Brain Based Parenting
Brain Based Parenting, The Boys Ranch Podcast for families.
We all know how hard being a parent is, and sometimes it feels like there are no good answers to the difficult questions families have when their kids are struggling.
Our goal each week will be to try and answer some of those tough questions utilizing the knowledge, experience, and professional training Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch has to offer.
Contact us: email
podcasts@calfarley.org
To Donate:
https://secure.calfarley.org/site/Donation2?3358.donation=form1&df_id=3358&mfc_pref=T
To Apply:
https://apply.workable.com/cal-farleys-boys-ranch/j/25E1226091/
For More Information about Cal Farley's Boys Ranch:
https://www.calfarley.org/
Music:
"Shine" -Newsboys
CCS License No. 9402
Brain Based Parenting
Parent Traps-The Pitfalls of Lawnmower Parenting
The path to raising capable, resilient adults is paved with skinned knees, spilled milk, and valuable life lessons. But for many modern parents, the urge to protect our children from every discomfort has created a dangerous parenting trend: lawnmower parenting.
This episode dives deep into what happens when we mow down every obstacle in our children's paths. Our expert panel explores how cultural pressures, fear of judgment, and our own anxieties drive us to overprotect our kids. They share compelling insights about how this seemingly supportive behavior actually robs children of crucial developmental opportunities.
The panel offers practical guidance for parents recognizing these tendencies in themselves. We provide relatable strategies for stepping back while maintaining appropriate support. You'll learn how to reframe failure as a teaching opportunity, identify age-appropriate struggles, and parent with a vision extending far beyond childhood.
Whether you're already working to balance protection with preparation or just realizing you might be clearing too many obstacles, this episode provides the encouragement and practical steps needed to raise children who can navigate life's challenges with confidence and resilience. The message is clear: sometimes the greatest gift we can give our children is allowing them to struggle, fail, and discover their own strength.
Contact:
podcasts@calfarley.org
To Donate:
https://secure.calfarley.org/site/Donation2?3358.donation=form1&df_id=3358&mfc_pref=T
To Apply:
https://apply.workable.com/cal-farleys-boys-ranch/j/25E1226091/
For More Information about Cal Farley's Boys Ranch:
https://www.calfarley.org/
Music:
"Shine" -Newsboys
CCS License No. 9402
Welcome to Brain-Based Parenting, the Boys Ranch podcast for families. We all know how hard being a parent is, and sometimes it feels like there are no good answers to the difficult questions families have when their kids are struggling. Our goal each week will be to try and answer some of those tough questions utilizing the knowledge, experience, and professional training Cal Farley's Boys Ranch has to offer. Now here is your host, Cal Farley Staff Development Coordinator, Joshua Sprock.
SPEAKER_03:Hello and welcome. Today we're going to talk about one of the most common parenting traps, the lawnmower parent trap, and how to avoid it.
SPEAKER_05:To do that today, I'm joined by Suzanne Wright, Vice President of Training and Intervention.
SPEAKER_00:Judah Brown, Campus Life Supervisor. Yeah, Mike Wilhelm, Director of Faith-Based Outreach.
SPEAKER_03:All right. So let's kick off with our question of the day. Since we're talking about lawnmower parenting, what is your skill level and appreciation for lawnmowing?
SPEAKER_05:I think my skill level is fairly low, but I do enjoy it. And I think I'm pretty good until I turn around and notice how wavy my lines are. So like if if someone is picky about that, they would not appreciate my skill.
SPEAKER_02:It's been a while since I've mowed a yard. So I have children to do that and and pick up. That was always something my dad would always have me do. And then as soon as I became a parent that could have children that could push a lawnmower, it was their turn. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I enjoy lawn mowing and I like push mowing. And uh when I was a kid, dad my first I think I learned the first riding mower was a cub cadet. Do you guys know what a cub cadet is? Oh my. Okay. Yeah, that was that was a gold standard. But uh yeah, I like lawn mowing. Now the deck mowers, those are tricky, and you know how the deck mowers work. We had a boys ranch kid once put a deck mower in one of the lakes. Oh yeah, he zigged when he shoot his eggs and put it right in the lake.
SPEAKER_05:Josh, how about you? Are you a good lawn mower?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know if I'm good, but I love to mow the lawn.
SPEAKER_05:Really?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, it's my my relaxation thing. I and at the end, my girls always make fun of me. They say I have the classic dad stance where I'm surveying, have my hands on my hips, staring at my lawn, shaking my head, doing all the, you know, how proud I am of myself.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so you know, it's rhythmic, repetitive, and patterned. It works great for brain development. It's true.
SPEAKER_03:That's why I love it. All right. So today we're gonna be talking about a topic that relatively new in the conversation, which is called lawnmower parenting. So, what would you say lawnmower parenting is?
SPEAKER_05:I think it describes parents who want to remove any and all obstacles from their child's path. So anything that might slow them down or cause them stress or hinder their progress, parents just want to mow that down and take it out of the way.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like boy, well said.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think knocking down the all the issues that may be problems for their children is definitely the big piece.
SPEAKER_03:So, how do you think this parenting style emerged and what cultural or societal pressures have contributed to its rise?
SPEAKER_02:You know, for me, I think it's a fear of allowing your kids to fail. It's also a view of how people are gonna view your children if they do fail. I think that that really kind of brings up a thought for me. Like, I have quite a span between my children. I have an 18-year-old and a two-year-old. And with our 18-year-old being our first, we did a lot of things where we were afraid to allow him to make mistakes. Or if he if he did fail at something, we were afraid what people would think about us. So we had to like take him out of those situations or remove those situations from him. He made the comment not long ago that we didn't we didn't allow him to fail quite like he needed to. He's like, it's okay for people to fail. And I never really experienced that because you and mom always removed those from me. And I think, you know, he's in the military now, so I think that's one of those things where he put himself in a position where he was going to experience failure and experience not always the the easiest path.
SPEAKER_05:So I think one point you made is really important in that we're concerned about how it reflects on us as parents. And so I think a lot of parents bend over backwards to ensure their child's success so that it reflects well on them. Look what a good parent I am. And and it's an attempt to avoid judgment if their child does make a mistake.
SPEAKER_00:Boy, I couldn't agree more. And I wonder too if there's another, there's even another piece of this. You you correct me if I'm if I'm chasing a rabbit here, but there's there's also with younger children, we could do some lawnmower parenting where we're plowing away, clearing the path where they're this the environment is so safe that nothing, nothing bad could ever happen, even if that whatever that bad thing, the the odds of it are just astronomical, you know, that it could happen anyway. But to make the environment so sterile and safe because there's a, I don't know, maybe it's 24-7 cable news has a lot of boogeyman put in our heads where we're kind of we're scared, we want our kid to be safe. That's all good stuff to want our kids to be safe. But to not let them experience some adversity. Sometimes it might be like Judah and Suzanne said, it could be living vicariously through our kid and and it's how's this going to reflect on me. Sometimes it might be trying to overprotect them, you know, for some safety reasons just because our culture has uh we're really caught up with that right now. Does that make sense? Do you think that's right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I agree with you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I remember something you said in an earlier podcast on a completely different topic, but said that back when you were a kid that there was lots of commercials during kids' programming for band-aids.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And now you never see band-aid commercials on. And I think it's because we we never let kids get a a scrape or a boo-boo.
SPEAKER_00:No, I'm not gonna uh I'm not gonna torture our listening audience with uh singing the jingle, but I still know the band-aid commercial jingle because it was played so often, and there were a lot of band-aid commercials and antiseptic commercials for scraped knees and things like that. You haven't seen those for decades, right?
SPEAKER_01:True.
SPEAKER_03:What about the self-esteem movement of like the eighties? How do you think that played into the lawnmower parenting?
SPEAKER_05:You know, it's been it's been popular for a long time that everybody gets a ribbon, right? Everybody gets an award, everybody gets a certificate. And that the same thing, right? We don't want to make anybody feel bad because they didn't win. And I've even seen it, you know, go to the other extreme that that kids in a school weren't given an award for doing well, so that the children who didn't receive award didn't feel bad. And so that was, you know, that was a lawnmower, let's just mow everything down. And, you know, the statement was that by by showing recognition for a child who did well, that your silence towards other children was calling out that they didn't do well. And that, you know, that's the same. Everybody gets a a trophy or everybody gets an award. And and I can remember a a family member's child who went to dance class and and part of the expense of dance class was a trophy that the parents had to buy every their own child a trophy so that at the end of dance class, all the kids got a trophy and it just wow, where did all that come from? You know, that that things weren't that way for a long time.
SPEAKER_03:And I wonder what role like social media played into this type this style of parenting.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think social media plays a large role because you see the pictures of how everything is great and grand. And it just I think people feel that they have to show everything is terrific. Their parenting is terrific. Social media is really hard for me because of that, because I feel like parenting is messy, and it's okay for it to be messy. My father-in-law is really interesting because he jokes about the thing that he loved about parenting was how messy it was. He's like, Those are the things you remember is it not being perfect, and that it it there were those moments where you lost your mind as a parent and you yelled, but then you came back and apologized and worked it out because those are what your kids remember is when it's not perfect and that you're having fun in spite of being a difficult situation. I think that the the idea of um making sure that everything is perfect around us is a part of that social media piece. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:In what ways might a parent's own upbringing or unresolved anxiety influence their desire to overprotect their child?
SPEAKER_05:I think if you were raised in an environment where you didn't have a lot of structure and consistency and you felt unprotected or unsafe, that that could lead you to want to provide a very protective, safe, structured, consistent environment for your child. And as Mike said earlier, those things are important. But there also has to be some opportunity to learn in that environment. And, you know, the old saying is you learn more by failing than you do by succeeding. So we all have, you know, you have to learn it somewhere. You have to make a mistake, you have to do it wrong. I I think about children who are protected their whole lives and then they go out onto their own. Now who's gonna protect them? Right? If if we don't let kids learn to stumble and pick themselves up along the way, what happens when they finally reach adulthood and they haven't had any practice at that? Now you now you have bigger stakes.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_05:Right now, now the the stumble or the fall is further. The mistake could be more severe, right? And so this is just a lot like a lot of other things we teach our kids, we give them small doses of challenge as they grow up so that by the time they're adults, they're prepared.
SPEAKER_00:And that that's a great question, Josh. And I I I know probably the three of you have seen this before, where yeah, sometimes you'll you'll meet somebody that uh came from a hard place and uh no fault of theirs. They just uh they grew up in a home that maybe was out of control due to addiction. They survived that, lived to tell the tale, and are committed to never, ever, ever let anything like that happen again to the point that that fear is their main motivation rather than than love being their their motivation, their parenting from a position of fear. And you become a, there you go, a lawnmower parent, right?
SPEAKER_03:What are some of the short and long-term effects of shielding children from discomfort and failure?
SPEAKER_02:You know, it's interesting when you were, Mike, when you were making the comment about kids not I and I guess I go straight to kids not going outside as much anymore. Because when I was a kid, if I was being really loud and annoying to my mom, it was go outside and go play outside, right? And uh and we would go outside and I'd get in trouble, and then I'd come back inside after I got yelled at by somebody else. And then that was kind of my childhood. Whereas I feel like nowadays, because outside is kind of viewed as like this dangerous place a little bit, that what we do is we give our kids screens and we can keep an eye on them. We think we can, but what they're able to do on the screens is is kind of dangerous a little bit more. So I I feel like the short-term gain of of some of that stuff is you get to keep your eyes on them, they're protected, but the long term of what you may be allowing them to get into or not allowing them to really experience can be really long-term issues.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I I sat with uh a fella just the other day who's who's an an an elderly gentleman who's going through some very difficult chemo. The chemo has given him neuropathy in his his feet and his hands. And he was talking about how having neuropathy, how dangerous it can be because you could have your foot next to a heater not realize my foot is blistered, uh has become blistered, and how important it is to be able to get that feedback from our our environment that we live in. Go out and build a tree house or a fort. It's you're gonna get splinters, sometimes you're gonna fall. You you're doing you got a hammer and some old rusty nails, and sometimes a mom and dad might need to take you to go get a tetanus shot, but you're learning a lot, you're getting a lot of feedback from the environment. I I think to not have any of that and to be so in such a bubble where we would have to be losing a lot of resiliency moving into adulthood. Just some just some practical growing up. Does that sound do I sound ancient when I say that, Suzanne?
SPEAKER_05:No, I think I think you're dead on. And and you know, you you hear a lot of stories from people roughly our age and older. I I remember my my husband as a small, like as a five-year-old, that he and his brother would be at their grandparents' house who lived out in the country, and they would walk five miles to the convenience store to buy cigarettes for their grandpa and walk back. Okay, no, that's a little too much freedom in the outdoors, right? I mean, like we all hear that and we think of everything that could go wrong and who was selling cigarettes to a seven-year-old, and right, you know, like that's so you have there has to be a happy medium in there somewhere, right? From you know, allowing things that are dangerous, but still providing opportunities for them to grow.
SPEAKER_00:Boy, and I appreciate you talking about that balance because I would want listeners to know this is not about saying, oh, if only it were like the the good old days. There are so many things about today that are better than the when I was a child, and we've gotten much better at a lot of things. So not not putting it out that there that way at all. But I do think we perhaps we have made a misstep pushing too far into lawnmower parenting and uh making just super safe bubbles and protecting kids from any kind of setback.
SPEAKER_02:Pendulum swinging, you know. Pendulum effect. We've gone a little bit too far to the other side. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I read a story years ago, and I wish I knew the name of the Nobel Prize winner that it was about. I'm I'm sorry, I don't remember that. But he said as a small child, he was trying to pour himself a glass of milk, and this is when, you know, the milk guy delivered bottles of milk to your to your front step. And so he had this glass bottle full of milk and he tried to pour himself milk and he spilled it. And his mom comes in the kitchen and she says, Oh, you you spilled the milk. How do you think you should clean that up? What do you think would be the best to clean that up? Do you think it would be a cloth or maybe a sponge or a mop? And so she problem solved with him. Which method do you think would be appropriate? Now, now that would not have been me. Right? You spilled the milk and you know, and you're gonna make a bigger mess cleaning it up yourself. I'll just clean it up. That that kind of would have been, but she gave him the opportunity to think about choices, and then she let him clean it up. And then they took an empty milk bottle and went out in the backyard and filled it up with water. And she said, How could you practice pouring that so the next time you pour yourself a glass of milk, you wouldn't spill it? And so he practiced picking the bottle up in different ways, holding it at different angles. And that has always stuck with me as such an amazing example of parenting that encourages and allows your child to think for themselves, to problem solve. And the mom didn't get all worked up over a glass of spilled milk, right? It's just such a great story. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's a great story. You know, and I heard someone, there was someone that was working in a university setting that was that just loves young people. So this wasn't uh griping about though like the old days. It was just someone that really loves old people, I mean young people, and was working with a leadership group of of college kids. This was uh at their college, this was a a leadership group, the cream of the cream. And one of the things they had to do was to decorate this area. I don't know if it was at the library or if it was some building that, but they had Christmas decorations to put out and set this up. So the leadership team just took the ball and set this up. Well, they come back behind and check. Well, like the tree just had decorations just halfway up the tree and it was left unfinished. And there was just a whole bunch of things like that. And I came back and asked the leader of the leaders of the leadership group, what hey, what's going on? Oh, well, we ran out of stuff. Well, okay. Okay, you see where this is going. All right. The then this their sponsor, whoever this was telling the story, said, you know, they just thought you just they just didn't know what to do next. And that's what happens if we do a lot more parenting and and kids don't learn to push through some adversity and f just in the stakes aren't high decorating a lobby for Christmas, right? But how telling is that? These were the top college recruits at this university and they didn't know how to problem solve and push through and figure something out. Like ask someone, are there more decoration somewhere? Or try to you know do make do with what you had, but they just stop.
SPEAKER_03:So how does lawnmower parenting impact a child's ability to build resilience, independence, and healthy coping skills?
SPEAKER_05:You know, any of the skills that we try to teach our children are learned through repetition, right? So anytime you learn a new skill, when you learn when you're a kid and you're learning to ride a bike, you have to do it over and over and over and over, and you're building a new pathway in your brain until eventually, voila, you can ride a bike, right? And then eventually you can take those training wheels off. But it's it's step by step and it's repetitive. And so if we don't give our kids the opportunity to learn things and to repeat that learning process, again, they're gonna they're gonna get to adulthood and they're gonna struggle. They haven't had the opportunity to build resilience. You can't, you can't buy resilience and you know it's not a package that you could give another person. You have to develop on your own. And it takes, it takes time.
SPEAKER_02:I think learning to be comfortable with uncomfort, right? Teaching, teaching our children and teaching people that it's okay to be uncomfortable and that the more you're uncomfortable, that'll bring the results around.
SPEAKER_05:Years ago, my sister taught sixth grade and they were struggling with a with a boy who would never turn in his homework. And it ended up in a meeting between the principal and my sister and the child's mother. The mother said, Well, did you look in his backpack for his homework? And my sister said, That's that's not my role, right? That's his responsibility to look in the backpack to take the homework out and to turn it in. And at the conclusion of that meeting, the principal told my sister, the teacher, you look in his backpack. And I thought, in sixth grade. So, so then how long do we continue that in middle school? Are we gonna have, as teachers, look in the kids' backpack? What's gonna happen in high school? What if you go to college? Like that is never gonna teach that kid to be self-sufficient or independent.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's funny that you say that. I just heard a story recently on the news that kids getting their or kids, young adults getting their first jobs, employers have noticed an overwhelming majority of them have their parents come and sit in the lobby with them for their first job interview. I think that's kind of the culmination, being there doing everything for them like that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. Or or a parent calling in sick for a child from their job.
SPEAKER_03:So how do you think this style of parenting can unintentionally create entitlement or an unrealistic view of success in kids? And how might that show up later in life?
SPEAKER_05:You know, I I just think it's gonna be, I don't think there are a whole lot of bosses who are gonna go for that, right? I mean, uh you know, ask yourself as an employer, would you hire somebody whose mom or dad filled out the job application or or who are sitting in the, you know, the foyer of a building waiting to see how that goes, or or how would you handle that if a parent called in, you know, my son woke up sick today and can't come to work. I I just I think a lot of things that we do to quote unquote protect our kids don't serve them well as they move into adulthood and need to have them skill, those skills themselves. Who I I can think of relationship problems that that would cause conflict, relationships on the job, that just seems like a recipe for disaster to me.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, just the idea of entitlement, just I can't, I can't really wrap my brain around um expecting someone to do that for you. I think that's the kind of the crazy part is that and and that it kind of the situation gets worse in college a little bit because they might make it through high school and they might get to college, but it there's gonna be at least one or two professors that are gonna have, you know, the phrase that a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. Yeah, because I had a few of those. And and I think college is kind of that place where I had for the first time where I had a professor say, you will not make an A in my class. And that was a new thought process because it was like, no, everyone makes A's. And I remember when I had a professor say that to me, it was like, oh, okay. Like, and then his his idea was no A's are for the 1% of people that really are going to put in the work and extra work and hard work, and it's gonna be, I can tell. It really is interesting to think almost how people get all the way through their high school and maybe even college careers, all the way through and maybe even to their first job and not realize what real success looks like.
SPEAKER_05:Well, and I think I think a lot of this boils down to our goals for parenting. Do we have short-term goals or long-term goals? Your influence over your child, them living in your home and you parenting them as a child is about 18 years, right? They may live 70 years beyond that, right? And so if you are only parenting your child to make things easy till they're 18, you have a very short-term view of their life.
SPEAKER_00:That's a great point.
SPEAKER_05:And what you need to do is say, I am parenting this child to enable them to leave my home to be successful adults. And so you want to parent with that view of what's next, what do those next 70 years look like? And are they prepared to function in those 70 years, not just how can I make it easy the first 18.
SPEAKER_03:Why is failure a healthy and necessary part of childhood development?
SPEAKER_02:You know, we see we see it out here on ranch quite often. And I've seen it just in my own life with my own kids, that when a kid will play a sport and have a really hard time in the sport, they quit. And then the next sport comes on, they quit that. And there's a lot of inadequacies and insecurities there. And I think the importance as parents is instead of just encouraging the kid to quit, but asking like the why question, right? Like, or what about this, right? Instead of why. What about this is uncomfortable? What about this is something that you want to quit? Are you not feeling that you're good enough in this area? You know, it's interesting with my my oldest daughter, she loves to fail. I I don't, and I say that kind of jokingly, like she wanted to to try cheerleading. And I was like, Are are you sure? You sure you want to do cheerleading? You've never done it before, you've done dancing. She's like, Absolutely, I want to do cheerleading. I was like, Okay. And she did it and got on the team. I was like, Oh, okay, that's that's great. And then she tried out for the basketball team. And I was like, Are you sure you've never played basketball and you have two left feet? And I think for me, it was this realization that I didn't want her to fail. Because she was so, you know, she has things she's really good at. It's like, hey, continue to do this, continue to try this. And her comment was, Well, why why wouldn't I, why would I do that? I want to try everything. I maybe this, maybe basketball's the thing. I just never played it before. I don't know. Uh, maybe cheerleading is the thing. And I think that, you know, the the mistakes we make with our kids, right? We learn it was like that aha moment of like, oh, I really try to keep her from experiencing too much. Like, I don't want her to do too much, I don't want her to fail in and things. So it's that fear, and and it's a part of like my own development, I think, because my dad wanted me to just do, hey, just do this and this, these two things, and focus on those things. And the more you can focus on those, that's good. But I think her way of doing it is I like it. It's creative, it's different, it's wanting to try and make mistakes, and it's not like how I was ever taught to operate. So it's cool to see her do it and then still do it well and come across and like she'll made a basket and she's like, I made a basket. And I'm like, Well, what about the seven you missed? You know, and that's as a parent, right? Like the focus becomes really terrible sometimes, yeah. As opposed to being like proud of her for that. And I had to go back and be like, I'm so sorry I tried to talk you out of those things. That man, I really goofed on that.
SPEAKER_05:I think if you go back to that example of the Nobel Prize winner's mother, right, who said, you know, you failed when you poured the milk all over the kitchen floor. So how do we clean it up? But then how could you learn to do it better next time? And then they practice, right? And so that that failure is how you learn again. And and you know, so you learn, but you have support is the most important thing. When you fail, you have support and encouragement. Try again, take it a different approach, you know, and and instead of us as parents going, let me tell you how you ought to do it, which you know is our approach. Like, you know, our cortexes are fully developed, we can see all the pitfalls, but leading them to insight, how do you think you could hold that that bottle so that you could pour the water and not spill it? That encourages their cortex development.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I think they also learned that they survived it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it wasn't the end of the world. They didn't die. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What they're just great teaching moments that we're gonna short ourselves, aren't we? If we if we if we do the lawnmower parenting, we protect them from anything that might make us reflect back bad back on us. Really does become so important due to talking about how you handled that situation with your daughter to let her do those things she wasn't so good at. Well, you know, what if our child wanted to do something and they were the worst one in T-ball or whatever it is? I mean the worst one on the field at their best effort. Can we be okay with that and support our child and have a loving conversation and let them know that your value is based on who you are, not how good of a T ball player you are or whatever. Because we can really one, we can overprotect the kids, or we if we let them get in that setting and we are so insecure, worried about how this is gonna reflect on us, and our kid picks up on a little bit of shame. Now that's gonna be a killer too, right? Let's look at our child as a human being and not a human doing and make sure that we affirm their worth as based on who they are, not on how they perform, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And also were they having fun.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Right. Like we as parents, some get times get tripped up in performance and accomplishment when are the kids just have are they having fun doing it? Who cares if they're the worst onto the team? Were they having fun? Right. And that's that's a big part of it. And you know, it's there is a chance that they could care less if they win or lose. They're just out there with their friends, running around, having a good time, and and maybe we ought to pay more attention to that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and that's really what sports and extracurriculars should be about, is them having fun and having a good time as opposed to the focus on the performance.
SPEAKER_00:And we could take that as an opportunity to talk about there is a difference in performance if they're they have a friend that is really good at t-ball, and what the and you could talk about that just very matter-of-fact, so that we're not trying to just be unrealistic and level the the playing field and protect them from any of the sting of their there's that's there's life, right? Yeah, there's some differences, and Johnny, God's gifted him with some athleticism. And boy, is parents really spend a lot of time with t-ball, and that's what they do, and we can we can celebrate that and really admire it, but still not base our worth, child's worth, on that. So it seems like we're able to talk about the two things the performance, let them experience some adversity, but always reinforce their worth as a human being.
SPEAKER_03:So, what kinds of age-appropriate struggle should parents allow or even encourage their kids to face?
SPEAKER_05:I remember when when one of my daughters was learning how to tie her shoe, and it just was taking forever. Like it just, you know, it didn't click. It just wasn't she didn't get it. And and we worked and worked and worked on it. And so when we were ready to leave the house, it was so much quicker for me to tie our shoes. And I would stop myself and say, Yeah, but do you want to be tiring her shoes when she's 10 or 15 or you know, 20? So I would just kind of force myself to just sit and wait and be patient. And that, you know, that was age appropriate. And chores are a very age appropriate learning. And is it easier for us to pick it up, to wipe it up, to clean? Yes, it is, but it's it's a necessary struggle to prepare them for adult living later on.
SPEAKER_03:It's funny you said that I just heard someone on the on another podcast talking about that, that there are gonna be struggles when you try and hold your kids accountable to do their chores. And it is in the short term easier to do it. But if at some point in the future you decide you are gonna hold them accountable, you have that many years worth of fights to deal with. It's gonna compound itself. So you're either gonna get the fights in little doses as you go, or you're gonna get ginormous doses of fights and pushback um as they grow up. So it's better just to do it in the in the short term.
SPEAKER_02:It's funny you bring up tying shoes because my my youngest daughter, um, she's six. And when she was about four, I tried to teach her how to tie her shoes and kept trying her the way that I had learned how to do it. And one day she came home with this whole new way of doing it. And it was like, I was just like mesmerized by it. Like, how in the world did you learn to do it this way? And she said, Oh, somebody in daycare does it this way. And I was like, thought it was really because they tied the knot and then they looped it in afterwards. And I was thinking about it and I was like, you know, as a parent, I kind of want to be like, no, no, don't do it that way, right? Like, no, no, do it the way I taught you. Because the way I taught you works, right? The way that she learned to do it was easier for her, and someone else taught her to do it. And it was kind of like I took that second of being like, Oh, this is okay, all right, I'll take it. Yeah, it's hard, right? Everything inside of me wants to be like, no, this isn't the way my dad taught me. Oh, this is the way my mom taught me, right? But for her to have kind of a new way of doing it that worked for her, I like that.
SPEAKER_05:And she got to teach you. Yes, she didn't. She did really. It is, it is kind of a cool way, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So, full disclosure, I may be the Texberic lawnmower parent. If there's a picture in the dictionary, my it's probably me next to it. So, this last year, one of my daughters left their Chromebook at home, and we drive, you know, 45 minutes to work every single day. We got about halfway to the ranch and she realized she forgot her Chromebook. Everything in me wanted to turn around and drive back to Amarillo and get her Chromebook for her. Thankfully, my wife is not a lawnmower parent, and she would not let me turn around. And that was the most uncomfortable 20 minutes or whatever. And then that whole day I was just stress stressed that she was gonna have a horrible day. But in the end, she survived. She, you know, had a hard day at school. But after that, she didn't forget her Chromebook again the rest of the year.
SPEAKER_05:Here with our kids on campus, we talk about natural consequences. And that's a natural consequence, right? You don't wear your coat and you're cold during the day. You know, we're not gonna allow a consequence that would cause harm.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_05:But but struggling without a Chromebook is kind of a natural consequence, right? And how many more times did she forget her Chromebook?
SPEAKER_03:Never again.
SPEAKER_05:Never again, right? So that was an age-appropriate struggle that she faced, knowing that dad wouldn't save her.
SPEAKER_03:I really wanted to, though.
SPEAKER_05:We're proud of you, Josh.
SPEAKER_03:So how can giving kids predictable, moderate levels of stress actually produce resilience and emotional growth?
SPEAKER_05:I think that's almost the definition of how you produce resilience and emotional growth is to give kids predictable and moderate levels of stress, right? That you give them challenges that are age appropriate, they're able to accomplish. Don't set a bar so high that they become discouraged, that they can never accomplish the goal. But providing them with those predictable moderate levels of stress is important, right? A teacher who assigns homework gives a predictable moderate level of stress, a a testing class, a chore to do, right? All of those things are predictable, they're reasonable. It can be stressful to take a test, but they prepare for it, they take that test, they've accomplished that.
SPEAKER_00:I always marvel at the really gifted teachers that are working with a lot of different kids because there are no two kids the same. And there's not a cookie cutter with this or a simple formula, is there? No. There are some kids that have some just some struggles at remembering to you know put their Chromebook in their backpack. It's just not as simple as just get over it and do it right, or just you know, you just bark at them and let them hang. Some kids are gonna need some more assistance, right? So there's really an art to knowing the child and how much what what is a how did you say it again, that age appropriate dose of stress, is that right, Suzanne? Yes. But age appropriate, you know, isn't it's not gonna be a every 12-year-old's not gonna have the exact require the exact same parenting as as the next, right? Some are gonna need some more help, some are ready to be let go even more, would you say?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, I think that's great. You know, there's a book called Atomic Habits, which has great information in it, but one of the things it talks about is the way to develop good habits is to set the stage for success, right? And so if if we're struggling to get out of the house on time in the morning, the way to prepare for that is the night before. So I check in with each child. Is your outfit picked out for tomorrow? Is it set out for tomorrow? Are your backpacks loaded? Is your Chromebook already in your backpack? Right. Did we make the lunches the night before and are they in the fridge? Like we are setting the stage to be successful before we end up in a situation where we're in crisis. And I think some of that applies here too. We're not, you know, we're gonna help set the stage for kids to be successful. But if they if they f fail to follow through, we're not gonna take ownership of that for them, isn't is important.
SPEAKER_03:I heard someone say that for kids, you should if there's anything that they can do, they should do. If they can reasonably do it for themselves, let them do it for themselves. If you need to come in and give them a little coaching and assistance here and there, that's fine. But typically if they can do it, otherwise they'll just become dependent on you to do everything for them. So how can failure be reframed as an opportunity when it happens within the safe support of a parent's care?
SPEAKER_05:You know, I think anytime there is a mistake or a stumble, right? Part of resolving that is to say, how did that happen and what could we do better next time? Right. So whatever that failure is, a child failed a class or they struck out of little league or they didn't make the basketball team, right, is to to help that child, you know, what steps did you take? What do you think you could have done differently? What would you do next time if you had the opportunity? And so again, it's not about blame or shame, but it's just about helping them make good choices, learn from mistakes, and try to do better the next time.
SPEAKER_02:I think viewing them as learning opportunities and teaching opportunities. Anytime a mistake happens, it's a learning and a teaching opportunity. One of the reasons I love working here at Cal Farley's is I remember at one point someone making the comment that it's okay to make mistakes and we want our staff to feel okay to make mistakes. And for me, that took kind of a burden off my shoulders because there's that that fear of making mistakes. But the moment it was like, no, it's okay. Like kids are a moving target, humans are moving targets. You're not gonna be perfect, and it's okay to make mistakes. It that helps.
SPEAKER_00:I was thinking about the venue of of sports, and I guess we're such a sports culture now, it's hard to hard to not think that way with this question, Josh has brought up. We're gonna you mentioned, Judah, that there is this uh tendency that of well things don't go well. I I'm I I'm out for football, but now I quit football. And then I went out for basketball and I quit that that quitting. And it kind of develops a rut that will follow us throughout life, right? If we're if we're not careful. But I appreciate that when I watch people that really seem to have this right, those parents or mentors, and there's just this wonderful communication going on, eyeball to eyeball, heart to heart, always affirming their their worth. It's not based on if you missed the layup at the end of the game at the buzzer or made it. It's not based on that. It's about your worth. I I'm proud of you because of who you are, not how you perform. We're not gonna quit. We're not gonna quit basketball. You made a commitment to this season, and those good parents will well, unless there's a health reason or something beyond the pale, no, we're gonna follow through on the commitment. So there's a great chance to teach how do you push through adversity, even if performance isn't going the way that maybe that that you would like. And so there's a lot of chance to, as uh as we parent to uh these are great teaching things, right? Whenever we hit diversity, say within a score.
SPEAKER_03:You mentioned sports. I think it's also kind of interesting. If you look at a baseball player who has the most hits in a season, they're often lead the league in strikeouts as well. They swing at more things than anyone, they take more chances. And because of that, they're gonna fail a lot, but also they're gonna have a lot of success as well. I think talking to kids about that, you know, giving them some real life examples like that can help the view of failure as well. So, what are some of the first steps a parent can take if they realize they've been mowing down obstacles for a child?
SPEAKER_05:Josh has a lawnmower pair.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, tell us, Josh.
SPEAKER_05:What uh what steps do you have planned for yourself?
SPEAKER_03:I gotta let them do stuff. And when we go to McDonald's, I'd instead of just ordering for them, make them order for themselves. But I think that's it, that is a lot of it. It just kick my hands off the reins and let them just let them do.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, we're gonna check in on you and uh your uh we'll have a future podcast where we evaluate following the invention. You know, I think I think self-awareness is always the first step. So, you know, if if you've listened today and you're starting to realize that you've been a lawnmower parent, being aware of that, being aware that it may have negative long-term impacts for your child, that's the first step. Also knowing that if you are making efforts to stop being a lawnmower parent, but you've trained your child to expect that, you're gonna get some pushback from your child. They like what you've been doing for them, right? It it it it uh has made their pathway easier. So you're gonna have to recognize that pushback will come. And will you give in and continue to do that or can you change your own habits?
SPEAKER_00:Growing up, we had uh remarkable young people uh that I grew up with, and they were the children that grew up on dairy farms back where I was from. And and it's not now when you think of a dairy farm, they're big corporate-owned dairy farms with thousands of cows. Well, these were maybe as few as 40 and maybe as many as 200, just a little family farm. Okay, so everybody had responsibilities, and you were what did you say? Whatever you can do, how'd you say that, Josh?
SPEAKER_03:Whatever cow can reasonably do, they should do.
SPEAKER_00:That was the that was the rule of thumb uh on that dairy farm, and it was really just a matter of because it had to, that those kids were way more resilient, they were good in the classroom, they they were able to handle adversity a lot better, they were just tougher, not uh in the best sense of the term, tougher. And because they just had to push through a lot of things and figure things out and had responsibilities.
SPEAKER_03:So, how can parents walk alongside their child during struggles without stepping in to fix everything? What is so what does healthy support look like?
SPEAKER_00:Because we're gonna make an action plan for you, John. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:That was my whole method of this, or the whole reason behind this is I need I need some help. So yes.
SPEAKER_00:Listeners, thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_03:Intervention. Intervention, yes.
SPEAKER_05:I think you need support, you need a support system. So, like Josh, you've mentioned April is not the lawnmower parent, right? So you've already got somebody there like supporting you and kind of pulling you back when your tendency is to step in and fix that. But I think it's important for your kids to have support from other people as well. I've always been a proponent of creating a community for your children so that they have other adults who have similar values to yours that they could reach out to for support and help. And so those may be teachers, it may be neighbors, grandparents, it could be people at your church. But I just think the more the wider support system your has your child has, the better.
SPEAKER_00:This uh now I'm preaching not to Josh, but to myself. It seems like this whole business requires a lot of patience, doesn't it? Because I talked about this might reflect bad on me, you know, Suzanne, what you said, or might have fear about safety. Another thing is just a lot of us have this unhealthy need of control and need to be in control. So as we watch our child do something, it might not be how's this going to reflect on me? It might not be that this is necessarily dangerous, but okay, it's gonna be a lot faster if I do it or if I dictate to them how to do it than if I watch them struggle to tie their shoes, right, Suzanne? Yeah, it takes longer. So it seems like one of the virtues this really requires on my part is I I really need to be patient.
SPEAKER_03:So, what does it mean to parent with a long-term vision of developing maturity over comfort? And what encouragement would you offer to a parent who wants to make that shift?
SPEAKER_02:I really like what Suzanne said about the 18 when they're 18 years old. You have them in in your house for 18 years, your goal should be longer than that, much longer. So you should be looking further down the road. And I think that's the point is the idea is the the short term isn't really a long-term win for the kids. And the goal should be, you know, and I think having the conversation with the kids about it too. Like, hey, uh I recognize that there are some areas where I've probably jumped in or I've done this, and I'm going to start stepping back a little bit. I'm gonna let let you make some mistakes. It's gonna be uncomfortable for both of us, and that could be a helpful deal. Just the conversation and the open honesty there too.
SPEAKER_05:My encouragement to parents would be to be consistent. And that's hard, right? This changes about me as a parent that I've got to make that that change. I have to look at every decision and ask myself, is this for short-term convenience or long-term goals? And then I have to be consistent in applying those decisions.
SPEAKER_03:I think I would say too, in the short term, it may get harder before it gets better. Yeah. It will get harder before it gets better. I mean, I've been working on this a little bit over the last couple of years, and sometimes I just want to go back to making everything happen. But yeah, it it it does get better in the long run, though.
SPEAKER_05:You can do it, Josh. We have faith in you.
SPEAKER_00:And you're gonna start by letting your children order at McDonald's. Yes, that's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_05:Just to clarify for our listeners, how old are your kids, Josh?
SPEAKER_03:Wow. Old enough to be able to order at McDonald's. Thank you so much for listening to us today. Whether you be mowing your lawn, washing your dishes, or going for a walk or driving around town, we appreciate it. Until next time, you may have to loan out your frontal lobes today. Just make sure you remember and get them back.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you for listening to Brain Based Parenting. We hope you enjoyed this show. If you would like more information about Cal Farley's Boys Ranch, are interested in employment, would like information about placing your child, or would like to help us help children by donating to our mission, please visit calfarly.org. You can find us on all social media platforms by searching for CalFarley's. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.
