November 3, 2025 • 23 mins
Raising children in dysfunctional families is difficult because you know they are being impacted by the chaos. You can't make everything okay for them, but you can help them. One of the things you can do is to teach your children to detach from the dysfunction. Detaching with love is a coping skill to help them avoid taking things personally. If you use it, you know how powerful it is. Watch this video to learn how to teach your children to detach in dysfunctional families. #detachwithlove #dysfunctionalfamilies #parentingadvice
Website: https://www.changemyrelationship.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMyRelationship YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@changemyrelationship
Watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WNKQ2zrQzwk
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You'relistening to an audio recording
by Change My Relationship,featuring licensed marriage
and family therapistand author Karla Downing.
These audios are designedto provide you
with practical solutionsbased on biblical truths
for all your relationships.
I want to talk to youin this video
(00:20):
about teaching your childrento detach.
If you are familiarwith my materials,
my classes,the books, the videos, an area
that I talk about often is abouthow to detach with love.
Detaching with love is aboutnot taking things personally
that other people feeland do and choose and say.
(00:45):
It is the ability
to separate yourselffrom the other person's choices
and wordsand feelings and actions
and blame and accusationsand anger, etc., etc.
to be not just take it allon, not to just feel like
no matter what people say to meor say about me or do that,
(01:09):
it's all my fault.
It's all about me.
It's something wrong with me.
So we want our childrento be resilient.
Resiliencemeans that we teach them
some skills that help themto navigate life's challenges,
to where they can stand upagainst life's challenges.
They and some of those skillsare problem solving, confidence,
(01:34):
gratitude, self-compassion,
and having, healthy connectionsto other people.
But another thing that we needto teach them is how to detach.
How to detach with love,how to detach
and separate themselves
from what other peopleare going to do and say and be.
And if you have beenin a class of mine, you'll know
(01:56):
when I talk about detachment,I say,
if I can teach you to detach,I can set you free.
Free from what?
Free from being drawn
in to everythingthat people throw out to you.
Free to stand back and choosehow you're going to feel,
what you're going to do, howyou want to react, what you want
(02:16):
to take on, what you'rewilling to accept blame for.
All kinds of thingswhere you can actually be
what a healthy person can be,which is separate,
and you can stand backand you can say,
is this somethingthat I'm willing to take on?
Am I willing to ownresponsibility for this?
Do I feel this way,or am I going
(02:38):
to let this other personhave their feelings?
I don't have to bail you out.
I don't have to do all thesethings.
That's what I teach youwhen I teach you to detach.
Well, children need that too.
And children in healthy homeslearn that along
with the other skillsthat they're learning.
But children
in toxic, dysfunctional homes,they do not learn it.
In fact,they learn the opposite.
(03:00):
They learn that when somebodyelse is feeling upset,
that they've got to feelthat way too.
That when someone elseis feeling upset,
then it's their job to tryto make that person not upset.
It's their jobto try to fix them.
They learn that
they've got to take on the
accusations and the blame thatwhen other people are irritable
(03:20):
and cranky and meanor drunk or angry or whatever,
that when they blame themand they say it's your fault
you did this, or they are superimpatient, they learn that
it is about them, that it
that they've donesomething wrong and they
they learn to blame themselvesand they learn to take it
(03:41):
all on.
when I was a little girl,my dad was an engineer,
and he was really smart,obviously really good with math.
And I could come into himinto his room
and I could say, hey, dad,will you help me with math?
And I either got, hey,
come on, come down, sit downand let me show you.
(04:03):
And just super patient,super detailed.
And this was from grade schoolthrough college.
Super helpful.
Really patient.
I'd walk out of there
and it'd be, like,the best tutor in the world.
But the oppositecould also happen.
I could walk in there andI could get get, you know what?
(04:23):
Out of here.
And for no reason,nothing different
about my approach or what I said
or whether I was rightor wrong to ask him.
It was all aboutwhat was going on with him.
Wasn't about me, but I didn'tknow that as a little girl.
I didn't know thatit was daddy's problem.
It felt personal.
(04:45):
It felt like I had donesomething wrong.
It felt likeit was a reflection on me,
that he was angrywith me, asking him.
Unfortunately, I did the same.
Not not exactly the same thing,but the same types of things
with my kids.
I didn't teach my kidsearly enough that
(05:06):
when I was in a bad mood,or their dad
was in a bad mood, thatit wasn't about them.
I did it later,
but I didn't know thatskill myself at the beginning.
When my children, especially ouroldest ones, were first born.
But I recognize nowhow critical it is
that we teachall of our children to detach.
(05:27):
It may not just bewhat's going on in the home.
It might be for them.
It might be what's going onoutside the home,
detaching from teachers,from peer groups,
from social media comments,
from opinions that other peoplehave about them.
It could be outsidefamily members.
It's just we've got to learn to,be able
(05:51):
to separate ourselves from thatand not take it on.
Just because someone says itsays it doesn't mean it's
so just becausesomeone calls you a bad name
does not mean you are thatjust because somebody tries
to say it's your fault,does not mean it is.
That person could be avoidingtaking responsibility
(06:13):
for their own stuffand just blaming you.
That person could be lying.
That person could just be meanbecause they're hurt
and hurting inside themselvesand lashing out.
Whatever the reasons are.
So letme give you some examples.
Before a child learns
(06:33):
to detach and after a childlearns to detach.
Okay,
so the first one is taking whatpeople say and do personally.
That'swhat they do before they detach.
But when they detach,
they don't take what people sayand do personally.
They can see, hey,my friend was mean to me
(06:53):
and she said somethingreally rude.
But I'm not going to excusethat.
That's not okay.
And that tells me about
something about who
my friend is, butI'm also not going to take it on
because I know I'mnot those things.
And I didn't do that.
And I know my friend has
a lot of problems in their home,and they probably are
going through some things,so I'm not going to believe it.
(07:16):
I'm also going to recognize,you know,
we got to kind of pay attention.
Is this the right friend for me?
But I'm not going to take it on.
Not going to believethat about myself.
I'm not going to sayI'm a bad person or I'm
not a good friend because thisone friend said this thing.
So secondly,
(07:38):
an example would be an impatientparents explosion.
Like, I talked to youabout my dad's explosion
before detaching.
I take it on as I didsomething wrong and after I know
no, that's dad,he's really impatient
and he can gofrom really patient to angry.
(07:59):
Not depending on what I didor my mom did
or my sibling did, butdepending on what his mood is.
And that's not about meor it's not about me.
If my mom is sad, you know,before before detachment,
a child sees the mom sad,depressed, crying
(08:20):
and feels responsible to gomake that mom happy,
to make that mom try to laugh,to make that mom feel better
so the child doesn't
go out to play, doesn'tgo to be with their friend,
instead just sits thereand try to fix that mom.
But after detaching,the child knows, hey, it's
my mom's responsibilityto make herself happy.
(08:40):
I can't do that.
I'm just a kid, so we can.
You can think, I'm
sure, of many examples of howbefore and after detachment
that it would help your childto understand this principle
and they can be really littleand learn this.
They can be in preschooland learn it.
(09:02):
So it can be with little sayingslike,
a person shows youwhat's in their heart.
It's not or it's not about you.
The words people sayare about them, not about you.
Or it could be just something,like I said,
just because someone saysit doesn't make it so.
Or sometimes they sayif one person tells you
(09:24):
you have a tail, don't look.
But if a bunch of peopletell you you have a tail,
maybe you should look.
But now you have to be carefulwith social media,
because 500 peoplecould tell you
that they agree with somethinga mean person says
and that doesn't necessarilymean it's so.
We've got to be really carefulto teach our children
how to filterthe things that other people do.
(09:46):
And say and choose to,where it just doesn't automatic.
They don'tautomatically take it on.
So there's two ways that youteach your children to detach.
And the first one is youmodel it in your own life.
You got a difficult personin your life.
You detach in loveto that person.
You can show thiswith your behavior.
(10:08):
They will see it.
If your spouse or your motheror your father
or your sister can rattleyou really easily.
And if that personis in a bad mood
and all of a suddenyou're in a bad mood,
or if that person gets angryand then you're just kind
(10:30):
of cower back and you start,look very dejected.
Or if you say nothingand you just take it,
you are teaching themthat, okay,
you're affected by other peopleand what they say
and what they do. But if you say
(10:51):
if you
look at that and or
you have that response to thatand you come back and you're
you're strongand you've got good
self-confidence and good energy,and you don't come back angry
because you were aroundsomebody who is angry or sad
because you're around somebodythat's sad.
If you make choices of,grandma’s sad,
(11:13):
but we're going to go to ordad's sad today or dad's tired.
He's not feeling good,but we're still
going to go to the beach.
We'll we're still goingto go to the park.
If you don't let your spousechange plans.
And then the whole familyhas to change.
Like.
Or if you say your parentdoesn't come to a baseball game
(11:34):
and you say, your daddy,your daddy
makes choices or your mommakes choices, don't excuse it.
We don't lie.
Oh, daddy's always busy at workor mom has
to work extra hours. No, it's
okay.
Just because a parent
doesn't choose to come to a gamedoesn't mean you're a bad kid,
(11:55):
or doesn'tmean you're not important.
You are important.
That's why mom's here.
Or that's
why dad's here, or that's whyGrandma and Grandpa are here.
Dad doesn'talways make good choices.
Or, some people make choices,that tell them more
about what theywhat's important to them than
(12:18):
but not.
Doesn't mean thatthat's who you are.
However, you need to say thatyou kind of got the idea, right.
You want you don't evenhave to use the person's name.
I did in that example.
But you can give theman example of modeling.
And in your own lifeyou can say,
my friend was really upset,with me because I told her
(12:39):
that I couldn'tgo shopping with her today.
But it's okay.
I'm going to let her be upset
because she has aright to be upset.
But I'm still goingto stick to my decision
to do what I need to do.
So you can give your childrenexamples in your own life.
You can let them hearyou say things to people.
(12:59):
You can let them see you
to stay detached.
When you
are going through things,which is actually
modeling detachment.
Now, I think I kind of jumpedinto the second way
of doing thiswhen I gave you the example
of talking to your childrenabout,
(13:20):
a parent that wasn'tat a baseball game or something.
So the first one is youmodel it in your own actions,
and the second is you applydetachment to their lives.
So when they're in differentexperiences,
when things happen to them,when they you see it
happen or you,they come to you sad or upset
(13:42):
or crying or complainingor they look dejected,
you can use thatas an opportunity
to talk to themabout detaching and
for instance, like,when someone is angry,
you can say like,say the parent is angry.
(14:03):
Well, when the when,when I had people in my life
that are angry, I,
I remind myself that mostthat anger is not about me.
Anger is about is about what'sin the other person's heart
or I rememberwhen I was a little girl
and I used to gointo grandpa's room
(14:26):
and grandpa wouldsometimes be really, really nice
and happy to help me with math.
And other times
he'd be really madand he'd yell at me
and tell meto get out of the room.
And I used to think
when I was a little girlat first, that
that wasbecause I did something wrong.
But I know now that that wasbecause grandpa
was in a bad mood, and it wasn'tthat I did anything wrong.
(14:48):
So see,you can use that example.
You can use an examplewith your boss in the workplace,
and we can adjust ourhow much details in the words
we use to the child's ageand ability to comprehend.
But children are pretty smart
and they pick up thingsvery quickly.
(15:09):
They're like sponges,
and you will notice very quicklythat they will begin to parrot
those words,and that they will begin
to exhibitthose types of attitudes.
You may even hear themtalking out loud to themselves.
And it is powerful.
You canyou can say to them things like,
(15:31):
have you ever noticed that angrypeople are angry a lot,
and that they get madabout a lot of things
and they seem to have a problem,like losing their temper?
Well, that helps remind usthat they're just angry people.
Or sometimes you can saysometimes,
you learnor you can watch movies,
like,you can find the right movie
(15:52):
about a bully, a familyfriendly movie about a bully
where you find out,the bully is not that really
nice, though isn't the mostpopular kid, but that one,
that kid was broken insideand was just acting tough.
So you can say,bullies are tough, but it's
usually because something'sgoing on inside of them.
(16:13):
That's that's that they're,
you know, kind of havingto pretend that they don't care.
And so they're mean toother people
just so they can ignorewhat they're feeling or
because they need to bethe one that's most popular,
but they're really notthe best people to be around.
You can give examples of that,and you can you can do it
(16:36):
by your own actions and the waythat you respond to things.
But you can
also do it with exampleswhere you tell them, stories,
they're storiesthat you can read.
There's books,Christian, non-Christian book
that talk about,like the bully being the kid
that has all the problems insidethat's just trying to defend
against those,
but that we don't haveto let the bully mistreat us.
(17:01):
So all kinds of waysthat you can use,
detachment with responding to
things that aregoing on in that child's life.
It's like, okay, so,
I just did thiswith an older family member
the other daywhen there was a new friend
(17:22):
group situation and I said,
was kind of first thing was,oh, this person said that
the next time they got togetherthat that they would invite me.
And then I just see nowfrom Facebook
that they're together,but they didn't invite me.
And it's just like, okay, soyou have a choice, right then,
(17:43):
do you want to take that
personal and say,oh, the person doesn't like me?
Or do you want to step backand observe
that from a distance and say,hey, that doesn't mean that.
And my response was, what?
Sometimes I like to gowith a group of people,
and sometimes I like to gowith just one person,
especially when I've got peoplethat don't know
(18:07):
me and myother friend as well as I do.
I would choose maybe to
go with just one person
so we can have more of a heartto heart talk.
So it's like,don't take it personal.
Doesn'tmean that they don't like you.
It just means that, hey,they have a right
to get togetherwith whomever they want to.
(18:29):
It doesn't alwayshave to include other people,
so it's learning to step backand have another viewpoint.
Not excusing,not lying to yourself,
but looking at itfrom a different perspective
and not personalizing everything
like that person'spersonality is to be this way.
(18:50):
Are they like thiswith everyone?
Oh, so is this personyou jealous?
Like like, situationwhere let's say that they have
a friend who's really demandingall their time, and any time
that say, elementarygrade kid wants to be with
another,
wants togo play off with another friend,
(19:12):
and then the other friendgets really possessive
and jealous and mad and kind ofturns their back on him.
And then you see your kidwanting to kind of make that kid
feel better or distressing,because this one friend is mad
that they're
with another friend and you,you can recognize that.
It's like, hey, I have a I knowthat I have a right to choose
(19:36):
what I want to do with my timeand who I want to be with.
And if I havesomebody in my life who doesn't
want to give me that freedom butwants to take all of my time,
I can recognize that and knowthat that's not really healthy,
that I can chooseto have lots of friends
and one friendwho wants me to have only them
(19:59):
as a friendis not the best person.
What do you think about that?
And you let the kidkind of apply that to that
or just little lessons.
It is a phenomenal skill. So
you can teach it.
You don't have to say your dad.
You can just say I or your mom.
(20:21):
You can say,I've learned in my life
that when people are saying
are are lashing out at me or
that when they're yelling at meor they all of a sudden turn
on me, that it's about them,that it's not about me?
All kinds of examples.
So you want to model detachmentin your own life,
(20:44):
so you got to learn it.
You got to watchmy playlist on detachment.
You got to read my booksthat talk about detachment.
Take a classwhere you learn about detachment
and model it in your own life,and then apply it to your
children's lives.
You willlove the result that you get.
And Deuteronomy 6:4-8 tells youthis here,
(21:08):
O Israel, the Lord our God,the Lord is one.
Love the Lordyour God with all your heart,
all your soul,and all your strength.
These commandments that I giveyou today, see, this was God
giving the Israelitesthe Ten Commandments.
They are to be on your hearts.
Impress them on your children.
(21:28):
Talk about them
when you sit at home andwhen you walk along the road,
when you lie downand when you get up, tie them
as symbols on your handsand bind them on your foreheads.
Write them on the door framesof your houses and your gates.
What is that saying?
That's saying apply them at alltimes, in all circumstances
(21:49):
of your life.
Everything you're doing,your teaching,
everythingyou're doing, your modeling.
And if you do that,I think you will see
that your childrenwill learn a lot.
And if you're
in a very dysfunctional family,a dysfunctional marriage,
yes, it'saffecting your children.
(22:10):
Doingthis is not the best option.
The best is thatthey're not in it,
but it is absolutely essentialif they are in it
and they're not able to get outof having
dysfunctional peoplein their lives,
it is essentialthat you teach them this.
So thank you for watching.
(22:30):
Thank you for listening.
And, God bless.
Thank you for listeningto Change My Relationship.
We hope you will subscribeto these podcasts
and share themwith your friends.
Karlawould love to hear from you.
She welcomes
ideas for a future podcast,as well as your feedback
on how the podcasts have helpedyour life and relationships.
(22:50):
You can email her at.
karla@changemyrelationship.com
For more informationon Change My Relationship
and Karla Downing's ministry,
including her books,studies, devotionals, podcasts
and YouTube videosvisit changemyrelationship.com.
You'relistening to an audio recording
by Change My Relationship,featuring licensed marriage
and family therapistand author Karla Downing.
These audios are designedto provide you
with practical solutionsbased on biblical truths
for all your relationships.
I want to talk to youin this video
(00:20):
about teaching your childrento detach.
If you are familiarwith my materials,
my classes,the books, the videos, an area
that I talk about often is abouthow to detach with love.
Detaching with love is aboutnot taking things personally
that other people feeland do and choose and say.
(00:45):
It is the ability
to separate yourselffrom the other person's choices
and wordsand feelings and actions
and blame and accusationsand anger, etc., etc.
to be not just take it allon, not to just feel like
no matter what people say to meor say about me or do that,
(01:09):
it's all my fault.
It's all about me.
It's something wrong with me.
So we want our childrento be resilient.
Resiliencemeans that we teach them
some skills that help themto navigate life's challenges,
to where they can stand upagainst life's challenges.
They and some of those skillsare problem solving, confidence,
(01:34):
gratitude, self-compassion,
and having, healthy connectionsto other people.
But another thing that we needto teach them is how to detach.
How to detach with love,how to detach
and separate themselves
from what other peopleare going to do and say and be.
And if you have beenin a class of mine, you'll know
(01:56):
when I talk about detachment,I say,
if I can teach you to detach,I can set you free.
Free from what?
Free from being drawn
in to everythingthat people throw out to you.
Free to stand back and choosehow you're going to feel,
what you're going to do, howyou want to react, what you want
(02:16):
to take on, what you'rewilling to accept blame for.
All kinds of thingswhere you can actually be
what a healthy person can be,which is separate,
and you can stand backand you can say,
is this somethingthat I'm willing to take on?
Am I willing to ownresponsibility for this?
Do I feel this way,or am I going
(02:38):
to let this other personhave their feelings?
I don't have to bail you out.
I don't have to do all thesethings.
That's what I teach youwhen I teach you to detach.
Well, children need that too.
And children in healthy homeslearn that along
with the other skillsthat they're learning.
But children
in toxic, dysfunctional homes,they do not learn it.
In fact,they learn the opposite.
(03:00):
They learn that when somebodyelse is feeling upset,
that they've got to feelthat way too.
That when someone elseis feeling upset,
then it's their job to tryto make that person not upset.
It's their jobto try to fix them.
They learn that
they've got to take on the
accusations and the blame thatwhen other people are irritable
(03:20):
and cranky and meanor drunk or angry or whatever,
that when they blame themand they say it's your fault
you did this, or they are superimpatient, they learn that
it is about them, that it
that they've donesomething wrong and they
they learn to blame themselvesand they learn to take it
(03:41):
all on.
when I was a little girl,my dad was an engineer,
and he was really smart,obviously really good with math.
And I could come into himinto his room
and I could say, hey, dad,will you help me with math?
And I either got, hey,
come on, come down, sit downand let me show you.
(04:03):
And just super patient,super detailed.
And this was from grade schoolthrough college.
Super helpful.
Really patient.
I'd walk out of there
and it'd be, like,the best tutor in the world.
But the oppositecould also happen.
I could walk in there andI could get get, you know what?
(04:23):
Out of here.
And for no reason,nothing different
about my approach or what I said
or whether I was rightor wrong to ask him.
It was all aboutwhat was going on with him.
Wasn't about me, but I didn'tknow that as a little girl.
I didn't know thatit was daddy's problem.
It felt personal.
(04:45):
It felt like I had donesomething wrong.
It felt likeit was a reflection on me,
that he was angrywith me, asking him.
Unfortunately, I did the same.
Not not exactly the same thing,but the same types of things
with my kids.
I didn't teach my kidsearly enough that
(05:06):
when I was in a bad mood,or their dad
was in a bad mood, thatit wasn't about them.
I did it later,
but I didn't know thatskill myself at the beginning.
When my children, especially ouroldest ones, were first born.
But I recognize nowhow critical it is
that we teachall of our children to detach.
(05:27):
It may not just bewhat's going on in the home.
It might be for them.
It might be what's going onoutside the home,
detaching from teachers,from peer groups,
from social media comments,
from opinions that other peoplehave about them.
It could be outsidefamily members.
It's just we've got to learn to,be able
(05:51):
to separate ourselves from thatand not take it on.
Just because someone says itsays it doesn't mean it's
so just becausesomeone calls you a bad name
does not mean you are thatjust because somebody tries
to say it's your fault,does not mean it is.
That person could be avoidingtaking responsibility
(06:13):
for their own stuffand just blaming you.
That person could be lying.
That person could just be meanbecause they're hurt
and hurting inside themselvesand lashing out.
Whatever the reasons are.
So letme give you some examples.
Before a child learns
(06:33):
to detach and after a childlearns to detach.
Okay,
so the first one is taking whatpeople say and do personally.
That'swhat they do before they detach.
But when they detach,
they don't take what people sayand do personally.
They can see, hey,my friend was mean to me
(06:53):
and she said somethingreally rude.
But I'm not going to excusethat.
That's not okay.
And that tells me about
something about who
my friend is, butI'm also not going to take it on
because I know I'mnot those things.
And I didn't do that.
And I know my friend has
a lot of problems in their home,and they probably are
going through some things,so I'm not going to believe it.
(07:16):
I'm also going to recognize,you know,
we got to kind of pay attention.
Is this the right friend for me?
But I'm not going to take it on.
Not going to believethat about myself.
I'm not going to sayI'm a bad person or I'm
not a good friend because thisone friend said this thing.
So secondly,
(07:38):
an example would be an impatientparents explosion.
Like, I talked to youabout my dad's explosion
before detaching.
I take it on as I didsomething wrong and after I know
no, that's dad,he's really impatient
and he can gofrom really patient to angry.
(07:59):
Not depending on what I didor my mom did
or my sibling did, butdepending on what his mood is.
And that's not about meor it's not about me.
If my mom is sad, you know,before before detachment,
a child sees the mom sad,depressed, crying
(08:20):
and feels responsible to gomake that mom happy,
to make that mom try to laugh,to make that mom feel better
so the child doesn't
go out to play, doesn'tgo to be with their friend,
instead just sits thereand try to fix that mom.
But after detaching,the child knows, hey, it's
my mom's responsibilityto make herself happy.
(08:40):
I can't do that.
I'm just a kid, so we can.
You can think, I'm
sure, of many examples of howbefore and after detachment
that it would help your childto understand this principle
and they can be really littleand learn this.
They can be in preschooland learn it.
(09:02):
So it can be with little sayingslike,
a person shows youwhat's in their heart.
It's not or it's not about you.
The words people sayare about them, not about you.
Or it could be just something,like I said,
just because someone saysit doesn't make it so.
Or sometimes they sayif one person tells you
(09:24):
you have a tail, don't look.
But if a bunch of peopletell you you have a tail,
maybe you should look.
But now you have to be carefulwith social media,
because 500 peoplecould tell you
that they agree with somethinga mean person says
and that doesn't necessarilymean it's so.
We've got to be really carefulto teach our children
how to filterthe things that other people do.
(09:46):
And say and choose to,where it just doesn't automatic.
They don'tautomatically take it on.
So there's two ways that youteach your children to detach.
And the first one is youmodel it in your own life.
You got a difficult personin your life.
You detach in loveto that person.
You can show thiswith your behavior.
(10:08):
They will see it.
If your spouse or your motheror your father
or your sister can rattleyou really easily.
And if that personis in a bad mood
and all of a suddenyou're in a bad mood,
or if that person gets angryand then you're just kind
(10:30):
of cower back and you start,look very dejected.
Or if you say nothingand you just take it,
you are teaching themthat, okay,
you're affected by other peopleand what they say
and what they do. But if you say
(10:51):
if you
look at that and or
you have that response to thatand you come back and you're
you're strongand you've got good
self-confidence and good energy,and you don't come back angry
because you were aroundsomebody who is angry or sad
because you're around somebodythat's sad.
If you make choices of,grandma’s sad,
(11:13):
but we're going to go to ordad's sad today or dad's tired.
He's not feeling good,but we're still
going to go to the beach.
We'll we're still goingto go to the park.
If you don't let your spousechange plans.
And then the whole familyhas to change.
Like.
Or if you say your parentdoesn't come to a baseball game
(11:34):
and you say, your daddy,your daddy
makes choices or your mommakes choices, don't excuse it.
We don't lie.
Oh, daddy's always busy at workor mom has
to work extra hours. No, it's
okay.
Just because a parent
doesn't choose to come to a gamedoesn't mean you're a bad kid,
(11:55):
or doesn'tmean you're not important.
You are important.
That's why mom's here.
Or that's
why dad's here, or that's whyGrandma and Grandpa are here.
Dad doesn'talways make good choices.
Or, some people make choices,that tell them more
about what theywhat's important to them than
(12:18):
but not.
Doesn't mean thatthat's who you are.
However, you need to say thatyou kind of got the idea, right.
You want you don't evenhave to use the person's name.
I did in that example.
But you can give theman example of modeling.
And in your own lifeyou can say,
my friend was really upset,with me because I told her
(12:39):
that I couldn'tgo shopping with her today.
But it's okay.
I'm going to let her be upset
because she has aright to be upset.
But I'm still goingto stick to my decision
to do what I need to do.
So you can give your childrenexamples in your own life.
You can let them hearyou say things to people.
(12:59):
You can let them see you
to stay detached.
When you
are going through things,which is actually
modeling detachment.
Now, I think I kind of jumpedinto the second way
of doing thiswhen I gave you the example
of talking to your childrenabout,
(13:20):
a parent that wasn'tat a baseball game or something.
So the first one is youmodel it in your own actions,
and the second is you applydetachment to their lives.
So when they're in differentexperiences,
when things happen to them,when they you see it
happen or you,they come to you sad or upset
(13:42):
or crying or complainingor they look dejected,
you can use thatas an opportunity
to talk to themabout detaching and
for instance, like,when someone is angry,
you can say like,say the parent is angry.
(14:03):
Well, when the when,when I had people in my life
that are angry, I,
I remind myself that mostthat anger is not about me.
Anger is about is about what'sin the other person's heart
or I rememberwhen I was a little girl
and I used to gointo grandpa's room
(14:26):
and grandpa wouldsometimes be really, really nice
and happy to help me with math.
And other times
he'd be really madand he'd yell at me
and tell meto get out of the room.
And I used to think
when I was a little girlat first, that
that wasbecause I did something wrong.
But I know now that that wasbecause grandpa
was in a bad mood, and it wasn'tthat I did anything wrong.
(14:48):
So see,you can use that example.
You can use an examplewith your boss in the workplace,
and we can adjust ourhow much details in the words
we use to the child's ageand ability to comprehend.
But children are pretty smart
and they pick up thingsvery quickly.
(15:09):
They're like sponges,
and you will notice very quicklythat they will begin to parrot
those words,and that they will begin
to exhibitthose types of attitudes.
You may even hear themtalking out loud to themselves.
And it is powerful.
You canyou can say to them things like,
(15:31):
have you ever noticed that angrypeople are angry a lot,
and that they get madabout a lot of things
and they seem to have a problem,like losing their temper?
Well, that helps remind usthat they're just angry people.
Or sometimes you can saysometimes,
you learnor you can watch movies,
like,you can find the right movie
(15:52):
about a bully, a familyfriendly movie about a bully
where you find out,the bully is not that really
nice, though isn't the mostpopular kid, but that one,
that kid was broken insideand was just acting tough.
So you can say,bullies are tough, but it's
usually because something'sgoing on inside of them.
(16:13):
That's that's that they're,
you know, kind of havingto pretend that they don't care.
And so they're mean toother people
just so they can ignorewhat they're feeling or
because they need to bethe one that's most popular,
but they're really notthe best people to be around.
You can give examples of that,and you can you can do it
(16:36):
by your own actions and the waythat you respond to things.
But you can
also do it with exampleswhere you tell them, stories,
they're storiesthat you can read.
There's books,Christian, non-Christian book
that talk about,like the bully being the kid
that has all the problems insidethat's just trying to defend
against those,
but that we don't haveto let the bully mistreat us.
(17:01):
So all kinds of waysthat you can use,
detachment with responding to
things that aregoing on in that child's life.
It's like, okay, so,
I just did thiswith an older family member
the other daywhen there was a new friend
(17:22):
group situation and I said,
was kind of first thing was,oh, this person said that
the next time they got togetherthat that they would invite me.
And then I just see nowfrom Facebook
that they're together,but they didn't invite me.
And it's just like, okay, soyou have a choice, right then,
(17:43):
do you want to take that
personal and say,oh, the person doesn't like me?
Or do you want to step backand observe
that from a distance and say,hey, that doesn't mean that.
And my response was, what?
Sometimes I like to gowith a group of people,
and sometimes I like to gowith just one person,
especially when I've got peoplethat don't know
(18:07):
me and myother friend as well as I do.
I would choose maybe to
go with just one person
so we can have more of a heartto heart talk.
So it's like,don't take it personal.
Doesn'tmean that they don't like you.
It just means that, hey,they have a right
to get togetherwith whomever they want to.
(18:29):
It doesn't alwayshave to include other people,
so it's learning to step backand have another viewpoint.
Not excusing,not lying to yourself,
but looking at itfrom a different perspective
and not personalizing everything
like that person'spersonality is to be this way.
(18:50):
Are they like thiswith everyone?
Oh, so is this personyou jealous?
Like like, situationwhere let's say that they have
a friend who's really demandingall their time, and any time
that say, elementarygrade kid wants to be with
another,
wants togo play off with another friend,
(19:12):
and then the other friendgets really possessive
and jealous and mad and kind ofturns their back on him.
And then you see your kidwanting to kind of make that kid
feel better or distressing,because this one friend is mad
that they're
with another friend and you,you can recognize that.
It's like, hey, I have a I knowthat I have a right to choose
(19:36):
what I want to do with my timeand who I want to be with.
And if I havesomebody in my life who doesn't
want to give me that freedom butwants to take all of my time,
I can recognize that and knowthat that's not really healthy,
that I can chooseto have lots of friends
and one friendwho wants me to have only them
(19:59):
as a friendis not the best person.
What do you think about that?
And you let the kidkind of apply that to that
or just little lessons.
It is a phenomenal skill. So
you can teach it.
You don't have to say your dad.
You can just say I or your mom.
(20:21):
You can say,I've learned in my life
that when people are saying
are are lashing out at me or
that when they're yelling at meor they all of a sudden turn
on me, that it's about them,that it's not about me?
All kinds of examples.
So you want to model detachmentin your own life,
(20:44):
so you got to learn it.
You got to watchmy playlist on detachment.
You got to read my booksthat talk about detachment.
Take a classwhere you learn about detachment
and model it in your own life,and then apply it to your
children's lives.
You willlove the result that you get.
And Deuteronomy 6:4-8 tells youthis here,
(21:08):
O Israel, the Lord our God,the Lord is one.
Love the Lordyour God with all your heart,
all your soul,and all your strength.
These commandments that I giveyou today, see, this was God
giving the Israelitesthe Ten Commandments.
They are to be on your hearts.
Impress them on your children.
(21:28):
Talk about them
when you sit at home andwhen you walk along the road,
when you lie downand when you get up, tie them
as symbols on your handsand bind them on your foreheads.
Write them on the door framesof your houses and your gates.
What is that saying?
That's saying apply them at alltimes, in all circumstances
(21:49):
of your life.
Everything you're doing,your teaching,
everythingyou're doing, your modeling.
And if you do that,I think you will see
that your childrenwill learn a lot.
And if you're
in a very dysfunctional family,a dysfunctional marriage,
yes, it'saffecting your children.
(22:10):
Doingthis is not the best option.
The best is thatthey're not in it,
but it is absolutely essentialif they are in it
and they're not able to get outof having
dysfunctional peoplein their lives,
it is essentialthat you teach them this.
So thank you for watching.
(22:30):
Thank you for listening.
And, God bless.
Thank you for listeningto Change My Relationship.
We hope you will subscribeto these podcasts
and share themwith your friends.
Karlawould love to hear from you.
She welcomes
ideas for a future podcast,as well as your feedback
on how the podcasts have helpedyour life and relationships.
(22:50):
You can email her at.
karla@changemyrelationship.com
For more informationon Change My Relationship
and Karla Downing's ministry,
including her books,studies, devotionals, podcasts
and YouTube videosvisit changemyrelationship.com.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.