Child Behavior Expert - Kimball Lewis

Foreign.

Well, everybody, welcome back to the Single Dads podcast. Today we got a special guest and really excited about this one. We got Mr. Kimball Lewis. So, Mr. Kimball Lewis, he is a child behavior expert. And so tell us a little bit about what you do and what got you into it.

Okay, so. So again, I'm Kimball Lewis. Thanks for having me on the show.

Yes, sir.

So I. I am the CEO of a company called empowering parents.com and we are home of something that's called the Total Transformation Program, which is essentially a how to guide on dealing with kids that are exhibiting abusive, obnoxious, you know, bad behaviors. Like, if you're struggling with a kid that has behavior problems, this is sort of the how to manual. And it's. It's been used by over 500,000 families over the last 15 years. And it was developed by a guy named James Lehman, who himself was a child behavior specialist. He worked in group homes, he had private practice. He had 30 years of this. And he put together this toolkit that he would give to parents because he realized in his therapy sessions, that's like 50 minutes a week, that's just not enough. He needed to get the parents dealing with child behavior problems and having the skills to do that in the same way that he does it. So he came up with this program where he sort of trained the parents on how to deal with these behavior problems. And that became essentially the Total Transformation Program, which through the sort of late 2000s into the, into the early 2010s, you know, it had been used by almost half a million families. And then he, he suddenly dropped dead sort of at the height of his popularity in the, in the early 2010. So, you know, if you were around today, he'd be this, you know, he was, he was approaching stardom in terms of like parenting and stuff. So. But it was, it was a huge blow to the company. And the program back then was books and DVDs and coaching. We had telephonic coaching. I came in, in around 2015 and helped transform the company to an online presence. And what we do is we're evangelizing the work of James Leem to make sure that it didn't die with his untimely death. And it's continues to be used by thousands and thousands of families as a way to deal with. With these child behavior problems that for each family is brand new to them. They haven't experienced this before necessarily. They're not sure what to do about it. But through the work of James Lehman, all the parents that come before them. You know, there are proven techniques for how to deal with this, and, and parents can, through the program, can get trained on how to effectively deal with it and also to try to avoid doing the things that are not effective. And it clearly spells these things out. And it goes from, like, how you react to these things to the actual language you use with your.

Your child.

And a lot of the program is a script, like the words you would say to your child in these situations and becomes really, really helpful because it's like a lot of parents haven't done. Here.

Kimball, we lost you.

I think.

I think you're muted. Go ahead and unmute.

There we go. How's that?

Yeah, way better. There we go.

I'm not sure where I left off. I don't think I touched anything. I don't have anything in front of me anyway. Do you know where I left off?

You were only muted for, like, three seconds. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Good, good, good. Yeah. So. So we, you know, we help parents avoid what's. What's not effective and explain to them what is effective and what they have control over and what they don't have control over and really empowers them, which is why we're called empowering Parents. And it gives them, when they go into these interactions, because parents don't come to us after this happens once they come to us after it happens, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 times, which is an advantage, actually, because, you know it's going to happen again.

Yeah.

And we help parents prepare for that next time so that. So that the next time it happens, you've got a plan in place, and you start executing that plan, and then afterwards you start thinking about, you know, did that work? Did it not work? Do I just need to stay the course? And it's going to take my kid to. While to come along. So that's, that's all around the program, and these parents are. Who come and work with us, have had, you know, great success, and it's been really, really helpful, and it's. It's been a joy working with parents and to continue to evangelize the work of James Lehman.

That.

That.

That's incredible. I. I got a. I got a question for you because it's really interesting that you dove, like, head deep into this and like, you went all in. Was there anything specific, like maybe with one of your kids that you were trying to kind of figure out and maneuver that kind of led you into, like, to dive into that type of work?

Well, I was, when I got into it, My kids were I think 12 and 13, so I'm raising two teenage boys with my wife. And so we definitely had issues. We had issues around like electronics use, we had issues around behavior. That's not how I got into it. I got into it because I knew James Lehman and I knew the founder of the company that was with James Lehman. And I also had a background in child welfare research. I spent like six or seven years at a think tank and I have graduate degrees in child welfare research work and I ended up going into technology startup works for a number of years. So I came back to this world after years of doing different things and it would actually worked out well because the whole, the whole goal of me coming back to the company was to, was to make this stuff modern technology. You know, you, you consume it on the web, you consume it as, as online learning type stuff. So. So it wasn't specifically because I was having behavior problems. Although everyone that has teenage boys and girls deals with behavior problems. I mean it's ubiquitous. The question is, does it get to the level at which you think you really need help? And that depends on the kid. It's really not the parents, gotta be honest. You know, we tell parents we don't blame parents for their kids behaviors. Some kids are hard, some kids are really challenging. And it's not the, it's not the parent. It's not like we have, we're quick to blame parents but there's so many parents that have two kids that get along pretty well. You know, minor issues here and there, but the kids figure it out and they have a third child that's just nightmare. Really, really difficult. And it's not like the, and it's not like there's something wrong with the parents and it's not like there's something wrong with the kids. Some kids are just, are just difficult and they don't, they can't figure out how to solve problems effectively without turning to sort of abusive behavior, acting out, that type of stuff. So.

Yeah.

Which kid were you, Kimball, when you grew up?

I was the youngest and the last child. So they stopped, they stopped, they stopped after I came along. I was pretty good kid, but I was willful, so. And a little bit manipulative, I'd have to say. So. But I always got good grades. You know what I did? I had, I made sure I got good grades in school, which is actually, we teach kids this and, and have parents coach on this. I always got good grades in school, so I never got in trouble. I'd hold up My report card. I go, what do you want me to do? I'm doing my job. And then so, so interesting.

That's what my kid does.

Yeah. And if you have bad grade, I saw a comic once, it was a kid who had got bad grades and he, and he held up his report card and he asked his dad, he goes, well, is it nature or nurture? So I either either he was naturally that way or he was, came that way from his parents. But we don't, you know, we don't, we don't, we often tell parents, don't blame yourself for your kids behavior. You want, you want the behavior, your kids behavior to be on them. It really is their choice. So, so, and that's actually a big, a big part of our program is explaining to parents that you don't actually control your kids behavior. Your child does.

Yeah. Wow, that's, that's really cool because it kind of ties into what we always cover on the podcast, which is like taking full accountability for, for yourself and where you are in life. Right. That way you can actually finally start turning around your life. And it sounds like you, you kind of like saying kids need to start taking accountability for their behavior and we got to stop blaming ourselves because that, and then that just puts us in a spiral of guilt and shame and then we're not even showing up as the parents we, we can be anymore because we're so caught up in that. Does that sound about right?

That's exactly right. And then, and I'm going to bring it a little bit further, which is that smart kids figure out that you're blaming yourselves for their behaviors and they do one of two things. They either, they either manipulate you. Yeah. Like me, I was a little turd. They either manipulate the parents around their guilt to get what they want against their parents wishes or, and this is even worse, they actually believe that the reason they're behaving bad is because of their parents and that they don't have control over the situation. And if, and if, and if they believe they don't have control of the situation, then it's really difficult for them to change their behavior because they think their behavior and, and, and their place in life was assigned to them by their parents and that they have no control over that situation.

Kind of like hand it handed down to them and it's just part, part of their DNA and they can't change.

Exactly. Not, not that those things aren't influences, but there's only one person when you're standing in your kitchen with your with your child, there's only one person who can decide whether or not that child starts throwing F bombs at you and being really disrespectful. And that's your child. And at that moment, your child has a choice to make. And regardless of anything, the child is the one who made that decision to start saying F you mom or F you dad or whatever in a way that's just highly disrespectful and abusive. So you need to have that accountability on the child.

So good, Kimball, that, that's, so that, that is so good. And, and I was, I've listened to a small handful of podcasts that you've been a guest on just to try to become acquainted with you. And before we had you on. And like, when you use an example like that, there was just a lot of examples you use. And I'm like, at what age group does that really take into, come into effect? Like, oh yeah, you know, like, is.

That.

A 5 year old? Does he really have full control over, you know, obviously he's making the decision, but does he really know that? That's. I'm trying to ask this question in a way that makes sense, like, what.

Age do you implement the.

Yeah, I guess at what age group would you implement that? Or say like, all right, this child has made the decision at 4, 7.

Yeah. So we actually, we. On our website, that's one of our frequently asked questions on our website. It's a, it's a great question and it's a little bit arbitrary, but we say five. We don't recommend our programs for kids under the age of five because they don't below that age. They just, they just don't quite get it. But you might treat your 5, 6, 7 year old differently than your 12, 13, 14 year old. And what we say explain to parents and we work through the program on this is that, is that when your child's having a problem, you start from where they are developmentally and you move forward from there. So you don't want to have the expectations of a 13 year old on a 6 year old child, but you don't want to give a 13 year old expectations that they're a 6 year old either. So it needs to be somewhat age appropriate. But by the time they're age 5 or 6, like, they understand, they understand what they're doing and you want to react appropriately as a parent around that. And if the child's never been told that they're not supposed to swear and talk back to their parent and they're age 5 or 6, you need to explain to that. In fact. In fact, communication is such a big deal with our kids, and they don't. I don't know if, if, you know, child behavior folks explain this well enough, but if you go into couples therapy, communication is like, the number one issue. But they don't say that communication is the number one issue with your kids, and it often is.

Wow.

And we get to the point where for the basic rules within the household, you need to write them down and put them on the refrigerator and point to them frequently and say, in this household, we don't talk. We don't swear at our parents. We don't. It's not. It's not a rule of like 100 rules. It's like seven or eight rules about how we treat each other in this household. And we recommend you put it on the refrigerator and you point to it all the time. And it cuts down on. First of all, it clarifies things for especially younger kids who don't, who may not know what the rules are. But second of all, this is very important. It clarifies that the household has rules. This is not arbitrary, something that mom and dad, you know, it's not between you and mom or dad as individuals. This is between your child and the rules of the household. And there are rules of the household for real reasons. This is kind of like why, you know, we. We live in a country where we have the rule of law, not the rule of an individual who gets to make it up along the way. So you want to set that up in your household. This isn't just between dad and child. This is between the child and the rules of the household. And there's the legitimate rules in the household. And you can have a discussion around that when things are calm and you can explain why there are rules in the household, but it's not. It. But it's not a discussion about. Just between dad and child about, you know, I don't. You know, everything's a negotiation. It's not. There's rules in this household. So that's why we say put them on the refrigerator and point to them off often.

Man, that's. That's really good because you're offering clarity to the next level to your child. So it's like there's no doubt. And I like how you're saying, it's like every single kingdom has law, and we can't really complain about our kingdom isn't running the way we want it to when we haven't even made it. Clear what the law is for our kingdom and empire to run and operate. And we expect the little humans to understand that.

The example I like to use on that is, let's say there weren't speed limit signs.

Mm.

And it was just up to the police officer to decide if you were speeding or not.

That's really good.

As. As a police officer, that would be horrible. You would get in an argument, a terrible argument, every single time you pulled someone over as to whether you were speeding or not.

Yeah.

What you want to be able to do as a police officer is to just point at the sign and said, look, it says 70. You were going 90. And then that's really good. 70, you know, and.

Yeah, practical.

And if you think, yeah, it's practical. It's completely practical. And if you think it should be 90, that's as. That's a different discussion. You can have that later. But today the speed limit's 70.

I love this.

And you were going 90, so. And it works the same way in the household. So that's some of the practical stuff we point out to parents rather than arguing every single issue. Once you write. Once you write this stuff down, you put on the refrigerator, you can stop the argument. Just point to. These are the rules in the household. You don't like the rules. And we haven't had a discussion about why those are the rules. Let's schedule that for tomorrow night at 5 o' clock and we'll sit down for half an hour and we can talk through them. You can give me your input if you think this should be changed. But at the end of the day, I have. I'm the authority in the household. I. I actually decide that. Yeah. And the child should know that.

But I thought, I thought you were gonna say, you know, and if you don't like the rules, get out.

No, I mean, you could say maybe when they're 18.

You don't, you don't have to have. You don't have to have that discussion all the time. You know, we have something we say which is. Which is explain yourself once and then move on.

Yeah. It's really.

You don't have to explain yourself over and over and over again to your child. That's. They're doing that to. To drag you down and manipulate you and. And try to wear you out.

Yeah. And.

Yeah, it's okay to. It's okay to explain yourself once and move on. And the fact is your. Your child might not understand the rules and why you have them. They might. That's okay. And we Tell parents it's okay. They might. The, you know, it's not your obligation to get them to agree and understand all the rules that you make. The rules that we make for our kids that developmentally just can't understand why, you know, for example, it's important for us to meet the parents of the kids whose houses they're spending a lot of time at.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? That, that seems like that can be. That can be a legitimate rule for a lot of parents, which is, I'm not comfortable with you spending the night at so and so's house. Have never even met their parents.

Yeah.

Child may not understand that.

Yeah, that's. That's really good. It sounds like you're really helping people also practice authority without having to try and demand authority and like, try and claim it. It's just like, no, just walk in. The authority of, you are the parent. These are the rules. This is how it is. But I'm not gonna sit here and try and debate with you on whether I have authority or not.

Yeah, you know, I'm really glad you said that because we, we have this concept of assume authority. Like you, you are the authority figure in the household. You can, you can do assume authority authority like the way a good boss would do it. Not, not a tyrant, but someone who's just a good boss. And one of the examples we use is, we call it the Y trap. And again, this has to do with language, but it also has to do with this idea of authority. And the example of the why trap is you walk into the living room and your child's gaming, and they're not supposed to be. And a lot of times parents will stay there and say, because they're supposed to be doing their homework instead they'll stand there and they'll look at their child and they'll say, why are you gaming? And they'll sit there and wait. And what we point out to parents is that when you ask them why, you've just asked them to provide you with an excuse as to why they're gaming. And we don't want excuses. We want our kid to be doing what they're supposed to be doing. So a better approach, language wise and exerting your authority approach is to walk into the room and say, and say, you know, you're not supposed to be gaming. Turn it off, go to your room and do your homework, and then turn around and walk out of the room, as opposed to start asking them why they're doing it, asking for an excuse, asking for an argument and a discussion when one isn't even warranted. The child knows what the rules are. They're not following the rules. Tell them to stop what they're doing and then go and do their next thing.

Wow, that's really good, Campbell.

Do you.

Do you get into anything. What that has to do with, you know, younger children who are dealing with, you know, divorced parents and not understanding, like, what it. Like why I'm having to go from one house to another?

Not so much the. The understanding side of it. Our work is really focused around. Around. When you're dealing with a behavior problem, a lot of. A lot of the stuff that you're. You're talking about starts to delve into the area of. Of perhaps counseling services, perhaps, you know, that type of thing. This is more like the people who come to our website are dealing with specific behavior problems. So, so the example you gave, if the child is acting out and it's a divorce situation and which is complicated, it's. It's actually the most difficult situation you're dealing with. Like, it's one thing to have child behavior problems, another one where parents are divorced and very often are not even getting along or on the same page about things that. That makes it very much more difficult. But our focus is more on how the parent deals with that situation from a sort of discipline standpoint and from. How do you. How do you, you know, what's, what's appropriate and how do you deal with child behavior problems in that situation?

Got it.

Gotcha.

So it, it almost seems like, for example, because our, Our. Our main, like, demographic is obviously like, divorced parents, single dads, like, clearly, right. The single, they're divorced, widow, widowed, whatever. It caused it.

Right.

But it sounds like, I think something that in our community that's the biggest struggle is that it's. What you said from the very beginning is that we take on the responsibility for the child's behavior. We say because we went through a divorce and because I, quote, unquote, failed as a husband or failed as a father. Right. Is something that they typically carry. Now my child is acting this way. And then what I've noticed, because this happened to me personally, and I told Scott about this too before, and I've talked about on the podcast where after, After I got divorced, it's. It's almost like, I hate using the terminology that I became, quote, unquote, soft, but it's like those absolutes weren't absolutes no more in the household because I didn't want to be the strict parent. Because my daughter's been going through so much already, which then obviously led into behaviors that I did not like. And at that point I feel like, okay, I need to own what I can own, which is that I wavered on the, the clarity of the rules. Right. And her having the accountability and things of that nature. But then at the same time, it's still the child's, like, responsibility to say, not say, but it's still their responsibility whenever they act out in laziness or they're undrigged. Right.

Yeah. So what I, what I would say to that is, first of all, you're human. Right? So, yeah, honestly, you're human. And divorce is hard on kids, so you have, you have empathy, which is. So we completely understand that. Yeah, but, but at the same time, you know, we counsel parents that you don't want to, you don't want to forego consequences out of guilt. You need to have rules. You have empathy for your child. And a big part of our program is not just consequences. And, and we don't use the term punishment. We talk about natural consequences to things, but, but a big part of our, our program is coaching. Like, like offer kids alternative behaviors besides acting out or talking back or, or doing whatever. Like, help help them along, show them what to do instead. But foregoing consequences out of guilt, it just doesn't, it doesn't end up in a good place. And, and we don't give consequences because we want to punish or establish our authority. We do it for the sake of our child. Yeah, it's not fun to do it. No one likes. Everyone wants to be friendly with their kid. And when you, when you, when you become the parent, like, it's hard to do sometimes, and you have to do things that your child's not going to like. And that's a, so that part, part of what our programs are, is providing support for parents that it's okay to do that it's okay to, like, not be the, you know, you, it's okay to be the bad guy sometimes. Like, they're not, they're not going to like what you do, but they, they will appreciate it in the long run. You know, when we, when we look, when we, you know, when you look back at your, what your parents did for you. I mean, most people don't brag about how their parents were totally permissive. They, more likely they brag about how their parents made them do stuff that was hard and, and, and enabled them and set high standards for them. They didn't. Most people don't Talk about, oh, my parents were great. They set really low standards for me. It was easy growing up. That's not usually the conversation that happens. Usually it's like, I wish my parents pushed me more or I wished X, Y and Z. So. And so we let parents know that like it's this, you know, you can't forego consequences out of guilt. You actually have a job as a parent and you want to have empathy. You got to understand why your child might be behaving this way and divorce and. But you know what? Divorce is hard. I was a, you know, I was a child that went through divorce. But you know what else is hard is, is, is breaking up with a girlfriend when you're a teenager. Brutal. I would say that was almost for me, like, like I, I was able to eat through my parents divorce and my girlfriend dumped me. I couldn't eat for like a month. Honestly was like, that was horrible. And, or she was the great white.

Buffalo, the one that got right.

So, so, so, so kids, kids go through a lot of like, difficult things. Even, even in two parent homes. You have two parent homes where the parents don't get along. You can have, you can have other things going on. You could have an abusive sibling, you could be, have bullying going on. There's so many challenges that, that especially adolescents go through and they're not necessarily prepared to go through those things yet. And divorce is just one of them.

Yeah.

And so, you know, being a good parent and having, you know, holding your child accountable for their behavior and coaching them are all important things regardless of what's going on. On. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I was going to say that, that and just because a child's going through a hard time, it's, we have this, we have this saying we use a lot, which is there's no excuse for abuse. It's not an excuse for swearing at people and, and breaking things and abusing and abusing people in the family. Yeah. You know, it's just not, it's, it's not so.

Yeah, I agree with that. You had something.

I saw, I saw something. I believe it was on your website. And it was just touching on kids being shy, lacking the ability to, to socialize. And I know that's, you know, with, with all the electronics and gadgets and Internet and everything that, that's just, you know, kids these days don't have the, the social skills that, you know, we did growing up with, without, you know, having a cell phone and you know, they sit there and text each other when they're 3ft, 3ft apart from each other. And I just wanted to kind of see, touch on that and talk about like, you know, kids that are, you know, just struggle with, with, you know, socializing and, you know, making friends, knowing how to engage in conversation. And it's, it's something that comes up a lot with.

Yeah.

You know, whether your parents are together, divorced or whatever.

Yeah. I would, I would sort of file that under the category of, of as we, as we coach our kids. Coaching them how to behave in social situations is actually very important. And I would bring it beyond socializing just with kids. I think, I think a big, a big problem, almost a bigger problem is that kids aren't taught, taught how to socialize and communicate with adults who aren't their parents.

Oh, wow.

And that's, that's a huge issue that I and I. And one of the things that, because kids in school, I don't know, for us, the elect my kids who do electronics, it's very, it's actually very social for them. It's all their kids, they game with their, with their friends. Yeah. They're all online together.

Right.

Right. So they're generally not alone in the room, just playing some game all by themselves. But helping your child learn how to socialize with other kids and you can, you can go online, read articles about this, you can coach your child through it. You know, I was a very shy child. You can let them know that what they're going through, a lot of kids go through and that you can practice and show them how to practice, show them what words to use. We go, we do a lot of role playing, not just with, not just with parents talking to their kids, but we suggest that parents role play with their child to show them how, how to interact with other kids. And a lot of kids are in a situation where they will really piss off some other kid and they don't even know that they did it. They don't know why.

Right.

Like they lack those skills and they don't know how to deal with the fact that they've just made someone else really angry. So that's, that's part of the coaching process of, of what we suggest parents do when they're coaching their kids through these problems. So, but, but, but the issue I was talking about earlier about teaching kids how to talk with adults is something that we see lacking all the time. And it creates, creates a lot of problems. And one of the things that, you know, I remember when my, my son, when he turned 16, had told him he had to get a job somehow, just do something. And so he ended up. There was a McDonald's down the street. It was perfect. It's only. It was like he could walk there and I told him, go apply for a job. And he put it off for like three weeks. And I realized the reason he put it off is not because he was like, it's not because he was lazy or anything. It's because he was very stressed about what words to use when he walked into the McDonald's because he's never actually, he never talked to an adult before. And I realized that's that's true of a lot of, a lot of kids. Like he had to walk into a McDonald's as a dopey 16 year old kid, you know, like just reach puberty and like just awkward. You know, we're all awkward at that age.

Yeah.

I mean, some of us aren't, but most of us are awkward at that age. And he had to go in and he waited in line like the bur. He told me about it. He waited in line like to order something and there was another teenager sitting there and he said, can I have a job? And she's like, what, a Big Mac? And he goes, no, a job. And she, and she looked at him like, didn't know what he was talking about. And finally she's like, oh, you want to talk to the manager about, about an application for a job? And she's. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. Those, those are the words I meant to use. And then. But he did that the first time and it was a struggle. He ended up getting a job there. But when he went to other job places to interview other, other, you know, fast food joints or restaurants, he knew what words to use at that point. You know, you walked in and said, hey, I'm interested in applying for a job here. Is there a manager I could speak to? He didn't know what those words were.

Wow.

And that caused a lot of stress. But one thing we tell parents, which is why it's very important to, to push your kids in these interactions and help train them, is that when you're 16, you get a pass. It's cute. When you're 16, you do it. It's endearing. When you're 24 and you've never done it before.

Yeah, yeah.

People look at you like, what is wrong with this kid? Like, it's very difficult if you've never done that. And now you're, now you're a full grown. You look like an adult. You should be an adult, but you've never done that before. You still don't have experience doing it. So. So getting. Getting kids out of their comfort zone is really important in that respect. It's actually, I think it's a big reason why a lot of kids are stuck at home at age 22, 23. Not getting out there is because they're. They're actually embarrassed to go out and speak to an adult and humble themselves and say, you know, I'd like to get a job. I don't know anything about this. You'd have to train me. But. But, you know, how do I. How do I go about doing it? I think they're just. I think that initial inertia around the anxiety of that interaction is really, really big in kids.

Yeah, man. What I. What I really like about everything that you're sharing is that it just sounds so practical, and it's something that we, like, overlook so often. Like, oh, you want your kid to be able to, like, you know, walk in and apply for a job, Role play that with him. Hey, let's role play. Let's practice this so that they go in with the confidence of, oh, I know what words to say because I've said them now, and it's not brand new, right? Let me. Let me ask you this because I'm curious about this, because I want. I want my little girl to have a little bit more. A little bit more drive, right? Which I think is a behavior thing. And right now, she. She doesn't. So what I'm doing is I'm. I got her in jiu jitsu, right, to really create some of that resilience in her and make her do some scary things, but it's safe and all those things. But then also, I'm taking things that she loves. For example, Jurassic park and Super Smash Brothers. It's like her. Her two addictions right now, and I've used those to help her. Like, you know, she got a pet, and we got her a pet chameleon because it's a dinosaur in her eyes. She's like, oh, it's a dinosaur. And so it's teaching her how to take care of the pet, but it was based off of her interest. And then with Super Smash Brothers, I want her to have, like. I want her to, like, make YouTube videos or something to where it's like, you're not just playing a video game that you love, and I don't want to just take that away from you, but I want to implement other. Other Things into her that tie with those things so that she can have more of a. So her mind can open up to a different world, not just stay there. So if I want to create more of that drive in her, like, and create more of that behavior, what are some practical tips you could give, like, me and anybody else? Because I feel like a lot of parents struggle this with this right now, especially with Gen Zers. Right. Because it's like Gen Z. It's the generation that's just like, they're lazy, whatever. Which really they're not. They're just operating out of it. But it might be for some deep issues that we have no idea. Like you just said, Walking to McDonald's, it's not that they don't want to do it, it's just they don't have the words. And that's causing that. So what would. What would you give on that?

Yeah, it creates just enough friction that it prevents them from doing it. So motivation is hard. So motivation comes from inside. It's hard to motivate someone else. So what we usually explain is, is you just want to set up an environment where it's highly likely your kid would get motivated. And also understand that motivation usually follows the work. It doesn't precede it. So, and I'll give you an exam, like an example that if. If, like, for me, when I'm not going to the gym, it's really hard to go to the gym. I'm not motivated because I'm not, like, into it. But after I make myself go 10 times in a row, the 11th time I start getting motivated. So the motivation follows the work. So somehow you, somehow you need to set up a situation where you get your kid to do it even though they don't want to. And they may or may not end up. May or may not be their thing ultimately, but it's highly unlikely they're going to sit around and boom, they're motivated and they do it. It's more like they do it and then they get into it.

Yeah.

You know, like, like, if I'm gonna rake the yard, the first half hour stinks. But after like two or three hours, like, I gotta, like, I'm going, like, here we go. I'm, I'm getting it done. And I'm, like, motivated at that point. But I'm usually not motivated at the beginning. So motivation as you, follows the work. It doesn't precede the work. That's one of the things we point out to parents.

Yeah. One thing I've always tried to do Is, is create a, a result oriented something task or.

Yeah.

Something that at the end of it or at the end of a week of it or you know, teaching consistency that the results will be the motivating factor. And for the handful of things I've done, my son's 16 and just earned it and I've, I've had some pretty good results with the things that we've done. So.

Yeah. Setting up some type of reward system or something that shows them something's going to happen if. Right. Because you can suit along. That's, that's very helpful. Yeah, we completely on board with that. Yep.

That's really good. So that's really good, man. I kind of want to open it up for. Or do you have anything.

No, if there's some, if there's some questions. Yeah, people have.

Yeah.

So. So first of all, thank you so much.

All right. Can I add one more thing about the motivation?

Absolutely, please.

So, and this, this is like, this is like the number one thing we tell parents. Doing nothing needs to be really uncomfortable for your child. Like, like if you have a 22 year old at home, we, we see this a lot. Like a big, a big demographic coming to us have adult, what we call adult kids living at home, which is, you know, they're, they're 20, 21, 22. They're not getting on with life, life at home. They're not usually not happy being at home, but they don't want to do anything. But the problem is doing nothing has become too comfortable. It needs to be very uncomfortable if they're not doing something. And you have to figure out, you have to figure out how do you make it not comfortable?

That's really good. That reminds me of consequence. That reminds me of eagles, how eagles get their eaglets to fly. It's like they start turning the nest inside out to where now it's actually poking and stabbing at the eaglets. So it makes it uncomfortable so that they eventually like jump out and start flying. And if it gets to the point where they don't jump out, then the mama just pushes them.

Is that how that works? I didn't know that.

Yeah, it's literally how it works. And so it's like, it's this analogy that, you know one of my favorite preachers, Bishop T.D. jakes, he uses it for like entrepreneurs and, and how God like pushes us through, through trials and tribulations to like become better. But it makes so much sense. Like if you're in the nest, bro, and you're not doing nothing, I'M about to stab you with some little thorns and get you to fly, man.

So when I. When I use that on my next podcast, should I. Should I. Who should I quote? You or. TD Jakes.

TD Jakes.

All right, all right. I like TD Jakes.

Last thing before we head into the. Just very short Q and A, because obviously we want to make sure we honor your time. Obviously, you've got a heart to serve people. You know, reading your bio, you're. You're involved with the missionary group and you've led, like, church groups before. Has that always been you? Have you always had a heart to. And now obviously you're doing empowering parents, which just the title of that itself shows that you have a heart to serve people. Has that always been you or where did that come from?

I don't know if it's. I don't know if it's that exact. I'd like to say it's that. I'd like to say that, but. But I'm not sure if that's really what it is. I think it's. For whatever reason, I've. I've. I've always been driven by God, has given me gifts, and I'm obliged to use the gifts I've been given, and I try to figure out what those things are. And this was a good fit for me. And I think it. And I think it plays into a lot of the skills that I had, especially the timing of this with. It had to be a technology. I have a lot of technology background. We had to move the programs into a technology I had. You know, a lot of stuff came together for this, that, that this felt like a useful use of the skills that I've been blessed with, and I try to make sure that's what I'm doing. Wow. And if. If it's serving, I don't know. I'm not always sure what the definition of serving is. So, you know, I think providing useful services to people, whatever it is, even landscaping, parenting, whatever, I think is all, you know, noble. And, and, you know, I try to do all my work for God's glory using the gifts that God has, Has, has, has given me. And, And I always try to be mindful of that. So. So I don't know if it's. It's not sure if I have a servant. Like, if I took one of those. Those, like, personality tests, I'm not sure if I would show up as servant. I don't know. Maybe.

I think that was very well said.

And very well summarized, and I Think you're being humble. Personally, I don't know, because you got, you got a good little track record of helping people and it's awesome that you're doing that. So this is what we're going to do for everyone who's listening right now. Go ahead and just raise your hand and then we will ask you to unmute and then just ask a question. And let's tailor this to child behavior. So if there's something that, you know, some sort of struggle that, hey, you know, what are some little practical things that I can do, whatever it is, or maybe just some mindset shift that you might need and we can let Mr. Kimball Lewis help you out on that. So if you guys got anything, go ahead and raise your hand and then we'll ask you to unmute. Or if you're shy, just type it into the chat, drop it into the chat, and we'll, we'll pick out a question from there. Okay, here we go.

We got a hand.

Yeah, yeah.

D Soul. It's a unique name, brother. Let's bring them on.

All right, guys, I appreciate the time.

Just a quick question as a follow up. As we're going along with the process of discipline and you know, saying what you, you said is, hey, just send the message and then lead the room type of thing. What's good follow up or good advice for follow up if that does not work, Just the verbal and then walk away.

That's a great question. I was, I was actually hoping I was going to get that because I realized I didn't talk about what happens if your child then doesn't do that thing. So, so you want to, you want to what we call disconnect, which is don't engage in the argument because the rule set, they know what the rule is. You've let them know that, that, that you know, they're not following the rule and you walk away.

You.

If, if they continue to do that thing, then you apply what we call an effective consequence. So there is, there has to be a consequence and you can let your child know what the consequence is. And with, if it was electronics or gaming situation, they then would lose their privileges for X number of hours or whatever and then until their homework's done. So there'll be some penalty for the fact that they, they weren't supposed to be doing it. But we don't want long term consequences. Shorter term consequences are much, much better because you want to, you want your child to be able to earn back their privileges so that next time they're doing Something you can take it away. If you bankrupt your child of all their privileges for weeks at a time, you have nothing left to take away. So you want them, you want them to earn it back through sort of a short term task. But be very clear and consistent. If they're not, if they don't do what they're supposed to be doing at that point, then you apply the consequence.

Was that helpful, Diesel?

Absolutely.

Ed. Just.

Could I have a follow up too if you don't mind.

Go ahead, brother.

A struggle of mine is pretty bad. So in those situations I have a household where I try to keep the discipline there. My ex has no rules basically and they freelance and do whatever. So my follow up question to that, I have a pretty big issue with my daughter then calling mom and then you know, basically presenting not always the truth to mom. Mom then gets upset and then calls me and creates this whole other issue. And it's my feeling that my daughter does that to deflect her actions and mom totally feeds right into it because she just loves me so much. So you know that that's just kind of a follow up question to that.

Thank you. Actually that, that's a, that's a great one. And, and so I a couple thoughts on that because we, we see that happen a lot. One is your daughter's definitely manipulating you by calling mom. And when I talked about putting the rules on the refrigerator in, in the place, in the, in the divorce situation where you have co parents, separate households, one of the rules we suggest putting on the refrigerator is I make the rules in this household, your mother makes the rules in that household. And we also let parents know that you don't get to make the rules in your ex spouse's household. You don't.

Yeah.

And, and it's just, it's not ideal because a lot of times you end up with a permissive parent that you don't approve of their parenting but, but you actually don't have control over that situation unless it's, you know, if there's abuse or something going on, obviously that's, that's an issue. But, but you don't get to make the rules in your, in your ex spouse's household. She doesn't get to make the rules in your household. Just be, need to be very clear about that with your child. And then if your child wants, if your ex spouse, we also recommend if your ex spouse has complaints about how you're doing things in your household that you have a very short conversation with them. You just say I make the rules of my household. I'm comfortable with the way I've set them up and ended at that and don't have expectations about their rules. Just say I make the rules in my household and just stop the conversation. Best case scenario is that you and your spouse are generally on the same page with your kids. And if your child has behavior problems, you both have the same goal that the behavior problems get improved, even though you might have different ways of approaching it. But that's the best case scenario. Doesn't always work that way. But it's a really hard situation when you're in divorce and you're co parenting and the rules are different in the household. So it is an absolutely less than ideal situation, but it's actually liberating for parents. Let them know that you can't control what's happening in that household and likewise insist that that household doesn't control what happens in your household. You make the rules. So. And don't engage with your child on those discussions. That's. That's a big part. You know, one of the things that James. The first thing I ever heard James Lehman say, and this was in a, in a radio ad when I was driving home from work, he said you don't have to attend every argument you're invited to. When your child brings that up, you don't have to go to the argument. Rcp. No, no, I don't have to. I don't not going to that one. No one says you have to attend.

So I like that. I like. That's some G stuff right there.

But it's hard. Take your battles.

But yeah, yeah.

And, and one more thing I want to add on that and this because I always like to bring this up in my podcast. It wasn't specifically asked, but it's related to this, which is that, you know, in those situation, the kids, the kids know what they're doing. It's manipulative. It's all those things. But we urge parents to not personalize their child's behavior. Your daughter's doing it because she, she wants. They're lacking a problem solving skill which is getting the things done they're supposed to be doing. Like a lot of kids are not good at, at delaying gratification to get their schoolwork done. And what they do instead is they act out or they don't do it and hopefully wear their parents down to the point where they're the expectations removed completely so they don't even have to do it. That's, that's the way they solve the Problem of having a responsibility is to fight back so that someone removes that responsibility. That's not how we want them to go through life. We want them to be able to meet their responsibilities. And so we need to be persistent about that. And. But my point is that recognizing that your child manipulating you or talking back is really just a poor problem solving skill is very important because we don't want you to take that behavior personally.

It's really good.

Yeah. Because we know, we know that you can. That your child can improve and get much better. And if you took those things personally, you're not going to like your child, and it's going to be very difficult. And I have a Christian background, so if I'm talking. I'm not sure if. If I'm talking to a Christian audience or not, but there's this concept of grace and Christianity, which is undeserved forgiveness. We need be able to offer our kids grace when they stand in the middle of the, of the kitchen and say, f you, mom, F you, dad. I hate you. We need to recognize those as behavior problems that our kids are having and not take that personally. Otherwise it's gonna be really, really difficult for us to offer our kids forgiveness and grace for those things they did because they just lack good problem solving skills. And we want to have a loving relationship with our kids. And three, four years down the road when they've, when they've turned things around, we see it all the time. We see parents in these really difficult situations. They turn around. You want to be able to have a good, loving relationship with your child. And if you're personalizing that behavior, not recognizing as bad as bad behavior, not a personal attack, then it makes it much more difficult.

Man, that's so powerful, Kimball. Because what you're, what you're saying is focus first of all on what you can control. Your household, not theirs. Right. And then on top of that, it's like, it's something that I coach my clients through a lot is the meaning that we attach to situations are what carry the power and creates the feeling. And, and so when you make it mean something about you, like my kid did that, and so you make it personal. It's about me now. Then there's a whole different experience, as opposed to what you just said. No, like, that's a behavior. That's what they're doing. It has nothing to do with me. And then you're able to address it. I. I almost feel like not from survival mode, like you're able to address it at a much More like peaceful way too.

That's really it. It has so many. I mean, all these things, you line them up, it makes, it makes the entire interaction much better. So if you're doing each of these things and what you're saying is exactly right, which is that when you don't personalize it, not only can you offer grace and forgiveness, much easier for your child. Yes. But in the heat of the moment, you don't react in a bad way. What you do is it keeps you much calmer.

Yep.

You know, and, and we tell parents, you know, yelling, yellow yelling. We don't want our kids to yell and scream and swear, so don't do that to your child. Like you want to model behavior that you want. And we let them know yelling doesn't work. If yelling work, parenting would be easy. Just yell at your kid and would be solved. But doesn't work that way. So, so when you, when you don't take it personally, your ability to stay calm in the moment and then execute your plan in terms of, like, effective consequences, discipline, disengaging when they're trying to, you know, know, drag you into a fight, all those things become much, much easier when you don't personalize it.

Man, that's really, really, really good.

All right. Hard to do. It's hard to. I don't want to minimize this. This is not easy to do. But, but if you're, but if you're aware of what's going on and you know what the goal is, you've got a really, really good shot at practicing this and getting good at it and be able to accomplish that goal. But if you don't even know that's the goal, then you're, then you're going to be lost. You're going to be getting in these fights all the time and not really understanding why. Yeah.

You don't even have a target to aim at at that point.

Exactly. Yes.

At least, like, if you got a target, it's still going to be hard to hit the target, but you know what you're aiming at. Yeah, that's. That's really good. Anybody else have another question? Go ahead and raise your hand so you can ask it. Oh, Dominica asked a question. She said, how short term? One to two days or hours? I think she's asking about, like, the consequences. You giving short term consequences, not long term. What's. What have you seen that's like more advantageous.

Either is fine. One to two days, hours, all seems within the realm of possibility. One thing I mentioned earlier in the Podcast is start with. You start with where your child is and move forward. Like some kids that have impulse problems that you want to help discipline. Two days. Two days is way too long. Like, like if they can control their impulses and not hit their sister for two hours, like, that's victory. So you want to win that two hours. So, so you want to have. You know, what we do when we coach parents, we sit down ahead of time, we come up with. With what we call a menu of consequences. But two hours, two days, depending on the situation. All that's all within reason. It's. It's within a reasonable amount of time that the child has a chance to, to get back whatever that thing is that they've been denied as a consequence. You know, a week, two weeks, a month. Like, first of all, no one's. No one's able to maintain a consequence for a month.

So then I would imagine there's, there's certain variables that come into play and, you know, how old they are, is one of them back to the age group thing and, or the household changes and how often have they done it in the past or, you know, things of that nature. And obviously the, The. The makeup of the household and so on.

And task. Task oriented is another term we use. So have them complete a task and then, and then they get their privileges back when the task is completed and you can get creative with it. One of the ones we do is, is. Is when. Like for swearing. What's a task oriented for swearing? Like a. Don't swear at me for the next couple of hours. But what, what we like to do is, is, is, you know, take away their electronics for a couple hours and then say you get your electronics back in two hours. And, and after you write me a letter explaining to me that, you know, that swearing is not appro. Is not allowed in this household. And the next time I get frustrated with you, I'm going to do X instead and offer an alternative behavior and make them sit down and write that thing out longhand. They're going to roll the rise. They're going to think it's stupid. But what you've done is you've assigned them a task they have to complete and you've reiterated the fact that this household has rules and you've offered them an alternative behavior. Yeah. What we don't suggest is that they write I'm sorry, because they don't mean that they're so. They don't mean that. That's not what you want. What you want is the next time they get frustrated with you, they don't swear at you. And so that's what you want in the letter. You want them to write this letter, say, and they're going to roll their eyes. They're going to think it's so stupid. But you make them do it three, four, five times, and it actually does sink in. Yeah.

And then they roll their eyes and you're like, now I need another letter for why you don't roll your eyes at me, bro.

Actually, we recommend. We. I can get very specific on that. We recommend that when your child rolls their eyes, you completely ignore them. And then maybe the next day explain to them, say, hey, you know, it doesn't bother me when you roll your eyes because, like, usually you've won an argument and they roll their eyes. Like, they're like, oh, as long as you have compliance. If they roll their eyes, ignore it. It'll go away eventually if you just ignore it. And then what I like to do is, you know, the next day or whatever, explain to them, says, you know what, when you roll your eyes, like, it doesn't bother me. Like, it just seems it's stupid. But just so you know, other adults, when you do that, like at school or something else, like, they don't take that well. So you probably. It's not a good behavior if you think it's a good behavior.

Yeah, doesn't work.

Doesn't work with me. It's not going to make me react. But. But just so they know, in case they don't, they're rolling your eyes in a. You know, if you roll your eyes in a professional situation with a colleague, like, that's not good. Like, it's not. That's.

Yeah, that's really good.

So. But ignore. That's the way I was. Just ignore rolling eyes. You've. Usually you've won the argument. Just. Just walk away at that point.

Yeah. Well, you see so many people, right? Like, out in public, I've even experienced it, where something like that will happen. And again, they make it mean something about themselves. Right. So they take it personal. And now you got this, like, thing happening out in public between a mom and a child. And it's like, it didn't have to go. It didn't have to get there. And now that. Now the child knows, like, I control you simply by rolling my eyes. It was like manipulation. Again.

That is exactly what's going on with half these behaviors, is that kids are power. Kids have no power. Think about it. Yeah, they're not the boss of anyone. They're not in charge at school. They're not in charge of anything. They don't make their own money, they can't buy their own things. They, they have no power.

And they run the world, man.

And they, they run their parents world. They can roll their eyes and they can make a full grown adult fly off the handle and start yelling and screaming and doing crazy stuff like. Who has that kind of power?

Kids.

When we give it to them.

When you give it. Exactly.

When you give it to them that we allow the.

So that's so good. Do we, do we got another question? Anybody else have another question? Nope.

Well, ask another question. I want to add one more thing.

Which is, I would love, man. Yeah, go ahead.

Which is a lot of times, a lot of times staying in the course and being consistent is what's important. We have parents that, you know, I try to like. We give them, we give them some advice or, you know, how to handle this next situation. And they, and they, and they, they, they apply the concert, they do whatever it is they need to do and then the next day the kid does the same thing again. They said, well, that didn't work. And then they feel like they're done. And these are behaviors that have been developed over, you know, years often. And, and it's going to take your child a little while to learn alternative behaviors and learn, and, and learned the self discipline not to act out that way. So you need to, you need to give this some stuff some time. It's not, you apply this and it works the first time. You just need to be very consistent.

That's really good. I really like that because it's, it's like in everything. I mean, we see it even just with people that want to start businesses where they just try the next flashiest thing, but they never stick to one thing. And if they would have just stuck to the one thing, it would probably have gotten them some sort of result. And so I mean that, that makes total sense. Do you have anything else, brother?

No, I, I, I'm just thinking like how what he, what you just said, Kimball, is, is like I, since my son could talk and comprehend what I was telling him, I have, I've kind of made a rule with him. And if, if, if you're honest with me, then I will always have your back and you won't get in trouble, per se.

Yeah, I like that.

And now, and I was talking with a really good friend of mine who's extremely smart, he's got, has a degree from Yale in psychology and, but he was telling me, he's like, you realize that that's impossible. No kid is going to be 100 honest with you 100 of the time. And I said, I, I know that. And that's why he's, you know, I've, he's lied to me on a handful of occasions. But how, but what I've done is stayed consistent, as you were just talking about, and stayed the course and I've kept my end of the bargain and I've treated it in a calm way and been consistent with, you know, not raise my voice or you're grounded or more so like, you know, thank you for come finally telling me what's been going on. And, and I've, I've noticed that when I react the way I react, he's, he gives me more information which allows me to provide better guidance.

Yeah.

And you know, as a teenager, that's what they need is guidance and you know, to, to, to understand certain rules and laws that they may not be aware of as to what, you know, what they're doing and what. That. What might happen. And unfortunately, I don't know if it's unfortunate or. Fortunately, I have plenty of stories that I can tell him when I was his age and how it very. Almost ruined my life in many situations. So. But anyway, I'm not trying to get.

Off topic, but yeah, I mean, with, with the, with the honesty thing, though. I mean, you've basically sat down and explained clearly and repeated it over and over again to your child what the values are within your household. You have values in your household. These are what they are. That's almost like putting the rules on the refrigerator. Like, yeah, like, this is what we value. This is what we strive for. Can we reach it as people? No, we're all like, none of us can. We're all going to fall short to some degree. Like, like, you know, but, but, but at least you have those things like, that you're striving for. You know, what they are. Like, like, like you were saying before, like the target. At least you know what the target is.

Right.

So. Yeah, exactly. Man, kibble. This has been, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for, for coming on and just sharing some very practical wisdom and effective wisdom. And it's so cool to hear that this has helped so many parents already and that it's been. It's like a, it's a strategy or a philosophy, I guess I should say. That's been going on for a while now. And, and it's, it standed. The, the test of time. And so thank you so much for coming on here.

And just, just to give, we want to want to give you a plug, but if you go to the Single Dads podcast app on upcoming events and under people we admire, you will find Kimble and a link to his website and all the services that they offer. And your website is empowering parents.com, is that correct?

That's correct. Yep.

So I encourage any listeners out there to, to check it out and check out what they offer. It's really great. There's a lot of really great articles and, and free, free resources on there that are, are helpful. And, man, this has been great. We, we really appreciate you coming on and, and being a guest.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Yes, sir, brother. God bless.