouldn't wouldn't have to put me
- 1:42:10down like that. Obviously because he doesn't
- 1:42:13apologize ever. That's insecurity.
- 1:42:16That's not superiority. He doesn't think he's better
- 1:42:19than me. He's afraid to apologize.
- 1:42:22You got to start to reinterpret. What they're doing, I think in
- 1:42:25that case, you know, I'm playing with that one for a minute
- 1:42:27because I've heard these cases. It's like, OK, no, that's
- 1:42:29emotional abuse. That's emotional abuse.
- 1:42:31And maybe I should leave this marriage.
- 1:42:34You know, maybe I won't remarry because of my faith.
- 1:42:37But I, you know, this is like, this is like, at what point is
- 1:42:40it? This is a difficult person.
- 1:42:42And this is by the way, this is the modern crisis, right?
- 1:42:44You know, you you've sat in the chair and you've heard all the
- 1:42:46stories. What people thought was normal
- 1:42:50behavior 30 years ago, even. Oh, they're just a difficult
- 1:42:53person. That's the way they are.
- 1:42:54Ha, ha. That's something.
- 1:42:55All right. We love them anyway.
- 1:42:56Now they're like, oh, they are. Yeah.
- 1:42:58The narcissist. They are the gaslighter.
- 1:43:00Whatever. They're abusive and some people
- 1:43:05are blowing up their lives over that.
- 1:43:06They're leaving their marriages, you know, they're icing out
- 1:43:10their parents in some cases. One of the early chapters of
- 1:43:14that book said watch your language, and I picked out three
- 1:43:19words that can make you leave a relationship prematurely.
- 1:43:25Narcissist. But But this this is is it it.
- 1:43:31they are just so flawed that I can't get along with them toxic
- 1:43:36it's a terrible word it's poisonous I mean I could see
- 1:43:40that he's obnoxious or difficult unpleasant toxic Oh my gosh that
- 1:43:46the implication there once again is he he is hurting me terribly
- 1:43:51but here's where I got in trouble on the radio once lady
- 1:43:55called in and said I'm tired of being emotionally abused by my
- 1:43:58husband What does he do? She told me.
- 1:44:02I said, yeah, it sounds pretty nasty.
- 1:44:04I said, but you understand that you have great control over
- 1:44:09whether it's emotional abuse or not because it has to get to
- 1:44:15you. You have to interpret it a
- 1:44:17certain way. He shouldn't do this.
- 1:44:22I don't do that to him. He's putting me down.
- 1:44:27I didn't ask for this in a husband.
- 1:44:30I deserve a better marriage now. All of those things may be true,
- 1:44:33but if you absorb them, you're going to feel abused.
- 1:44:37I said the word abuse used to be pretty serious, physically
- 1:44:41sexual. Once we moved it into emotional
- 1:44:44territory. Now it's fuzzy.
- 1:44:47Now it's fuzzy for you for you to emotionally abuse me, Lila,
- 1:44:52in some respects, I have to let you.
- 1:44:55You can say whatever you want about me anytime, anywhere.
- 1:44:59You can go public with it. But my only concern is, is what
- 1:45:04she said true? If it's not, if I use my best
- 1:45:08judgement, say it's not true what she accused me of, then I
- 1:45:12don't have to be emotionally abused.
- 1:45:14I can be hurt. I can wish you didn't say it.
- 1:45:17I can feel bad. But to take it into emotional
- 1:45:22abuse gives me a rationale. I don't want to be married to
- 1:45:27her. I don't want to be around my
- 1:45:29brother anymore. I don't want to be part of this
- 1:45:33relationship. I don't want to go to that
- 1:45:34church because I think that priest is emotionally abusive.
- 1:45:37When he says stuff from the pulpit, that's what happens.
- 1:45:42Is there ever such a thing in your view then, as emotional
- 1:45:46abuse in marriage, that that would mean that there should be
- 1:45:50a separation? There can certainly be
- 1:45:53viciousness. I mean, I'm not.
- 1:45:54I'm not. I mean, I see all kinds of
- 1:45:56nonsense in marriages. But here's an interesting
- 1:45:59statistic. The majority of marriages break
- 1:46:03up not because there's pathology or actual abuse.
- 1:46:08It's because I really don't like you anymore, right?
- 1:46:11And it's true. I don't want to be around you
- 1:46:13anymore. You're unpleasant.
- 1:46:16We. Fell.
- 1:46:16We fell out of love. We fell out of love.
- 1:46:18That's the number one reason. So I suppose you could make a
- 1:46:21case that somebody can be so nasty, so vicious in their
- 1:46:26remarks that you're saying to yourself, I, I can't, I can't
- 1:46:31live with this, I suppose. But my point is, what is now
- 1:46:36covered under the umbrella of emotional abuse is often times
- 1:46:40just nasty stuff that we absorb and it gets to us.
- 1:46:45You know, people say, you know, what my mother said really hurt
- 1:46:48me? And I'll say, how did it do
- 1:46:51that? Well, mothers are not supposed
- 1:46:54to say those kinds of things to their daughter.
- 1:46:56I go, well, your mother did. Yeah, but she's not supposed to.
- 1:47:00Yeah, I I agree. She's not supposed to, but she
- 1:47:02did. So how much are you going to be
- 1:47:05hurt by it? Another.
- 1:47:06We we we don't control our own reaction.
- 1:47:09You're in the public sphere somewhat.
- 1:47:12I'm in the public sphere. Have you got nasty emails?
- 1:47:16Oh, we get so much yes, exactly. Oh, so much hate, right.
- 1:47:21A lot, lot more love, a lot more love, but there's a lot of.
- 1:47:24Nasty stuff. Now, do you go home and cry
- 1:47:28yourself to sleep? No.
- 1:47:30Right. Because you don't allow it to be
- 1:47:32absorbed. Now, one could say, yeah, but
- 1:47:35those are strangers. This is my It's not my mother.
- 1:47:38It's not my brother. That's true.
- 1:47:40But there's still a parallel there because you're still
- 1:47:43controlling how upset you're going to be.
- 1:47:46I've seen people get out of this.
- 1:47:48I've seen people get out of this business because they can't take
- 1:47:50those. They can't take those.
- 1:47:51And to be clear, they're sometimes if it's especially
- 1:47:55personal nasty and it's coming more from friendly fire because
- 1:47:59that sometimes happens, right? That can hurt a little bit,
- 1:48:02especially if it's someone that you know that you think would be
- 1:48:05your friend. And so that's where it's closer
- 1:48:07to your. Expectation.
- 1:48:08See, I expect they wouldn't do this.
- 1:48:10Right, right. Yeah, I expect this from my
- 1:48:13mother because she's made 264 snarky remarks.
- 1:48:16So my expectation should be down here.
- 1:48:18It shouldn't be up here. Or I expect you'll be as kind as
- 1:48:20I am. There it is.
- 1:48:21I don't do that to you. I call it the law of social
- 1:48:24reciprocity. If I teach you a certain way,
- 1:48:28you should treat me a certain way.
- 1:48:29It's kind of a, it's kind of a perversion of the Golden Rule.
- 1:48:34If I do to you well, then you do to me well, that ain't, that's
- 1:48:39not a Christian rule. I'm I'm obliged to do to you
- 1:48:43well, no matter how you do to me.
- 1:48:45And it's like our Lord says, even the Gentiles are kind to
- 1:48:47their children, right? But if you are a Christian, how
- 1:48:50much more are you supposed to be kind to not just your brother,
- 1:48:53but the stranger and your enemy? I'll share with you an
- 1:48:55objection. I get to something that you
- 1:48:57said. You said, OK, you got to get
- 1:48:59better at letting some of this stuff go past you.
- 1:49:02You do. But then the objection is this
- 1:49:06isn't that making you a doormat? Don't you just, aren't you just
- 1:49:10kind of like sitting there taking the punches against the
- 1:49:13against the ropes? I said no, no, no, It's
- 1:49:15different. You're a doormat if it gets to
- 1:49:19you because they control your emotions.
- 1:49:22You're not a doormat if it doesn't get to you.
- 1:49:24I'm not talking about swallowing it and being bitter and
- 1:49:28resentful. I'm talking about not swallowing
- 1:49:30it. If you don't swallow it, they
- 1:49:33don't have any power over you. Lila, we leave this interview
- 1:49:37and I find out later, you say Grandy's a jerk.
- 1:49:40Grandy's. That's the last time I'm ever
- 1:49:42going to talk to that dude. Now OK, I can say, well I
- 1:49:47suppose maybe I wasn't the best interview, but.
- 1:49:50All right, I thought it was pretty funny.
- 1:49:52I'm going to go drive through McDonald's.
- 1:49:53Give me a double cheeseburger. I just said, you know, I'm going
- 1:49:55to move on with my life because I can't absorb it.
- 1:49:58I have to say, well, is it true? And even if it is, even if it
- 1:50:02is, even if I blew the interview, OK, I didn't mean to
- 1:50:06blow the interview. It just kind of came from
- 1:50:09clumsiness and and that kind of interpretation of these human
- 1:50:13relations can really temper this kind of, I can't get along with
- 1:50:18you. All right, I got to, I got to
- 1:50:20ask though, because I, I'm, I'm just hearing the voices in my
- 1:50:24head of the people in the comments.
- 1:50:26Section right now. Psychologist Don't tell me
- 1:50:27you're hearing voices. Sometimes, sometimes, you know,
- 1:50:30but these are my comments section voices and, and I care
- 1:50:33about my comments section very much.
- 1:50:35You know, you guys, I care about that comment section.
- 1:50:36So thank you for the comments that people leave.
- 1:50:38But I'm thinking about, and I know these cases.
- 1:50:40I know I have people that I know in my life that I love very much
- 1:50:43and they're, they've been in some of these cases.
- 1:50:45I'm talking about emotional abuse now in marriage is what I
- 1:50:48want to get granular to. And what I've observed is often
- 1:50:52if there is emotional abuse in terms of just like viciousness,
- 1:50:56right? And to your point, well, you can
- 1:50:58choose to allow it abuse you or not, but there's often something
- 1:51:01in addition chronic infidelity. Now you're talking pathology.
- 1:51:04Now. Now you're drifting into.
- 1:51:06Pathology. So the the viciousness is then
- 1:51:08connected to something more serious and then it's different.
- 1:51:12But you're saying if there's just viciousness and let's say
- 1:51:15it's a bad habit of viciousness, like it is regular bad habit A.
- 1:51:18Strong word you know a lot of people listening to this go
- 1:51:20viciousness is enough. Maybe we we could say critical
- 1:51:26or put down issue let's. Just say they're actually
- 1:51:28vicious. They're not cheating.
- 1:51:29To their knowledge, there's no other pathology that they can
- 1:51:31see. They're not.
- 1:51:32Physically or sexually, you're a waste of a wife, and I think
- 1:51:34every one of our kids is going to grow up polluted because of
- 1:51:37you and what you did to them. That's pretty rough.
- 1:51:39Yeah. And so would you say in a case
- 1:51:41like that and, and again, often that's kind of being fueled by
- 1:51:45alcoholism sometimes or other things.
- 1:51:46So it's like there's always going to be a comorbidity, I
- 1:51:48think. But let's just say theoretically
- 1:51:50there's no comorbidity because if they're an alcoholic, then
- 1:51:53maybe you knew need to separate if they're getting dangerous,
- 1:51:55right? But but if they're just vicious
- 1:51:58regularly and it's like a thing and they, I'm thinking about one
- 1:52:01case in particular right now and there's just, there's no
- 1:52:03infidelity, there's no alcoholism, there's no
- 1:52:06addiction, there's no neglect of the children or something like
- 1:52:08this, but there's just chronic viciousness.
- 1:52:11You got several factors at play. One is the person a Catholic?
- 1:52:16So the Catholic would say that that marriage is indissoluble
- 1:52:20until they take a look at it back at the beginning.
- 1:52:22So that's one. All right.
- 1:52:23So that at this point, that kind of verbal cruelty might not be a
- 1:52:29reason to separate this marriage.
- 1:52:31OK, That's one big one. The children, OK, if you
- 1:52:37separate. And I can't tell you how much I
- 1:52:39see this in the office. I've lost control on how my kids
- 1:52:44are being raised. The other part of the time
- 1:52:47they're over there and that person doesn't take them to
- 1:52:49church. That person lets them watch
- 1:52:50anything. That person is now with a
- 1:52:51girlfriend who has two other kids and those two other kids
- 1:52:54are obnoxious. And I worry about my kids
- 1:52:56safety, not to mention their sexual safety.
- 1:52:58There's a factor there. So you weigh that.
- 1:53:01You say, OK, this is this is rough on me, but the alternative
- 1:53:07maybe even rougher. There was a survey done years
- 1:53:09ago and what they did is they asked people, are you discontent
- 1:53:15in your marriage? Are you unhappy in your
- 1:53:17marriage? Yes, yes, very much so.
- 1:53:21And they followed up those who stayed in the marriage anyway
- 1:53:24and those who divorced. And they asked him five years
- 1:53:27later, are you more content now or less?
- 1:53:33The ones who stayed in the marriage generally said things
- 1:53:36got better. The ones who didn't said it's as
- 1:53:41bad or worse because of the complications of the divorce.
- 1:53:48There is no part of psychology that has more research support
- 1:53:52that says divorce is bad for kids.
- 1:53:56None. Thousands of studies.
- 1:53:59Now Again, I know there are people listening to this go but
- 1:54:01you don't understand. My spouse left me.
- 1:54:03I didn't want the divorce. My spouse left me.
- 1:54:06That's true. That's tragic.
- 1:54:07And there's some very heroic single parents out there.
- 1:54:10No question about that. No question.
- 1:54:13Absolutely. They're victims.
- 1:54:15Men and women one of the. Saddest things I see in my
- 1:54:17office, a guy will be sitting there and he converted to
- 1:54:20Catholicism for his wife's sake. Now they have 5 kids, he's
- 1:54:24leaving, he met somebody at work, he's leaving and he says,
- 1:54:30I never bought into this Catholic thing anyway.
- 1:54:33I just kind of did it and went along and went through the
- 1:54:36motions. She's broken hearted and I say
- 1:54:39to him I I can't stop him because he has no moral
- 1:54:41compunction about this. But I said you kind of
- 1:54:44understand what you're opening up.
- 1:54:47Your daughter, how old is she, 15?
- 1:54:50She talking to you? No, no, she thinks I ruined my
- 1:54:53family. OK, how about your 12 year old
- 1:54:57son? He doesn't like my he doesn't
- 1:55:00like my girlfriend at all. I mean, he didn't even want to
- 1:55:02come here. He finds every excuse to come
- 1:55:03here. OK, so in other words, I point
- 1:55:07out to him, Now you see what you're doing jumping into this?
- 1:55:09This isn't just I'm unhappy with my wife.
- 1:55:12This is there's all kinds of complications I can't foresee.
- 1:55:16Happens a lot. Yeah, Divorce also, I think is a
- 1:55:20social contagion. That's my observation.
- 1:55:23When people are close to other people that get divorced, it
- 1:55:27normalizes it more and then they start to nitpick and it's more
- 1:55:30like that. Yes, exactly.
- 1:55:33I had 6 pairs of Italian aunts and uncles.
- 1:55:37Amazing all of them. Their marriage ended when one of
- 1:55:41them died. As I looked at the marriages,
- 1:55:44they weren't necessarily the best.
- 1:55:46Some of them one particular would be looked at like whoa.
- 1:55:50If that was nowadays, that marriage would have been long
- 1:55:52over. But every single one of them
- 1:55:55endured to death, and every single one of them was sad when
- 1:55:59their partner died. Oh man, you know what the
- 1:56:03divorce rate was in 1960? Tell me. 5% wow 5% have people
- 1:56:09changed that much? Have you have you basically said
- 1:56:12no in 1960 people were just a lot nicer.
- 1:56:15Maybe the culture was a little more moral, but but the human
- 1:56:18nature doesn't change. And I think it's just, you say
- 1:56:20it's just been this whole cultural shift of you don't have
- 1:56:24to put up with that. And I think people then share
- 1:56:29the stories, like on social media or they write books or
- 1:56:33they just tell their friends that you don't have to put up
- 1:56:35with that. And then they say, and then
- 1:56:37there's a glamorization process. I've seen this about how happy I
- 1:56:40am now that I'm free and unencumbered.
- 1:56:44And I think a lot of people will be for. 2nd marriages Lila, do
- 1:56:46you know the divorce rate? Tell me.
- 1:56:48The divorce rate first is about 40%, and that's because it's,
- 1:56:52people usually say 50. It's not 50.
- 1:56:54It's because there's second marriages that are.
- 1:56:56The divorce rate for second marriages is 66%.
- 1:57:00Why? Well, in some cases it's because
- 1:57:02I was so difficult to live with. I thought you were the difficult
- 1:57:05one. I'm taking me into the next
- 1:57:06marriage. Make it work.
- 1:57:11Do you find yourself surprised by the kinds of calls that you
- 1:57:15get now? Letters that you get now, the
- 1:57:17kinds of patients effectively that you get now versus 20-30
- 1:57:21years ago, what has changed? Changed radically.
- 1:57:24First of all, I get a lot more questions of my kids gender
- 1:57:27identity confusion. 30 years ago I didn't get any.
- 1:57:31Oh gosh, now I get it all the time.
- 1:57:34So sick. Grandparents will call me and
- 1:57:36say my daughter, my granddaughter, she's 13 and she
- 1:57:40knows she's a boy. All of this and they don't
- 1:57:42explore it. They just assume that that's the
- 1:57:44way it is. So there is some sign that the
- 1:57:47the transgender movement is dropped.
- 1:57:50Yeah, if you've seen those statistics, but they it's.
- 1:57:52All the D transitioners, we have them on the show all the time.
- 1:57:54They're amazing, but they're like, what the hell?
- 1:57:56Nobody stopped. Me like what the hell?
- 1:57:58I mean I was mastectomied. I mean, you cut my breasts off,
- 1:58:01you jacked me up. You, you, you ruined my life.
- 1:58:05And it was a social contagion. Or I was sexually abused as a
- 1:58:08kid or I just was bullied. I or I just had it.
- 1:58:11I just a little more feminine. Or the fact that I was confused
- 1:58:14about a whole lot of things. Right.
- 1:58:16Exactly. So that's a big one.
- 1:58:17The one we talked about, which is I'm separated from my adult
- 1:58:20kids. I don't see my grandkids.
- 1:58:22They will not let me see my grandkids.
- 1:58:24That's a big one. That's happened a lot.
- 1:58:28ADHD has exploded. And I think that in part that's
- 1:58:32been because we tend to look at the child and say something's
- 1:58:35wrong with that kid. The medication has exploded for
- 1:58:40kids. Those are the three things.
- 1:58:43Has anything gotten better? I think as anything else, as
- 1:58:50what we try doesn't work, reality always wins.
- 1:58:53The problem is, are we going to let reality win?
- 1:58:56We have the ability to challenge reality as humans.
- 1:59:00And no matter how many facts and no matter how much reality
- 1:59:02smacks us in the face, we can still say no, no, no, I'm going
- 1:59:06to do it my way. I'm going to do it that way.
- 1:59:07And I think what has gotten better, there's been a number of
- 1:59:10parents percentage wise who have said, you know what, this
- 1:59:13smartphone's a bad idea. Research coming out all over the
- 1:59:17place. This is a bad idea to give it to
- 1:59:19a 12 year old. That's 1-2 more parents are
- 1:59:23saying, I realize now I'm countercultural because I'm
- 1:59:26Christian or because I'm Catholic.
- 1:59:28I realize that now. I realize I can't have one foot
- 1:59:31in the world and 1 foot in my house.
- 1:59:34Yes, I, I live in the world. That's true.
- 1:59:38Not going to be a separatist, but at the same time I got to
- 1:59:41realize the world doesn't think like me.
- 1:59:43That's that's been a big factor. I've got more of them and
- 1:59:46basically not being culturally bullied.
- 1:59:50That's it, Yeah, it. We are living in a culture of
- 1:59:53ideological bullying and it's very, very tragic.
- 1:59:57But if there's an opportunity now to be countercultural and
- 2:00:00change that, we can. We can change that.
- 2:00:02And I do think it is changing. I do see a lot of that.
- 2:00:04I got to just ask you one more thing about there's so many
- 2:00:06things to talk, and I thank you. This has been this is so amazing
- 2:00:10you. Seem smarter already?
- 2:00:11I'm a little bit smarter. IQ tester Right now it's going
- 2:00:13to be about 10 points. I hope so, yes.
- 2:00:15I mean, it might drop down tomorrow, but that's because.
- 2:00:18You're by the kids. They always do that.
- 2:00:20They suck off IQ points like crazy.
- 2:00:23That's legit. That's, I think that's
- 2:00:25objectively true, actually between the sleeplessness and
- 2:00:27whatever else is going on, just sheltering children.
- 2:00:31And I, I'm, you guys know, listening to the show IA lot of
- 2:00:34these times I'm the one benefiting from the conversation
- 2:00:37directly. So I'm asking this question for
- 2:00:39our audience, listening and masking him for myself too.
- 2:00:41But you talked a lot about, I think use the word children that
- 2:00:44are worldly children that are exposed.
- 2:00:46And you know, you just mentioned the 12 year old and yeah, your
- 2:00:4812 year old does not need an iPhone.
- 2:00:50Do not let her have social media.
- 2:00:52That's an easy one in my view. But how much do you recommend
- 2:00:55sheltering kids? That is an accusation thrown at
- 2:00:59religious parents and homeschoolers.
- 2:01:02You can't protect them forever. That's a real world out there.
- 2:01:06They're going to be exposed to it, and when they're finally
- 2:01:09exposed to it, they're going to run like wild dogs.
- 2:01:11Now you know that that's the accusation, the socialization
- 2:01:16question for homeschoolers. What about their socialization?
- 2:01:20All right, let me answer this. You're not protecting them
- 2:01:23forever. You're slowing the pace.
- 2:01:26You're letting them be children longer.
- 2:01:29When my dad grew up or even his father grew up, that they were
- 2:01:33more innocent. My mom was innocent until her
- 2:01:361516 years of age. She was just innocent.
- 2:01:39All right, And you said that's bad.
- 2:01:41OK, so maybe she didn't get some dirty jokes, but in fact the
- 2:01:46average 10 year old nowadays is much more worldly than a 14 year
- 2:01:50old two generations ago. So sad.
- 2:01:52You're protecting them longer. I want to give them a longer
- 2:01:56childhood. I'm going to do what I can to
- 2:01:58keep away these influences through the media, through the
- 2:02:02phone, through the Internet, all of it.
- 2:02:05OK, that's not hyper protection, but parents hear that you're
- 2:02:10going to screw your kid up. You know that, don't you?
- 2:02:12Because one day they're going to realize you did that to them.
- 2:02:16OK, so that's one. Another one is Bill Bennett was
- 2:02:20asked at a homeschooling conference, what about their
- 2:02:24socialization? And Bennett said socialization
- 2:02:29to what? What kind of socialization you
- 2:02:32talking about? For example, my kids were
- 2:02:35homeschooled. Now my wife and I are the
- 2:02:40primary educators. We're the ones to teach them
- 2:02:43socialization, not a group of 24 year old other third or 24 other
- 2:02:49third graders. And their 30 year old teacher.
- 2:02:52Yes, that isn't necessary in in most of human history.
- 2:02:56That's not how socialization took place.
- 2:02:59OK. Public education is a relatively
- 2:03:01new phenomenon. So what are we going to say that
- 2:03:04for all of human history, nobody got socialized because they
- 2:03:07weren't in a third grade class with 20 other kids?
- 2:03:10What is this? And there's research that says,
- 2:03:13and this is, this is a surprise to a lot of people.
- 2:03:16Homeschoolers generally are better socialized.
- 2:03:20They get along with a wider range of peers.
- 2:03:23That's 1-2. They're comfortable around
- 2:03:27adults all right? They don't.
- 2:03:28They don't follow the peer rules. 2 of my kids went to
- 2:03:33private school before we homeschooled them and my son in
- 2:03:36the second grade already started to not want his mother to hold
- 2:03:41his hand on the way to school already because that was a peer
- 2:03:45rule. That's so.
- 2:03:47Sad. Once we homeschooled him, all of
- 2:03:48a sudden his mom became his best buddy, and he didn't know the
- 2:03:50rules. Well, you hold your mother's
- 2:03:52hand. That's cool.
- 2:03:53That's dad. That's cool.
- 2:03:54Your dad kisses you. Oh, yeah.
- 2:03:56My dad kisses me. He's my dad.
- 2:03:58But already he was being socialized differently to that.
- 2:04:02And that was one of the reasons why I said, OK, that's enough.
- 2:04:05That's why if you're going to do school, which there's some
- 2:04:08schools that can be phenomenal, you got to do it really
- 2:04:10intentionally. And that's hard for some parents
- 2:04:13because they don't have access to, you know, the little
- 2:04:16classical Catholic school. They're, they're looking around
- 2:04:19and they're saying there's the public school and then I want to
- 2:04:22maybe homeschool. But we're A2, we, we can't
- 2:04:24afford to live without both of us working.
- 2:04:27And they're in a bind. It's not like the old days of
- 2:04:29homeschooling when mom had to do it all herself or dad had to do
- 2:04:32it. Now there's co-ops, now there
- 2:04:35are is online learning that if so, if mom can be home a couple
- 2:04:38days a week and she can make other arrangements, that can
- 2:04:40happen. There's all kinds of options for
- 2:04:43home schooling. But that said, if your child is
- 2:04:46in this public school setting that you're wary about, you got
- 2:04:50to be vigilant. You got to know what the sex Ed
- 2:04:52is. You got to know who he's hanging
- 2:04:54with. You got to be more vigilant than
- 2:04:57you otherwise would have had to be if this was a farm in 1880 in
- 2:05:01Illinois. Yes, yeah.
- 2:05:03I mean, I think the good a good rule of thumb is to avoid public
- 2:05:06school. I know that's not possible for
- 2:05:08everybody and some public schools are better than others.
- 2:05:10So of course there's going to be nuance in there.
- 2:05:13Do you have a rule of thumb for school?
- 2:05:15A rule of thumb for college, if your kid wants to just have the
- 2:05:19college experience. In other words, he doesn't need
- 2:05:22a technical degree. This is not something that he
- 2:05:24definitely has to be trained in that he's going just to get a
- 2:05:27bachelor's in something. Couple of things, one good
- 2:05:32chance he'll come out with big loans. 50 to 85% chance he'll
- 2:05:37lose his faith. Wow, 350% of kids after they
- 2:05:42graduate in a a Bachelor of Arts degree of some type do not work
- 2:05:46in the field that field and 10 years later the majority are not
- 2:05:50working in that field. That that English degree didn't
- 2:05:52really do much. So as a result, what happened
- 2:05:55was it was a lose, lose, lose. I advise parents college close
- 2:06:00to home, maybe at least the first year or two you can live
- 2:06:02at home. Community College.
- 2:06:04So great trade. Schools, Oh my gosh, I got a
- 2:06:07couple of kids. I got a couple of kids who
- 2:06:09really struggle through high school.
- 2:06:11Both of them are making upwards of 100 KA year because they got
- 2:06:16into trades that they learned. Oh yeah, a lot of kids aren't
- 2:06:22going to college and they're getting into either trades or
- 2:06:25they're getting into their own businesses.
- 2:06:27I, I tease. And they're doing great.
- 2:06:28I tease my engineer, Sonny, as a degree in engineering, I said.
- 2:06:31Andrew said. You big dummy, you went all
- 2:06:34those years of education, you're not making as much as your
- 2:06:37brother. Little sibling rivalry in there.
- 2:06:41All right, this has been so amazing.
- 2:06:43Can you give us to help close this out?
- 2:06:45And then I want to ask you how people can find all your amazing
- 2:06:48work. What's a, is there a success
- 2:06:51story you can share? Maybe one of your favorite
- 2:06:53recent success stories of where you saw transformation or
- 2:06:57positive growth in a family because they started to deploy
- 2:07:02some of these the some of this advice and some of this
- 2:07:04worldview because it's not just tactics you're giving, it's
- 2:07:06really worldview. I can only tell you what people
- 2:07:09tell me, and it's one of the benefits of being at this
- 2:07:12business a long time. I'm surprised when I do a
- 2:07:16conference or something like that, parents will come up to me
- 2:07:19and say, you know, I started listening to you 20 years ago
- 2:07:23and I got to thank you because what you said, I applied and it
- 2:07:27turned my family around and I was shocked.
- 2:07:30I just said, wow, so I'll appreciate that.
- 2:07:33And I said, did you buy a book? No.
- 2:07:34Well, then the heck with you. So that I hear a lot of that.
- 2:07:38And I'm, I'm grateful for that. And I get emails.
- 2:07:40I get a lot of emails. Matter of fact, that's one of
- 2:07:42the reasons why I stayed in Catholic media.
- 2:07:44Initially, I didn't want to be in Catholic media because I
- 2:07:47didn't want to be tied to a microphone.
- 2:07:50I tried it for six months at my wife's behest, and I saw the
- 2:07:55emails. I'm coming back to the church.
- 2:07:58I feel more confident as a parent.
- 2:08:00My marriage has turned a corner. And then I realized, wow, well,
- 2:08:05I better stick with what I'm doing because I can't just tell
- 2:08:08God. Well, you know, you showed me
- 2:08:10that some of these people benefit from this, but I'm busy,
- 2:08:13you know what I mean? I got.
- 2:08:14Oh, yeah. Oprah.
- 2:08:15Yeah. Oprah's calling.
- 2:08:16Oprah's calling. Are you hopeful for the future?
- 2:08:20I am hopeful. For families and and kids.
- 2:08:24People ask me that all the time. Do I think there's going to be a
- 2:08:27reversal? Blunt?
- 2:08:32No, But I do think that there are going to be increasing
- 2:08:37numbers of people who say the way we've been told to do it,
- 2:08:42the way we've been doing it for our families and our marriages
- 2:08:45and religion isn't working. And increasing numbers of people
- 2:08:49are going to say, we got to have other options here that square
- 2:08:53more with reality. And if you look at the numbers,
- 2:08:57there's brush fires, brush fires everywhere.
- 2:09:00For example, the young men who are coming into the church, you
- 2:09:02know that, Lila, you've seen those statistics.
- 2:09:04Young men are doubling their numbers coming into the church.
- 2:09:07How'd this happen in Britain? The Catholic Church is now the
- 2:09:11number one religion in Britain. It has surpassed Anglicanism.
- 2:09:14So how's this happening? People are realizing that way
- 2:09:17doesn't work real well. I see kids who go back to their
- 2:09:21parents and say, mom, I've been so wrong.
- 2:09:23I should have never done that. You and Dad, you and dad did so
- 2:09:27much more for me and I was a 28 year old brat.
- 2:09:31I do see that, see a lot of that.
- 2:09:34So that's the encouraging part of this.
- 2:09:35But I will say this, Lila, the key is doing this.
- 2:09:39The key is prayer for your best judgement to make the decision
- 2:09:45knowing it might not work out. That's just the way it is.
- 2:09:50People will say, well, we'll find out if it was the right
- 2:09:53decision, how it worked out. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- 2:09:57The right decision is the right decision.
- 2:09:59It may blow up in your face, but it was still the right decision.
- 2:10:04That's what I tell parents. And we're children of God and he
- 2:10:08loves us unconditionally. So there's the the root identity
- 2:10:11that all the storms of life. That's real self identity, isn't
- 2:10:14it? That's real.
- 2:10:15The true self identity. Doctor Ray Garandy, this has
- 2:10:18been amazing. How can people find you?
- 2:10:20My websitesdoctorray.com DRRAY dot.
- 2:10:23PZ. And all the books are there,
- 2:10:25signed, autographed. What book should people start
- 2:10:29with? Do you have a recommendation if
- 2:10:30you're a? Parent, the one I'm going to
- 2:10:32give you, discipline that lasts a lifetime.
- 2:10:34Love it. That is the most common
- 2:10:36discipline questions I get asked and I deal with all the things
- 2:10:39we talked about, parental confidence, blackouts, blackouts
- 2:10:41in there, blackouts in there, all of that.
- 2:10:44So that one. 2. Books that I think for adults,
- 2:10:49one is called thinking like Jesus, the psychology of a
- 2:10:51faithful disciple. The other one is Jesus the
- 2:10:54master psychologist and I talk about our Lord's prescriptions
- 2:10:57for good living from a psychological perspective and
- 2:11:00why they work amazing. And then the most recent one is
- 2:11:03how to get along with almost everybody.
- 2:11:05Good one, we got to have you back and we'll do the Jesus
- 2:11:08books. Sure.
- 2:11:09This has been amazing, thank you so much.
- 2:11:11You make it easy. Well, talking to the.
- 2:11:14Professional here. Thank you.
- 2:11:16Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Lila Rose
- 2:11:18Show. I hope you enjoyed it.
- 2:11:19I always do. Make sure that you're subscribed
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