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Y'all, the facial expressions in this one are priceless - if you aren't already, go watch this episode on YouTube lol! I swear it's worth it.
Praising your kids is GOOD, right? It's positive reinforcement, it's connection, it's showing your kids you're proud of them and you get to celebrate together! Yes. And no. Not all praise is created equal when it comes to parenting.
There is praise that builds outer-reward/response systems that turn our kids into people pleasers.
And there is praise that builds a child's INNER reward system which results in self-confidence, self-trust, worthiness and resilience to failure.
Consciously praising our kids in a way that puts the choice, desire and power back in THEIR hands is KEY. Listen up to learn more and see how these SUPER SIMPLE shifts can benefit all of the relationships in your life.
Happy Parenting and Good Luck Out There!
Episode Resources:
The High 5 Study: "Ambiguous praise, similar to verbal effort praise, produced higher persistence and self-evaluations, and fewer fixations on error after failure compared to verbal trait praise. Interestingly, gestures produced the highest self-evaluations. Thus, praise without explicit attributions motivated as well or better than praise explicitly focused on effort, which may suggest that children interpret ambiguous praise in the most beneficial manner." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4145712/
Effort vs. Outcome Praise: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6176062/
Praising your kids is GOOD, right? It's positive reinforcement, it's connection, it's showing your kids you're proud of them and you get to celebrate together! Yes. And no. Not all praise is created equal when it comes to parenting.
There is praise that builds outer-reward/response systems that turn our kids into people pleasers.
And there is praise that builds a child's INNER reward system which results in self-confidence, self-trust, worthiness and resilience to failure.
Consciously praising our kids in a way that puts the choice, desire and power back in THEIR hands is KEY. Listen up to learn more and see how these SUPER SIMPLE shifts can benefit all of the relationships in your life.
Happy Parenting and Good Luck Out There!
Episode Resources:
The High 5 Study: "Ambiguous praise, similar to verbal effort praise, produced higher persistence and self-evaluations, and fewer fixations on error after failure compared to verbal trait praise. Interestingly, gestures produced the highest self-evaluations. Thus, praise without explicit attributions motivated as well or better than praise explicitly focused on effort, which may suggest that children interpret ambiguous praise in the most beneficial manner." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4145712/
Effort vs. Outcome Praise: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6176062/
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Please leave us a review! Your feedback helps others find us, and helps us grow so we can keep creating content for parents to benefit from.
Happy Parenting and Good Luck Out There!
Help us do what we do with a small monthly contribution: https://www.patreon.com/TheRelationalParentCoach/membership
Join the WAITLIST for The Relational Parenting Village! - A New Monthly Membership Program where parents gather for community, growth, accountability and support. PLUS ongoing monthly live events, classes and education resources to keep you motivated and growing on your parenting journey. Let's do this!!
Find me or book a free consult:
Website: https://www.jenniebee.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therelationalparentingpodcast/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.hayes.507
TikTok: @therelationalparentcoach.
Sign up for the weekly newsletter here for a weekly parenting tip!
Please leave us a review! Your feedback helps others find us, and helps us grow so we can keep creating content for parents to benefit from.
Happy Parenting and Good Luck Out There!
Creators & Guests
Host
Jennifer Hayes
Host
Rick Hayes
NL
Editor
Natalie Long
What is The Relational Parenting Podcast?
Welcome to the Relational Parenting Podcast! I’m Jennifer Hayes – a Parent Coach and 20 year Childcare Veteran. Each week I sit down with my own father (and cohost), Rick Hayes, and discuss the complicated issues that parents face today, as well as some of the oldest questions in the book. From the latest research and the framework of my Relational Parenting Method, we offer thought-provoking solutions to your deepest parenting struggles.
Relational Parenting is an evidence and experience based parenting method created by me - Jennie. After 20 years in the child care world, in every scenario you could possibly imagine, I realized one thing: EVERYONE was prioritizing the behavior and performance of a child over their emotional well-being. This frustrated me to no end and when I re-visited the latest research, I realized there was a better way. I started applying the principles I'd been learning in my own self-work, parent-child relationships, and partnerships, and I started gobbling up all the new research and books I could get my hands on. When I saw the results of putting these practices into play with the children I was taking care of - the difference in myself AND the kids I worked with was ASTOUNDING.
I am SO PROUD to be presenting Relational Parenting to the world. I can't wait to hear about your own journey. From Parents-to-be to the seasoned parenting veteran - there's something here for everyone!
Jennie (00:01.73)
All right, you ready? I hit record, so we're on.
Papa Rick (00:02.791)
Ready.
Jennie (00:06.286)
We're officially on. Oh, you're going to do the intro this week.
Papa Rick (00:07.505)
Welcome aboard, everybody.
Papa Rick (00:15.137)
No, you won't, but I could do that sometime. Not this week, but yeah.
Jennie (00:20.874)
I like it. I think welcome aboard was great. I think that's it.
Um, awesome. Yeah. Hi, we're on the, you're on the relational parenting podcast guys. Um, in case you didn't know that, uh, episode 28, we are over halfway through a year.
Papa Rick (00:32.189)
Hahaha.
Papa Rick (00:42.714)
Tugging along.
Jennie (00:44.686)
Crazy. And we're booked out for the rest of the year.
Papa Rick (00:45.673)
It's funny what happens when you just sit down and start doing things. It's amazing how soon it becomes a habit.
Jennie (00:52.158)
Every, you know, every business coach is just like, just start, do it messy, do it dumb, do it terrible, like be off. I tell, now when I tell people like, yeah, I have a podcast, I'm like, oh my God, I wanna go listen to it. I'm like, okay, but like start on episode like 10 or 11, please. Like, please don't listen to episode one.
Papa Rick (00:55.205)
Yeah, go do it.
Papa Rick (01:06.573)
I've, I've seen that in other, uh, podcasting things do 15 and then start releasing them was the one I heard. Yeah. Get your mic squared away and you know.
Jennie (01:14.701)
Yeah.
Jennie (01:18.89)
Or just like, just, I don't, like, yeah, just like the way, the setup, the camera angle, we're still not pros by any means, but we have a consistent look and I don't, I feel like we just talk more smoothly and we're more comfortable and all of the things. And we've hit a little bit of a flow. I posted a couple days ago, like, I was like, you know,
Papa Rick (01:36.497)
Getting in a groove. Yeah.
Jennie (01:47.782)
wondering if the relational parenting podcast is for you. And then I posted slides of like, I was like this, you know, a peek inside a typical episode. And it was one that I created randomly. I hadn't really thought about it. It was just like, I should do a post about like, if people haven't listened yet, like, here's what to expect. And we kind of started this
Papa Rick (01:56.841)
Bye.
Papa Rick (02:10.77)
There you go.
Jennie (02:16.926)
I jot down bullet points. I'm like, okay, this is what we're going to talk about this week. It's extremely random. There's millions of topics on parenting and life skills and endless talking points. And so I just pick one every week that either is coming up with questions from parents or is in the news or whatever. And
I literally just jot down bullet points the night before and I'm like, Hey, go read these before we jump on camera and then we talk about it.
Papa Rick (02:45.125)
Yeah, yeah, that's good to have an outline. Yeah, it's good to have an outline. You don't want it scripted, but.
Jennie (02:52.526)
But we have a flow, like a very natural flow emerged. And so I was able to write that. Like we usually start by introducing our topic and then we talk about our own experiences with that topic. And then we pull out all the different pieces of that topic and then we offer solutions and mindset options and research and all of these things. And then there's usually some discussion or digging into like,
your parenting or our parent child past and having those sometimes difficult conversations. Then we kind of wrap up. I said, I was like, along the way, there's usually some kind of silly story or dad joke or ADHD tangent. But I was writing it and I was like, oh, we started without a plan, but we very naturally hit a flow in our episodes of the way things normally go.
Papa Rick (03:22.018)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (03:45.937)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jennie (03:49.778)
It was just kind of cool to see because I was just like.
Papa Rick (03:51.665)
Yeah, I like the pieces where, you know, there's some situation and I go, well, this, I remember handling a situation like that, like this, days of your, and here's how I do it now. And then hearing your side of, yeah, you know, I feel like I'm getting up there. And, and then hearing your, your take on, well, okay. I've, I've taken care of a hundred kids or whatever, you know, with broader experience and, uh, and here in
Jennie (04:04.642)
Days of yore.
Papa Rick (04:21.409)
other better ideas, you know, you're never done coming up with new ideas and trying to implement them. Especially in the middle of a stressful situation, you know, when you just want to grab them by the hair and say come over here and sit down. Use your words.
Jennie (04:38.514)
Right? That was always a thing in yoga training was that in the years that I was studying, hands-on adjustments were starting, there were a lot of sexual harassment things coming out.
Papa Rick (04:41.757)
Hahaha
Papa Rick (04:59.599)
Oh lord, yeah.
Jennie (05:00.594)
of like really world renowned yoga masters who all of a sudden had like 40 women with sexual assault cases against him and stuff like that. And so the yogic world was moving away from physical adjustments. And one of my yoga teachers would always say the sign of a really well-
Papa Rick (05:09.585)
Making accusations, yeah, yeah.
Papa Rick (05:21.626)
Yeah, no touching. Ugh.
Jennie (05:28.766)
rounded teacher is that you can adjust someone's body with your words. You can make them feel the adjustment in their body using your words. You don't have to touch them. And
Papa Rick (05:39.241)
We have to bring the focus of their mind to their body. Yeah, boy, that would take that's it's like in it. You're being able to solve problems over the phone because you can picture the situation, you know, being able to communicate to someone remotely on what's going on inside their body and their mind. Yeah. That would take practice.
Jennie (05:43.649)
Yeah.
Jennie (05:50.71)
Yep. Yes.
Jennie (05:58.638)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it would take literal practice. Like, being able to do that, being able to use the right word to target a part of their body connected to their brain, you had to do the sequence you were teaching yourself. There was no showing up and teaching a sequence that you hadn't put in your own body.
Papa Rick (06:12.072)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (06:19.429)
Yeah, yeah, personal experience. You're sharing experience, not just repeating words out of a book.
Jennie (06:21.966)
So anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah, sharing experience. So anyway, that's fun. Our topic today is praise. So the way that we praise our children sets them up for success or failure in short term and long term. And the study that I want, there've been multiple studies, but...
Papa Rick (06:35.945)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Jennie (06:58.006)
They have studied, they've taken children, very young children.
Jennie (07:05.358)
and put them into two groups. And they've studied the effects of different kinds of praise on the two different groups. And the groups, group one was praised based on outcomes and achievements and goals met. And group two was praised on effort, hard work, perseverance, getting back up after a failure,
creativity. So group two was all praised for all the steps along the way to the goal, and group one was only praised when they achieved a goal. And group one represents what we do to our children most of the time as adults who are well-intentioned and encouraging our kids to make goals and hit goals.
schools who want kids to get good grades and learn things. Like the intention is to encourage learning. But well, we'll talk about the effects later. So group one, based on outcomes and goals and achievements models what most of the world, how most of the world praises people and specifically children. And group two models
The encouragement of the mindset, which is much more, what much healthier and serves you better throughout your life long-term is encouraging, enjoying the journey and what strengths that I do have and learning along the way and failing and getting back up and finding new ways to do things and problem solving and persevering. Those, that group models
a different mindset and a different approach to life where you're happy no matter what's going on. You're trying your best. Your worth is based on just you being a good human and not on checking boxes that someone else decided makes you a good human and things like that. So those two groups were obviously studied side by side and what they found from that
Papa Rick (09:17.13)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (09:30.87)
and from multiple studies that mirror it, is that the group one that was praised solely for outcomes actually started having a lower performance, achieving fewer outcomes, and having much lower motivation because there was no praise along the way. They weren't praised for their intrinsic value and their contribution to the project or to the topic.
only praised if they achieved the thing. And so failure, their resilience to failure plummeted because if they failed, they just fell apart because they didn't achieve the first time.
Papa Rick (10:12.453)
Yep. They can no longer top their last achievement. So yeah, that would be discouraging. No more praise.
Jennie (10:20.018)
Um, well, and they also weren't praised for the steps that it takes to achieve the goal along the way. So if they failed, they didn't have anything to fall back on. Like, I worked really hard and that's a good skill to have, so I'm going to try again. Or I came up with a new way of trying something and that's creativity. Even though it didn't work that first time, I have the ability and creativity in me to think of another way.
It was just you failed and didn't achieve the thing. And it just leaves the child empty and with nothing to fall back on. And the group that was praised for the steps that it takes and along the way and the character traits and the perseverance and the creativity and all of those things, they would get up and try again. They would get up and try again. And their performance, they outperformed the achievers every single time.
Papa Rick (10:54.863)
Mm-hmm. Doesn't matter how close you came to it. Yeah.
Papa Rick (11:16.561)
Yep, yep, I can do a little better.
Jennie (11:19.83)
And then, and so I wanted to present that. And then there's another study where they studied the effect of nonverbal praise against any kind of verbal praise. And they found that there was a group of kids who were praised for both achievement and perseverance and skills along the way and all of that.
Papa Rick (11:42.817)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (11:47.454)
and there was a group that was only given high fives.
Papa Rick (11:52.089)
Not hugs, not just high fives.
Jennie (11:54.486)
This particular study, high fives was the point of the study, but it was a physical connection and just a high five celebration. And maybe they said, yeah, or whatever, but it was just a high five and no verbal praise. And they found that in that group, that in that group, the high fived children achieved more, persevered more, were more creative.
Papa Rick (11:58.854)
Okay.
Papa Rick (12:03.905)
Okay. Yeah, that could become a thing. Yeah.
Papa Rick (12:11.729)
Yeah, I can see that being real effective.
Jennie (12:23.894)
when you didn't specify or label them at all, they just felt seen and loved for exactly whatever it was that they were doing. And they would do more of it.
Papa Rick (12:38.217)
There's a little more flexibility too, because just like we have our own pictures in our heads, if you catch your kid being good, I remember a phrase from a book long ago, excuse me, if you just catch them being good and give them a high five, then they're allowed to take that the way they want it. It's not, you're not saying.
Jennie (13:04.364)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (13:05.449)
I'm glad you did this way. You know, it's like that was good at a boy, you know, it's a proud I can see that being a lot more effective rather than analyzing it too much or imposing a parental view on it.
Jennie (13:23.93)
Yeah. And the other piece of that with the high fives is that there's also a physical connecting. So when you are physically connecting either with a teammate or with an adult that loves you or with your peers, there's a heightened sense of celebration and connection and teamwork and validity. And it also bonds people. Like you see teams, you know.
One of the studies with high fives was actually done on NBA players. And, um, yeah. And so you see like, like in volleyball, we would, we would walk through, like we would form two lines of our team, uh, before a game and we'd walk through and high five each other and then smack each other on the butt, um, before we played. And we'd be like, let's go, let's go, let's go. And like, we'd connect physically. Um.
Papa Rick (13:56.305)
No way, this is grownups, not just little kids.
Papa Rick (14:08.346)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (14:14.915)
OK. Yeah.
Papa Rick (14:21.062)
Yeah.
Jennie (14:21.986)
before heading out onto the court. And it amps you up and it gets your blood flowing, gets your body, and you're touching your teammates. And nowadays, I don't know that they allow kids sports to touch each other on the butt because there's a whole thing. But back then that was the point is that connecting physically either with your child or with a teammate or with a peer.
Papa Rick (14:26.258)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (14:35.677)
golly, boys and girls split sports and yeah, that would just get all complicated in a lawyer's office. They, uh,
Jennie (14:50.803)
and celebrating, sharing and celebration that way is that much more effective than verbal and labeling.
Papa Rick (14:59.641)
It strikes me as a little ritual or ceremony or something, just like you have a big metal presentation thing at the end of the Olympics, you know, but on a more continuous, you know, a more granular scale, you know, it's like, hey, there's an achievement or something to be looking forward to at every game. Even the next game, if you didn't do your best this game or this chance to compete or whatever it is, there's always tomorrow, you know, and you can do the same thing tomorrow. It's just that.
Jennie (15:18.259)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (15:28.525)
I can't the word atta boy just keeps coming, coming back to my head. You get some encouragement and reward every time.
Jennie (15:37.558)
Well, and after, I just thought of this after the games, like I'm using volleyball as my example, cause that was my favorite thing. We would walk after the game, no matter who won, no matter what the outcome of the game was, you'd walk by the other team and you'd high five and say, good game, good game, good game, good game. And I'm just now realizing I used to, and it was called, it was like being a good sport.
Papa Rick (15:44.413)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (15:56.665)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sportsmanship.
Papa Rick (16:05.513)
sportsmanship exercise.
Jennie (16:06.782)
And just because you're competing doesn't mean you're enemies. And, um, back then in the way things were divvied up, you know, we were from different tribes or from different schools. And so it didn't really register with me why we would do that. I was like, this is stupid. Um, but I see now looking back on it and knowing what I know now is that we were saying good game because we all showed up. We all played really hard. We all gave our best effort. We all.
Papa Rick (16:18.169)
Yeah, yeah, very much.
Jennie (16:35.054)
played as a team with our teammates. And those are all intrinsic values, not outcome values. And so when you're forced to congratulate someone that you competed with, even though we were teenagers and I didn't understand it at the time, I understand it now, I'm actually getting chills talking about it, the importance of physically connecting with an enemy and congratulating them, even if they beat you or if you beat them.
Papa Rick (16:37.18)
Yeah.
Jennie (17:05.59)
Like that's like, that's like, that's powerful. Like community and.
Papa Rick (17:10.637)
It's core. It is. It is. It's distinguishing, teaching you to distinguish between an enemy, you know, this is life threatening warfare, soldier, die or be, you know, kill or be killed and competition and, and the tribal team. It's like, well, he's chosen the, he's chosen the red team. I've chosen the blue team. And so let's see.
Jennie (17:18.722)
Yeah.
Jennie (17:35.874)
Now we must murder each other. Ooh, that's political. That's political. Because we're on different teams, we have to hate each other.
Papa Rick (17:37.253)
Let's see what happens without having to murder anybody. You know? Yeah, it is. Well, it's.
Don't even get me started on the, you know, when public figures start referring to competitors as enemies, that's bad news, baby.
Jennie (17:53.546)
Yeah.
So.
Jennie (17:59.942)
Yeah, so I'm going to bring it back. We're going to not jump into politics today.
Papa Rick (18:03.353)
Yeah, let's not start, let's not touch, let's not light that fuse.
Jennie (18:07.03)
We don't need to further polarize the nation. But I wanted to bring this up. I wanted to introduce this study and then we're gonna jump into a little bit more detailed examples and ways to mitigate the way that you praise children, et cetera. But the goal, the mission statement,
Papa Rick (18:10.023)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (18:14.567)
Ahem.
Jennie (18:36.67)
of this episode is kind of, it's, you know, I don't know if you guys all had posters up in your high schools, like these like motivational posters with like random photos of beautiful things on them. And then it would say, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Or, but there was always one that said and that, that said you, life is about
Papa Rick (18:38.311)
Mmm, mmm.
Papa Rick (18:53.225)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (18:56.605)
That's right.
Jennie (19:08.366)
Oh my gosh, I'm blinking. Life is about the journey, not the destination. And then there's a similar one that's like, life is about...
Papa Rick (19:14.728)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (19:22.554)
isn't about something about like the people you meet along the way. So like surrounding yourself with people, good people that lift you up and support you and all of that. But we tell adults to enjoy the journey, be happy now, be happy where you are now. Don't miss out on experiencing your life because you're so focused on this future goal or this future like vision of when things will someday be perfect or better or...
Papa Rick (19:34.118)
Mm-hmm. Fine good people, yeah.
Jennie (19:49.986)
happier or more relaxed or less chaotic or whatever you think the future achievement is where you'll finally be happy. It's not true. And that never happens. You need to enjoy the life that you're building right now. But for 18 years while you're growing up, we're going to tell you that all that matters is checking this box and getting an A and checking this box and going to college and making sure you get the
Papa Rick (19:58.041)
Yeah.
Jennie (20:18.134)
the A on the paper and the A on the test and take this assessment that tells you how smart you are. And like we, we indoctrinate children into achievement junkies and then they become adults and are sent out into the world to navigate things and, and they crash and fucking burn and they hate their lives and they wonder why they feel like this. And
Papa Rick (20:23.741)
what happens after 12 years, you know, get into whatever.
Papa Rick (20:36.657)
Yeah, burnout. Yeah.
Jennie (20:42.912)
And so.
Papa Rick (20:43.929)
be nice to arm our children to handle that, to be resilient against or within that and take a day, you know, good to teach the kids day at a time, because life changes on a dime. Anybody that's been around a while will tell you, you know, they are not standing where they expect to exact, most people are not standing exactly where they expect it to be five years ago.
You know, stuff happens, car breaks, you know? I'm sure there's somebody that pulls it off and they're probably really annoying. Right. Wouldn't that make you smug? I'm exactly where I thought I was going to be 52 years ago. You know? Oh yeah. Get out of here. Well, or, or what did, what did you have to do?
Jennie (21:13.698)
I don't know anybody who makes a five year plan and ends up exactly where that plan.
Jennie (21:27.118)
Yeah, everyone hates that person.
Jennie (21:35.022)
Well, you sound like a really boring person to be around. Really tedious.
Papa Rick (21:42.409)
to your environment to make that happen. Yeah, you know, that would be hard.
Jennie (21:42.786)
Right? Or to yourself, like, do you even know who you are if you became so ingrained in a specific plan that you didn't grow or change in the five years since you made it? I'm not the same person I was five years ago. I'm not the same person I was a month ago.
Papa Rick (21:52.733)
Hahaha
Papa Rick (21:57.527)
Yeah.
Exactly. Or have the same goals, you know, a lot of times. So yeah, so you just, you gotta be, you gotta go with the flow a little bit because the flow will carry you away. Otherwise, you know, you gotta be prepared for the change. So it's good to teach kids that, I think. You know, it's good to have goals. You gotta have goals or nothing ever happens, but you gotta be able to make new goals when those aren't, when it becomes apparent, those are not gonna work out. Or you change your mind.
Jennie (22:04.504)
Like.
Jennie (22:19.926)
Yeah.
Jennie (22:30.826)
I always, yeah, cause all along the way, you never know when you're gonna like run into.
a new idea or a new way of thinking about something that you're going to be like, Oh, I'm going to tweak the plan. It's not that you make a plan for five years from now and you end up on a completely different path. Some people do. I've done that. I've that's definitely been the definition of my life, but I've always been, I've always been redirected toward the thing that I, my heart actually wants. And that actually fulfills me versus the thing that I'm trying to rationalize myself into doing.
Papa Rick (22:39.969)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (22:45.34)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (23:02.173)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (23:07.961)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (23:08.186)
Um, and
Papa Rick (23:12.969)
It's easier to do things you're connected with. Oh, I'm sorry.
Jennie (23:13.838)
I forgot where I was going.
What did you say before you said?
Papa Rick (23:19.631)
It's hard to do the things that you think you ought to do, I think is what you were saying.
Jennie (23:25.246)
making plans on, so there's a saying called making plans on shifting sands. But my favorite way of thinking about having a plan is that I am going, these are, this is where I want to be in five years. Or this is how much money I want to be making. Or this is, you know, I want to be married. Or I want to have kids by this age. Or I want to
Papa Rick (23:31.964)
Hmm.
Jennie (23:51.594)
Like whatever your grand plan is, make it non-specific. I mean, like I wanna have kids by the time I am this age. Feels specific, but what's specific is, well, I wanna start having kids at this age. So right now I have to take this step and it has to take this step and it has to be this step in order to get there. When in reality,
Papa Rick (23:52.061)
Whatever it is, yeah.
Papa Rick (23:58.278)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Papa Rick (24:17.937)
That's the value of a plan, is you got to work backwards and say, okay, what's my next step? You know, I got to, if I'm going to get there.
Jennie (24:23.338)
Well, no, but in reality, there's no one path that gets you to that goal. You might take four different winding paths and still end up at that goal. But you have to allow life to take you on the journey and teach you the things that you need to know in order to be the person who is ready for that goal to come into their lives. And if we teach
Papa Rick (24:31.241)
And it's true too.
Jennie (24:52.886)
that if we start teaching our children and praising our children only for outcomes or only for checking the right, what we consider to be the right boxes, what society tells you is the right box to success, the right path, then your view becomes tunnel visioned and you suppress all of your own innate urges and heart songs and
Papa Rick (25:04.155)
Mm-hmm. Somebody else's idea. Yeah.
Jennie (25:19.49)
things that you are naturally drawn to and attracted to and good at because you're so focused on this one path to success, this one path to achieve a goal that you miss out on the fucking trees and roses and hills and journey and people that you're going to meet along the way and where you're supposed to go before you get to that point. And a lot of people...
Papa Rick (25:44.753)
Yeah. It becomes inauthentic. It's not you. It's you're, you're running down somebody else's life. Yeah. Somebody else's expectations.
Jennie (25:53.494)
When a lot of people, a lot of high achieving people who are hyper-focused like that, they achieve that goal. So think of people who hit celebrity at a very young age. What do all those teenagers do when they make that much money? And they achieve being successful way too early in life. They self-fucking destruct because they did not.
Papa Rick (26:10.397)
you very often self-destruct.
Papa Rick (26:16.306)
Yeah.
Yeah. And a lot of times, I mean, they're huge. They're not even
Jennie (26:22.838)
They did not take a journey of growth and learning to get them to a place where they could handle that level of success and resources and money. So they were just, they had parents or they themselves were just happened to be extremely driven and told them you have to do these things and achieve this much success, and then you'll be good for the rest of your life. And they achieve it and they're like,
Papa Rick (26:31.089)
Yeah.
Jennie (26:50.05)
they burn it to the ground because they don't want to be doing what they're doing.
Papa Rick (26:51.817)
Yeah. Too much pressure too, too much pressure too soon. What is it? Our brains aren't really fully formed physically, biologically till mid twenties. You know, I thought I've, I've said for years, you know, you can be an athlete to have the same problem. Oh, any, Hollywood professional sports, any place handing a 20 year old a million dollars is just a bad idea. You know, it needs to be.
Jennie (26:59.63)
28.
Jennie (27:18.433)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (27:20.285)
put in escrow till they're about 35 or 30, right? And it's like, okay, now you can take this out and you know, but handing child stars and their parents, and other parents are messing with them. And yeah, a lot of money, a lot of responsibility at too young an age is a bad thing. Businesses in the military, I think, are very big on screening for that.
Jennie (27:23.342)
right?
Papa Rick (27:48.305)
You know, it's like, uh, you, you can see managers who have been brought along too quickly, you know, they, they're, they miss beats, they, yeah, whatever, however it manifests, they are not balanced. They are not, uh, you know, and they, and they end up, uh, tearing things up pretty good or tearing up people along the way. And so there's a, there's a flow to life. You know, you gotta, you gotta take it step by step in it, but it, you know,
Jennie (27:54.926)
Power hungry.
Papa Rick (28:15.793)
developing a kid or ourselves so that we are, okay, here's where I am and I'm okay with that and how I got here, you have to accept. And like your yoga example, you learn it yourself and then so you can teach it to somebody else. And it's like, okay, here's where I am and try to get real about that and then you take it day by day.
David Goggett, I've been doing some reading and there's a lot of, and it's tied up with mindfulness. All these current topics are all meshed together, but these minute by minute decisions we make, you got to be mindful or some version of that to stay in the moment and make good decisions based on your principles. Hopefully your principles are not.
Jennie (28:46.701)
Mmm.
Papa Rick (29:12.165)
principles you've internalized, not something you read out of a book that you decided was a good goal or something somebody told you was a good goal when you were five or 10 or 15. And find your own way. Learn to find your own way and learn from others. But it's baby steps. It's all baby steps because for tomorrow is not promised.
Jennie (29:35.178)
Well, in order to do that, we have to start encouraging that in children when they're young, when they're born. Find your own way after 18 years of indoctrination into an achievement society. That's why my generation, the millennials, we were all in therapy for a decade in our 20s because we were like, what the fuck was that?
Papa Rick (30:02.745)
Yeah. The ones that could afford it, yeah.
Jennie (30:03.674)
I, my childhood was one world, was one world. And then, and then I was thrown into the actual world and, and nothing, nothing works like that. Nothing works the way that I was raised. And yeah. So the, so I also want to say that
Papa Rick (30:17.663)
Yeah.
Jennie (30:26.79)
No one is telling you guys as parents to not encourage your children to make goals and value achievements and hitting goals. It's about not focusing, especially with young children starting at young ages, not focusing on achievement as the goal in life. The goal in life is to live a fulfilled, happy life. And the way that you live a fulfilled, happy life
Papa Rick (30:33.797)
Oh yeah.
Papa Rick (30:49.317)
It's a dance.
Jennie (30:55.966)
is understanding that hard shit's gonna happen and knowing how to navigate it when it does.
Papa Rick (31:02.823)
Yeah, learn how to deal, know how to persevere. And it's a balancing act, long-term, short-term goals, you know.
Jennie (31:07.646)
and encouraging.
Yeah. So some of the ways...
Jennie (31:17.718)
that I literally caught myself doing this the other day. I'm part-time taking care of a newborn right now. And even talking to the newborn, she's eight weeks, nine weeks old now, and I had her laying down on the couch and I was kind of over her and we were talking. She was cooing and trying to copy my facial expressions and all the things.
Papa Rick (31:41.352)
Mm hmm. No. Yeah. Teacher is sick her tongue out.
Jennie (31:47.538)
she, I, every time she would like, like move her face to match mine or whatever, I'd be like, oh, good job, like whatever. And I'm like, no, don't say good job. And so I would be, I, I would say things, I'd correct myself and I'd say things like, ah, I see you trying so hard. Look at that. You copied my face. Like, and, and expressing joy over
Papa Rick (32:01.035)
That was my favorite.
Jennie (32:17.042)
what we were doing together and how fun it was versus you did the thing I was trying to get you to do.
Papa Rick (32:19.618)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (32:24.465)
Yeah, yeah, here's a cookie.
Jennie (32:25.962)
And it pleased me, and that's the goal, is to please me, your adult, your trusted adult. In other situations, a parent is often that one. Like the goal is not to turn your children into people who just run around trying to please you or achieve the things you want them to achieve. The goal is to teach them, like, point out their intrinsic value. I see you working so hard on that. I see you using lots of
Papa Rick (32:45.42)
Mm-hmm
Jennie (32:55.47)
colors, or they show you a picture that they drew for you and it's, you know, scribbles or a rainbow or whatever. And instead of going, oh my God, it's so beautiful, and, and which is a judgment. It's a, it's a, it's a very nice, wonderful, loving judgment, but it's still a judgment. Um, my favorite one to use is, oh my gosh, you drew that. What do you think? And ask them, or how do you feel about it? Um,
Papa Rick (33:03.279)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (33:11.145)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (33:18.653)
Hahaha!
Yeah.
Jennie (33:23.082)
And instead of laying your reaction on top of it, no matter how lovely your reaction is, allowing space for them to feel what they feel about it. And just, yeah.
Papa Rick (33:28.509)
Hmm
Papa Rick (33:34.728)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (33:38.797)
So there's something to be said. I mean, kids learn from parents, right? The younger they are probably, the more they learn, faster they learn. And so they are, sometimes kids are looking to parents for, you know, is this good, is this bad?
Jennie (33:57.486)
I disagree, not unless they've been taught that this is good and this is bad.
Papa Rick (33:59.373)
You know, kids, well, I don't know, little kids will run and fall and skin their knee and they'll get up and they'll look at mom and dad. And if mom and dad are like, well, okay, go ahead, go play, then they go about their business. If mom and dad are like, hair on fire, then they start to cry. I mean, they take, kids take cues from parents. So that what you were saying there, yeah.
Jennie (34:25.25)
They take cues, but kids aren't black and white. Kids don't know what good and bad is when they're that young. They're looking, they're so they're, so maybe I'm being particular about your vocabulary, but you said kids look to mom and dad for what's good or bad. Kids look to mom and dad simply for validation or wondering what the hell just happened to me. And they pull out good and bad based on our reaction if we give a good.
Papa Rick (34:30.641)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (34:41.958)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (34:49.443)
Exactly.
Papa Rick (34:53.497)
Yeah, I'm not talking about bad like evil. Yeah.
Jennie (34:57.09)
good or bad, I know that you're not. I'm like still, like kids aren't looking to mom and dad going, was that a good or a bad thing? They're just looking to see what your reaction is so that they know what happened. It's neutral. And when a parent stays neutral, the child is allowed to then tune into themselves and go, yeah, no, that hurts and I'm gonna cry.
Papa Rick (35:11.945)
what's a reasonable reaction. Yeah.
Papa Rick (35:21.871)
Exactly.
Jennie (35:24.386)
or that was scary and I need to release it, so I'm gonna cry or, oh, like that was like, whoa. And like, okay, but I'm okay and I'm gonna run and play. If mom and dad remain neutral, there's no, the world doesn't become black and white for a child because the world itself is not black and white. It's not good or bad. It just is.
Papa Rick (35:28.005)
Yeah. Or it doesn't hurt that bad, and...
Hahaha.
Yeah.
Papa Rick (35:48.005)
Now, shades of gray. Yeah.
Jennie (35:50.062)
The defining and judging of good and bad and black and white thinking is what we put on to children based on our perceptions and our experiences and our childhoods and all of that.
Papa Rick (36:03.909)
moral judgments, yeah, other authorities, yeah, it gets complicated. Yeah.
Jennie (36:09.871)
Um, go ahead.
Papa Rick (36:14.009)
I just wanted to hear you speak to that, because as you were saying that, I'm like, well, what about this? And what strikes me about all this is there's so much nuance in the whole thing, every little judgment. It's complicated to write it down and explain it fully.
Jennie (36:23.458)
Right?
Jennie (36:32.434)
Yeah, well, and it's crazy because I, it's crazy how often it applies. Like if you start applying this neutrality to your life at home, you're gonna start seeing just how often you are constantly judging and labeling everything in your environment and how much you are actually determining your mood.
Papa Rick (36:55.933)
Yeah.
Jennie (37:00.77)
and your outlook and how you feel about every little thing constantly. And if you stop...
Papa Rick (37:06.909)
Very true, very true.
Jennie (37:12.438)
doing that whenever you're able to catch yourself and you begin to aim yourself at having a more neutral outlook and like, oh, my child fell down.
Jennie (37:29.422)
It's not the end of the world. Like they didn't smash their head open and it's an emergency. Just watch them. Just make eye contact. One of my favorite things to do is I reflect the surprise because no matter what, when they fall down, they're shocked, they're jolted, they're surprised. And so when a child falls, they'll fall and I'll just go, whoa. And then...
Papa Rick (37:32.349)
Let's see how that works out. Yeah, yeah.
Papa Rick (37:41.373)
see how they feel.
Papa Rick (37:50.905)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (37:57.576)
Hahaha
Jennie (37:58.538)
And it kind of just sounds like curious, like, oh, what just happened? It's not like scary. It's not like, it's not a distraction. Like, oh, you're fine. Get up, get up, get up. It's fine. It's just, they'll fall and I'll just go, whoa. Just kind of like a high pitch, like, that was weird. Like, what just happened? And then they get to stand up and have their reaction. And sometimes they have a bloody knee and they start crying and reach for me. And I'm like, oh no, you got hurt. Oh, that stinks. That's so hard.
Papa Rick (38:01.661)
That's right. How do you feel?
Papa Rick (38:25.367)
Yeah.
Jennie (38:27.706)
out, you know, and I'll validate and comfort them. But a lot of times I'll go whoa, and they'll stand up and like giggle and then go back to whatever they were doing.
Papa Rick (38:37.021)
That's right. They're like, that's right. They enjoy, it's like a roller coaster or something. You, sometimes you enjoy being scared or shocked or yeah.
Jennie (38:45.334)
And it normalizes it. It's just like, oh, that happened. And then they learn, oh, that happens sometimes. And then sometimes that happens and you get hurt and it hurts and it's okay to cry and let that out or seek comfort or whatever.
Papa Rick (38:48.857)
And it lets them find their own level. Yeah, yeah.
Papa Rick (38:57.221)
Yeah. Take a cue from take a cue from the kids and do that for ourselves, too. I mean, there's people have self-talk. When you were talking about that, it strikes me how much adults do that to themselves. Right.
Jennie (39:07.179)
Yes.
Jennie (39:17.374)
Oh yeah. Well, we're doing it to ourselves before we ever do it to our children. Because it was done to us.
Papa Rick (39:21.565)
things happen and they're passing well and they're passing judgment. I'm wondering how much of it is just the way the human brain is wired and can get off. Maybe there's a better way to wire our brains. We have a certain amount of control over that to not pass judgment on things, good or bad, to take things as they come neutrally as much as possible as opposed to reacting strongly.
things. Projection, is that projection? When we take our own stuff and project it on the outside, you know, and attribute it, and attribute good, bad, awful, nice to things in the outside world. There's a story, a Bible story about a guy, did I use this in a couple episodes ago? About a...
Jennie (39:54.93)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (40:19.761)
Oh, what is it? A son falls and gets hurt and breaks his leg and says, Oh, that's a bad thing. And, and the fathers go, is it? You know, the father's like, well, it's kind of a, well, wait and see. It is what it is. You know, we'll fix that. And then later on, like Roman soldiers come to draft the men, the young men of the town to go off in the army.
And the guy goes, well, okay. All of a sudden I'm kind of glad that my leg was broken when they went through town. And it's like, is that a bad thing or not? I don't know. You know, so with whole value judgments, I don't know, with hold, with hold judgment on things, but, uh, or at least be open-minded on it, you know? Yeah. I mean, you have to, you have to function.
Jennie (40:43.647)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (40:46.942)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (40:58.914)
Period.
being late, sometimes like you're late because there, if you had gone on time, you would have been part of a car wreck on the interstate or yeah.
Papa Rick (41:09.893)
Yeah, get run over by a bus or something. Yeah. So withhold judgment, withhold, uh, be slow.
Jennie (41:19.05)
Yeah, so bringing, so I want to hear.
Let's see. I had a question for you and of course it flew away.
Papa Rick (41:27.869)
Uh oh.
Jennie (41:33.002)
when you were parenting.
Jennie (41:41.354)
What was your...
Jennie (41:45.826)
philosophy on praise with us. Before you ever read a book or had anyone else's influence, like going into parenting, just naturally what came out of you as far as praising your children, when you would do it, why you would do it, what you valued praising, what you thought needed praising, what...
Papa Rick (42:07.874)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (42:13.566)
what did your praise framework look like when you became a parent?
Papa Rick (42:20.433)
Boy, I think I use the phrase good job a lot. But kind of like a high five. If you guys, if you and your brothers were pleased with yourself, I was pleased. I tried to encourage that.
Jennie (42:25.598)
Yeah, that's a common one, yeah.
Papa Rick (42:47.929)
It's hard to remember back that far. The, you know, when you were little, before we thought about it too much about, oh, we better get organized about this.
Papa Rick (43:00.809)
I remember when you guys were older in middle school, started doing sports is probably what brought it on, was I realized that the achievement thing, you know, I did not press you guys to get records. I remember watching other dads in the stands. There's always one dad that's yelling at his kid, you know, at a basketball game.
from the stands, you know, go left, go right, dribble faster, whatever, that it's like, oh, it must just be miserable going home with him. I think my older brother was one of those. I think my dad tore up one of my brothers pretty good, probably both of my older brothers over sports. I remember going, I just remember looking at that going, I'm not gonna do that. And I remember switching to a...
Jennie (43:28.171)
Yeah.
Jennie (43:35.677)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (43:54.841)
uh, talking with you guys after practice and encouraging you, it's like, it's like, well, in doing that, it's not about setting records. It's about, I guess I've always been about kind of been about growth. You know, it's about being a little better, you know, push yourself to be a little better than you were last time. You know, what was your time in that race last time? What's your time this time when you're practicing? What was your, you know,
You just measure yourself against yourself, not against anybody else. And then if you, if you have a wild land, if you end up with a goal, if you developed your own goal of, well, I want to beat, you know, this kid over here. I think, well, okay, what's it take to do that? You know, okay, let's go. That's it. Did you make it or you're on and then, then it would be kind of monitoring. We are on track for that or. You know, uh,
Jennie (44:36.11)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (44:39.712)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (44:52.541)
I tried to make you guys self-contained, tried to let you be self-contained. Now back, that's my earliest, my earliest remembrances are of like when you were in school in Mason City. Oops, I can mark that out, when you were in school. No names. And as kids...
Jennie (44:58.196)
Hmm.
Papa Rick (45:20.826)
Boy, I don't remember.
I don't remember. I was not very competitive. I don't remember. I know a lot of kids grow up being competitive and I think I'm kind of competitive, but I don't remember consciously imposing. I don't, I don't remember having an opinion about that. I remember praising you when you, I'm sure I did, you know, when you start to, I go back to walking and, um, sitting still in church and
school grades and stuff. I don't remember ever pressing for straight A's or perfect behavior. It's just like trying to, but that's probably had more to do with being good at getting along, going along, being part of a tribe, being useful.
Jennie (45:56.713)
Yeah.
Jennie (46:04.713)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (46:19.777)
I'm kind of a utilitarian or a pragmatist that way. It's like, be useful, you know? Yeah. Figure out what your role is, you know? Figure out what you are. It doesn't matter whether you're a thumb or a finger or a toe or an ear, figure out what your part is and then work at getting better at that, you know?
Jennie (46:20.523)
Yeah.
Jennie (46:25.506)
contributing to the good of whatever you were, instead of being a...
Yeah.
Jennie (46:43.182)
I have a very distinct memory. When I was in college in my senior year and I moved in with my best friend and her parents, we both moved into her childhood home for one semester to save on rent and all of that for our last semester of college, I think. And when I moved in with them,
Papa Rick (46:45.009)
Well, you remember, yeah.
Papa Rick (47:08.252)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (47:11.054)
your words to me were, make sure you leave their house better than you walked into it or something to that effect.
Papa Rick (47:23.938)
Yeah, that's kind of a Boy Scout thing. You know, pick up your crap and yeah.
Jennie (47:26.122)
And that stuck with me, obviously, till now, of like, no matter where you are, no matter where, and you might've been saying it for 20 years before you said it in that phrasing, in that situation where it clicked for me. You were probably teaching us that our whole childhoods, but it clicked for me in that moment. And I was like,
Papa Rick (47:45.959)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (47:55.358)
I was like, oh, I'm part of a family. And I think it's easier to see when you're walking into a home where you don't necessarily belong. Someone has opened their home to you. They're helping you save a bunch of money on paying rent, et cetera. And they're opening their home to you and they're being gracious and they're bringing you in. And in my head, I'm like, okay, I'm going to like…
Papa Rick (48:05.037)
a new team, a new tribe.
Jennie (48:23.498)
Like they made, it was so cute. They made us participate. Like they gave us chores. They were like, it's your turn to clean the bathroom. It's your turn to empty the dishwasher. It's, you know, and they were a family. Yeah. And they were a family who expected you to be at the dinner table at 5 30 every night. And, and everyone sat down and no one left the table until the meal was over and you asked to be excused. And that was family time and everyone. And it was, it was.
Papa Rick (48:28.281)
Absolutely. You're part of the family.
Papa Rick (48:37.871)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (48:47.714)
Nice.
a little ceremony, a little ritual.
Jennie (48:50.806)
four or five months of my life, but it was extremely educational. And I remember going in and feeling so much like I belonged because it was a voluntary invitation for them to let me come into their home. And it was a voluntary choice for me to contribute in that way. Versus like the home you grow up in, everything is just like,
Papa Rick (49:09.897)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (49:13.765)
making a deal. Yep.
Jennie (49:19.114)
We all get a little too comfortable and entitled and complacent and, oh, my mom's making me wash the dishes or whatever. We all get irritated a little easier, but when you're with people that you're not as familiar with, you almost step up a little bit more and you're on your best behavior and all the things. That stuck with me, that phrase that you said. It was so quick and so simple, but it was like, make sure you leave their house better than you walked into it.
Papa Rick (49:22.505)
taken for granted and yeah.
Jennie (49:48.81)
And I like every day, that's what I thought of. And I was a better human being, I think, in those six months than I had been my entire life up to that point. And.
Papa Rick (49:48.969)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (49:59.737)
It keeps you on your game. That's a, that theme comes up all the time. Making, making the world a better place is what defines people for me. You know, is it, uh, what if every, all the, I used to have little rules for you guys. What a, uh, Wheaty and, uh, Whiffem, you know, uh, think of things in terms of what if everybody did it, you know, should I do this? What if everybody did it? Right.
Jennie (50:08.428)
Yeah.
Jennie (50:25.106)
Oh, oh my God. I forgot about that. See, dad jokes.
Papa Rick (50:27.069)
You see, you still roll your eyes at that, you know? That's dad's training, you know? And what's in it for me? A lot of people, you know, they'll do things you don't understand, and it's like, well, what's in it? What are they getting out of it? What's in it for them, what's in it for me? Kind of thinking is useful in those situations. But yeah, if...
Jennie (50:34.294)
Dadisms. Oh my God. We dealing with them.
Jennie (50:49.215)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (50:55.513)
If you're all in it for you, then you are not worried about making the world a better place. And so you become potentially, uh, disadvantageous to your tribe to have around. And that's not a good situation to be in. You want to, you want to have a tribe around you. I was so glad you got that opportunity to experience another family because yours was a little, uh, it was a little, uh, chaotic.
Jennie (51:11.274)
One the other.
Jennie (51:19.658)
Yeah. The, um, the other thing that came to mind when you were talking about your focus, uh, when it came to praise when we were kids, uh, Matthew McConaughey is rather famous for an Oscar's speech or some award ceremony speech where he talks about, um, Ma he doesn't have an idol. You know, he doesn't have a goal that he's, uh,
Papa Rick (51:48.401)
Be careful with your role models. Yeah.
Jennie (51:49.262)
chasing, he doesn't have an idol. He says, my only competition is the man I was yesterday. And that's it. Am I better than I was yesterday? And every single day, that's all he thinks about. Am I better than I was yesterday? Am I better than? And so what you said was like competing with ourselves. And that can get toxic too, right? I want to encourage people to like...
Papa Rick (51:57.721)
Yep, yep, that's exactly right.
Papa Rick (52:17.457)
Yeah, you can overdo anything. Yeah.
Jennie (52:18.07)
Take a day to rest, and you can be imperfect, and you can be needy, and you can ask for help and all of those things. But also, are you being a better version of yourself every single day? And that's the only person you're in competition with is you. So.
Papa Rick (52:29.555)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (52:34.961)
Yeah, I think that's the day-to-day. I think that's the day-to-day perspective. There are also times where you need to be competitive. Hey, I want that job and there's three of us up for it. There's this warfare, it's him or me. There's, you know, there are situations where you need to be able to, like in karate, you know, where you need to throw the switch and it's like, no, this one's gonna be me, you know? I am going to take you down. But...
Jennie (52:58.828)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (53:04.333)
Too much of anything is bad for you. You know, you can't be like that all the time. I think a healthier way to be is data time. Who was I yesterday? I like that. I did not realize I shared values like that with Matthew McConaughey. I'm careful of idolizing movie stars, but that sounds like a pretty good attitude. I'll have to read his book. Yeah.
Jennie (53:27.906)
Well, we don't need to idolize him. It was just an example of a way that he phrased what you were talking about in a very simplified way that is easy to remember.
Papa Rick (53:39.629)
Yeah. Be better today than you were yesterday. The man you were yesterday. Person you were yesterday. I like that.
Jennie (53:43.52)
Yeah.
Jennie (53:47.418)
So bringing all of that back to the way that we praise our children so that they grow up with this mindset of not being in competition with every single person around them, of not constantly having to people please for the adults in their life, but that the adults, the trusted adults that they are in the care of love them for who they are and they are worthy regardless of their achievements of love and acceptance and good things.
Papa Rick (53:54.074)
Teach it to them. You gotta teach it.
Papa Rick (54:11.866)
Mm-hmm.
Jennie (54:15.562)
They're worthy of our eyes lighting up and celebrating them just because they're here, just because they exist, just because of their innate goodness. And so I wanted to offer a few examples of phrases. I know that we've offered some along the way, but I just want to go through and offer some examples of phrasing for different situations.
Papa Rick (54:22.149)
Yeah.
Jennie (54:42.474)
and whatnot that people can write down or practice or listen to this recording, you know, and pause it and write these down. Keep them on a post-it on the mirror for you getting ready in the morning. Say them to yourselves. Say them to yourselves. It will make it so much easier for you to say it to your children and the people in your life. And like I work, I even work on this with my friends, like with my, my girlfriends, instead of being like, I'm so proud of you. I say, I'm so
happy for you because me being proud of you is irrelevant. You're not here to make me proud. Like I'm happy for you as a voluntary, you know, gift of joy and excitement at your joy and excitement. You're happy about it, I'm happy for you. I'm not.
Papa Rick (55:36.421)
Right.
Jennie (55:39.79)
proud of you for achieving this random thing. I see how hard you worked at it, and I'm so happy for you that you got what you wanted.
Right? So anyway, so I'm just going to read through these as tangible takeaways for our audience. So you worked so hard. Wow. How do you feel about it? I see you trying your best every time, and you're going to get there. I believe in you no matter what happens. You are so creative.
Papa Rick (55:53.766)
Yep, I agree.
Jennie (56:23.794)
I am so impressed by you. You are so good to your team. I know it's hard when you don't make it. Everyone struggles sometimes. You are strong and brave. Are you ready to try again or do you want to take a break?
Jennie (56:44.598)
So those are just, or I'm happy for you, the one that I just gave, that I use for my friends, like I'm happy for you when your child tells you they did something and they are outwardly excited about it. I'm so happy for you. You seem so happy and proud of yourself. You worked so hard on that. I'm so happy for you. Instead of saying, I'm proud of you, which makes it about them pleasing you. Instead of, are you,
Papa Rick (56:56.633)
Yeah, proud of themselves, you know, pleased with.
Papa Rick (57:11.933)
That's right.
Jennie (57:13.974)
Aren't you so proud of yourself? You worked so hard on that. I'm so happy for you.
Papa Rick (57:21.265)
It's funny the little changes we make that create different results. You know?
Jennie (57:29.674)
And this goes back to intrinsic motivation. So the long-term results from providing praise or celebration of your children around everyday things, not just around their achievements or around the journey to the achievement or even around, I even put on here, celebrate the failures. Draw the picture for your children that there's this great picture that I love.
Um, and it's, it's a drawing of a staircase going nowhere. It's just like, you know, whatever. And then the top is success or achievement or the goal, but every single step is labeled failure, because each failure is a nether building block to build the staircase to where you're going. And so when we, when we.
Papa Rick (58:01.789)
Mm-hmm.
Papa Rick (58:07.697)
Whatever your goal is, yeah.
Papa Rick (58:12.745)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
Jennie (58:24.45)
fall into failure, we're so disappointed in our kid every time they fail or we make failure this terrible thing and it needs to be overcome and just keep your eye on the success and keep like no matter what, that's all that matters is achieving that goal. It's like there are lots of things that we start and we fail a hundred times before we hit the goal or there are things that we start because we think we want that goal and we
After five or six failures, we're like, you know what? This actually isn't worth it to me. And I actually want to go do this thing. And there's also this thing in our society where changing your mind is like a crime. Oh, they don't stick to anything. They don't know what they want. It's like, nobody knows what they want all of the time. The point is to learn what you want and to learn what you don't want along the way.
Papa Rick (59:08.903)
Yeah.
Learning something. Yeah.
Papa Rick (59:21.189)
Yeah. And even if, and if you, if you, if you start a journey and you get three steps down it, you know, you learn what was on those three steps and that that's enough to say, Oh yeah, I don't want that anymore. So you go from, you go from there, you know, life is a branching tree and, uh, you know, yeah, exactly. That's a good definition of experience. Oh, no, I don't want to go any further down that path.
Jennie (59:31.83)
Yeah.
Jennie (59:36.382)
Yeah, that's experience.
Jennie (59:45.558)
Yep. I think I want this thing. Yep.
Papa Rick (59:47.389)
Yeah, failures are to be learned from. There's a couple of, there's a couple of business models on that where you have to leave room for people to fail. You can't penalize. And even in a business, which is pretty cold, hard cash oriented, you, uh, you have to leave room for people to fail. Otherwise, otherwise your innovation and everything goes away. Nobody, it's all based on don't make a mistake.
Jennie (01:00:11.83)
Yeah, which is human nature. That's not fair. Don't teach your kids to reach for perfection because it's not real. It doesn't exist. And if we teach our children to reach for that, then...
Papa Rick (01:00:14.361)
I missed it. No misstep. Yeah.
Papa Rick (01:00:20.424)
Yeah.
Jennie (01:00:26.938)
you're going to have a really miserable adult child when they go out into the world because they're going…
Papa Rick (01:00:31.935)
Yeah. Or with a lot more to learn when they get on their own.
Jennie (01:00:36.018)
Yeah. But like if you, so we need to normalize failure. We need to normalize making mistakes. And of course, we're going to also normalize learning from those mistakes. Like, and when I say celebrate failure, I don't mean like, don't keep pushing your kid to reach their goals. I mean, go, oh my gosh, you fell? All right, what did we learn? What are we not going to do next time? How are we like, can you think of another way to do that?
Papa Rick (01:00:43.193)
Ahem.
Papa Rick (01:01:03.941)
Yeah.
Jennie (01:01:06.314)
Let's like, I'm here for you. Like if you want my input, I'm here to help you think through that. Like otherwise I believe in you. I know you're how creative you are. And I know that you're gonna solve this problem. And if you don't solve this problem, yeah, and decide that that's not your goal anymore, that's okay too. You choose perseverance or you choose to let it go. And that doesn't mean you're giving up. It doesn't mean that you don't know what you want out of life. It means I've tried this thing and
Papa Rick (01:01:16.005)
Yeah, well we know that doesn't work now. Yeah.
Jennie (01:01:36.074)
I've decided it's not for me. It's like that. Yeah.
Papa Rick (01:01:38.037)
Mm-hmm. That can be a teaching moment too. Go ahead.
Papa Rick (01:01:45.853)
The kid comes home from school and they're frustrated. They're not successfully dealing with a friend or a challenge or a bully or something like that. You can get them to talk about, well, so what'd you do? And I said, well, so how'd that work out? And you can kind of teach them to think through. Yeah, okay. I went and yelled and screamed at them and they didn't react too well to that. Okay, well, we can check that off the list of things to try next time.
Jennie (01:02:13.056)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (01:02:14.297)
You know, okay, one less thing to try. What do you want to do next? And, you know, coaching. That's not teaching your kids, avoiding teaching your kids things they're going to have to unlearn later. Anyway, seems like a productive way to look at it as far as you can.
Jennie (01:02:37.026)
And it's long-term life skills. We're not, instead of trying to force our children into behaving or there's only one pathway to success or getting embarrassed if our kid acts out in church or whatever, there's not a person sitting in that church who does not understand a child not being able to sit still. Like, there's no, this need for this, for this.
It's either this or that. They're either behaving or they're not, and they're gonna listen to me, or they're gonna obey, or they're gonna whatever. The real world doesn't work that way. And so why are we raising our children to think like this? Do you know how hard it is to undo the first 18 years of your life?
Papa Rick (01:03:08.133)
Yeah, yeah, compliance.
Papa Rick (01:03:20.693)
Oh, call it impossible. You know, some of it is, you're never gonna, that's why so many people have said, give me your child till he's 10 and I'll have him for life. You know, that's when you mold the breed. The rest of it's unlearning and relearning. I usher at church, I stand in the back and see if anybody needs anything.
Jennie (01:03:23.135)
Yeah.
Jennie (01:03:26.666)
your mind will never change.
Jennie (01:03:36.972)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Papa Rick (01:03:45.117)
And recently we've had more kids, you know, we're getting more kids. And, and when the kids are yelling and screaming or something, you know, it's pretty casual, it just makes, it makes me laugh because I remember being in church with you guys, trying to get two and three year olds to sit still through a church service and the little old ladies helping and, you know, tickling your wrists and, and trying to, trying to get you to do things you're not designed to do at that point.
Jennie (01:03:55.041)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jennie (01:04:05.44)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jennie (01:04:12.482)
Right? Like at three, who is expect, that's the other thing. That's the other piece of it is like stop having unrealistic developmental expectations of three-year-olds. Three-year-olds aren't meant to sit still for 45 minutes. Yeah. Right. I would always, I remember giggling, even when I was like 12 and 13, I'd hear a baby cry or I'd hear a kid like scream after being
Papa Rick (01:04:13.417)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
Papa Rick (01:04:20.257)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now it just makes me laugh. They're not making that much noise. It seems like it when you're sitting next to them, but they're not. The preachers are used to that, you know?
Hehehehehehe
Jennie (01:04:41.89)
kept quiet for so long and then they'd finally just be like, like high pitched like ringing and the sermon would just keep going. Yeah.
Papa Rick (01:04:46.281)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (01:04:49.777)
Had enough. Had enough. I just, I don't know if somehow that's a joyful moment for me now. I don't know what's going on.
Jennie (01:04:59.598)
Right. Well, because you can look back. One, you've been through it so you know what it feels like. But two, you can also look at that and go, it's almost like you have empathy for your younger self, feeling like you needed to cut that off or that somehow people were looking down on you because your child was screaming.
Papa Rick (01:05:12.318)
Hmm.
Jennie (01:05:25.022)
when really most of them were probably doing what you're doing now, which is kind of giggling to themselves and being like, I feel for you. Like that's hard. Yeah. Right. Send them to Sunday school. That's why it's yeah.
Papa Rick (01:05:25.606)
Yeah, yeah.
Papa Rick (01:05:29.717)
Yeah. That's tough. Put them in a nursery. Let them play. Let them run. Let them play.
Jennie (01:05:41.41)
All right, well, we are just past an hour. So, do you have any like final thoughts or anything? Any concluding thoughts on our topic of praising?
Papa Rick (01:05:51.057)
I don't think so. I think I interrupted enough. I got, I got everything out. It is a learning.
You know, I love these talks we have. Uh, it's a learning thing. You still, you never get perfect at it. You know, you can get good at it, but there's always another situation in a, in another set of circumstances and another kid and, uh, be kind to yourself and keep trying and take a bath and try to get some good sleep and, you know, keep, keep at it one day at a time.
Jennie (01:06:08.418)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (01:06:30.161)
Little better, little, you know, two steps, two forward and one back is the goal. Right? Make a little progress with yourself. And as your habits improve, your mental health improves or whatever, then so will your children. And hopefully we'll all do it together. But it never ends.
Jennie (01:06:37.234)
Yeah.
Jennie (01:06:53.298)
Yeah. So we are, if you listened to last week's episode, you heard at the very end that we are running a social media campaign, not a, sorry, a sponsorship campaign starting September 1st, via social media. And so we, but we need, we need
your guys' help. So anyone who's listening to this, if you have not already, please go click follow and subscribe. Follow on Spotify, subscribe on YouTube, and we need as many subscribers and follows and downloads. So even if you don't have time to listen to all the episodes, if you're new here and you haven't gotten through all the episodes yet, go click the download button.
because that is what sends information to the algorithm that we are popular enough to matter and to be seen by other people who are searching for parenting content. And so, but if you do nothing else, please go to our YouTube channel and click Subscribe. You can turn off the notifications, but we need.
Papa Rick (01:08:04.294)
Yeah.
Jennie (01:08:18.174)
your guys's help in order to achieve our goal of 10,000 downloads and subscribers in the month of September. And we're going to launch our social media campaign on September 1st. So if you can get in there in the month of August, this is August 2023. If you're listening to this and it is still August 2023, please, please go to our YouTube channel and click subscribe.
Papa Rick (01:08:40.413)
Hmm
Jennie (01:08:44.41)
Go on to Spotify, click follow, and then click all the download buttons on all the episodes. You will help us get our message out to everyone to get this free information, free coaching, free tactics out to parents who don't even know stuff like this exists. I literally still have not met a parent today who knew that parent coaching and parenting education was a thing. They just thought they had to find the right book or talk to their pediatrician.
And so please click those buttons for us. It'll take you 10 seconds. It costs nothing. And it will make a world of difference for people who are looking for us. Thank you. We love you. And we'll be back. We have three weeks in a row of guests coming up, starting next week. So we'll have back to back guests. We'll have our first dad.
Papa Rick (01:09:26.579)
Yeah.
Papa Rick (01:09:37.937)
Cool. Can't wait.
Jennie (01:09:42.558)
on the show in two weeks from now. I'm really excited about that. I've got two men lined up to be on the show, which is I'm trying to get dads, I'm trying to get more male input, more, I'm trying to get dads seen and heard because I know that for a lot of men, there's a lot of, there's a lack, there's a lack of community for men and dads. And so there's, there's fear.
Papa Rick (01:09:45.277)
Woohoo!
Papa Rick (01:09:50.713)
outstanding.
Jennie (01:10:11.998)
around admitting that like parenting, like I wanna be a really good parent or I'm really focused on being a good parent and compassionate and emotionally intelligent. There's the support groups for moms are abundant and the support groups for dads are not. And so I want dad voices heard on here as well. So that's what we're working on for you guys. Please like and subscribe and download, help us out. And yeah, happy.
Papa Rick (01:10:27.813)
thin. Pretty thin, yeah.
Jennie (01:10:41.838)
parenting and good luck out there.
Papa Rick (01:10:44.198)
Yeah, yeah.