S3 E19 Jim Van Allan combines communication skills with family on the 100% Dad Podcast

Season 3, Episode 19. Jim Van Allen with the John Gordon Company, as I think it is, and also a professor at Kaiser University in communications. Uh, why don't you tell the world a little bit about yourself?

How's everybody doing? Uh, my name is Jim Van Allen, and I'm good to be with you all. I do speaking and training for schools and companies across the country— big audiences, small audiences, everything in the middle— helping, helping mainly schools, uh, build a more positive culture, working and coaching principals and superintendents. And, and of course, I, I teach online with Kaiser University, so I teach everybody's favorite class, which is public speaking. And I also teach interpersonal communication and nonverbal communication and listening. So, you know, the communication skills are always fascinating to me, and I love— I always love to teach it and love to, you know, practice good communication with my family as well. So good to be here.

So those kind of communication skills, just because I'm curious, because I never actually knew what a communications degree was. I mean, my first thought is always almost just going telecommunications, and that's what your career is going to be in. But obviously, that's an outdated thing. So is that something you master in and there's a career field in it? Or is that something you kind of can help supplement another career?

Depends. Good question. Depends on the university you go to, too. So I went to the University of Florida and they did not have a communication degree. So I had to backdoor and do public relations. But if I went to like Central Florida, they, they would have a communications degree. And but I would say it's meant more to supplement though, as you, as you indicated, because I always am a fan of going into— if you're going to college, going to a degree program that is kind of a funnel into a job. So if you have a, if you have a broad communications degree It's almost too broad, I think, sometimes to funnel into a direct career path, but it makes for a great minor. So I minored in it. So I have all these skills, you know, that I took all these classes in it, and then I got my master's in it so I could actually be certified to teach it on the collegiate level. And I'll tell you what, master's communication courses are not like undergraduate communication courses. Undergraduate comm courses are all the fun ones. Like interpersonal communication, family communication, small group communication. For your master's degree, it's all rhetoric. It's all Plato, Socrates, um, all those, you know, the old dudes, I call it. So, um, but, you know, I'm always been fascinated with just, hey, how do we interact better with each other? And, you know, from a relational standpoint, from a business standpoint, definitely from a fatherhood standpoint, I've just been fascinated in, in the art of connection, how to connect better with people. Maybe it's the inner introvert in me that wants to get better at it. I don't know. But it's a field that I love and I love teaching about and working into my material now when I go into speaking and training for schools. I always talk about how communication can help relationships and build culture.

So, when you go on, when you're speaking in schools, you're speaking to the staff, not to the students?

I do both. So, uh, I would probably say it's 90% staff. So they have a professional development day, they bring in a speaker to— because they want to, you know, they're reading one of— I work for author— author's name is John Gordon. I work for John Gordon. So a lot of times these schools are reading his books or reading a book as a book study because they're making it their school's theme, and they want to bring in a speaker to help kind of launch it and, and get them, get them going a little bit. So I do that mainly. But every once in a while I'll get some student assemblies. Like last week I was in New York doing a big student assembly for, um, you know, kindergartners through 6th grade, and we had fun. Like, you know, we, we got to play games and be a little silly but also have a message in there too. So kids always bring a, um, a unique energy for sure versus the adults. The kids are like putty in your hands. So I, I love to speak. I've been doing it my whole life, and, um, the, the students especially are just just a fun, fun energy. They look at you with those big wide eyes and it's like you could say anything and they, they just react. And the adults, you know, sometimes it's like pulling teeth. Sometimes, sometimes, not all the time, sometimes.

I guess so. So here's what I'm going to want to get to because I heard this in here, commission with family. And I think communication within families is sometimes the most difficult and volatile and sensitive communication. And I mean I'm not sure I've ever met a person that hasn't had a pretty significant family disagreement. And I'm not just talking about wife and kids. It happens there too, but in-laws, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, there's cousins. There's just— families are just the perfect petri dish of drama. And so I'd like to navigate those waters with you a little bit. But I also want to tie in, just because I'm generally curious about the school, The— so John Gordon, for those who don't know, does, uh, has written like 700 million different books in the last 10 years. They're all small, pretty, pretty easy reads, I think, for the most part. Um, he's been pairing with like a lot of sports guys. I think he got known for, for like, uh, Clemson and the LA Rams and stuff like that. So he's gotten to know like in the big sports scene, but his whole message is positivity. And I don't know how he cranks out as many books as he does, but he does. And I think we talked a little bit earlier how you kind of championed the energy bus one, which is getting everyone kind of on the same page and all heading in the same direction in terms of positivity. So what kind of resistance are you meeting from the— this is just for my curiosity, then we'll get back to the family discussion. What kind of resistance do you get from the teachers and the administrative staff? So what— because you would think that'd be a pretty easy message to send of like, let's just positivity. I mean, I don't know, you just wouldn't think you'd get that much resistance from it.

You would think, uh, so normally the administrators are on board because they're bringing you in. Like, they wanted to do a book study on one of John's books, usually The Energy Bus. They're usually pretty good. It's the teachers and the staff that they're— I would say they're a little weary at first because you have to remember a lot of these, these folks have been teaching or been in education for a long time, 10, 20 years. I've even had 30, 40 years. So in that time period, they've seen a lot of speakers. They've had a lot of professional development. They've almost seen it all. But I say this not in a braggy way, but they haven't seen me. So, and I say that because I try to just, I try to be real with them. I try to have, I try to make it, my sessions are usually a half day, a couple hours, very interactive, very conversational. I get them up, I get them moving, I get them talking. It's not just me talking the whole time. That's a keynote speech. That's a shorter one, like a bigger audience. But for the individual schools, we have fun, right? Because I always say professional development should be fun. So initially, the teachers are a little weary just because you have to remember, like, you know, teacher, what do they want to do? They want to be in their classroom. They want to be teaching. They want to be setting up their lesson plans. And, you know, the idea of sitting to them is difficult because they're used to being up and moving around. And so I try to play to that, right? With communication, your audience needs to know that communication is all about audience. Like, it's all about the message you have intended for a specific audience. So if I know my teacher audience, they want to move around and talk and interact, by God, we're going to do that, right? And we're going to work that into the workshop, you know, 3 hours. I'm going to have them get up and put sticky notes on flip chart papers around the wall and get up and discuss and maybe do a skit and then present and move around. And then once I do a little bit of that at the beginning, it kind of breaks the ice and then they're good. I've never really had a bad audience.

Right?

Because I work hard to engage with them and make sure that they know this material is relevant to them. And I really try to hammer that and say, listen, you know, here's the— here's the what, here's the book, here's the material you're going to be reading. Now here's why it's important. And I also get them to understand why it's important too. I get them to do activities and discussions so they can see, you know, I want them to be able to see it as well. I can say it till I'm blue in the face, but I want them to be able to understand why they're reading this, why I'm there. And once we can do that, then they're usually pretty good. Then they've broken down. They're like, okay, yes, I do want to be more positive. I do want to enjoy where I work. I do want to enjoy the people I work, you know, with. I want to, I want to, you know, know my purpose and enjoy my job a little bit more and be a little more happier, be a better person. And really, like, who can argue with those things? So most of the time, 99% of the time, they're great after that point, and they're, they're very thankful I've been there. So, you know, a little bit of resistance at the beginning, but ultimately we're good to go.

Okay, so it's less about like, hey, we just don't want to be positive, it's more of like, I'm a grown-up, why are we having people teach us anything? Let me teach my classes, right?

You understand the power— it's a power dynamic, right? Communication sometimes about power dynamics. They're used to being in charge and in front and in control. And now they got to sit and be the student, right? And they don't know me, they don't know the material as well, so they're worried that I'm going to be wasting their time. Teachers and staff don't want their time wasted. So I, and I, and I tell that point blank. I always say, I'm not here to waste your time. I'm here to engage, have a good conversation, and provide some value to you.

That's fair enough. All right, so let's, let's, let's tie this back into the family because that's typically what dads care about. So family, you know, we kind of briefed on, at least I did. It's ripe for drama. There's always big family fights, people not talking to each other, people that, you know, take something out of context. It's like we're ultra sensitive to family. So I guess what you teach it, you've taken those classes. What's the dynamic there that's causing all this drama? Why is it such a sensitive thing? Why does it cause such big fights? And I guess, how do we overcome those?

I also live it too, because we settled over in Stuart, Palm City, Florida, where my wife's family is, you know, and she's one of 5. And now the 3 sisters have, you know, are married, and then we have 7. So we have 7 cousins. And my 2 boys, I have 2 boys, 5 and 7, and then her sister's got 3 kids. The other sister has 2 kids. And her parents are here and her two brothers are here. So that's all of the family in one town, right? And then my mom and brother on the other side of Florida. So there's a lot of dynamics going on. So that always breeds— it's a lot of different personalities, right? Even though you're family, we're still different people. So inevitably there's going to be friction. So yep, we have to understand, first of all, like, you know, the human, the human dynamic, which sometimes is a little bit more of a, of a selfish nature sometimes. So a lot of times we're looking out for us, we're looking out, our brains go into this survival mode, right? And we're looking out for us and we get defensive. When you get defensive and you put walls up to people because they've said something to you, that's, that's, that's being defensive. That's that survival instinct kind of taking over a little bit. So with family though, you know, it always hurts more because it's more, it's more personal. The communication is much, much more, it's more personal. And it, it, it just hits a little bit harder because these are the people that you're the closest with and you have the most amount of trusting bonds with. So when something is said, it becomes this, this big deal versus a friend where you're kind of tiptoeing around sometimes. But family, you, you're, you want to be your true self around your family. So you're more exposed, you're more vulnerable, and when that happens, you open yourself up to, to hurt sometimes. You open yourself up to others being vulnerable as well. There's just more emotions flying around, right? When you're feeling vulnerable, when you are vulnerable, there's a lot more emotions flying around. When you have more emotions flying around, that's going to breed people saying things they shouldn't say with that certain tone that they shouldn't use. And people will have word vomit sometimes. If I could steal a line from the 2004 classic Mean Girls, right? Word vomit, where it's like, I shouldn't have said that. You know it's coming out, but I shouldn't have said it. But we say it anyways. Because what do families also like to do to each other? They like to poke each other a little bit, don't they? Like to get under each other's skin a little bit. You know, I have a brother, and my wife, I see her with her mom sometimes, and the dynamics going on. Sometimes you're, you know, doing it to be mean, but it's like, you know, you kind of know what to say to kind of rile them up a little bit, or, you know, eat up airtime, whatever the case is.

So, you know, it's just, it's, um, well, and sometimes it is mean, sometimes it is cruel, sometimes it's using that narrative, using that, what, that situation as a way to say mean things because you can. And You know, or you backdoor it.

You backdoor the mean comment, or you, um, you know, you're, you're trying to, um, you know, gossip behind somebody's back. Or, or yes, sometimes we do say things because it's family. It's like we, we just— like everybody loves Raymond. Everybody's just being honest with each other, just getting everything out, you know. And some families are like that. So it's—

it really is a recipe for, um Do you ever feel like the people who say, I'm just, I'm just very honest, I just, I just can't, I just have to tell the truth, are just using that as an excuse to be cruel?

I think so, because yeah, they're trying to make themselves be the hero by saying, well, I'm Mr. or Mrs. Honesty, right? It's all, it's all out of love. But at the same time, you know, just a dick. Yeah, right. And I don't know if I believe honesty is the best policy, like I mean, I'm not saying lie, but I always, you know, you're never gonna know what I'm truly feeling on the inside if you're in my family, unless you're my wife, my kids. But other— anybody else, like, I'm going to be very guarded with how I say things because I know as a communicator how it could be, how it could be misconstrued or taken. So I'm a bit more strategic, but I get it. I get communication. Others don't, and they'll just kind of fly off the handle sometimes.

And then to add another layer of complication, your silence or lack of talking can be read or misconstrued. Oh yeah, your, your reservedness and, and expressing who you are, trying to navigate those communication waters, can be, you know, it can backfire on you for sure.

I mean, how many people do you, do you know maybe that are past that, that deal with family in a passive-aggressive nature where they're You know, because silence says something as well. Silence is communication. You know, nonverbals, just giving a look instead of saying something is still a heavy dose of communication.

I was talking to a guy once saying silence— oh gosh, I forget what he says, but basically silence is one of the most powerful ways to communicate.

Oh, for sure, for sure. I mean, that's— I'd rather you say something than give me the silent treatment, or because then it's like, because then what am I doing? I'm filling in the gap with what I think they're thinking, right? And I have no clue. And, and my, my buddy John Gordon says, where there's a void in communication, negativity fills it. So if I get the silent treatment from somebody, I'm imagining what it is, and I'm going to worst-case scenario, because that's what our brains do. Our brains always go to worst-case scenario, don't they? I see a spot on my arm and it's like, oh my gosh, I, I have skin cancer, I'm going to be dead in a week. When in reality, oh, it's just a freckle, right? I mean, somebody says— your wife, somebody, mother-in-law is being silent around you, passive-aggressive, and all of a sudden you could just feel the tension in the air. And we're like, oh my gosh, they hate me, okay? Instead of, let's just have a conversation about this as adults when we're not emotionally charged.

So why is that? Why is it— if we're all agreeing that, you know, positivity is good and negativity is bad for you, why is it that negativity comes so easy? Why is it that it fills the void? Why is it that it's the default response? Why is it that if you're not actively trying to push it out and pursuing positivity, that negativity is the byproduct? Why isn't positivity— like, is there a science behind that, or like a study of human nature that kind of gets into that?

Well, the National Science Foundation did a study, and they found that we have between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day. And of those thoughts— so 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day— of those thoughts, They think 80% are negative, 95% are exactly the same as they were the day before. So, what that tells me is that a lot of our thoughts are negative. Now, why is that? How do you define a negative thought? To me, it's not— a negative thought is not necessarily an evil thought. It's not like we're all evil, but you know, you could call being critical, judgmental, gossip, you know, things along those lines can be a little bit more negative, a little bit more worrisome, anxiety, those types of things. And once again, I think it's because it goes back to the survival instinct. I think it's our bodies— I think our body and our minds are always looking at the world and looking at stimuli and really trying to be guarded with what we're seeing around us. So when you see the fault in something or in somebody and what they're saying or a situation you can kind of adapt to that. Like, you know, if you're just seeing the neg— if you're just seeing the positive all the time, your body, your mind might, might be more vulnerable through it and get hurt. So, but if you see the fault, if you see the, the negative, you think about, you know, what's going wrong or this or that, you can kind of be more protected. Now, I'm not saying it's the right way. I'm just trying to help people to explain why it is a brain is thinking negative. It's trying to protect protect the body and the mind from, from a very noisy environment, um, figuratively and, and literally. And that, that's going to breed some different variations of negative thinking.

Well, and even in my own businesses, I mean, that's— that ability to see negative so easily and see the faults and see the problems, that way I can identify them and fix them, has been incredibly beneficial. I mean, that way I I can look at something, I can look at what the customer is going to see, I can look at what the customer is going to experience, and I can sit there and say, that, that thing is going to be a problem. Let's fix that. That needs to be improved upon. So it's that kind of, I can see what needs to be improved, what needs to be made better, how we can do something better. Gosh, I've never thought of that as a negative before. But I guess that is identifying negativity.

Right. And that's why, you know, that negative negativity, negative thinking, it's not necessarily like, Oh, we're all turning evil, like I said. But, um, and, and complaining and, and negativity sometimes has led to some great things, like you said. And one of the things, like, if you look around, like, we're both from Florida, you know, somebody had a complaint and was having some negative thinking about it was too humid inside of a house. So what did they do? They took that and they developed the air conditioner, right? So there have been some great things that have come out of complaining and negativity. If done the right way. So it's not all bad if you can figure out how to do it the right way and not live in that world. What I would say is just don't live in that world. If you're a family, if you're— especially if you're a husband and wife, if you have kids, we don't, we don't want to always be critical and judgmental of our spouses and our, and our kids. There's time and place for that, but if that's your only world, then that's the only thing they're being exposed— our kids are being exposed to, and they're going to learn and model like we do, not only our actions but how we think too. We're teaching them how to think as well.

Yeah, so I'll say I see negative families everywhere, and I'm also on the lookout because that's kind of my, my job now. I'm, I'm the dad guy, so I, I'm, I'm always looking at families and kind of studying them, uh, whenever we're out and about. And there is a lot of negative— I mean, there's just moms, there's dads, there's kids that just complain and gripe and whine about everything. It's almost like they can't be pleased. And that's something, at least in our family, I try to point that out every once in a while, you know, at age-appropriate levels of like, that's a great example of what I don't want us to become, of the ungratefulness there. And, you know, to that extent, I feel like one of the ways I try and counteract that is I try and like start our mornings off positive. And, you know, there's, there's some members of our family that kind of wake up a little grumpy, like the first things out of their mouth are usually complaining or whining or whatever it is. And so, I always try and start the mornings with, you know, good morning, a little bit of, you know, higher energy in my voice and excitement and, you know, what'd you dream about? And, you know, try and get the day started off on the right foot. Do you have any, I guess, any tips for a family that maybe is in that negative vibe or just trying to prevent from being one of those negative families on how they can you know, how they can lead their families in a more positive direction?

I would say like you do, and like, it sounds like I do something similar with my kiddos as well, but that's called intentionality. So, it's very easy to just go on autopilot, right? As a family, as a dad, as a mom, especially in the mornings. Like, I get it. I get up with my kids every morning, you know, 6:00, 6:30, and get 'em out the door as my wife's getting ready to go to work sometimes. I mean, I work from home, so it's easier for me, But I get it, it's easy just to go on autopilot and not worry about the relationship building or the peppin' up, the encouragement, the positivity, and just send them out the door and always assume they're gonna come back to you. I think if we go in with the mentality of, listen, I wanna treat every moment like it's special and be intentional about having some routine in place. So, you know, like we do roses and thorns at dinner every single night, and we've been doing that since my kids were 1 and, you know, 2 years old to be able to talk. That's 6, 7 years we've been doing that. Tell me, tell me your high of the day. Tell me your low of the day. And they added now, tell me your silly part. Like, my kids added that. So they, they know at dinner we're going to be talking about those types of things. So it's like you do in the mornings, hey, what'd you dream about? And trying to start on that positive note. It's— you're trying to break the cycle of negativity, trying to break that cycle. And we have to do that with our kids. We have to break some of their their innate negative thinking sometimes, uh, because, you know, it's, it's tough. And if you're not intentional about it, like I said, it's really easy to go on autopilot. That's something that I want us families to stay away from, because if you're, if you're not growing, man, you're stagnating. And stagnation is no good for families. It's no good for, for fathers and moms and kids. So having some routines in place, like, if you, if you're, if you're a car line mom or dad, you know, you get a dedicated, what, 10, 15 minutes depending if you live close to your school every day where you got your kids captive for those couple minutes. Could we have, you know, if you're into Bible verses, could you do something with that? Could you ask them some fun questions, you know, instead of just putting on music and not talking? Like, you get dead— look at that as dedicated time, whether it's laying down before you go to bed, maybe it's at dinner, it's on the car to soccer practice. Like, when they come home from school and they're tired and they got homework to do, that's probably not the best time to be, you know, to have maybe something. I know my kids don't want to talk to me when I get home. It's their— they want to relax and chill, and then they can tell me about their day later usually. And I'm the same way. If I go back from a trip, it's like, leave me alone for a little bit, then let me get in, and then I'll talk. So it's finding the right times of where the audience— where your kids are captive, a little more relaxed, where you can, you know, you can have those pointed questions that you ask. And we could talk about this later too, but instead of asking something like, "How was your day?" More like, "Oh, good." And then it just ends. More open-ended. "Tell me something fun you learned today. What's something you did not like today?" You know, you kind of change your questions up a little bit too. Will definitely help to engage with your kiddos.

And that's getting away from the yes or nos, the one-word answers, and getting almost a story instead. Or something that can continue.

Exactly. And, and it— and once again, it's also picking the right time to do that. A lot of people forget communication's about— is about environment and context matter. So like I said, like when my, when my kids— like I have to pick them up in just a little bit here. I know when they're in the car coming back from school or getting off the bus, those first 5-10 minutes, they don't want me asking about What do they do in art or recess or this? They— we just kind of chit-chat. They just want to relax a little bit. Then I know at dinner, before bed, they'll talk my ear off about school or what's going on. So pick the right spots, even though it may feel right for you. You know your kids, you know when they're going to be a little more chatty, but just make sure you take advantage of that. Don't, don't let that go by. You got to look for those spots, and then once you find that spot, boom, you're consistent with it.

Well, and that's same for dads too. I've had that conversation with tons of dads of like, create that transition time when you're going from that work mode to dad mode. So, and for some people, they can do that on the car ride. For some people, their car ride is, is the terror of the day if they're one of those high-traffic scenarios. But so if you can make that car ride home like a transition point from being the serious, getting stuff done, to being the Morphin happy dad when he, when he walks through that threshold from that front door. Or if you got a, you know, the biggest struggle, especially during COVID was you work at home. And then there's no transition period of going from work, work guy to the dad guy. And so finding ways to create a 10- or 15-minute time period of, you know, whether it's listening to music or read a book or just sit there in silence and be in your thoughts or hype yourself up or whatever it is to make that transition into, all right, now I'm dad, now I'm fun, now I'm engaged and intentional about dad stuff, and let's shift out of work mode. Because the two don't typically blend well.

No, depending on dad's job, right? It doesn't because it's almost like a, you know, a switch has to happen. And that's That's not easy on the human body. It's not easy on the mind to be able to kind of make that switch quickly. And some dads, like I said, if you do— if you're a commuter type, you know, you, you have some of that time. A lot of us now work remotely, right? A lot of us are working at home now. I know a lot of friends that are working remotely. I've been at home now for about 6 years working. And, you know, even though I have a little bit of an office space here, during summer they'll come in and see me, you know, while I'm working. And, and they know if the door's locked, I'm on a call or I'm doing something. But I get about 20 feet to walk out of my office out to the main living area where I have to then switch over, you know. And luckily, I don't have a type of job where I got to work, you know, 8 to 5 at my desk. I can kind of come and go as I please. But then even that's challenging because then I always have what this— I'm holding up my phone and getting emails from clients or stuff like that. I have to make sure if I'm with my kids, hey, I got to put that away and I don't get that time, remote people don't get that time to kind of shift from one to the other. It's kind of, you're going back and forth, back and forth all the time. But I've learned to just say, you know what, I kind of like that. And maybe some of you dads do, 'cause you're home, right? Like you get to be with your kids all the time and I get to get them off the bus. And the only time I don't see them is when I'm on a trip. And even that gets tough 'cause I'll be gone doing my own thing for 3, 4 days, speaking engagements and then come home. Exhausted and tired, 2 o'clock in the morning, and then we have basketball at 8 AM. And it's like, boom. My wife's like, just sleep in, it's okay, I got them. And I'm like, nope, I'm up and we're going. Like, I am back in dad mode here. So, um, it's, it's, it's finding that time to, to get back in is tough sometimes.

I know. Yeah, so life gets super busy, especially in like the suburb life. You're working all the time, you have all these after-school activities, you have all these school activities. You have these sports, you have these music lessons and performances, and you have your dinner parties with friends, and you have these community events to do. And there's just, you know, you're up in the morning, just go, go, go off to school. So we did a few things in our family because that was driving us crazy, like especially base— for some reason, baseball just takes up an absurd amount of time. We like baseball. I coached my son's team. My sons love baseball. That's not true. My oldest son loves baseball. My second son was tackling his fellow outfielders while they played. But, but so we were kind of a baseball family. But like baseball can be, it can be year round. Want it to be, especially in Florida. You know, you can do football year round, you can do baseball year round, you can do pretty much every sport year round. They have different seasons for it. And we just got to the point to where we started taking seasons off, you know, the fall season or the spring season. There were no sports. We weren't doing the church, we weren't taking, doing the church youth groups. We weren't doing anything. And we would just kind of hang out more as a family because we just got tired of that rushing here, rushing this. We didn't really get to spend time together. You know, we're driving over here, we're driving over there. And it just, you know, when we kind of stepped back and looked at that big picture, we're like, man, this just doesn't feel like a big happy family. It feels like we're firefighters just constantly on the go and running around. Didn't want that. We wanted to spend time as a family. We wanted to have time at home just to hang out and hang out in the backyard and go on family bike rides and go on walks. And life was getting too chaotic. And so we intentionally stepped away from sports and even youth church. And we're big in the church, you know, the community fundraiser stuff. And we'll just purposely step back and just make sure we had time as a family, which is hard to do. And you have to be super intentional about it. And especially if your kids are into sports. You sit there and say, yeah, at this point our family is more important than sports. I'm glad you brought that up.

Yeah, because that— we're along those same lines. I mean, we, we do live a suburban lifestyle. We're active in our church. Our kids do sports, uh, but we, we're not the type. And to each— I always say, preface by saying, to each their own, right? To each their own. Because we know some families that are very into sports and a lot of— and they're busy 6 nights a week, right? That's not for my family and I. Like, we, we are— we, we like sports on a more of a recreation level, not like a, uh, real intense, you know, travel level, um, yet. You know, we're— we like to just do things a little bit slower paced as well because we do love to just— same thing, we have a big loop in our neighborhood. We like to do walks and bike rides, and then it's Florida, we can be outside and go to the park. And sometimes I'd like to do that instead of just have always having a sport or something to do. So we try to just do, you know, one sport at a time, not usually nothing over summer. And, you know, maybe— and the sports usually go like 8 weeks, so we can switch one to the other. And sometimes we'll take the back half of spring off. So, and that's knowing your family, because, you know, when they're young, when the kids are young, that's when real bonding begins. And you can bond really good with your kids sitting playing Triple E. Like, we played Triple E yesterday and cards, and we had some friends over because there's no school for Rosh Hashanah. So we had some friends come over, and we don't have video games— get video games at our house. So we're— and we had some boys over, and we said, we're gonna play some cards, we're gonna play some Triple E, and we're gonna hang out. And, and it was good for everybody. Everybody was talking, interacting. And these are all boys like 8 or younger. That were playing some cards. Um, and, and I think you just need to— we need to just, you know, pull back from technology a little bit sometimes, especially when they're young, and teach them about the art of communicating, you know, socially and interacting without having a screen as an intermediary, and without always having to go someplace and, and be super busy. Because if you're super busy, your kids get burned out. Like, they're— our kids are, you know, are high energy, uh, but remember, they're up early and their brains are going. They still need that 10, 12 hours of sleep if they're young. And, you know, I, I knew a kid who at 10, 11 years old, they were burned out. They didn't want to play hockey anymore because they were doing travel hockey like to the extreme, and by 10 years old, they were burned out already. And, you know, it's just—

and it's tough, it's sad, you know, and, and So, and beyond that, a kid's brain, for development purposes, really benefits from being bored, if that makes sense. So I mean, like, having nothing to do and coming to you saying, I'm bored, or I don't want to go outside, there's nothing to do. And here's the reason, because there's been studies behind it. That's where creativity kicks in. That's where their— the creativity muscle starts to develop, when they have to go outside and stand in some woods or stand in a park with nothing to do. Their brain is going to get creative and they're gonna— their imagination is going to come to life because those are important things in brain development. Their creativity is going to come to life. They can build a fort, they can invent a new game, they can create something to do or just let their mind wander. There's tremendous brain development advantages to being bored, and that's something a lot of kids just don't have anymore. Like, they're never bored. There's too many stimulations. When they're bored, they go straight to a screen, straight to a phone, straight to a video game, straight to TV. And it's a beneficial thing. And it's, you know, I'd advise all parents to make sure their kids have the opportunity to be bored and can handle it and push through that because it's tremendously beneficial, both scientifically and just socially.

One of the best talks my wife ever heard at her— she was part of a Mothers of Preschoolers group, MOPPS. And one of the best speakers they ever had was one of our— was our youth pastor who works with students all the time. And he said exactly what you said. He said, let them be bored. So when they're sitting in a car going someplace, let them count the telephone poles. Let them make up things in their head about what they see in clouds and, and just look at the environment and think about what that person doing, that car is doing, where they're going. And, you know, talk as a family. And you know what, sometimes we just give our kids pen and paper, say, just write me a story, draw me a picture, let's color together. Like, our kids get— they don't get a lot of TV time. They maybe get 10 minutes in the morning before school, and then maybe a little bit more on Saturday morning. But other than that, if we're not watching a football game or something, like, it's really not on, you know. Like, my wife and I watch it when the kids go to bed sometimes, but the kiddos don't get much of it. And you know what, they're— they do just fine.

Like, they do just fine with their blocks and their I noticed, I noticed, I noticed tangible differences. Like, you can see it, you can measure it, um, based on the amount of screen they have. And I'm actually— I'm very tech-friendly. I, I think tech is important. I think knowing how phones work and knowing how computers work, those are all important things. I don't want to withhold them from my kids, but I just noticed their behavior is tremendously different when they've been watching TV. So some of the bigger fights me and my wife has— if she doesn't mind if the kids watch like cartoons in the morning, if Bluey's on in the morning, go ahead, put it on. Or the kids watching, um, gosh, we all love Wild Kratts. I mean, who doesn't? It's one of the greatest shows on planet. But she doesn't mind if they watch a little TV in the morning. But like, I noticed such a big difference when they watch a little TV in the morning versus when they don't, and how, uh, it's just how they behave. They're more short-tempered, uh, they talk back more, um, they're, you know, they just, they They have less of a fuse, less patience. You know, they get more fights with their brothers, fights with us. They're more like the push back and resist whatever we're doing that day or complain about it. It's just a very tangible difference to me. I can see it night and day versus when we're off the screens for a while. And luckily, we live a life where we've been in an RV forever to where we go out to places where there is no TV, there is no cell coverage, there is nothing. And so we go. You know, days or weeks on end without the ability to have, um, tech near us. But it's one of the reasons I like hikes so much. I like walking because it just gives us the opportunity to talk. There's nothing— you can't be staring at your phone. We don't play music or anything like that. We just— we end up talking about some of the stupidest things you'd ever talk about. I mean, just— you're inventing things, you're just coming up with conversations. And the way a kid's mind works is hilarious sometimes. It's the conversations we have. You just you can never create that on your own. But it's that, it's that tying together and that, you know, that not filling the void and just letting what happens happen. Gosh, I enjoy it so much. And that's one of the things I do hate about the— as much as we get away from it, an RV comes with like 37 TVs in it. It's ridiculous. They have a TV from every angle. Yeah, that's one of the things I don't like about it versus when we were at home, we had one TV. It was in the living room, and we had this big wooden map that sat over it most of the time. So it just wasn't— there wasn't like a visual reminder that it was there. So we just weren't a TV family. You'd have to remove a wooden map, and it was mostly for movies, or, uh, you know, we never had cable or anything, where we rarely had cable. I think we had it a few times, so we didn't even watch sports all that much. Uh, and I just— I liked that. The kids were a lot younger then. Now they're getting older, they're getting to the pre-teen ages to where, uh, you know, screens are becoming more of a role in their lives. But, um, yeah, this— if you can break away from it, I, I find tremendous advantages of it in creating that solitude and creating that time without. And I just see such a noticeable behavior difference when they have it, when they don't. So I mean, that's something— you're having trouble with behavior, man, remove— removing screens and just shutting them down for a while to where it's not an option. And sugar, is the other thing. Just huge noticeable differences in behavior and how they act. Now it takes a few days to purge. Like the first day or two, especially if you've never done it, are just going to be absolute nightmares. But if you can push it for a while, man, massive behavior differences.

We just— my wife and I just had that conversation like a month ago. She met with a friend of hers who, um, some has been struggling with, um Uh, I always get confused— ADD or ADHD, one of them. Unfortunately, I don't know which one. I forgot which one it was. But they basically cut out all sugars, and she's— instead of going on like a medicine— and they've— she's seen a massive difference in behavior. So now, my family and I are already going along, that already kind of, you know, we always eat pretty, pretty healthy, you know, for the most part. We— everything moderation. And, uh, we've definitely switched over to more of an organic diet now, and the sugars have gone way down. Like, our kids kids would get a little dessert every night almost after they finished dinner, just a little something. And now that is gone. And, you know, once in a while we go to a birthday party, to Friday night or something, a little something. But what's funny is that the kids don't even ask now. They don't even ask for dessert because we stopped and we've made it intentional. So, so the sugar's gone way down.

And, and if you do it hardcore like my wife likes to do, it's difficult to find foods without sugar. Like, you, you have to stand at a bread aisle, and we're in different grocery stores all the time, so it's more difficult. When we had Publix, uh, Publix in the bakery section makes a Chicago Italian that's killer, and it has no sugar in it. But that's the only bread at Publix that has no sugar. Uh, but so we go to all these different stores, it's hard to find. We usually have to get like the Italian loaf, uh, and that has like a little bit of sugar but not too much. Chicago Italian at the Publix bakery, if you've never had it, go to Publix today, get some. When you get a fresh It's awesome.

Good to know. I'll earmark that. We got Publix a mile away, so—

but it's hard. And like, you know, you talk to people about what they feed their kids for breakfast, and it's, it's oatmeal packets, it's those box cereals, Pop-Tarts, muffins. And you start to really look at the sugar content of those things and the added sugars, and it's mind-blowing.

But people don't look. People don't look. And just like with with communication stuff. We're not intentional sometimes with what we're putting in our bodies, and we're not intentional with what we're thinking about. When, when you actually start reading the labels like, like you've done, and we've really started to do, you're right, it's shocking. And if you look hard enough, like, we found a great cereal brand at like a Sprouts that has like almost zero sugar, and it's got good protein, and the kids love it. And I'm like, whoa, if they eat a bowl of cereal now, they're, they're not eating junk. It's— they're eating something that's a little bit better for them now, you know. Sometimes you get— sometimes you just got to have a bowl of cereal. At least it's something bad.

You're right, it takes a lot of intention because I don't even know it that well. My wife does it, but like, you got to learn all the sugars, like what the names are, because they try and hide it now. So there's actual sugar, and then there's a million other— the corn syrup, the high fructose corn syrup, um, there's— then they start using all the fake sugars. So you have this— anything that ends with like -ose, uh, sucrose, fructose, fructose— they have all the fake ones that your body essentially treats as the same. So we still see the same we still see the same behavior issues if we get like a strawberry jelly with no sugar, no sugar added or something like that, or no sugar, the no sugar version, but it has sucrose in it or lactate or whatever it is. Um, my wife's more money that way too.

It's more money to eat healthier. Sometimes it's more money. And so, but we, we sat, we're like, listen, you know what, like it's gonna be worth it, you know. Like, yeah, our grocery bill is going to go up, not, not mammothly, but you know what, if there's one way to spend money and eating healthy, that's worth it in the long run.

Yeah, it, it can get expensive. There's ways around that, um, but yeah, man, there's just being intentional about it. You just have to know. But if, if, I mean, ketchup has sugar in it, jelly has sugar, peanut butter has sugar, and so you have to like find the versions of those things that don't have sugar if you're truly trying to cut a lot of it out. But for the most part, I mean, if you just cut out your, your, your tricks in the morning, your, your normal sugars— it's just a bowl of sugar And you and I look like we're the same age. I mean, we grew up on that's a healthy breakfast. If you have that bowl of cereal with a glass of orange juice and a thing of milk, that's your healthy breakfast.

Or a bowl.

Yeah, that's a load of crap. But yeah, so if you're having behavior issues, you know, cutting down sugar like 80%, you know, that'll do it outside of medicating. The other thing is to make, you know, we talked about the sports families that are, that are burning a ton of energy. That's great. There's some families that aren't sports families, and there's— I mean, almost treating your kids like dogs, like run them, like they need to exert energy. They need to exert energy. And it helps with behavior, you know, when a kid's just sitting there all the time, yeah, they're gonna be, they're gonna be more volatile than when they've actually gotten to exert that energy.

So, well, it's like, let's go outside. Like, we had that, we had like 5 boys over yesterday with my 2 boys, and They were starting to get a little riled up in the house. It's all right, we're going outside. It was still— it was a little warm out, it's Florida. But you know what, we went outside, we threw the ball around, we took the scooters out, and it was much better. They were much better afterward. You know, we had lunch and we settled down a little bit.

So yeah, if you're out there, if Dad's outside playing with them, I mean, those are memories too. That's bonding.

Oh, they love it. You know, yep, we love, uh, we love one-on-one. Our kids love when you engage with them. Where you're sitting there building something, where you're throwing the ball, where you're bike riding, where you're coming up playing hide and seek. They love that engaged play. And then what I love— what I know too is that they're gonna remember that, and they're gonna be that type of dad too when they hopefully become fathers, you know, down the road. So what we do has a true impact on them tomorrow.

That's, that's a great mentality of multi-generational parenting, of being so intentional as a parent and being so involved that you're thinking about how your grandkids are going to be raised by your kids, of setting that kind of mentality.

You think, you're thinking about legacy, that'll change your— or rock your whole world, right? And, and being like, okay, what am I feeding them? What am I saying to them? Because that's going to impact them, it's going to impact their kids, and that, that, that'll set you straight pretty quick.

Absolutely. Listen, pleasure. Uh, we strayed away from the, the creating a positive family environment for a little bit and just got chatting, but Uh, uh, all that contributes though.

Health, like good health, is going to contribute to how they behave and how they feel and how they want to interact. So, you know, what they're feeding themselves plays a huge part in how— what they're going to be communicating out to you. So I think it's all—

and let's, you know, let's be honest, if your kids are behaving better and are talking back less and arguing less and complaining less, that's going to be a more positive family environment.

100%. 100% agree.

All right, well, let's wrap it up. I appreciate it. Um, is, is for the audience that's listening, dads, is, is there somewhere you want them to see you or your content or, or book, one of John's books you want them to read?

Or so you can find me on social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. That's @JimVanAllen. V as in Victor, A-N-A-L-L-A-N. There's an A-N at the end. You can find me on social media is the best. And, you know, speaking and training, it's, it's just jim@jongordon.com. Jim at J-O-N Gordon, G-O-R-D-O-N.com. Hit me up. I'm all over the country and, um, I'd love to, love to come to your son or daughter's school and do something and have a little bit of fun.

All right, I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you so much.

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