In this episode, we dive into the Love and Logic parenting approach, a powerful method for raising responsible, resilient kids. We explore how balancing empathy with logical consequences can transform discipline, reduce power struggles, and help children develop problem-solving skills. From handling tantrums to missed curfews, we break down real-life scenarios and provide practical strategies to encourage independence while maintaining healthy boundaries. Are you too controlling or too lenient? We’ll help you find the right balance and share actionable tips to start using Love and Logic today—no matter your child’s age!
Tune in to see Love and Logic Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- How do I currently handle discipline and boundaries with my child?
- Do I struggle with either being too controlling or too lenient as a parent?
- How can I shift my parenting approach to encourage more responsibility and problem-solving in my child?
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/kidsandparenting
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/marriageandfamily
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 #299 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Oh, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes. I am your host, Chris Gazdik. This is Mr. John Pope hanging out with us today. It is wonderful
John-Nelson Pope: being with you all.
Chris Gazdik: All right, we are talking about love and logic today, which is one of the what I call trifectas. What is what are we doing Vulcan for? It’s
John-Nelson Pope: Vulcan.
Yeah, logic.
Chris Gazdik: It’s not logic. This is logic. This is the logic part of Vulcan. Love and logic, yeah. Got you. Alright, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes, where you get insights normally from a panel of therapists. Victoria has a little bit of child care issue today, so she is not able to be with us. You got two of us.
But knowing this is not the delivery of therapy services in any way. This is February the 13th. Friday the thirteenth.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes, not Friday the thirteenth.
Chris Gazdik: Not Friday the thirteenth. February Thursday, the thirteenth with the day before
John-Nelson Pope: Valentine’s Day.
Chris Gazdik: Happy Valentine’s Day to everybody out there and
John-Nelson Pope: it was named after Saint Valens.[00:01:00]
Chris Gazdik: Saint
John-Nelson Pope: Valens Valens or VALEN. Who is
Chris Gazdik: Saint Valens?
John-Nelson Pope: He was Valentine. He’s the Valentine and he was of of a saint early early Rome or ancient Rome.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: In the Roman Empire and he actually was the, the person that was supposed to he is the patron saint of lovers.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. And so.
Chris Gazdik: The patron saint of lovers.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s right. Because he would help people that. Should
Chris Gazdik: I ask what caused this to be decreed upon him or we’ll leave it alone.
John-Nelson Pope: No, I, I think. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad. I couldn’t resist. But he got in trouble. He did get in trouble. Yeah. Shocker. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It was such a topic. Yeah. So, hit the subscribe button.
In the south they say mash the subscribe button. I’m going to say click the bell for notifications on Facebook and videos that you get. Give us a
John-Nelson Pope: five star rating.
Chris Gazdik: Tell [00:02:00] them why. It can’t be four star, John. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: because we get to go with the bullet to the top if we are if we are a five star rating.
Yes. And so we get seen by more and It really does help us out. That’s our part. We get the algorithms take us up higher and higher.
Chris Gazdik: Listen, we do free content for you, and we do ask that you help us out with, you know, the likes, the reviews on Apple Podcasts are really important, and all that kind of stuff.
Contact it through at TherapistEyes. com is where you contact us. And this is the human emotional experience which we do endeavor to figure out together. Reed Ferguson is our entry music that you heard. I haven’t given him a shout out for a little while, so on the eve of the 300th episode, That is coming up next week.
Fantastic. Is this episode 2 99 John
John-Nelson Pope: 2 99?
Chris Gazdik: That’s episode 9,900 Loop
John-Nelson Pope: balloons,
Chris Gazdik: 99. I know that balloon. I know that I know that song by Nina. [00:03:00] But reed ferguson.com is where you find him. He will come and play for you. R-E-I-D-T. Ferguson, F E R G U S O N dot com. We appreciate him creating the intro music for a show where this is the human emotional experience which we endeavor to figure this out together.
John-Nelson Pope: And we don’t what did you say about not giving advice or to, for therapy? This is not therapy
Chris Gazdik: services of any kind. Victoria would have reminded me, but she didn’t have to because I already said it, John.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, okay. I said it again, didn’t I? You
Chris Gazdik: said it again.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, there you go. There’s my brain
Chris Gazdik: where we’re supposed to repeat is that I have a book out.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. Supposed to do it seven times seven times. I’m not going to do that every show
Chris Gazdik: though. That’s about
John-Nelson Pope: marriage.
Chris Gazdik: There is a book about marriage. There is a book about self. I got two books out. Check them out through a therapist’s eyes. Amazon has those easiest to get. But right now should be in a bookstore still maybe near you.
That’s
John-Nelson Pope: right.
Chris Gazdik: Live in the brick and mortar [00:04:00] bookstores. You know, I still haven’t found my book in the bookstores. I haven’t looked. That’s, is that, is that bad author on my part? That’s bad authorism.
John-Nelson Pope: No, I, I, I don’t think it’s a bad author. I’m just not running
Chris Gazdik: out looking for, you know what I mean? Like, I’m not, it’s just, I’ve, I’ve
John-Nelson Pope: heard of some authors that will go and they’ll, they’ll put their book out and then they’ll put someone else’s out behind them and do stuff in the bookstore that way.
Chris Gazdik: That’s what I mean. I’m not, I’m not, I don’t have, it’s okay. Episode 299, have you remembered that I talk about the trifecta? Do you remember what that is? Trifecta.
John-Nelson Pope: Love and logic is one of them.
Chris Gazdik: It’s the three things that I’ve come across, John, that I feel like are really profoundly important in the work that I do with people.
I’m sure you have these things that you kind of lean on the foundation points that you kind of feel like really hit the [00:05:00] spot. Really get the pattern or mark the model. Do you have like your top Favorites or your, your pieces that are, you know, the best in your mind.
John-Nelson Pope: The hero’s journey.
Chris Gazdik: The hero’s journey?
John-Nelson Pope: Right. So, of course, I, I work with a lot of, of men and women have theirs as well, but that’s part of it. Part of this is where people are trying to find meaning in their lives. And a lot of times, unfortunately, it’s when
they’re at a crossroads or they’ve had some marital issues. Right. And parenting issues as well, or, or employment.
So that’s William Campbell.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. William Campbell did the hero’s journey. I mean, I’ve heard of it before. Is that a therapy model that you go with or what is that? How does that relate to therapy? I’m curious, actually.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, actually, it’s, it’s I, I, I, I kind of get this into a person [00:06:00] dealing with depression or anxiety and trying to, to have a why in, in their lives.
Right. Especially after they’ve had something that would take them down quite a bit. Where they’ve experienced failure, maybe a loss of job. So, yeah, it has something to do with therapy.
Chris Gazdik: Okay, but it’s not really a therapy model. No, no, no. Just obviously in work with people.
John-Nelson Pope: And you would say it might be with Erickson’s developmental stages, psychosocial developmental stages.
Okay. So people at midlife. It, it’s been a good paradigm for me. Mm
Chris Gazdik: hmm. Okay. Do you have therapy pieces that you’ve relied upon besides a hero’s journey then?
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, well, the usual CBT REBT, yeah. I’m, I, I try to be essentially at a [00:07:00] core existential, but I also integrate a person centered CBT, REBT It, to be able to help them with developing their, their concept of meaning.
Chris Gazdik: Hmm. Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: So I, I like to go deep, deep,
Chris Gazdik: deep into things.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Yeah. Cause it’s, it’s my philosophy or so it’s my philosophy that you can do things that can change behaviors, but unless you
change the way person thinks, then the behavior changes, you, people will tend to go back to where they were before.
That’s just been my experience.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I guess the reason why I’m asking is because I’ve come across these three things. I call it the trifecta because it happened to be three things that I just really felt like nailed, you know, the particular issue with this issue that it addresses. And this is one of them.
The love and [00:08:00] logic strategies for parenting, and I know there’s other ones out there, and I feel like there’s some real similarities with some other models that are out there, but this is just the first one that I came across. And when I found this in conference, it totally changed the way that I view working with kids.
What’s your other two? The other two are one financial peace university with Dave Ramsey, I really feel like that nails communication issues with couples, particularly, I really,
John-Nelson Pope: I agree with you on that. I really do. Because I, that seems to be a lot of issues with some of my clients, the financial aspects and a lack of communication.
Chris Gazdik: There is none. They, because that issue. Is just so locked down that you don’t really have a platform very easily between the two spouses to talk about the issue. And so Dave opens up the venue in between that space between, you know, two, you know, two spouses. So this is practical.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. [00:09:00] It’s very practical.
Right. And love and logics also. So that’s a cornerstone. What’s the, what’s the third stool? And
Chris Gazdik: the third one I’ll get to in a moment. Then I haven’t been able to do my thinking. I’ve really, for a long time, wanted to find what are the themes and the parallels that are really similar between these three, because the other one is Gottman’s EFT stuff, right?
No surprise there, right?
John-Nelson Pope: No, I’ve
Chris Gazdik: talked about EFT a lot on the show. And so there’s not a lot, if you’re catching this for, you know, one of the first times that you’ve heard us talking. You know, there’s not a lot of content we redo, but these ones I want to touch on. And so building up to the 300 episode, Moral Courage is the other one that we did last week that we also redo.
That’s about the only four things that we redo.
John-Nelson Pope: One of the things that I’ve noticed with this is that what you were saying with Love Logic is a parenting is a relationship that’s there. And then also financial.
Chris Gazdik: Again, [00:10:00] Financial Peace University, relationship, relational,
John-Nelson Pope: and
Chris Gazdik: the other one, of course, EFT, yeah, EFT is really relational.
Yeah, yeah, it’s there. So, so you’re saying there’s a relational aspect to these things. That’s the focus is on the relationship. It’s a trinity.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s a unholy trinity. A
Chris Gazdik: holy trinity. Definitely not, hopefully, an unholy trinity. The three questions I would like for you to ponder this week as we talk about love and logic is how do you currently handle discipline and boundaries with your child?
How do you currently do this? And then, what kind of struggle do you have? With either being too controlling or too lenient as a parent. Okay. And I like that continuum question. I think about continuums. Nobody’s in the exact right spot. Mm-hmm . In the healthy spot in the middle. Mm-hmm . So are you too lenient or are you too controlling?
You’re too heavy. Mm-hmm . You know, I mean, you should be able to figure out which side of the continuum you [00:11:00] are. I would think. Right. Cause no one’s exactly happy in the middle. And then lastly, how do you shift your parenting approach to encourage more responsibility and problem solving in your child?
Cause that’s kind of the goal, right? So how do you raise them?
John-Nelson Pope: How do you raise them to be adults?
Chris Gazdik: That’s the goal. That’s the whole sort of overview when you talk about a parent child relationship, right? You know, before we get into love and logic, let’s just, let’s dial into those three questions a little bit.
Cause I think they raise interesting points. If you think about each one of them. So the first one, how do you think people currently handle discipline and boundaries, you know, kind of with their child? What do you find when you’ve worked with people over the years when they’re talking about, I’m a great parent, here’s what I do, or I struggle with the parenting thing, here’s what I struggle.
Like, what do you think people’s? I primary idea if you if you have watered it down about their parenting strategies, typically, [00:12:00] I should say this was my what I’m thinking about is the way I parented. And I think it’s pretty common until I came across this stuff. And it totally changed the way I view it.
John-Nelson Pope: How did you do it before.
Chris Gazdik: That’s what I don’t want to say yet. What do you find in clients that they, that they, this, I find,
John-Nelson Pope: I find that either they are absolutely aloof and have no clue. Okay. And or the other is that there are two enmeshed in with their kids and that’s a word. Yeah, the helicopter ish kind of things going.
Yeah. And so are they free range? But, or are they, are they constrained and, and, and controlled, overly controlled? Okay. Okay. So,
Chris Gazdik: a lot of times people Or are they your friends? To dial into a way that I’m thinking about it, and I’m curious what you’ll come up with. You know, people will say, well, yeah, I, I do corporal punishment.
That’s, that’s parenting. You know, that’s the [00:13:00] way that’s never been an option teaching.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. That if it’s not that, then what do you, what, what I’ll jump to it. I hear people talking about privilege loss, John, like that’s essentially. The level of where people get to, okay, when you think about what do I do with my kids,
John-Nelson Pope: they’re going to lose a privilege, they’re going to
Chris Gazdik: lose something.
The level that we, so it’s taken away, take, taking something away. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I want to be clear about that. Taking something away or getting into punishment, grounding your kid essentially relates in some way to privilege loss.
John-Nelson Pope: All right. There you go. All right. I, I see that I see that with my adults that have been, that’s the way they were raised.
And so they lose something and so they’ll immediately go to, this is a weakness. This is my weakness because they got it from their [00:14:00] parents.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, it’s, it’s a tough love concept. We understand what tough love is and we don’t want to punish our kids, but when we have to teach them a lesson, when we have to engage in discipline, people will engage primarily.
They don’t go much beyond thinking about how do I grand, ground my kid? What kind of privilege loss do they
John-Nelson Pope: lose? Yeah. Beyond that, there’s not
Chris Gazdik: much that people think
John-Nelson Pope: about. Take away their iPhone. Their, their screens. Screens. All screens. Sometimes, you know.
Chris Gazdik: My neighbor would go nuclear. All of the screens are gone.
You got in trouble. Mm hmm. Okay. Is there anything beyond privilege loss in a parent child relationship that we need to be focusing on? Yeah, I think so. Hint, hint, hint. Yeah. Do you see what I’m saying? Yeah. Like, I don’t think people tend to get beyond that. Does that sound crazy?
John-Nelson Pope: No, it doesn’t sound crazy.
Chris Gazdik: You know, they’re either as you were saying aloof and we’re not doing privilege loss a whole lot or we’re heavy handed and we do a lot of privilege loss or corporal punishment [00:15:00] again. A lot of people will be
like, well, you know, spank, spanking your child is, you know, that’s, that’s what important part of discipline is.
But I’m going to submit to you that there is so much more you listening to the show today. There’s so much more that I want you to be thinking about. When you’re talking about or thinking about the relationship, as John said earlier, with your child or grandchild, by the way. Because grandparents are a big part of Parenting the child, question mark, it says you know,
John-Nelson Pope: I, well, definitely, I think a grandparent should have something to to do that, but also given in mind that it’s the parent, you don’t want to usurp the parent, you want to support the parent, but you also want to be able to, to encourage the child.
And let’s say parent stumbles or something like that the grandparent might be able to help both the parent [00:16:00] and the child.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s really important. You know, there’s just a lot there and, and yeah. So let’s, you know, let’s get into it. What are the other things that we want people to be thinking about when we’re talking about the whole relationship with the child?
The parent child relationship. So what is love and logic? Have you come across this much, John? Do you know much about love and logic? I think we’ve talked about it on the show before, but I don’t remember.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I think we did. It’s not something that I I know that it’s been around for 50 years. Maybe 20, 15.
Huh? Really? Yeah, I don’t think it’s that old. 1977, I thought.
Chris Gazdik: Neil, when did Love and Logic come up, if you can Google that? I think it’s definitely a lot newer than that, the model. Neil, maybe hopefully help us out with that. I
John-Nelson Pope: think we, I think I read something like that a while back. I would
Chris Gazdik: be very surprised.
John-Nelson Pope: I could be wrong. [00:17:00]
Chris Gazdik: I would be very surprised.
John-Nelson Pope: I, of course, I could be wrong.
Chris Gazdik: Did you hear me, Neil? Yep. Yep. He’s looking it up. It, really, this is a philosophy. This is not, this is, this is a whole sort of, you know, Understanding or big picture thinking. This is not like just a strategy list or whatever it’s, it’s really, you know, the way that you imagine or think about having a relationship.
As you said, I love that theme in the, what I call, you know, the trifecta pieces, there are, there are pieces about this that are wrapped around what relationship characteristics you’re fostering. And so they really look at thinking about some core principles. You know, that characterize and, and, and explain, you know, what pieces of this philosophy are.
But here’s the line of logic. I like to think about this logic line. You did the Vulcan on the YouTube live when we came on. This is a logical [00:18:00] process.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And here’s the, here’s the logic that goes behind it. I feel like this is brilliant. Okay? Real big overview and summary of Love Logic is, Little Johnny, you can do whatever it is that you want to do.
Now, if you pause right there, people usually struggle with that concept. How are you going to tell a kid you can do anything that they want to do? Right. Parents balk at this. They’re like, well, I can’t tell my kid that. But listen to the rest of the logic phrase. Little Johnny, you can do anything that you want to do, as long as it doesn’t cause a problem for somebody else.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay, so
Chris Gazdik: it’s Right? So there’s a lot of things a kid can do that causes problems. It’s almost a
John-Nelson Pope: libertarian kind of thing here, as long as it doesn’t impose on other people.
Chris Gazdik: Okay, interesting thought. Never thought of that before. Little Johnny, you can do anything that you want to do, as long as it doesn’t cause a problem for somebody else.
Oh, I see that there’s a problem here that it’s causing your behavior, your decision. You better, you know, [00:19:00] you need to fix the problem. Okay. A little Johnny’s not going to see a problem. So it’s
John-Nelson Pope: consequences. It’s consequences. And so it helps the child think ahead and to think about what, how this would end, right?
How does that keep a person, a child, let’s say a child who’s anxious. How does it keep the child from becoming overly anxious?
Chris Gazdik: Yep. The kid has to learn how to manage his crap. So little Johnny, you can do anything that you want to do. I want
John-Nelson Pope: my mom to take care of it. Well, that’s a lot of times what
Chris Gazdik: ends up happening.
But listen to the rest of the logic. Little Johnny, you can do anything that you want to do. As long as it doesn’t cause a problem for somebody else. Oh, I see that it’s caused a problem and the kids are gonna disagree. My kids literally told me oh dad That doesn’t cause a problem like okay. Well, don’t worry about it.
Then. No, no problem I’ll take care of the problem and then you have to come around in the background After the case not immediately in [00:20:00] a power struggle Because enemy number one to parenting, I’ve said thousands of times, is a power struggle.
John-Nelson Pope: And the parent
Chris Gazdik: will lose. And the parent will lose. I love that.
You’re right. I believe that. Yeah. Yeah. You will not win power struggles very easily, if at all. And if you do You’re pounding a kid into submission. So then on the back end you come in and around and you create these consequences and such that basically teaches the kid, you know, what they need to learn because of their bad decisions that caused problems.
That’s essentially the Lovin Logic. Johnny, you can do anything you want to do as long as it doesn’t cause a problem for somebody else. Oh, I see that it’s caused a problem. You need to fix the problem. Oh, I see that you haven’t fixed the problem. No problem. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of the problem, then the parent comes in and creates.
John-Nelson Pope: Let me give you, let me give you a thought here. Let’s say you got a dog that likes to, to, to dig and get out of the, out of the yard. Okay, and that’s little Johnny’s dog. Alright. Alright. And [00:21:00] you say, okay, this will be the consequence. I’m going to help you out this time, the first time. Okay. Because, but now we see that there’s a problem.
And so we get the dog back from the pound or whatever. All right. Little Johnny lets the dog out again. Yeah. I mean, doesn’t, doesn’t really do a good job with getting the fence and fixing the fence. Yeah. There has to be some sort of consequence. What would that be? The little Johnny has to work to mow the yards to get the dog out of the
Chris Gazdik: Yeah!
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Got it.
Chris Gazdik: Perfect. That’s because a lot of times it’s natural consequences There’s a lot of pain that you have to sit back and watch your kid go through And a lot of times parents want to step in and save the day when they say literally Johnny, don’t worry about it I’ll take care of the problem.
They’re not meaning there’s going to be a problem for you little Johnny their meaning I’m going to fix the problem and there’s not going to be a problem and this is where it ends for you. And that’s a [00:22:00] problem in parenting because you’re not teaching your kid anything. They’re not learning through poor decisions and natural consequences or consequences that you create in the background.
That, that teach life lessons. The, the, the kid learns they can decide whatever they want to do. It doesn’t matter. Because mommy and daddy are going to take care of whatever problems come up, and I don’t even see the problems. Like, that’s where you run into problems with snowplow parenting or helicopter parenting.
What’s snowplow?
John-Nelson Pope: You pave
Chris Gazdik: the way for the kids so there’s no struggle. Okay. You know, they don’t have to fight through an interview or the awkwardness of having a conversation for the job. You just talk to your neighbor and they give the kid a job. It’s, you know, paving the way, right? They don’t have to work for it.
They don’t have to fight for it. They don’t have to struggle. Right. What parent wants to watch their kids struggle.
Neil Robinson: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Neil, what do we got? When did this thing start up?
Neil Robinson: 77.
Chris Gazdik: You’re right, John!
Neil Robinson: [00:23:00] Dang! 1977? No, 1877. Yeah. Yeah, 1977. It’s on the footer of the website. I’m being
Chris Gazdik: mocked. Really? Okay, it’s been around a long time, John.
I guess I didn’t find it forever. No,
John-Nelson Pope: well, I didn’t know about it until you brought it up. Okay!
Chris Gazdik: Wow. No, I
John-Nelson Pope: just, I just looked that stuff up.
Chris Gazdik: That’s awesome. Okay. I, I missed that. Honestly, I, I’m shocked. I was
John-Nelson Pope: wondering where it was when I was raising my kids. Yes.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I wish that I didn’t catch this until my kids were like 14 years old, to be honest with you.
Yeah. I really, and it, I, it would have been a bit of a game changer, right? Yeah. When, I mean, what? I guess I was born in 73, so you must have been raising kids in the 70s, is that right? No, 80s. In the 80s? Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: I had our first kids when [00:24:00] 83, 85, and 88.
Chris Gazdik: Really?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I’m older than your kids. Well, you could be my dad.
Not a shocker. We know that we know that. All right. Well, so if we look at these principles and we look at this philosophy and the big picture approach, I mean, what we’re really, really trying to do is foster resiliency, teaching kids how to make decisions, helping them struggle through with compassion, their thought process on how to engage the world, you’re looking at shared control.
That’s a big factor. You’re looking at shared thinking. So you’re working with their thinking process and maybe sometimes giving them ideas or suggestions.
John-Nelson Pope: You’re treating them like they’re not it’s. They are subjects.
Chris Gazdik: They are persons. Okay. Not subjects. And I think that would take people in a different direction.
No, I’m [00:25:00]
John-Nelson Pope: talking about Martin Buber and I and thou. Okay. So now that, that, that, what do you mean? Cause I, I’m sure you mean correct. I mean, that there’s somebody of, of equal or even above they’re, they’re incalculably.
Chris Gazdik: How many parents like to think that they actually share control with their kid?
Share. Wow. No, I can
John-Nelson Pope: do anything I want to if this is my child. You can’t tell me what to do with my child. Very big
Chris Gazdik: defensiveness there, right? And then, but what you’re doing is you’re telling my child
John-Nelson Pope: is that that’s, that’s kind of a 18th century viewpoint. And
Chris Gazdik: honestly, when you take that, you’re taking control away from the child and any autonomy to make decisions.
John-Nelson Pope: You’re taking away their personhood.
Chris Gazdik: So when they become 18 and you no longer have them as your minor child air quotes [00:26:00] there, what are they supposed to do? They’re
not used to making decisions. Right, it’s it’s so debilitating if you if you look at like no, I’m on I’m in control of my child I don’t share any control.
So empathy first and that logical Consequential way of thinking through that line of logic like I like I said, you know how brilliant it is Well, how wonderful it is when your kid like starts pondering things Starts wondering about. Pinky,
John-Nelson Pope: are you pondering what I’m pondering? Yes. Okay. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: you know Which that whole thing little Johnny I see that there’s a problem here by doing what you’re doing huh.
And of course the kids gonna be like no dad. There’s no problem. And you say okay. Well, no problem. Don’t worry about it I’ll take care of the problem and BAM you do nothing for a day. What do you think that kid is thinking? They’re thinking about, Oh God, what’s going to happen? [00:27:00] They have anxiety about this.
They start thinking, What should I have done? Oh God, what’s coming?
John-Nelson Pope: They think of consequence.
Chris Gazdik: They think of consequential interaction. And they’re learning. And then they know that the hammer is coming somewhere because they’ve seen this happen multiple times. This is easy when you start out the earlier in the relationship with a kid that you start out.
If you start out in teenage land, like I did, it’s going to be tough. It’s tough. It’s a lot tougher to figure out. These are easier things to think about when the little kiddo is, is young, like, let’s, let’s think of some examples if you’re following me, like, what are, what are some examples, John, particularly easy when it’s, when it’s, you know you know, kids, toddlers, you know, the elementary school, how can we use love and logic to kind of give them choices and help them make decisions and understand their behaviors?
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Well. The question is that, let me give you an example, you can’t [00:28:00] bring knives to school, and the little second grader takes a knife to school and gets My kid actually
Chris Gazdik: did this. How did you know this? Are you in my head? Are you in my world? No, it’s my kid did that too.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s the one who let the dogs out.
Okay. Who
Chris Gazdik: let the
John-Nelson Pope: dogs You know that song, right, John? Yeah, that’s right. That’s from 19 By the Baja Boys. Who let the dogs out. Is it Baja? Okay, I don’t know. Go ahead.
Chris Gazdik: Sorry, I interrupted.
John-Nelson Pope: No, no, no. That’s
Chris Gazdik: Is that right? Alright. The Baha. The Baha, man. Gotcha.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay, so, well, I’ve been around. Yes. So, yeah, we have.
So, yeah, my son got in trouble and wanted to, and the school wanted to expel him. It was a butter knife. But. A butter knife? A butter knife.
Chris Gazdik: And they wanted to expel him for a butter knife in the 80s? 90s.
John-Nelson Pope: In the 90s? 90s, yeah. What the heck? Yeah. For real? About [00:29:00] 95. Yeah, I used. Okay. So, Geez, I was wrong. I think it was wrong at the school.
Oh, it’s terrible. But it’s terrible. I, but that was part of the, the thing, and so I, I, we really did get angry with the school. Yeah. But at the same time, how do I, how, how would I parent him? What would be a good parenting thing with the punish him?
Chris Gazdik: Take his privilege away. Right. Corporate punishment. Give him a spanking.
We have got to get away from exclusively thinking in those terms. Right. Right. So what do we do? Let’s play with this. How do we, how do you teach him life lessons about bringing a butter knife to school being bad? He had to
John-Nelson Pope: what we did, if I recall, is that he, he went and he, he went to the principal and to his teacher and he explained why that was, why he shouldn’t have done it.
Yeah. And that was. [00:30:00] Basically, he had to have a conversation. He had to have a conversation. He needed to follow through. And he was very anxious and very scared. Right. Yeah. Did you have compassion for him?
Chris Gazdik: Sure. Sure. It’s hard. I felt, I felt horrible. Right. So did you let him stand into the fire?
John-Nelson Pope: You mean, like, yeah, take the consequences.
I think he might have Deal
Chris Gazdik: with the awkward conversation. Yeah, yeah. Right? That’s the fire.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I think he had to also have study hall or something like that for, for a couple of days. But he was a good boy.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think what I’m saying is, is you could have saved him and talked with the teacher yourself.
You could have smoothed it over with the school or advocated for him to be able to stay instead of having a punishment. You could have done. There’s a lot of choices that you had in all of that. Yeah. He
John-Nelson Pope: didn’t get expelled or anything or suspended. Okay. Good. [00:31:00] But I thought they overreacted personally, of course, I
Chris Gazdik: think so too, for sure, but the kid has to deal with is, I mean, yeah, he’s got to have some skin in the game is the whole point, right?
That is the way the world works. We’re not okay with knives in schools.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay, let me give you, let me ask you a question, Chris. Okay. Okay, because this happened to me with my parents. Okay. And I used to I’m getting scared, Neil. I got bullied. When I was in the 7th grade, 8th grade, and back in those days, nobody stood up for you or anything like that.
My parents never went to the teachers or to the principal. And I had to face my bullies. That sucked. That sucked. But I’m glad that they didn’t. So why are you
Chris Gazdik: glad they didn’t?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I think it was because I was able to, to reason with the, [00:32:00] the bullies and outtalk them. And and
Chris Gazdik: did you have the John Pope brilliant intellect at that point already?
Not quite, not quite yet, but I was getting there. Okay. I was coming along. Was getting
John-Nelson Pope: there. Yeah, I was getting there. Yeah. But I think that helped me. So
Chris Gazdik: probably lit a fire and you develop some stuff. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: And I said, I don’t want to be in their classes. So that was, that was the other thing. I didn’t hide from them or anything like that.
I stood up. Yeah. So Today, what would happen is if a person was bullied and fought back, they’d get expelled. And so that’s not love and logic, is it?
Chris Gazdik: So what’s the question then? I mean, is that love and logic? What would this philosophy, how do you deal with that kind of a thing? I don’t
John-Nelson Pope: think schools, they, they have a zero tolerance.
Would logic, love and logic allow for kids to get in fights?
Chris Gazdik: You know, I think the answer is yes, [00:33:00] I do. I think the answer is straight up. Yes. As a matter of fact, at the conference that I was at, one of the scenarios that we really spent time processing is what do you do? And, you know, the siblings are in, in battle, you know, I mean, the parent can come in and, you know, create judgment is, you know, and, and just iron handed, you Lay down the law, you know, who’s right and who’s wrong.
Who are you siding with? What’s the judgment you go to your corner? You go to your corner and you’re both punished or you know Any number of things that the parent can do but I distinctly remember which when I took the training the son of the creators of this whole philosophy He, you know, was giving the, the, the, the seminar that whole day.
It was a day long seminar and I was locked on the whole day, by the way. And that doesn’t happen in trainings very often for me. I hate to say that, especially in the second half of my career. But they said, let the kids fight. Basically they
have to, they have to work it out. Yes. You cannot [00:34:00] work out exactly problems for them all the time.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s exactly right. I think it was the best thing in the world for me. So yeah, my brother and I would go at it.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, my brother and I would. And it sucked for me, John, because I was the smaller of the two. He was three and a half years older than me. So how many fights with my brother was only 18
John-Nelson Pope: months and I was bigger than he was.
See, I was not.
Chris Gazdik: My brother dominated me, and I had a hard time trying to figure out how do I stand up for myself. Still trying to figure that out with that guy. No, I’m kidding. I’ve learned a lot. But you only learn when you’re forced to deal with those situations. Now We do need a word about safety. I mean, there needs to be a level of safety that we’re aware of, but the level of safety that I think I would cite as a danger to self or others, if you’re infringing upon the level of safety where you need intervention, the kid needs to go to a [00:35:00] hospital.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s level of inpatient commitment and we have that when somebody’s not able to be safe with themselves or others in the mental health field, right? Right. And kids do go to hospitals. But if we’re not talking about that, then we’re talking about the need to kind of problem solve through your, your argument.
What’s your fight? What’s the problem? Figure it out guys. And so few, I think parents get stuck into fear. There’s a big word. They’re afraid they’re going to
John-Nelson Pope: So they’re parents that would either be like dictators. Yep. Or they would be so fearful that they think their kids are going to break. Yeah. And their kids aren’t going to break.
They don’t usually
Chris Gazdik: break.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: This happens a lot of times in tantrums, you know. Even with like a clinical situation like separation anxiety, that’s a diagnosis, you know. [00:36:00] So listening along, you know, separation anxiety is when people have, kids have clinical level anxiety and they’re routinely getting nauseous going to school, or separation from a primary figure at the daycare.
They freak out. But the thing that the parent doesn’t realize is you leave five minutes later, the kid’s fine. They work out their internal feelings, and they’re usually fine. Okay, homesickness, right? I got
John-Nelson Pope: horribly homesick. Yeah. And I could not understand why my mom and dad would not pick me up. Yeah.
From my grandparents.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Love and logic would say, you know, work it out. Work it out. Work it out. Deal with this. So I wrote letters.
John-Nelson Pope: You wrote letters? Yeah, I wrote letters. And that helped you with
Chris Gazdik: your homesickness at the grandparents? Oh yeah, yeah, sure did.
John-Nelson Pope: Because it was a farm in Tennessee.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, I’m sure my father and mother in law aren’t going to be listening to this.
Hopefully they do. I will reconcile and apologize. Like, I actually screwed this up. Although the kid was pretty young. I think it was [00:37:00] 50 50, honestly, when I worked with all my friends. Neil will come to you in a second. He grabs the mic whenever he does. That’s good. The, the, the thing is, is, I think my kid was like five and we traveled all the way from to, you know, where we live in Charlotte area here to Tampa, Florida, and the idea suddenly became, Oh, the kids are going to stay a whole extra week at their grandparents, which is five or something like that.
It was kind of like edgy, like, do you leave your kid for that long, that little, that long for the first time? It was like. Then one of them was gonna stay and not both of them and both of them were gonna stay and there was this big Hubbub and finally I just said like look this is crazy So we didn’t we didn’t have them stay and it caused a problem like my father in law was not happy with me All right, which I’m sorry Gerald probably screwed that up probably should have
had them stay, but it was brand new for us parents as well as the kid so that I, I may have screwed that up.
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t know why I must’ve [00:38:00] had just marvelous parents in terms of, of, and uncles and aunts because I, there was one time I got really homesick. Yeah. Cause that was a theme for me. Was it? Yeah. Yeah. And I was with my aunt Jean and uncle, uh, anyway, and my aunt Jean and Brothers and not brothers, cousins.
And I got really homesick uncle Fred. Right. And they put me on a bus and I was like nine years old. Went from La Follette, Tennessee by myself to Harlan, Kentucky. That’s a big trip long trip. And I learned my lesson.
So nobody even picked me up from the bus station in Harlem and I had to walk all the way. That sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Terrifying. But that was in the 60s. Terrifying, yeah. It was like 67 or something like that. See,
Chris Gazdik: again, fear. People are [00:39:00] fearful. Like, you know, can you do that nowadays? Parents live in, parents live in fear.
Neil, what are you thinking, man?
Neil Robinson: I was gonna make a joke about why your parents didn’t come pick you up if, if you give it to your kids, you leave them gone. You just enjoy the time without them, right? You just do that. But I, I think it, I think it goes back to you get to the, I do think that. Like our parents, our grandparents, there was, they just didn’t really worry, you know, you, you, you threw the kids out there and you knew that they’d, they’d come back.
Right. But in the environment today, there’s, there’s so, so much fear mongering going on. The idea of having a nine year old ride a bus for six hours and then walk home from the bus station, like it was
John-Nelson Pope: six hours. Think,
Neil Robinson: think about like in today’s society, what the news. places would talk about this one kid did this.
Nothing happens to you. But what could have happened? It could have been a serial killer or a kidnapper or a rapist or the bus could have exploded. Like there’s all this fear mongering, [00:40:00] right? Yeah. And so because of all the fear mongering, parents are at a point now where they feel they have to be that snow plow helicopter parent, right?
Chris Gazdik: Otherwise, you’re a bad parent, I guess. Right. You I mean,
Neil Robinson: you have the free range parents. There are some states where the parents let their kid walk to the park. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Play in the park and then come back. And then they got arrested because they didn’t supervise their kid.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: I mean, my parents and grandparents would have been arrested, put in jail for the rest of their lives, but that was Chris, that was 60 years ago.
So,
Chris Gazdik: you know, what’s interesting. I was just listening to you, Neil. It’s a really interesting point in, in the contemporary parenting world that we live in, right? Because I mean, you’re right. I mean, there’s such judgment. Is one big word about parenting, like parents get judged tremendously, and that’s so unfortunate.
And the other piece that I think is loud that you’re speaking more to, Neil, is that parents are parenting out of fear. [00:41:00] And I think you gotta be careful when those things come together, where you’re fearfully parenting your child for fear of being judged. That’s a bad combination. It’s impossible, right?
Mm hmm. Yeah, like, I can’t leave my kid alone in the neighborhood at, you know, whatever time of day, at night, or, well, yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Our, our rule was, when the street lamps come on, then you need to be home. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you could hear it, and you could wait for it to click on. Yes.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. The the buzz of the light comes on and everyone’s scurries home or something.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, we all have similar stories. I mean, yeah, we would out be, you know, out in the morning and wouldn’t come home until, you know, it was time to eat and you know, poor Ray George, our neighbor, he had the, his, his mom had a dinner bell. Ding, ding, ding. It’ll be cowbell. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
It’s like we knew Ray had to go home, you know. But [00:42:00] it was all day long and then they didn’t know where we were. We were somewhere around the house within a mile or two, really, and we, we had a wonderful place that I grew up. It was around Ogilby Park in Wheeling. If anybody listening knows where that’s at, I mean, we had a park in our backyard.
We had forts up there. I mean, we made fires, John, we made fire more than once. This almost may have caught a pine tree on fire, you know, like not proud of some of those things, but we managed it.
John-Nelson Pope: But you learn. And we learned. Yeah. You experience life and you don’t experience it vicariously or looking down at a screen.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And you know what? We had a really, we had some injuries too. I mean, you know, there is bad things that happen. Oh my god. This is a terrible story. I’m gonna tell it. We, as I said, we had this fort and we had this area up there. It was actually along a golf course and then there was a road and then it was our neighborhood, right?
So, we were that close to everything [00:43:00] and so we took one day, John, a a a like, you know, the acrobatic pulley system. Yeah. On a on a swing set. Yeah. The triangle thing. Yeah. Well, we had the triangle thing tied to a pulley. And with a wheel on it, a little single wheel pulley, and we had the pulley tied up onto a, a taunt rope that was tied in a very high pine tree, and then secondly, tied to a very low landing tree.
I see where
John-Nelson Pope: that’s going.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, it was bad. So we’re going down the system and one after the other, we’re climbing the tree and going down the pool. It was a blast. So I’m up and I’m climbing to this high point in the tree and I’m next in line to take my turn. And, and that same kid actually Ray was had the thing.
And do you remember the song Van Halen Panama
John-Nelson Pope: Panama? Yes.
Chris Gazdik: He loved Van [00:44:00] Halen. Right. And he was singing more. And I’m telling you what,
John-Nelson Pope: aren’t they going around on in the video to, well,
Chris Gazdik: we didn’t have video back then, John, you know, there’s no cell phones. And so right when he, no, no, I’m
John-Nelson Pope: talking about the music video.
Okay. But
Chris Gazdik: when he cleared the tree. It the pulley broke.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh
Chris Gazdik: no. Bam. He dropped straight sheer drop.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh my
Chris Gazdik: good. It was horrifying. Scary as hell. Remember I said I was the next person up and so I scurried down and we had a group of the kids and the group ran and they left me alone with Ray to hold on. I mean, I wanted to throw up.
I mean, it was a really, really bad day and he got very, very bad injured. So he broke his femur. He broke two wrists and oh no, some ribs. Yeah, it was, it was bad. He, it would have been better off if he had fallen in the tree, you know, later found or understood. So
John-Nelson Pope: he, he must’ve fallen what, 20 feet? Oh,
Chris Gazdik: probably every
John-Nelson Pope: bit.
Oh my
Chris Gazdik: [00:45:00] goodness. So there are really bad consequences. Ray’s fine by the way today, his life is good, he’s fine, he’s no problem, he healed, he recovered, we all signed his cast, we came to see him every day at his house, he was out of school for a little while, I mean it was bad, but, you know, can you let your kids be in the world with risk?
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Chris Gazdik: On the eve of that story, what do you think people are saying, listen to this John, in answer to my question, can you handle your child being in the world? With the very real world risks that are out there.
John-Nelson Pope: Can you not afford to do that so that your kids will be able to live in the world? Yeah. That can be tough and rough and cruel.
So you’re
Chris Gazdik: reframing my question. Yeah. Say it again.
John-Nelson Pope: Can you not, can you not risk allowing your kids to fail or [00:46:00] to be hurt so that they can grow up? To make good and adult decisions when they get older and
Chris Gazdik: it’s really important topic that we’re on right now.
Neil Robinson: I, I think the important part because we’re dealing with this with our, our youngest right now trying to get his license.
He is not a. He’s a naturally skilled driver. Oh boy. You know, the way that he does stuff driver. He’s talking about driving y’all. And the interesting thing about it is, you know, no matter how much it scares a parent dealing with their kid driving because there’s always that nerve wracking, right? You’re like this.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, it’s terrifying. Yeah.
Neil Robinson: But you have to assume just like you said, John, I think the biggest key that you do is you have to let your kids experience the things while you’re there to, to kind of, You, you’re, you’re the way that my wife and I see it is you want them to experience them, experience things in their life while they have you as a safety net.
If they don’t experience [00:47:00] it and you’re there to kind of help them through it like the safety net, what’s going to happen when you’re not there is safety net and they try that triple flip as a trapeze. And then next, you know, they hit the ground, right? That’s the thing. So the goal is that you have to let your kids do what they do while you’re there.
And then you, they learn them. That’s so it’s a controlled
John-Nelson Pope: risk.
Neil Robinson: It becomes a controlled risk, but you’re not controlling everything. But when there is a situation, you’re there for them. You’re there to help them when they’re driving. They are there. I really want one of those student driver cars where you can give me the break.
Give me the brake pedal. Oh, it was. Yeah. But so that’s a perfect example. I have no control over what Luke does when he drives. You really don’t have control. Can you let go of that control with your kiddo? But can you be like, hey, you need to stop faster, you know, hey, watch this turn, hey, watch it. And you’re helping them observe and learn what’s going on, but once again, I have no control over what Luke does.
I, [00:48:00] so you have to give them that, that freedom, and there will be consequences if they don’t do it, right? Because you can’t stop them, but that’s the important part, that you have to be there for your kid through the situation, that you give them the opportunity. To struggle through it, work through it. You know, if you do use trapeze air things, they have to go through, they flip, they miss the catch and they land in the net, they don’t die, but now they can try it again, they don’t die.
But then eventually it’s the point where, all right, the next is gone. Use what you’ve learned. and that’s very important. Now, do you all have, you
John-Nelson Pope: don’t have girls. I don’t. I have two boys. You have all boys. I had one boy, two girls. Oh, wow. And the boy is very, was very different than the girls. I bet. Well, my
Neil Robinson: two boys are different too.
Oh,
Chris Gazdik: absolutely. Both my boys are very different.
John-Nelson Pope: My, my son would, would do crazy things like jump in in the middle of the, of the winter into Lake Olathe, which is in Kansas in the [00:49:00] middle of winter. And they, they jumped. Onto the ice. Yeah. And and broke it and went into it. Yeah. That was that scary kind of craziness.
And yet he would, he was afraid to drive. And I had a , I had a clutch, and we had to go, he had a, you know, he had a year and a half to learn how to, to drive with a clutch. Yeah. And he wouldn’t do it. So we just, mom and dad had to go somewhere on a, on a visit. And I said, we’ll come back. And you’ll know how to drive and
Chris Gazdik: see where we’re going here.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. He taught himself how to drive. Yeah. So he had to, yeah. I mean, he would deal with his you know, he just would get really,
Chris Gazdik: well, you know, again, do you save your kid from the anxiety that you’re having? You know, I had an older brother that did some of this for me, you know, particularly as. You know, my parents got divorced when I was pretty young, and I’ll never forget the, the way that I learned [00:50:00] that I could go off of a, a, a high dive at the pool.
Yeah, no, I didn’t get pushed, but the, the nudge what Neil was. Neil asked me if I got pushed. I said, no, just go up and take a look. And I believed my brother. I’m like, oh, okay. I just have to take a look. Okay, great. So we climbed up the big freaking intimidating, you know, high dive and we’re now way up in the air and I get up on the high dive and I’m like, I mean, that’s scary as hell.
It’s wide open, you know, and I, I looked and I think I took two steps out with the railings that were on there before I got to the part without the railings and my brother’s like, no, we’re not going down. I’m like, what do you mean we’re not going down? He’s like, no, we’re not going down. He wouldn’t move.
And he just stood there and I’m like, oh my god. I just got duped, but I’m so glad I was so mad at him, but, and I was so intimidated and anxious, terrified. I’m [00:51:00] talking, can you look at your child who is terrified in a situation and not save them? That’s hard to do for mama. It’s hard to do for dads with their little daughters.
Huh. It’s hard to do with dads with their kids. Yeah. But I jumped off. Huh. And I’m, I’m glad that my brother did me that way, although that was, seemed really, really cruel. It wasn’t cruel, John. Huh. You know? So I think that it’s interesting. You know, the love and logic is It has a logical process, doesn’t it?
Yeah. It has a logical thing that we’re learning from. It’s really, really tough situations. Neil, did you have more of a thought? No,
Neil Robinson: but I’m also very disappointed because if you told me Victoria wasn’t going to be here I think I could have got my wife on this show.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, really?
Neil Robinson: I, I think honestly with her background and, and cause she has her, her birth to kindergarten education and she was, did a lot of pre, preschool stuff and she’s Oh, she would have been good?
Chris Gazdik: Oh, it would have been,
Neil Robinson: it would have been an interesting conversation and I think she actually would have been up for [00:52:00] it, which I’ve been trying to get her on the show just to get you and her to go at it. Oh, wow. Some of your discussions, so I’m really disappointed. I’m like, man, I wish I knew. Let’s
Chris Gazdik: add her on the the month in review, Neil.
What, what would be the, the, how would they go at it? He said, we’ll see Alicia, just by, just so you know. No, there’s a lot
Neil Robinson: of, sometimes the way that he describes love and logic, we’ve talked about this before, it doesn’t make sense to the way he describes it. But, as we dive into this and you look at the stuff that’s in there, it actually goes very along with a lot of the way that we raised our kids.
And so, actually, in this case, you would probably get, the way you’re discussing it, we’ll actually get a lot of agreement with someone who, who basically started her education career in those types of. These types of side, this, this type of information
Chris Gazdik: previously.
Neil Robinson: No, I taught previously. Like, and I’ve talked to this before the way you describe it.
It’s like, it’s like, yeah, let your kid do whatever you want and I’ll go fix it behind you. It’s like, that doesn’t sound right. That sounds like enablement. Like,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, yeah, no, right. Yeah. But yeah, there’s a lot to that and that’s where people [00:53:00] struggle, but you know, I wanted to get back to before we run out of time because, because.
You know, Neil, you were making me think about this and, and then it’s unfortunate. I mean, I guess the theme today, this time, and we do redo the content, but the theme today is different. It’s almost like contemporary aspects.
We should have that as a subtitle, right? What are some contemporary aspects of today’s life where society is telling the parent what to do?
Because honestly, like there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of fear of that judgment. And like, I feel like parents are taught. Excuse me. In this age of anxiety that we live in, for reasons I think relate a lot to the age of information that we live in, that creates a tremendous amount of fear and worry. So like you’re taught by society that you need to be fearful for your children and protect them, which is flying in the face of everything that we’re talking [00:54:00] about today.
Protecting them. Isn’t that a primary job of a parent to protect their kid? That’s what society kind of teaches,
John-Nelson Pope: but you know, we, we want to teach our kids to be resilient, to be able to be flexible, to be able to have a agency to grow, to grow because I, I’m going to give an illustration. I use this all the time with my kids, with with some of my clients and that sort of thing is I had, I had a pet chicken.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. It was on the farm. A cow had stepped on it and it was alive. I mean, it was able to survive and, and, and do that, but it’s like was really gone and couldn’t be set. And so I fed it for a long, long time. And it just turned into this big [00:55:00] blob. It didn’t, it didn’t learn how to be with the other chicks or anything like that.
And it was not having, I took care of everything for it. Okay. And it grew up and it was helpless. Oh wow. It wasn’t, yeah. And the poor chicken had to die, you know, so. Are you serious? Yeah. Serious. Poor chicken. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: but you didn’t teach it how to survive.
John-Nelson Pope: I didn’t teach it how to survive. It took care of it all its needs.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: and Yeah
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, that’s that’s sad. And I think that you know, there are a lot of kids out there that are kind of you know That are like that chicken John. I mean seriously, I mean that’s a little dramatic of a yeah of an outcome But
John-Nelson Pope: but they’re helpless.
Chris Gazdik: They’re helpless.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah
Chris Gazdik: They haven’t learned.
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Chris Gazdik: They haven’t learned to think. Haven’t learned to problem solve. Haven’t learned to relate. Haven’t learned to think about this from the other person’s perspective. Maybe not learn how to [00:56:00]
John-Nelson Pope: have empathy or compassion. Empathize?
Chris Gazdik: How to have compassion for somebody else? Yeah. If I take little Johnny’s milk money, then Johnny won’t have, you know, any money for lunch.
And that bothers me. You have to learn that. Right. That’s not natural, because I want the milk money for me. I want to buy candy. Yeah. You know? So this gets, and this gets, yeah, this teaches a little bit of what are we going to call it psychologically? It teaches a little bit of the super ego to come into the picture, right?
Yeah. Right. Anyway. Freudian, so we’re getting a little Freudian. I had to, man. He wasn’t all wrong. He wasn’t all wrong. Exactly. So, you know, we talked about some of these things that we’re really trying to do. I mean, we’re trying to really get into the development of the child. How do you allow Your child to develop or [00:57:00] create these scenarios which in which they will learn from in their development You know I really want to focus on the back end of that line of logic because I find people struggle a lot with it John Johnny you could do anything that you want to do as long as it doesn’t cause a problem for somebody else
John-Nelson Pope: huh.
Chris Gazdik: I see that there’s a problem there that Has been created so you better fix the problem. You need to you need to work through that. Oh little Johnny I see that you haven’t figured out, you know the solution to that problem that’s been created. Don’t worry about it. No problem I’ll take care of the problem.
So now I’m in the situation where I have to create a consequence for this kid So that he can learn, he can’t just do what he wants to do. Right. How do we create those consequences without creating power struggles and without protecting the kids so that they don’t have any pain or skin in the game?[00:58:00]
That becomes complicated.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay, so again, there’s a That becomes hard. Right. ABC, activating behavior. Consequence. It’s, it’s almost like CBT on one level. Okay. What do you mean by that? Okay. Well, you said that there’s the action where you’re going to do something. Yeah. Okay. And you don’t think of the consequences and so you, you behave a certain way.
And then you behave that certain way, the consequence is negative. So ABC would be is, okay, you add this extra thought and that is, let’s, let me keep in mind and it gives agency to the kid saying, you can make a decision not to do something that. So you say, I don’t like this consequence because it was a bad consequence before.
I don’t want to repeat it.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Okay. So.
Chris Gazdik: I was just adding that. I love that. You’ve explained that really well. Let me put some meat on that bone. You know, if little kid is failing his [00:59:00] spelling test because he doesn’t sit down from four o’clock to 4 30 doing his homework and studying for the test.
So don’t worry about it. Little Johnny, you know, the problem that you’re causing, you know, us for your poor grade. Because there’s a problem in that we’re receiving calls from teachers and it takes us away from work because they’re calling us about your Lack of performance and behavior with the spelling test.
That’s you know, sometimes you have to stretch it and work it But that is a problem for me, right? You’re not getting the grade and so that’s a problem because your teachers are on me For you so next week, you know a whole week later the kid’s been wondering what’s going to happen Because Johnny, you haven’t fixed the problem, but I’m gonna fix the problem.
Don’t worry about it. And then what happens is, or maybe the next day at four o’clock, you and your wife go and say, Hey Johnny, we’re gonna go get some ice cream, and we’re gonna have fun at the park for a little while, but you’re gonna need to study and you didn’t get that stuff done, so [01:00:00] unfortunately you’re not able to come, and we really hate that.
This is compassionate now. This is not being mean. But then you go and you have yourself a Sundae Peanut Butter Parfait And you hang out at the park and you come home and you’re finishing the parfait in the driveway And the little kid is looking out at the Yeah! I mean you just said You can see John’s face right now On the YouTube, right?
It sucks! But the little kid is tormented a little bit Like, I didn’t get the peanut butter parfait? Well, no, because you were supposed to be studying at four to four 30 and you came in in the background as the parent and created a situation that taught him if you were doing the work that you needed to do, this is where I was having a little
John-Nelson Pope: trouble with.
You could be, have been with us so that there’s an intentionality and the parent, it’s not winging it there. Yes. And so that would be the logic aspect of it. Very
Chris Gazdik: purposeful and intentionality on creating a scenario [01:01:00] that. Because the kid created a problem, and because the kid didn’t figure out what the solution was, the parent has to create that solution.
And that’s really where people struggle. to get creative to figure out like, well, what am I going to do with this one?
John-Nelson Pope: The art of this, it has to be age appropriate. So, in other words, the kid has to have some, some concrete thinking ability to Yeah, well, it’s on developmental levels. Developmental, yeah.
Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: the way you do this with a You know, a second grader is very different than the way that you do that with a 15 year old. But the concepts brilliantly are always the same. The big picture philosophy is what we’re operational with. And that’s why I love all this stuff with, with love and logic. I just think it’s so much brilliance.
I wish, like you said, I would have found it in 1977 when I, my parents were parenting me, but more so. You know, I wish I would have found it in 1995 when I was parenting my [01:02:00] kids because I didn’t. They didn’t. And same here. Well, I should say, 2001, my oldest was born. What am I talking about? But, you know, still, you know, I, I didn’t until they were.
John-Nelson Pope: You were parenting
Chris Gazdik: yourself in 95. Yeah, I was trying, I was trying. I was in college, John, the, the safety nets were gone. Yes, they was all, did we do a good job of giving some of the philosophy to give some of the picture of what we’re looking for and how we’re trying to. I think I understand it better now.
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, this is a powerful, powerful tool. I
John-Nelson Pope: liked
Chris Gazdik: your
John-Nelson Pope: concrete examples.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, thank you. Great. And you as well, with what we did naturally with the little popes. Huh. The little, the little pope girls.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, they were, one was, was easy, and one was not. And, and the
Chris Gazdik: boy
John-Nelson Pope: was
Chris Gazdik: a boy.
Neither of mine were easy boys, I tell you. I have a nickname for them that I shall not say [01:03:00] here. Although one of them is losing that nickname. Alright, closing thoughts, comments, questions. Let’s get out of here today. Any, any thoughts you think that we didn’t cover Neil or John, no, I really like this. I really did.
Okay. So, awesome. Well, listen, go ahead, Neil.
Neil Robinson: I think the only thing I want to close with is your job as a parent is not to protect your child, it’s to prepare your child. Oh, I wanted to say that because I
John-Nelson Pope: couldn’t do better.
Neil Robinson: Yeah, John started. I’m like, I want to like concise it. But yeah, I think that’s the important part is your job is not to protect your kid.
It’s to Prepare your kids. It’s better for them, it’s better for society, it’s better for you in the long run. Your job is to prepare, not protect.
Chris Gazdik: That is a mic drop. Take care, guys. Have a great week. Neil, thanks for summing us up that way. Thank you very much. Take care. Episode 300 celebration of Through a Therapist’s Eyes next time.
We’ll see you then. Take [01:04:00] care.