August 31, 2023 • 27 mins
Navigating the ever-evolving landscape of parenting can feel like braving stormy seas without a compass. Promising to be that guiding light, today's podcast explores the concept of intentional parenting, and how it can be the anchor amidst the turbulent waves of everyday challenges. Through the lens of personal experiences and community influences, we'll uncover how my parents, though unaware, were pioneers of this approach, and how crucial it has become in this fast-paced era.
Embarking on a parenting journey requires us to be acutely self-aware, making every decision with intention. Our next discussion orbits around the trials and triumphs of co-parenting and the transformative power of intentional parenting in healing and strengthening families. We delve into the transformative work of Homeward Bound, an organization dedicated to fortifying families with knowledge and skills, designed to prevent the need for out-of-home treatment centers or wilderness programs.
Lastly, we sail into the uncharted territory of coaching in parenting. Like a lighthouse guiding ships to safer shores, a parenting coach can be the beacon of support in decision-making, making the parenting journey a tad less overwhelming. We talk about how intentional parenting can shape family dynamics and patterns of behavior. As we cast our net wider, we await the positive, long-lasting transformations within our families. Don't miss out on this voyage to becoming a more aware, purposeful, and empowered parent.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
There are as many ways to parent as there are
parents in this world, but thereis one way to parent that wins
every time, and that's doing itintentionally.
This show is about helpingthings go right before they can
go wrong.
Each episode is chosen to helpparents like you, who may be
overwhelmed or uninspired, findthe ideas and motivation to give
(00:27):
their best efforts to thepeople and place that matters
the most.
I'm Dr Tim Thane, author of thebook and host of the podcast
Not by Chance.
I believe that a family'ssuccess and happiness is not by
chance, so welcome to thepodcast.
Built especially forintentional families.
Let's jump in.
(00:47):
Hi everyone, thank you forjoining me on the Not by Chance
podcast, where we explore ideasand inspiration on how to be
intentional inside our families.
Well, today's podcast is goingto be directly in the center of
that goal.
We're going to call itsomething like intentional
parenting.
I want to just cover a fewthings that may be a little bit
(01:11):
unique or different from whatyou might think of as an
intentional parent, because whenwe hear that, we think, okay,
there's principles and there'sthe strategies, and we're going
to think about that every dayand apply them in our family
life.
Well, I'm going to go back intime a little bit to start with,
because my wife Roxanne sheasked me the question.
(01:32):
She said, tim, did your parentspractice intentional parenting?
And I thought about that for asecond because they would have
never called it that, but Iwould say, absolutely my parents
did.
I think every parent that istrying to be intentional in
their role their kids would sayI've got a good parent not a
(01:56):
perfect parent, but I've got agood parent, because over time,
as they mature, they start torealize some of the things that
my parents tried to teach meactually did hit home.
They actually became part ofthe way I see the world.
They gave me the skills Ineeded.
They empowered me in somedifferent ways.
And though our parents arenever perfect and we are never
(02:20):
perfect as parents anytime wecan be more intentional, we
raise the bar.
Okay.
So back to my parents.
I think that they just for them, you have to be more
intentional.
They just loved their family.
They found each other, fell inlove and had important values
that they wanted to transmit totheir posterity, to their
(02:42):
children.
They wanted us to be close,they wanted us to be good people
, they wanted us to learn towork hard and be productive
people and citizens.
And out of that desire, thatvision you might say, they did a
lot of things on a prettyconsistent basis, and one of
(03:03):
those is that on Sundays wedefinitely had Sunday rituals
that we did.
We went to church every Sundayand it was there that I learned
a lot of the values that I stillhave to this day.
They also made Sunday a day forus to connect as a family, and
(03:23):
it was just a great day for memost of the time because we had
that experience at churchtogether.
Then usually afterwards, we'deither go to my grandma and
grandpa's house, where all thecousins would come and
congregate and we'd have dinnerwith grandma and grandpa, and or
and sometimes both we would goup into the Huyuintas, which is
(03:44):
a mountain range in northeasternUtah that we sort of lived at
the base of, and we'd go upthere and have a picnic and, of
course, spend time intentionallyas a family, playing games,
talking, having a picnic,enjoying ourselves together.
So if this is something that'sdone on a regular basis, they
(04:06):
are living out their values.
They're trying to help us bygiving us exposure to our
extended family, building thoserelationships, helping us
develop a value system.
So in those ways, definitelyintentional parenting.
Another one was, and I think thevery strongest.
One of the very strongestvalues that was passed down to
(04:28):
me by my father mostly, but alsomy mom watching her example is
the value of being a hard worker, and I just remember being at
home on a Saturday and wantingto just relax after maybe a week
of school and sports, and dadwould be outside working.
Maybe he's torn apart thebackhoe and he's trying to put
(04:50):
the engine back in it orsomething else, building a
corral for the animals out back.
Then I knew I just had thissense that I better get my my
work clothes on and get outthere and help him.
I knew that if he was out therefor very long without me it
wouldn't be a good thing.
He would let me know and mybrothers know we should have
(05:12):
been out there helping him, andso I never felt comfortable
staying in the house when whenhe was outside working.
But I think about you know.
Roxanne said well, that was kindof a simpler time, wasn't it
Tim?
And I said yes, it was.
It really was a different time.
It seemed like the societalculture, at least where I lived,
(05:34):
and I think really across thecountry, was in support of
traditional family values andthe values that most people have
.
The values that most parentshad were fairly common, even
from different political partiesor different religions or walks
of life.
There was still a set of corevalues that for the most part, I
(05:55):
think we we all believed in.
I look at it as this river oflife that's kind of flowing in a
certain direction and as longas we sort of get in that river
and our parents are trying to beintentional about what they're
doing, there was a lot ofsupport outside the family For a
lot of these same principlesand ideals.
(06:15):
I know in my small town if Idid some dumb things, if I did
something dumb and an adultcaught me doing that dumb thing
small enough community that Iknew it was probably going to
get back to my parents.
But I also knew that this adultin front of me that is maybe
calling me out on beingdisruptive during class as
(06:39):
teacher they are consistent withthe values that my parents had.
So I think it was a lot easierback then.
You didn't have to think aboutbeing as intentional as I think
you have to be today.
All right, so let's talk abouttoday.
You know what are we up againstas parents.
It is quite a challenge, isn'tit, if you think about the
(07:01):
environment we're in, wherethere are so many voices.
Our kids have access to theinternet.
Their values are not reallyconsistent, it's really all over
the map and they're beingpulled in every which direction.
This is a scenario that callsfor incredible leadership in the
(07:24):
home and in the family, and, ofcourse, that has to be given by
the parents.
And so where, in the past, youcould essentially kind of figure
it out along the way as aparent and get better over time,
and in the meantime, you've gotthe support network around you
and you've got a lot of societypulling in the same direction.
That really isn't the situationthat we have today.
(07:47):
There's really not a lot oftime.
The exposure to information andoutside influences is really
early, through TV and so forthand, by the way, I'm thinking
about TV, but it's been going onfor quite some time where you
look at the sitcoms and TV showsand so forth, and most parents
(08:07):
in the past, recent past,they're portrayed as buffoons
and it's really the kids thathave all the real.
They're really the ones thatare smart and they often treat
their parents really poorly, andso even the influence of media
coming into the home makes itimportant for parents to be that
(08:29):
much more intentional aboutwhat they're teaching.
Another thing is going onbecause life is challenging on
the planet today, in our society, we know that there's more
mental health challenges thanthere has been in the past.
There's definitely more therapygoing on.
There's more medicationhappening and being prescribed
to adolescents and to childrenthan before.
(08:52):
So we're reaching out, tryingto get help in all of these
different kinds of ways, andagain, it's a call for parents
to learn more about theirparticular role and how powerful
they can be in terms ofchanging the family environment,
which, in essence, willultimately affect the children
(09:15):
in positive ways.
You know, back when I wasgetting my PhD and we'd moved to
Virginia and I started delvinginto organizational behavior and
management because I was sortof interested in that big human
system, even though I was therefor marriage and family therapy.
I was really interested in howmarriage and family therapy
(09:38):
models would enable someone tointervene in a larger human
system like businesses, and so Istarted looking at what do
businesses and organizationslike that do.
That's very intentional, andsome of the things they do made
us look really bad in the familyside.
(09:59):
Because in an organization, ifyou get hired into an
organization, what are you gonnado?
You're gonna be given a title,right, and along with that title
, you're gonna get a jobresponsibility.
It's gonna be even written outhere's what your job is, and
along with the positiondescription and title, you're
probably gonna get a lot oftraining to help you actually
(10:24):
succeed in that particular job.
And so they're incrediblyintentional, in fact, as, in
fact, in addition to all thetraining, there's ongoing
meetings, there's gettingtogether and consistently
communicating about the projectyou're working on and how is it
coming and how do we coordinateour efforts so that we get this
(10:48):
outcome that we want.
You're sent to conferences tolearn more about your position,
or more about learning andgrowing and developing yourself
so that you can rise up in theorganization, and so think about
the intentionality ofsuccessful organizations and
(11:08):
what they're doing.
Now compare that to what weusually do in family life.
For some reason, we have thisbelief that if you can procreate
and have a child, you suddenlyare gifted the knowledge, the
ability, the wisdom, theexperience, for some reason, to
(11:30):
raise that child from infancy uptill they're adult and you
launch them.
That's sort of the idea thatsomething's innate within us and
we know how to be a parent.
But as times have gotten morechallenging and complex, it has
exposed, honestly, theweaknesses of the parents and,
(11:54):
in many ways, our ability tomanage what's going on inside
our home.
We're having to reach out moreand get help outside of that.
So my purpose, one of the bigmissions I have in all the work
that I've done over time, is tostrengthen and, in some cases,
heal and prepare families and,starting with the parents and
(12:17):
those leaders, to be able tomake their family system into
something that is preventativeand in nature of some of the
negative diagnoses that are outthere, the mental health issues
that are coming, and so that'sreally been my mission all along
.
And years ago I ran into a guyand he asked me what do you do,
(12:39):
tim, and what's the history ofyour career?
We got into that conversationand I was a little embarrassed
because I told him all thedifferent little businesses I'd
started or side projects I'd hadand so forth.
I said I know it feels a littleschizophrenic, doesn't it?
(12:59):
And he said actually, tim, no,it's really really clear.
Everything you have done hasbeen to either strengthen and
kind of lift up your own familyor it's to do that for other
families.
And I said thank you so much.
Thank you for helping merealize that I haven't been just
(13:20):
schizophrenic and crazy withall the different things I've
done.
And he was right, there was atheme that ran all the way
through it.
I really strongly believe thatevery effort that we put into
improving ourselves as anindividual and then as a parent
in that role or as a co-parentin that relationship, will pay
(13:42):
huge dividends down the road interms of our children's mental
health, their confidence, theirfeeling of well-being and,
ultimately, the track that theyend up on Now.
All of us are going to havelots of hiccups and challenges
along the way and even withintentional parenting, we
definitely have our challengesduring this time in the history
(14:04):
of the world.
But really, this is the placeto put your time Out of all the
things you could put it into.
So we're going to get into alittle bit more of what that
actually looks like now when Ithought about okay, what is
intentional parenting?
Yes, it might entail studyingparenting books, identifying key
(14:30):
principles and skills and thentrying to apply them in our
family life.
But if you break it all the waydown, once you get that
knowledge and you have theawareness of your own self and
what you're bringing to thetable in that role as a parent,
what you really have is onechoice after another, after
(14:52):
another in the moment.
And if we are intentional, we'reaware of what's going on in the
moment, we try to put away thethings that are occupying our
mind.
When we're trying to engageone's one of our children in
something, we do our best to tryto be present in that moment.
And that's a thought one of theparents on our Not by Chance
(15:15):
Facebook page mentioned and Ithought that was a fantastic
point that you have to bepresent in order to be
intentional.
And if you're intentional, orif you're present and you're
intentional and you've got someknowledge in there and you've
got some caring for your child,then what it is is you get to
(15:35):
make choices.
How am I going to choose tohandle this situation?
Am I going to choose to managemy emotions in this moment when
I feel like letting them go?
Am I going to put away my ownjudgments and criticism for a
minute and just listen?
Try my best to be influenced bymy child or my teenager.
(15:57):
Am I going to try and alignwith my co-parent, even though I
don't really agree with whatthey're doing and thinking, for
the sake of our children, sothat they're not confused?
There are choices to makemultiple times a day as parents
and I would say we eitherdefault into old habits and the
(16:20):
way we feel in the moment, doingwhat we.
You know, if we wake up andfeel depressed and unmotivated,
then does our parenting reallysuffer that day, or do we make
choices anyway because we have agreater vision for how we want
our family life to go.
(16:40):
I want to speak for a second tothe parent out there that
doesn't really have any seriousissues in their family yet.
Maybe they've got youngerchildren.
A lot of times I'm speaking tothe parent that's got kind of an
emergency room case where theirchild is really struggling and
is creating a lot of pain in thefamily system.
Those parents tend to havetheir ears wide open.
(17:02):
They are in tune.
They're really trying to soakin as much information as they
can because they're looking foranswers.
They're looking for ways tosolve problems that they haven't
been able to solve yet.
But it's different if you're aparent before these things have
happened.
Your children are younger.
This topic of intentionalparenting might not be quite as
(17:27):
urgent to you.
I remember when I was in my PhDprogram, my wife and I decided
that we would put on a class forcouples who were going to be
married so pre-marital groups ina workshop, and we did our very
best at putting togethermarketing materials that would
be attractive, that would hitthe nail on the head and people
(17:50):
would read that and say, oh, Iwant to get that training.
What we found is it was likepulling teeth to get people to
sign up for our workshop.
We weren't very good atreaching them, probably, but the
other piece was there wasn'tthis urgency.
They hadn't really gottenmarried yet, they hadn't gotten
into the challenges of marriedlife, and so they were still in
(18:15):
the honeymoon phase and what wehad to offer didn't seem all
that important.
I guess I'm speaking to youparents for a second here just
to say I can tell you thatanything you can do to develop
skills patterns in your life,the way you communicate with
(18:36):
your children along the lines ofbuilding that trusting
relationship between you andthem, resolving issues in a fair
and consistent way, a wholehost of things.
If you can learn to do thatearly and develop the patterns
now, you will prevent the needfor possibly therapy.
You'll prevent the need formore extreme measures to try and
(18:59):
correct the situation insideyour home.
Another question might be whatif you're a parent and you've
got a co-parent who's disengagedand you're the intentional
parent and it's almost like themore intentional you are, the
less engaged they become and youget this cycle going and you
might call it the overfunctioner parent and the under
(19:21):
functional parent, and that's areal pattern.
It's a real cycle that takesplace.
My advice to you would be totry to understand where your
co-parent is at Review somethings like the stages of change
that Prochaska has put together.
Try to think about where is myco-parent at today.
(19:43):
How can I invite him to justtake that next step or her to
take that next step?
Because there's a lot of powerin the two of you being engaged
in the process together.
The most intentional thing youcan do to be an intentional
parent is actually to work onyourself.
Go back to the very core ofself-awareness and understanding
(20:09):
what it is that are yourtriggers.
How do you manage emotions instressful situations.
Can you stay calm underpressure like that, when a child
doesn't listen to you over andover again and does the same
thing over and over again youtold them not to do?
Can you stay patient in thatsituation while still holding a
(20:29):
boundary?
I kind of surprised my wifebecause she asked me the
question what's one thing you'dsay that I should do to be an
intentional parent?
And I told her that start withyourself.
And she was kind of taken backand she said you know, I've been
this whole time thinking aboutwhat I was going to do in my
(20:51):
parenting role, kind of theaction I was going to take with
my kids, and you flipped that onme and said no, start with you.
And so intentional parenting isactually starting with you.
And that really was kind of afun little aha that the two of
us had together.
You know, over the years atHomeward Bound our process was
(21:14):
to, when a child was in asituation where they were trying
to prevent the need for anout-of-home treatment center or
a wilderness program, we'd go inand give the family the shot in
the arm upfront with a lot ofinformation and they were trying
to stop this downward spiralthat was happening, and so our
(21:38):
model looked like this we wouldget an assessment, basically
over the phone, about what'sgoing on and what are the
challenges happening.
What are the trigger pointsLike?
What are the mood disorders?
Is there anxiety?
Is there depression?
Is there addictions that weneed to address?
What's the parent-childrelationship like?
(21:58):
How do you problem solvetogether?
And so we get a feel for all ofthat, and then we'd go into the
home over the course of threedays.
So it's an evening all day thenext day into the evening and
about a half a day the third day.
A lot of the parents would sayare you gonna stay in our house?
And honestly, we did stay in afew houses along the way, and
(22:19):
you can imagine all theinformation and data you would
pick up by being in the home ofa family that's struggling.
There's no hiding right.
You get to see it with your owneyes all the non-verbal, the
eye-rolling, the stompingupstairs, going to their bedroom
when a difficult topic comes up, when a boundary is trying to
(22:39):
be held.
You get to see all of that.
Often you don't see that in aregular therapy situation, and
so then what we would do is wewould sort of download for the
family and the parents inparticular.
But all of these parentingprinciples and techniques and
(23:00):
skills.
We would teach them how tocommunicate with one another and
then we would, on purpose,bring up some of the challenging
topics they had and then we'dcoach them through it, almost
like holding their hand whilethey are trying to resolve an
issue that has been troublingthe family for a very long time
(23:22):
and they've never beensuccessful at it.
But with you standing kind ofover their shoulder, whispering
in their ear, reminding them ofthe skills they're trying to use
, they suddenly became reallygood.
They'd manage their emotionsbetter.
They'd take a time out if theyneeded it.
If the child stomped upstairsand slammed the door, they
(23:44):
didn't come yelling after thembecause we're holding them back,
saying, hey, just give them afew minutes.
And then we'd reconvene andbring when the teen was ready
again, and what would happen inthose moments is they would see
what intentional parenting feltlike and looked like, and it was
(24:06):
bridling themselves at timeswhen they needed to.
It was to sit back and actuallyreally listen and be changed by
what the teen was telling them.
It was to withhold judgment andlet the process play out until
(24:26):
they could find out where theirwants overlapped each other and
ultimately they'd come down to aplan on how to handle things
like how much screen time shouldwe allow them to have and when
should they have the screen time?
How does that interplay withtheir other things?
(24:47):
They need to do theresponsibilities, the chores.
But what was so fun to observehere is that the effect of them
intentionally doing it really,really well with the help of a
coach was that they had verydifferent outcomes around these
conversations and around thebehaviors, and obviously the
(25:09):
collapse of the dynamicswouldn't collapse like it
normally would around thesetopics.
And what it did is it made themkind of say you know what,
applying principles, beingthoughtful about the way I
communicate, holding a boundaryeven though part of me wants to
(25:31):
avoid the conflict, but doing itin a way that's patient and
consistent, it actually works,and so that would.
You'd see the light bulb go offand they'd trust you and they'd
trust the process.
You know there's a big part ofme that wishes I could.
You know, it's that therapistpart of me that wants to be
(25:52):
right in the family system andkind of watch over your shoulder
and remind you of the thingsthat you really wanna do when
you really don't want to do them, and then watch these good
outcomes take place.
Well, here's a little plug forthe app that's coming out soon.
We're really excited about it.
In a lot of ways, it is likehaving a coach in your back
(26:18):
pocket that you can pull out atany time, and it's going to be.
It's going to havenotifications to remind you of
the things you're trying to do.
It's ultimately going to helpall parents who use it be more
intentional with what they'retrying to do.
So I guess my mission tostrengthen, heal and fortify
families is now going to happenthrough the app, and that's
(26:44):
that's really exciting to me.
So just think about what wouldyou do differently if you had a
coach whispering in your eararound everyone else?
Little moments of opportunity,those decision points of how
you're going to handle it.
If this has been helpful to you, I hope you'll like and share
this, this podcast, with yourfriends.
(27:05):
Also go to our website,trustycom that has two Y's on it
T R U S T Y Y dot com and signup for early access for the app
that's coming out, hopefully inSeptember.
Until next time, keep parentingintentionally and notice the
positive impact that has on yourfamily.
(27:25):
Parents, your time is valuableand I'm grateful you spent some
of it with us.
What you're intentionally doingin your home life is inspiring
and unmatched in its importanceand long-term effects.
Ask yourself what am I going todo because of what I've learned
today?
There are as many ways to parent as there are
parents in this world, but thereis one way to parent that wins
every time, and that's doing itintentionally.
This show is about helpingthings go right before they can
go wrong.
Each episode is chosen to helpparents like you, who may be
overwhelmed or uninspired, findthe ideas and motivation to give
(00:27):
their best efforts to thepeople and place that matters
the most.
I'm Dr Tim Thane, author of thebook and host of the podcast
Not by Chance.
I believe that a family'ssuccess and happiness is not by
chance, so welcome to thepodcast.
Built especially forintentional families.
Let's jump in.
(00:47):
Hi everyone, thank you forjoining me on the Not by Chance
podcast, where we explore ideasand inspiration on how to be
intentional inside our families.
Well, today's podcast is goingto be directly in the center of
that goal.
We're going to call itsomething like intentional
parenting.
I want to just cover a fewthings that may be a little bit
(01:11):
unique or different from whatyou might think of as an
intentional parent, because whenwe hear that, we think, okay,
there's principles and there'sthe strategies, and we're going
to think about that every dayand apply them in our family
life.
Well, I'm going to go back intime a little bit to start with,
because my wife Roxanne sheasked me the question.
(01:32):
She said, tim, did your parentspractice intentional parenting?
And I thought about that for asecond because they would have
never called it that, but Iwould say, absolutely my parents
did.
I think every parent that istrying to be intentional in
their role their kids would sayI've got a good parent not a
(01:56):
perfect parent, but I've got agood parent, because over time,
as they mature, they start torealize some of the things that
my parents tried to teach meactually did hit home.
They actually became part ofthe way I see the world.
They gave me the skills Ineeded.
They empowered me in somedifferent ways.
And though our parents arenever perfect and we are never
(02:20):
perfect as parents anytime wecan be more intentional, we
raise the bar.
Okay.
So back to my parents.
I think that they just for them, you have to be more
intentional.
They just loved their family.
They found each other, fell inlove and had important values
that they wanted to transmit totheir posterity, to their
(02:42):
children.
They wanted us to be close,they wanted us to be good people
, they wanted us to learn towork hard and be productive
people and citizens.
And out of that desire, thatvision you might say, they did a
lot of things on a prettyconsistent basis, and one of
(03:03):
those is that on Sundays wedefinitely had Sunday rituals
that we did.
We went to church every Sundayand it was there that I learned
a lot of the values that I stillhave to this day.
They also made Sunday a day forus to connect as a family, and
(03:23):
it was just a great day for memost of the time because we had
that experience at churchtogether.
Then usually afterwards, we'deither go to my grandma and
grandpa's house, where all thecousins would come and
congregate and we'd have dinnerwith grandma and grandpa, and or
and sometimes both we would goup into the Huyuintas, which is
(03:44):
a mountain range in northeasternUtah that we sort of lived at
the base of, and we'd go upthere and have a picnic and, of
course, spend time intentionallyas a family, playing games,
talking, having a picnic,enjoying ourselves together.
So if this is something that'sdone on a regular basis, they
(04:06):
are living out their values.
They're trying to help us bygiving us exposure to our
extended family, building thoserelationships, helping us
develop a value system.
So in those ways, definitelyintentional parenting.
Another one was, and I think thevery strongest.
One of the very strongestvalues that was passed down to
(04:28):
me by my father mostly, but alsomy mom watching her example is
the value of being a hard worker, and I just remember being at
home on a Saturday and wantingto just relax after maybe a week
of school and sports, and dadwould be outside working.
Maybe he's torn apart thebackhoe and he's trying to put
(04:50):
the engine back in it orsomething else, building a
corral for the animals out back.
Then I knew I just had thissense that I better get my my
work clothes on and get outthere and help him.
I knew that if he was out therefor very long without me it
wouldn't be a good thing.
He would let me know and mybrothers know we should have
(05:12):
been out there helping him, andso I never felt comfortable
staying in the house when whenhe was outside working.
But I think about you know.
Roxanne said well, that was kindof a simpler time, wasn't it
Tim?
And I said yes, it was.
It really was a different time.
It seemed like the societalculture, at least where I lived,
(05:34):
and I think really across thecountry, was in support of
traditional family values andthe values that most people have
.
The values that most parentshad were fairly common, even
from different political partiesor different religions or walks
of life.
There was still a set of corevalues that for the most part, I
(05:55):
think we we all believed in.
I look at it as this river oflife that's kind of flowing in a
certain direction and as longas we sort of get in that river
and our parents are trying to beintentional about what they're
doing, there was a lot ofsupport outside the family For a
lot of these same principlesand ideals.
(06:15):
I know in my small town if Idid some dumb things, if I did
something dumb and an adultcaught me doing that dumb thing
small enough community that Iknew it was probably going to
get back to my parents.
But I also knew that this adultin front of me that is maybe
calling me out on beingdisruptive during class as
(06:39):
teacher they are consistent withthe values that my parents had.
So I think it was a lot easierback then.
You didn't have to think aboutbeing as intentional as I think
you have to be today.
All right, so let's talk abouttoday.
You know what are we up againstas parents.
It is quite a challenge, isn'tit, if you think about the
(07:01):
environment we're in, wherethere are so many voices.
Our kids have access to theinternet.
Their values are not reallyconsistent, it's really all over
the map and they're beingpulled in every which direction.
This is a scenario that callsfor incredible leadership in the
(07:24):
home and in the family, and, ofcourse, that has to be given by
the parents.
And so where, in the past, youcould essentially kind of figure
it out along the way as aparent and get better over time,
and in the meantime, you've gotthe support network around you
and you've got a lot of societypulling in the same direction.
That really isn't the situationthat we have today.
(07:47):
There's really not a lot oftime.
The exposure to information andoutside influences is really
early, through TV and so forthand, by the way, I'm thinking
about TV, but it's been going onfor quite some time where you
look at the sitcoms and TV showsand so forth, and most parents
(08:07):
in the past, recent past,they're portrayed as buffoons
and it's really the kids thathave all the real.
They're really the ones thatare smart and they often treat
their parents really poorly, andso even the influence of media
coming into the home makes itimportant for parents to be that
(08:29):
much more intentional aboutwhat they're teaching.
Another thing is going onbecause life is challenging on
the planet today, in our society, we know that there's more
mental health challenges thanthere has been in the past.
There's definitely more therapygoing on.
There's more medicationhappening and being prescribed
to adolescents and to childrenthan before.
(08:52):
So we're reaching out, tryingto get help in all of these
different kinds of ways, andagain, it's a call for parents
to learn more about theirparticular role and how powerful
they can be in terms ofchanging the family environment,
which, in essence, willultimately affect the children
(09:15):
in positive ways.
You know, back when I wasgetting my PhD and we'd moved to
Virginia and I started delvinginto organizational behavior and
management because I was sortof interested in that big human
system, even though I was therefor marriage and family therapy.
I was really interested in howmarriage and family therapy
(09:38):
models would enable someone tointervene in a larger human
system like businesses, and so Istarted looking at what do
businesses and organizationslike that do.
That's very intentional, andsome of the things they do made
us look really bad in the familyside.
(09:59):
Because in an organization, ifyou get hired into an
organization, what are you gonnado?
You're gonna be given a title,right, and along with that title
, you're gonna get a jobresponsibility.
It's gonna be even written outhere's what your job is, and
along with the positiondescription and title, you're
probably gonna get a lot oftraining to help you actually
(10:24):
succeed in that particular job.
And so they're incrediblyintentional, in fact, as, in
fact, in addition to all thetraining, there's ongoing
meetings, there's gettingtogether and consistently
communicating about the projectyou're working on and how is it
coming and how do we coordinateour efforts so that we get this
(10:48):
outcome that we want.
You're sent to conferences tolearn more about your position,
or more about learning andgrowing and developing yourself
so that you can rise up in theorganization, and so think about
the intentionality ofsuccessful organizations and
(11:08):
what they're doing.
Now compare that to what weusually do in family life.
For some reason, we have thisbelief that if you can procreate
and have a child, you suddenlyare gifted the knowledge, the
ability, the wisdom, theexperience, for some reason, to
(11:30):
raise that child from infancy uptill they're adult and you
launch them.
That's sort of the idea thatsomething's innate within us and
we know how to be a parent.
But as times have gotten morechallenging and complex, it has
exposed, honestly, theweaknesses of the parents and,
(11:54):
in many ways, our ability tomanage what's going on inside
our home.
We're having to reach out moreand get help outside of that.
So my purpose, one of the bigmissions I have in all the work
that I've done over time, is tostrengthen and, in some cases,
heal and prepare families and,starting with the parents and
(12:17):
those leaders, to be able tomake their family system into
something that is preventativeand in nature of some of the
negative diagnoses that are outthere, the mental health issues
that are coming, and so that'sreally been my mission all along
.
And years ago I ran into a guyand he asked me what do you do,
(12:39):
tim, and what's the history ofyour career?
We got into that conversationand I was a little embarrassed
because I told him all thedifferent little businesses I'd
started or side projects I'd hadand so forth.
I said I know it feels a littleschizophrenic, doesn't it?
(12:59):
And he said actually, tim, no,it's really really clear.
Everything you have done hasbeen to either strengthen and
kind of lift up your own familyor it's to do that for other
families.
And I said thank you so much.
Thank you for helping merealize that I haven't been just
(13:20):
schizophrenic and crazy withall the different things I've
done.
And he was right, there was atheme that ran all the way
through it.
I really strongly believe thatevery effort that we put into
improving ourselves as anindividual and then as a parent
in that role or as a co-parentin that relationship, will pay
(13:42):
huge dividends down the road interms of our children's mental
health, their confidence, theirfeeling of well-being and,
ultimately, the track that theyend up on Now.
All of us are going to havelots of hiccups and challenges
along the way and even withintentional parenting, we
definitely have our challengesduring this time in the history
(14:04):
of the world.
But really, this is the placeto put your time Out of all the
things you could put it into.
So we're going to get into alittle bit more of what that
actually looks like now when Ithought about okay, what is
intentional parenting?
Yes, it might entail studyingparenting books, identifying key
(14:30):
principles and skills and thentrying to apply them in our
family life.
But if you break it all the waydown, once you get that
knowledge and you have theawareness of your own self and
what you're bringing to thetable in that role as a parent,
what you really have is onechoice after another, after
(14:52):
another in the moment.
And if we are intentional, we'reaware of what's going on in the
moment, we try to put away thethings that are occupying our
mind.
When we're trying to engageone's one of our children in
something, we do our best to tryto be present in that moment.
And that's a thought one of theparents on our Not by Chance
(15:15):
Facebook page mentioned and Ithought that was a fantastic
point that you have to bepresent in order to be
intentional.
And if you're intentional, orif you're present and you're
intentional and you've got someknowledge in there and you've
got some caring for your child,then what it is is you get to
(15:35):
make choices.
How am I going to choose tohandle this situation?
Am I going to choose to managemy emotions in this moment when
I feel like letting them go?
Am I going to put away my ownjudgments and criticism for a
minute and just listen?
Try my best to be influenced bymy child or my teenager.
(15:57):
Am I going to try and alignwith my co-parent, even though I
don't really agree with whatthey're doing and thinking, for
the sake of our children, sothat they're not confused?
There are choices to makemultiple times a day as parents
and I would say we eitherdefault into old habits and the
(16:20):
way we feel in the moment, doingwhat we.
You know, if we wake up andfeel depressed and unmotivated,
then does our parenting reallysuffer that day, or do we make
choices anyway because we have agreater vision for how we want
our family life to go.
(16:40):
I want to speak for a second tothe parent out there that
doesn't really have any seriousissues in their family yet.
Maybe they've got youngerchildren.
A lot of times I'm speaking tothe parent that's got kind of an
emergency room case where theirchild is really struggling and
is creating a lot of pain in thefamily system.
Those parents tend to havetheir ears wide open.
(17:02):
They are in tune.
They're really trying to soakin as much information as they
can because they're looking foranswers.
They're looking for ways tosolve problems that they haven't
been able to solve yet.
But it's different if you're aparent before these things have
happened.
Your children are younger.
This topic of intentionalparenting might not be quite as
(17:27):
urgent to you.
I remember when I was in my PhDprogram, my wife and I decided
that we would put on a class forcouples who were going to be
married so pre-marital groups ina workshop, and we did our very
best at putting togethermarketing materials that would
be attractive, that would hitthe nail on the head and people
(17:50):
would read that and say, oh, Iwant to get that training.
What we found is it was likepulling teeth to get people to
sign up for our workshop.
We weren't very good atreaching them, probably, but the
other piece was there wasn'tthis urgency.
They hadn't really gottenmarried yet, they hadn't gotten
into the challenges of marriedlife, and so they were still in
(18:15):
the honeymoon phase and what wehad to offer didn't seem all
that important.
I guess I'm speaking to youparents for a second here just
to say I can tell you thatanything you can do to develop
skills patterns in your life,the way you communicate with
(18:36):
your children along the lines ofbuilding that trusting
relationship between you andthem, resolving issues in a fair
and consistent way, a wholehost of things.
If you can learn to do thatearly and develop the patterns
now, you will prevent the needfor possibly therapy.
You'll prevent the need formore extreme measures to try and
(18:59):
correct the situation insideyour home.
Another question might be whatif you're a parent and you've
got a co-parent who's disengagedand you're the intentional
parent and it's almost like themore intentional you are, the
less engaged they become and youget this cycle going and you
might call it the overfunctioner parent and the under
(19:21):
functional parent, and that's areal pattern.
It's a real cycle that takesplace.
My advice to you would be totry to understand where your
co-parent is at Review somethings like the stages of change
that Prochaska has put together.
Try to think about where is myco-parent at today.
(19:43):
How can I invite him to justtake that next step or her to
take that next step?
Because there's a lot of powerin the two of you being engaged
in the process together.
The most intentional thing youcan do to be an intentional
parent is actually to work onyourself.
Go back to the very core ofself-awareness and understanding
(20:09):
what it is that are yourtriggers.
How do you manage emotions instressful situations.
Can you stay calm underpressure like that, when a child
doesn't listen to you over andover again and does the same
thing over and over again youtold them not to do?
Can you stay patient in thatsituation while still holding a
(20:29):
boundary?
I kind of surprised my wifebecause she asked me the
question what's one thing you'dsay that I should do to be an
intentional parent?
And I told her that start withyourself.
And she was kind of taken backand she said you know, I've been
this whole time thinking aboutwhat I was going to do in my
(20:51):
parenting role, kind of theaction I was going to take with
my kids, and you flipped that onme and said no, start with you.
And so intentional parenting isactually starting with you.
And that really was kind of afun little aha that the two of
us had together.
You know, over the years atHomeward Bound our process was
(21:14):
to, when a child was in asituation where they were trying
to prevent the need for anout-of-home treatment center or
a wilderness program, we'd go inand give the family the shot in
the arm upfront with a lot ofinformation and they were trying
to stop this downward spiralthat was happening, and so our
(21:38):
model looked like this we wouldget an assessment, basically
over the phone, about what'sgoing on and what are the
challenges happening.
What are the trigger pointsLike?
What are the mood disorders?
Is there anxiety?
Is there depression?
Is there addictions that weneed to address?
What's the parent-childrelationship like?
(21:58):
How do you problem solvetogether?
And so we get a feel for all ofthat, and then we'd go into the
home over the course of threedays.
So it's an evening all day thenext day into the evening and
about a half a day the third day.
A lot of the parents would sayare you gonna stay in our house?
And honestly, we did stay in afew houses along the way, and
(22:19):
you can imagine all theinformation and data you would
pick up by being in the home ofa family that's struggling.
There's no hiding right.
You get to see it with your owneyes all the non-verbal, the
eye-rolling, the stompingupstairs, going to their bedroom
when a difficult topic comes up, when a boundary is trying to
(22:39):
be held.
You get to see all of that.
Often you don't see that in aregular therapy situation, and
so then what we would do is wewould sort of download for the
family and the parents inparticular.
But all of these parentingprinciples and techniques and
(23:00):
skills.
We would teach them how tocommunicate with one another and
then we would, on purpose,bring up some of the challenging
topics they had and then we'dcoach them through it, almost
like holding their hand whilethey are trying to resolve an
issue that has been troublingthe family for a very long time
(23:22):
and they've never beensuccessful at it.
But with you standing kind ofover their shoulder, whispering
in their ear, reminding them ofthe skills they're trying to use
, they suddenly became reallygood.
They'd manage their emotionsbetter.
They'd take a time out if theyneeded it.
If the child stomped upstairsand slammed the door, they
(23:44):
didn't come yelling after thembecause we're holding them back,
saying, hey, just give them afew minutes.
And then we'd reconvene andbring when the teen was ready
again, and what would happen inthose moments is they would see
what intentional parenting feltlike and looked like, and it was
(24:06):
bridling themselves at timeswhen they needed to.
It was to sit back and actuallyreally listen and be changed by
what the teen was telling them.
It was to withhold judgment andlet the process play out until
(24:26):
they could find out where theirwants overlapped each other and
ultimately they'd come down to aplan on how to handle things
like how much screen time shouldwe allow them to have and when
should they have the screen time?
How does that interplay withtheir other things?
(24:47):
They need to do theresponsibilities, the chores.
But what was so fun to observehere is that the effect of them
intentionally doing it really,really well with the help of a
coach was that they had verydifferent outcomes around these
conversations and around thebehaviors, and obviously the
(25:09):
collapse of the dynamicswouldn't collapse like it
normally would around thesetopics.
And what it did is it made themkind of say you know what,
applying principles, beingthoughtful about the way I
communicate, holding a boundaryeven though part of me wants to
(25:31):
avoid the conflict, but doing itin a way that's patient and
consistent, it actually works,and so that would.
You'd see the light bulb go offand they'd trust you and they'd
trust the process.
You know there's a big part ofme that wishes I could.
You know, it's that therapistpart of me that wants to be
(25:52):
right in the family system andkind of watch over your shoulder
and remind you of the thingsthat you really wanna do when
you really don't want to do them, and then watch these good
outcomes take place.
Well, here's a little plug forthe app that's coming out soon.
We're really excited about it.
In a lot of ways, it is likehaving a coach in your back
(26:18):
pocket that you can pull out atany time, and it's going to be.
It's going to havenotifications to remind you of
the things you're trying to do.
It's ultimately going to helpall parents who use it be more
intentional with what they'retrying to do.
So I guess my mission tostrengthen, heal and fortify
families is now going to happenthrough the app, and that's
(26:44):
that's really exciting to me.
So just think about what wouldyou do differently if you had a
coach whispering in your eararound everyone else?
Little moments of opportunity,those decision points of how
you're going to handle it.
If this has been helpful to you, I hope you'll like and share
this, this podcast, with yourfriends.
(27:05):
Also go to our website,trustycom that has two Y's on it
T R U S T Y Y dot com and signup for early access for the app
that's coming out, hopefully inSeptember.
Until next time, keep parentingintentionally and notice the
positive impact that has on yourfamily.
(27:25):
Parents, your time is valuableand I'm grateful you spent some
of it with us.
What you're intentionally doingin your home life is inspiring
and unmatched in its importanceand long-term effects.
Ask yourself what am I going todo because of what I've learned
today?
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