Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E308: How To Keep Your Kids Christian For Life w/Dr Greg and Lisa Popcak | Lila Rose Show

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E308: How To Keep Your Kids Christian For Life w/Dr Greg and Lisa Popcak | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  How do you help your kids build a relationship with God that's
• 0:03
  going to stick? Most of what parents are told
• 0:05
  about raising faithful kids is is just wrong. 85 to 90% of
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  children raised in the church will not remain in the church as
• 0:11
  adults. So we looked at families who
• 0:13
  successfully raised all of their kids to a faithful adulthood.
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  Like 100% six. 100% and we just asked, you know what, what did
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  your families do? We identified 12 habits that
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  these families actually shared. The entire point of Christianity
• 0:23
  is building a relationship with God, not to use those spiritual
• 0:26
  tools in place of relationship. What is one thing that most
• 0:29
  experts say about raising mentally healthy children that
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  is wrong? The kids are resilient.
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  Oh La La, I hate that phrase more than anything else in the
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  world. How can we as parents heal
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  generational wounds so we don't pass those wounds on?
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  Number one. How can parents build more
• 0:45
  patients? Getting off our backs and stop
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  seeing parenting is a test. Give yourself permission to
• 0:49
  enjoy your children. We are so buttoned up as parents
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  we think we have to be. Ace, Greg and Lisa Popchak,
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  welcome to the podcast. Thank you.
• 0:58
  For having us. So you speak annually to 30,000
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  plus people helping them. You've written over 20 books.
• 1:05
  What is the biggest thing that you think most parents get wrong
• 1:11
  in parenting? So I think that most parents
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  approach parenting as a series of techniques that they use on
• 1:19
  their children instead of seeing parenting as a relationship that
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  we need to build with our children.
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  Because, you know, God created each of us to be loved as
• 1:30
  persons. And when we're treated as
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  projects, we push back naturally.
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  And so a lot of times we'll talk to parents through the
• 1:38
  counseling practice or on the radio program or whatever, who
• 1:41
  will say, you know, I'm doing all the things right.
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  We're doing all the techniques, we've tried all the things and
• 1:46
  nothing's working. And you know, that's not to say
• 1:48
  the techniques are bad, but but when techniques become the focus
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  of the relationship, our kids naturally push back because they
• 1:55
  start feeling more like projects than persons.
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  And nobody wants to feel that way.
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  And then just intuitively, that's how God wired us to kind
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  of push back when somebody does depersonalizes us, right.
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  And so when we, when we're able to see parenting as a
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  relationship that we're creating and building with our kids, then
• 2:11
  we can start to hear God speaking to us through our kids
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  and, and interact with, with them and the Holy Spirit in ways
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  that draws closer to each other and, and to the family that God
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  wants us to be. I'd I'd add to that.
• 2:23
  I agree 100%, but I'd add to that is when we start to build
• 2:27
  that relationship and that discipleship relationship with
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  our children, that's when we get our joy back as parents.
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  Because if we're just doing the things it's, it's like trying to
• 2:37
  use a computer or a vending machine and you're trying to
• 2:40
  push the right buttons and you're constantly feeling that
• 2:43
  test in the back of your mind. Is it going to work?
• 2:45
  Am I going to be successful? Am I going to make the grade?
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  If you were and that trains us this but.
• 2:51
  Why can't I push the right combination of buttons to get
• 2:53
  the result that I want? Right.
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  And so. Out of the kid, Yeah.
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  Out of the kid. Out of the kid and out of the
• 2:57
  relationship. Why don't they adore me in this
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  moment? Why are they pushing back
• 3:00
  against me? Why are they having a tantrum?
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  And if we can remember that, first of all, we're all
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  disciples of Christ. But as parents, we're a little
• 3:09
  bit further along in that walk than our kids, but we're still
• 3:11
  walking that walk. We're still learning.
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  So if we can remember, OK, I need to teach my children the
• 3:17
  wisdom that I know and really help them learn it.
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  Not just tell them, but help them learn it.
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  Be good teachers of everything we want them to learn, but also
• 3:27
  that we're not perfect yet and we need to turn to God and say,
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  Lord, what do you want me to do now?
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  What do you want me to do in this moment?
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  I'm about to lose my mind. And God answers that question in
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  large part, not in time, not not exclusively, but in large part
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  through our kids too. Because, you know, he gives us
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  the children that we need and he gives us the spouse that we need
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  for that matter. But, but you know, because by
• 3:49
  responding generously and, and, and responsibly to the needs
• 3:53
  that our children have, God challenged us to, to grow in
• 3:56
  ways that we'd never grow if he hadn't placed them in our lives.
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  And so instead of, you know, when we're struggling with our
• 4:02
  kids, so in their behavior problems or whatever, instead of
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  saying, you know, what buttons can I push?
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  What technique can I use? And, and why am I getting it
• 4:08
  wrong? Being able to step back and say,
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  what does this relationship need to work to be better for, for us
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  to create a connection here that would make my child want to
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  listen to me, that would draw us closer to each other, into God
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  so we can figure this out together.
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  And so, you know, those those struggling moments in parenting
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  feel less like failures and feel more like opportunities to grow
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  closer to each other and learn from each other.
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  So what does that I mean, what you're saying sounds great.
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  It sounds beautiful and I'm going to guess that some people
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  listening, including myself right now are asking, OK, break
• 4:41
  that down in terms of how do you actually build this connection
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  with your children? There's a lot of woo woo type
• 4:48
  stuff out there today about connection.
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  You know, there's a whole gentle parenting school of thought, by
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  the way, a lot of truth in it. So I don't want to make it sound
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  like I'm. We're, we're early adopters of
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  that. I mean, our, our first book in
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  1999 was talking about kind of what people would call gentle
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  parenting. Now you're the OG gentle
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  parenting, OG dental parenting. OK, well then walk us through.
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  I mean, I do think it goes to stomach dreams today in some
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  spaces because it's like kind of unmoored from moral realities
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  and kind of authority a little bit, but not all of it.
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  Again, it depends on who we agree.
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  I don't want to create. And I think it's a lot of times
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  people gentle parent for gentleness sake instead of
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  seeing gentle parenting as a means to cultivating character
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  and virtue. Beautiful.
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  Yeah. So, so in any.
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  And again, that becomes a technique, right?
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  Because now I'm not having a relationship with my child to
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  really understand what do they need from me in order to develop
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  and thrive and and build character.
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  I'm being gentle for the sake of being gentle because some expert
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  told me I had to be gentle. Well, I'm exactly the same kind
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  of vending machine thing. Oh, if we just have this
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  breathing exercise, you'll be the perfect child again and I
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  will feel good as a parent. O again, anything where we just
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  think the technique should do with the parenting.
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  That's when we start to go off the rails a little bit and and
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  feel frustrated as parents. O What would you say are the
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  foundations? Maybe if you have got two or
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  three or 4 of establishing connection and maintaining
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  nourishing connection, so the with your child.
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  So your relationship with your child is not a technique based
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  relationship. I put in these inputs and get
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  these outputs. It's more based on I'm actually
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  connecting with, attaching with and relating with to my child.
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  So in addition to kind of being OG general parents, we were kind
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  of OG attachment parenting too. And especially in the in the
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  space that we're in. And it took us 20 years to
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  figure out that parents we're using attachment parenting like
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  they used other kinds of parenting, seeing it is well,
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  nursing and Co sleeping and baby wearing.
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  We're just techniques that we do to the children.
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  And have I done these techniques long enough and they were
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  missing out on the relationship and they weren't really getting
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  the benefits of it. So the first thing to answer
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  your question, the first thing is really listening, really, not
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  just. With your ears, but with your
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  whole brain and your heart. Present to my child and say, OK,
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  what is the impact that I'm doing having on this child,
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  right? And, and where do I, so where do
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  I want this relationship to go or where do I need to take my
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  child in the behavior or their attitudes or whatever?
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  And, and what's one small thing I can do to take a step toward
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  that? Right?
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  And, and, and by and you can use these kind of attachment based
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  techniques, you know, especially in infancy, the nursing on
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  request and baby wearing and and Co sleeping and those kinds of
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  because what that's supposed to do, though, is build the
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  relationship. It's attuning us to each other.
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  You know, I can, I can read your micro expressions.
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  I can sense what's your, what your body is doing.
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  I can, I can understand we can learn to speak to each other in
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  a more intimate way, so we can hear each other.
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  But if we're just doing it as a bunch of techniques, we're
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  missing out on all that. So it starts there with that
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  kind of relationship where we went to attune to each other and
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  really listen with our whole bodies to each other so that as
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  our kids get older, we're listening to them there as well.
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  I love the fact that you're using the word attunement in
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  this because that's what is going to change everything
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  because you're attuned to the child, but they're also attuning
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  to you. So they start to do something
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  and mom makes that face and they're so used to being attuned
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  to you and feeling in harmony with you.
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  They don't like that face. They're going to stop doing that
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  thing, you know, and, and when our child starts to behave in a
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  way that we're thinking, where is this coming from?
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  We can be more attuned and say, OK, where is it coming from?
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  What do they really need right now?
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  Are they not feeling well? Have they not eaten?
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  Have I been distracted? And they need a few more minutes
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  with me? But we can begin to question
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  that rather than just react to it.
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  And that becomes the basis then for for parenting as your
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  children get a little bit older too, Because instead of seeing
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  it as just my kids are being willful or manipulative, it's
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  they're trying to do something. They're trying to express a
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  feeling. They're trying to solve a
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  problem. They're trying to address a
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  conflict that they don't know how to address.
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  And they're doing it in a, in a terrible way because they don't
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  know what they're doing because they're kids.
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  And that's part of the job description.
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  And So what if we can start there and say, OK, well, you
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  know what? This child is trying to do
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  something. They're trying to meet a need.
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  They're trying to serve a positive intention.
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  Let me work with them to figure out what that is, and then I can
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  teach them how to do it differently.
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  How to do it in a better way, a healthier and a holier way?
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  We call that discipleship discipline and it really draws
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  heavily from Saint John Bosco's preventive system of of
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  education where he really talked about how important it was to
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  let go of heavy-handed approaches to discipline, but
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  really use a more teaching approach rooted in reason,
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  religion and loving kindness. He.
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  Had a vision of a beautiful woman.
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  He never he never went as far as to say it was a blessed mother,
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  but the description is quite obvious.
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  And he had been taking care of all these basically feral
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  children in in the streets of the town.
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  They came to him for education and for housing and for food.
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  And the there was a very heavy-handed, you know, very
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  stick, you know, stick against child prevalence in the society
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  that. Impressive system of parenting.
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  And he had this vision of a blessed mother saying, stop
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  treating my children like cattle.
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  They're they're children, you know, treat them with loving
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  kindness. And it really changed everything
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  for him. And he came up with this entire
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  way of educating that he passed on to all those who worked with
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  him, but saying we have to master ourselves first.
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  So it's really very much about leaning into virtue, leaning
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  into attunement with the child to figure out what the child
• 10:27
  needs, not just to say, oh, well, you're feeling this right
• 10:31
  now. Is that OK?
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  You're feeling this, but what do we need to do to resolve this?
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  To get you to a better place, even a more virtuous and
• 10:38
  healthier. I'm leaning into prayer as well
• 10:40
  because we don't, we don't want a parent without God, right?
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  Our children are God's children first and we have to give them
• 10:46
  back to him eventually. And so, you know, making sure
• 10:48
  that we're bringing prayer into all of our parenting decisions,
• 10:51
  even our interactions with our kids, right.
• 10:53
  So, you know, I did a reel the other day.
• 10:55
  I was to get ready with me while I parent my child, you know,
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  and, and what I did was I had the child, you know, come to me
• 11:00
  and I made the sign of the cross.
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  And therefore I said, OK, Lord, you know, help me be the dad my
• 11:04
  son needs me to be. Help me to really listen and,
• 11:07
  and to help know what they're trying to do and to really teach
• 11:11
  them how to do those things in ways that are pleasing to you
• 11:13
  and that work for us. Now we can start the
• 11:15
  conversation. Yeah.
• 11:17
  Hey, if you're enjoying this episode, I hope that you hit
• 11:19
  that subscribe button. And if you're listening on
• 11:22
  podcast app, leave us five stars and a review.
• 11:24
  We read all the comments. Thank you so much.
• 11:27
  You mentioned Saint John Bosco and how he took in these.
• 11:31
  Really, they're basically orphaned, Orphaned kids.
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  A lot of young boys, a lot of boys that were not so little
• 11:37
  that they were old enough that they could hurt somebody.
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  I mean, these are 8910 year olds, young teens.
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  And he found a way to shepherd these kids as their foster
• 11:45
  father without corporal punishment.
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  He was against corporal punishment, which at the time
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  was. He was seen as a crazy man
• 11:51
  because he's because. He had this vision.
• 11:54
  Right. It's because of the vision you
• 11:55
  had. And, and, but I want to ask
• 11:56
  about that because this is a big debate right now in parenting
• 11:59
  about just how you do discipline, how you deal with
• 12:02
  behavior that's bad, how you build character.
• 12:04
  That's good, right? And John Bosco was like, I'm not
• 12:06
  going to hit them. I'm not going to hurt them.
• 12:09
  I'm not going to spank them. I'm not going to force them into
• 12:11
  uncomfortable positions. It sounds like we should let
• 12:12
  them run naked in a wild. Right, right.
• 12:15
  And some people say, well, if a strong kid needs strong
• 12:18
  boundaries, yeah, maybe we shouldn't, we shouldn't beat a
• 12:20
  child. Of course, not like everybody
• 12:21
  would agree on that. But sometimes you need to use,
• 12:23
  you know, strength against strength to put them, put the
• 12:26
  child in, especially if they're an older kid, they're acting
• 12:28
  out. Put them in their place.
• 12:30
  My background is in elementary education way back.
• 12:35
  And I would say to any parent who's feeling that that desire
• 12:38
  to do that, and I get it because we sometimes feel so
• 12:42
  disempowered, right? So we think if we land more
• 12:45
  power, everything will fall into place.
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  But if you sent your child to school and they were not getting
• 12:53
  the lesson, whether it was a math lesson or a spelling
• 12:55
  lesson, and the teacher said, well, look, you got, you know,
• 13:00
  10 out of 25 of these spelling words wrong, I'm going to beat
• 13:03
  you with a stick now. Or it goes.
• 13:06
  In in time, I'm going to yell at you or.
• 13:07
  Yell at you or whatever that it, but I'm going to use some kind
• 13:09
  of punitive power. I'm going to take away recess.
• 13:14
  I'm, I'm not going to say, OK, there's something about the way
• 13:18
  this child is learning or something that's going on with
• 13:20
  them where they're not learning how to spell these words.
• 13:23
  So how, as I am as a teacher, how should I break down these
• 13:27
  words? Do they know all the letter
• 13:28
  sounds? So as a teacher and then again
• 13:31
  as a parent, I want to look at there's a reason for this
• 13:34
  behavior. There's something they do not
• 13:36
  know, there's something they are not getting.
• 13:38
  What do I need to do to teach them a better way to get their
• 13:44
  need met so they're having a fit because they're frustrated.
• 13:47
  Back this up. Why are you frustrated?
• 13:50
  Because I can't put on my own shoes yet?
• 13:52
  Because my friends are being mean to me?
• 13:54
  Once you figure that out, you can begin to teach them how to
• 13:58
  meet that need in a way that's socially appropriate, that's
• 14:02
  healthier, that's spiritually and virtually better for them.
• 14:06
  Well, and I want to speak to the whole question of like, say the
• 14:08
  strong willed child for, for example, you know what, what
• 14:13
  that really means is that I have a child who doesn't know how to
• 14:18
  get their needs met. And because of that, their
• 14:20
  emotional temperature starts to increase.
• 14:21
  Their adrenaline and cortisol starts flooding their
• 14:23
  bloodstream. And then their their brain
• 14:26
  shifts and they move from a place where they're thinking
• 14:29
  with their cortex, which is their thinking brain out of
• 14:31
  their now limbic system where they're just reacting.
• 14:33
  I feel threatened. I don't know how to get my needs
• 14:35
  met. So I feel under threat.
• 14:37
  And so I'm just going to react And, and some kids, because of
• 14:39
  their temperament, have more of a lashing out kind of reaction
• 14:42
  to that. Other kids shut down.
• 14:44
  Other kids just kind of run off the mouth and do other things.
• 14:46
  But, but, but let's say the strong willed child is the one
• 14:48
  who tends by their temperament to just kind of lash out when
• 14:51
  they feel that they can't meet their needs and they're under
• 14:53
  threat. So if I respond to that by going
• 14:55
  into my limbic place, right, But my, me becoming dysregulated and
• 14:59
  I'm just reacting to their reaction and I'm going to react
• 15:01
  with more force. What ends up happening is we
• 15:04
  start both spinning out then, right?
• 15:06
  And neither one of us is really listening to each other.
• 15:08
  We're just reacting to each other and we're not able to
• 15:10
  problem solve at that point. When you're, when you're in that
• 15:12
  sort of limbic emotional thinking space, you're not
• 15:16
  really interested in solving problems.
• 15:17
  You're interested in overpowering the other person or
• 15:19
  getting out of there. And so and it's and you do what
• 15:23
  you have to do to get to that point and then you're done and
• 15:26
  nobody learns anything. That's why no matter what you do
• 15:29
  when you're in that place, you have to do it over and over and
• 15:31
  over and over again and nothing ever changes.
• 15:33
  So in order to step back and kind of re regulate myself and
• 15:38
  then go to the kid with some empathy and say, look, I get
• 15:41
  that you're upset and you can't act this way.
• 15:43
  You can't talk to me like this. But I, I, I hear that you're
• 15:46
  struggling and I want to help you.
• 15:48
  Let's you know, Ken, are you in a place where we can work
• 15:50
  through that now or you need to take some time to go calm down
• 15:52
  1st and then we'll work it out. But nothing else is going to
• 15:54
  happen in your life till we work it out, right?
• 15:56
  But it's not a punishment. It's just I'm creating space for
• 15:58
  you to calm down or calm down with me.
• 16:00
  And then we're going to figure this out together.
• 16:02
  And so instead of coming at, you know, strength to strength, so
• 16:05
  to speak, or reaction to reaction in reality is what it
• 16:08
  is. I'm coming at it from a quiet
• 16:09
  place of strength with a real interest in loving and serving
• 16:13
  you and helping you be the person that God's calling you to
• 16:15
  be. We just need to get to a place
• 16:17
  where we can really listen to each other and learn from each
• 16:18
  other. So that sounds great.
• 16:20
  What if the child has just hit their other sibling or some
• 16:23
  other child, and you're gonna be like, listen, I know you're
• 16:26
  upset. No.
• 16:26
  No, no, you, you, you separate them.
• 16:28
  No, you separate them and you put that.
• 16:29
  You put the child who hurt the sibling.
• 16:31
  But you don't what you're so, but you don't it was like that
• 16:33
  is wrong, like you don't like, you know, escalate voice,
• 16:36
  elevate intensity. Don't do that.
• 16:39
  You don't you you would recommend that?
• 16:40
  Well, not. Necessarily, you can be very
• 16:42
  firm. You know, this, this is, this
• 16:45
  was a violation and injustice against their sibling.
• 16:48
  So yes, you're saying this is not OK.
• 16:50
  You, you are going to go over here and calm down.
• 16:52
  I'm going to take care of your sibling now because they're the
• 16:55
  one that was hurt and you're going to stay there wherever
• 16:58
  that safe place is for them to calm down.
• 17:01
  And we'll deal with this once I know that your sibling has
• 17:05
  gotten everything they wanted. So first of all, they want all
• 17:08
  the attention because they're the ones who have exploded.
• 17:10
  So you're, you know, you're taking that offline right away
• 17:13
  and you're working with the child that's been hurt.
• 17:15
  You're calming that child. You're getting the child who
• 17:18
  sits somebody a chance to breathe for a minute and then
• 17:24
  you go back and you're like, OK, you were frustrated.
• 17:28
  Let's talk about all the things you could have done differently
• 17:31
  and really giving them that chance to learn.
• 17:33
  You don't hit another person. You can go to a grown up for
• 17:37
  help. You can punch a pillow, as Fred
• 17:39
  Rogers used to say back in the day.
• 17:41
  You can, you know, scribble if you want.
• 17:44
  There's a million things you can do.
• 17:46
  Let's make a list of the things you can do.
• 17:47
  Let's talk about, you know, what it was you were trying to make
• 17:50
  happen with your sibling. And let's role play that, right?
• 17:53
  So I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be your brother.
• 17:55
  I'm gonna be your sister, right? And now you, what is it do you
• 17:57
  want to have happen? And I'm gonna act like them,
• 17:59
  right? But we're gonna actually play it
• 18:00
  out and practice how this could have gone or should have gone.
• 18:04
  And then we'll bring the sibling in and say, OK, well now you
• 18:06
  guys practice and let's see how you guys figure this out
• 18:08
  together. And then, wow, you guys did a
• 18:10
  really great job. Thanks for working through that.
• 18:12
  We did this with our kids and there was one exchange we had
• 18:17
  after doing this for quite a while with them.
• 18:19
  Our oldest came back to us one time and was like, I just wanted
• 18:23
  to thank you because, you know, I really, I expected to kind of
• 18:25
  get yelled at or whatever. And you really helped me figure
• 18:28
  out how to do this with her so that, so that we didn't have to
• 18:30
  fight anymore. And like, we, we were blown
• 18:32
  away. I mean, you were like 12, right?
• 18:33
  Wow. I mean, it's awesome.
• 18:35
  Yeah. So but, but, but it's all about
• 18:37
  really kind of an approach to discipline that is an
• 18:41
  adversarial but actually helpful and has your kids want to come
• 18:46
  to you to ask questions because they know that you're going to
• 18:48
  be helpful with them. It's really hard to find good
• 18:51
  content to watch with my kids for when they are allowed to
• 18:54
  have screen time. I'm always on the lookout for
• 18:56
  low stimulating, story driven and values based kids content.
• 19:00
  That's why I'm very excited about Brave Plus.
• 19:04
  Brave Plus is a new streaming platform with content that
• 19:06
  reinforces our values instead of undermining them.
• 19:09
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• 19:13
  screen out messages that are harmful, but to also avoid over
• 19:17
  stimulating video content that's linked to mental and behavior
• 19:20
  issues. When you check it out, you'll
• 19:22
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• 19:26
  well as new shows like Season 2 of Iggy and Mr. Kirk starring
• 19:29
  Kirk Cameron. And right now, just for my
• 19:31
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• 19:34
  Go to braveplus.com/lila. That's braveplus.com/lila for a
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• 20:33
  There is an extremely famous and influential book back in the 90s
• 20:36
  called On Becoming Baby Wise and it was written by Gary Azo and
• 20:40
  Doctor Robert Bucknam. And it talked about this very
• 20:43
  kind of structured schedule based approach to parenting.
• 20:46
  And there was also this kind of ideology in it that said, well,
• 20:48
  God allowed Jesus Christ on the cross to cry it out.
• 20:53
  God allowed his own son to be crucified and to cry it out on
• 20:56
  the cross. So there needs to be a level of
• 20:58
  toughness in your parenting of your child in order to teach
• 21:02
  them, I guess, suffering well and how to actually grow and
• 21:07
  have character, etcetera. What do you think?
• 21:09
  Yeah. Well, so that that book has the
• 21:11
  distinction of being the only book that I'm aware of anyway,
• 21:13
  that was criticized by both the family, a focus on the family of
• 21:17
  Dobson and Doctor Dobson and the American Pediatric Association
• 21:21
  for, because it was too tough for both of them.
• 21:24
  And, and you know, and again, I mean, I think that that really
• 21:28
  misunderstands the whole point of, of, of the crucifixion and,
• 21:33
  and why the, the father didn't intervene in the crucifixion.
• 21:37
  And it also completely distorts what that means for our
• 21:41
  relationship with our children. Jesus willingly died for us.
• 21:46
  That was his mission so that we could receive salvation and
• 21:49
  enter into heaven. The Father didn't want him to do
• 21:52
  that, and Jesus himself didn't want to do that.
• 21:55
  He said in the garden somebody that he didn't want to do that.
• 21:57
  And in the garden, if you read the scripture, when when Jesus
• 22:02
  has that conversation with the Father, the Father sends angels
• 22:05
  to minister to him. So he didn't just leave him all
• 22:08
  alone. You know, it wasn't like, go
• 22:09
  tough it out the whole way through.
• 22:11
  And the Father was with him on the cross, but Jesus accepted
• 22:15
  the mission that he had to do. But the Father was with him
• 22:17
  through that whole process. And but it was just a hard
• 22:20
  mission to do. And so in a similar way, in our
• 22:23
  children have a hard mission of learning how to handle feelings
• 22:26
  and express their emotions and and handle problems and all the
• 22:28
  stuff that we have to do. And so we need to minister to
• 22:32
  them to give them the strength to rise to the challenges that
• 22:35
  they're facing. Just as the Father Heavenly
• 22:37
  Father ministered to Jesus the Son in the garden and on the
• 22:40
  cross so that he would have the courage to do the hard mission
• 22:42
  that that that he was had to do for us.
• 22:45
  When you're raising kids, how do you make sure that your kids
• 22:48
  stay in their faith and in in church?
• 22:52
  So we actually did a study that through through the Center for
• 22:56
  Applied Research of the Apostle at Georgetown University.
• 22:58
  And I have to say, we did this study because we have been doing
• 23:02
  this work for many, many, many, many years.
• 23:05
  And we were heartbroken because we had so many callers to our
• 23:08
  radio show, so many clients who were saying we've done
• 23:11
  everything we know how to do and our kids have left the faith and
• 23:14
  we're heartbroken. And now they.
• 23:15
  Go to church every Sunday. They.
• 23:16
  Don't go to church or they've left entirely, but they did.
• 23:20
  They growing up, they would go to.
• 23:21
  Church they. Do all the things.
• 23:23
  They, you know, whatever those things were youth groups, you
• 23:26
  know, the children served in church and it didn't stick.
• 23:31
  Well, most of, honestly, most of what parents are told about
• 23:34
  raising faithful kids is is just wrong.
• 23:36
  And the study really showed that.
• 23:37
  Yeah, and we. But we did this study inspired
• 23:40
  by all these heartbroken parents and a very scary statistic that
• 23:44
  was saying that 85 to 90% of children raised in the church
• 23:48
  will not remain in the church as adults, 85 to 90% level.
• 23:52
  We're talking about not only a devastating statistic for, for
• 23:56
  young people now and families now, but if you take 90% of the
• 24:00
  children we're raising and they don't have faith, well, then
• 24:04
  that gives us 10%. And if they're 90% doesn't,
• 24:08
  we're talking the dwindling of, of faith relationships and
• 24:11
  churches in our in our country, in our world, very quickly in,
• 24:16
  in a couple of generations, we're losing everything.
• 24:19
  And it broke our hearts. People really want to share
• 24:23
  their faith with their children. They just don't know how to do
• 24:26
  it successfully. So that's what inspired doing
• 24:28
  this study. So we looked at families who
• 24:30
  successfully raised all of their kids to a faithful adulthood.
• 24:33
  Like 100% successful families. Yeah, all of their kids.
• 24:35
  So whether they had one kid or 8 kids, all of them in the church.
• 24:38
  Yeah. And we've actually talked to to
• 24:40
  large families, families with 10 kids who really identified with
• 24:43
  this as well, who all their kids are faithful.
• 24:45
  And they're like, Oh yeah, that's why, you know.
• 24:47
  After the fact, so. What we did was we.
• 24:49
  They like, accidentally did the thing.
• 24:50
  Yeah, they intuited. It they intuited it, yeah.
• 24:53
  And that's, that's really. So we found families who
• 24:55
  intuited this right? And we interviewed both the
• 24:58
  parents and the adult children now who as adults were attending
• 25:01
  Mass with their own kids and, and their, their spouse.
• 25:05
  And we just asked, you know, what, what did your families do?
• 25:08
  And we identified 12 habits across that these families
• 25:11
  actually shared in common that led to the kids experiencing the
• 25:17
  faith as the source of the warmth growing up.
• 25:21
  That's. What it boiled down and.
• 25:22
  We found that the degree to which kids could experience the
• 25:24
  faith as the source of the warmth in the home growing up
• 25:27
  was the degree to which they were likely to own their faith
• 25:29
  as adults. So the source of the warmth in
• 25:31
  the home, the sense of connection, identity, peace,
• 25:35
  happiness, positivity. Encouragement, even, even even
• 25:39
  encouragement through struggle, right?
• 25:41
  So, so these weren't perfect families, right?
• 25:43
  They had problems just like anybody else but they would talk
• 25:45
  about how they pray together through that and and how their
• 25:47
  faith really drew them closer together through struggle
• 25:50
  instead of what they would see in their friends houses or film.
• 25:52
  That they'd have that consistency of prayer or worship
• 25:55
  together or conversations about what God was doing, even during
• 25:59
  difficult times that let them feel connected to each other,
• 26:03
  connected to God and safe. A sense of that when?
• 26:05
  They went to church, then they'd do something together after as a
• 26:07
  family, and they really saw that creating space for church
• 26:11
  created space for family time. It wasn't just checking off a
• 26:14
  box. We went to church now soccer, or
• 26:16
  we went to church now we all go our separate ways.
• 26:19
  And so they really saw how living their faith in the home
• 26:23
  drew them closer to God and each other.
• 26:25
  And so as these kids would grow up and wanted to learn the
• 26:29
  secrets of a great relationship, as every kid does, they would
• 26:32
  see that their faith was central and essential to having healthy
• 26:36
  adult relationships, which made them want to stay in the faith
• 26:40
  and be faithful. And pass it on to their own
• 26:42
  children. This idea that the faith in the
• 26:44
  home is the place of the warmth, you know, the warmth of the
• 26:48
  connection, the piece, even through struggles, is all around
• 26:52
  faith. I'm going to guess that some of
• 26:55
  those 80 to 90% of families who the kids left the faith would
• 26:59
  say, well, yeah, of course the faith was the source of our
• 27:02
  warmth in the home. Like, I mean, maybe some would
• 27:04
  say, yeah, maybe it was more like the checklist, but there
• 27:08
  I'm going to guess some say, well, I thought that's what we
• 27:10
  were doing. I thought we were doing like
• 27:12
  when you have a troubled day, pray about it.
• 27:14
  Like I thought we were doing that.
• 27:16
  So I find. That a lot of a lot of parents
• 27:18
  really don't pray with their children though like that.
• 27:20
  We might say, oh, you should pray about that, you know, and a
• 27:23
  lot of parents don't even do that honestly.
• 27:25
  You know, we, we pray privately, right?
• 27:28
  We pray for people, but we don't we don't pray with people very.
• 27:31
  Often, well, they would say we did the rosary every night or we
• 27:33
  we did the Bible study. And so that was our family
• 27:35
  prayer. So when it comes to those kinds
• 27:38
  of prayers, those are very beautiful prayers that that
• 27:40
  teach us how to pray and also createspace for us to listen.
• 27:44
  But those kinds of formal prayers aren't meant to take the
• 27:46
  place of, of, of heartfelt prayer of, of verbal, of
• 27:51
  spontaneous prayer. And so even, for example, the
• 27:54
  Lord's Prayer, right, Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer, but
• 27:56
  it's not a formula, right. As we pray through this, it's
• 27:58
  not just Jesus saying say these words to be right with God.
• 28:01
  It he's, he's saying, OK, we'll start with our Father who art in
• 28:04
  heaven, hallowed be thy name. So let's praise God a little
• 28:06
  bit, you know, praise him for the things that he's done in
• 28:08
  your life. Thy will be done thy Kingdom
• 28:09
  come. You know, well how, how is, how
• 28:11
  is God's Kingdom coming in your life?
• 28:13
  How? Are we really will this
• 28:15
  situation, you know, as we pray those lines where we have to
• 28:19
  question, you know, is God calling me into releasing my
• 28:22
  will more Am I building the Kingdom like line by line?
• 28:25
  Forgive us, we. Forgive our trust who's hurt us?
• 28:28
  Let's pray for them. Let's pray that God, you know,
• 28:30
  so, so Jesus wasn't just giving us words to say.
• 28:33
  He was giving us a structure for prayer, right?
• 28:35
  That was supposed to meant to teach us how to pray from our
• 28:37
  hearts. And then things like the rosary
• 28:40
  or Divine Mercy chaplets or any other devotions are meant to do
• 28:43
  the same kind of thing. They teach us how to pray, for
• 28:45
  example, by reminding us to pray for things that we wouldn't
• 28:48
  think of like a peaceful death or that that like it leading a
• 28:50
  holy life. You know, I'm so concerned with
• 28:52
  getting through my work day. I don't ask God to help me be
• 28:55
  holy, you know, but but these deeper prayers ask me to do that
• 28:58
  or to reflect on the life of Christ.
• 28:59
  I'm so concerned with my own stuff that I wouldn't naturally
• 29:02
  think about the suffering or the the joys of Christ life.
• 29:05
  The rosary invites me to do that and, and so that's beautiful.
• 29:08
  It leads me into deeper prayer when I do it properly.
• 29:11
  But if I use it as I'm going to say words at God now, then I
• 29:15
  miss the entire point of the well.
• 29:16
  So it's, it's a, we were talking earlier about the technique
• 29:19
  approach to parenting. This is a technique approach to
• 29:21
  spirituality. God put in the vending machine,
• 29:23
  you know, put in your put in your debit card and you'll get
• 29:25
  your candy card. Put in your rosary.
• 29:27
  If you're a Catholic family, put in the rosary and you get the
• 29:29
  good outcome. Or if you're, you know, maybe
• 29:31
  it's you're not so much in the rosary.
• 29:33
  Maybe you're evangelical. You're like put in the Bible
• 29:35
  study but in the worship music. If we'd have our time in a word
• 29:38
  every day, then this should be the result.
• 29:41
  And and I'm doing this. God needs to give me the payoff
• 29:43
  those. Things are actually good if we
• 29:45
  approach them in a relational mindset.
• 29:47
  And how can I use this spiritual tool to draw closer to God, to
• 29:51
  hear his voice more, to Createspace, to really think
• 29:54
  about those questions that I wouldn't normally think about?
• 29:56
  That's that's good. And that's how those prayers are
• 29:58
  meant to be used. But when we use them as a
• 30:02
  technique to manipulate God or to say that we did the thing
• 30:06
  spiritually so that we can give ourselves a Gold Star for the
• 30:09
  day and say, yes, we we pleased God because we said the words,
• 30:12
  we're completely missing the point.
• 30:14
  Because the entire point of Christianity is building a
• 30:16
  relationship with God and using all the spiritual tools we've
• 30:19
  been given to build that relationship, not to use those
• 30:22
  spiritual tools in place of relationship.
• 30:25
  So the question then becomes, how do you help your kids build
• 30:28
  a relationship with God that's going to stick?
• 30:31
  We practice this in our own homes and actually, this is how
• 30:34
  I grew up. And we teach other families to
• 30:36
  do a similar thing, to take a little bit of time every day
• 30:39
  from the day that your kids are born to pray together as a
• 30:42
  family, even if it's 5 minutes, right?
• 30:45
  Because you get little kids wiggling around or when you're
• 30:46
  praying together. And we, we teach a, a format in
• 30:50
  our parenting books. We use the acronym praise,
• 30:53
  praise, praise, PRAISE. Yeah, I can spell.
• 30:58
  So P is P is praise and Thanksgiving.
• 31:00
  So thank God for the little things that happened in the day.
• 31:02
  Praise him. R is repentance.
• 31:04
  And this is not like hardcore confession or anything.
• 31:06
  It's just, you know, the little times that we may be weren't our
• 31:09
  best selves, just asking God for help to be better.
• 31:11
  And you do this verbally together as a family.
• 31:13
  So mom and dad are both praising God for things that are personal
• 31:16
  and saying yeah, sorry that I screwed up, I was distracted
• 31:18
  today or I was too stern with anything.
• 31:21
  Or to share with the family. That's right.
• 31:23
  A is asking for our needs. We're all pretty good at that.
• 31:26
  But just bringing those things out to God.
• 31:28
  I is interceding for others. S is seeking his will about the
• 31:32
  big questions for our family, you know, or you know, and so
• 31:34
  just really talking out loud about, you know, I'm really
• 31:36
  struggling with this and I want to God help us to know what you
• 31:39
  want us to do. And then E is end by promising
• 31:41
  to listen. So recognizing that the prayer
• 31:43
  doesn't end when we say Amen, prayer continues because God
• 31:46
  speaks to us through experience, his, his, he speaks and things
• 31:49
  come into being. So he continues to talk to us
• 31:51
  throughout the day through the things that happened to us.
• 31:53
  So I want to listen to what God's saying to me in response
• 31:55
  to this prayer as I go through the day and then begin my next
• 31:58
  prayer time by really reflecting a little bit on that.
• 32:00
  Well, what was God saying to me? How was he asking me to grow
• 32:02
  through this? And so we, we do this format as
• 32:04
  a family and with the kids while they're little and as they get
• 32:08
  used to it and start participating in it more and
• 32:10
  maybe even leading it a little bit as a family, then we would
• 32:13
  do is, is have individual prayer time for say 5 to 15 minutes,
• 32:16
  depending on how old the kids were and what they could
• 32:18
  tolerate before family prayer time.
• 32:20
  So we would teach them, OK, you've been doing this with us.
• 32:24
  Let's talk about how to do this on your own.
• 32:25
  And so we would kind of pray with them individually and walk
• 32:27
  them through the steps and, and have them lead it so that they
• 32:30
  could learn how to pray to God this way.
• 32:32
  And we create a little space in their in their rooms where they
• 32:34
  had a prayer corner. Yeah, they got to pick this
• 32:36
  stuff for it. And this usually works around
• 32:38
  six or seven, you know, where they're really starting their
• 32:41
  their logical brains are, are online more.
• 32:44
  And so we would just take that time and and they would have
• 32:46
  that time and then come back and we'd all share.
• 32:49
  Well, did God say anything to us?
• 32:50
  An individual prayer and then do this praise format, which I
• 32:54
  think Lila, you, you hit on something that was so important,
• 32:58
  which is when you're taking time to praise, right?
• 33:00
  Or you're taking time to say, hey, I'm really sorry for this
• 33:02
  thing. What a witness you're giving to
• 33:05
  your children. First of all, you're pointing
• 33:07
  out all the ways God showed up that day.
• 33:09
  You know, I know in my own reversion experience, there was
• 33:12
  a woman Catholic mom who was driving us all a bunch of kids
• 33:15
  home one day and we were all hanging out in the back of a
• 33:18
  van. And I just suddenly heard her
• 33:20
  say, oh Lord, thank you for the beautiful sunset.
• 33:22
  What an amazing artist you are. Nobody had ever used that
• 33:26
  language around me. And I looked at the sunset and I
• 33:28
  was like, she's right. And it was one of those little
• 33:31
  like Lego blocks in my faith development.
• 33:34
  There's like, I can talk to God that way.
• 33:36
  I can notice these things. So mom and dad are noticing
• 33:38
  these things. And then we're building that
• 33:41
  that culture in our family that helps our children notice who
• 33:45
  God is and how he shows up for us.
• 33:47
  And then when we can say, you know, I know I said I was sorry
• 33:51
  for losing my temper today or being short with you, but I
• 33:53
  just, I'm just asking God for forgiveness for this now too.
• 33:56
  And for the grace to do better. Tomorrow and the grace to do
• 33:58
  better tomorrow. So we're constantly teaching
• 34:01
  them, but we're constantly growing in holiness ourselves.
• 34:04
  Because that's scary. That's vulnerable, right?
• 34:06
  I'm going to bring up the fact that I'm not perfect to my
• 34:08
  children. What if they don't respect me?
• 34:10
  They're going to respect us more if we're really honest for God
• 34:15
  in front of them. And you know, with that, that
• 34:17
  praise format with E being kind of N by promising to listen,
• 34:20
  that's a great place to add any kind of more formal devotions
• 34:22
  that your family is is is fond over that speaks to your
• 34:25
  family's heart. So, you know, let's do a decade
• 34:27
  of the rosary to wrap this up or let's do, you know, let's read
• 34:29
  something from Scripture to really reflect on what's God
• 34:31
  saying to us through this. So the point of creating space
• 34:34
  to listen through those more meditative forms of prayer, and
• 34:37
  that's how we can begin to integrate those kinds of more
• 34:40
  formal prayers into that more personal prayer approach so that
• 34:43
  we can teach our kids how to begin to listen to God, how to
• 34:46
  be in disquiet their spirits, and how to reflect and meditate
• 34:49
  on the life of Christ. And I'd say that even in those
• 34:52
  ending things, whether it's a deck of the rosary or scripture
• 34:55
  reading, you're not just doing it to check it off.
• 34:58
  You know, you're saying, OK, what is this decade about?
• 35:00
  You know, what are we learning about the life of Christ or the
• 35:03
  life of of Mary or the disciples in this situation?
• 35:07
  And just while we pray the decade, just think about what it
• 35:12
  would have been like for you to be there, for you to be in their
• 35:14
  position. And when we're done, we'll just
• 35:17
  kind of share anything that came into our minds.
• 35:19
  And by the way, that's from Saint Ignatius of loyal.
• 35:21
  He coined a whole approach to prayer called imaginative
• 35:24
  prayer, which is just inserting yourself into the scripture or
• 35:27
  inserting yourself into that mystery of the rosary and just
• 35:30
  either imagining to being a character in that scene or being
• 35:33
  one of the people who was in that scene.
• 35:34
  Just reflecting on that and have you experienced that in your
• 35:37
  life and how was God speaking to us through that so that we can
• 35:40
  really enter into that mystery or enter into that passage from?
• 35:43
  And really feel God's closeness because he was there in that
• 35:46
  situation as well. And we're like, oh, OK, He's
• 35:48
  still showing up for me in that way.
• 35:51
  So being able to have that kind of closeness, share that way
• 35:55
  spiritually really helps set the road to work.
• 35:59
  Basically for having those deeper conversations with our
• 36:03
  children throughout their lives and knowing that they can come
• 36:06
  to us to not just say, oh, well, I'll pray for you, but that we
• 36:09
  can really stop and pray for them.
• 36:11
  And that is one of the things that we we would do often if the
• 36:14
  kids were struggling with something or just a blessing
• 36:17
  before bedtime, we would pray over them.
• 36:21
  Just, you know, very just a short, heartfelt prayer.
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  off your order. And then one day after I, I
• 38:10
  think my 2 oldest were like 5 and three just hitting this and
• 38:16
  Oh my gosh, sure, they'd given me a time that day.
• 38:19
  It was one of those days of some other where you're like, you're
• 38:21
  not up to here. You're like up to air.
• 38:23
  And I, Greg was at work. I was dealing with these kids
• 38:27
  who were just off all day long. And I was washing up some dishes
• 38:31
  and trying to make dinner and they were losing it.
• 38:34
  And I just looked out like out of the window, like up in the
• 38:36
  sky. And I said, Blessed Mother, you
• 38:38
  have got to pray for me because I can't, I can't, I'm going to
• 38:42
  kill him. I just, I can't and I very kind
• 38:46
  of clearly had this prompting of, well, then ask them to pray
• 38:49
  for you now we prayed over them forever.
• 38:53
  And I, I kind of turned off the where I threw the sponge down.
• 38:55
  I said, kids come to the couch because we have this big great
• 38:58
  room with our kitchen and they thought they were going to get a
• 39:01
  lecture. And I just said, this has been a
• 39:03
  really tough day. I am worn out.
• 39:06
  I do not want to be the mom that I'm going to become if this
• 39:10
  continues. And I need you to pray for me
• 39:12
  because I don't like who I am right now.
• 39:14
  This has been a tough day. And all of a sudden I felt like
• 39:18
  a hand on on my arm and the other hand because I was sitting
• 39:21
  on either side of me and on my knee.
• 39:23
  And they start saying things like, Lord, please help mommy
• 39:27
  feel better. Please help her feel close to
• 39:29
  you. Please let us behave better so
• 39:32
  that she can have a better night.
• 39:33
  Exactly, exactly the same thing happened.
• 39:36
  Suddenly I'm like, OK, the Holy Spirit's here.
• 39:40
  I have taught them how to pray because they couldn't do this.
• 39:43
  I must have done something right.
• 39:45
  We can do this together. We suddenly became a team in
• 39:49
  that moment, like God really showed up.
• 39:51
  So when we do this kind of relationship prayer where we're
• 39:57
  appropriately vulnerable, as you were saying, Greg, we don't want
• 40:00
  to be like, well, now we're going to pray because you know,
• 40:03
  we're going. To I'm reliving my trauma right
• 40:05
  now. Exactly.
• 40:06
  And I need you to talk me through that case.
• 40:07
  I hate your father right now. We're really, really struggling
• 40:11
  with it. Appropriately vulnerable.
• 40:15
  We're building this community of love that we're called to build
• 40:20
  and and it's not just us giving and giving and giving because
• 40:25
  very quickly, I mean, I'm saying like just turned 5 and three, I
• 40:29
  was getting back from my kids in a way that I never expected and
• 40:33
  they. Really did and that was probably
• 40:35
  one of their first experiences of really seeing prayer work
• 40:39
  too, because that was like as soon as they were praying over
• 40:42
  you there was a shift of the dynamic of the room right and
• 40:46
  and they could they could really see in a powerful way that the.
• 40:49
  Power of their own prayer life. And also mom wasn't a vending
• 40:53
  machine anymore in that moment. It's a two way St.
• 40:56
  We had Allison Armstrong on the podcast and she's talking more
• 40:59
  from AI think there's a lot of truth to her kind of philosophy,
• 41:02
  but she's talking more from a secular point of view, which
• 41:05
  anything that's true in the secular world is gods, right.
• 41:07
  But she was saying how when she had little ones, you know,
• 41:09
  stressed out, she would just lay on the ground, be like your
• 41:11
  mother is like overwhelmed, overcome.
• 41:14
  So we're all going to sit here and I just need to breathe and
• 41:16
  you can breathe with me if you want.
• 41:16
  And the kids would like, it was like their moment to be be there
• 41:19
  for mom kind of in an, you know, an appropriate way.
• 41:22
  It's not like too heavily burdening them.
• 41:23
  But as you just described, you're bringing but you're
• 41:26
  bringing God into it. So it's not only mom is, you
• 41:29
  know, a daughter of God too, with all of her own limitations
• 41:31
  and challenges. But Mom relies on God, and we
• 41:35
  together rely on God as a family.
• 41:36
  And that's another example of how the faith is the source of
• 41:39
  the war in that struggle, right? So that was that was far from a
• 41:42
  perfect moment. You certainly didn't feel like
• 41:44
  your best self. No, they were afraid I was going
• 41:46
  to like. You know, play a little
• 41:47
  monsters, you know. Yeah, because it was a day.
• 41:50
  But we we were able to take that moment and turn it into
• 41:52
  something beautiful through God's grace.
• 41:54
  And and that was an example of how how little ways that we can
• 41:58
  make the faith the source of the warmth in the home in good times
• 42:00
  and bad times. There's one more question I need
• 42:03
  to ask about this, which is to do with this question of how to
• 42:06
  hear God. We talk about this a lot on the
• 42:08
  podcast. For people who listen to all the
• 42:10
  episodes, they know that we really want to part of the show
• 42:13
  is living life to your abundance, to God's abundance,
• 42:15
  his purpose for you and really just being as united to God as
• 42:19
  possible. And so you need to be able to
• 42:20
  listen and hear him. And it's not a vending machine
• 42:23
  where you put in enough prayers or you ask the exact questions
• 42:26
  and then you get download, you know, question.
• 42:27
  You know, it is a relationship. So when you say in the praise
• 42:31
  acronym there is I think the S is seeking.
• 42:33
  His will. Seeking his will and then the E
• 42:35
  is and by listening, what are some more practical tools that
• 42:40
  you have taught your kids and you teach others to teach
• 42:43
  themselves and their kids about how to really seek God's will
• 42:46
  and to listen for God's voice personally in your own life.
• 42:49
  So. People kind of make this a lot
• 42:50
  harder than it needs to be, OK, because they expect to have this
• 42:53
  kind of, you know, Cecil B de Mille, Moses momentum.
• 42:56
  Yeah, yeah, everything. Wear the wear the wear the
• 42:58
  aluminum foil hat and say the words, you know, and and then,
• 43:01
  you know, so. But yeah, because you got to
• 43:04
  tune, because you got to tune in the, really the signals, right?
• 43:09
  No, but, but so Saint Ignatius was a big proponent of
• 43:15
  discernment and, and really hearing God.
• 43:17
  And he, he kind of came with the whole system that really, and,
• 43:19
  and I think this is helpful to start here because this explains
• 43:22
  why we can overthink this, right?
• 43:24
  So he talked about 3 modes of discernment.
• 43:26
  And the first one is basically where, you know, God knocks you
• 43:28
  off your horse like Saint Paul. And, and he said that, you know,
• 43:31
  God tends and that's the one we want, right?
• 43:32
  We want God to really just make it clear.
• 43:34
  Right, tell me what to do. Tell me what to do.
• 43:36
  But but he said that that God tends to only do that around
• 43:39
  things that we couldn't possibly know and figure out on our own.
• 43:43
  So Saint Paul couldn't figure out that he was supposed to go
• 43:46
  from killing Christians to being one naturally, right?
• 43:49
  So, so God had to knock him off his horse to tell him to do
• 43:51
  that. And there's.
• 43:52
  This being one, but creating other Christians, that was a big
• 43:54
  leap. So, you know, so, so God had to
• 43:57
  knock him off his horse to do that.
• 43:59
  And we've all had moments where, you know, there was something
• 44:01
  that we couldn't possibly figure out and we just felt God moving
• 44:04
  and all we had to do is kind of get out of the way and that was
• 44:06
  going to happen. We love that.
• 44:07
  But that's not the normal way God works.
• 44:09
  So then there's the second way that St.
• 44:11
  Amatius talks about and he compares it to like watching the
• 44:13
  sun come up and, and, and, and he said that this is sort of
• 44:16
  like what happens when we are having to choose between two
• 44:18
  good things, right? And so we're sitting and we're
• 44:20
  watching the sun and it's dark at 1st and we're just sort of
• 44:22
  sitting with it. And we could have two decisions
• 44:24
  and, and at some point one of them just sorts starts to rise
• 44:27
  and we might not be able to explain why.
• 44:29
  It's just more present and it feels more right.
• 44:33
  And so we we lean in that direction and we kind of trust
• 44:36
  that movement of the Spirit as we're resting in prayer.
• 44:39
  I mean, it's not just we're deciding on our own.
• 44:40
  We're really praying about it. We're getting good information.
• 44:43
  And. We're getting good counsel too.
• 44:45
  So we're getting information. We're not just kind of winging
• 44:46
  it, you know? Then the third way, which is
• 44:50
  what I think really interesting is he talks about how God speaks
• 44:52
  to us through our own will and intellect.
• 44:55
  And CS Lewis actually talks about this too, where, where he,
• 44:57
  he talks about how, you know, like, like we're when we're
• 45:00
  teaching a child how to walk, we hold that child's hand.
• 45:03
  Well, God holds our hand while we're learning to listen to him
• 45:05
  too, through our will and our intellect.
• 45:07
  And, and anytime, you know, we believe as Christians that we as
• 45:10
  human beings can't choose to do good or true or beautiful things
• 45:14
  on our own. Anytime we are inclined toward
• 45:17
  what is true or good or beautiful, that's the Holy
• 45:19
  Spirit moving in US, whether we realize it or not, right.
• 45:22
  And so if we are praying about this thing and uniting our will
• 45:25
  and our intellect to God, and we're saying, you know, Lord,
• 45:27
  inform my heart, you know, and, and it just seems right to do
• 45:31
  this thing. We need to trust.
• 45:32
  That's God's voice speaking to us because God doesn't have a
• 45:36
  voice, because he doesn't have a body.
• 45:37
  He uses our voice. He uses the voices of other
• 45:39
  people. So, so if the voices in our head
• 45:41
  or the impulses in our hearts or the desires that we feel are
• 45:44
  leading us toward what is true or good or beautiful, what is
• 45:46
  meaningful or intimate or virtuous, that's not coming from
• 45:49
  us. That's coming from the Holy
• 45:51
  Spirit movie and us saying, come on, let's go, let's do that
• 45:53
  thing, you know, and we have to trust that instead of just oh,
• 45:57
  you know, what if I screw it up? What if I get it wrong?
• 45:59
  What we have to realize that that's God speaking to and what
• 46:01
  I always say is like, look, Lord, I realize I'm an idiot,
• 46:04
  right? And I don't know anything.
• 46:05
  So, so if I'm getting this wrong, please do whack me upside
• 46:08
  the head with a 2 by 4. I don't want to do anything that
• 46:10
  this. Don't let me mess this up, Lord,
• 46:12
  but. But but based on what I'm
• 46:14
  thinking, and you're not giving me any bigger sign, I'm trusting
• 46:16
  that you're speaking to me through my own will and through
• 46:18
  my own intellect to do the right thing.
• 46:20
  And we've prayed about it, and we're figuring, so this is what
• 46:22
  I'm going to do unless you tell me otherwise.
• 46:24
  And I find, too, that the other thing that kind of messes us up
• 46:29
  is that we worry that we're going to get it wrong, right?
• 46:32
  So we like to talk a lot about GPS, God's positioning system.
• 46:36
  Love that God's positioning system.
• 46:38
  So if we get it wrong, right, It's just like with GPS, if I
• 46:42
  miss the turn and I'm not doomed to never make it to my
• 46:45
  destination, it's just recalculating turn left at the
• 46:49
  next. God will give us this directions
• 46:51
  if we pay attention to the map. And He gets us back on track.
• 46:54
  There's nothing, no choice we can make that God can't correct
• 46:57
  as long as we're moving and attempting to move in His will.
• 46:59
  So if we can follow those basic principles in our own life, we
• 47:02
  can find little ways to teach them and model them to our kids
• 47:05
  as well. Beautiful.
• 47:06
  We had Jamie Winship on the show very recently who does some
• 47:10
  beautiful work on identity and God's given identity, and he
• 47:13
  talked about similar to what you just described.
• 47:15
  You're walking on a beach, you know, your destination, you're
• 47:17
  starting here and then you just stop, you know, you're detouring
• 47:19
  basically just or you like walk off to the side and like, like
• 47:23
  fall in a Bush or something. And but he said that at any
• 47:27
  point you can get when you're, as long as you're alive, you can
• 47:30
  get back on. And then he said something else.
• 47:32
  And I want to know what you think about this.
• 47:34
  He said, and with God, no time is lost.
• 47:38
  That's right. No time is lost because I think
• 47:41
  sometimes we were like, I got off too many off ramps that I
• 47:43
  shouldn't have got on, got off. I went down too many roads I
• 47:47
  shouldn't have gone down. I screwed up.
• 47:49
  I'm screwed. Yeah, no, if God, if God wants
• 47:52
  you there, if you give him permission to get you there,
• 47:55
  you'll get there. Yeah, even if we've closed the
• 47:57
  doors for a while. So it might.
• 47:58
  One of my favorite Saints is Saint Peter because boy did he
• 48:03
  mess up three times, you know? Those are just the ones we know
• 48:07
  about there. Probably more, but we know of I
• 48:10
  mean, and there were other things, you know, the sword, the
• 48:13
  the sword incident. But Jesus said you're going to
• 48:16
  deny me three times. No, Lord, I will never do that
• 48:18
  to you. I will not.
• 48:19
  You know, his seal was so his love for Christ was so intense,
• 48:22
  but in fear and confusion, he did deny him three times.
• 48:28
  But then what happens after the resurrection?
• 48:31
  Jesus is sitting there making them breakfast like that.
• 48:35
  That that scene just blows my mind scripturally because this
• 48:39
  is this is a God who has conquered hell and he comes back
• 48:45
  to his disciples resurrected. And he could just be sitting
• 48:50
  there on a rock talking. No, he's kindle to fire.
• 48:53
  He's baking bread. He's he's baking them fish.
• 48:58
  He happens to tell them how to, you know, fish off the other
• 49:01
  side of the boat because they're all exhausted because nothing's
• 49:03
  worked all night. And the, the Nets are filled.
• 49:06
  And Peter comes to him over this, this work that Jesus has
• 49:11
  done on the beach to cook them this meal.
• 49:15
  And he says, Peter, do you love me?
• 49:17
  Yes, Lord, I love you. Tend my sheep, feed my sheep, 10
• 49:23
  my sheep three times he gets to be redeemed and get his marching
• 49:27
  orders. And it was very simple.
• 49:30
  Take care of my children as I'm taking care of you right here.
• 49:34
  I'm cooking for you, I'm loving you, I'm giving you redemption.
• 49:37
  I'm giving you my peace. Nothing that happened with Peter
• 49:43
  was wasted. You know, not only did no time
• 49:46
  go by for God, you know, as your guest had said, but everything
• 49:50
  that had happened was redeemed and and given to us to let us
• 49:54
  know that if we make mistakes, if we fail, if we go end up in
• 49:58
  the bushes that God's going to. As long as we keep our hearts
• 50:02
  open and keep inviting him, or reopen our hearts and invite him
• 50:06
  back in, He's going to make great things out of it.
• 50:09
  So growing up, all of my schools were, were run by Franciscan
• 50:13
  priest. And so I kind of preferred
• 50:16
  Franciscan spirituality. So they're, they're, they're one
• 50:19
  of the stories about Saint Francis of Assisi is that he, he
• 50:23
  heard God say to him, go and rebuild my church.
• 50:27
  What he thought God meant was that he was supposed to go and
• 50:30
  build little chapels in the Italian countryside, right?
• 50:33
  So he built, you know, dozens of little churches that people who
• 50:36
  kind of worship and and they call them ports young gloves and
• 50:38
  and that's not what God meant. God meant renew my whole church
• 50:43
  like be a move, create a movement that will bring the
• 50:46
  church back to me. But but he didn't condemn
• 50:50
  Francis for building those little chapels and they still
• 50:52
  exist today and are a part of his project of renewing the
• 50:55
  church because people encountered Christ in those
• 50:57
  places. But but he he went on, you know,
• 51:01
  God was like, that's adorable. This is what I really over here.
• 51:05
  Let me show you what else you. Could do stop playing with
• 51:07
  rocks? I mean, that leads us right back
• 51:10
  to that discipleship discipline that is adorable.
• 51:13
  I love that you love me enough to to work with your hands and
• 51:17
  rebuild these churches. Now let me teach you what I
• 51:20
  really I. Want you to go work with these
• 51:22
  people right that was let me. Teach you it wasn't you did this
• 51:25
  wrong. You didn't hear me right?
• 51:26
  It was I love. That Saint Francis like that was
• 51:29
  thank. You, you learned more about me
• 51:32
  and how to build by doing this. Now let's move on to this next.
• 51:36
  Apostles, we wanna be great fishermen.
• 51:38
  That's adorable. Make you fishers of men.
• 51:43
  And the same thing could be happening with our parenting.
• 51:46
  So we're dealing with our child who's making a mistake, who's
• 51:49
  messing up in some way. And, and we can see, you know, I
• 51:53
  see what you're trying to do and that's, that's really adorable.
• 51:55
  But let's talk about how to do it in a way that actually works,
• 51:58
  you know, And so now we can teach them how to express their
• 52:01
  feelings or how to negotiate with their brother or how to
• 52:03
  take turns or whatever it is we need to teach them.
• 52:05
  But we're able to approach it from a helpful place.
• 52:08
  I want to talk about this for a moment through the mental health
• 52:11
  lens because that's a full blown crisis today, mental health
• 52:17
  rates. In adults and in children.
• 52:20
  In adults and in children, mental illness has risen
• 52:23
  dramatically over the last decade.
• 52:25
  Suicidality for both boys and girls.
• 52:29
  The medications now that children are on has skyrocketed
• 52:32
  because of mental health issues. Everyone's diagnosed, basically.
• 52:35
  I think it's one out of every four kids have a diagnosis now,
• 52:38
  or maybe it's one out of every three.
• 52:40
  What is one thing that most experts say about raising
• 52:45
  mentally healthy or well children that is wrong in your
• 52:49
  view? The kids are resilient.
• 52:53
  I hate that phrase more than anything else in the world.
• 52:56
  I lost my dad when I was 5, my sister was 13, and that's all
• 53:03
  people told my mother. Kids are resilient.
• 53:06
  They'll be fine, kids. Kids.
• 53:08
  Kids are not resilient. Kids are adaptive, but they're
• 53:11
  not necessarily resilient. They're a mess.
• 53:14
  We, we, we, if we're not taught how to be resilient, if we're
• 53:19
  not given the skills by people who can come alongside of us and
• 53:23
  teach us and love us and help us, resilience becomes
• 53:27
  woundedness. Woundedness becomes a trauma
• 53:32
  risk. You know, we have trauma
• 53:33
  responses and we take those substances and we hurt people,
• 53:37
  all of that. So I think truly that is, you
• 53:40
  know, stop saying kids are resilient.
• 53:42
  If a, if a grieving wounded child is out playing, don't
• 53:47
  think they're resilient and fine.
• 53:49
  They're just doing what they do, what what's habitual, what
• 53:52
  they're what's expected of them. We have to really attune
• 53:56
  ourselves to the fact that every single human being, no matter
• 53:59
  their age, needs to be cared for and helped to move from a place
• 54:05
  of woundedness to a place of healing.
• 54:09
  I think the opposite of that though, is also a problem right
• 54:11
  where where we can turn every feeling into a kind of an idol.
• 54:19
  Or crisis. Yeah, yeah.
• 54:20
  Where, where, you know, feelings are information and they're
• 54:22
  important information. They, they tell me that that
• 54:26
  things are not the way they should be.
• 54:27
  They tell me that I'm not feeling right.
• 54:29
  They tell me and they, they give me hints of what I should do
• 54:31
  about that, but they're not meant to stay put.
• 54:34
  Feelings aren't meant to be static.
• 54:36
  They're meant to be energy that moves us to equilibrium.
• 54:41
  And so when parents in particular, you know, kind of
• 54:45
  see their their childhood, oh, your feelings are wonderful,
• 54:48
  just, you know, and they are, their feelings are important,
• 54:50
  right? But again, feelings aren't meant
• 54:52
  to be worshipped as a thing. They're meant to be harnessed as
• 54:57
  an energy that can help us achieve that equilibrium and
• 55:00
  that homeostasis that allow us to be strong and virtuous and
• 55:03
  healthy. And so if I'm struggling and I'm
• 55:06
  I'm angry and I'm lashing out, OK, what do we need to do to to
• 55:09
  identify the fact that there's something wrong and then help
• 55:12
  you get to a place where you can deal with that?
• 55:14
  You know, and that's how we honor the feeling but not make
• 55:17
  an idol out of the feeling. And not just deal with it in a
• 55:19
  way of I can accept my feeling, but in a way that moves each one
• 55:24
  of us as humans to a space of efficacy.
• 55:27
  So I'm feeling afraid, I'm feeling wounded, I'm feeling
• 55:29
  hurt. How can I move to a place where
• 55:32
  I feel effective in my own life to be able to handle this
• 55:36
  feeling and handle the situation?
• 55:38
  And that has to be taught to all of us because most of us are not
• 55:41
  given those skills even up to adulthood.
• 55:44
  That's my next question. How can we as parents heal
• 55:46
  generational wounds so we don't pass those wounds on to our
• 55:51
  children? So I, I think it's, it's funny
• 55:54
  to me how amnesiac adults are for their own childhood, you
• 55:59
  know, and so we actually in, in our parenting books, parenting
• 56:03
  your kids with grace and parenting your teens and tweens
• 56:04
  with grace. We actually have a chapter in
• 56:06
  the book called parenting as a healing enterprise, that God
• 56:09
  wants to heal us through our parenting role.
• 56:12
  And I don't mean that, that God wants to put our children in the
• 56:15
  place of taking care of us. That's not appropriate, right?
• 56:17
  But we have an exercise and they were called the four question
• 56:20
  exercise. And it's basically walks parents
• 56:22
  through these four questions that have them reflect on their
• 56:25
  own childhood when they're dealing with their kids.
• 56:28
  Like so, so my kid is driving me crazy because they're speaking
• 56:30
  disrespectfully or they won't follow through or they won't,
• 56:32
  whatever. And I'm reacting out of that.
• 56:34
  And I don't like my reaction. I feel like, you know, I'm not
• 56:36
  being the parent that I want to be or the gods calling me to be.
• 56:38
  So I'm going to use these questions.
• 56:40
  And the first question is just basically, you know, when when I
• 56:43
  was a child, how was how was this handled in my home?
• 56:48
  So, So what did my parents do? Oh, well, I would never would
• 56:50
  have done this because they would have just, you know,
• 56:52
  whatever. OK, Step 2.
• 56:55
  Or maybe the parents just neglected them and just like.
• 56:57
  Whatever it was. Whatever.
• 56:59
  It was the parents now exerting control like my my mother and
• 57:02
  father ignored me when I fought or when I just was not doing my
• 57:06
  homework, whatever it is. And so I need to like double
• 57:08
  down on my kid in this situation.
• 57:10
  So, so whatever it was, right? So how did how was this dealt
• 57:13
  with in my family of origin? The second question is, did that
• 57:17
  help me feel closer to my parent or did it make me feel further
• 57:21
  away from my parent? That's good.
• 57:23
  Good question and. Then the third question is, do I
• 57:26
  want my child to feel that way about me?
• 57:29
  Like would I would I be happy if I replicated that dynamic in my
• 57:31
  relationship with my kid? And then finally, if not, what
• 57:36
  could I do to address this in a way that dress closer to each
• 57:39
  other? And so it's just about being
• 57:41
  intentional about those interactions where my child
• 57:45
  triggers some wound in me or some situation triggers some
• 57:47
  wound in me where I'm not just coming out reacting out of that
• 57:50
  limbic place where I'm trying to get power over the situation
• 57:52
  because I feel threatened, right?
• 57:54
  I'm, I'm actually taking that breath, ideally, you know,
• 57:57
  bringing it to God in prayer and then walking through those four
• 58:00
  questions that help me be a little bit more intentional and
• 58:02
  thoughtful about where is this feeling coming from?
• 58:04
  You know, is it really that my kid is making me feel this way?
• 58:07
  Or is it they bumped up against a wound that I have and now, you
• 58:09
  know, I'm reacting out of that pain.
• 58:11
  And if I am, do I want to, do I want to cause that pain for
• 58:14
  them, for them to carry it to their kids?
• 58:17
  And if not, how could I respond differently?
• 58:19
  So now I have a choice and you know, it doesn't automatically
• 58:22
  change everything because we still might need to have skills
• 58:24
  or we might still need to get help or or figure, you know,
• 58:27
  problem solved a little bit. But it at least starts the
• 58:29
  process where we can begin to think differently about those
• 58:33
  wounds and see how God is speaking to us through our
• 58:35
  child, through our family, through our circumstances, and
• 58:38
  inviting us to heal. And it not only breaks that
• 58:41
  chain of generational pain for the child, but it starts to
• 58:46
  break it for us because suddenly we're moving to that place of
• 58:50
  recognition and efficacy. And we're saying, OK, well, that
• 58:54
  happened. And it happened not because my
• 58:56
  parents were necessarily bad people.
• 58:59
  Maybe they didn't have certain skills.
• 59:00
  Maybe the circumstances were difficult, whatever that was.
• 59:03
  But we don't have to condemn our parents, but we can say, but I
• 59:07
  didn't feel close to them. I didn't feel like I learned the
• 59:09
  right things in that. I'd like my child to not just
• 59:13
  feel closer to me in a superficial way, but in a way
• 59:16
  that brings us closer together in a way that's healing and good
• 59:20
  for both of us and helps the child develop better.
• 59:24
  And so now I'm learning that I can heal because I can do
• 59:28
  something differently. I don't have to just carry the
• 59:30
  weight of that generational pain and say, well, this is who I am
• 59:34
  and I'll always be broken because I can make those baby
• 59:37
  steps to real healing. I love what you're saying also
• 59:40
  because it's very doable. I think sometimes people in
• 59:45
  their parenting feel a bit of despair or they're afraid of
• 59:47
  even getting married and having kids or even having more kids
• 59:50
  because they're going to screw up.
• 59:52
  And they think I have to somehow go be healed in order to do
• 59:54
  this. And I have to go off and do this
• 59:56
  healing thing and then I can be ready instead of no the healing
• 59:59
  thing. Happens as part of your activity
• 1:00:02
  of parenting in you doing these four steps in you, you know,
• 1:00:07
  getting wise counsels, taking time to care for yourself in
• 1:00:09
  prayer, praying with your kids, you know, learning in your own
• 1:00:12
  experience with your kids how you can.
• 1:00:14
  Yeah, say, I made a mistake here and I'm sorry.
• 1:00:17
  You know, I raised my voice or whatever it was that healing is
• 1:00:20
  an ongoing process, really until our dying day, I believe.
• 1:00:23
  Well, and I kind of going back to our, our conversation about
• 1:00:25
  discernment, right? You know, I mean, what you're
• 1:00:27
  talking about here is, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put my life
• 1:00:29
  on hold until I figure out how to get all my crap worked out,
• 1:00:33
  right? And then my life is on hold
• 1:00:35
  forever. You know, we, we have to, we
• 1:00:38
  have to move forward. God, God can work with us as
• 1:00:40
  long as we're moving and as long as we're giving that movement to
• 1:00:43
  him, right? It's not just I'm moving on my
• 1:00:44
  own. It's like, OK, God, I'm taking
• 1:00:45
  the next step. I don't really know what I'm
• 1:00:47
  doing. I don't know where my foot's
• 1:00:47
  gonna land, but I'm trusting you're leading this.
• 1:00:49
  And, and as long as we're living, God can speak to us
• 1:00:52
  through that experience because again, he speaks to us through
• 1:00:54
  experience. And so when we, when we have
• 1:00:57
  that child, when we take that step, when we do that thing,
• 1:01:01
  even though we're not 100% sure we can like like Moses, right,
• 1:01:04
  going to speak to Pharaoh with a stutter and with a stutterer,
• 1:01:06
  you know, he didn't know how he was going to do it, but he just
• 1:01:08
  trusted that somehow he was going to work it out.
• 1:01:10
  And God worked through that experience.
• 1:01:12
  You know, we keep giving the experience back to God.
• 1:01:14
  OK, God, I took this step. Now I'm in a even bigger mess.
• 1:01:17
  What now? And then they take the next
• 1:01:18
  step. Oh, OK, I'm starting to figure
• 1:01:20
  this out. And then bit by bit, bit by bit,
• 1:01:22
  He works the healing in us because we're not afraid to step
• 1:01:25
  out in faith, but we continue to bring the process to him and ask
• 1:01:28
  him to take guide the next step and the next step and the step
• 1:01:30
  after that. How do we raise our kids to not
• 1:01:33
  be spoiled? Mutual self donation.
• 1:01:37
  What's Saint John Paul the 2nd called mutual self donation.
• 1:01:41
  So we as parents fall into kind of two traps.
• 1:01:45
  One, we want to make their lives so perfect and wonderful and
• 1:01:48
  also we want to make our lives easier.
• 1:01:49
  So we push them away. I'll do it.
• 1:01:51
  I'm I'm faster at this. I can do the laundry, the
• 1:01:54
  dishes, clean up the living room by myself faster than having
• 1:01:57
  these kids around. But John Paul the second really
• 1:02:01
  called us this idea of mutual self donation according to our
• 1:02:04
  level of ability, right. So from the very beginning, you
• 1:02:09
  know, as we're doing things around the home, you know, maybe
• 1:02:14
  mom and dad are more capable, more skilled and faster, but the
• 1:02:17
  one year old can put their toys with you standing there into the
• 1:02:22
  toy basket. And then you're saying thank
• 1:02:24
  you, That that helps me so much. We're working as a family.
• 1:02:27
  I love this. Instead of pushing the kids away
• 1:02:30
  while you're trying to do chores, you bring them with you.
• 1:02:32
  And then the, and the toddler comes behind you with a dust rag
• 1:02:34
  and they're clean. They're dusting the living or,
• 1:02:36
  or you know, you're, you're sort of hand mommy the sock, you
• 1:02:38
  know, or hand dad, the, you know, the, the, whatever you
• 1:02:41
  know, or can you find all the blue socks?
• 1:02:43
  Or can you find you know, and you're, you're teaching them how
• 1:02:45
  to give back. So it's not that we're just
• 1:02:47
  doing things for them, but we're helping them learn to give back
• 1:02:50
  as well. One of the things that this
• 1:02:52
  actually came out in the, in the study, the Georgetown study that
• 1:02:54
  we did that the, the families who experienced the faith as the
• 1:02:56
  source of the warmth in their homes.
• 1:02:57
  One of the things they did, they had work rituals where they
• 1:02:59
  worked together, but the, the, the, the focus wasn't the job.
• 1:03:02
  The focus was relationships while we're doing the job,
• 1:03:05
  right? So they were cleaning up the
• 1:03:06
  family room, but they put on some music and they laughed
• 1:03:08
  together and they danced around a little bit while they did it
• 1:03:09
  right, You know, or they're washing the dishes together
• 1:03:11
  after dinner, but they were continuing the conversation from
• 1:03:14
  dinner, not just getting the dishes done so they could go run
• 1:03:16
  out and do the thing. So, so it was having this kind
• 1:03:18
  of relational approach to work that enabled them to, to learn
• 1:03:22
  how to not the parents to serve, but then the kids to serve at
• 1:03:26
  the level that they were capable of.
• 1:03:28
  And because this was part of the family culture that as kids got
• 1:03:31
  older, they knew how to do chores because they learned how
• 1:03:34
  to do that at their parents side.
• 1:03:36
  And then they also what well, one of the things that we
• 1:03:39
  encourage in our in our books is having just a conversation as a
• 1:03:41
  little part of family prayer. What's one thing that each of us
• 1:03:43
  could do to try to make each other's day a little easier,
• 1:03:45
  more pleasant? I love that.
• 1:03:46
  Let's just. Talk about that instilling from
• 1:03:50
  tiny age on up, this idea of you matter, us working for each
• 1:03:55
  other's good matters. Nobody in the family is just
• 1:03:58
  being used. You know, you're not constantly
• 1:04:01
  just draining mom and dad of their financial and physical
• 1:04:04
  resources resources you're giving back what you can give
• 1:04:08
  back. We're learning how to love one
• 1:04:10
  another and respect one another. And so we're developing this
• 1:04:15
  idea as we go through of we're each children of God, we're here
• 1:04:21
  to serve one another. And so the child has a sense of
• 1:04:27
  responsibility, of respect for the rest of the family and other
• 1:04:32
  people as we begin to serve outside that family.
• 1:04:35
  And that really cuts down on that entitlement, that being
• 1:04:39
  spoiled idea of, yeah, I can just ask mom and dad because
• 1:04:43
  they've given me everything and I've never had to do anything.
• 1:04:46
  I could just keep giving, you know, asking and asking and
• 1:04:48
  asking. And we feel less used as parents
• 1:04:51
  because we're teaching them how to come alongside of us.
• 1:04:55
  So I think that's a good head, you know, a good start toward
• 1:05:00
  keeping that spoiled mentality away.
• 1:05:02
  Because it allows you to be as generous as you can be with your
• 1:05:05
  children, but but also not fall into the trap of not expecting,
• 1:05:09
  not asking them to give what they're capable of giving back
• 1:05:11
  to the relationship. So that so that everybody really
• 1:05:13
  does learn that, you know, that that idea of mutual self giving
• 1:05:17
  in a very practical way, where I'm, I'm giving you as as the
• 1:05:20
  parent everything that I can give you and you're giving me
• 1:05:22
  everything that you can give me as, as my child.
• 1:05:24
  And we're building relationship and family together.
• 1:05:26
  How can parents build more patience?
• 1:05:31
  You know, I, I, I think by #1 getting off our backs and stop
• 1:05:36
  seeing parenting as a test that we're constantly in danger of
• 1:05:40
  failing, right? That that's why we lose patience
• 1:05:42
  with our kids. I think for the most part
• 1:05:44
  because I mean, I'd say that's. Our inner critic, whoever that
• 1:05:46
  is, whether it's our our mother in law's voice, our mother's
• 1:05:49
  voice, our coach's voice, a teacher's voice, just our own
• 1:05:52
  inner critic is constantly telling us that parenting is
• 1:05:55
  something that we have to make a grade for.
• 1:05:58
  Pass or fail and always failing and and because I'm always
• 1:06:02
  failing. I need you, kid, to be perfect
• 1:06:04
  and to be right in this moment and to get it together.
• 1:06:07
  I get an A today. And I can feel good about my
• 1:06:10
  parenting. And if we stop seeing it as a
• 1:06:12
  test and start seeing it as a relationship, then we can kind
• 1:06:15
  of give ourselves the space that we need to work out the
• 1:06:17
  relationship. You know, I, I, I realize that,
• 1:06:20
  you know, am I losing, you know, if I'm frustrated in my
• 1:06:23
  relationship with you, my getting impatient with you isn't
• 1:06:25
  gonna help anything. I mean, it doesn't stop me from
• 1:06:27
  doing it sometimes. Right.
• 1:06:29
  But but, but, you know, we help each other through that, right?
• 1:06:32
  And I want to teach my kids how to do that too, you know, so
• 1:06:34
  that so that as we're struggling with each other around a
• 1:06:37
  problem, you know, how can we kind of like calm down, think
• 1:06:41
  through this? What are we trying to do and how
• 1:06:42
  can we help each other get there?
• 1:06:44
  And, and, but if I feel like making this child behave is the
• 1:06:48
  test and I have to push the right buttons and use the right
• 1:06:51
  techniques to make the child to manipulate the child into a
• 1:06:54
  better place. And I can't find the right
• 1:06:55
  buttons to push. And now the, the, the machine is
• 1:06:57
  just all going haywire. I'm losing it.
• 1:07:00
  That's how I lose patience, right?
• 1:07:02
  But if I'm able to kind of step back and realize is the
• 1:07:04
  relationship we need to work through the relationship, that
• 1:07:06
  takes some time, that takes some thought, we can kind of get off
• 1:07:08
  our backs a little bit. So I think a lot of modern
• 1:07:11
  parents are just burnt out. They're working, they're
• 1:07:15
  providing, often mom and dad are both working.
• 1:07:18
  Then there's the household, then there's the meals, then there's
• 1:07:21
  the driving, if you have school or drop off or whatever.
• 1:07:23
  And there's just a lot of, there's limited margin and then
• 1:07:27
  there's also screens. So that becomes a source of
• 1:07:30
  escapism and distraction. So it's hard to even be present
• 1:07:34
  and in your body with the other person.
• 1:07:35
  Like that's almost triggering because they're like getting
• 1:07:37
  your dopamine hits here. And I know a lot of moms
• 1:07:39
  struggle with that. They're like tempted to their
• 1:07:41
  dopamine hit because it's like an escape from all the stress.
• 1:07:44
  And then the child is screaming, how do you, I like what you're
• 1:07:49
  saying about connection with a child relationship and, and
• 1:07:51
  everything else. But let's say mom is just like
• 1:07:53
  always on edge. So what does she tell child?
• 1:07:56
  Like I, I'm sorry, I'm always on edge.
• 1:07:57
  I'm looking at my phone too much.
• 1:07:58
  She just like, you know, I could.
• 1:08:01
  Make better. I mean, it's OK to say, you know
• 1:08:02
  what? I I'm, I don't like the way our
• 1:08:06
  family is right now. I don't.
• 1:08:08
  I don't like the way the I don't like how I.
• 1:08:09
  Feel inside. I mean sauce there would be
• 1:08:11
  fried. I mean, there would be times
• 1:08:13
  where, you know, I had to work more hours in a given week or,
• 1:08:15
  you know, we for whatever reason, we weren't connecting as
• 1:08:18
  much as we normally would, where the kids start pushing back and
• 1:08:21
  getting a little more, you know, rebellious or whatever.
• 1:08:23
  And you know, the, the you correct them in the moment, but
• 1:08:26
  it doesn't like stick. And I kind of had to step back
• 1:08:29
  and realize, you know, they're you know what, they're getting
• 1:08:30
  less of me this week. And I would just say, you know,
• 1:08:33
  guys, I haven't been able to be around you as much as I would
• 1:08:36
  like. And I feel like our
• 1:08:38
  relationship's getting off track.
• 1:08:39
  You know, what do we need to do to get back on so that we can
• 1:08:42
  stop bickering with each other or so that we can really start
• 1:08:44
  feeling more connected with each other and we'd come up with
• 1:08:46
  something. Well, I'm going to throw in here
• 1:08:48
  because this is, this is a, this is important on 2 fronts.
• 1:08:51
  It's a very important on a mental health front and it was
• 1:08:53
  very important to the study that we did.
• 1:08:56
  So one of the things we talked about in in the framework that
• 1:09:00
  we came up with and this framework is, is unique to every
• 1:09:04
  family. So it's not like, you know, you
• 1:09:05
  have to dress this way for this liturgical season, these.
• 1:09:08
  Craft projects or these? Recipes.
• 1:09:09
  Exactly. Are these the 12 things that's
• 1:09:12
  part of? The 12 habits.
• 1:09:14
  But one of the things that families miss entirely,
• 1:09:18
  especially in this day and age where everybody's having fun
• 1:09:21
  either on a on a screen or in something they're signed up for,
• 1:09:26
  is families don't have fun together anymore.
• 1:09:29
  And one of the things that was very much a part of these
• 1:09:31
  families who raised children to a faithful adulthood is they
• 1:09:35
  made time for play. Together.
• 1:09:38
  Together. It's not I'm going to my tennis
• 1:09:40
  lesson after I drop Bobby off at soccer and then you pick, you
• 1:09:45
  know, Susie up from dance after you're done with your basketball
• 1:09:48
  game. And we're all separating out and
• 1:09:50
  trying to get our fun or our physical athletic needs or
• 1:09:56
  whatever those things are met individually.
• 1:09:59
  It's you know what, darn it, I could scream or I could take all
• 1:10:04
  these sock balls we just made and start a stock softball fight
• 1:10:07
  together. Or we can just, you know what?
• 1:10:11
  After dinner, we're all just going to sit on the floor and
• 1:10:13
  play play DoH or build trains together or go for a walk or go
• 1:10:18
  outside and walk around and see who can find a four leaf Clover.
• 1:10:23
  But something together that's just allowing you to have fun or
• 1:10:26
  be silly. Together when you're, when
• 1:10:29
  you're in the mindset that you were just talking about, when
• 1:10:31
  parents hear us say that they're like, oh God, I have to do one
• 1:10:34
  more thing. How am I going to find the
• 1:10:35
  energy for this? Right?
• 1:10:37
  And I get that right. But because it's moving you out
• 1:10:40
  of being a human doing and into a human being, it's actually
• 1:10:44
  refreshing if, if you can just get if you can just get the
• 1:10:48
  courage to just sit on the floor and and not do all the things
• 1:10:53
  within 5 minutes, you feel like a different person, you know,
• 1:10:56
  and, and you feel like a person. Not a robot, yeah.
• 1:11:00
  Yeah, and and that's what is actually edifying, you know, so
• 1:11:06
  work minus relationship is toil, right?
• 1:11:11
  Work plus relationship actually is, is rewarding whenever I,
• 1:11:17
  whenever I'm able to do something, when we're able to do
• 1:11:18
  a project together and draw closer to each other because we
• 1:11:21
  did the project. You know that, that that's I'm
• 1:11:24
  happy about the project, but I'm even happier about the
• 1:11:25
  relationship we created out of that, right?
• 1:11:27
  Same thing is true with our kids.
• 1:11:29
  If we can create a moment, right, that that's beautiful.
• 1:11:31
  But but if I'm just approaching a task as it, this has to get
• 1:11:34
  done and I'll get out of my way so I can get it done or stop
• 1:11:36
  stepping on my toes while I get it done.
• 1:11:38
  That's when the work minus relationship becomes toil and it
• 1:11:41
  grind. We're not created for toil.
• 1:11:43
  We were created to work to build beautiful things through God's
• 1:11:46
  grace. But when we're created for toil
• 1:11:48
  that that just grinds us down and makes us feel meaningless
• 1:11:51
  and purposeless. And, and so when we take
• 1:11:54
  relationship out of work, that's when it starts to feel like
• 1:11:56
  toil. And, and so if we can have the
• 1:11:58
  courage to kind of make that shift, it it, it, it's
• 1:12:01
  energizing. That's so good, and it really
• 1:12:04
  dovetails beautifully with something that Adam Lane Smith
• 1:12:06
  said recently on the show when he was talking about building a
• 1:12:09
  strong, deeply attached marriage relationship.
• 1:12:12
  We're talking about it now from the vantage point of kids
• 1:12:15
  relationship and marriage. But he was saying that one of
• 1:12:17
  the greatest things you can do to really encourage and foster
• 1:12:21
  connection in a marriage is problem solving, where the
• 1:12:24
  problems over here you together are working together to solve
• 1:12:27
  it, and you have to do it as a relationship, right?
• 1:12:30
  And similarly, what you're saying with kids, as it's like,
• 1:12:33
  you know, problem solving could be it.
• 1:12:34
  I, I'm going to guess, but you're saying enjoyment, like
• 1:12:36
  let's just be together and enjoy each other.
• 1:12:40
  And I think sometimes maybe families struggle with what does
• 1:12:42
  that look like? Because maybe that's, you know,
• 1:12:45
  literally it's easy. Let's just turn on a movie or,
• 1:12:47
  you know, zone out. How do you find something that
• 1:12:51
  the whole family can enjoy in today's day and, you know, day
• 1:12:56
  and age, I think. That's sort of the I mean, in
• 1:12:58
  some ways that's the wrong question because you know, if
• 1:13:00
  you have especially a family with lots of different kids, you
• 1:13:03
  know, they're not all going to enjoy the same thing.
• 1:13:05
  But when you make relationship, the focus instead of the
• 1:13:08
  activity in enjoyment happens because of the relationship, not
• 1:13:11
  necessarily because of the activity, right.
• 1:13:13
  So, you know, 16 year old might get it not get a whole lot
• 1:13:15
  personally out of play in Candyland, but it might.
• 1:13:18
  But it might be fun to kind of watch their brother or sister
• 1:13:20
  kind of laugh and and help them move the pieces around the
• 1:13:22
  board. Or, you know, be silly with the
• 1:13:24
  parents while they're kind of reflecting on their own time and
• 1:13:26
  playing those Children's Games. You know, when it's about the
• 1:13:29
  relationship, then we can make whatever moment fun.
• 1:13:34
  Like, you know, so when Lisa and I were dating, right, we, we
• 1:13:36
  went to a college where there were, there were men's dorms and
• 1:13:38
  women's dorms, but the laundry rooms were Co Ed.
• 1:13:42
  So all of a sudden it became really fun to do laundry.
• 1:13:44
  Now, I've never enjoyed doing laundry in my life.
• 1:13:45
  Whenever I got to do laundry with her, you know, and hang out
• 1:13:48
  in the same space, that was kind of cool because we got to be
• 1:13:50
  together and do this thing and the, and the, and it wasn't that
• 1:13:53
  I enjoyed laundry. I enjoyed being with you, you
• 1:13:55
  know, and the same thing is true when it comes to picking an
• 1:13:59
  activity that we're all going to do as a family.
• 1:14:00
  You know, it may be one kid will like it less or one parent will
• 1:14:04
  like this. That's not really the point.
• 1:14:05
  It's like we're coming up with an excuse to be in the same room
• 1:14:07
  together and and relate to each other and.
• 1:14:09
  You take turns like. You can even put the things you
• 1:14:11
  enjoy in a jar and then pick it out in the morning.
• 1:14:14
  This is what we're going to do tonight.
• 1:14:15
  You know, after dinner we're going to have a 20 minute game
• 1:14:18
  of Uno or we're going to walk the dog together.
• 1:14:19
  And then when one kid groans, you kind of pull them and say,
• 1:14:21
  yeah, well, I get that that's a regular thing.
• 1:14:23
  That's OK that. Was going to be my question,
• 1:14:24
  should you design a lot of the activities youngest to youngest
• 1:14:28
  to oldest, meaning kind of the youngest child that can kind of
• 1:14:31
  tolerate or enjoy the activity kind of gets to decide like
• 1:14:34
  candy? Land I would I would take
• 1:14:35
  everybody's ideas and then like put them in a jar and you might
• 1:14:40
  even have several jars. You know, this will take 5
• 1:14:43
  minutes tonight because nobody's going to be home for very long
• 1:14:45
  together. This is a weekend, one where we
• 1:14:47
  can have a whole hour on a Saturday afternoon, whatever,
• 1:14:51
  and then just say everybody's going to get their turn to have
• 1:14:54
  what they enjoy because it's in the jar.
• 1:14:57
  That's so good. But we're going to work really
• 1:14:59
  hard to have a good attitude when it's not the one.
• 1:15:01
  And let's figure out how everybody can participate fully.
• 1:15:04
  Right. So like when we have a big
• 1:15:05
  spread between our oldest and our youngest.
• 1:15:08
  And so let's say we were playing a game that all the older people
• 1:15:11
  in the family. Like Monopoly.
• 1:15:14
  Sure, the two year old is gonna. Ever play Monopoly?
• 1:15:16
  The Queen of England said they would.
• 1:15:18
  The one game she would never let her family play as Monopoly.
• 1:15:20
  Really competitive. Everybody fights.
• 1:15:23
  It's across. Everybody fights.
• 1:15:25
  Board game's awesome for some reason.
• 1:15:26
  Monopoly. Is rough 4 year old we play
• 1:15:28
  Monopoly but then after 5 to 10 minutes he just starts taking
• 1:15:31
  yeah but you know seizure of of property as opposed to.
• 1:15:35
  Kind of boring game, but if you're playing something then
• 1:15:39
  like our youngest one would be on my team.
• 1:15:43
  So whenever I rolled, they got to move the piece around the
• 1:15:46
  board with me or they got to roll the dice because we were a
• 1:15:50
  team. So you just have to be a little
• 1:15:52
  creative about, OK, if this is more of the older kids or mom
• 1:15:56
  and dad's play thing, how can we bring the little one along?
• 1:16:01
  And then if it's the little one's thing, how do we give our
• 1:16:04
  older kids permission to just be childlike and silly and enjoy it
• 1:16:09
  a little bit and have some nostalgia and be a good person
• 1:16:12
  about it because they know their turn is in the jar?
• 1:16:16
  And doesn't happen automatically, you have to kind
• 1:16:17
  of coach the place through that and help them get to that place.
• 1:16:20
  But it's work worth doing because by helping to reorient
• 1:16:24
  your family away from that kind of task mindset, even when it
• 1:16:27
  comes to play to relationship mindset, that's where we start
• 1:16:30
  to enjoy each other again. Well, and you have to realize
• 1:16:32
  you're not just doing it for you and your family, but you're
• 1:16:34
  laying down all of the skills, all of the virtues that's going
• 1:16:39
  to make your child a good spouse or a good religious.
• 1:16:42
  Building on that, actually, if you don't mind, I want to go
• 1:16:43
  back to something you were talking about earlier with the
• 1:16:45
  previous guest. We were talking about problem
• 1:16:47
  solving. Adults learn problem solving by
• 1:16:51
  the way they were parented as kids.
• 1:16:54
  So the way we approach marital problem solving is is often the
• 1:16:56
  way we were disciplined, which is why so much marital problem
• 1:17:00
  solving sucks. And it's a lot of it's, it's
• 1:17:03
  blame based. Wow.
• 1:17:05
  You know you get a lot of that. Punishment.
• 1:17:07
  You did something wrong, now I'm going to punish you.
• 1:17:09
  Or now you have to do something to make it up.
• 1:17:12
  Yeah. And, and so in we, we call our
• 1:17:15
  parenting approach discipleship discipline again, because we're
• 1:17:17
  kind of building on the, the teaching philosophy of of Saint
• 1:17:20
  John Bosco and, and, and, but then in adulthood, because we
• 1:17:23
  teach the same, actually we teach the same process to
• 1:17:25
  couples and we call it compassionate problem
• 1:17:27
  resolution, CPR. And basically compassionate
• 1:17:30
  problem resolution CPR. Nice.
• 1:17:32
  And basically it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, there's more to
• 1:17:34
  it, but in the three basic steps, right?
• 1:17:36
  The first step is you, when somebody hurts you or you,
• 1:17:39
  you're frustrated with somebody, you want to start by empathizing
• 1:17:41
  like I, I, I'm sorry you're feeling that way.
• 1:17:43
  I'm sorry you're having a hard time.
• 1:17:44
  You know, I, I see you're trying to do something right.
• 1:17:47
  And then the next step is let's figure out what that is.
• 1:17:49
  What, what were you trying to do?
• 1:17:50
  What response were you hoping to get out of me?
• 1:17:52
  What were you trying to accomplish?
• 1:17:53
  What was the goal you're trying to meet?
• 1:17:54
  And then the third step is brainstorming.
• 1:17:56
  How do we solve this problem together?
• 1:17:57
  The next time something like this comes up, how can we work
• 1:18:00
  together to get a better result? And if you can do that with your
• 1:18:03
  kids, you teach them how to empathize, how to identify, and
• 1:18:07
  how to problem solve. And then they learn how to do
• 1:18:09
  that as adults. So when with their, when they're
• 1:18:12
  with their spouse and their spouse does some boneheaded
• 1:18:14
  thing that frustrates them, they're not lashing out in anger
• 1:18:17
  or saying how you have to, you know, whatever, do some magical
• 1:18:20
  thing to make me feel better or whatever, we're able to come
• 1:18:24
  together and solve it. And you're really, you know, we
• 1:18:26
  put so much emphasis on giving our kids a great education,
• 1:18:31
  right? The academic education, but this
• 1:18:34
  kind of education on how to problem solve together.
• 1:18:38
  These are the kids who advance to foreman on the construction
• 1:18:41
  site, to CEO in the office, to the, you know, head of a
• 1:18:46
  department because they have the skills to help people solve
• 1:18:50
  problems and become a great. Mom and dad.
• 1:18:52
  And to be a great mom and dad or a great priest or sister because
• 1:18:56
  you are teaching them how to live in community and how to
• 1:18:58
  problem solve together. So it's not just about getting
• 1:19:02
  through this day, which a lot of parenting feels like it is, but
• 1:19:06
  when we take this broader mental view of it, we realize, no,
• 1:19:10
  we're tired, but we really are doing good work.
• 1:19:13
  Holy work. Well, I think increasingly too,
• 1:19:15
  in the age of AI, you know, learning, you know, rote
• 1:19:19
  learning like routine learning information, facts, you know,
• 1:19:24
  kind of processing data, right? As opposed to learning how to
• 1:19:28
  think and learning how to relate, and to your point, like
• 1:19:31
  the learning how to relate, which includes problem solving
• 1:19:33
  as a core foundation for how to relate and conflict resolution,
• 1:19:37
  compassionate conflict resolution.
• 1:19:38
  CPR, like you said, is essential.
• 1:19:41
  But how many parents are intentionally making that part
• 1:19:44
  of their parenting? I'm going to intentionally teach
• 1:19:46
  you compassionate problem, you know, resolution.
• 1:19:50
  I, I, I don't think a lot of parents are really locked in on
• 1:19:52
  that. Maybe they're struggling
• 1:19:53
  themselves. They've never been taught it.
• 1:19:54
  They've never taught it themselves.
• 1:19:56
  But now they know, and now they listen to you.
• 1:20:00
  I think that's, I think that is gentle parenting at its best,
• 1:20:04
  right? I I'm not using gentle parenting
• 1:20:07
  as a tech, a series of techniques to kind of manipulate
• 1:20:10
  my child or to make myself feel better.
• 1:20:12
  Or just to acknowledge the feeling and let them feel heard.
• 1:20:14
  Which is important, but it's it's stop short.
• 1:20:17
  I'm being gentle in a way that allows me to honor the feeling,
• 1:20:20
  but then let's work together to move past this and figure out
• 1:20:24
  what we can do to handle it better next time, Which then
• 1:20:27
  doesn't just lead to a gentle exchange, it leads to a gentler
• 1:20:30
  life, more peaceful life. And so I think that's really the
• 1:20:34
  goal of gentle parenting at its best.
• 1:20:36
  I think also, you know, for a Christian, one of the fruits of
• 1:20:40
  the spirit is gentleness and self-control.
• 1:20:43
  And I do think in today's world, because of social media, because
• 1:20:47
  of just, you know, we want to now make sure we are, you know,
• 1:20:50
  acknowledge objective truth and reality and morality.
• 1:20:52
  And we want to draw lines in the sand.
• 1:20:54
  And there is some black and whites in this world because
• 1:20:55
  there's this tendency to be like all, you know, woo, woo,
• 1:20:59
  whatever. And so people want to kind of be
• 1:21:02
  firm and strong and resolute and tell you like it is, you know,
• 1:21:05
  especially in politics, by the way, which is kind of my
• 1:21:07
  adjacent world over here. And the gentleness, like
• 1:21:10
  actually, no, gentleness is strength.
• 1:21:13
  Jesus was a gentle savior. We're called to be gentle people
• 1:21:17
  as Christians, A gentleman, A gentle woman, that we should
• 1:21:21
  prize gentleness. That doesn't mean you're a
• 1:21:22
  pushover. It doesn't mean you don't have
• 1:21:24
  resolution and morals and conviction.
• 1:21:26
  It doesn't mean you won't die even for your faith, but you be
• 1:21:28
  gentle like that is the. Spirit.
• 1:21:30
  And there's real strength in that too.
• 1:21:32
  And in fact, in fact, that's that's one of the hallmarks of
• 1:21:34
  mental health. Wow.
• 1:21:36
  Dentlness. Yeah.
• 1:21:37
  Well, yeah. So.
• 1:21:38
  So because it's a sign of integration.
• 1:21:40
  So, you know, if you imagine that mental health is like a
• 1:21:43
  river, and this is actually not my metaphor, The Dan Siegel
• 1:21:45
  doctor. Dan Siegel is a psychiatrist at
• 1:21:47
  UCLA who uses this metaphor where he talks about mental
• 1:21:50
  health being a river. Right.
• 1:21:51
  And on the one bank you have the Bank of chaos, and the other
• 1:21:54
  bank is the Bank of rigidity and rigidity.
• 1:21:57
  Rigidity. Yeah.
• 1:21:57
  And every mental disorder, all 300 in the DSM, are either a
• 1:22:01
  disorder of chaos or a disorder of rigidity.
• 1:22:04
  And we are very much seeing that in popular culture today, right?
• 1:22:07
  There's either chaos everywhere or everybody's being very rigid,
• 1:22:10
  and that's making everybody else be more chaotic.
• 1:22:12
  It's very present. And it's, it's also, sorry to
• 1:22:15
  interrupt, but it's also the left and right dichotomy today,
• 1:22:18
  like the rigidity of the right. We are going to put a stake in
• 1:22:21
  the ground. And then the chaos of the left.
• 1:22:23
  Wah, wah, men or women? Women are, you know, men, blah,
• 1:22:25
  blah, blah, blah. Yeah, nothing.
• 1:22:27
  And then like then these crazy like intersections and they get
• 1:22:29
  into this loop. And then like people get more
• 1:22:31
  leftist and people get more right.
• 1:22:32
  Like we're more divided than ever.
• 1:22:34
  How we facilitate that generalist, whether it's in
• 1:22:36
  politics or relationship or life.
• 1:22:39
  And again, this is Siegels work. He uses the acronym Face faces.
• 1:22:43
  It's flexibility, adaptiveness, coherence, energized and stable,
• 1:22:51
  right? And so flexibility refers to our
• 1:22:53
  creativity, our ability to kind of put different things together
• 1:22:55
  in interesting ways. Adaptability is how we respond
• 1:22:58
  to stress, where we're able to see what our goal is and change
• 1:23:02
  course without losing direction. Coherence is that I want to make
• 1:23:05
  sure that what I say and what I do and the choices that I make
• 1:23:07
  actually makes sense. You know, energy.
• 1:23:10
  Energy refers to being able to pay attention and TuneIn and
• 1:23:13
  include in and put my resources behind what I want to do.
• 1:23:16
  And then stable is the last quality, which refers to my
• 1:23:19
  ability to kind of do all that in a way that that enables me to
• 1:23:22
  respond without flying apart or falling apart, right.
• 1:23:25
  And so if I, if I can cultivate those qualities, that's where
• 1:23:28
  you start seeing the gentleness that allows me to indicate that
• 1:23:31
  I'm well integrated in this moment, that I'm in my adult
• 1:23:34
  brain, right? I'm thinking with my whole brain
• 1:23:36
  and body and I'm able to respond rather than react.
• 1:23:40
  So the rigidity of the right or the the the the chaos of the
• 1:23:43
  left are both reactions to each other.
• 1:23:45
  Or just the husband and the wife.
• 1:23:47
  Or you know, the in laws and the younger.
• 1:23:49
  Couple and the parents and the. Wherever that is.
• 1:23:50
  That react the the rigidity of the chaos, it's always just a
• 1:23:53
  reaction either to the situation or to the each other.
• 1:23:56
  And it's a failure to recognize that I have to embrace
• 1:23:59
  integration in that moment so that I can be gentle and strong
• 1:24:03
  and confident moving forward. But I think it's important that
• 1:24:06
  you pointed out something, Lila, that's the under the
• 1:24:09
  undercurrent of all of this, which is whether it's a gift or
• 1:24:12
  a fruit, it's of the Holy Spirit.
• 1:24:14
  So we think we have to tough it out and use gentle words.
• 1:24:17
  And you know, we're gritting our teeth where we're saying, OK,
• 1:24:20
  honey, you know, you feel your feelings.
• 1:24:22
  What are your feelings right now?
• 1:24:23
  You know. And, and what we have to come
• 1:24:26
  back to is we have to pause and we have to say, Lord, this is
• 1:24:30
  crazy. I can't do this.
• 1:24:33
  You got to come in and fix this. You got to show me what you want
• 1:24:35
  me to do. And when we do that, when we
• 1:24:38
  take that moment of saying even yes, come Holy Spirit, because I
• 1:24:42
  can't do this or like I did that day at the kitchen window,
• 1:24:46
  Blessed Mother, I'm going to lose it.
• 1:24:49
  You know, what should I do? Come and help me.
• 1:24:51
  That's when real gentleness, real peace, all those gifts and
• 1:24:56
  fruits of the Holy Spirit can start working.
• 1:24:58
  And that's what allows us to problem solve.
• 1:25:01
  Well, you know, so I did a book called The Beatitudes, Eight
• 1:25:04
  Ways to Be an Awesome Dad. To.
• 1:25:05
  Beatitudes where I look at the 8 beatitudes as a way of
• 1:25:09
  understanding how to be fathers after the Heavenly Father's
• 1:25:11
  heart, because the, the, the attitudes are really a blueprint
• 1:25:14
  for Christian living. And, and so the first
• 1:25:17
  beatitudes, you know, is, is blessed are the dads who are
• 1:25:19
  poor in spirit. And, and I unpack that in the
• 1:25:22
  chapter where I where I start by saying what that really means
• 1:25:24
  for us is acknowledging that we have no idea what we're doing.
• 1:25:28
  As dads. As as as as human beings, I
• 1:25:31
  mean, but especially as dads. That's what you're saying.
• 1:25:32
  Poor in spirit is like I don't have it all figured out.
• 1:25:35
  I don't have. Any pride goes away.
• 1:25:37
  Yeah, and so being because, because when when paraphrasing
• 1:25:41
  Pope Francis. But when the heart is full and
• 1:25:43
  self satisfied, there's no room for grace, right?
• 1:25:46
  And so, you know, if I, I can start my day by saying, I know
• 1:25:50
  God, that you want me to love my wife and love my kids and
• 1:25:53
  somehow help them be their best and bring them closer to you.
• 1:25:57
  I have no idea how to do any of that.
• 1:25:58
  I've got, I have the first clue. Please teach me, show me what to
• 1:26:02
  do. And if I can be that humble with
• 1:26:04
  God, if I can be that humble with you or even with the kids
• 1:26:07
  to some degree, you know, and, and let's figure this out
• 1:26:08
  together. You know, that that allows me to
• 1:26:11
  kind of cultivate that humility that puts me in a place where
• 1:26:13
  I'm able to learn, even if I'm so even if you say something I
• 1:26:17
  disagree with her or you say something that challenges me,
• 1:26:20
  OK, I want to learn, you know, let's, let's figure this out
• 1:26:23
  together. And I can, I can be strong in
• 1:26:26
  that, in that weakness and in that recognizing that I don't
• 1:26:30
  know what I'm doing. And, and that's actually a theme
• 1:26:32
  that kind of runs for a parenting stuff too, because,
• 1:26:34
  because in the in the parenting books, we all always talk about
• 1:26:36
  how every day is a new day where we didn't do it before and we
• 1:26:40
  have no idea what we're doing. So just acknowledge that and
• 1:26:43
  stop being so hard on yourself and just bring it to God and
• 1:26:46
  say, OK, I don't know what I'm doing today, teach me Lord.
• 1:26:48
  Yeah, it took me maybe three times to realize on the days as
• 1:26:53
  a mom when I had really great days and I thought I got this.
• 1:26:57
  Now I know what I'm doing. I'll just do it this way every
• 1:27:00
  day. The kids were going to hit
• 1:27:01
  another developmental milestone the next day or get sick the
• 1:27:04
  next day and we're starting from scratch and I'd be like, OK, I
• 1:27:09
  don't know what I'm doing because today's different,
• 1:27:11
  they're different, I'm different, you know, different
• 1:27:13
  hormonal cycle, different age for the child, different dynamic
• 1:27:16
  going on, different time of the year.
• 1:27:18
  So having that sense of Lord, I can't do any of this unless you
• 1:27:25
  walk every step of this way with me, I can't.
• 1:27:28
  So show me what to do. Well, and there it gets again,
• 1:27:30
  it gets away from that kind of pass fail attitude toward
• 1:27:32
  relationship and focuses more on a relational approach, right?
• 1:27:36
  So it's not that I failed today. It's like, OK, God, you're
• 1:27:38
  trying to teach me something now.
• 1:27:39
  What do you want me to do? Lead me.
• 1:27:40
  And it's that you need God. And I think, I think about the
• 1:27:43
  12 steps which have been so phenomenally transformative for
• 1:27:46
  people all around the world, like Alcoholics Anonymous, all
• 1:27:49
  the different A a groups. And the first of the 12 steps is
• 1:27:51
  I am powerless. I need, I need God.
• 1:27:54
  Basically, we need a higher power.
• 1:27:55
  I need God and the, you know, the beginning, the fear of the
• 1:27:58
  Lord is the beginning of wisdom. What does that really mean?
• 1:27:59
  The fear of the Lord? You're not like scared of God
• 1:28:01
  like he. Hey, you know, it's more that
• 1:28:03
  you know that you need him. Yeah.
• 1:28:05
  You know that you can't do it on your own.
• 1:28:07
  Yeah. The only thing that fear is
• 1:28:08
  being. Said more than us, right?
• 1:28:10
  So much. And that's what.
• 1:28:11
  That poverty of spirit is that Jesus was talking about in the
• 1:28:13
  very first beat beat attitude where, you know, we just, it's
• 1:28:16
  OK to acknowledge that we don't know what we're doing because
• 1:28:19
  God wants to teach us. The other thing you were saying
• 1:28:21
  that I thought it was so important about the work of
• 1:28:26
  understanding the mental health crisis today and you know, the
• 1:28:29
  conflict and everything, and you talked about the two riverbanks
• 1:28:32
  of chaos and rigidity and who was the therapist or the Dan
• 1:28:37
  Siegel? Yeah, it's at UCLA.
• 1:28:39
  I think about Jordan Peterson's work with 1212 Rules for Life,
• 1:28:42
  and there's a lot of different kind of variations of this,
• 1:28:45
  right? But he talks about order and
• 1:28:47
  chaos, and the masculine is the order and the woman, the
• 1:28:50
  feminine is the chaos. And I do think there's sort of
• 1:28:53
  people that are trying to kind of, you know, claw their way to
• 1:28:55
  figure this out by saying, well, you got to really live in your,
• 1:28:58
  in a sense, chaos as a woman. Like let yourself just like live
• 1:29:00
  in your feminine. And that includes sort of like
• 1:29:03
  La, La, la, and let the man be the rigid and the order and you
• 1:29:06
  just kind of duh. And you like, fall into his arms
• 1:29:09
  and, you know, like, and like, it's all going to be great.
• 1:29:11
  And then the man, you know, yeah, don't cry.
• 1:29:13
  You know, like, if you like, you know, not that tears are 100%
• 1:29:16
  bad, but like, be your order. Be that man, be that guy.
• 1:29:19
  So what I'm saying is there's these extremes.
• 1:29:21
  And I'm not saying Jordan Peterson was saying that, but
• 1:29:23
  I'm saying that today I see in a lot of the pop culture, pop
• 1:29:27
  psychology for women and men, it tends to like machismo.
• 1:29:30
  For the man, Be strong. And then for the woman, it's
• 1:29:33
  like be super feminine and don't do anything manly.
• 1:29:36
  And what actually we're called to is get in the river, get off
• 1:29:39
  the banks. Get off the banks of order,
• 1:29:41
  rigidity and chaos. Like, not what I mean.
• 1:29:43
  I think the word rigidity is a better one to reject than the
• 1:29:45
  word order. We love order, but get off of
• 1:29:47
  the banks of rigidity and chaos and get into the peace and the
• 1:29:51
  gentleness and the self-control of the Holy Spirit.
• 1:29:53
  As both men and women, we're both.
• 1:29:55
  Called. I just say to me, because I love
• 1:29:57
  that you're saying we love order.
• 1:30:00
  So do the Pharisees. OK, so let's go.
• 1:30:03
  Yeah. So are we in love with the order
• 1:30:07
  and peace God gives us when he's invited into our hearts, our
• 1:30:10
  lives, and our relationships? That's God's order that's
• 1:30:13
  healthy. That's disorder, that's fruitful
• 1:30:16
  if it's rigidity and order and it has to be done this way.
• 1:30:22
  These are the rules. Rather than we serve God.
• 1:30:25
  What's God, God asking us to do? And we all do that in our own
• 1:30:28
  lives. And honestly, when we talk about
• 1:30:31
  that, that order and rigidity in terms of masculinity that is so
• 1:30:36
  prevalent on social media everywhere today, and it's being
• 1:30:40
  put out in such a toxic way, it terrifies me.
• 1:30:43
  It terrifies me for young men because they are they are being
• 1:30:47
  given this message again that they need to deny their feelings
• 1:30:51
  that they're not allowed to ever mess it up.
• 1:30:53
  Man out there and the the mental health crisis for young men is
• 1:30:58
  God and it's. Greatly for young women because
• 1:31:00
  it's teaching them that they don't they're not allowed to
• 1:31:01
  need that they don't have to that they because I I just have
• 1:31:05
  to do all. That the man is not allowed to
• 1:31:06
  need well. No, no, that that that she's not
• 1:31:08
  allowed to have needs either, because she has she you know
• 1:31:10
  that the triad wife does all the things she cooks the meal she
• 1:31:12
  does right. She dresses perfectly.
• 1:31:14
  She, the whole house is she's. Got it all covered and the man
• 1:31:16
  just brings in the paycheck. And yeah, exactly.
• 1:31:18
  And she doesn't have to need anything.
• 1:31:20
  And and so it's this very kind of weird dynamic where we're
• 1:31:23
  both living for ourselves as opposed to each other.
• 1:31:25
  And you know, Pope John Paul the Second had had this whole kind
• 1:31:30
  of system he called the theology of the body and and where he
• 1:31:32
  talks. About.
• 1:31:33
  Talks a lot about male and female relationships and and he
• 1:31:38
  acknowledges that there are differences between men and
• 1:31:40
  women but he but he goes on to say that men and women are not
• 1:31:44
  so much different from each other as if they're different
• 1:31:46
  for each other right and so we're both we're all human
• 1:31:50
  beings and that God created our bodies to emphasize different
• 1:31:55
  qualities in men and women but we all have the same virtues
• 1:32:01
  that make us human so for instance, you know God who is
• 1:32:06
  fully nurturing gives his nurturance to men and women we
• 1:32:10
  express that differently through our bodies so.
• 1:32:12
  As a woman, I'm much gentler with my children.
• 1:32:15
  I can nurse my children. I can, you know, cuddle my
• 1:32:17
  children for a long period of time.
• 1:32:19
  I. Can't nurse them, but I can.
• 1:32:21
  But I can do other things with them.
• 1:32:22
  I can, I can get my beard and I get on their chins and go
• 1:32:24
  wherever, you know, and I and I can toss them up in the air and
• 1:32:26
  sometimes catch them, you know? And, and I can, I can, I can
• 1:32:30
  nurture them through my masculine body.
• 1:32:32
  But when we nurture together, we are a better icon of the
• 1:32:37
  nurturance that comes from God and and a better example of that
• 1:32:41
  human icon of of nurturance, right?
• 1:32:45
  And so men and women can be fully themselves, but still
• 1:32:50
  learn from each other so that, you know, I don't say, oh, well,
• 1:32:54
  nurturing the kids, that's your job, right?
• 1:32:56
  I, I, I, I look at you and I can say, wow, you know, I want to
• 1:32:59
  have that kind of connection with my kids.
• 1:33:00
  You know, how can I do that through the brain and body that
• 1:33:03
  God gave me? And and and and be inspired by
• 1:33:05
  what you're doing. And and and get in there and
• 1:33:07
  figure that. Out and with each other.
• 1:33:09
  So it's the mutual self donation that asks of the other everyday,
• 1:33:14
  who do you need me to be today? What?
• 1:33:15
  What can I do to make your life easier and more pleasant today?
• 1:33:18
  It's not. These are my roles.
• 1:33:20
  I'm going to do them. If they don't hit the mark, it's
• 1:33:21
  your fault. It's no.
• 1:33:24
  We're getting to know each other.
• 1:33:25
  We're not. We're not living out roles.
• 1:33:30
  We're living out release. We're.
• 1:33:32
  Not cosplaying. Perfect.
• 1:33:34
  That's what I was. Looking for There's a lot
• 1:33:36
  there's a lot yeah, because we haven't had good models of
• 1:33:38
  masculinity and femininity we. And we're the third generation
• 1:33:41
  of divorce. There's there's a real tendency
• 1:33:44
  to cosplay masculinity and femininity.
• 1:33:47
  Yeah, it's all over the Internet.
• 1:33:48
  And the intention behind that is good.
• 1:33:51
  I mean, we want to understand what it is to be a man or what
• 1:33:54
  it is to be a woman. And we want successful families
• 1:33:57
  and successful marriages and successful priesthood.
• 1:34:01
  And so we're looking for this and we're putting on this whole
• 1:34:04
  cosplay outfit and and behavior. But wearing the costume doesn't
• 1:34:08
  make us the thing. Wearing the trad wife costume or
• 1:34:11
  the strongman costume doesn't make.
• 1:34:12
  Yeah, if I, if I put on Spider Man costume, I still can't, you
• 1:34:15
  know, scale a, a skyscraper. I can't, I have to work with the
• 1:34:19
  gifts I'm given, you know, and, and whoever that is and, and let
• 1:34:24
  him bring out my gifts through what he needs and vice versa.
• 1:34:28
  And so it, it really, I mean it, it God gave us the spouse that
• 1:34:33
  he gave us because he knew that we wouldn't grow in the ways he
• 1:34:37
  needs us to grow. If, if, if she wasn't in my life
• 1:34:40
  and vice versa, right? And so by responding to the
• 1:34:43
  needs that he's placed on your heart, I'm being challenged to
• 1:34:46
  grow into the man that God wants me to be.
• 1:34:48
  And having, having to have the humility to ask each other every
• 1:34:54
  day and to be open to what the other says because it, it would
• 1:34:57
  be very easy for you to say, well, all those things that you
• 1:35:01
  said that you needed when the kids were, you know, under 10.
• 1:35:05
  Well, now that they're older, I'm still doing those things.
• 1:35:07
  Why aren't they? And.
• 1:35:08
  You're never going to be happy. Yeah, exactly 1 of the things
• 1:35:11
  that we suggest to do when we are giving talks on marriage is
• 1:35:15
  to make a love list. We do a love list exercise and
• 1:35:18
  we have people write down at least 25 things, 50s better of
• 1:35:24
  when your spouse does them or would do them.
• 1:35:27
  You would feel cherished. You would have that feeling.
• 1:35:31
  And it's really hard for people to write that down.
• 1:35:34
  But as they do it and they break it down into So I wish they were
• 1:35:38
  more affectionate. OK, well, let's break that down
• 1:35:40
  into like five ways you were wish they were more
• 1:35:42
  affectionate. Then you exchange the list
• 1:35:46
  because it's OK to have a CHEAT SHEET.
• 1:35:48
  You know, I think that that old TV shows and old movies really
• 1:35:55
  made us think that when we were pronounced husband and wife, we
• 1:35:58
  were supposed to be able to read their minds.
• 1:36:01
  Heavily ever after. Heavily ever after or If You
• 1:36:04
  love me, you just know was just this repeated kind of mantra for
• 1:36:09
  years in movies and TV shows. That's nonsense.
• 1:36:13
  We have to tell each other, We have to ask each other.
• 1:36:15
  We have to be humble enough to hear each other and serve as our
• 1:36:20
  spouse is calling us to serve, as long as it's not immoral or
• 1:36:24
  degrading. And I can't learn to be a man,
• 1:36:27
  much less the man that God wants you to be by reading a book or
• 1:36:31
  going to a talk or having somebody else teach me the rules
• 1:36:33
  of masculinity or whatever. I, I can't, I can, I can only
• 1:36:37
  learn to be the man that God wants me to be by listening and
• 1:36:42
  talking and working with you and vice versa.
• 1:36:44
  And you know, but our relationship teaches me to be
• 1:36:46
  the man God wants me to be. Our relationship teaches you to
• 1:36:49
  be the woman that God wants you to be.
• 1:36:50
  And and we learn from each other what that means, which doesn't
• 1:36:53
  throw objective masculinity and femininity out the door it but
• 1:36:58
  it gives us an understanding of how to live that in a way that's
• 1:37:00
  not just playing pretend. Yeah, I know it enhances the
• 1:37:03
  reality of it. And as much as we love a good
• 1:37:07
  spiritual support group, and we do, I really do caution people
• 1:37:14
  against just going to your brothers and your men's group or
• 1:37:18
  your sisters and your women's group and saying this is what's
• 1:37:21
  going on in my marriage. How do I fix it?
• 1:37:23
  Or how do I be a better wife? Because if they know your
• 1:37:28
  husband's heart or your wife's heart more than you do, there's
• 1:37:33
  a problem. And they don't.
• 1:37:35
  They don't. And so they can give you
• 1:37:37
  suggestions that might work for them.
• 1:37:39
  But then it's up to you to come home and say, you know, honey, I
• 1:37:42
  was talking to so and so today, and her husband really feels
• 1:37:46
  loved when she does this. Just.
• 1:37:48
  Would that work for you? I never thought of that before.
• 1:37:50
  Or how do you feel loved? Yeah.
• 1:37:52
  And vice versa. So don't just say, well, I did
• 1:37:55
  all the things that Amy does for her husband and her husband's
• 1:37:57
  happy. Why aren't you happy with me?
• 1:38:00
  You know, So we have to. It keeps going back to humility
• 1:38:04
  and being open to the Holy Spirit and your spouse.
• 1:38:09
  And it's scary to do that, of course, because she might answer
• 1:38:11
  that question and actually tell me what she needs, and then I
• 1:38:13
  have to do it, you know? But that's how the real
• 1:38:17
  connection happens, and that's where real masculinity and
• 1:38:19
  femininity occurs. You wrote a book that was that
• 1:38:24
  has been very successful and I feel like it's a primer for a
• 1:38:28
  lot of couples who get married called Holy Sex.
• 1:38:31
  How do married couples maintain sexual intimacy?
• 1:38:35
  It starts with listening to each other again about what, what it
• 1:38:39
  is that we need from each other to feel close, to feel
• 1:38:42
  connected, to create that space for relationship and, and to not
• 1:38:45
  buy into the idea that, well, at a certain stage in our lives, we
• 1:38:49
  shouldn't feel closer. We shouldn't feel connected.
• 1:38:51
  Or that's just for couples who've been married for six
• 1:38:53
  weeks or, or just for couples who don't have kids in the house
• 1:38:56
  anymore. But, but it gets, it can be
• 1:38:58
  complicated, of course, but if we're coming to each other and
• 1:39:01
  saying, you know, I miss you, I'd really like to get some time
• 1:39:03
  with you. What how can we make that work?
• 1:39:04
  And we, you know, and, and we're just able to be flexible about
• 1:39:09
  creating that space for connection and not giving up the
• 1:39:13
  idea that connection should be happening.
• 1:39:15
  And to be able to say to the other, this is how I would feel
• 1:39:18
  more loved, more cherished, have more fun with you.
• 1:39:22
  Even in our intimate life and us being able to work with that.
• 1:39:26
  We don't have to hop to, you know, we can say, OK, you know,
• 1:39:29
  that sounds good. I've got a little woundedness
• 1:39:31
  around this or I never thought of that.
• 1:39:34
  I'm. A little tired today from.
• 1:39:35
  This very tired to how can we work on that?
• 1:39:38
  You know yes, we've had six kids all knocking at the door all the
• 1:39:40
  time. How can we problem solve this
• 1:39:42
  together so we can begin to baby step into the things that each
• 1:39:46
  one of us is feeling inspired? But it's not so much a matter of
• 1:39:49
  saying, you know, I asked for this and you say no, or you ask
• 1:39:51
  for this and I say no. It's it's OK.
• 1:39:53
  Well, let's, let's talk about what that means to you and let's
• 1:39:55
  talk about how we can make that happen at a different time or
• 1:39:57
  some other ways. And so we're receptive to what
• 1:40:00
  God's saying to each of us in our hearts and what how he's
• 1:40:03
  calling us to be intimate with each other.
• 1:40:04
  Overtime, again, always being aware and watchful that it's not
• 1:40:08
  degrading to the other or immoral against church teaching.
• 1:40:12
  But as long as it's not in that category, it's an invitation to
• 1:40:15
  grow closer and to grow as people.
• 1:40:18
  What is the silent killer of most marriages today?
• 1:40:21
  We all love our comfort zones more than we love each other.
• 1:40:24
  That's it. Because any, because I, I love
• 1:40:27
  my comfort zone more than I love anybody and, and especially my
• 1:40:31
  wife, right? And so, you know, we, we don't
• 1:40:33
  tend to say yes or no to each other based on whether it would
• 1:40:35
  be good for the relationship. We say yes or no to each other
• 1:40:37
  based on whether I feel like doing it.
• 1:40:39
  And as soon as we do that, we put up walls to intimacy, to
• 1:40:42
  connection. We say there are certain things
• 1:40:44
  it's just not safe for you to ask me to do.
• 1:40:47
  There's certain places that I won't go with you, you know, and
• 1:40:51
  you know, and it's OK, we can, we can have our own preferences.
• 1:40:54
  We can be our own thing. But but what I'm really talking
• 1:40:56
  about is are those hard noses where it's that's just not me.
• 1:40:59
  You know, you can do that with your friends or that's just
• 1:41:01
  thought, you know, instead of being able to say, you know, God
• 1:41:05
  put you in my life and not just because he has a warm sense of
• 1:41:08
  humor, right? But but because, but because
• 1:41:10
  he's inviting me to grow in ways that I wouldn't grow if you
• 1:41:12
  weren't in my life. And so, you know, I might not
• 1:41:15
  ever love widgets or whatever as much as you do, but but I love
• 1:41:18
  you and I want to understand that the way you do.
• 1:41:21
  And so so that you know, when you have a success in that area
• 1:41:24
  of your life, I'm the first person you think of.
• 1:41:25
  Or when you're struggling in that area of your life, I'm the
• 1:41:27
  first person you think and we can be in it together.
• 1:41:29
  And so I can grow a little bit. You know, none of us is ever
• 1:41:31
  afraid to sign up for some class that we can grow in a new skill
• 1:41:35
  or expand our horizons until it's our spouse asking us to
• 1:41:39
  expand our horizons a little bit and move past our comfort zone.
• 1:41:42
  So we need to learn to love each other more than our comfort
• 1:41:44
  zones. And the comfort zone can be
• 1:41:46
  physical, it can be emotional, it can be anything.
• 1:41:48
  And, and I think about sexual intimacy, I think a lot of women
• 1:41:51
  feel tapped out because maybe young kids or this or that.
• 1:41:54
  And it's like, well, how can I pour into more myself as a woman
• 1:41:58
  for my own rest and health and partly through our relationships
• 1:42:01
  so I can enjoy sex. I think that's another struggle
• 1:42:04
  for and some men, they have that strip challenge too.
• 1:42:06
  You know, I don't want to make it just a woman problem versus a
• 1:42:08
  man. But the reality is sometimes we
• 1:42:10
  don't even have space in our marriages for play and for
• 1:42:15
  intimacy together because we are just go, go, go.
• 1:42:18
  And so part of the comfort zone is actually in a way being more
• 1:42:21
  physically comfortable or making, making space for your
• 1:42:24
  own care of self so you can be, you know, have that fun and, and
• 1:42:28
  loving space with your spouse. Also starting with the same
• 1:42:34
  question all the time I'm tapped out.
• 1:42:39
  I'm uncomfortable with whatever, I have no bandwidth for play.
• 1:42:43
  How can we problem solve this together?
• 1:42:46
  Instead of I've got to get myself together, I've got to do
• 1:42:48
  all my self-care, I've got to look good and I've got to feel
• 1:42:50
  good and then I can give more. It's hey, these are my
• 1:42:54
  challenges. You got to do it.
• 1:42:55
  That's. What I'm going through?
• 1:42:57
  Yeah, and how? Can we do this together?
• 1:42:59
  You know, on my love list when our kids were little, the top of
• 1:43:03
  my love list for years was please give me 10 minutes alone
• 1:43:06
  in the bathroom. Please no fingers under the
• 1:43:09
  door. Nobody's screaming might take
• 1:43:10
  them for time. Let me breathe.
• 1:43:12
  We have to be that honest with each other and say we both want
• 1:43:19
  a happier marriage, a more fun marriage, a deeper intimate
• 1:43:22
  life. But this life is ours together.
• 1:43:25
  It's not my responsibility to fix or your responsibility to
• 1:43:28
  fix to get us there. What can we do together?
• 1:43:31
  And I think that that part of keeping the, the, the spark
• 1:43:34
  alive for, for women, it's giving themselves permission to
• 1:43:38
  express their needs, to say, this is what I need from you.
• 1:43:42
  And for men, it's, it's learning to not just need, but but to
• 1:43:45
  give. And, and when we can do that for
• 1:43:49
  each other, even when we're exhausted or we don't feel great
• 1:43:53
  or whatever, we're, we're seeing this act not as performative,
• 1:43:58
  but as intimate. You know, it's not, I have to
• 1:44:00
  jump through certain hoops to make you happy.
• 1:44:02
  It's we're taking care of each other and we're figuring that
• 1:44:05
  out together. Yeah, we're reaffirming our
• 1:44:07
  wedding vows every time we're together.
• 1:44:10
  How can married couples navigate financial crises?
• 1:44:13
  So the most important thing there is realizing that most
• 1:44:17
  arguments about money aren't really about money.
• 1:44:20
  They're about my, what I need to feel fulfilled or to feel safe
• 1:44:28
  or to feel satisfied in my life. And so when I come to you and I
• 1:44:31
  say, hey, I'd like to spend X on Y and you say, oh, we can't
• 1:44:35
  afford that. What I'm really hearing you say
• 1:44:37
  is your need is silly or dumb or you're never going to get that.
• 1:44:41
  And so I think, you know, and then the, the second point is
• 1:44:44
  that we need to stop treating each other as, you know, it's,
• 1:44:51
  it's your fault that we don't have enough money for me to do
• 1:44:53
  this, right. It's, it's in reality, it's,
• 1:44:56
  it's the money that we've got. You know, the life we have is
• 1:44:59
  dictating the terms. It's not your fault or my fault
• 1:45:02
  that we don't have that. You know the X amount for the
• 1:45:04
  for Y thing. And don't spend time arguing.
• 1:45:06
  Well, if you got a better job or an extra job or you went back to
• 1:45:09
  work and put the kids in, you know, daycare or whatever is,
• 1:45:12
  we'd have more money. No, we've got what we've got
• 1:45:14
  right now. Let's talk about the life we
• 1:45:16
  have right now. And, and how we, you know, and
• 1:45:19
  then, OK, so if we, and if I come to you and I say, well, I'd
• 1:45:21
  like to spend X on Y, then you, you, you would say, well, all
• 1:45:24
  right, that if that's important to you, let's figure this out.
• 1:45:26
  Now, in order to do that, we would need to move this over
• 1:45:29
  there or delay that or whatever. And as we're talking that out, I
• 1:45:32
  might come to realize that no, it's not really worth all that
• 1:45:34
  much to me, you know, And then I let it go or we figure out a
• 1:45:37
  plan to make it happen, but we're in it together and it's
• 1:45:39
  not, I'm going to mommy to ask for my allowance to go buy the
• 1:45:42
  thing that I want. And she said no.
• 1:45:43
  Don't parent each other around money, Be partners around money,
• 1:45:50
  and make it safe enough to talk to each other about what some of
• 1:45:54
  those wounds and fears and desires and needs are.
• 1:45:57
  How can married couples deal with grief?
• 1:46:00
  Oh, turn to each other and turn to God.
• 1:46:04
  And that. And that's not what you want to
• 1:46:05
  do when you're when you're grieving.
• 1:46:06
  You want to pull into yourself and hide.
• 1:46:08
  You're mad at God. You might be mad at each other.
• 1:46:11
  Yeah. You feel like no one can really
• 1:46:13
  understand your pain. And then you don't want to
• 1:46:14
  burden the other person with your pain.
• 1:46:16
  Nobody really talks about grief in our society, especially in
• 1:46:20
  Western society, nobody talks about grief.
• 1:46:23
  We don't even use the word very often.
• 1:46:24
  So we turn it into anger or we turn it into depression self.
• 1:46:28
  Medication, yeah. We just call it other things and
• 1:46:32
  act out on it in different ways, especially anger.
• 1:46:35
  So we get angry that it happened and we take it out on each
• 1:46:39
  other. And so turning to each other,
• 1:46:43
  turning to God, as scary and as rotten as it is sometimes is
• 1:46:49
  what's going to get you through together?
• 1:46:51
  We we lost our first child to miscarriage and we would take a
• 1:46:56
  walk every single night, just walk and walk and walk after
• 1:47:00
  work and talk about what it meant to us, how hard it was.
• 1:47:06
  Sometimes we'd yell at God. We'd talk to God, we'd cry, but
• 1:47:11
  we actively work toward turning toward each other and reaching
• 1:47:15
  out to God, even in anger, even in desperation, even in
• 1:47:17
  confusion. Lord, we don't get what you did
• 1:47:19
  here. It feels like a broken promise.
• 1:47:23
  Where it's even OK to say to each other, you know, I, I, I
• 1:47:25
  don't feel like being around you today.
• 1:47:29
  I don't. I don't, I don't.
• 1:47:30
  I want to be by myself. I want to crawl in the hole,
• 1:47:33
  yeah. I know that's not what God wants
• 1:47:35
  me to do, but I don't know how to get to where God wants.
• 1:47:37
  Me and I know it wouldn't be right for our relationship.
• 1:47:39
  Can you help me figure this out? Yeah.
• 1:47:42
  And you know, because it takes that kind of intentionality to
• 1:47:46
  to break out of that because otherwise you do retreat into
• 1:47:49
  yourself and you grieve by yourself and, and you get lost
• 1:47:52
  in it. But but joining together through
• 1:47:55
  that allows grace into that open place that you've created in
• 1:48:00
  your heart by making room for healing.
• 1:48:03
  It's beautiful. We're going to close out with
• 1:48:07
  some a quick round on kids. I know we could do so much more
• 1:48:12
  on relationships and marriage and intimacy, but we're going to
• 1:48:15
  have to have you back because there's a whole conversation
• 1:48:18
  just for that. What is 1 daily practical habits
• 1:48:22
  that can help parents raise their children better?
• 1:48:25
  Prayer together as a family pray together and not wrote prayer
• 1:48:30
  it. It always has some little part
• 1:48:32
  in it, but just pouring out everything with your family. 2
• 1:48:36
  got together, asking God how we can love each other better and
• 1:48:40
  talking to each other about how we can make each other stay
• 1:48:42
  easier and more pleasant after we've brought that to God.
• 1:48:44
  Because you can have a family with Christians in it, but you
• 1:48:46
  can't have a Christian family unless you're asking God every
• 1:48:48
  day together what kind of family he wants you to be.
• 1:48:50
  Wow, right. So praying together and say, OK,
• 1:48:51
  Lord, what do you, how do you, what kind of family do you want
• 1:48:54
  us to be? How do you want us to handle
• 1:48:55
  this day? And then as you're praying
• 1:48:57
  through that, then you have that conversation you mentioned where
• 1:48:59
  what's one small thing that we can do to try to take care of
• 1:49:01
  each other today and, and feel like we're there for each other
• 1:49:03
  and be a better team? And you talk about that.
• 1:49:05
  And this whole thing is like 10 minutes, right?
• 1:49:06
  It's 5 minutes per and 5 minutes conversation.
• 1:49:08
  Yeah. Even with little kids, they
• 1:49:10
  might not have a lot to say, but they're you're, you're, you're
• 1:49:12
  socializing them to the whole idea of asking that, having that
• 1:49:14
  question, having that discussion.
• 1:49:16
  And eventually they learn how to contribute to that.
• 1:49:18
  And so together, you're creating the family that God's asking you
• 1:49:21
  to build by praying together and then talking about it.
• 1:49:24
  How can parents keep their kids disciplined without being cold?
• 1:49:28
  By by seeing discipline as a teaching opportunity instead of
• 1:49:33
  seeing it as a pass or fail for both of us, you know?
• 1:49:37
  So if I see discipline as the test where you failed me, child,
• 1:49:41
  or I could fail as a parent and not get my Gold Star for the
• 1:49:45
  day, then then that's where I'm going to be cold or that's where
• 1:49:48
  I'm going to have my emotional brain take over instead of my
• 1:49:51
  thinking brain. But where I can see this as you
• 1:49:54
  know what, we're both trying to figure this out.
• 1:49:56
  I'm trying to figure out parenting.
• 1:49:57
  You're trying to figure out kidding.
• 1:49:58
  And and we're going to we're going to figure this out
• 1:50:00
  together. So what were you trying to do?
• 1:50:02
  All right, let's let's, let's figure out a better way to do
• 1:50:04
  that and let's come up with different ways we can practice
• 1:50:06
  doing that better in the future so that we learn how to do this
• 1:50:09
  in a more relational way instead of a more performative way.
• 1:50:12
  How can parents tell if their children are going through
• 1:50:15
  spiritual struggles? Well, first of all, you have to
• 1:50:18
  be praying with them every day because you're going to pick up
• 1:50:21
  on are they being hesitant? Are they confused?
• 1:50:24
  Are they angry? OK, why?
• 1:50:26
  You know, are we praying too high over their heads?
• 1:50:29
  Are they going through something they haven't told us about or
• 1:50:32
  that they're mad at God about because it happened at school or
• 1:50:35
  in their lives or in their emotional life?
• 1:50:38
  Really being able to just pray about your day together and your
• 1:50:42
  life together as a family gives you so much insight into what's
• 1:50:45
  going on in your child's heart and mind and soul.
• 1:50:48
  But I think that we need to recognize that there's a
• 1:50:49
  spiritual dimension to every struggle.
• 1:50:51
  And so, you know, as, as my child is struggling with that
• 1:50:55
  bully or the, the worries about their test or this other thing
• 1:50:57
  that they're going through, you know, how are we bringing God
• 1:51:00
  into that moment? You know, because again, the
• 1:51:01
  secret to families who are successfully raising their kids
• 1:51:03
  to faithful adulthood is that they find ways to make the faith
• 1:51:06
  the source of the warmth in the home.
• 1:51:08
  And so if I'm bringing God into those moments of struggle, then
• 1:51:11
  we're working through that together.
• 1:51:13
  And I'm showing my children how God is there for them even in
• 1:51:15
  tough times. So whenever they are struggling,
• 1:51:17
  they're more likely to come to me with those struggles and and
• 1:51:19
  I can help them bring those struggles to God and, and work
• 1:51:22
  through that together. And to really learn how to ask
• 1:51:25
  God what God wants them to do in this situation rather than what
• 1:51:29
  some parents do. Because going that deep feels a
• 1:51:32
  little scary, where they'll just say, we'll exercise this virtue
• 1:51:36
  in this situation and they want just forgive them, you know, or
• 1:51:39
  just be patient or, and that's not getting to know your child's
• 1:51:43
  heart, mind and soul. That's kind of throwing
• 1:51:46
  Christian platitudes out as a shield for us because we're
• 1:51:51
  afraid. We're afraid that something
• 1:51:53
  emotional is going to be required of us in this
• 1:51:56
  situation. So really just, you know, Lord,
• 1:51:59
  this child is struggling with ex.
• 1:52:02
  They don't know what to do. They can't quite find you in it.
• 1:52:06
  I'm not sure what to tell them. Be with us and help us figure
• 1:52:09
  this out and walk the way. Beautiful.
• 1:52:13
  What are some prayer habits that you recommend using with your
• 1:52:16
  children? So first it's it's kids learn to
• 1:52:21
  pray on their own because they participate in prayer as a
• 1:52:24
  family 1st. And so coming together every
• 1:52:26
  day, creating a little bit of space, even if it's 5 minutes,
• 1:52:29
  it doesn't have to be a big production.
• 1:52:30
  Like after the meal, dinner, meal.
• 1:52:32
  Meal before bedtime, you know, anytime you know where, where
• 1:52:35
  we're creating a space where we're going to just pray
• 1:52:38
  together as a family in a way. And, and here's the tip, OK,
• 1:52:41
  any, any approach to prayer you take should help you feel both
• 1:52:44
  closer to God and each other when you're done with it.
• 1:52:47
  If you don't feel closer to God or each other when you're done
• 1:52:49
  with it, then something was missing from that experience.
• 1:52:52
  Doesn't mean it wasn't good or there wasn't any value in it.
• 1:52:54
  It just means it wasn't quite hitting the mark.
• 1:52:56
  And so you really want to be looking as a family as how do we
• 1:52:58
  pray in a way that helps us feel a little closer to God and each
• 1:53:01
  other by the end of the experience?
• 1:53:03
  Yeah. And I'd say just make it a
• 1:53:06
  practice that flows. So parents are, how can we fit
• 1:53:11
  this in? There have been plenty of nights
• 1:53:14
  we've been praying in the, you know, in the car on the way home
• 1:53:18
  from practice because we know everybody needs to finish
• 1:53:22
  homework or go to sleep or are going to be passed out in the
• 1:53:24
  back of the car by the time we get home, right?
• 1:53:26
  They're going to fall asleep. So it's, hey, let's pray now.
• 1:53:29
  And all your voices can still be heard in the car.
• 1:53:32
  And we'd share with each other, We pray for each other's day.
• 1:53:36
  Thank God for the blessings, ask help for the struggles, and then
• 1:53:40
  sometimes end with the decade of the rosary where we're really,
• 1:53:43
  you know, talking about what that that particular image is
• 1:53:48
  and how we can find ourselves in it or it doesn't.
• 1:53:51
  Have to be perfect. Any prayer, yeah, any prayer
• 1:53:53
  where it's you're just have it as the flow of your day and it's
• 1:53:56
  about the people that you're with rather than being
• 1:54:01
  performative in some way. Beautiful.
• 1:54:04
  What is an underrated piece of parenting advice that you wish
• 1:54:08
  parents knew? Remember what it was like to be
• 1:54:11
  a kid. You know, I think that if we can
• 1:54:14
  remember that, then we can kind of intuitively ask ourselves
• 1:54:19
  those questions that help us to not repeat the mistakes that our
• 1:54:23
  parents made. And, and you know, that doesn't,
• 1:54:27
  that doesn't mean that we don't ask our kids to do things or
• 1:54:30
  that we're not the authority figure that, but it, but it
• 1:54:32
  means that we can approach that authority in, in a, in a way
• 1:54:35
  that draws us closer to each other instead of creating an
• 1:54:37
  adversarial relationship. Because I think sometimes as we
• 1:54:40
  grow up, we forget what it was like to be a child who was being
• 1:54:43
  corrected, who was being misunderstood.
• 1:54:45
  And so if we can kind of connect with that, we can still correct
• 1:54:48
  our children and we can still discipline them, but we can do
• 1:54:50
  it in a way that that respects their heart and draws us closer
• 1:54:54
  to each other for the correction.
• 1:54:56
  As opposed to seeing this kid as this enemy that I have to
• 1:54:59
  somehow overpower to get them to do what I want them to do.
• 1:55:02
  I have an extra 1 that's an answer to that.
• 1:55:05
  Give yourself permission to enjoy your children.
• 1:55:08
  So good. We are so buttoned up as
• 1:55:11
  parents, we think we have to be a certain way, whatever that is
• 1:55:14
  in our heads. And I know so many empty nester
• 1:55:18
  people who are like, why doesn't my kid ever call or oh, I wish I
• 1:55:22
  I had done this, that or the other thing.
• 1:55:24
  Just give yourself permission to enjoy it.
• 1:55:27
  It's silly, it's chaotic, it's unknown sometimes, but it's
• 1:55:33
  beautiful. You know they're there for you
• 1:55:35
  to love and enjoy. Enjoy the smiles, enjoy the
• 1:55:37
  playtime, enjoy the cuddles, enjoy even the rough times
• 1:55:42
  because they're there, They're there and you love them and give
• 1:55:45
  yourself a chance to drop the facade of being the one who runs
• 1:55:50
  everything all the time. And just enjoy it because it's
• 1:55:54
  wonderful. Deep down, it's really
• 1:55:56
  wonderful. Amazing.
• 1:55:58
  This has been awesome. You both have so much wisdom to
• 1:56:02
  share and I'm so grateful for your years now, decades of work,
• 1:56:06
  sharing it with millions of people.
• 1:56:07
  And now for this show. How can people find you and
• 1:56:11
  follow you in your ongoing ministry?
• 1:56:14
  They can learn more at catholiccounselors.com or follow
• 1:56:17
  us on Instagram at Catholic Counselors.
• 1:56:19
  They can also learn more about our parenting work on the
• 1:56:21
  Catholic HOM app or we provide parent coaching and lots of
• 1:56:25
  creative resources for families to live out those 12 habits of
• 1:56:28
  families that successfully raise their kids to faithful
• 1:56:30
  adulthood. Or they can ask their own
• 1:56:32
  questions every day on our daily radio show, More to Life, which
• 1:56:36
  is on the EWTN Radio Network, and it's on 10 AM.
• 1:56:40
  Eastern Monday through Friday and they call in and ask their
• 1:56:43
  own questions. And you've written 20 books.
• 1:56:45
  If you were going to recommend one of those 20 books for
• 1:56:48
  starters, which book would it be?
• 1:56:49
  Kind of depends on whether it's if it's marriage, I would say
• 1:56:52
  For Better Forever, a Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage, or
• 1:56:54
  Holy Sex for parenting, Parenting your kids with grace.
• 1:56:57
  Beautiful. Thank you so much.
• 1:56:58
  Thank you, a big thank you to our channel partner EWTN.
• 1:57:03
  EWTN is the world's largest religious broadcast network,
• 1:57:07
  reaching millions of people every single day with the
• 1:57:10
  beautiful truth of the gospel. You can be the first to watch
• 1:57:13
  new Lila Rose Show episodes 24 hours before YouTube over at
• 1:57:18
  ewtn.com, slash on demand and on the EWTN app.