Parenting with a Partner: Navigating Parental Differences

Foreign. Welcome to Finding Noble, a podcast where we climb into the world of young people's mental health and where we provide support for the adults who support them. I'm your host, Carly Red. Welcome to another episode of Finding Noble. Today we are discussing per parenting with a partner, navigating parental differences. And we thought this would be really fun to invite my husband, Eric Red, to join us. There is a good chance that we will get to walk through actual conflict resolution in this podcast episode today. So that could happen. On this podcast, we with Dr. Kevin Skinner. Welcome, Dr. Kevin Skinner.

Leigh. It's good to be with you guys.

Thank you. Eric, is there anything you want to add about your working relationship with Dr. Skinner?

Uh, yeah, I do, actually. Aside from my family, Dr. Skinner might be the best person I've ever met. He is kind soul, cares about people. He and actually seems to know everything. So I feel very grateful to work with Dr. Skinner and it's been been awesome last 12 years. I think we have a shared mission and vision of just helping people and doing it in any way that we can. It's been pretty great, pretty fun to help parents, something we're very passionate about, but very grateful to work with Dr. Skinner for the last 12 years.

That's kind of you to say.

I a thousand percent agree. Okay, well, let's get into our topic. Unless, Eric, you want to say anything about your marriage relationship.

I feel like that's a loaded question. What do you want me to say.

Car that you just love me and think I'm the best person to ever walk into your life 20 years ago?

The best. And feel very lucky. And one thing I will say about our marriage and our parenting styles is we're both very passionate partners and parents.

I think that's a perfect segue into our topic today because as I was reflecting on what we might discuss, it came to me that as parents, one to acknowledge and remember that disagreement is absolutely normal. Each partner is coming from a variety of ideas, such different backgrounds and family origins. And also acknowledging that because there may be disagreement or conflict at home over parenting styles, that it means that we or you and your partner care deeply about your children. Both of you care deeply about your children, and that is a beautiful thing. We both love them so much and is a tremendous and commendable real truth. I think for partners to acknowledge that this passion or these conflicts may stem from the very fact of your deep love for your child, I think that kind of changes the family playing field. To keep that truth in mind, I agree.

It's really important that you identified. Right. We both care. We might be passionate in different ways, which is going to lead to natural differences, because the way one of you does it may be different than the other does it. And there's a reason for that.

I think the hard thing about parenting is Carly and I, for example, come from very different backgrounds in terms of parenting styles. And so I think, as we've tried to come together and mel. My understanding, Dr. Skinner, correct me if I'm wrong, is most behavior is learned behavior. And so behavior that I've learned is at times different than what she's learned. And so I'm excited to learn how to maybe manage and handle when those pretty strong differences come up.

I love that. I do feel like after you acknowledge that difference is normal, disagreement is normal, then you can start to really tap into conflict resolution skills, which I think actually might be second nature to almost everybody. I don't think it comes natural to almost anyone, and it takes practice. So I'm excited to also go over conflict resolution and what that looks like, and then also more understanding behind why we act or react in certain ways. I think Dr. Skinner has some great insights into that, especially around parenting.

So what you just described is something that I think many times people misunderstand. Let me give an example of this. Sometimes when we disagree on something, we think that there must be something wrong with our relationship. There's something wrong with us because we disagree. And I might not like how you're parenting right now. I might not like your tone of voice. I might not like the energy you're putting into this and why it matters to you. What's interesting about that is, in a mature relationship, we should actually expect that we're not going to always want the parent the same way. But that requires us individually to be strong enough to say it's okay that we don't agree. And I think that's an important starting point. If you don't start there, then what happens over time is, is you begin to feel attacked because your partner's parenting in a different way.

But, Dr. Scanner, what do we do when I'm always right?

Oh, my goodness.

That's a great question. The first thing you do, Eric, is you look in the mirror and you realize that you're wrong.

Amen. Thank you.

I gotta work on that one.

I think that's really important, though, to bring up, because I think it is really easy to fall into kind of this battle of, well, let me prove to you. I'm really good at proving why my standpoint is the correct one. And I usually have really good supporting evidence. I'm really good at debating. I often debate my way into getting what I want.

He does win. I always joke that Carly would be a wonderful litigation attorney.

She.

She would win every case.

I'm coming with kindness and passion, and I want to prove why my point might work best, but I don't think that's the right way to do it. Is it?

Well, generally speaking, probably not. But what is the right way? Because you can convince a person, but they might not agree with you Still. What's that phrase? A. A man or woman convinced against a will remains the same.

Still, that is good.

When you try to prove to me that I'm wrong, might go along. But if I have something inside of me that I disagree with, let me back up for a second. In our parenting, one of the core things that we get stuck on is what's right or who's right versus what's right, I should say. And ultimately, if we're going to parent with purpose, we should look at the end goal in mind. What's the desired outcome for a child when they leave our home? It's a very interesting experience because you're breaking down what skills, what things do you want your children to leave your home with? And when you start looking at there, then you're actually parenting with purpose. Then as a couple, you're like, how do we do this? And if we start there, it's a whole lot easier to converse because it's not trying to prove my way. I'll give you an example. I want my child to know how to utilize digital media by the time they leave our home, so they're comfortable on their own, so it's not dictating their life. How do we do that?

That's really powerful to pull back and go back to the foundation of we're doing this together. We want probably the same outcomes. I think almost every parent, if they honestly ask themselves. That is such a intimate question to ask your spouse. What is it that we are hoping for, this child? What is our ultimate goal as we parent them? And what do we want for them? What is our deepest desire for our child? And I think if you can halt and take a break from this stance of righteousness that you've posed yourself out to try to convince your spouse that your position is correct and then pull back and say, yes, are we have the same end goal in mind? We want the same things for our child. I think that is so unifying.

It's been my experience that when parents do that, they actually really realize that they have more in common than they have apart. They have the desired outcome. They might not always agree on how we're going to get there, but more often than not, the overarching goal. I want my child to have a skill. I want my child to be social. I want my children to care about schooling. I want my child to learn how to give to a community and participate in a community in a meaningful way. If that's what we want our children to learn, then we're actually letting principles of desired outcomes guide our parenting. And far often than not, I think we actually parent blindly.

What do you mean by that?

So I think if we go back to where we started, we parent often the way that we were parented. Now, we may not do it intentionally, but the reality is what we saw is what we saw. How do you intentionally do something different without actually really thinking about, how can I do it different? I don't want a parent like my mom, or I don't want a parent like my father. And generationally, we pass down these, I would say, unhealthy habits or patterns. And then when we really reflect on and say, if I rewind this story and say, what is the desired outcome? I might pair them very differently than my parents did, or I might take some of their traits and say, that was healthy, that was productive, that was meaningful. So it's not always bad and it's not always good. But I can't tell you how many people say, I'll never be like my mom or dad. And then they're like, I find myself doing it all the dang time.

Yeah. Would that be a good conversation to have with your spouse? About maybe sitting down, me and Eric sitting down together and talking about, okay, these are the things that, from my childhood that I really am grateful for, that my parents helped instill in me or values they helped instill in me. And these are, you know, maybe areas that I'd like to do differently. I think an intentional reflection on that is foreign to almost all of us. We're doing things blindly, as you say, without even recognizing that we're repeating patterns. We were modeled ourselves as children.

I agree. Imagine that conversation, right? If you see me doing that, would you just give me a sign? Would you give me some cue? Because I find myself almost naturally falling into what I saw. My energy, my emotions. And if you see me doing that, please help me, because I don't want to be that way.

I want to go back to what Dr. Skinner said. We See what our parents have done. My home was a very, very loving home. Great home. I had a great childhood. But sports was everything. Right. My worth was defined by how well I did in athletics a lot of times. So during high school, for me, in my experience, it was a little bit challenging, kind of 16, 17 years of age. And what's been really interesting, and Carly taught me this, too, I didn't notice, but unknowingly, when my son turned the same age, I totally started treating him differently. And my understanding and Carly, you can chime in on this, is maybe out of fear because of what I went through. And it was totally subconscious. Right. And so back to the concept of communicating. Carly, communicating to me, understanding and communicating to her. You know, while I think we tend to do that in more of a yelling tone, whatever.

It's not always passionate tone.

It does come out a very passionate tone.

I'm going to start yelling about you saying that we yell all the time, but I feel like it eventually can get to yelling. It doesn't begin with yelling.

It doesn't begin. Yes. Right. Anyway, so, Dr. Skinner, I'd just like your opinion and thoughts on that concept. That idea of repressed childhood experiences and why that bubbles up in the way that it does. And why do we subconsciously repeat the cycle with our kids?

I think the key word here is fear. What are we so afraid of? And why do we act out of our fears? Why do we react from fears that we may have?

Yeah. And may. And maybe just to clarify what I'm asking, deep down inside me, sports doesn't matter. I know that long term, it's not important. But for whatever reason, I find myself doing the same thing that was done to me and the fear and the anxiety and all these things about, you know, athletics, for example.

So I think there are multiple parts or answers to this. One is we can project what was projected onto us. So if my value is how clean my house is, or if my child performs in this AC athletic setting, then it says something about me. And so we can project onto our children what was projected onto us, which would be very natural because we tend to think this is important. If I focus on it as a parent, my child is naturally going to think that's what mom and dad taught me. That must be important. Accurate or inaccurate. I can go overboard. I can do it in a religious context where we only think we have to do this perfectly. If we're not perfect, if we're not doing it exactly right, then there's something wrong with us. I can do it in cleaning, I can do it in athletics, I can do it in academics. So I project my expectation onto this child and their value then internalized is my value has to be contingent upon this production, my house being cleaned, performing academically or athletically. And so now my value is tied to the outcome. And in our previous podcast, we were talking about a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. That is a very fixed mindset when your value is tied to a specific has to be outcome. Because what happens when I don't do as well? What happens when I'm not as tall as my dad? Or what happens when my children threw up on the floor right before my mom got here?

So many things out of our control.

But if my value is based upon this perfect performance, then I'm always going to let my mom down or I'm going to let my dad down, or I'm going to let my mom down. I'm. I can't be perfect. And so part of the answer to your question is we internalize this, that maybe our worth or our value comes from our child's performance. In contrast, let's shift that around and say a growth mindset here. You work so hard, and as a parent, my challenge is to actually recognize your work and your effort, and that's what we continuously want to teach our children. And that's how we get out of that mindset.

I think it's so fascinating that as a parent now, especially of kids that are getting older and about to leave home, there are so many unintentional messages that I have sent. Right. Just like I'm sure my mom's message to me was not intended to be, if your home is clean, then I will love you, or if your home is clean, then you're a good person. But unintentionally that happens because, yes, there may be things that we value or things that we do feel like our worth is tied to, and then that message is unintentionally passed down. It is fascinating to me that despite our desires to shift that it is so difficult to change behavior. Why does that happen?

Because old patterns die hard. I often tell my clients, old patterns die hard. We're patternistic people. In fact, about 95, 90 to 95% of the things that we do every day is done subconsciously. We do it without even thinking about it. Then what happens is we do what we were taught. That's why living a mindful life, being intentional, it really does require work.

As you're saying this, I'm thinking of speaking with a spouse or speaking with a child about them noticing our behaviors and seeing things in us that we don't see in ourselves, like Eric said earlier. Can you maybe walk us through what this looks like? In my head, I'm thinking of the word counsel that we counsel together. And that for me, feels like a huge relief that I don't have to parent perfectly. I would argue that so many parents feel like parenting perfectly is super important, rather than this growth mindset that you are talking about saying, hey, I'm recognizing that maybe I've put a little more emphasis on your sports than I have your academics. I actually don't want one to be above the other. Or I do want your academics. That's what my hope is that Eric will say, I do want your academics to be above your sport output. Maybe walk us through what kind of counsel or what kind of conversations we can have with a spouse and with a child. What does that look like in a healthy way and in a healthy family?

I just do have a question. Let's say you're at. At odds in your parenting, right? And Carly and I were not, you know, in the big things. I feel maybe Carly doesn't, but I feel like we're.

I do, I do.

We're pretty unified, pretty solid. We tend to disagree on little things. But let's assume maybe Carly and I are not in agreement. How do you start that conversation? Like, how do you. Let's use this example. I tend to lean more towards sports because academically for me, I wasn't, you know, the greatest. I did well, but not the greatest student. Carly, on the other hand, she was a fa. Fabulous student, excellent grades, always at the top. And one thing I do admire about Carly is her passion for learning, always learning. But my mindset, the way I was raised, my dad, he worked very hard with his hands, played a lot of sports. So for me growing up, his emphasis to me as a child was, I need you to just work and work and work, and then I'm going to take you to the hills next to our house and we're going to go run sprints and then we're going to go to church and go shoot a thousand shots for basketball and stuff like that. And so my upbringing taught me the value of work ethic, right? Not that education doesn't need work ethic, but where I gained my work ethic was in sports and manual labor and things like that. So my view is I believe work ethic can take you most of the way, right? And so I've used sports in that way. Like, what a fantastic way to gain work ethic. And so my emphasis on education is not maybe at the level Carly's emphasis is on education. So we flash with that, especially with our junior in high school, because he's getting to that point where he's taking some testing that's important for the next phase of learning. And we got to think about university education, stuff like that. So how do you begin the conversation to become even more unified, you know, as parents? So that was a super long way to ask this question.

All right, so let's look at it from this way. There's not one way to do it. Right. The point in reality is if I work hard and I've developed that work ethic, does it bleed over into my academics? Am I able to succeed? Because I've developed the ethic itself. And so. Right. Wrong. It's neither one. It's actually both. You're both right. Now the question is, how do we communicate to our child that academics is important and athletics is important? Now we're going to that counsel concept with our child and say, all right, look, we, we can. We can do this multiple ways. We want you to develop habits that are healthy for you. If you want to go to an academic institution that is going to push you, then you're going to want to put more energy into your academics. If you want to do it athletically, then your effort is going to be really intense there. We still expect you to do well in academics, but you're gonna have to push it. And so now we're counseling together. How do you want us to support you in this journey? And that's where we invite them, because when they have a say, they're more likely to follow through.

What I took a lot from what you were saying is that you need the balance of both partners to be able to help our. Our children become the person they can become to reach their potential. By having a diverse I'm multifaceted home and ideas that we don't have the exact same ideas of what looks right and what doesn't look right. And maybe that's exactly what's bringing balance into the home and really bringing different ideas and beliefs and philosophies to the table, you start to have a stronger and more healthy environment for a child to thrive. I'm wondering, as you're saying this and lights are going off in my brain, of course we need to include them in the council. Is it important to have a partnership counsel beforehand before we come to our child? And say, let's counsel with you. Because I think that is some of the mess that we find ourselves in is we both come with so much passion into the situation and we're hitting it from different angles. And then we start getting into it with each other. Because I'm like, no, this is more important or this is how we should correct this errant behavior. We just have differing ideas, obviously, like we talked about. Everybody does.

Yeah. And our. And our kids are watching this exchange unfold in real time.

Yeah. Because we're both trying to help the child. We're both there to help one of our kids. And then, yes. Conflict and beyond conflict. I think contention, I think contention is the thing that is the mud that hurts families the most. One guy named Chad Ford that I liked following, he has a wonderful book on conflict. But just that conflict and contention are completely different. We hit contention when conflict isn't resolved healthily. So what does that look like? Counsel wise, Counseling together, going to talk to our kids about it, Removing ourselves from the room and saying, hold on. Like, code word. Cheeseburger. That's Eric's code word for everything. Cheeseburger.

Pickles on it.

Good. Cheeseburger.

Yeah.

No, no pickles. Bacon.

Bacon. Okay, so let me answer this in a couple different ways. Are children watching us solve problems may be one of the best educations we can give them. But. But preparation prevents a pound of pain. So I often say, proper preparation prevents a pound of pain. Now what I mean by that is if you're trying to solve a problem on the fly in front of your children, let's do a do over. Let's sit down together and counsel together. Come up with a strategy, a joint strategy. Mom and dad have talked about this. We've struggled. We've had a hard time trying to figure it out. I'm still modeling it. We're trying to figure out how to best do this. We need your feedback. Now here's what our thoughts are. We are united in how we're going to talk about this. But we need you to join us now in this next stage of awareness of what you want to do and how we can support you. Notice the language, what you want to do and how we can support you. So if you've properly prepared, it's going to prevent that pound of pain. Because now they're. You're arguing between them. You know, what a child does in that situation. You guys go figure out your stuff. Yeah, but then they don't want to listen to you because they like, I don't want A part of that. So now if we come with proper preparation, then we come and unitedly say, look, we need your feedback. We want to work with you on this. Really. We want to support you. The question is, how do you see the next year or two of your life?

What if I disagree with what they want in the next one to two years of their life?

Okay, so let's do that. So let's say, help me understand your thought processes, what you're thinking. And. And now I've just go in that and. And understand what are they thinking and why is that their approach? And you may. They may say, I want to do it this way or I don't want to do it that way. Okay, help me understand further. And you just help them explain their story and why they're thinking that way. And then as a parent, we have to stop and say, okay, why does it matter to me if they do it my way? My wife often says, B's get degrees and C's get degrees. And my wife was very good academically, just like you, Carly. I wasn't so much. I was more like the Eric style, probably. All right, so at the end of the day, why does something matter to us as a parent? We need to figure that out. Why is this so important to me? And that's where you get that awareness, and that's when you probably are going to go back into your childhood and say, oh, that's why it's so important to me. There's times as a parent you have to recognize when you can have influence and when you can't have influence.

That is something that I don't know if I'll ever quite come to an understanding of. I call it the dance. Knowing how much to intervene and how. When to pull back and let them create their own choices. Okay, but before we go to that, I loved this. I know everybody has been talking about and heard of Brene Brown over the last decade and a half. You've heard her name so many times. But I love this concept of her is it's called the Rumble, and I think it's from her Dare to Lead book. Let me just read to you what she says. The word rumble has become more than just a weird west side Story way to say, let's have a real conversation. Even if it's tough. It's become a serious intention setter and a behavioral cue or reminder. A rumble is a discussion, conversation, or meeting defined by commitment to lean into vulnerability, to stay curious and. And generous to stick with the messy middle of problem. Identification and solving, to take a break and circle back when necessary to be fearless in owning our parts and as psychologist Harriet Lerner teaches, to listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard more than anything else. When someone says let's rumble, it cues me to show up with an open heart and mind so we can serve the work in each other, not our egos. So I mean even just saying to your spouse, hey, let's rumble. Not like let's wrestle this out, but in a sense wrestle in a sense of conflict resolution where we are being curious, we're being open, we're being vulnerable and even hearing you saying maybe that's okay to do in front of our children so it models to them.

So let me clarify a couple of things. Why are children watching us? Problem solve requires us to be mentally mature adults. What it does not include is a criticism or a put down or that's stupid or you're wrong more of or.

You always or you never.

Right, it's more often than not. I'm not sure I agree with that. Help me understand more. I'm still seeking your opinion, but I'm also stating my own. I'm not sure I agree, but let's talk about it now. We're modeling for children how to go through a difficult conversation. How to rumble. When I got married, I had no clue how to problem solve. I did not know how to communicate with my wife when we had differences because there was no model. I never saw that, never saw conflict in my parents relationship, never saw them resolve issues. And so when I had an issue with my wife, I was a bumbling idiot. She will agree with me on that. But the reality is I've had to learn how to communicate in these difficult times. And when there are differences, it's not always easy. We're always still learning. And that's the question, am I willing to humble myself and say I don't know all the answers? I'm not sure I agree with how we're dealing with this right now or I don't know how to deal with it. That's even a more mature parent that says I don't know right now. And that's a great example for parenting with a child because as parents we somehow think that we should know it all. I can't tell you how many times I've told my children I don't know right now, but I'm going to work to find the answer and let's together try to find a solution.

We've often done that. I think Eric, A little bit where we've said, especially when it comes to just the smaller things like curfews and phone time and listening to music while they're doing the homework and missing family events, those kinds of things, we'll often say we haven't talked to each other yet. We will talk to each other and then we'll tell you what we agree on. And I think that has been helpful, wouldn't you say, Eric?

Yeah, I think so. I think when we're calm car, we're pretty good. I think we do a good job. Maybe the question that I have, and this is maybe more for me when Carly and I come with and we disagree on something. The thing is, Carly and I love our kids. We're very passionate about our kids. So I think everything we're coming at, we're coming at the situation with desire for our children. Right? It's a positive desire for our children. I, I guess what would be helpful for me because my natural reaction is I shut right down. I just. And I, I stop. Carly's reaction is maybe she gets a little louder. But when, yeah, when we're in that moment, though, what recommendations do you have to maybe deescalate ourselves? Is there a process we could go through to recenter and maybe revisit? Do you have any practical things? And this is maybe more for me or even like phrases that I could learn that might help me get in the situation better because I tend to go with the you never, you always phrase, which never really, it never works. Doesn't seem to work that well.

I was going to say ironically.

Yeah, that's a really good question because I see that in my therapy office all the time when we are in conflict, we don't agree on something, we don't know how to solve it. And so what do we typically do? We try to reinforce what we were saying. And so we, we say something and we're not really listening to each other. We're speaking to be heard. And I really want you to understand what I'm saying. Well, ideally we would pause and say, obviously this is really important to you. Why is it so important right now? Help me understand where you're coming from. Now, notice I've just transitioned into this place of importance. Now let me share from my perspective. I want to understand first seek to understand and then to be understood. So that's one general concept. But let's go back to a concept or idea you talked about before. You tend to shut down, zip your mouth, right? You zip your mouth until you get Frustrated enough, or if you're like most people, and that's when you go into you always or you never, because that's when the fight comes up. So we can shut down in a disagreement or we can fight. Those are the two most common responses when we're in disagreement.

That's why I get louder. That's why I get louder. It's like, let's get her something out of here.

We've got to solve this, right? And Eric, your problem again, this is. Couples do this. We all do it. So this is the pattern. So one person's generally pursuing and one person's typically distancing. I'm pulling away because I don't know what to say right now, and I don't know how to say it. And quite frankly, I'm feeling attacked and like I'm doing something wrong. And that's typically what's triggered. And so I am pulling away. And that's when the other partner typically pursues. And that's when World War three hits. And we throw accusations and we get frustrated and we get angry, and we're not solving the problem there because neither one of us are feeling heard or understood. So breaking the pattern requires us individually to say, this is obviously important to you, Carly. I don't know what to say right now. Can we take a short time out? But can we come back to it in 30 minutes, 25 minutes tomorrow morning? Can we walk through this? Because if we can do that, I will have more clarity on what I'm really feeling and what I'm trying to communicate with you. One, I acknowledge that I don't know what to do in this moment, because as adults, we can actually do that. We can take adult timeouts and say, I don't know, I need to think through why this matters to me. That type of self awareness allows us to be more effective. And then when I'm communicating with you, you can actually hear what I'm saying because I'm present with you, because I've thought through it. And once I've thought through it, I'm much more inclined to understand. I wonder what Carly's feeling. I wonder what Eric's feeling. That's empathy. And that's where we actually cross the bridge to effective communication. When I can have empathy for what you're experiencing and what you're feeling, that's the most effective communication. When I've shifted from I want to be heard and understood to I wonder what you're feeling and thinking. That's where we really make great progress.

In our Communication, I think, especially as empathy is difficult to get to when there's heat involved, right. When there's anger there, it's really hard to transfer to empathy rapidly. But the one thing that I have been reading about in preparation for this and have heard so often is to first get curious. And I feel like curiosity can be a precursor to empathy. That when we get curious, then all of a sudden say, I'm curious. Let me know why you feel this way, or whatever. And then they start to inform you why they are passionate about their stance. And all of a sudden, I think empathy can come into play because you begin to realize where they're coming from and see them as your partner, your spouse, the person that you're parenting with. And especially for married partners, the person who you chose to do this with. This is who I chose to have this family with. And I think it brings it back to that unity, which is the goal, I think, for everyone and is what is so difficult to achieve.

Dr. Skinner, you always talk about this concept of the brain getting flooded. And when the brain is flooded, it's near impossible to have an effective and productive conversation with someone else. And it also seems like this process is very relevant for how we communicate with our kids, because how often do we get in yelling matches with our children about things? And you talk about maturity. When you consider teenage brain or even younger, they've never learned the words. They've never learned how to recognize emotions in this way. And so I think this concept is helpful for me because I think it'd be good to model this and teach this through Carly and I doing it, but also with them directly.

Yeah, very much so. If I could emphasize one or two core points here, the first one is empathy is a skill that we learn. It's not inherited. It's a skill. Empathy is the capacity to be with a person and see and feel what they're feeling. And we are really poor at that as a society. We don't take on another person's perspective very well. The end result is we tend to feel like people aren't listening to us, they don't understand us. And when we get to that, which gets my second point, then we feel attacked. And when your partner becomes the enemy, then the smallest trigger sets you off. And when they become the enemy, then the children pick up the energy in the home because we're not parenting together, we're parenting, and we don't even like each other. And children then pit parents against each other because they'll do it to the person they can get what they want. Because I know I can go to mom for this or I can go to dad for this, but don't go to mom for this and don't go to dad for that. And they learn how to play the game. The longer they stay enemies, the more problems we have. And so if we're going to have healthy relationships, it really does require us to try to understand each other on a deeper level. And that's where our society is really struggling today. We aren't seeking to understand on another level what are they feeling, what are they experiencing. And I love what you said earlier, right? We are married. This is the person that I chose. This is the person I love. So we should treat them that way.

What a powerful core central point to keep returning to with our spouse and with our children is to make that connection and strength of your marriage and your family, the unity within your family as the priority, as the foundation to why we're doing any of what we're doing. It is so easy to get lost in the weeds and to not see the forest from the trees, all the tiny little events throughout the day. The things that wear us down are the games and the basic needs of feeding and cleaning and all these things that feel so important. But why are we doing any of this in the first place? It's because we have this foundation and desire for love and connection and unity and belonging and to be seen and valued. I want to give that to my spouse and to my children. And I think returning to that standpoint, I want to put it on, post it notes throughout the house or maybe on the fridge or wherever. The strength of the marriage, the strength of the family is the goals. That's the foundation. This unity is the foundation. And to try to return to that always, I think can really soften arguments and mollify the discord that so often comes into family life.

I often say relationship before rules. And the reason why is because we can have so much structure, we can have so much guidelines and rules. But when we have the relationship first between the couple and with our children, then the rules are a byproduct. The relationship is the foundation. We can build from that. But when you try to put rules as the foundation without the relationship, you almost always have problems. And so the structure that we're trying to create is if my child knows they're loved, if they know they're understood, if they know they're valued, then they're more willing to follow a rule or a guideline because they know that they matter to Me. And that's really this concept we're trying to get into. So many times parents fight and argue. It's not really about what they're actually fighting and arguing about. It's that they don't feel heard and understand themselves.

That's so good, Eric. Love is making T shirts with clothes on them. We should have a whole brand of Dr. Skinner axioms that you've shared with us. Just here on the podcast, Relationship Before Rules. There was another one that you said earlier. I can't even remember it.

You know, I love standup comedy. I and Jerry Seinfeld recently released the new one. And, you know, he talks a lot about parenting and marriage, and he makes a joke. I don't know how it goes entirely, but he talks about, I'm tired of the quality time. He's like, the garbage time is where it's at. It's the 11:30 at night, ice cream with my child. That's. That's the party. You know, the. Sometimes the forced, intentional quality time maybe is not achieving the goal that we want. It's the going along with the relationship before rules. Sometimes the garbage time is the quality time.

Well said. Well, and I think that really deviates from this concept of perfection in parenting. I think the more perfect we try to become as a parent, the more internal we become as a parent. It's more about us than it is everyone else around us in our homes. But I. The relationship before rules, to constantly remember and maybe even to ask ourselves, is this action helping the relationship? Am I putting this relationship before this rule? And maybe going back to that can be really helpful for us, especially in a. A situation where we feel like moving forward feels difficult. I think so many of us just get stuck and then stay in those cycles like we've talked about.

I agree. If I Just one other thing I would add there. If we do just focus on the rules, our children will resent us because they won't feel heard and understood and validated. When they feel valued and loved, then when I ask them to do something, they know it's because I care about them. So this concept was taught to me by my friend Ken Patey, and he ultimately said, you become very resistant when rules guide your relationship because it's a task. And relationships, I feel. I sense I'm with. I feel like I belong. It's incredibly powerful. But we really, as a society, we can get stuck on structure, grades, everything else. When we focus on the relationship, it softens hearts. We're able to have more influence, and our children Feel loved. And that's really what I think every parent wants.

And then I feel like the message that the child is receiving isn't based around home protocol like we talked about earlier with cleaning or sports or academics or whatever. The worth is attached to the human. It's inherent that I value you as a human. Not because you did X, Y and Z. You didn't have to earn my love, but my love is given to you. When we age and when we have our own children, we become so much more forgiving of our own parents and. And then start to see how much they actually did care about us and how much they actually did love us through their actions. My greatest desire is that my kids don't have to wait till they get older. And I'm not saying that I had to, but I wasn't tapped into it. The amount of love that my parents had for me. And I want my kids and my relationship to fill them now with that sense of worth. I want them to experience that. Now. I just have one more question I really want to ask. Referencing back to what you said, Dr. Skinner, if relationships matter more than rules, does it give us permission to parent each child individually? This is coming from a place where I'm recognizing my children's needs. Even the rules that we set, they don't. It doesn't fit all. One size doesn't fit all. For instance, our oldest son, he's living in the moment. He's wonderful, but at the same time needs a little more eyes on his assignments and schooling and grades. Our daughter underneath him. That is not something that we need to talk about. The opposite, I'll say, you need some more balance in your life. So they're very different in what their needs are. Is that okay to create different roles? If we are focusing more on the relationship, will that hurt our kids in the long run or will they feel like that seems inconsistent?

We will be inconsistent. We won't be the same with each child because they have unique personalities. They have unique strengths, they have unique experiences in their own life, unique friendships. So we have to be adaptable and we need to teach that. Again. Rigidity means that I just focus and I try to cookie cut every child. It doesn't work that way in effective parenting. Every child has a unique personality. You guys know that. I certainly do with my children. I've got twins and they have a different personality. When one of them is upset, they respond differently. So every child has to be understood in their way. Which is a. Maybe a whole different podcast we could do on Attunement, being aware of our child's emotional state and being attuned to them. Because ultimately that awareness of that child's need, we have to know how to speak their language. And if we try to cookie cut our parenting and these are the rules, then we aren't aware of their individual needs and circumstances. And the consequence of that is they don't feel heard and understood. So they don't care how you did it with older brother. My situation, my circumstance, why does it matter to you? Help me understand going back to this counseling together, if we try to put everybody in the same box, I promise you they're going to be frustrated and you're going to be frustrated because life doesn't go that way. What I experienced with my oldest child, what I'm now experiencing with my youngest child, their life experiences just 10 years apart is very different phones from where my oldest child is to my youngest, my son. Very different how they use time. It's extremely different parenting. So we have to be flexible, not rigid.

I thought of this experience that we had this week with our son, Eric, maybe you can share it with us. But it helped me see that as we adapt our parenting styles to each individual child, that maybe they will even feel more uniquely seen and heard and valued because we are meeting their personal needs, like you just said. Eric, do you want to share that story that you had with Emmett? We tend to go more on the this is the family rule. It's a hard, fast rule. Just keep it kind of a style. And we're learning that isn't always working great for us. So you had this experience with our oldest son recently?

Yeah, we were on a vacation and like Carly mentioned, we have our 15 year old daughter. She is very type A. She's a ballerina. And there's a reason why certain girls gravitate towards ballet is because it is such a perfectionist type environment where the movements and the structure is very soothing to them. So she, she very much that way. You give her a rule, hey, we get good grades and she's going to maximize her ability to do that. Like Carly mentioned, to the point where, you know, it's a little bit like, hey, take it easy, maybe let's try, let's try to get a B this time. Like we're going for a B. That's the goal. Not an A.

She would never do it. She would never do it.

But then she mentioned our son. He told me, he's like, dad, I'm just living my best life. I'm just gonna Live up high school. I'm just having a blast. That's what he told me. And so, you know, very, very different. Loves his friends, very into athletics and all those kind of things. But we set a rule, for example, to if you don't turn in all your assignments by the end of the week, you lose your phone, for example. And we had a situation where Emmett did not turn in all his assignments, so we were taking away his phone. And then he looked at his sister's account, and she had done the same thing, and we never talked to her about it. He's like, you gotta take away Margo's phone. And so then it turned into this whole thing, and I. I. As I'm, you know, he. We're getting at each other a little bit. I finally realized. I said, emma, are you and Margo the same? And I kind of had this realization. He's like, no, we're not the same. Should you have the same rules? And he said, well, no. And I said, do you understand why we have these rules and boundaries in place? And he said, well, no. I said, because we use them to motivate behavior. That's why we have them. We have this in place for you because for the last four or five years, you've struggled to stay on top of your schoolwork. And so we put this in place for you. Fortunately for Margo, she doesn't need this. She has 4.0. And so I said, would you feel better if we had different rules? And he actually said, yeah, that would make more sense. He said, I would be less angry because then I would feel like it wasn't unfair if we had different rules. For me, it was like, the one time I had my parenting win, and I was like, I can retire. I did this. I didn't write the coming on the podcast car. I'm coming on. You know, I'm the guy now. No, I'm just kidding. But no, it was. It was a good moment.

You know what would be interesting there? Going back to the earlier concept that Cardi was talking about. Council. So what rules would you like? And what would motivate you to get the grades that matter to you? Just that next step. Right? Okay, so now we've got different rules, but what would motivate you? Obviously not the phone.

That.

That's so dumb, because that's so simple. And we have never asked.

It's not. There's a principle here. It's a parenting principle that it was taught to me. To ask is to teach. Right. How would you want us what would motivate you to get good grades then? They're preaching their own sermon. Try it. I'll be interested in seeing what happens. It's just that next step. It's just that next step. It's a logical step, right? We've been trying for four or five years.

I feel really silly right now. It's that simple. Wow. Whoa. Okay. I have a couple quotes that I want to end with. One is by Tracy Ross. She says, ultimately, showing your children how to come to an understanding as a couple through open communication, respect can teach your children some valuable life lessons on problem solving skills, partnerships, and the importance of diversity in relationships. I feel like that sums up really well. The core message we've tried to establish today is that disagreeing as partners is a wonderful opportunity to teach our children this beautiful life lesson of problem solving, diversity in relationships. And then the last quote I want to leave us with is from Dr. Kevin Skinner himself. This was taken from your relationship class on parent guidance. But I have a big whoa next to it because I loved it so much. He said, as we go outside the family, how I see the world might first of all be influenced by how I see relationships in my own home. Let me repeat that. This is in reference to our children. As we go outside the family, how I see the world might first of all be influenced by how I see relationships in my own home. So the worldview our children inherit comes from the relationships in our home. Is what I gather you saying. Do you want to expand on anything?

You know what? I think that is probably the most critical thing. We identify relationships by our first relationships, our primary relationships. And when those relationships are meaningful and we feel loved, literally, our society could be a generation away from having war and conflict or having peace and harmony. And it really depends on how we interact in our own homes. Everybody, all of us can be more kind, more loving, more attentive to our children and to each other. And that's just the reality. And when we grow up in that kind of a home, we leave and we see the world. I can't tell you how many times I've heard from people say, my parents taught me what a relationship should be like. And that is the greatest gift they could give me.

As we end today, I hope you listeners will feel just a greater desire to focus on the warmth and the unity of your home. Whether you're in a marriage or in a partnership of parenting. That warmth that we provide our families is often overlooked. And turns out it may just be the very thing that helps our children be what we want. We want them to be happy. And that ability to stay connected, have that be our priority. Even amidst disagreement. That might be one of the most powerful tools we can equip them with as they head out into the world.

Thank you. It's been a lot of fun.

We'll see you in a few minutes.

I'll see you in a minute. I love you. You've been listening to Finding Noble. I'm Carly Red. Follow Finding Noble on all available podcast directories and find out more on our website, findingnoble.com that's finding noblen o b l e dot com and if you or anyone close to you are looking for further resources on young adult and adolescent mental health, Dr. Skinner and a host of other leading professionals working in the mental health world share courses and even answer your questions, all on parentguidance.org that is parent guidance.org brought to you by the Cook center for Human Connection.