September 3, 2025 • 15 mins
#PARENTING – Parenting expert shares six phrases that make kids listen to you. How parents can stop sibling rivalry before it starts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Justin Warsham joins us. We talked about the world of parenting.
Since you are I am. You know, yeah, we are.
We we had kids at some point. It's fun because
I see in you a younger me.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, that's good because I see in you an older being,
not in the not in the runway. But I'm just like,
I just hope it goes as well for me as
it seems to be going for Gary.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
We always talk about the fun stuff, the crazy stuff
that comes with parenting, and you find some really good
stuff there. There's an advocate for mindful parenting guy named
reem Roud.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Or sorry, so.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's a woman. I shouldn't say guy. I just say
guy to be nice. I don't know, and they talk
to it all out. Don't worry Elmer great at this
The six magic phrases that will make your kids listen
to you. Now I know the context. It's kind of
all over the place about when you need them to
(00:53):
listen to you. I the one thing that's not on here,
it's it's it's not a phrase, but it would be
something that I would say, Yeah, is a quick backhand no.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
The one thing I would say is don't talk like
a child to your children, right. That's one of the
things that we were talking earlier about the family isms,
the things that you know linguistically exist in your family
that might not exist in any other group. You're in
funny words, funny phrases, whatever, I never, and that some
of them are driven by the kids coming up with
(01:28):
baby words baby talk, and that you, as a parent, adopt.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It and it never goes away. It's always so cute.
I never, I shouldn't say never.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I tried to talk to my kids as an adult
a lot because I didn't want them to be big,
dumb babies.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, that was one of my dad's like top five
things that he would say a lot that He's like,
I talked to you like you're thirty six because we
don't do baby talk, and he wants you to be
able to have a conversation with adults, which I'm sure
the many adults that my dad was friends with that
I had conversations with were unappreciative of shot this kids
to go away because well, we all don't. He's so great,
(02:07):
but he's got no life experience and nothing interesting to
say with it.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Meanwhile, you got a two figures of whiskey and a
cigar and you're nine.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Talking about sight words and spelling bees.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Uh. I just want to go through these because this
is like, here's what we talk about. I'm I'm a
pretty like emotionally like savvy guy. Like I'm not like
but whenever I call this stuff and it's probably unfair,
but I call it kind of hippie dippy parenting stuff
and I'm just not a fan. Like the first thing
it says is I believe you, Like you have to
confirm that you to the child that you believe what
(02:40):
they're saying.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And I just don't. I don't.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Again, maybe I'm ruining my children, but I think so
many of these things that seem to be coming up
in parenting more and more is this idea that we
want to really cater to their emotional needs. And I
and I'm for that to a certain extent because but
at some point we have to also prepare for the
fact that there are other places are not going to
care about their emotional needs. And we can't expect a
(03:03):
world to shift to everybody's emotional needs all the time.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Like there's not a lot of talk when.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You see these articles about teaching kids to regulate their
own feelings and thoughts well, and just like some sort
of physical capability that you want them to have, they
have to learn how to do it themselves.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, I mean you think of you're not going to
put your kids on a weightlifting regimen. But for them
to develop muscles and musculo skeletal structure, they have to
be able to do sorry, they have to be able
to lift and move heavy things, and sometimes emotionally they
have to figure that stuff out too, to develop that
that same system.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Because we're seeing it more and more.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
They talk about it that it came out with the
tablets at the restaurants and using them as a pacifier.
Then what is coming of it is that people are
growing up with an inability to deal with negative experiences
and emotions because they don't know they don't know how
to process boredom, and they also don't know how to
process just being unhappy or uncomfortable. There's not a lot
of tolerance in that regard. And I don't know how
this is helpful. And the next one is like, let's
(04:04):
figure this out together, Like and if you're dealing with
a smaller child, I think that makes sense, Like showing
some kind of modeling. But to say that this is
always the expectation, I think is unrealistic. At some point
you got to say, listen, dude, clean up your room,
like I'm not going to help you.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Child has a meltdown, this is the third one. You
can feel this, I'm right here. If a child has
a meltdown when their tower of blocks falls, instead of
yelling stop crying, you're overreacting, you say you can feel this,
I'm right here.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
And again, I like to think I'm a nice person,
but I don't know. I really don't understand how that's helpful.
I don't like I get that validating when kids, and
I've done this in different aspects of my kid's life.
There are definitely moments where I'm not as tough on
them because I know that they're in a moment of weakness.
But when they're throwing a temper tantrum, if it's not
(04:55):
in a moment of weakness, like as an example, just
after my dad passed away, it's we're not doing the
best in school. And I wasn't hard on them about
it because I knew they were going through a rough patch,
but I had expectators said, hey, we got to do
stuff to figure this out. But if they were throwing
a full blown fit, I'm not going to say, like,
it's okay to feel what you feel. I'm going to
stand here and wait for you to rudely scream at
(05:18):
your mother until you've done with your feeling right, and
then we can talk about that.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, it would be something along the lines of more
of a I know how pissed you are right now,
but that's going to fade. And when you're done with
it and it starts to fade, then we can talk
right as opposed to the And maybe it's just a
difference in language, the language that you choose to express
the same sentiment, but just you know you can feel that, well,
(05:45):
of course you can.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Why are you telling them that?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
No one's suggesting that they can't feel whatever they're feeling.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
You know, I may have at some point I may
have said, like I had this favorite like famous to
me was this argument they brought in this therapist to
a pta me eating and they were talking about kids
dealing with stress. And I was so new to the
school and everything, and I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I thought I was speaking for the majority.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, I said, I go, wait a minute, I go,
how am I supposed to, like tell my kid that
he's okay to be stressed out about kindergarten Because if
he's stressed out about kindergart that's not real, is what
I said. And the therapist, very patronized, very condescending, was like, well,
it's real to him, and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Like he doesn't know what stress is at five years old.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
He's modeling stress.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Because I was going to say, you can't make up something, right.
They kids may feel something, yes whatever, They may feel something,
but you don't get to then put a label on
it and then push the furniture out of their way
so that they don't get hurt by it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You can't say to a five year old you what
you're feeling is stress and the only way to deal
with stress is to blow off steam or yell at
your parents or beat your cat or something like that.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
How do I may do it?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
But but I mean, they're gonna feel what they are
feeling something. You can't You can't tell them not to
feel the thing. Whatever they're feeling, you don't have to
label it and tell them that it's the thing that's
gonna get them out of work, I feel anxious today,
or I don't want to go to school, I want
to take.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
A psych day. You're in No.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
No, it's okay to feel that thing, it's not okay
to let it paralyze you. And this idea of telling
people to deal or to pull it together, I don't
think is emotionally unintelligent.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I really don't think that at all. I know we
got to go, but this one, I think is kind
of similar. Like I hear you, I'm on your side,
and I know that probably in ninety percent of scenarios
where your kid is not upset with you, right, or
something you're asking them to do, maybe it's something at
school with a friend, you are on their side. I
get that, But to put it in this context of
saying that parents always have to be on their kid's side,
(07:52):
it's just not real.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
There have been times where even though.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
My kid's teacher was a colossal a hole that what
I asked my kid to do he didn't do, And
so I'm like, this is on you, Like you, if
you would have done what I asked you to do,
I'd be on your side. I would be on your
side and we could go after this a whole teacher together,
but you decided to, Like, I'm about to.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Take the leash off my dad, He's gonna come at you,
and he's gonna send a sternly worded email. That's not
gonna work. Man. We're talking with Justin about some parenting stuff.
Your kids are they rivals? Yes? Sibling rival really? So?
Is it because they're close in age? Is because they're
both I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
That's I don't know, because that's the tough part about
parenting is that you don't have you only have your
two kids, and you look at other people, but there's
so many variables that are involved that you can't even
It's hard, I think, to really truly compare because.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Plus you don't like other people's kids for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So because mine are perfect, well, I wouldn't go that far,
but I would.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I will fight you right here.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
The point is my kids are better than your scary
that's all the people I don't know. Okay, uh so
they they have this rivalry. I think it comes more
from my young younger son. For whatever reason, my dad
gave me this advice when I was having a second one.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I said, what do you think he goes? All?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I could tell you is that don't make the older one,
which is Jacob, like, let the other one win. He said,
when I was a kid, your grandparents used to do
that all the time, and he said it would frustrate me.
But he goes, I think it also made my brother
angry too. And they don't get along. They've never got
along their entire life. My kids have big bursts of
getting along and having fun and hanging out with each
(09:28):
other when one of them leaves to go do like
a school thing for a few days and they miss
each other. But there's always like the younger one's always.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Like, oh, well I didn't do that. Did you know
that I did this better than Jacob?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
But he's always and so I've tried to address it
in multiple ways. What seems to be working now is
the minute he says anything like that, I go, this
is why I know you are the superior person in
every way imaginable. Both your mother and I think you
are the best and you are the favorite.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Like I just keep wating that.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
And he goes, no, no, and I go, I don't
know what you is that what you want to hear?
Is that why you're bringing this up? Because otherwise there's
no reason like, and when they fight, I've brought up
the idea and like, you guys know that you're here
so that you have partners in life when your mom
and I are gone. I also throw their mother under
bus and this is all your mom wanted. So you
can't fight. You have to get along. Otherwise you're just
(10:18):
exactly yeah, guilt and shame.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
That's works right well.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And I have two older sisters. I don't ever feel
like I had any sort of sibling rivalry. I didn't
see it between between the two of either we're just
we're all busy. We all we all had busy stuff.
I mean there were times when, for example, they were
close enough in age that they'd play on the same
teams or they were part of the same groups kind
(10:42):
of thing. But I never saw it as a as
a rivalry between the age gap between you all.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Three years each.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So oldest sister three years comes my next sister, and
then three years comes me. Okay, so it's uh, you know,
close enough that I knew a lot of their friend ends.
But by the time I started high school, my oldest
sister was in college, so there was enough of a
gap there. I guess that we weren't too close.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
My kids are about two and a half years apart,
and maybe it is. I do wonder if it was
a girl, if it would make any difference, because I
feel like that makes it for whatever reason, that makes
a separation in the competition.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Of But I also think I mean, my son is
older than my son is twenty five and our daughter's
twenty three. Okay, so there's probably a discussion between the
two of them where he thinks she's the favorite because
she was the baby, because she's a girl, because you
know all of that stuff.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Do you think she thinks the other way around, because
I don't know. That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I think my younger one thinks that the older one
is the favorite. He's kind of expressed that that we
do a lot for him and what I've expressed him like, well,
he also articulates what he wants very clearly, Like he's like,
if you come to us and say this is what
I would like to do, if you think back everything
that you've said, if it's within reason, we do it,
like we try to make it a thing. But that's
the other thing that that is so hard to get
(12:06):
a kid to do, is Okay, stop thinking about us
in the context of your sibling, think about us in
the context of just you.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
And to go back what we're saying in the first
segment about you know, I'm on your side, think about
all the times I've been on your side, right versus
the times you think I've been on your sister's side
or your brother's side or something. And and just remember
there are plenty of times when you got something that
they didn't, yes or vice versa.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I mean, but that's I want to.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Rattle these off because some of them are says, don't compare. Ever,
I was very good at that. I don't think I
ever said, ohy, can't you be more like your brother
one on one time? Also good with that? Or teach
teamwork not competition.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I try to. That's what I'm guilting by saying you're
supposed to get to get along together. Model conflict resolution,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I mean, I do that maybe in my marriage, but
like I have Also, it says later on to like
step back sometimes, let them have their own art. I've
done that a lot, Like let them kind of work
out their differences.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Do they ever ask you about your relationships with your siblings? No,
because I think there's not much there, like and they
don't see you probably interact with them very often. No,
my like my brother would be the one that they
would have seen the most. And like my brother's just
not a talker and I am.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And like they know that after my dad passed away,
my brother and I had like an argument and that
even that shifted our relationship even more. But I don't think. Yeah,
I haven't been able to model that at all. Unfortunately
I suck at that.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Okay, it's okay, that's why you're here. We're here to
talk to fix me, celebrate the joys off. What about respect?
Birth order? I hate this.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I don't know why my son there's maybe this is
why I hate this. My son recently, like not in
an argument, just a conversation about life, he drops this
thing like I we can never understand him where he
says I'm the only first born in our family. I
both want to throw up and punch him in the
throat at the same time, but at the same time,
(13:58):
I can't argue it, like I just technically, yes, correct, he's.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Correct, He's absolutely correct. I just said, you're right.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
The birth order thing means that my thirty years of
life experience are irrelevant to you, and I can't provide
any help to you, you poor poor thing.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
You might as well call social service art. Oh, it's funny.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And then sibling bonds can be life strongest friendships. Yeah
they can, But do.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
They need to be Like are you you seem from
the outside you seem super close to your sisters. Is
that fair to say?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Or no, I'm close. I wouldn't say super close. I'm close.
I don't talk to them forever. I shouldn't say I
talked to them once a week pretty regular.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
That's great. Maybe once every two weeks pretty regular. That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And it's only happened within the last couple of years.
For part of it is just out of necessity, but
our parents got sick and died and and but it's
also one of the acknowledgements like, Okay, we're not as
busy as we used to be. We're not constantly traveling
for the kids' sports or that kind of thing, so
there is more time to just kind of catch up.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's great, So I look forward to that.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, this kind of happens since my dad passed away,
where I feel like I talked to my niece and
nephews and my brother and sister more than I did before.
Before I would only see him twice a year and
never talked to him throughout the year ever, and even
when you saw them, you wouldn't talk to not my
brother because he just he wants to just watch hunting
videos on the film. Sure, I'm sure he's a great dad.
Thank you, Thanks Justin
Justin Warsham joins us. We talked about the world of parenting.
Since you are I am. You know, yeah, we are.
We we had kids at some point. It's fun because
I see in you a younger me.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, that's good because I see in you an older being,
not in the not in the runway. But I'm just like,
I just hope it goes as well for me as
it seems to be going for Gary.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
We always talk about the fun stuff, the crazy stuff
that comes with parenting, and you find some really good
stuff there. There's an advocate for mindful parenting guy named
reem Roud.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Or sorry, so.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's a woman. I shouldn't say guy. I just say
guy to be nice. I don't know, and they talk
to it all out. Don't worry Elmer great at this
The six magic phrases that will make your kids listen
to you. Now I know the context. It's kind of
all over the place about when you need them to
(00:53):
listen to you. I the one thing that's not on here,
it's it's it's not a phrase, but it would be
something that I would say, Yeah, is a quick backhand no.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
The one thing I would say is don't talk like
a child to your children, right. That's one of the
things that we were talking earlier about the family isms,
the things that you know linguistically exist in your family
that might not exist in any other group. You're in
funny words, funny phrases, whatever, I never, and that some
of them are driven by the kids coming up with
(01:28):
baby words baby talk, and that you, as a parent, adopt.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It and it never goes away. It's always so cute.
I never, I shouldn't say never.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I tried to talk to my kids as an adult
a lot because I didn't want them to be big,
dumb babies.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, that was one of my dad's like top five
things that he would say a lot that He's like,
I talked to you like you're thirty six because we
don't do baby talk, and he wants you to be
able to have a conversation with adults, which I'm sure
the many adults that my dad was friends with that
I had conversations with were unappreciative of shot this kids
to go away because well, we all don't. He's so great,
(02:07):
but he's got no life experience and nothing interesting to
say with it.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Meanwhile, you got a two figures of whiskey and a
cigar and you're nine.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Talking about sight words and spelling bees.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Uh. I just want to go through these because this
is like, here's what we talk about. I'm I'm a
pretty like emotionally like savvy guy. Like I'm not like
but whenever I call this stuff and it's probably unfair,
but I call it kind of hippie dippy parenting stuff
and I'm just not a fan. Like the first thing
it says is I believe you, Like you have to
confirm that you to the child that you believe what
(02:40):
they're saying.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And I just don't. I don't.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Again, maybe I'm ruining my children, but I think so
many of these things that seem to be coming up
in parenting more and more is this idea that we
want to really cater to their emotional needs. And I
and I'm for that to a certain extent because but
at some point we have to also prepare for the
fact that there are other places are not going to
care about their emotional needs. And we can't expect a
(03:03):
world to shift to everybody's emotional needs all the time.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Like there's not a lot of talk when.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You see these articles about teaching kids to regulate their
own feelings and thoughts well, and just like some sort
of physical capability that you want them to have, they
have to learn how to do it themselves.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, I mean you think of you're not going to
put your kids on a weightlifting regimen. But for them
to develop muscles and musculo skeletal structure, they have to
be able to do sorry, they have to be able
to lift and move heavy things, and sometimes emotionally they
have to figure that stuff out too, to develop that
that same system.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Because we're seeing it more and more.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
They talk about it that it came out with the
tablets at the restaurants and using them as a pacifier.
Then what is coming of it is that people are
growing up with an inability to deal with negative experiences
and emotions because they don't know they don't know how
to process boredom, and they also don't know how to
process just being unhappy or uncomfortable. There's not a lot
of tolerance in that regard. And I don't know how
this is helpful. And the next one is like, let's
(04:04):
figure this out together, Like and if you're dealing with
a smaller child, I think that makes sense, Like showing
some kind of modeling. But to say that this is
always the expectation, I think is unrealistic. At some point
you got to say, listen, dude, clean up your room,
like I'm not going to help you.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Child has a meltdown, this is the third one. You
can feel this, I'm right here. If a child has
a meltdown when their tower of blocks falls, instead of
yelling stop crying, you're overreacting, you say you can feel this,
I'm right here.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
And again, I like to think I'm a nice person,
but I don't know. I really don't understand how that's helpful.
I don't like I get that validating when kids, and
I've done this in different aspects of my kid's life.
There are definitely moments where I'm not as tough on
them because I know that they're in a moment of weakness.
But when they're throwing a temper tantrum, if it's not
(04:55):
in a moment of weakness, like as an example, just
after my dad passed away, it's we're not doing the
best in school. And I wasn't hard on them about
it because I knew they were going through a rough patch,
but I had expectators said, hey, we got to do
stuff to figure this out. But if they were throwing
a full blown fit, I'm not going to say, like,
it's okay to feel what you feel. I'm going to
stand here and wait for you to rudely scream at
(05:18):
your mother until you've done with your feeling right, and
then we can talk about that.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, it would be something along the lines of more
of a I know how pissed you are right now,
but that's going to fade. And when you're done with
it and it starts to fade, then we can talk
right as opposed to the And maybe it's just a
difference in language, the language that you choose to express
the same sentiment, but just you know you can feel that, well,
(05:45):
of course you can.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Why are you telling them that?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
No one's suggesting that they can't feel whatever they're feeling.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
You know, I may have at some point I may
have said, like I had this favorite like famous to
me was this argument they brought in this therapist to
a pta me eating and they were talking about kids
dealing with stress. And I was so new to the
school and everything, and I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I thought I was speaking for the majority.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, I said, I go, wait a minute, I go,
how am I supposed to, like tell my kid that
he's okay to be stressed out about kindergarten Because if
he's stressed out about kindergart that's not real, is what
I said. And the therapist, very patronized, very condescending, was like, well,
it's real to him, and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Like he doesn't know what stress is at five years old.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
He's modeling stress.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Because I was going to say, you can't make up something, right.
They kids may feel something, yes whatever, They may feel something,
but you don't get to then put a label on
it and then push the furniture out of their way
so that they don't get hurt by it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You can't say to a five year old you what
you're feeling is stress and the only way to deal
with stress is to blow off steam or yell at
your parents or beat your cat or something like that.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
How do I may do it?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
But but I mean, they're gonna feel what they are
feeling something. You can't You can't tell them not to
feel the thing. Whatever they're feeling, you don't have to
label it and tell them that it's the thing that's
gonna get them out of work, I feel anxious today,
or I don't want to go to school, I want
to take.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
A psych day. You're in No.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
No, it's okay to feel that thing, it's not okay
to let it paralyze you. And this idea of telling
people to deal or to pull it together, I don't
think is emotionally unintelligent.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I really don't think that at all. I know we
got to go, but this one, I think is kind
of similar. Like I hear you, I'm on your side,
and I know that probably in ninety percent of scenarios
where your kid is not upset with you, right, or
something you're asking them to do, maybe it's something at
school with a friend, you are on their side. I
get that, But to put it in this context of
saying that parents always have to be on their kid's side,
(07:52):
it's just not real.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
There have been times where even though.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
My kid's teacher was a colossal a hole that what
I asked my kid to do he didn't do, And
so I'm like, this is on you, Like you, if
you would have done what I asked you to do,
I'd be on your side. I would be on your
side and we could go after this a whole teacher together,
but you decided to, Like, I'm about to.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Take the leash off my dad, He's gonna come at you,
and he's gonna send a sternly worded email. That's not
gonna work. Man. We're talking with Justin about some parenting stuff.
Your kids are they rivals? Yes? Sibling rival really? So?
Is it because they're close in age? Is because they're
both I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
That's I don't know, because that's the tough part about
parenting is that you don't have you only have your
two kids, and you look at other people, but there's
so many variables that are involved that you can't even
It's hard, I think, to really truly compare because.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Plus you don't like other people's kids for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So because mine are perfect, well, I wouldn't go that far,
but I would.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I will fight you right here.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
The point is my kids are better than your scary
that's all the people I don't know. Okay, uh so
they they have this rivalry. I think it comes more
from my young younger son. For whatever reason, my dad
gave me this advice when I was having a second one.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I said, what do you think he goes? All?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I could tell you is that don't make the older one,
which is Jacob, like, let the other one win. He said,
when I was a kid, your grandparents used to do
that all the time, and he said it would frustrate me.
But he goes, I think it also made my brother
angry too. And they don't get along. They've never got
along their entire life. My kids have big bursts of
getting along and having fun and hanging out with each
(09:28):
other when one of them leaves to go do like
a school thing for a few days and they miss
each other. But there's always like the younger one's always.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Like, oh, well I didn't do that. Did you know
that I did this better than Jacob?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
But he's always and so I've tried to address it
in multiple ways. What seems to be working now is
the minute he says anything like that, I go, this
is why I know you are the superior person in
every way imaginable. Both your mother and I think you
are the best and you are the favorite.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Like I just keep wating that.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
And he goes, no, no, and I go, I don't
know what you is that what you want to hear?
Is that why you're bringing this up? Because otherwise there's
no reason like, and when they fight, I've brought up
the idea and like, you guys know that you're here
so that you have partners in life when your mom
and I are gone. I also throw their mother under
bus and this is all your mom wanted. So you
can't fight. You have to get along. Otherwise you're just
(10:18):
exactly yeah, guilt and shame.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
That's works right well.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And I have two older sisters. I don't ever feel
like I had any sort of sibling rivalry. I didn't
see it between between the two of either we're just
we're all busy. We all we all had busy stuff.
I mean there were times when, for example, they were
close enough in age that they'd play on the same
teams or they were part of the same groups kind
(10:42):
of thing. But I never saw it as a as
a rivalry between the age gap between you all.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Three years each.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So oldest sister three years comes my next sister, and
then three years comes me. Okay, so it's uh, you know,
close enough that I knew a lot of their friend ends.
But by the time I started high school, my oldest
sister was in college, so there was enough of a
gap there. I guess that we weren't too close.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
My kids are about two and a half years apart,
and maybe it is. I do wonder if it was
a girl, if it would make any difference, because I
feel like that makes it for whatever reason, that makes
a separation in the competition.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Of But I also think I mean, my son is
older than my son is twenty five and our daughter's
twenty three. Okay, so there's probably a discussion between the
two of them where he thinks she's the favorite because
she was the baby, because she's a girl, because you
know all of that stuff.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Do you think she thinks the other way around, because
I don't know. That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I think my younger one thinks that the older one
is the favorite. He's kind of expressed that that we
do a lot for him and what I've expressed him like, well,
he also articulates what he wants very clearly, Like he's like,
if you come to us and say this is what
I would like to do, if you think back everything
that you've said, if it's within reason, we do it,
like we try to make it a thing. But that's
the other thing that that is so hard to get
(12:06):
a kid to do, is Okay, stop thinking about us
in the context of your sibling, think about us in
the context of just you.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
And to go back what we're saying in the first
segment about you know, I'm on your side, think about
all the times I've been on your side, right versus
the times you think I've been on your sister's side
or your brother's side or something. And and just remember
there are plenty of times when you got something that
they didn't, yes or vice versa.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I mean, but that's I want to.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Rattle these off because some of them are says, don't compare. Ever,
I was very good at that. I don't think I
ever said, ohy, can't you be more like your brother
one on one time? Also good with that? Or teach
teamwork not competition.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I try to. That's what I'm guilting by saying you're
supposed to get to get along together. Model conflict resolution,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I mean, I do that maybe in my marriage, but
like I have Also, it says later on to like
step back sometimes, let them have their own art. I've
done that a lot, Like let them kind of work
out their differences.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Do they ever ask you about your relationships with your siblings? No,
because I think there's not much there, like and they
don't see you probably interact with them very often. No,
my like my brother would be the one that they
would have seen the most. And like my brother's just
not a talker and I am.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And like they know that after my dad passed away,
my brother and I had like an argument and that
even that shifted our relationship even more. But I don't think. Yeah,
I haven't been able to model that at all. Unfortunately
I suck at that.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Okay, it's okay, that's why you're here. We're here to
talk to fix me, celebrate the joys off. What about respect?
Birth order? I hate this.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I don't know why my son there's maybe this is
why I hate this. My son recently, like not in
an argument, just a conversation about life, he drops this
thing like I we can never understand him where he
says I'm the only first born in our family. I
both want to throw up and punch him in the
throat at the same time, but at the same time,
(13:58):
I can't argue it, like I just technically, yes, correct, he's.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Correct, He's absolutely correct. I just said, you're right.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
The birth order thing means that my thirty years of
life experience are irrelevant to you, and I can't provide
any help to you, you poor poor thing.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
You might as well call social service art. Oh, it's funny.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And then sibling bonds can be life strongest friendships. Yeah
they can, But do.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
They need to be Like are you you seem from
the outside you seem super close to your sisters. Is
that fair to say?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Or no, I'm close. I wouldn't say super close. I'm close.
I don't talk to them forever. I shouldn't say I
talked to them once a week pretty regular.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
That's great. Maybe once every two weeks pretty regular. That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And it's only happened within the last couple of years.
For part of it is just out of necessity, but
our parents got sick and died and and but it's
also one of the acknowledgements like, Okay, we're not as
busy as we used to be. We're not constantly traveling
for the kids' sports or that kind of thing, so
there is more time to just kind of catch up.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's great, So I look forward to that.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, this kind of happens since my dad passed away,
where I feel like I talked to my niece and
nephews and my brother and sister more than I did before.
Before I would only see him twice a year and
never talked to him throughout the year ever, and even
when you saw them, you wouldn't talk to not my
brother because he just he wants to just watch hunting
videos on the film. Sure, I'm sure he's a great dad.
Thank you, Thanks Justin
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