Professional Parenting: Why Emotional Maturity Matters.

Hey everybody, it's Richard R Ramos, author, founder of Parents on a Mission. Today what I want to talk to you about is why it's important for us as parents to grow in our personal emotional maturity. That is the key. That is the foundation to everything else. When we are exercising our authority, it's going to depend— if we do it, if we're going to earn respect and do it right, it's going to depend on our emotional maturity. When we're exercising discipline, and if we're going to do it right and not overdo it, as I've done many times as a parent when I was a lot younger, making those mistakes, yelling and just over overreacting, it requires personal growth, emotional maturity. If I'm gonna reconcile, have the humility, the patience, the lack of stubbornness. When things go wrong with our kids, maybe we have an argument, a disagreement, whatever it is, oftentimes what happens is parents get stuck on who's right. I'm right, so they need to come to me. I'm right, they just need to do what I say. But Mom and Dad, it's not about being right. It's about the relationship. And what's important is that my son or my daughter is not happy with the way I've handled their misbehavior. I know you could say, 'They misbehave, so too bad, they just need to get over it.' But a lot of times they don't get over it, and now you have a rift, resentment that grows in the relationship, and that's what it's about in winning loyalty. What's it gonna take? It's gonna take emotional maturity. But the thing about it is that emotional maturity, personal growth is not automatic. Getting old, that's automatic. I didn't try to have gray hair. I did not try to have a gray beard. I didn't make any effort. It just. Happen automatically. But growing up, that is not automatic. That takes intention, that takes discipline, that takes work. Think about it this way. I like to talk about the profession of parenting. We should look at it just like a professional. Now, if you were to hire a lawyer a doctor, a carpenter, a plumber, a teacher, a counselor. These are professional people, and when you hire them, what do you expect? You expect excellence. You expect them to do a great job. You expect them to do what they say they're going to do. Why should our children expect anything different? Because that mindset of professionalism, we think about it only for work, and then now we become a different person out there than the person we are at home. Why should out there get our best rather than our children in our home? See, in other words, we should have a professional mindset, a professional attitude about parenting, just like we do about any profession. Whatever skill that you do when you're at work, whatever that might be. So when you look at it that way, then it helps you to understand that if we're not growing in our skill level of being a dad, of being a stepdad, being a stepmom, being a mom, then what are we left with? A lot of times we're left with the old generational cycle of, that's the way my dad raised me, and that's the way my mom raised me, and if it was good enough for me, it's good enough for you. Maybe it's not. Now I was raised by a single mother and my mom was very strict. She was very strict and I, and I hated it at the time, but I thank God for it. Of course, we all, you know how the saying goes, the older we get, the smarter our parents get. We thought, oh, you don't get it, you're old. We were all mad. But as we get older and have kids ourselves, then we say, my, my mom was pretty smart. But there were things my mom did that, that I didn't do as a parent that I wasn't gonna do. There's things I changed. That's being aware of where I am, where my kids are at, and the year I'm living in. Well, I raised my kids in the '80s and the '90s, but where you're at today, we're living in different times. And what I'm saying to you is that it is important for you to be working on yourself. As I often like to say, the beautiful thing about being a human being is that you can be the gardener and the rose at the same time. What does that mean? It means you can work on yourself. So I want to show you why this is important about personal growth. See, as human beings, I like to encourage parents to function from their peak potential. Because as human beings, we have a tremendous capacity to function, tremendous capacity, made in the image of God. Our mind, our thoughts, our imagination, our creativity, our heart, our soul, our spirit, and all of that, working on it constantly. Because it's just any other part of your body, if you neglect if you just let it lay there, it's gonna just atrophy. It's not gonna get stronger or better, or it's not gonna grow, and you will not be functioning in full peak potential. But it doesn't happen automatically. So this illustrates what I mean by that. So we all start as infants, just little babies, innocent infants, and then we just start to grow. Now we're 2 years old and we're starting to understand and crawl around, and then we get a little older at 6 months old, and now we're We were walking and running around and we challenging our parents and other kids. And then we get a little older and now we're old enough to go to school. And now we're into 5th grade, 6th grade, whatever it is. So all of that I call natural, a natural phase of growth. Okay. This part right here. But what I've seen, it happens with— you don't have to be a parent, but we're talking about parenting— with a lot of parents is that somewhere along the line, maybe after high school, all of a sudden we just flatline. Parents flatline. They stop growing. There's no education, there's no more studying, there's no more reading, there's no more curiosity. There's no more understanding that I have to learn more. And the more I know, the more I know I don't know. So as a professional parent, again, professional plumber, professional lawyer, a doctor, would you want to go to a doctor or a dentist who was not up to date, that didn't know the latest technology and things that are, have been improving? Imagine the way the doctors and dentists were treat— we know through history and through books what they were doing way back then because they didn't know any better. But of course, as time went on, things— we learned more. And then the more we learned, the more we learned that we needed to learn more. And that's where we're at today. And it's the same in any profession. This is called human being. Not human doing as a mom or a dad doing all the mom things and doing all the dad things. This is being mom and my being as a dad. And that part of me always growing and maturing because it's a lifelong process. It never ends unless you choose to end it. And now you've what I call flatlining. You're not growing anymore. Now the problem with that is that you begin to have kids. If you have kids, now you have kids and they go through the same process. They start getting a little older, just automatically, and then sooner or later they hit that junior high school age, 12 to 15. And the research says that in general, most kids, when they start to get off track and start wanting to do their own thing and become maybe rebellious to a certain extent, is that age from 12 to 15. So the problem is we— that when you understand that growing old is automatic, but growing up is not. And what happens is that we have this idea that if the older we get, the smarter I get, the wiser I get, the more mature I get. But it's not true. I'm sure you know somebody who's 30 years old and still acts like a teenager. I'm sure you know somebody who's 45 years old and they still want to be 15, and that's a problem because now they have kids. And so this kid starts to act out, and what happens? Yeah, you're 30-plus years old, but your maturity level is still down here because you flatlined, and now you have an immature parent with a teenage mentality dealing with a teenage kid. And all that does is cause a lot of friction, a lot of arguing, a lot of, of problems, a lot of misunderstanding. Sometimes things get real ugly because you don't have the maturity level to deal with this child, this teenager, this rebellious son or daughter. And that is what I have encountered over all these years that I've been doing Parents on a Mission, which has been a long time. Now let me just say, I'm not the perfect parent. I don't do this because I'm a perfect parent. I do this because as I'm learning and growing, I want to help other parents learn and grow. And I got to say, I— that's exactly what has happened. Helped a lot of parents. A lot of parents, a lot of families, a lot of reconciliation, a lot of healing, a lot of forgiving, a lot of understanding, a lot of correction, simply because parents, we love our children and we want to get it right. We want to do the right thing, but sometimes we just don't know how. Okay, and so we can't think that because we're getting older that we're just automatically, when our kids act out, that we're automatically going to respond from here. That's not going to happen. We can't just flick a switch and we become mature and we respond instead of react, because that's usually what we're doing in immaturity. We're re— we're reacting to the rebellion. But what we want to do is, if we're growing, if we're putting in the work to grow, then when our children act out, we can respond to them from a mature space rather than from an immature space. We're responding from our peak potential as a parent, as a professional parent. And again, let me say, nobody gets it right all the time. I don't. Still to this day, sometimes I, I lose my temper. I say things I shouldn't say. I react instead of thinking, slowing down, and choosing a response of maturity. But as the years go on, I'm getting better and better. And so there's no point in you, Mom and Dad, shaming yourself, putting yourself down, giving up, being discouraged, beating yourself up. What we can do is work on ourself. And, and that's why personal growth is so important. And that is in Parents on a Mission. That's the first thing we talk about. That's the first lesson in Parents on a Mission, in the curriculum that we have. And in the book that I, that I've written, that's the main thing. As I said at the beginning of this video, everything else that we teach in Parents on a Mission, how to earn respect for your authority, The proper use of discipline, the reconciliation when there's been a falling out or an argument or disagreement that sometimes can get ugly. Uh, how to raise citizens of the community that give to the community, become a great citizen, a great employer, a great employee, maybe a politician, somebody that's giving and serving rather than taking from and destroying and causing havoc in the community. Citizenship, community building. And Mom and Dad, remember, the community does not build your family. Your family is building the community. Because think about it, where do the citizens of the community come from? Citizens go to school, they don't come from school. Citizens go to church, they don't come from church. Citizens go to work. They don't come from work. Where do citizens come from? Citizens come from our home. And therefore, understanding, Mom and Dad, that we are raising citizens of the community, that then your neighbors are depending on you to raise kids that they don't have to worry about The school is depending on us to raise children that will sit down, listen, be respectful, get along with other people, obey the rules and people in authority. They're depending on us for that. What am I saying? All of those things require personal emotional maturity, personal Personal growth. That's why it's so important that we take this personal growth aspect of Parents on a Mission so seriously. And it's when you decide to work out, you know, you might get excited. You see some, something on TV or you have a friend or somebody says, hey man, let's, let's start working out. Let's go to the gym. Let's do, let's really do this 3 times a week, 4 times a week, twice a week, 5 days a week. And so you get excited and maybe you buy some new shoes, you buy some new gear, and you joined a gym or a program and you're motivated. And so you go and you're disciplined, you're there every day for a week and then 2 weeks, but then life happens. Something happens. Maybe you go on vacation or just the kids, you're busy. The next thing you know, you're missing a workout and you're missing another workout. And next thing you know, you stop working out. See, and that's what happens to us as parents. And I'm trying to encourage you and inspire you, but more than that, I'm not just giving you information, Mom and Dad. You don't need more information. We're bombarded with information. What we need is a framework, is a structure that will cause us to experience the transformation of personal growth. And that is what Parents on a Mission is about. That is how I designed the whole program, and it's all on my website, richardrramos.com. My books are there, there's some free resources there, there's an online course there. Let's say, for example, that Parents on a Mission— I've trained people all over the country and in 3 other, other countries, but you say, Richard, there is no Parents on a Mission classes for me in my city where I live. That's why I've written my books, so if you like to read, or I created the online course where you can go to my website, richardrramos.com, click on the courses tab, and you can enroll in that course. 15 videos, short videos that you can watch at your leisure at home or wherever you want. You can invite other people to come and learn the things that we are teaching, all the things that I've mentioned— emotional maturity or personal growth, the proper use of discipline, earning respect for your authority, how to reconcile when there's been a falling out in your family, raising citizens of the community that are giving to the community and not taking from it. And probably the biggest prize is how to win the loyalty of your children, because that's what's at stake, Mom and Dad. And I say it all the time that I believe that every parent in America is in a daily battle for the heart, for the mind, and for the loyalty— the choice of loyalty from your children. And social media influencers have taken the lead. It used to be movies, it used to be music, it used to be magazines, but now it's social media that is the leader now influencing kids. And especially with the artificial intelligence and the way it's growing and where it's going, that's something that we need to really pay attention to, Mom and Dad. And so I believe that parents need to get in the game, and if you don't understand that you are in a daily battle, 24/7, 365, for the heart, mind, and loyalty of your children, then you're not even in the game. And you need to get in the game, Mom and Dad. See, loyalty is a gift, and that's a choice that your children make. How is it that these children are making a choice to give their loyalty to all these other people other than the family? That's why we have to look within ourselves. What's going on in our homes? What's going on a daily basis? What kind of culture and environment? What kind of nest do our children come home to? That's the key. And if you're a blended family like I am, a stepparent like I am, it's even more of a challenge. This podcast, the Parent Whisperer Podcast, I developed it again for the same reason. I've written the books, I'm doing the classes, I've trained other people to do the Parents on a Mission classes, but I also then created the podcast because that's the thing to do today. Everybody's doing it, but what's the purpose? Reach more parents. Parents on a Mission, reach more families, help more parents win their children's loyalty, because it's up for grabs. But if you're doing the things that we teach— and I help a whole teaching, maybe I'll teach it next time in the next podcast— I call it the Home Field Advantage. And I'm— I developed this program for parents of small children to— for them to prevent their kids from joining negative lifestyles. So maybe I'll talk about that next time. Now, I've talked about it before on my podcast. It's all— it's in my books. So you could read it, you could go back in my very early season 1 podcast. Those are just audio, but if I teach this next week, I'll do it like this on video, and I'll give you some illustrations to understand what that lesson is about. But tonight, or today, I'm talking about the importance of being a professional parent, the importance of parent personal growth and emotional maturity. And that is the foundation, that is the key to your influence with your children, your connection with your children, your attachment with your children that's going to win their heart, win their mind, and ultimately secure loyalty to the family. So listen, I'm Richard R Ramos. This is the Parent Whisperer podcast. Thank you for listening. Please share this podcast, like the podcast, leave a review, ask questions, whatever you feel inclined to, to agree or disagree with what I'm saying. I, I love it. So let me leave you with this, as I always do. Remember, Mom and Dad, Parents on a Mission is not for bad parents. It's for good parents like you who want to get better. Thanks for listening. See you next time.