In this episode Chris talks about the question that most parents face when raising their children today, filtering. They start the episode by discussing what is the end goal for parents when they make the decision to filter what their children experience. They talk about the areas of everyday life that your children go through and ways that you could filter them if you decide to.
Tune in to see How to and What to Filter for Your Kids Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- We want to reiterate for this episode on parenting that it is hard and there are no black and white rules you should be following.
- On our Current event, we discuss an episode of Science Vs about the Joe Rogan Experience with Robert Malone. They address the accuracy of what was said and provides a great example that you need to take the time to research and validate what you hear before reacting.
- Chris starts the episode by looking at the end goal of parenting – teaching life lessons.
- Just like most of the parenting shows, Chris refers to Episode 15: Love and Logic.
- We sometimes underestimate our children’s resiliency when it comes to how much or what they can handle.
- While the world has dramatically changed, human emotions have not.
- Kids Need to fail and parents need to develop watching tolerance when they do.
- These 3 things are essentials to any child: Encouragement, Compassion, and Relationship Development.
- How much you monitor should be based on the level of concern for the situation? This should also be adjusted as the situation is escalated or resolved.
- Parent guilt is a problem that every parent will go through. We discussed this is Episode 71.
- Some of the specific areas that they dive into are Technology, Family Dynamics, and their Social Lives.
- At the end of the episode, they cover some factors that will influences your decisions on how much you filter from your kids.
- Listener challenge for this week: Find a moment or a way to sincerely apologize to your kids. It is good for them to see that side of you.
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Episode #175 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. And welcome to another edition of Through a Therapist’s Eyes where I like to say you get personal insights directly from a therapist in your own home or personal time in your car rediscovering emotions and becoming your best self at book. I wrote, man, do you believe I wrote a book, Nick, is that crazy?
You know, in me in a different way, that’s scary. No, he doesn’t know what to say. See the world through the lens of a therapist would be aware is not to delivery of therapy services in any way. I know I do that to people. Let me see. We are really looking to grow with you, man. We’re not ready to make an announcement about it, but we’ve got some cool things that we’re going to be doing kind of in the next few weeks.
I guess a couple of weeks, few weeks is what we talked about. Really got a excitement out of what [00:01:00] you’re going to enjoy. I think. Our logo and some different things that, that, that we’re trying to pop out. We got new things with Facebook lives and cameras and YouTube and video and all this kind of stuff.
So why stop there? We’re going to add to it. So that’s coming up, stay tuned. This is the human emotional experience. We do endeavor to figure this thing out together. Find us out on contac@throughatherapistseyes.com. We are on apple iTunes. Join us on the Facebook group. That’s a good way to stay in touch with these new things coming out.
And also the email lists that we don’t kill you with emails, but, but, but what we’ve got coming up, I think you’ll enjoy kind of staying in tune with that. And you can see the show titles and the things that we’ve got coming out. I think with that. So we’ve got a, I’m going to take it easy on you today, man.
We’re going to bag it down on the meaty, crazy psychological stuff that we did before. Man, did you you ready to talk about some parenting things? Is that more in your wheel?
Matthew Hanks: That’s definitely my season of life right now is, is the parenting stuff.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And, and, and what, what would [00:02:00] you be willing to say the age of your kids?
I think we asked you that. Yeah.
Matthew Hanks: No, I’ve got my oldest is 12, a boy than a girl she’s nine and another boy, 7 12,
Chris Gazdik: 9, and say, yeah, that is right in the middle of everything going on. How’s middle school treating you.
Matthew Hanks: Yeah, we’ve got challenges overall. You know, my, my son’s a champ. He, he can handle whatever challenges thrown at him, so, and I’m just.
Added benefit. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: he’s a good kid. We met him here. He hung out with us once. We’ll record it, sir. Did you remember that? Yeah, I think
Matthew Hanks: he wrote on
Chris Gazdik: one of the walls over here, he kind of had a corkboard incident, so
Matthew Hanks: left his mark
Chris Gazdik: on it. His mom was quite upset or like, what did you do? I’m like, it’s, you know what?
I don’t even use the corkboard. It is fine. So we got a lot to get to. We’re going to, we’re going to talk about how to, and what to filter for your kids. And we’re going to go through a lot of different angles to that because there’s a lot of questions and a lot of different things we’re going to try to tackle.[00:03:00]
And by no means, do I think we’re going to be able to be totally conclusive on that and, and, and write up the get-go. I got a current event that I want to do too, and look at, but right off the get go, I want to really say, listen, parenting is hard and there are no hard and fast rules, really? That of things that you have to.
Really subscribed to maintain or do there’s a lot of gray and a lot of this, that’s what I believe there are very few things like safety issues, you know, suicide drug use kind of things. You know, those, those types of things are pretty easily, you know, not many people would, would differ with what you kind of want to do, but all, lot of the things we’re going to talk about Matthew tonight.
I really want to make the point out the get, go that like, look, these are suggestions. These are ideas. These are no one can really give you any therapist or any doctor. We can’t really give you, Hey you got to do this kind of a thing. Does that actually sound surprising Matthew? And I say that because being, you know, we work with [00:04:00] kids, we’re supposed to be psychologically sound and grounded and know the best methods for everything.
Right. Is that, does that sounds surprising that I would say that I’m curious.
Matthew Hanks: I think it just goes to the idea that it’s more of a art than a science at times. And it depends on the child. I mean, you can help people like, like with me three children or talk to those who are further down the road than I am and five, six children.
And they’ll tell you what worked for one doesn’t work for the next, not second kid is way different than the one that’s in the, with the same parents, the same upbringing in the same house, the same culture, the whole bit. And what worked for one does not work for the next.
Chris Gazdik: Exactly. So, yeah. Got it a little bit more screwed up in my older age.
So the first kid probably got the better me, but you know, that’s a joke. It’s a joke.
Matthew Hanks: Yeah. Yeah. The first born is always get the absolute best effort.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. Poor, poor first child syndrome and the oldest child, man, they, they really get it hard. Don’t they, they, they have to beat the parent down so we can relax.
Yeah. I was the [00:05:00] second born. Where were you? Oh, I’m first or your first born. Yeah. I mean, you got all the hard core, you know, it gotta have the right nutrition, got to have the right bedtime Canada, make sure it’s monitored and checked and he’s safe. And then the second kid it’s like, all right, you’re good, man goes time.
You get to the third, fourth kid. You don’t even have any pictures, no pictures in there.
Matthew Hanks: Maybe two or three.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, a couple. So let’s, let’s rap about a, a topic that I think is pretty serious and I wanted to do a current event on it. Y’all have probably heard. A lot of the things going out about social media and misinformation even a little bit, all this cancel culture that people are kind of dealing with.
I mean, it, I know it seems like mass hysteria out there a little bit. I want to do it, do my little part in addressing a little bit of that when it comes to misinformation. Because I, I listened to y’all know, I like science versus it’s a cool podcast out there. Hey, we gotta to get a promo [00:06:00] on their deal.
Don’t you think many times I’ve mentioned, I need to, I need to email them people, Neil, get on. Let’s get on that. Right. Now I got a new one though. Adrian turned me on to it and I’m flopping on the name. Universal. I just said it to you earlier. What, what was it? Strength strangers to the universe or something?
I don’t know. I missed
Neil Robinson: it. What you say.
Chris Gazdik: It’s going to be my new science podcast. You’ll see why in a minute. So Rogan’s in hot trouble, Joe Rogan. You ever hear this guy?
Neil Robinson: I think everyone’s heard of Joe Rogan.
Chris Gazdik: So he had a, he had an interview. Haven’t what’s that for those who haven’t. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he’s, he’s a, he’s got an awesome podcast show called Joe Rogan experience.
And it’s a three-hour show that he does excellent job in a lot of ways. But he got in a lot of hot water or about interview that he did with a doctor named Dr. Malone. I think it was Robert Malone. Anyway, the hot water is that people are really upset about the misinformation that, that went on and the chaos that ensued [00:07:00] with the vaccines and all these things that, that, you know, through the pandemic and.
I really wanted to do my part of being on Spotify, ourselves. The, the folks at science verses really felt a lot of responsibility to address it because they are a science show and they are also exclusively, I think produced in the same situation as Joe Rogan’s being on, you know, their platform. And they’re, they’re pretty concerned about the science piece of it, what I want to do.
I’m not going to do anything like not making any shows or canceling anything out. I think we all need to be able to talk, but but I do want to point out the, the, the big concern that I have with it. And Neil, you listened to the show. So we’re going to wrap a little bit maybe for just a minute on this, and then we’ll get to our topic tonight.
The, the, the flash factor that people have. Right. The, the flash pack factor that people are looking for for clickbait and, you know, trying to get [00:08:00] controversial guests and this type of a thing. I want to kind of say, first of all, we are, I won’t do that on this show. That’s not what I’m into. If I never make it as big as I want to be because of that.
So be it I could do all kinds of things with transgender stuff and, you know, sex addiction thing and sexist and sex that and whatever. Like I want to really. Sort of highlight that that’s not what we’re about. We’re about disseminating information about mental health and blown up stereotypes and stigmas and stuff.
So I’m really concerned about how we do have this phenomenon. That’s the biggest beef that I have. And I’m not saying Joe’s doing that. I don’t know the guy. I don’t know his show. I’ve only listened to a few of them. I wish I had time to listen to more, but that’s something that I really want us as a culture to begin becoming aware of, to be concerned about that that’s really.
Disservice and whoever might be doing that, we need to stop that and we need to [00:09:00] filter that out so that we ourselves can take into account what we’re listening to. When you get all excited about some big anger thing or some big, you know, dramatic you know, fight that, that, I mean, we’re not, we’re no better than high schoolers in some ways where you sit there in a circle, you know, fight, fight, fight, fight us, adults, get so interested in that as well.
And it works well. It’s Facebook’s algorithms are built that way. I understand. So that’s the big, big thing that I wanted to kind of address. And the other is. And Neil, I don’t know if you heard the difference on science versus as you listened to it, the difference between anecdotal information and then, you know, the, the science that we look for to learn about.
Did you pick up on how they talked about that? I,
Neil Robinson: I remember hearing about the anecdotal, but you might have to elaborate a little bit more about exactly. Cause I know yeah. They went over a lot of this scientific research and results, but I’m not sure anecdotal is a weird term for me. So you imagined elaborate
Chris Gazdik: a little.
So they pointed out a lot of cherry picking [00:10:00] in information that people will use. That was one big factor. And again, the clickbait kind of thing that I’m concerned about, you know, that I wanted to point out just from an emotional, mental health standpoint, as a concern, the other is anecdotal information is essentially, Hey, my buddy experienced this.
This must be what COVID does. And that’s not really accurate. It’s, it’s so random. And you know, A lot of misinformation done that way through just anecdotal experience. Yeah.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. And you, you, I think you hit far ahead. You see that a lot in social media, because no matter where you come from the emotional connection to how it affects you is what you then elaborate or you tell about, because whether you’re for or against vaccines, whether you’re afraid or you’re not afraid of COVID, the reality is someone has been affected by it, or someone has not been affected by it.
And you’re going to have those anecdotal information. They’ll say stories of, I [00:11:00] had these three relatives die and this COVID is the worst ever, but then you have other people, like my whole family had no problems and you have to look at the whole picture. And that goes back to what you were saying. You don’t want to cherry pick one small subset.
You need to get all the information. And that’s what I, I told you before. I wasn’t a big fan of the podcast because there were some things I personally didn’t like about the show, but I loved the fact. That they did come across with, with information about studies, information, about research, and they came across with the facts and that’s what we all need to do when we hear something that we either want to jump onto.
Cause we agree with it or something that we hate because we don’t agree with. It goes back. You have to take a step back and say, is that really right? And what is the information behind it? What’s backing it. You know?
Chris Gazdik: So psychologically we have begun to find out that even in our school systems with our kids somewhere I saw it as it may have been a science versus frankly, [00:12:00] sadly children are not able to discern reading a paragraph, which sentence represents a fact and which sentence represents an opinion, or I would throw in their anecdotal information, people in adulthood, I’m going to submit to you because of all of the strong attitudes that we have flying around, struggle with that as well.
It’s another mental health reality.
Neil Robinson: Do you think part of that is because we have so much information. We don’t have time to really process
Chris Gazdik: it. I think that’s probably part of it,
Neil Robinson: you know? Cause you think about, if you watch any, anything, you get so much stuff thrown at you like your brain, just like which one sounds the best, as opposed to thinking, like you read a newspaper and then you can think about it.
And then you finally watched the evening news and you have time to think about it. We’re here. It’s like you get on Facebook and you get, you just scroll through any social media platform and you have a hundred articles given a hundred different opinions. Yeah. And you just seem to pick the one you liked the best and you stick with that as opposed to using your, you [00:13:00] know, rationing or rationalize.
What’s right. What’s wrong. What’s fact what’s opinion. What’s people struggle with that. And I, yeah, I see that as a huge issue.
Chris Gazdik: And I’ll tell you the last thing I’m going to put on this, where we get, you know you know, false information that grows from is another psychological mental health reality.
And you didn’t listen to show Matthew, his wife being quiet and chime in if you want. But there is a very, very strong dynamic of group think so. I’m not sure if this is Joe’s theory as well. Anyway a friend told me that it was, but I don’t know. He, he kind of believes is there’s actually 20% of the people on the alt right now we say woke, right.
I guess. And there’s 20% of the people on the woke left, and it used to be alt left. Right. And then we just create new terms. I love our, our language and there’s 60 people. 60% of the people left in or 80%, no. 60% of the people left in the middle. That are too afraid to make a lot of statements because of the loudness of those people on the fringes.
But what I want us to understand from a, [00:14:00] from a, from a mental health perspective, what really happens. And I think a lot of what’s happening with this is group. Think we know when we’re running therapy groups or, or mental health groups and things, there will be group think that begins to develop. You hear a theme, you hear a thought and it tends to, you tend to gravitate towards that.
Whichever one is the loudest. And so I think what’s really happening in this misinformation age, when you get this sexy kind of stuff on the airs that you gravitate to is that’s probably been true in 1990 or early two thousands, 20% of the right, far 20% on the left far, but that 25 turns into 30 and then 35 pretty quickly.
And in the schism that we have nowadays, what you’re left with is like 40, 40, and 20 in the middle. I’m afraid. Now, this is not scientific, but that’s what I see happening because of a basic thing that I see in my therapy groups called group. Think it’s a, it’s a well-established [00:15:00] human behavior that we, I I’m afraid we’re falling into, because like you say, there’s so much loudness and a lot of information that gets flying out there.
So I think we gotta be really careful about that and all in all, we’re learning how to incorporate this really new stuff in the world, into our, in our daily lives like Spotify. So now we’re just figuring it out. I dunno, does that all make sense? Closing thoughts here and we get to.
Neil Robinson: It makes sense to me.
Yeah. Check it, check it out, check out the podcast. That’ll be in the show notes. So you can listen to it yourself
Chris Gazdik: and make your own opinion. There you go. Absolutely. So how to, and what to filter for your kids? This is something that I get a lot of questions about. And Matthew, I guess we’re both right in the middle of dealing with this in our lives with our own kids.
Any broad stroked ideas in your mind when you, when, when you caught wind of the topic and it’s like, oh gee, what do we do with this? I mean, you know, I’ve got really a lot of strong opinions, thoughts, [00:16:00] confusion about it. What, when you hear the title, even what goes into your brain and, you know, I didn’t start the clock.
How far in are we? Minutes wise? I need to know 16. Thank you. So, w w what kind of broad stroke thoughts did you, did you have,
Matthew Hanks: how to, and what to filter for your kids? I mean, you know, two different things there, but just the overall topic of. S filtering what your kids have access to. You know, I think that was far easier to do once upon a time.
Hopefully. Yeah. I mean, that’s probably the biggest broad stroke that I can say is, you know, that let’s say they have a laptop for school or you have a tablet and your intent is for them to be able to play games, whatever. Well, even the advertisements for games and you look at a game and it’s just, it looks so innocent.
There’s nothing to it. It’s just help them with some type of hand-eye coordination or some type of anything. And then all of a sudden, an ad will pop up for a different game or a video that they need to watch. Like what, [00:17:00] what is this I’m hearing? You you’re look over the shoulder and Ken, you got to watch everything.
And so all those are just
Chris Gazdik: 1922. It was way different in what you’re, you’re filtering, what your kids are exposed to and whatnot. And I would argue to a certain extent for better or for worse, really? I don’t know which. You’re not going to filter a lot out of what, you know, nowhere near a hundred percent, 80%, 60%, particularly as the kids get older, more and more limits.
Do, do you have so yeah, I think you’re, you’re right on point there. I want to start this show out today, though, with sort of maybe the end and then we’ll go through different areas of kids’ life. So what you’re in for is understanding some broad factors that influence what you do and how you do with this filtering stuff.
Then we’re going to look about family dynamics. We’re going to look about technology questions that people go to and then the kids’ social life as they go through, [00:18:00] you know, socially and then factors that influence. How you make decisions about this and what it is that we’re modeling. So first things first understanding a lot of these like factors that go into parenting relationships.
Have you ever heard of love and logic? I don’t know that I have dude, you should really, I would advise you to check it out. Episode 15 Craig and I went through the tenants of love and logic really. Cause I know we always struggle with time and I’m not going to spend any time on it, but it’s a, it’s a mention and it’s go deep on episode 15 because it is by far the best thing that I’ve come across, changed the way that I look at my own relationship with parenting and, and I lean on that a lot.
It’s just really good stuff, but, but another point here is that children have so a major factor that we don’t factor into. What do we need to filter? From our children in today’s [00:19:00] day and age, the children’s resiliency is huge. Like they’re really way more resilient than we give them credit for. They can see bullshit and call that and they can see healthy lessons and call that they really more and more as they get older and develop cognition with their development.
Did they’re resilient creatures. They’re not going to get crushed nearly as much as we think they’re going to get crushed just because they see something or hear something. And I don’t know that we give them that much credit. Does that sound surprising Matthew? Yeah, it does. To me.
Matthew Hanks: Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, once they see something, they can see it, right.
They get exposed to things and they can’t unhear it. So, and you know, if you’re in a, in a moment of weakness, you slip up and say what you didn’t mean to say, or, you know, get in an argument and they heard things they shouldn’t have heard, you know, about. I’ve always felt the opposite.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That’s going to happen.
Kids hear all sorts of things. You think they’re not hearing you in your arguing, in your room, their ears pressed [00:20:00] against the wall. They know mean they know what’s going on and they can filter that out in their own mind, in their own psychology. I love the way Casey’s got me thinking a lot, did a show with her recently, a colleague here.
And, and, and she’s like, you know, you, you have, you are inherently made in a certain way with your cognition, your brain, your spirit, your own relationship with your creator. Even like, you know, kids just the same as us as adults. I know there’s developmental differences, but they have a huge amount of resources just as they’re just made.
It’s amazing. And I think that we don’t rely on that sometimes, or we diminish that sometimes just because they can’t do algebraic equations yet they’re in the seventh grade. So I want to point out. And I know this is real generalized statement, but they have a huge amount of resiliency that I don’t think we give credit to.
I hear a lot of times, thirdly, here, the world is different now and I always liked [00:21:00] to retort. Yeah. But emotions really have stayed the same human emotional experience. That’s what we endeavor to figure out together. How much different do you think the human emotional process is from 1732 compared to now fear, still fear the amygdala.
They still had them cortisol soaked through their bodies. When they went to war with a sword, we do it with an AK 47 it’s it’s it’s the human system changes so slowly that our emotions are really absolutely the same. Listen to a few of these and see if you have any comments, Matthew, or jump in as need to kids need to fail.
I know you agree with that? We’ve talked about it. Parents are so afraid of allowing their kids to fail and we need to get over that. That’s a huge factor in what do you filter? Right? Manage your fear. Guilt, shame based feelings. I can’t say it loud enough. If you [00:22:00] parent out of shame, you’re in trouble. If you parent out of fear, you’re in trouble.
If you parent out of guilt, you’re in trouble as a parent for real that’s a powerful one, I think. And that’s definitely going to influence how you filter and what you filter. Encouragement works way better than what I tend to do. Yell at my kids. I do own it. I wish I were more encouraging personally.
You know, it works so much better. Like I’ll purposely try to find things that they do well sometimes I think that’s a struggle. I’m just kidding. Not really. I don’t know. How encouraging are you, how much do you live? Literally look for things they do. Well, that’s a huge factor. Compassion. Also, we forget because we’re 35 years old, 55 years old, and we’re parenting our kids.
This is tough stuff that they’re feeling and [00:23:00] going through and how much you filter or how you filter, especially with this one, how compassionate you are, is going to make a big difference. And we tend to get real edgy. We’re real tired. We’re real frustrated. Relationship also is another essential component.
You, if you, and this is one of the things I love about the love and logic, if you think about how much you’re developing a relationship with your child, as opposed to how you’re doing as a parent, you’ll be way ahead of the game. You’ve got to find just like you do with your friends, just like you do with your spouse, you got to find things in common.
You got to build a relationship. You got to have fun in the relationship, right? If you’re focused on how is my relationship, you’re going to be ahead of the game. Bottom line, the goal is to teach life lessons. That’s what our role is. And that’s emphasizes like, [00:24:00] yeah, you really got to think about what you got to filter.
This is important. You really got to think about how you do that because you’re really trying to accomplish your major goal and how awesome of a responsibility it is to teach life lessons to such a young spirit. And lastly, a theme that I would submit to you to increase monitoring. If there’s a reason decrease monitoring, if there’s no reason, if there’s no like danger and how do you interpret that danger?
When that reason resolves decrease your monitoring. So again, let me say that clearly increase your monitoring. If there’s a reason when that reason resolves decrease your monitoring. I think that’s a good guidepost. So I know a fire through a lot. There what’s one stuck out. Matthew, which ones do you have thoughts about?
I’m feeling like I am rambling. Yeah. [00:25:00]
Matthew Hanks: I mean, I think the resilience part, and there’s probably a different sides of the coin there, you know, whether or not they’re resilient or how resilient they actually are. I’ve always viewed it. I don’t really want to find out. Yeah. You know, I just try to shelter them from a lot of the tough stuff in life.
You know, you, you want, you want the best for your kids, so keep the bad stuff away and shower them with all the good stuff. That’s what we have always approached.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, showering as much as you can. I would wonder if, if you,
Matthew Hanks: the failure, the failure piece that you’ve touched on about not being scared for your kids to fail is, is a big one for me, because I just think there’s so many lessons to learn.
No, I mean, I don’t, I had to do a self-assessment on it. I don’t think it’s really a struggle for me. You know, I don’t mind seeing them fail. I like to cause that that’s a teaching moment and I like to see them grow and I want to see them advance and, and problem solve. And I think it gives them an opportunity for all those things.
You know, I noticed some of the emails back and [00:26:00] forth, let’s say like school, for example, they get a low grade and now we’re, we’re emailing the teacher back and forth. I don’t, I don’t know that that’s happened when I was in second grade, third grade stuff I did, maybe it did. It’s a long time ago. I don’t know how much the parental back and forth was there even a such thing as he emailed back and there wasn’t
Chris Gazdik: email for sure.
But there was actually, I could tell you, I don’t know if we have time for a funny story, but I had a, I had a certain F word that was on my sheet. Oh boy. On a, in grade school, like fourth grade man. And, and, and they went home and it had to be signed and I created an awesome lie where I did, I did, it was the word, but I didn’t put the L in the N in the word.
So I just missed a couple letters. I’m so sorry. That’s what I’ve seen through it. Yeah, of course. But here’s the rub with that [00:27:00] story, mom, if you’re listening to this, which she probably isn’t, but I want to play this for, I don’t think I’ve ever told her this. I didn’t write the word. I don’t know how I got on my sheet.
I swear I did not do that, but I
Matthew Hanks: created that subconscious.
Chris Gazdik: It could have been, it could have been, it could have been, I know there’s a lot there that I just went down though. Does that feel overwhelming? Cause I think parenting is overwhelmed. Oh, parenting
Matthew Hanks: in general is, and you don’t have any trial runs at it.
No, you know, it’s just, you’re just thrown right into the
Chris Gazdik: fire and it’s always developmentally different at the different stages that the kids in to. And if you
Matthew Hanks: it’s kinda like the game of golf, if you ever feel like you’ve got a handle on it, just, just buckle up. That
Chris Gazdik: is a great
Matthew Hanks: metaphor, you know? Cause there’s, there’s always an area of the game that you need to improve on.
And if you feel like you did really good this time out, well wait till next time. And you’ll agree. You’ll feel as though. You’ve never touched a golf [00:28:00] club in the past. And
Chris Gazdik: for those of you that don’t know golf, I mean, you have to place your wrists in a proper way, your grips with your fingers, how their thumbs are pointed to each other, that the angle of your feet, the width of your feet, that the follow through the swing.
I mean, it is endless.
Matthew Hanks: Okay. Yeah. I mean, even, even at the highest level, you know this guys. Oh yeah. Trying to get a grip
Chris Gazdik: on it. He was working on his swing every day. How is he working on his swing? It’s all short game right now. Oh yeah, sure. Actually I think that he swung didn’t he he’s, he’s swinging again,
Matthew Hanks: but he’s just still rehabbing that leg.
He’s
Chris Gazdik: not going to be competitive for a little while if ever still. I think I heard that he wants to come back play
Matthew Hanks: a few. So of course he does. I learned a long time ago. I don’t count tiger woods. I don’t know how we got on tiger woods, but I learned a long time ago. Do never. Count that man out,
Chris Gazdik: you brought up a golf metaphor and it was awesome.
Matthew Hanks: Well, when it comes to parenting, because there’s just, there’s so much to it. And just one, one day you feel like, wow, I think I did really good. I [00:29:00] give myself an a today as a, as a parent, wait till tomorrow,
Chris Gazdik: it’s a perfect metaphor. And they’re really, you hear so many things. This is why I think parent guilt.
We did a show on parent guilt, as a matter of fact, Neil, if you would look that one up, I want to quote that in this episode, because that’s a huge a really important one, I think for this episode and that shame on me for not looking at it. Parent guilt is so strong and so devastating. It’s so destructive.
And you hear so much that you’re supposed to be doing so much that you’re, that you’re, I don’t know. Gosh, parent guilt is just terrible. We did a whole
Matthew Hanks: episode on, and you’re constantly feeling like you run out of time. Yeah. You know, I mean, I, I thought about that. Like there’s only a couple, few short years.
And he’s he’s out of the house, you know, my oldest. Oh my gosh. Yes. You know, and you think about all of this, is he ready for this situation? Is he ready for it? Ready for college. Ready for his job ready? For whatever in life. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. [00:30:00]
Matthew Hanks: Yeah. Cause it’s, there are so many life lessons and you wish you could just program them to be ready for everything.
And it’s
Chris Gazdik: impossible. What is it? It is episode 71 parent guilt. That is a hugely important one in this conversation. So check that one out too. I like to say these shows do build on each other, you know, because again, if you’re parenting out of guilt, if you’re parenting out of fear, which we just both admitted, we pare parent out of fear.
There that’s a tough place to be in you’re you’re struggling when that’s happening. Fearless parenting. That sounds like a good title. That sounds like a really good title.
Matthew Hanks: Enjoy coming back, being a part of that one. Yeah. That’s a great title, but you think it think of all the categories in life? I mean, relationships, finances, business, you know politics life.
I mean, just think about all of it. I was just thinking the other day. When’s the last time I went camping with my son. Does [00:31:00] he know how to tie a knot? Does he know how to start a fire? Does it know how to pitch a tent? The fish know all the outdoor stuff, man. I’m I feel like I’m slacking in that area, but failing.
But if I, if I were to take a whole week and we just spent it in the wilderness somewhere, then I’m feel like, well, gosh, now I’m failing him. And some other areas, school
Chris Gazdik: or homework or whatever on the
Matthew Hanks: point. What about, how does he know how to write a check? Does he know how to operate on a budget? What does it take to open a
Chris Gazdik: business and, and successfully good place to maybe go back to where that surprised you?
This is a good place to really instill stop the parent guilt, stop the fear, stop the shame and realize that that kid is going to figure not some, all of those things out when he needs to, he, all of them, even fishing, how to bait a hook. You know, pull clean the fish out if he needs to my gosh, as a matter of fact, here’s a joke, but it’s for real, these kids got Google, man, get YouTube and they know more than we know.
How about,
Matthew Hanks: well, talk [00:32:00] about a double-edged sword. Yeah. You know, that’s like, they can learn whatever they want
Chris Gazdik: and they do. Y’all all of you a, what do they call us?
Matthew Hanks: Yeah. You all came right out. Huh? You said you weren’t Southern earlier. The gal.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, man. That’s scary. Give yourself away. That’s scary. They do know.
And they do look and they do research everyone out there needs to understand when you think again, I don’t know how much you can filter because they are so entwined in finding out what it is that they want to know. They’ll find a way. And nowadays it is. That’s why you want to instill some of these other things that will end in the big, in the, in the end with that you, that you really want to kind of hit, but let’s go through because we have a lot that we want to try to get to, as we want to think about these different areas of life, people usually go to the technology questions, you know, what do we want to do, you know, to filter them?
What do we want to do to monitor their game time and all that [00:33:00] kind of stuff. And we’ve covered that on the show as well. Look at the gaming and social media with kids. I think I did look that one up. Yep. Episode 39. You know, when we looked at what happens with social media and kids, but basic thing, there is, it does create anxiety.
That is an anxiety generator as a concern, you know, get your tweets, get your pops, gets your snaps. You know, in fact, I don’t know if your kids where they’re at D do you know what a what is it called when you get a how many snaps you get in a day? Oh my God. I lost it. Neil. Do you know what happens when you get?
He doesn’t know either. In my
Matthew Hanks: brain, they get a certain badge. If they get a certain number of snaps, things
Chris Gazdik: like that. Okay. It’s streak, it’s a streak. And I got a, I got a 253 streak with my friend Ray. That means you’ve been able to snap back and forth. Yeah. 253 times. And you have got to get whether I’m grounded or not, or you’ve taken my phone away.
Dad, you don’t understand. I have got to get [00:34:00] 255. It’s it’s so important.
Matthew Hanks: Yes, there was another one’s different back in our day. Streaking had a totally different meaning back in their day.
Chris Gazdik: If you have a fun story
there,
Matthew Hanks: thought you may want to share one.
Chris Gazdik: I actually have no, there’s a lot that I’ve done.
I’ve met. I’ve never done that. I think I’d have to think about it, but I think that’s a true statement. Gaming can be strengths as well. I like, I want to make that point out. It is not all bad there. We’re, we’re finding that that actually has some applications in life with fine motor skills and that type of a thing sound crazy.
That gaming can be helpful for kids. Yeah. Yeah. It may have done it absolutely can. Yeah. Well
Matthew Hanks: and well, through and through some of the military training, you know, we did video game style simulations with weapons. Just go through certain scenarios and all, and it very much, I mean, you feel like you’re in a video game, it’s, it’s a big spiritual reality.
It’s all [00:35:00] virtual reality. But the other thing that I want to mention there is Minecraft, Minecraft. Oh, I mean the most creative they’ve built hotels, they’ve built dream houses. I mean all, all types of the, and they’re operating.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, that’s the other thing that I’m going to point out, go to the library.
Matthew Hanks: So the collaboration point of it, they can be in different places in the world, whatever the case is, all connected, all working together. So it’s communication, it’s accomplishing a common goal it’s being
Chris Gazdik: created and together breaking down cultural barriers. Ooh, how’s that one. And it’s true. Listen, there’s a problem in not having face to face eyeball to eyeball in the real time, personal relationship development.
That’s the big criticism. But people I’ve had friends. I have had clients time and time again, literally make full relationships over what they. With our friends online and it has helped all kinds of things with anxiety and Asperger’s kids and, you know, things like that. That’s they socialize that [00:36:00] is their socialization and that is not bad.
It’s not inherently bad. So, but there are concerns again with, you know, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve got to have FaceTime to in actual activities, virtual schools and other one real quick comment on here and in school in general, you know what are you trying to filter out and how are you trying to filter out with school?
It’s their grade? Y’all, it’s their grade people like, and sometimes we take a personal attack and account, like as a reflection of us and that you got to guard against, but the technology thing that I’m just flying through here, because we’ve covered it before, and it’s talked about more, you know, the.
You want me to get on a rant about virtual school? Go for it. ShallI ran it’s you’ve not built platform. It’s not great. It gives me grave concerns in the way that people are learning exclusively with [00:37:00] that. And I think that, you know, we all have seen that through the pandemics experience that we really need to have that human contact in learning.
And it’s, it’s just an essential, developmental, social, and emotional reality that we need to have. It’s not all bad, please. Don’t kill me on email and, you know, send, send all that to me because I know it has its values. It really has its values. Well, you’ve learned that, but boy, it is gives me a little bit of
Matthew Hanks: shakes and you said exclusive exclusively learning in that way.
Yeah. Not that there’s anything too wrong with using it as a platform or a medium to learn, but you know, you specifically said they’re exclusive.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That’s that’s thank you for that. Highlighting that because when you’re exclusively doing that, you’re missing all of the social emotional, I party like a rockstar when they took the, the exclusive virtual out and went ahead and did a B days.
Remember we were doing that around here. It was a days were [00:38:00] Mondays, Wednesdays and whatever. And B days I was so happy because like, oh great. That’s then, then that teacher can look my kid in the eyeball. That’s got to happen. That, that whole first year it was nothing but virtual. Oh my gosh. Nightmare.
Absolutely not. I mean, I see it with all my clients. They’re just checked out. They were just checked out. So that’s all I want to get with technology. Let’s really get into family dynamics and then their social life to help us think about how and what do we really need to filter. And I think Matthew, the way I want to do this is kind of read them.
And then I want to go back through and see which ones stick out, which ones are surprising, or you have thoughts about what the listening audience would be, you know, put comments on them. So how do we filter and what do we need to filter as it relates to family dynamics? Okay. We want to think, and this is just by the way, my total brainstorms on these.
I didn’t Google anything. You’re looking at anything. This [00:39:00] is just what came to me. And and, and I’ll prompt. I’ll give Casey another prop. I, I picked her brain and we texted in a little bit together. Finances and budgeting. Okay. What do you filter? What do you not conflict in the home? Right? Sexual activity, divorce.
What do you filter? How do you filter that? Staying home alone? That’s a big filter just in and of itself. When does that happen? When does it not the life’s 360. I probably should’ve put that in technology, but I put it in family. Cause it has a lot to do with family relationships. How much do you use that? How much do you not nutrition as it relates to body image and things like that, how do you filter them out?
Who owns what I wrote? Like how do you filter, you know, the finances again, a little [00:40:00] bit and who owns things? And a little tip. There is I’m big on entitlement with kids. Aaron was on the show actually once my oldest and he made fun of me, but he understands it too. Cause I’ve said it to me. Your mother and I own everything in this house right down to that shirt you like to wear and the bed you sleep on, it’s, you’re entitled when you get out and get on and get established, but that just helps to recommend and understand they can use it.
They can go with it. They’re welcomed to, to, to, to enjoy the benefits and privileges that it is. But it’s your mother’s and mine. I’s we never want to forget that. So what sticks out there in those Matthew and maybe we’ll touch on the important ones are in your mind,
Matthew Hanks: finances, I’ve never really thought in terms of filtering something related to financing or finances might need a little more structure in our family when it comes to that.
I noticed this past week there was a debit card. And you put in the child’s photo goes on the [00:41:00] card, but you can reward them with dollars on the card and then they have their own card to spend. So that’s pretty cool. Venmo
Chris Gazdik: man, catch apps and all this,
Matthew Hanks: the who owns what, I guess we’ve taken the opposite approach on that.
You know, you said like you and your mom or me and your mom own everything, you own nothing. You know, we give gifts, we expect them, no, this is, this is yours. You own it. I expect you to care for it. Keep up with it. Don’t lose it, you know? So it it’s, it’s not mine anymore. So that’s an opposite approach that we’ve taken you’re wrong.
Chris Gazdik: I’ve done. Let’s use this moment Like to demonstrate again, you aren’t wrong. That was a joke, everybody, because there aren’t any immediate right answers here. Don’t think you’re wrong. If you do that or Matt’s right. And I’m wrong for that. There is that we have got to get away from that type of thinking. There are choices that you go, and what you’re trying to do with those choices is what we [00:42:00] really want to switch our brains to think about.
Let’s look at the finances since you pointed that out, you know, there’s, there’s some thinking there, you know, You want to, you want to kinda, and I said in the factories, in the beginning, all the developmental things are important here. You know, little toddlers are different than teenagers. So it’s always on a developmental level that the kid is at.
And also the maturity level that differentiates one kid from the next that’s especially. So with like, when do you leave a kid at home alone? You know, their maturity level and their developmental level is fine, but there are people that are afraid to leave their 14 year old kid home alone. I’m like, geez, are you kidding me?
And he’s gonna be driving here in a minute, but yet you’re still afraid to leave him home alone. Like again, fear. And if you’re parenting out of fear, that’s a concern, but finances. Right? So there’s a lot of fear that kids can have when they hear parental fights or battles or statements about financial distress, financial
Matthew Hanks: panic.
Okay. I see where you’re coming from right. With
Chris Gazdik: the [00:43:00] filtering piece. And we’re not really aware sometimes because we’re just doing bills at the kitchen table. But you can really, you gotta be mindful of that a little bit because kids will really get in their mind, not keeping up with the Joneses they’re actually geared towards.
And I actually have had questions for my kids, Matthew, or are we okay, dad? Okay. Are we okay? And I’m like, are we okay? Like, dude, we’re comparatively so well, we’re blessed as they say in the south, you were fantastic. I know we don’t feel wealthy. Well,
Matthew Hanks: so for him to ask that, where’s he
Chris Gazdik: got it? Did he
Matthew Hanks: conversation with a friend maybe they’re struggling in their home, could know, and then it makes them want to come back and ask you, Hey, but that maybe that’s where it came from.
You know, you heard, you heard a friend, he comes in and wants to come home. Hey, are we okay? Yeah. Here in this house, but I mean, part of that’s maturing, I mean, at least these, the concept of. Money doesn’t grow on trees or I’ll try [00:44:00] to get across that, that concept. So asking the question
Chris Gazdik: or too
Matthew Hanks: much, cause yeah, cause then they say, well, I never knew it took this to provide this and to pay for this.
And
Chris Gazdik: you had ignorant, my teenagers are in therapy sessions where they have no idea what a freaking a coat costs. Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Hanks: Yeah. It’s, it’s harsh reality. When you, you think about even the concept of taxes about a year ago, it was so funny because it was time for, you know, they’re going to get money for something.
We were taking a trip and I say, well, you know, it was 15 hours, but you know, Hey taxes. So it’s actually $30. What do you mean taxes? Oh, guess what? Now’s the time to realize. Yeah, whatever amount it is that ain’t the,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. And, and here’s, I should’ve had this actually right from the get-go as well on my list of things that are factors.
I don’t even think I had this on anywhere. And it occurs [00:45:00] to me is super important as thought actually, I do have it back in the notes. I remember now in the family sector, but I’m going to do it here. If you’re ever questioning, this is a, I guess a little beyond midpoint break, dramatic pausing here. Right?
If you’re ever questioning how much to filter, how much to let go and not filter, if you’re ever questioning, what should I share with the kid? Or what should I not share with the kid? This comes with the divorce section. We’ll jump to and family here in a minute. I’ve always given divorcing parents, this idea, this guideline, this guidance.
And I think it’s really, really solid. Okay. First off the kid has got to know that they can ask you questions, any question that comes to their mind now, before you blow that first AE off, that is a really important factor. And it’s really difficult to really get it conveyed to your kid and be consistent with [00:46:00] your kid, that they can really ask you any question possible.
So endeavor to, to accomplish that goal. And then when you accomplish that goal and then reinforce that goal and revisit that goal, then you can allow the kids questions to guide how much it is that you share, because they will tell you what their developmental level and what their maturity level is by the questions that they’re asking.
This is huge. So a they’ve gotta be able to know they can ask questions B, then you let their questions guide the depths of what you share. Now there’s a little bit of. Subset here, kids, especially younger will ask questions that they’re really not caring about the substance of their question. They’re caring about the underlying question.
So quick example, my brain’s a little busy right now, so I’m not, and he’s my standard example. You know what I mean by that Matthew, you might need to help me out. So a kid might ask something, they don’t really care about that answer, but what they really want to know is like what’s underneath that.
Nah, it nothing’s too. I’m [00:47:00] totally blanking. And is it because they
Matthew Hanks: don’t know the question to ask or they don’t want to just dive completely in quite yet. So test the water
Chris Gazdik: a lot of that. Yeah. You know, I mean they, they want to know. Okay. Well so in, in a divorce situation, you know, w when, when am I going to go see mom and, and why do I have only Wednesdays there?
What they really want to know is, am I going to be able to have a relationship with my mom? Because she moved out. That’s what they’re really kind of getting at. And they’re asking about just Wednesday and the limits that we have. Okay. So there’s a, there’s a question and we can answer the question, but we also have to look at what’s underneath that question to guide how much we want to really share.
And here’s the good news. That’s confusing. And you’re going to miss it. No doubt. You’re going to miss it, but I have no fear because it’s going to come back up. You will get more questions if you’re not answering the question underneath. Does that make sense? It does. This is really important. Just to repeat it again, kids got to know, they can ask any question they want B, you’re going to let them guide the [00:48:00] kid, guide you with the questions that they ask on how much to share, how much to filter and whatnot, make sense.
Sure. Yeah. I think it’s an excellent guidepost for all of this that we’re talking about.
Matthew Hanks: And I have never thought that before. Yeah. Is that a new thought that the concept of it’s important that the child understands and feels comfortable asking anything under the sun that they would want to. That’s in their mind.
It’s fair game. I’ve never thought about it that way before.
Chris Gazdik: Yep. It’s a hard standard to get to because kids are worried. They don’t want to upset you. You’re their God and they don’t want to make you mad or, you know, whatever. But we can get there. We’re going to be able to have awesome conversations about drugs, about sexual activity, about budgeting.
Get this. How about back to finances about retirement? Super proud. My older kids actually already got a retirement account, right? Because we, we talked about the finances and what he’s doing with it, and I’m so jealous how much he could sock in there. Matthew
Matthew Hanks: look at what it will [00:49:00] be after 40 years, 50 years of sitting there too.
It comes right
Chris Gazdik: from Dave Ramsey meals with oh, good. Yeah. That’s great from Dave. How old is he? He’s 20. Yeah, he’s 20. He’s got a lot ahead of the curve. Well, and he knows it. He may retire before you, and it’s his plan. That is his plan. Whether that’ll come to fruition, we’ll see. But that’s what he wants.
Yeah. Conflict is another one that I want to go back to then in, in, in a really look, we fight in our households. If you say you don’t I’m, I’m gonna highly question you in doubt that we fight, we have battles. We raise our voice. Sometimes we say things we didn’t didn’t look back on. Cringe moments are normal.
Can you say that that might be a quote, Neal Quinn cringe moments are normal. Okay. So the reality here is They, we’ll see the conflicts and we are going to try to filter them. You want to [00:50:00] do some of the things you would think of, you know, throw down knockout drag-out fights and living room with kids are all around.
You want to try. To mitigate that a little bit, but what I really want to focus on with conflicts is to get you thinking about don’t filter out the apologies,
why we do that with our kids. I don’t understand. We don’t want to revisit anything. We don’t want to see the makeup. We don’t let them see, you know, the reunification component when we’re in conflict. Does that make sense to you, Matthew I’ve we have, I don’t know what, why
Matthew Hanks: is it that we would do that? I don’t know how to do that
Chris Gazdik: because we don’t want to revisit things.
We don’t want to make them think we’re not happy with each other or whatever. Like, yo, you need to apologize, man. Make it an ordeal. Like that’s an awesome thing to model and teach. Don’t have to filter that. [00:51:00] And I’ll go even a step further when it comes to conflict. As a matter of fact that you for listening today in the next week, if that’s too much in the next month, I want you to find a way to apologize something, to apologize to your kid, about how about that?
Why do parents not feel that they can apologize to their kids? And they were afraid to do that? Apologies. Essential. You ever apologize to your kid? If I can ask, I don’t know if that’s too much to push you. Remember it’s weird. Isn’t it?
Matthew Hanks: It’s I wouldn’t say it’s my first tendency to do that. I feel like I I’m certain I have, and there’s nothing specific that comes to mind right now.
I’m not scared to, Hey, I mess up like everybody else does, but I guess I just have that thing of being the dad. I don’t want to let them down. So gosh, I hate to even the thought of. Doing something wrong that I have to apologize for. Bothers me. Maybe that’s every
Chris Gazdik: parent, maybe not, but I think that’s all of us.
And maybe the answer to [00:52:00] your question. Why would we not do that? There? You may
Matthew Hanks: have some, because we don’t want to have that moment of vulnerability where we come across as anything less than, yeah. I’m the on point. Good way to describe it.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You know, I, again, so within the next week, if you’re listening, you got a little listener challenge.
Let’s see how you do, man. Find a moment, find a reason to, to get an apology delivered to your son or daughter. And I don’t care if they’re 30 years old, by the way, you know, you can, you can S you’re still modeling that mom was always mama. Did you hear that? Oh yeah. You know, it find a way, find something. I, you know as you know, I’m pretty verbal and I, I sometimes use too much verbal and I get too loud with my kids.
It was embarrassing. And I hate to think that, but it’s true. And I’ve more than once gone back and said, Hey, Adam, buddy, I’m sorry. I, I, you know, I got really mad and hot with that, man. And I, I didn’t need to get as loud with that one. So, you know we’ll look [00:53:00] at connecting better on that, but dude, you really know, you need to pick up the candy wrappers,
Matthew Hanks: clean my car out today.
And it was candy wrappers that were everywhere. You too.
Chris Gazdik: Maddening maddening children, their social life. How do we filter? And what do we filter out of their social? Let’s do the same thing. Picking friends or banning friends activities and questioning them about them. Privacy with a room dating privileges.
First here’s a little tip. You do see the word privileges on dating, right? Sorry, but that’s tip in my brain from my bread, sleepovers, religious beliefs, checking phones, and then dealing with their social conflicts. Okay. These are some of the things that brainstormed interesting in my brain about like how much do you filter these things out?
How [00:54:00] much can you filter these things out? And how do you really go about doing that? Any of those stick out in your brain?
Matthew Hanks: The checking of the phones, kinda kind of interesting. I mean, my, my oldest is 12 and he doesn’t have a phone, but he’s got X-Box, he’s got a lap top.
Chris Gazdik: It pause right there. Let me just say want to put that in this episode I said this with the social media, this is unrealistic, but as long as you can hold out on the smartphones for your kids do so seriously.
I wish I would have had the smarts to hold them out until high school. I did not. And you’re going to go through lots of resistance in middle school, on, on the phones. But if I knew what I knew now, then I would hold off as long as possible. That’s just take it for what it’s worth listening to the social media with kids.
And you’ll, you’ll see a little bit more depth in as, as to why. Good.
Matthew Hanks: Well, it’s a, we definitely hear it. Hey, daddy, I’d liked that. Love to have a [00:55:00] phone. Can I have your old phone? Gosh, I hear that a lot. That type of stuff, but it’s not even been an option. We, Susan, I have not even considered it at this age.
Yeah, absolutely not. It’s not. Oh, it’s we consider it very young. I mean, I want to, within being 12, we’re probably getting close. Oh, you know, the reality of it is because I don’t want, I don’t want too much to hit at one time you said four, you know, and I know 16, you know, 16 now we were dealing with the whole driving and you got the keys and you go wherever you want.
So that’s not the time to hit them with a cell phone too. You know?
Chris Gazdik: So I mean the reality.
Matthew Hanks: And then we can fight that battle and then the car battle and then the college battle and we space it out a little bit. So it doesn’t hit all at one time
Chris Gazdik: strategy. Is it the right strategy? I don’t know. Is that the wrong strategy is, [00:56:00] I don’t know.
Is that a pepper? That in again, man, don’t think you’re doing something wrong. If your five-year-old has a cell phone, I’m not I’m right. There’s we gotta be careful about that when we’re, when we’re parent guilting people, but I’ll say it again. Hold off as long as POS.
Matthew Hanks: Oh yeah. I mean, I, I would, I would disagree with the five-year-old piece of it.
I mean, you be the expert, but I would. If you’ve got a child that’s five years old and you’ve given them a phone that’s well, you know,
Chris Gazdik: here’s the thing, literally now, Matthew potty training kids with iPads and stuff on, on the pie. They have a stand on a potty. I saw this for real. They have a stand for a, a phone or a iPad on the party
Matthew Hanks: toilet.
Now, next there’ll be, they, they come out of the womb and they’re crying. Oh, let’s give them an iPad. I mean, it’s a little excessive,
Chris Gazdik: Can be, [00:57:00] can be, what else do I want to comment about? Oh, picking and banning friends, I think is a difficult. Difficult one, you have more control as a parent when they’re little, but, and in every
Matthew Hanks: regard and, and every go, I mean, not just the Friends, but the, the tablet time, if that’s what it is, the screen time, where they go, who they talk to, what they get exposed to.
That’s one of the harsh realities is that the older they get the less control you have understand turns into more of an advising role. Yeah. The only thing is,
Chris Gazdik: so that’s a good, that’s a good word. That’s a good word. As the kids get older, you’re more of an adviser. I love it. I love that a lot. You know, you have to be careful about filtering out too much with things in the kids’ social life.
I’m not saying I’m parenting out of fear or suggesting that, but you have great potential of developing massive resentments that gets in your way of teaching life lessons, because remember that’s [00:58:00] our goal, right? To teach life lessons. That’s all we really want to know. And you just resent the kids is resenting you constantly because you’re limiting, limiting, limiting, limiting, limiting, limiting, like my gosh.
It, yeah. Well,
Matthew Hanks: that’s part of my job.
Chris Gazdik: It’s too much. Yeah. But it can be
Matthew Hanks: job as a father or to limit say again, it’s part of my job as a father is to limit. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, cause you, you know, you’re, you’re not at a point of maturity that you can limit yourself and somebody has to do it. Absolutely.
I’m the parent and I will
Chris Gazdik: do it. Okay. Guard rails are important. They must be put in guardrails because they make you feel safe. Even though you rebuke the guard rail. I have all metaphor with that. I don’t have time.
Matthew Hanks: Keep in mind the guard rails, not where the danger is, the dangerous over here, the guard rails to keep you away from the dangerous.
Chris Gazdik: So it’s a good piece of the metaphor, whatever it is. I haven’t used that piece of it before, but limiting, limiting, limiting too much is a concern. So that we’re trying to find that that balancing act is, is my, [00:59:00] as my main point here probably depends
Matthew Hanks: on the fan. Well, it depends on a lot of the child, a lot of factors to consider.
Chris Gazdik: All right, what is too much? I warned you in the beginning of the show. I can’t give you an exact, there’s a lot of gray in this, but you know, there’s so many helicopter parents out there. People love that phrase and people know helicopter parents. Do you know how many parents have pointed out their own helicoptering?
Matthew Hanks: And they just can’t stop themselves. I know I do it, but I can’t stop it. Exactly. Look be it. The fear,
Chris Gazdik: the whatever, guilt and shame are the big ones. Yeah. I literally, for the very first time heard somebody called himself in a therapy session. Helicopter parent, I was shocked about fell out on the floor. It was, it was refreshing self-diagnosed yeah, it was refreshing insight about self.
I mean, it, it was, it was
Matthew Hanks: important. So we’re ahead of the game. You’ve already diagnosed it we’ve identified the problem,
Chris Gazdik: Dating privileges when to start sleepovers. A lot of those things [01:00:00] are kind of bleeding in together. You know, a religious beliefs are interesting, right. Especially with your teens question, does your teen have the emotional space to explore through grace forgiveness, their own beliefs in religion?
How difficult can that be? Sometimes, you know, that filtration that, that, that sheltering that we want to do to protect if they don’t have the way to explore, you know, unfortunately I tell people very openly I’m from a Christian belief, and I know that I’ve heard it spoke about in many sermons. You know, we lose Christian, teenagers.
They’re gone. They’re out, out to lunch. They leave the church, their home church is abandoned and that’s a very, very common statistical thing. I wonder if that’s because we are not allowing space for them to in a safe way, explore their views like that. Be careful about filtering too [01:01:00] much there. What’s right.
What’s enough. What’s not enough. You know, you have to get your own gauge, but, but we can filter that too much. Dealing with our own conflicts episode 13 is an excellent one to help you with that because bullying is a real issue issues with violence and abuse with kids that they’re enduring episode 13, we’ll help you with that to give you some guidelines there, let’s get to the factors that I want to end with.
And this gets to a lot of how, and I know that’s an important thing that people want. How the heck do I do this things? Okay. Listen, and let’s talk about us. Do the same, the same thing. Thinking about with this. What do we model want you to think for a moment? Like what, what are you modeling? So really important factors in how you’re going to filter things is trust development with your kid.
Do you trust them? Do they trust [01:02:00] you? Right. Reputation, teaching, teaching integrity. What does that even mean to you as a parent and what you’re teaching to the kid? Obviously developmental factors. I mentioned that before and then disabilities are learning disabilities identified are mental health issues identified and recognized really important.
How you’re going to filter huge dramatic pause. Facilitate yourself before you try to engage, that’s going to determine how you go about this. If you’re not facilitated, holy cow, I can speak, I can camp out there on that one. I’m supposed to be just reading these, but I had to camp out there for just a second.
You’ve got to facilitate yourself from again, fear and the guilt and anger that you just Wells up into. You. You got to facilitate that, keeping up with the Jones’s effect. As again, we’re all really affected by that. [01:03:00] Does that influence how you execute filters and whatnot? What do you think about these things?
Decent lists to get you thinking about the, how tos on filtering things?
Matthew Hanks: Yeah. Yeah. I think what comes to mind is like some of the other topics we’ve discussed, it feels as though we’re scratching the surface, we could take all day multi-day. On this and we can start bringing up some case studies and some specifics, things that we see in children these days, how is this affecting that dangerous,
Chris Gazdik: got four good conversations to have.
That’s why I love doing the show. And that’s why these shows bleed together episode, whatever 71 and episode 15, you know, they they’re they’re, they are carry overs. Cause you’re absolutely.
Matthew Hanks: But certain points like the one you made about, you know, that struck me about your, as important for your child to understand that they can bring any question that comes [01:04:00] to their mind.
And I guess I’ve, I’ve, that’s why I that’s what I wanted, but I never thought about it in that way, but
Chris Gazdik: I knew that they, of course
Matthew Hanks: they hope that they absolutely, but what can I do as a dad to
Chris Gazdik: make sure
Matthew Hanks: they, you know, pull the questions out or, you know, make sure that they ask a question. I don’t, oh, that’s a dumb question.
Or, or. Certain categories are all we know. We’ll have to talk about that later. No, this, I sit down
Chris Gazdik: and talk about it right now. And, and, and that is, yeah, I’m glad you brought that back up because that is a really hard thing to, to engage. And I will make the statement that if you heard that and you already think that you’re really already good at doing it, there is a reason why your kids are more comfortable talking to other kids than coming to you with questions, because it’s a really hard standard to, to get to it’s, it’s a really hard standard to accomplish.
So if you’re out there and you think you’ve done a good job with that, reconsider that, because I’m going to say you probably haven’t done a good [01:05:00] enough job with that simply because nobody can, that’s not critical statement as to get you really thinking how important that is and how difficult it is.
Look, we got to run out of here today, but I, I warned you at the beginning. There’s no immediate answers. And you were looking for immediate answers on do this, and don’t do that. You ain’t coming to the right place when we’re talking about parenting, but hopefully this gives you brains to be thinking about it rather than just reacting in the moment, because one of the most important jobs you have in life is being a parent to your kids.
I believe that’s a true statement. Fair enough. Very fair, Matt. Thanks for hanging out with us. I think that we may have a conflict next week, so we may lose you on one of the weeks for February, but we’ll see you next time around. Thank you for having me. All right. You guys have a great week and we’ll see you around the bend as well.[01:06:00]