In Episode 273 of “Love and Logic Reviewed,” we explore the “Love and Logic” parenting philosophy, highlighting its key tenets such as shared control, empathy before consequences, logical consequences, and avoiding power struggles. Additionally, we emphasize the importance of maintaining a high-structure environment with minimal conflicts, building positive parent-child relationships, and understanding the challenges of parenting. This episode offers valuable insights for parents at any stage.
Tune in to see Love and Logic Reviewed Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- What are your primary parenting strategies?
- Have you ever heard of Love and Logic?
- What is the hardest part of parenting?
Links referenced during the show:
Diddy Breaks Silence Over Video of Him Assaulting Cassie (msn.com)
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/kidsandparenting
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode #273 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes, May the 23rd, episode 273. We’re going to be talking about love and logic, which is part of what I call part of the trifecta, three fundamental things that I think personally. Are just on point one is emotion focused therapy. The other is Dave ramsey’s financial peace university and the third is this it’s a privetal I I feel like major changing expectation sets or just Strategies, beliefs, fundamental parent child relationship differences that come into this.
So John, you’ve never heard of this before.
John-Nelson Pope: No, I was in seminary when
Chris Gazdik: it
John-Nelson Pope: was 1977. I can
Chris Gazdik: promise you this wasn’t, this doesn’t go back that far either, but this is John Pope behind the mic. How are you, sir?
John-Nelson Pope: I’m doing outstanding. Thank you.
Chris Gazdik: Pendergrass as well, ma’am. Hi.
Victoria Pendergrass: I feel like I haven’t [00:01:00] been here in forever.
Sorry.
Chris Gazdik: I actually thought about that. You know, my little timer, usually I have a stopwatch that, that times things. And it was like 553 hours or something like that. I don’t know what it was, but it was, it was a lot.
John-Nelson Pope: We’ve gone dark for a.
Chris Gazdik: So we’ve gone dark, but actually that’s a good segue, John, into we, Neil for the last few shows has given a kind of an update on what we’re doing with shows.
We’ve got a big backlog of shows and posting them. So I’m told we are all caught up. We’re back onto a regular routine schedule. So yeah, that’s, that’s a
cool. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for your hard work. And doing that for, for real. Now you can
John-Nelson Pope: come back to the gym.
Chris Gazdik: Now you can come back to the gym.
Victoria Pendergrass: Once you feel better.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, yeah, Neil’s been down, we’ve had a lot been going on. Different, different things, so. Through Therapist Eyes, where we do talk about mental health issues. and substance abuse, [00:02:00] knowing this is not a delivery of therapy in any way, where you get insights in your home and in your car. We have YouTube, where we do weekly YouTube lives on about 6 15 on the Thursdays.
And John, we are looking for three star reviews on Apple Spotlight. No, five star reviews. Oh, yeah. He likes the five, the full five star.
John-Nelson Pope: Full five stars. No three stars. You thought you got me. I did. I
Chris Gazdik: did. I was Playing man, contact it through a therapist. Eyes. com is our email that you can get up with us.
This is the human emotional experience, which we do endeavor to figure out together. You like that line, Victoria?
Victoria Pendergrass: I do. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: We’ve had conversations about it.
Chris Gazdik: We had many. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to do a quick current event that I felt just needed to be mentioned and whatnot, and Victoria tells me that she has a mentor moment.
That’s kind of cool. So we’re going to go through those a little bit quick and then [00:03:00] dive into the three questions. What are your primary parenting strategies? Have you ever heard of love and logic? I’m curious. And what’s the hardest part of parenting? I want to come to that as a parent. Bit of a conclusion,
Speaker: huh?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Oh
Victoria Pendergrass: s3 sets of parents in here are three parents in here Yeah, technically four with Neil
Chris Gazdik: You want to explain the side John?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, it’s just that that there’s there’s always a surprise And so it, and
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t answer the question yet. We haven’t gotten to it yet. I
Chris Gazdik: think he was explaining his side.
Victoria Pendergrass: I think he just thought about all the different things that ran through his mind and all his years of parenting.
Chris Gazdik: And
Victoria Pendergrass: now he has to pick one.
Chris Gazdik: All right. The current event is Mr. P Diddy. He goes by Shane Diddy, Sean Diddy, Victoria. What did you say? Sorry, she told us not to make her laugh because he’s gonna
Victoria Pendergrass: [00:04:00] cough. Yeah, he’s gone by a lot of different names over the years, like,
It’s Sean. Sean Combs. Yeah, and like, His name was Sean
Chris Gazdik: Combs?
I don’t know what his,
Victoria Pendergrass: I honestly, I probably shouldn’t know this as a millennial, I don’t even know like what his actual birth name is.
Chris Gazdik: I don’t know. But anyways, it doesn’t really
Victoria Pendergrass: matter because he is not really worth talking about that much. Well, funny you
Chris Gazdik: should say. Why would you say that? What is the current event?
You want to throw it out a I
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t know. Too much like as far as recent, like all of it, but recently a video has been, has surfaced of him and an old girlfriend, I think Cassie
John-Nelson Pope: Ventura
Victoria Pendergrass: from like hotel footage of him like chasing her down the hallway in a towel, and like, I think that this just follows a bunch of other things that have been happening in a pretty ugly video.[00:05:00]
Yeah. He,
Chris Gazdik: he pulled her, pushed her down, kicked her. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: kicked her. It was pretty cool.
Chris Gazdik: It was pretty brutal. And so the current event is, is really just domestic violence. It’s very real and I don’t care to get into too much of the details about this person or this event and whatnot, other than I really felt it was an opportunity to just put some awareness out about domestic violence, which is an issue that just keeps on happening.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And it’s you know, we did actually, John, I think you and I did the show where we talked about male victimization, you know, in this as well. So it happens now both ways, which is a good you know, honorable mention in, in the, in the deal.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, I think it’s also important, and I don’t know if you were ever going to go this way, but I think it’s also sheds light that like, Famous people, like, can do wrong as well.
I mean, obviously, we’ve seen that a lot in history. Like, I mean, a lot of celebrities and famous people get in [00:06:00] trouble for a different amount of
things. But I think a lot of times we approach the mindset we have towards famous people is like, they’re so, like, they can’t do anything wrong.
Right.
I think a lot of times and, or that they can’t fall victim to things too.
Cause you got to look at her side of it as well. Like she is a victim. And so I think it shows light on like. They’re human just like the rest of us and they like their life is just more publicized than ours is and so Yeah, but this is very strong. I mean, it’s not an excuse. It’s just I think yeah
John-Nelson Pope: Explanation but but there’s a lot of misogyny.
I mean, it’s just I think in terms of lyrics of the of the music right, and I think
Chris Gazdik: misogyny is
John-Nelson Pope: Misogyny is sort of like a, a, a dislike and miss and like gyno, which means female. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a hatred of, of [00:07:00] women and, or a disdaining of women yet at the same time using women. As objects, not subjects.
Chris Gazdik: I want to take a little bit of angle, actually. I’m going to make a little bit of a take a little bit of a turn. Okay. And see what you guys do with it, and what you think. Because it was an interesting piece to this that is You know, we got some cited stuff where this comes from and whatnot. But during an interview, I actually saw some of this, but then the article that I saw that kind of pulled from just to give some backing and hopefully people that did their job accurately to get information that’s current or accurate, but during the face interview I heard him explain his own disgust with his own behavior, which led to getting into rehab and essentially fixing himself.
He admitted assault and talked about it, quote, It’s so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life, but sometimes you gotta do that. I was effed up. He used the word, we’re trying to be a family show here, right? It’s still the [00:08:00] quote. But, Sometimes you got to do that. I was effed up. I hit rock bottom, but I make no excuses Quote later on more quote.
I went and I sought out professional help. I had to go into therapy rehab I had to ask God for his mercy in grace. I’m so sorry, but I’m committed to be a better man each and every day I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m truly sorry and quote. So what do you do with that? And this was a 16 You Years ago.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, it was 2016.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, okay. Yeah. Thank you. I need to be careful about what I’m quoting just thought by it Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: now and the only reason why I know that was that I said my goodness has happened a while back Yeah, it it has
Chris Gazdik: it has gotten beyond the statute of limitations also, by the way So, but, you know, rehab and therapy and realizing this is the case and you mentioned misogyny.
Is this a disturbed [00:09:00] individual behaving through addiction as we’ve talked about on the show doesn’t absolve responsibility of course, right? And there’s also the other side of like, but I’m wondering
John-Nelson Pope: if his worldview is such that that women are, that he’s, we don’t know. Yeah. And so he’s saying the right things.
He’s, we want to forgive. We want forgiveness. Yeah. And all that. But, but is this an example of cheap grace? You know, we tend to be very, we tend to be very forgiving as a, as a, as a people. And Especially of our celebrities, you know, we’re trying to rehabilitate Kevin Spacey for example Right. Yeah, there’s that so Yeah, sorry didn’t mean to bring that up.
No,
Victoria Pendergrass: you’re fine. Well, I mean if there’s also cases like Like I don’t know if y’all remember when like Chris Brown beat up Rihanna Examples and like he’s been on [00:10:00] tour And like selling out shows. And so like, and he’s, you know, I don’t think
John-Nelson Pope: he ever really asked for forgiveness. Yeah, I’m not
Victoria Pendergrass: really, that was a while ago when that happened, but like, I don’t know,
Chris Gazdik: there’s a lot to it.
And I think that there’s a lot to both the offender, the victims, the issues, addiction, you know, You know, and obviously I’m not a fan. Well, it’s not obvious, but I’m not a fan of P Diddy per se, by any measure, don’t even know
the stuff. But I am a fan of rehab. I am a fan of therapy. I am a fan of getting well, and I do believe people can get well.
If you’re an abuser out there, that’s identifying the self in yourself. Use this as an example. Maybe go get therapy, go deal with your stuff, go deal with getting being, becoming a better person. Get right with God, even, or your creator, like do something with yourself to get well, because you can. Also domestic violence is horrible.
That video was terrible.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, yeah. And I think that that brings up a point of it’s one thing I think, or at least for the population, like it’s [00:11:00] one thing to hear about it or to read about it in an article or to hear someone talk about like their personal experience. I think it adds a level of severity, not severity.
That’s not the right word, but like it adds a level of. Something to like, watch it for it to be on. Yeah. Like to watch the video and all the videos of all like major traumatic events that have happened in the U S and outside of the U S like any video of anything like that, like is all adds to the intensity of it because you’re not just hearing about it secondhand or listening to someone share their personal accounts.
A
Chris Gazdik: picture say a thousand. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s like, you’re actually watching like. The video of something that like actually like, and you’re watching it, like, even if it is eight years later, yeah, it’s, it, and I’m not saying that when people tell their stories, it doesn’t make it real. Like it isn’t real. It just [00:12:00] adds to the,
Chris Gazdik: and we have cameras everywhere.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: All right let’s get out of here any closing thoughts.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, let’s move on we
Chris Gazdik: do our job.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah
Chris Gazdik: We have a mentor moment. What’s up?
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay so I had a thing I had my last client yesterday I did talk to her about this. She knows i’m bringing this up today Because I told her that this would be great for the show.
But she was telling me about some things that have been happening like in her relationship and in her household And she asked me this question And of if someone is extremely stressed and anxious, can they appear or can they display signs of being intoxicated? So you know, okay, so you know how, you know how when You know how when they say driving tired is worse than driving drunk and they like, you know How when you get like super tired it can almost appear sometimes as if you are [00:13:00] intoxicated like
John-Nelson Pope: well Yeah, I think sometimes people can be tongue tied Yeah, and so
Victoria Pendergrass: then She was specifically asking me and I told her honestly, I was like, I have no freaking idea Like I would have to research it.
But yeah, she was wondering like if high amounts of stress You and anxiety could almost like replicate someone being Like, under the influence.
Chris Gazdik: It’s funny because on first take I agree, Victoria, I would say I don’t know. But talking about it, I think we’ll come to the conclusion that the short answer is yes.
That’s what I kind of assumed. Yeah, because John, you just started to say a few things. Once you follow up, I think also
John-Nelson Pope: in terms of I know that when I’m in an I have a little bit of social anxiety. I know that’s hard to believe, but I do. And I noticed, yeah, well, that’s how I calm myself, but [00:14:00] I think there’s, there’s that sense of, of, I’m not making sense.
I’m not, Oh my God, I’m thinking. And so. I may not I might seem like I’m a little bit off the wall sometimes. I’m not seeming to be cogent or logical. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s the only. Yeah. Well,
Chris Gazdik: I’m, I’m thinking about, you know, multiple things. I mean, you, you, you say, you know, you do flip around and you stutter and you’re unsure.
You can kind of, you know, You know, get foggy brain and not really think clearly, you know, you may
John-Nelson Pope: actually salivate more or less,
Chris Gazdik: right? So you can feel dizzy, dizzy.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. So the background, I love it a little bit is that with this person, their spouse, it is, is on the road to recovery.
From alcohol and it, it made, I think that’s where the wires got crosses cause it made her a little nervous.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Hard to discern what you’re saying. Yeah. And then
Victoria Pendergrass: [00:15:00] she wasn’t quite sure, like, well, has this person been drinking or like, are they really just. So had such a stressful, anxious day or a couple of days or whatnot that like they are like, it’s all catching up to them and they are appearing as if they, you know, as if they are intoxicated or like under the influence.
Yeah. And so there’s a lot of things that
Chris Gazdik: goes into that, you know, we won’t, we, we have, we’ve done whole shows on that. So I hope that you check out some. Yeah. I just was wondering about
Victoria Pendergrass: the stress. Yeah, there’s codependence. There’s
Chris Gazdik: recovery. You know, we just had the language of addiction and different things that are there.
So, so yeah, in short, I think
John-Nelson Pope: high anxiety would, would probably almost
Victoria Pendergrass: replicate and mimic. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I told her I would have to like do some research into it. I would ask y’all to see y’all’s opinion about it. It’s an interesting one for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I just
honestly, I never, yeah. Like no one’s ever asked me that or like, that’s never been a, [00:16:00] like a comparison.
Yeah. I never thought of that. Anybody is like ever made in any of my therapy sessions, I really haven’t thought
Chris Gazdik: of that correlation either.
John-Nelson Pope: I went up to a girl when I was in high school once and I was really, it was, and I was, and she was really beautiful. She was a surfer girl and I went up to her and started talking and I was like tongue tied and all that.
And she said, uptight, out of sight. Oh no. It slayed me.
Chris Gazdik: Oh John. That’s brutal. I think every guy listening understands that moment. Yeah. Not that it’s excuse me. I reeled.
John-Nelson Pope: I got dizzy. Did you? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’ll ring your bell. Yeah, it’ll ring your bell. Those moments are powerful and poignant and listen, mental health is strong.
It, it, it affects people, so that’s why we do the show, you know create these [00:17:00] dialogues. So let’s go into the love and logic reviewed. What are your primary parenting strategies? Have you ever heard of love and logic? And what is the hardest part of parenting? Sigh. I know, right? Like John, I’m curious.
If you have come across any professional model or strategy set or ideology, that is a good driving force in your mind all these years doing therapy, working with parenting.
John-Nelson Pope: You
Chris Gazdik: know,
John-Nelson Pope: yeah, I think mine was more of a systems the you’re
Chris Gazdik: going to social work field. Love that.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, mr, mr. I you know, mental research institute that was out of Palo A
I don’t know if Don Jackson, are you familiar with? No. Okay. Well, anyway, they, [00:18:00] they were, you got to understand I’m a generation before you, okay? And so we were using that model when we were in seminary and basically was, was to see how, how systems work in families. And so, you know, it, it, it really developed.
You got with, with the idea of Bowenian, Bowen. Marie Bowen and then Jay Haley That name sounds a little more familiar. You know,
Chris Gazdik: it’s interesting. I love that. I’m glad that we started that way. I didn’t plan that, but there are some foundations and some underpinnings. And as with any field, you lay foundations and lay layers and you do that.
You, you work new things out and you find new information. And I, I, I would suppose to you that love and logic probably is a bit of a, the, you know, the outcropping,
John-Nelson Pope: what little I have read. Yeah. Okay. Because when you asked me if I knew what he was, I said, who beats me? Right. It seems [00:19:00] very similar. Where at least it seems to be a little more sophisticated as to what the MRI model was with Don Jackson.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Yeah. No, not surprised that at all. And, and there’s actually a few other things that are out there that’s almost like built on to love and logic. So I was at a conference and somebody was like, Oh, I love the strategies of blah, blah, blah. And I forget what they were even like, you know, loving parenting or something like that.
Develop a much cooler name if you ask me, but it’s not necessarily
Victoria Pendergrass: a representative of what it actually looks like.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, and I think that it looks very similar to this
Victoria Pendergrass: gentle parent. Like this is gentle parent. I feel like, yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: this is intentional parenting. Even intentional
Chris Gazdik: is another very good word.
Another
Victoria Pendergrass: word for gentle parenting is intentional parenting.
Chris Gazdik: But all of these things that are newer. I feel like dramatically change the way that you look at your [00:20:00] parent child relationships. And so let’s get into that because maybe we should kind of say a little bit of what, yeah, let’s do that. You know, what are the standard kind of thinkings that parents have?
Nowadays, or as a standard understanding, you know, spare the rod and spare the child. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: there’s, I’m working with a couple now that, that he, he has a, a very much the idea of an authoritarian type of not authoritative, but authoritarian. When you say
Chris Gazdik: authoritarian, I feel like to dumb that down a little bit, what I find people think about is parenting as being consequences.
Huh. Being primarily privilege loss. Huh. Like,
Speaker 5: yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You do something bad,
Speaker 5: it’s my job
Chris Gazdik: to teach you, and the way that I will teach you is take something away. That’s basically where people land.
John-Nelson Pope: We’re gonna take away your,
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, if you’re not good, you’re not getting any birthday presents.
Chris Gazdik: PlayStation.
I [00:21:00] literally have had somebody say there’s no Christmas presents this year. I’ve
Speaker 5: had people tell me that they’re gonna do that to their kids too, and I’m like, whoa! Don’t listen.
John-Nelson Pope: Mic drop. Don’t do that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: don’t do that. Don’t do that. Don’t put
John-Nelson Pope: switches or coal in their stockings. Yeah.
Speaker: That is
Speaker 5: cruel and unusual punishment.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And, and it just misses the point.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, yeah, the kid is not fully go, like, cause I think that that’s one thing, and we’ll probably get into this, is that parents forget, is that like kids, their cognition. Is still developing like their cognitive skills are still developing like when I tell my kid
Chris Gazdik: Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: my kid is two When I tell him no And try to explain like why it’s not okay to like rip mom’s glasses off her face, you know
Speaker: Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: and that they’re not his when he goes mine mine my my glasses my glasses Like he doesn’t understand he cannot [00:22:00] Comprehend Why that is Like, he does not comprehend the fact that if he breaks my glasses, we’re going to have to pay, you know, 200 to give me one and like all this, all those other things.
Like, he doesn’t understand that.
Chris Gazdik: And here’s the thing. The whole parent child relationship is about teaching the child these realities. Right. And problem solving, and critical thinking, and decisions and consequences of your own decisions. Making, right? Like to say a few things and, and these strategies go all along into that so that really this creates a low power struggle environment with high structure while teaching life lessons that the kid learns oftentimes through natural consequences.
Now,
John-Nelson Pope: I think we’ve addressed some of this before, right?
Victoria Pendergrass: See, I felt like we’ve talked about this before.
Speaker 5: You were here for [00:23:00] it, John! Alright, listen, on the
Chris Gazdik: YouTube Live, Victoria and John got into it saying, I’ve never been in this show, and Victoria’s like, Yes, you have! So that’s what’s going on right there.
John-Nelson Pope: Excuse my senior moment.
Speaker 5: Jeez, John! Moments.
Chris Gazdik: Senior moments. Here’s the line of thinking. You all right over there girl?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, just don’t mind me. I’m dying
Chris Gazdik: We’re all gonna come out of this room sick Nobody’s really sick and contagious as far as I know, but here’s here’s the line and logic that goes with this It’s it’s it’s a really simple process if you could think through this This to me is the the cornerstone the bedrock of what the thinking and the logic process And when we covered this with Craig, my old cohost, he was blown away at the line that I’m sure you’re gonna hear.
I’ll pause and it’s like, what? But here’s the lines. Okay, little kiddo, Johnny, you can do anything that you want to do. [00:24:00] Pause, right? You stop right there. And he’s like, what? I can think of a lot of things my kids going to do. We’re going to tell him, Hey, you could do anything that you want to do. Are you sure you want to say that?
But listen to all that comes after that. Little Johnny, you can do anything that you want to do, as long as you don’t cause a problem for somebody else. And when you cause a problem for somebody else, you have to fix the problem. My job is, oh, Johnny, I see that you’ve caused a problem, so you gotta fix that problem.
When little Johnny doesn’t fix the problem, you simply say, no problem, don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of the problem. And it ends. But then you come around on the back end, and you create, and the most difficult piece is creating creative solutions. To the problem that the kid refuses to fix. And we’ll get into what that looks like.
You’re looking exasperated, John. No, I’m not.
Speaker 5: It
John-Nelson Pope: is a little bit, but we didn’t use love and logic, but [00:25:00] the, I don’t think, but I’m thinking that’s kind of libertarian, the, the, in a sense that you can do anything you want, as long as it doesn’t impinge on someone else’s freedom. All right. Or
Chris Gazdik: cause a
John-Nelson Pope: problem.
Or cause a problem. So that’s a libertarian line. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s, that’s a political. Well, it’s interesting
Chris Gazdik: that you say that because again, this is a, a low power struggler, high structure environment that you’re creating. So if you think about high structure. That’s what we’re trying to create when we create punishments, and penalties, and privilege laws.
There’s high structure here, but there’s no power struggles. So high structure is not really libertarian, in a sense, I would feel, knowing the word. Because you’re, you’re really like, look, there are a lot of rules here, and the way the world works is there are a lot of rules that you have to follow. follow.
There are natural biological rules, there are legal rules, there are social rules, there are norms, and you have to [00:26:00] comply or you’re not going to have a structured environment. The first, the
John-Nelson Pope: first phrase that you use. That’s what gets people. That gets people. The second though, and I’m, I’m seeing this, is that you’re developing within the, the The child, the, the sense of empowerment, and he or she is able to say, okay, I have some choice.
I have the freedom to choose. And they do at age two.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and it’s, it’s the same reason that. I might tell my kid, Hey, buddy, do you want to skip to bed or do you want a spider crawl to bed? So ultimately I’m letting him choose, but ultimately we’re ending up in the bed, but I’m giving him like the free range choice of like.
choosing, like he still has that power to choose.
Chris Gazdik: Decision making.
Victoria Pendergrass: Do you want to [00:27:00] tie, do you want to, you know, take a bath in five minutes or in 10 minutes and either way we’re going to take a bath, but one will just be in five minutes or it’ll be in 10 minutes.
Chris Gazdik: High structure, but also critical thinking,
Victoria Pendergrass: right?
You
Chris Gazdik: know, the little kids thinking, Oh, right. I can do this or I can do that. If I do that, then this will be the case. If I do that, then. Then that might be the case, you know, so how do I operate within the realm of what we’re dealing with and what are good decisions when I make a bad decision? Generally, you know, that doesn’t work well and you learn, but you learn that also when you make bad decisions, you learn from mistakes.
So that’s another piece that we’ll get into. Let’s just let me just go to. I actually did chat GPT and I thought that was a cool. Cool chat GPT use. I just said, what are the main tenets of love and logic? That’s what it come up with and we’ll we’ll we’ll talk about this stuff and probably on some level shared control I’m like, oh, [00:28:00] okay That does fit shared thinking and decision making like, Oh yeah.
Parents and child children share decision making pause real quick there, Mr. Or Mrs. High structure, high authoritarian, you know, do as I say, kind of thinking, are you sharing that? Because that doesn’t sound like. The kid has much way of making any decisions. So be careful, right? So i’ll just flow through these shared control shared thinking and decision making empathy before consequences It’s a main theme logical Consequences is a main theme maintaining self respect delayed consequences Avoiding power struggles.
To me, that’s the biggest piece. Enforcing limits with empathy, which is huge, with empathy. And then rebuilding intrinsic motivation so that the kid develops their own intensity of wanting to be motivated to make good decisions and learn [00:29:00] about things and think about things and have agency over their life.
Like this is a Major change. I feel like when I came across this stuff in my own life with my kids, like I thought, Oh my gosh, I’ve been thinking about this thing all wrong. Like, what am I doing? You know, I’m not having the conversations about learning through this or this difficult situation or creating, you know, I
would get into power struggles, which is, you Quote, enemy number one to parenting is power struggles.
I’ve said that for years.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: 100 percent agree. Because you’re going to lose. As a new parent. You will lose.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Parents don’t like admitting that, John. Yeah, I know. I’ve lost. I’ve lost many times. Power struggles. Yeah. So, kiddo, you can do anything that you want to do, as long as you don’t cause a problem for somebody else.
Oh, I see there’s a problem there. Kid might even say, oh no, no problem. Yeah, there’s a, there’s a problem. Better fix it. [00:30:00] Oh kiddo. I see you didn’t fix the problem. No, no problem. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of the problem. And then on the backend, you come up with solutions to the problem that’s created.
I want to give a simple one, cause I think we have some things to talk about. And I’m very curious about all your thoughts along with it to, to, to, to lend some, some visibility to what is that backend,
Victoria Pendergrass: right?
Chris Gazdik: How does this work? And that’s the, that’s, I feel like is a challenging piece to this. So, Little Adam and Little Aaron in the Gazzik household had this little problem with putting dirty clothes where they were supposed to put dirty clothes.
Naturally. Any parent ever seen this happen before?
Victoria Pendergrass: All the time.
Chris Gazdik: Right? Neil just gave me a head nod. Do your kids leave clothes on the floor? He already smirked. He’s getting nods like, yeah, right. So the clothes were on the floor in their bedroom clothes were on the floor in the bathroom clothes were not put to the hamper clothes.
We’re [00:31:00] not taking the laundry room. And I got to the point I’m like, look, okay. You know, pile them all up. After the, Hey, you could do whatever you want to do guys. You know, not a problem. As long as you don’t cause a problem, but yeah, I’m tripping over stuff. You know, we, we got, we got health factors for the home.
Like these are real realities. So you gotta fix your problem, man. You gotta, you gotta pick your wrappers up. You gotta, gotta take care of your clothes. And did that happen, John? Oh, all the time.
Victoria Pendergrass: Probably not
Chris Gazdik: Victoria. It, it didn’t happen. Yeah, no, they didn’t pick up their clothes. No, not at all. And it wasn’t a problem either.
For them. Right. In their view. But it was, and I said, Okay, you know what? Look, I’ve had it. This is over the course of a few weeks. This is a problem, but don’t worry about it. I’m gonna take care of it. Instantly, the kid begins to wonder, Well, what’s gonna happen? Particularly as they hear that phrase, No problem, I’ll take care of it.
Boom! Now you’ve got an instant fear factor. And I have no problem with the kids being terrified about what’s going to happen. Because that’s a [00:32:00] part of decision making. You’ve made a decision. You haven’t fixed the problem. What’s gonna happen? So, however long it was, days or weeks later, I gathered up all the stuff and put it in front of Aaron’s door.
And and he came out and found that these clothes were there with a note. And the note simply said something in the effect of I noticed that these clothes have, have been scattered in the house and you’ll see them here and they, they will not be washed anymore by your mom or dad so that you can learn to take care of your clothes.
There’s dish detergent we’ve taught you how to do that before. There, there’s a little bit. Odd with folding and that’s kind of annoying but you’ll get you’ll get through that and and find a common place such as your drawer to put the clothes in so any questions or problems your mother and I are here to really help you And that was it.
He found the letter. There’s an important piece here that needs to be highlighted the empathy piece, right? This is a tough day for [00:33:00] him. What do you mean I’m not going to have clean clothes? See, I don’t know how to do this. I’m
not respon I can’t. This stuff just shows up in my drawer, like, how is this going to be the case?
Like, that’s tough for a kid.
Neil Robinson: Mm hmm.
Chris Gazdik: And he was young at the time. Probably a teenager, 12 maybe. I don’t know, 13. Guess who washed his clothes pretty much from then on out? Himself. Absolutely. That, that’s what developed.
Victoria Pendergrass: And then he put, was able to like put them back in his drawer.
Chris Gazdik: Honestly, it was a little bit better.
Or at least keep them,
Victoria Pendergrass: keep them in his room and not other places in the house.
Chris Gazdik: He figured it out a little bit.
John-Nelson Pope: So he did it without name calling or shaming. Right. Or guilting.
Chris Gazdik: Or yelling. I’m a yeller. I, I, I got Into conflicts, you know, power struggles and stuff. And my voice would go up shocker. I know Victoria, right?
I’m verbal, you know, but this was, this was, there was no fighting. There was [00:34:00] no, you know, it was just like, this is the solution. You’ve created this problem and we’ve, we’ve fixed it. So we’re good. And it was good because he learned how to take care of himself. And oftentimes imagine him going to college and him being the only one who knew John how to clean his clothes, you know, Yeah.
So it was good. But, and that’s a simple example of a whole another very long one about him deciding to take all his furniture and go to the bonus room and make that his bedroom. That one took a few months to deal with, you know, and he, he didn’t have heat in that room. He didn’t have a TV in that room.
He didn’t have, you know, it’s like, cause those were some of the solutions and it took like several creative solutions where he finally said, okay, I need to go back to my room and he did. So it’s tough. To figure out what do I do with this one? Yeah I remember being in the conference actually love and logic and I You know raised my hand shocker that I would speak at a conference and i’m like, you know Teenagers are tough with all this and we went into [00:35:00] talking about teenagers and they had a book and i’m like, oh I need that one later on and he gave me the book as as a participant And the book was about teenage love and logic for teenagers.
Victoria Pendergrass: Gotcha.
Chris Gazdik: They got a lot of material A lot of age differentials, a lot of developmental factors, as you mentioned, Victoria. Yours are babies at this point, little guy. And so if you’re able to instill this all the way throughout, Man, it changes dynamically the horror of constant power struggles that I’m sure you as a parent probably have all the time.
This is a game changer when it comes to that.
Victoria Pendergrass: So then how do you think, and you can tell me if you want to put this off, but how do you think that measures up to like when people say, Oh, that’s just a phase? Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: well it’s a phase, but it’s causing a problem, so you have to think through this phase.
Because
Victoria Pendergrass: like, in my current issue Like my kid is heading.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: And he’s two. And so, like, we tried the whole, like, popping him on his [00:36:00] hand kind of thing, like, to stop, and that just made it worse. Like, that made him even angrier, and he wanted to throw more things and hit us even more, and, like, things like that.
So, like, If I’m being honest, like, currently, my husband and I are struggling with, like, What do we
Chris Gazdik: do?
Victoria Pendergrass: What the heck do we do? I got an immediate
Chris Gazdik: suggestion. Because two year olds and three year olds, five year olds are easier. Currently, we’re trying
Victoria Pendergrass: to ignore it, and we get up and walk away. If, and, or we ignore it.
Chris Gazdik: Essentially, that’s where my brain went. But it’s not
Victoria Pendergrass: necessarily working.
Chris Gazdik: Well, listen, kiddo, you can do whatever you want to do. Okay you’re causing a problem, though. Because you’re you’re you’re you’re hitting and so you need to fix that and we really are with you I know you have frustrations. I mean you can’t use all these words Yeah, but you know, you’re you’re dumbing it to that to that level of a two year old and he’s not gonna stop and say, okay Well, that’s fine.
No problem. I’ll take care of the problem and it [00:37:00] stops there Until the problem solution comes up for you, which is the tough part.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Now
Chris Gazdik: we’re like, what do we do? Well, every single time that he would hit. Immediate suggestion that comes to my mind is not to ignore the hit, but to say, Hey, that’s what we talked about.
We don’t want to be around people that are hitting. And so you make maybe a big ordeal and you kind of go out to the porch and we don’t want to be around hitting. And he’s alone in the house looking at the window, like a sad puppy dog. Why can’t I be with mommy and daddy? They look like they’re having so much fun.
What my parents did,
John-Nelson Pope: they, they, they, they told me to close my eyes and, and I had to count to as far as I could. I was like five years old and all that. I closed my eyes and they were all gone. And they said, well, you’re just, you’ve [00:38:00] disappeared. You know, so that’s, that’s terrible. Well, you know,
Victoria Pendergrass: to traumatize our child.
Yeah, I was traumatized.
John-Nelson Pope: No, no, here’s a question for you though. And this is the thing is that, that kids are, are smart. Obviously they’re smarter than their parents. And that is, they’ll know when to have the tantrum. In front of people and how do you handle that? So that’s the question.
Chris Gazdik: Well, yeah, it’s I mean, there’s there’s the beauty about this is that in the difficult part is like, you know, the high structure and the problem responses and that’s there’s so much.
First of all, there’s so much more than privilege loss. How much effective is it going to be to take away his favorite toy because he’s hitting? I mean, he’s wanting attention, he’s wanting to play, he’s wanting to exercise his individuality, he’s wanting to do developmentally very [00:39:00] appropriate things, he just needs to learn how to do it appropriately.
Taking a toy doesn’t do that. Spanking him might have a response because, you know, little kids, I mean, he’s not really cognitive, which is, by the way, where corporal punishment can be effective. The more cognitive a kid becomes, the less effective corporal punishment is. is. So if you’re into spanking, that’s fine.
You do not spank a teenager, period, like ever. That’s not going to be helpful. The kid is way, the kid is way cognitive enough at age five or six, John, as you were to really get the cognition and you don’t, it just spanking becomes less effective. Right. I
John-Nelson Pope: just think that’s an ultimate no no is to, is to do corporal punishment after a certain age.
I
Chris Gazdik: mean, after, A certain age. That’s where people freaking get screwed up.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You know, of course, you know, of course you spank. That’s, I had [00:40:00] no problem with that, but after a certain age, you’re doing damage. You’re literally teaching when you have a problem, you take physical solutions to the problem. Is that really what you want to teach?
John-Nelson Pope: But there’s and this occurs more often with men. that I, that I have worked with is that they said, well, my dad beat me literally beat them. And they, that’s how they were raising their kids. And then they don’t understand why, you know, that’s not acceptable. If you have somebody that’s I, I think generally speaking, anybody over five or six, I mean, just not
Chris Gazdik: ask an interesting question.
Yeah, I agree with that. Under five or six spanking can be very effective it too. That could be very effective
John-Nelson Pope: keep you from touching the stove
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, right. We’re going in the road. Yeah, we’re doing harm to [00:41:00] people victoria, you know But but here’s an interesting thought john as I hear you saying that what do you suppose?
I’m, sure this has been researched. I don’t know the answer to the question, but what do you suppose the percentage? Okay from the perspective of a of of a child abuse You person, like somebody who’s the, the, the offender. Mm hmm. I don’t like the word offender terribly, but From the perspective of the child abuse offender, what is the percentage of time they are exercising in their mind or intending to exercise discipline?
John-Nelson Pope: Hmm. Right? Yeah. That’s interesting.
Chris Gazdik: I think it’s a high percentage.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I think so too.
Chris Gazdik: I remember a football player who was found to have, you know, caused bruises and lashings on, you know, their child’s back. It was horrible. I forget the guy. It doesn’t matter, but it happens many, many times. I mean, people have put their kids, knelt them down on, on, on registers different things that are going on that are just horrible.
Horrifying that we’ve all heard in [00:42:00] therapy, I’ve dealt with as many a times over and I, and I just imagine that the parent primarily is oftentimes the abuser is trying to do discipline,
John-Nelson Pope: but using a model that it’s so failed, right? Yeah. And so pernicious. I’m, I’m thinking in terms of, well, that’s the way I was treated.
That’s how my grandfather was treated. Discipline me or my grandmother and so, you know, and so they take the bell, the
Chris Gazdik: nuns, the nuns, the nuns, sorry, Catholicism out there. And that’s great. But I had, I had the nuns with us. She threw a book across the room. It was a rough day. I had a professor throw
John-Nelson Pope: an eraser at me once.
Yeah. Cause I got
Victoria Pendergrass: like, I mean, yeah, I’ve had a teacher like through a rule A yardstick down so hard on a desk it like snapped in half in front of it like on a desk that a kid was actually sitting at.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, on his desk, on the kid’s desk. That
John-Nelson Pope: was a science teacher [00:43:00] took a big bone and broke it. Ironically, it was a science teacher.
It was. Okay, they have anger management issues.
Victoria Pendergrass: But I think it’s also important to point out that like our points and I probably have said this before and. But like our points I think as parents is to do better than how we were parented and even if you and even if you feel like you were parented well, you probably
Chris Gazdik: were
Victoria Pendergrass: you probably I feel like for the most part my parents did a pretty decent job, but still I’m going to strive to be a better parent than how they than how I was parented.
Chris Gazdik: Listen, it is a dynamic relationship. A parent child relationship, you need to understand, is dynamic. There is no other relationship like it. You are literally responsible until age 18 for this whole person’s entity, yet you have very little agency over their decision making.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s exactly [00:44:00] right, because they’re not clones.
No. No, and so, you might have been a perfectly good little boy growing up. And all that, but you might have a a son or a daughter that’s kind of off the rails and they create
Chris Gazdik: off the rails. New things for the world. If we guide them in the process of learning how to engage
John-Nelson Pope: can be very creative.
Chris Gazdik: 100%.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right. So, so we want to arm you a little bit. How do we share control? That’s one of the main tenets, and you mentioned choices, Victoria, that’s awesome. It’s a big part of what, you know, we talk about, and then, really, in shared control mechanisms, don’t you want to teach win win?
You can have
a win lose scenario, a lose lose scenario, and in problem solving or conflict resolution, you’re always looking for a win win.
But our world
John-Nelson Pope: view so often is black or white, either or.
Chris Gazdik: There is. Unfortunately.
Victoria Pendergrass: Crap ton of sh gray.
Chris Gazdik: That’s why this is [00:45:00] such a dynamic divergence from the typical ways we engage our children, honestly. Shared control. You give choices. You look for win wins. Okay, let’s go a little further. I like that.
Shared thinking and decision making. This is encouraging problem solving. Like, you really are encouraging. This is not a confrontive, combative, shaming kind of thing that you’re trying to do. You’re enjoying a wonderful, beautiful relationship with your children. So you want to encourage them. Hey, buddy!
This is a big world. You could do anything that you want to do. Let’s, let’s really think about the decisions that you make. Have you thought about, you know,
how you might study for this test? Do you do it with flashcards? Do you do it with pictures? Do you do it with reading? Do you do it? Like there’s all kinds of choices here.
What works for you? And now I, I even feel better saying that because, Oh, great. You’re right. I, I don’t have to sit down and just read this [00:46:00] book. Like you learn, I can figure out my own ways.
Victoria Pendergrass: I remember it personally in, because we all know I have ADHD that in school, I remember there’s this, I can’t remember what book it was, but there was this one book we had, I had to read in like middle school.
And. Because I don’t do at the time although I’m that’s hard for you to believe as such an avid reader as I am today
But
I wasn’t that wasn’t really like I think someone telling me I have to read a book has a different impact on me But anyways, the point is my mom we just like we figured out that listening to the audiobook of the book Was gonna be better for me to like
Chris Gazdik: free really important highlight.
We figured out I love that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah and so then I ended up instead of actually like reading I still bought like the book or whatever it was, but we ended up Like, my mom bought the CDs because [00:47:00] this was like early
2000s, but
bought the CDs of like the audiobook and we listened to it like in the car, on the way to school, when you’re at home, like in my CD player and stuff because like for me that was a better for me I comprehended it and understood it a lot better than, like, reading the book.
I mean, my mom could probably give me more details because I was in middle school. I don’t remember too much, but I do remember, like, that significant, like, she get, like, I had another option. Yeah. And I, like, she didn’t force me to, like, oh, no, but you have to read the book. I tell you what,
Chris Gazdik: I hated the, hated is a word.
I hated the accelerator reader program.
Yeah, my kid has
dyslexia Doesn’t work for him.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: I literally told the principal we are not participating in this crap anymore I think I used the word to crap like because it just didn’t work for him So yeah, it’s it’s just it’s tough to force a freaking round You know, but see I think [00:48:00] again,
Victoria Pendergrass: it’s my whole point of what I said earlier, you know, we either Like hop to the bed or spider crawl to the bed.
We’re still reading the book. It just, I’m doing it in a different form. We’re still going to bed, but now my kid has the option. We’re still gonna do our homework, but now my kid gets to have an input on what will work best for him.
Chris Gazdik: Shared thinking and decision making, asking a lot of questions. For example, what do you think will happen if you don’t do your homework, right?
Shared discussions, problem solving, thinking through this. So taking
John-Nelson Pope: it to its logical conclusion that if you don’t do your homework, study and you don’t do your homework, you’re going to get a lower grades and so your options get limited.
Chris Gazdik: Also, if you study and you do well on the test, you feel really good about yourself.
It’s kind of a fun thing. You know, there’s just
Victoria Pendergrass: self confidence.
John-Nelson Pope: You didn’t bribe your kids with more with money or anything or M& Ms or
Chris Gazdik: [00:49:00] whatever. Ask a lot of questions and those questions guide the kid to think we need to move a little bit. Empathy before consequences is another big tenet. Listen.
This is huge. The love and logic reality, do anything that you want to do, as long as you don’t cause a problem. When you cause a problem, the kid feels the problem. Often times, you don’t have to do anything. So, are we talking about Hold on a minute. You don’t have to do anything. Often times, if you just get out of the way It’s okay.
If you just get out of the way, natural consequences take over and teach you. Okay. Okay. So
Victoria Pendergrass: like, when my kid jumps off the couch onto the hardwood floor, over and over again, when he eventually like, sprains his foot or something. Yes! Like.
Chris Gazdik: Can you watch that happen? Parents [00:50:00] suck at that. Can you watch a kid struggle?
John-Nelson Pope: That’s right, they sent us into the mountains.
Chris Gazdik: That’s what my parents said. Right? Mom out there, dad out there, you’ve got to have empathy, it’s hard to be a kid, and you’ve got to let them screw up. You gotta let them fail, sometimes. I’ve learned the most lessons in my life, John, when I failed. Logical consequences related to misbehavior, respectful and being reasoned.
Maintaining self respect is another big tenet. You know, modeling self control. Parents should feel modeled self control and respect. How do you model that? Are you good at this stuff yourself, people? If we’re asking our tough questions. You have to manage your own emotions, mom. Don’t
John-Nelson Pope: do as I say, do as I, no, don’t do as I do, do as I say.
Yeah. Well, I got a question. This is what my point was, is that when you look at this and that’s empathy before consequences, is you’re [00:51:00] actually helping the child develop a conscience. Also resiliency. Yeah. Resiliency. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: And kids are already naturally resilient to begin with.
Chris Gazdik: I feel like one of the things that is struggling a whole, the most with children in today’s day and age is critical thinking.
Victoria Pendergrass: Do you, and this probably might leave off on a whole nother conversation, so feel free to nip it in the butt. Why we have a panel,
Chris Gazdik: dear.
Victoria Pendergrass: But do you think COVID has had like a remarkable effect on the impact on that? And like a reasoning why it is they’re, they’re not developed. They aren’t.
Chris Gazdik: We let me jump in.
This is, this has been developing for a long time. COVID made it exponentially worse. That’s most things. That’s what I figured you to say. You know, but it was definitely a lot of this is all in place for a very long time.
Victoria Pendergrass: Do you think electronics and things like that have to have like, what are like, what do you think?
I [00:52:00] guess my better question would be like, why do you think that is? And maybe we can talk about this a whole nother time, but.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I, I’ve thought about it a little bit, but I think part of it is, is that the, the, the brain is developing and as you are, as you are reacting to social media, the media or you’re using Tik Tok, I guess this, and that sort of thing is your attention spans becoming shorter and shorter and shorter and you have to constantly be stimulated.
And I think people need to be bored sometimes in order to be creative. That’s
Victoria Pendergrass: another thing with parenting. Say that again.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. People, children need to be bored sometimes so that they can learn how to be creative. Right.
Chris Gazdik: Love that. Snaps all around, John. Absolutely on point. Totally agree. A big factor that is another tenant here that is a cool thought that helps you parents, that helps you dad out there.
Like we feel so much pressure as [00:53:00] parents that when something goes on, boom, we need to deal with it right now. And that is not, that is not the case. Delayed consequences oftentimes work so much more because again, the kids wondering what’s coming. I have literally said, buddy, I have no idea what to do with this one.
I need to talk to my friends. I need to figure this out. I don’t, I’m so upset right now. Now is not the time. I am, I am not going to deal with this. You’re you’re, you know, you’re off the hook, whatever, man, I’m not, but we’ll deal with this issue. So I’ll take care of the problem. So take your time. Take your time.
Get feedback. Don’t be alone.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, well I mean it’s the same thing how like when we work with couples, we, you know, it’s okay to, when you’re in an argument, it’s okay to like take time and think about your response. Like you don’t have to immediately respond verbally it’s the same thing like you want to make sure that you’re approaching a [00:54:00] consequence if you you know like with a level head because a lot of times when you do it instantaneously I think sometimes are a little bit like not proportional to like what actually happened because your your emotions are so heightened
Chris Gazdik: right Absolutely, and you have to manage your own emotions, mom.
Your own emotions, dad. Listen, this really is all about fostering, facilitating, building, working with a relationship. It’s a relationship between you and your kid. And I don’t think we think about it that way when we’re, when we’re, we’re so frustrated and angry. I mean, kids from age five to eight are lovely.
It’s easy age because they love you. They want to be around you. They’re so compliant, but you’re in this stage, Victoria, where, oh man, the twos are nothing. What do you get to the terrible threes? Twos are easy. Teenage years. It’s like crazy. Like, you know, you know nothing. They’ll [00:55:00] become human again.
John-Nelson Pope: Eventually.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, right. So, it’s really about, what do you want your relationship with your child to be like? Those are, these are some of the things we’re talking about.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right.
Chris Gazdik: Let’s talk a little bit, I’m curious what you guys will think about. What is the most difficult thing? What makes parenting really hard?
Speaker 5: John, do you want to go first? It’s like I knew that, I knew this question was comi
Victoria Pendergrass: not formed a response for it
Chris Gazdik: because there’s so
Victoria Pendergrass: much part of it. Well, and I,
John-Nelson Pope: when their hearts are broken and you can’t take away their pain and you could only be there for them, you want to fix them and you can’t.
Because whatever they’ve made a decision and we’re talking about love and maybe girlfriends, boyfriends, that sort of thing. Or we [00:56:00] could talk about being good at a sport or and not getting, dealing
Chris Gazdik: with failure.
John-Nelson Pope: Dealing with failure. Failure is really tough.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a good answer. Can you watch your kids struggle?
That’s probably pretty up there.
Victoria Pendergrass: I think also our answers are going to differ a little bit because we’re at different stages of parenting. So like my answer right now as a parent as a two of a two year old is like the hardest part about parenting is Feeling like I’m failing my kid.
Chris Gazdik: Okay, so
Victoria Pendergrass: it’s not really anything that my kid is doing It’s more like that.
I feel like I’m gonna like f up my kid
or
like that. I’m gonna fail him and not be The the mom that he deserves and that my husband isn’t going to be the dad that he deserves Although that says I mean, that’s more of a me thing. But yeah, I think that’s the hard part for me Mine
Chris Gazdik: is a little bit knowing what to do.
I mean, I don’t
know what to do
You know neil has grabbed [00:57:00] the microphone. Yeah, I want to hear what he has to say
Neil Robinson: I think, you know, cause our oldest is 18 now. He’s graduating tomorrow. Oh, I didn’t tell you this. He made the marching band at Western Carolina, but the hardest part about parenting is that there’s no rules.
Honestly, every time you think you figure out your kid. They change it on you. Oh yeah. So that’s the dynamic nature of raising kids. Yeah, exactly. But that, that’s honestly the hardest part about parenting. And, and the thing is, if you’re an intentional parent, that makes it even harder because you want, you want the best for your kids and you’re trying to do the best for them, you know, the parent guilt, all that stuff, but yeah, that’s the hardest part.
There’s no rules. And when you have two kids, The rules change on the second kid. So once you figure out one, then you have to figure out it again for the second kid. So that’s the hardest part to me is no rules, no handbooks, and it’s always changes from month to month, kid to kid, day to day.
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:00] Every kid is different.
Yeah, no, I love that. And I think one thing that I always tell, I’m sorry.
Victoria Pendergrass: No, one thing I always tell the parents that I work with and that I even have to remind myself sometimes is like, no matter what stage you’re at in parenting, you’ve never been a parent before.
Chris Gazdik: Wait a minute. Say that again.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like, no matter what stage of parenting you’re at, you’ve never been a parent before.
Like, I’ve never been a parent of a two year old until now.
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: How old’s your oldest?
John-Nelson Pope: 40.
Victoria Pendergrass: You’ve never been a parent of a 40 year old until now. And so, like, I think I say that as, like, you’ve never been a parent of an 18 year old until now. And so it’s like, Like, you gotta give yourself some grace as far as like, kind of going off what Neil’s saying.
Like, things change and you can’t be like, I’m figuring this stuff out just as much as my kid is figuring out life. Like, because I’ve never been a parent before. And there is no like, rule
John-Nelson Pope: book. I’ve never been owed before.
Like, [00:59:00] there is
Victoria Pendergrass: no. Until now. There is no, like, one all, be all guide on, like, how to do this the right way.
Chris Gazdik: Even love and logic.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, and so I think that, like, giving yourself grace, which I admit I struggle with a lot too sometimes as a parent, like, we have to be able to realize that, like, we are, just as much as our kids are figuring out their own lives, we are also figuring out, like, okay, well, how the heck do I parent a, Five year old, a five year old, a three year old, an 18 year old, a 30 year old, like how do I do?
You know what I’m thinking
John-Nelson Pope: in terms of like Erickson’s stages and that you reflect that you could, there is, there’s the stage that I’m in, it’s integrity versus despair, so to speak, because of my age and that is that, can I forgive myself for the mistakes that I made with my children. And can they forgive me because there’s that [01:00:00] sort of rapprochement that I’ve started having with my kids because sometimes I might have alienated as a, as a, I thought I’d sundered relationships before because I’ve I, I didn’t do the gentle or intentional or a level of logic I’ve, I’ve, I’ve tried to do the best I could.
And so there has to be a moments where you have to ask for forgiveness. And I think good parenting is a good I believe is where you can rebuild relationships that may have been strained, that there’s never. A time that there isn’t a chance for some sort of hope
Chris Gazdik: question to you listening. Have you ever said, I screwed up to your child?
Have you ever asked for forgiveness from your child? Maybe not at age two years old Victoria, but you know, we make mistakes as parents. Can we, can we, can we start to apologize
Victoria Pendergrass: [01:01:00] to my kid,
Chris Gazdik: right?
Victoria Pendergrass: Even though he’s two, I’m like, I’m so sorry, dude, that was not the right thing. That’s
Chris Gazdik: something that’s a natural part of relationships.
Do you not want apology and forgiveness to be a part of your relationship with your child? I hope so. You want your
John-Nelson Pope: child to develop.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, because you want the same thing with your partner, with your spouse. Like when I want. Like I want my kid to be able to grow up and admit when he makes a mistake,
Chris Gazdik: right?
Victoria Pendergrass: And I
Chris Gazdik: can
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah by leading by example Like I’ll
Chris Gazdik: tell you another big thing that we haven’t talked about that I really want to mention before we’re done is being on the same page with the other parent Definitely, right? That’s snaps
Victoria Pendergrass: all around
Chris Gazdik: tough tough deal there, too
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: because those little creatures, they’ll they’ll, they’ll play one parent off of the other.
Chris Gazdik: That’s the goal. They’re experimenting with human relationships and they’re good at it. Very good at it. Natural. Called triangulation and splitting. Those are some clinical terms that we have, right?
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, [01:02:00] go ask your dad. Oh, yes. Go ask your mom.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, yes.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like, okay. Well, someone just give me an answer.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
The kids just want to hear it. Just answer my question. Absolutely.
John-Nelson Pope: They need guardrails.
Chris Gazdik: Yes. Guardrails are super important. What do you mean? Go with that. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: you, you’ve got a journalistic, that’s, there’s a lot of freedom. In the guardrails because you can go forward or you can go backwards, but you don’t want them to necessarily go off into the, off the shoulder into the deep, into the deep inch.
And so they can always move forward. And they have a choice making their decisions. So, that’s where I was saying is, in other words, boundaries are good.
Chris Gazdik: Necessary.
John-Nelson Pope: Necessary.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and we can like, you can just, you can just ponder on this. Recently I’ve been looking into this, the difference between a request and a boundary.
Chris Gazdik: Hmm.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s very interesting. And how [01:03:00] like, and how that is like involved in parenting. We can go into that another and relationships. Yeah. That sounds like a show. Oh yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Why don’t you do some show notes there. Victoria? Oh Lord.
Victoria Pendergrass: This is two shows that he’s asked me. That’s right. Start. I brought up a different idea to him start writing about like a week ago, and he was like, yeah, sure.
Do the show prep on it. We can do it. I was like hundred percent.
Chris Gazdik: A hundred percent. All right. Listen, this is a fun show, a good one, I think because it’s such a dynamic and important foundation. For all of society, for any community, there needs to be family for families. There is parenting. This dynamic relationship between your child and you is one that will change your life forever in so many ways that are struggle, that are beautiful, that are wonderful, that are stressful, that are frustrating, that are confusing.
There’s so many emotions that go into the process. Have fun. You’re doing the best that you can do. Hopefully we’ve given you some thoughts to go through and, and, and experiment with. It’s a, it’s a fun experiment to kind of go through life with. As Victoria said, this is the [01:04:00] first time you’ve been a parent at this point with this kid.
It’s a journey. Yeah. Give yourself
Victoria Pendergrass: some grace. That’s my parting words.
Chris Gazdik: All right. Take care. Stay well. We will see you next time around.
Victoria Pendergrass: Bye y’all.
Chris Gazdik: Bye