Welcome to better today with your host Shawn Maguire and with over 25 years of counseling experience. This is the Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast that inspires you to create both an amazing family and marriage. This is the Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast that helps you to navigate the challenges of modern life. In this Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast, you will be given the same tools, techniques, and stories that Sean and his team have used to help thousands of people to transform their lives. If you’re ready to make real progress, that will change your marriage, your family, and your life. Then get ready because better today starts now. Hi everyone. Welcome
back. I’m so glad you made time to be with me again today because I’m going to talk about something that’s really important to me and something that I see a lot that manifests itself in counseling, marriage counseling, but also in counseling parents on how to handle their kids when they feel disrespected. This last week I was in this new store that just opened in Oklahoma City called Costco. It’s like a Sam’s club and they had all this food and it was a grand Prix opening that we were invited to and all the tables were taken. So we sat under this awning or this Gazebo with these nice chairs and couch and I needed to go get something to drink. So I got up to go get something to drink, met somebody, started talking, and by the time I came back, my family and my friends had disappeared.
That totally left me. Now in that moment I felt mildly disrespected, but I was able to laugh and joke about it when I saw them. And when that happens in the home again and again with our kids, it’s a much more difficult to joke, to discuss and to make it light because it’s so repetitive and we can feel so violated. You know? I don’t know about the way that you react when somebody disrespects you, especially your kids. But I know that I tense up my shoulders and my traps. They tightened my fist, may even ball, even if I’m not aware. Not that I’m going to fight, but I’m in a fight position because I feel attacked. Disrespect feels like an attack and you may be somebody that has a flight fight or freeze mentality when you get attacked or feel disrespected. I know that for me it’s a fight.
I don’t, I don’t run, I don’t necessarily freeze. I typically my organic response, this is the kind of organic that’s not healthy is to fight and you know, I think a good place to start is discovering what God’s best is so that when we do feel disrespected, instead of going off of our organic response, what comes naturally to us, we can instead move towards a biblical response that God designed for us to live in. That real accomplished his best for us. Our English word respect comes from the Greek word TMA. Satay. I’m not sure if that’s exactly how you say it, but it’s t I m e, s a, t, e, and it means honor or value and it really literally means to place a such a high and great value on something or someone. Now the biblical respect, we can go to the Philippians two three which says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility.
Consider others better than yourself. Now let’s look at what Jesus did. I mean, Jesus has all of these examples that I think a lot of us have grabbed hold of in the Bible and heard in Sunday school or at Church on Sunday mornings. You remember when pilot brought him before the priests and everyone, he was silent. He didn’t say a word. Do you remember when he was spit on and he was attacked and all these horrible things were done to him and as a son of God, he did not retaliate even when people attacked him in public in the public eye. He was very intentional about the way that he spoke. Now, am I saying that we need to just sit back and let our kids disrespect us? Absolutely not. I think the biblical precedent is says, honor children. Honor Your father and mother for this as the first commandment.
Gave him with a promise that it may go well with you. And we live a long life now. I think that’s God’s heart. And I think the Old Testament says when kids were disrespectful to their parents, you take them outside of the city walls and you still in them to death. So I think we must necessity necessarily keep in our hearts that God wants children to respect us. It’s not just for our benefit, but it really is for their benefit. However, however, however, however, if the focus is on getting our needs met, then we’re going to continually react in hostile ways because we’re not going to get our needs met from these little people that have not learned empathy, they’ve not learned and have the experiences to know what life is really like, how hard work is, how hard being a mom or a dad is and all the trials and tribulations we face as adults.
So I think when we step back and we realize respect is a mutual experience that we can give to them. And if we don’t just seek to get respect and demand respect, then I think we’ll have a much more biblical and healthy model. But also remembering that Jesus did allow himself to be disrespected, but it was by choice at specific times. He was very verbal until the very end when he chose to follow God’s will and go to the cross. Then he was silent. So one of the things to consider is how are you reacting versus responding proactively? How are you reacting to your kids when you feel disrespected instead of being proactive? And if you feel like you need to justify your actions or reactions that really don’t create life in your family, well just consider the way that Jesus handled it when he was terribly disrespected.
And Isaiah 53 seven it says he was pressed, oppressed and harshly. Yet he never said even a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not even open his mouth. Also, we can go to Luke 23 verses 34 through 35 Jesus prayed, father, forgive them for they do not know what they do and I don’t think, again, we should always not respond. I think that’s a poor choice. I think in those moments it was highlighting that Jesus was very intentional in those moments to follow God’s will and his path for his life. Now up to that point, Jesus was very clear in putting the Pharisees in their place in front of thousands of people. He was very clear when his brothers tried to keep him from going Israel or try to push them to go to Israel for the feast.
He said, for you, anytime is good, but for me, I’m going to follow God and he stayed back. So think about how you can be proactive. That’s the way that God would love for you to move with your family. It is also extremely important to remember that you are in multiple digits of age. Like I’m in my forties you may be in your twenties thirties forties 50s something like that and you are dealing with an immature child. Then maybe two, three, four, five years old. And when you react to their disrespect, you’re modeling the kind of behavior that you do not want to see in their lives and you’re giving them the instructions that they should follow your lead cause you are the authority. You are the example that they really do look to, to follow it no matter what they say. That’s the way that God ordained the parenting model work is that the kids follow our lead and they mostly follow what we do and the way that we say things, not just the content of what we say.
So think about how you can approach your kids through a humble example to help you grow in this area instead of reacting to what you feel like isn’t attacked. You show them patience and what you’ll discover is you’ll start to shift the focus from them to how God can move in your life through you. And instead of demanding them to respect you, because I’m the parent and I’m the authority, you’ll lead through your righteousness. You’ll lead through your influence and you’ll start to find ways to lead them that don’t require constant punishment, constant browbeating lecturing, discipline. But I think discipline is always a part of the equation. It may just have very different forms depending on what the child needs in the moment. But the great thing about this is when you stop reacting, you stop becoming overwhelmingly defensive, feeling like you’re in a fight.
Then your posture, literally the way that you stand, the way that your face looks, your your facial pantomimes will actually change. And what that will do is it will change the experience your child has from feeling like they must fight you back and you’re in this all out battle. You know, even talk about it. Yeah, that’s not a battle I want to fight or that’s a battle that I’m going to, that’s a heel I will die on. That’s a battle worth fighting. Well, the battle stops and then there’s an invitation to alignment and we show this through examples over time, not just, well, I tried your suggestions, Shawn, and they didn’t work. No, it’s a way of living. It’s a way of life that we start to live differently. You know, Matthew seven 12 it goes into this really the golden rule, do unto others what you would have them doing to you.
So if you want people in your life to treat you with tremendous reactivity when you disrespect, you know, we all have those moments when we say something that we regret later. You know, I often say that I wish I could get back five seconds or even sometimes three seconds to Redo because I’m often caught off guard by the things that my kids say or sometimes with my friends or my adult family members, what they say catches me off guard and I have a reaction that I would, not that I’m yelling, screaming and cursing, but maybe I might say something really direct when God’s best move for Sean would be to say something with tact that is a truth, but his, but he’s surrounded by loving kindness and gentleness. I’m sure you may not be that way, but I know there are those of you listening that can relate to that statement as well.
You say, great, I want to be more honoring. I want to show my kids the example that I want them to follow. How do I do that, Sean? I am desperate to know. How do I do that? You know I’m so glad that you asked now first we wanted to remain in his position of bringing the calmness, the peace of Christ to the situation. We want to see. Our example that God gave us is that Jesus, when he was on earth was always intentional and he always brought the right level of peace to each situation. Sometimes he was angry, but most times he was calm, collected and very deliberate about what he said. So when we do that, our kids will automatically have a different response to the way that we communicate with them. They just will. It will bring a level of, you know, when I was doing phone consultations with businesses and I still do that sometimes, one of the areas I helped the customer service departments in was helping them to identify that listening to a person diffuses the situation most times.
So instead of arguing with the customer on the phone, instead of debating them, instead of trying to prove them wrong and showing them how right you are, your company is, just hear them out and let them express what they’re feeling, their thoughts and you, no matter what they say or what they do, stay calm. Even if you need to end the phone call because they’re being too belligerent, too abusive, then you still do that from a position of calmness or you do not give your remote control to them to press your buttons. You keep the power for yourself, you and then you just are able to make better decisions based on logic and what’s right. Instead of emotion of protecting yourself and feeling like your life and your, your personality or your self esteem or whatever it is that you hold dear is in jeopardy and you’ve got to fight to protect it.
This is also the opposite of what a lot of parents start these conversations with is how dare you talk to me that way. I’m your dad. How dare you talking to me that way I’m your mom or you’re so ungrateful. How could you not love this dinner that I just spent two hours making? It’s all organic. It has the best ingredients and it’s gonna make you stronger, faster, and smarter in life. If we start from that position, the likelihood of success is almost zero because unless success is defined as fighting with our kids and getting in an all out warfare, then we need to back up and realize that Jesus began with a very calm and a very direct demeanor with his words and his body language being intentional. And we can see that because no matter how I rate other people grew or became, or no matter how overwhelmingly emotional they became, Jesus maintain the right mood in all the situations because he was perfect and he was perfectly showing us God’s best for us and how he wants us to relate to children.
He wants us to relate to our spouses. He wants us to relate to the people that we disagree with. And I think we can bring those lessons to fruition. And then when we start addressing our kids, now I have five more than I’m going to go over in the next Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast. It’s part two of the parenting hacks of what to do when your kids disrespect is ruining your home and I’m so glad that you listened today. I pray that you would share this with a friend that’s in need and really encouraged them to go back and listen to a lot of the Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcasts because I’m doing a series of really long series on parenting because I see so many people desperate to love their kids in ways they actually produce tangible results that actually change their lives and guide them in a direction where they can be lovers of God and really invest in serving their communities and be a contributor instead of just a taker, which that’s toddler years and also it rains a lot if you would rate and review us on iTunes, that gets the word out and it’s just how the system works of sharing with others.
That change really is possible. If you take God’s hand and you get the help that you need. Speaking of help that you need. There are those of you out there that say shot, this was great, but I need more than just a Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast. I need somebody to walk with me. I have great news. We have a team of counselors that marry biblical principles with cutting edge counseling techniques and they don’t want to just sit on the couch. They want to jump into the story with you. They want to hear your life. They want to hear what’s happened to get you to counseling. They want to hear where you want to go and then partner with you to make that dream a reality and how do you get in touch with, well, you’re at New Vision counseling.live. It’s New Vision Counseling Dot l I v E and reach out through phone, through email and someone will return your call and set an appointment up so that you can start the process of what better looks like for you today, tomorrow, or next week. Whenever you call, the process will begin then God bless and I look forward to seeing you again hearing you again really soon. Your comments and reviews matter. Let me know what you’d like to hear in future Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast episodes because what you say has an impact and what you do better or worse, one decision at a time. We’ll create the life that you live in the future. God bless.