Welcome to better today with your Marriage Counselor Edmond host Shawn Maguire and with over 25 years of counseling experience, this is the podcast that inspires you to create both an amazing family and marriage. This is the podcast that helps you to navigate the challenges of modern life. In this 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. I am so glad that you are back again today. You know, I’m looking out my window and it is another sunny day. We had a lot of rain yesterday, but this sun reminds me, I have a patient that has come in and this guy is so cool. He is a doctor and he’s just a really cool debt. Dad. And uh, he’s well read and every time he comes in he takes his shoes off, off the times he wears flip flops. And I said, man, wouldn’t it be great if we just made this whole floor sand? It could be like a beach in here. Get Adirondack chairs. And he’s like, you know it’s funny. He’s like, I thought about doing that in my office and we went back and forth of how great that would be. But then we can, neither one of us figured out how to stop the sand from getting in everything everywhere and we couldn’t figure that part out.
So we just are going to kind of imagine in their minds how to do that. Well today we’re going to do part three of parenting, parenting differences. The styles that we have are very different between men and women and that really impacts the way that we parent our kids. And today I wanted to go deeper into men, men and how to talk to men, how to understand men in the way that they parent. And some of the things that wives do that I think a lot of times it’s completely unintentional from a good place of trying to serve and honor and love your kids. Cause we fight for what we believe in and we fight for who we love. And both parents oftentimes can fight each other because they think the way that they’re parenting is the right way and the only way, and they’re gonna fight to the death to make sure their kids are loved the best way.
Well, one of the things that women would be great to understand is men thrive off of empowerment. They thrive when they feel respected and honored and valued, oftentimes of men and women come into counseling for parenting. One of the elements that quickly surfaces is this feeling of disrespect. He says, you know, she wants me to lead. She begs for me to lead. But when I step into the role of leadership, you know when it happens, instead of empowering me and encouraging me and saying, great job, she’s like, you’re too mean. You’re too harsh. You give too many consequences. You know, what about the kid’s feelings? And the guy feels, he’s like, you know, I was watching TV or playing sports or happy with my friends are doing great at work, but I made more time to come home. Read some of the books who gave me an Algun, I’m leading, you’re fighting me and I’m feeling disrespected.
And I’m to the point now where I’m like, what’s the reason? What are the reasons of why I continue to fight this battle? Because you tell me you want me to lead when I do instead of getting behind me or getting with me and working together, you get in front of me and you fight me. That is not a good way to move the parenting, is it? No, I disagree. Now one element that men and women constantly fight over and marriages, one parent, typically the dad is too harsh, too strict, too firm, does not take into consideration the emotional climate or needs of his children. And the wife is accused of being too lenient, too full of grace to emotional parenting, out of emotion instead of logic. And I would say these are normally true but not always true. And there is always exceptions to these kinds of situations and marriages.
And one thing I’d say is, ladies, your husband’s not supposed to sound like a mom. Hello. Oh, I’m so glad you see me today. I didn’t want to touch your Marriage Counselor Edmond feelings and just tickle you in. How do you, or like, it’s okay, you didn’t pick your shoes up. What does do it for you? Yeah, no man is supposed to sound like that. That’s not God’s role. That’s not his design. And if that’s you, I’m sorry. But mostly we are called to be strong and to lead by example and to lead with kindness, but with strength as well. Because God gave man a voice and God gave a woman a voice and they are both necessary to reflect the heart and the parenting style of God. Neither one is more important. Both are vital and necessary. So men also, your wives are not supposed to sound like you.
We want to go through the bowl and give you a [inaudible] in the through to the grown and play. Uh, let’s go jump [inaudible] mode. Yeah. No woman is really, no mom really resonates with that. There’s a few that might there. They’re probably in UFC right now fighting and there’s a few women that do like those things and that’s great. But by and large there’s differences that we need to appreciate and we need to understand and we need to not try to force. Like when I tried to force my wife to be like me, then I’m stepping outside of the bounds of God instead of calling me to lead by example and encourage her to be structured, encouraged her to hold the boundary lines but not trying to make her a little. Sean, thank God I’m not married to myself. We would man, we would be nonstop working, playing, having fun in that.
I’m not sure how much of the heart of people that I would really be able to connect to you. I’d make a lot of friends, have a lot of people that know me, but my wife is really good about going deep in relationship, understanding the feelings of the children, not just the behaviors and then I’m really good at bringing a structure of let’s do a quiet time every day. Let’s get up at a regular time that’s early so we can get ahead of the day instead of starting behind the day. Both are credibly valuable. And if I think if you talk to our kids, then you would discover that we both bring different elements to the table. They like different elements to the table that they dislike. So where does that hit you? Think about your Marriage Counselor Edmond parenting style. Think about are you the one that is more strict?
Are you the one that is more softing filled with grace? And again, it’s not a bad thing. It’s something that you need to be aware of so that you can put guard rails around it and make it go towards what God’s best is for your family. Another thing parents refuse, refuse. Did I say refuse, refuse to take over when the other person is parenting. One of my most honoring things my wife can do as she can honor me in front of my kids and say, you know, honey, thank you so much. I saw that you had a relationship, uh, with one of your, one of your friends. And he really did you dirty and you handled it in a godly way instead of a tally aiding, you talked it out, you walked it out. And you know, thank you so much for leading our family that way, man.
I will run through a brick wall to honor her because that, that is so resonated with my spirit, with my heart. But on the same token, when in front of the kids, she calls me out and she says something like, you know, why did you say that? That doesn’t make any sense. You know, that’s, why would you do that? And neither one of us respond well when we attack each other like that in front of the kids. And I think your marriage in relationship is typically the same way that no one responds well when we’re attacked. But many of us can learn to respond in healthy ways when we’re talked to, when we’re encouraged. And for me, we have a lot of one words, trans breakers. You said, what’s a one word? Trans Breaker. I’m so glad you asked because a one word trance breaker is, you know, like hypnotists, they try to get you in this trans to do, do.
Then you run on stage like you’re a chicken book book book book carrying a purse. Well, that’s, that’s a trance. They put you in a state where you are suggestible and you will do crazy things. Well, we can get in an anger trance. We can get into defiant trance. We can get into love trance. We can get into kindness, transit, joy transfer. You start laughing and just can’t stop uncontrollably. Like some of those vine videos you see that you way, we had one recently where the guy open, open the front door is actually my friend’s Dad’s house. This is crazy. You probably seen this video and he opened the door and the snake Bam strikes him right in the head. And uh, yeah, so it’s going all over the Internet right now. Well, just like that, we have different ways that we think about marriage, life, parenting, and it’s a trance of humor.
But that snake, and you may be a trance of shock because you’re afraid of snakes, but for most of us, it was funny, after you watch, a lot of times, who would ever think of snake would bite somebody when you’re opening a door? That’s just crazy. What I say is, if you don’t want somebody to come over, don’t get a snake. Just tell them, hey, hey, I don’t want to be friends anymore. The snake thing is a pretty much of an overkill, I think, but that’s a state, I’m even laughing now as I’m thinking about this video. It’s a trance of humor, of fun, of joy, and in one word, trances Redo, Redo. When we say in our family, it means Redo what you just said or what you just did in a different way because it was hurtful. It was nonsensical, it was something other than right.
And there’s, these are inarguable words. What do you mean by that? Well, we talk about what these words mean in advance so that when we say Redo or do over, that means just do what you just said or did over again in a kind, loving, remember that you’re a Christian kind of way. Uh, also you might tag team, that might be a word tag team. So if you’re in a situation and you or your spouse is just losing their marbles all over the kids, then you might say, let’s tag team and you’ve already talked about it in advance and for your marriage, this might work that one of you steps in and the other one steps out takes the time out because they’re getting hot and they’re getting angry and they’re not responding from a position of love but from a hurt and anger. But what you don’t want to do is you don’t want to come in when somebody correcting your kids and giving a consequence and come behind them and say, well, you know, and start defending your son and your daughter.
Well, they really weren’t talking that much or they really weren’t that mean, you know, I think $5 a $5 off of their money, that’s too much to subtract for just not being cognitive of his sister or something like that. What you’ll discover is that parent will either abdicate or retaliate, abdicate, or retaliate. If they abdicate, that means they just give up and they say, you know what? It’s not worth the fight. You can parent the kids, I’m going to go do this or do that, and they’re going to find other activities to get involved in outside of you and your family. Or they may just tune out. That’s advocation. Retaliate is when they fight back and you get in this explosive or passive aggressive fight against your kids. You know there was a situation where somebody was angry at their spouse. Well, instead of directly confronting them, they just would not want to eat at the same restaurants that they knew their spouse.
Like. For example, let’s say that this one guy, let’s call him Bob likes this happened years ago in my counseling office. Bob Likes, he loves, loves, loves Chinese food, just loves it. But Sally, she says she hates it. She can’t stay in it. I’ll do anything but Chinese. Now we all know that Bob’s favorites Chinese. Well, passive aggressive is instead of directly confronting you on the fact that I don’t agree with what you’re parenting the kids, that you’re not spending time with them, that you’re not investing. You’re playing video games. She would say, I don’t like chicken. I don’t want to go to any Chinese restaurant ever with you ever. Well it came out in counseling that she actually didn’t mind Chinese. He just wanted to get him. He wanted to go to them. She wanted to poke them and prod them cause this guy needed to do a better job parenting and she wasn’t having it not on her watch so it’s better to talk about these situations about where your Marriage Counselor Edmond parenting styles differ.
Include some different kinds of words like Redo. We have orange which means stop interrupting or stop arguing and really have them in your, in your, in the flow and the rhythm of your Marriage Counselor Edmond life so that you guys can both be on the same page and be unified as one in Christ. Also when you do this, you’ll start to build a better relationship between you guys and when your children see you operating more and more in unity then they’ll start to have a more of a peaceful relationship with each other. If you guys are arguing and fighting, then your kids will tend to reflect that in their sibling relationships and even in their friend relationships because you are the model. Teaching them how to relate and interact with their peers and with their future spouse and currently with you and their siblings. So remember that both parents have a valuable voice.
A man, a dad should not. A dad should not sound like this. That’s just kind of weird of a dad. Sounds like this. Hi Sweetie. And there’s a reason why when guys get on TV, they say, Hi mom, and you rarely, rarely, rarely see a guy get on TV when the camera’s on him. How Dad? That doesn’t happen too often because moms get the heart and that you guys as women have such a sense of relationship that God blessed you with. That opens the door to so many opportunities that US guys have to work so, so hard to even scratch the surface of where you can natively go, that there’s a value to both voices, both actions, both people in the relationship that needs to be honored and valued at the highest, highest level. And remember that you’re not fighting to be right unless you want to fight for a divorce.
You’re fighting to do what God says is right because then you’re fighting for your marriage and he say, I can’t believe he used the word divorce. Well, the reality is it’s used every day when over 50% of the people that get married end up in divorce. I would say we need to just expose the issues for what they are and not minimize them on any level. And if you want to fight for being right and you’re going to be in a lot of fights that somebody is going to be a loser in and nobody wants to be married longterm to a loser. So when you both try to find the win and when is Christ and what he called you to do, then both of you will be right in different scenarios, in different situations. And you’ll be glad because you’re doing the right thing what’s best for your kids and for your marriage and not just fighting to be right so you don’t look bad or loosen pride that great.
You guys like that. Um, when you fight for being right, you’ll have a steady stream of hurtful, dishonest, fighting back, talking and arguing. And it just creates a sense of bitterness. Whereas fighting for the highest ideal, fighting for what’s right allows you both to see who each other is in reality and get to know that what the words and the person behind the words, because you’re not spending so much time to finding your Marriage Counselor Edmond position. You’re investing your resources, your mind, your spirit, your energy heart in learning, growing and becoming the person that God created you and your family to become. So one other thing is we talked about not, not letting, not letting yourself naturally react and jump in and take over for the other parent. Another one is don’t just be quiet. Don’t just sit back and let one parent do all the heavy lifting.
Or if you see something that needs to be corrected, don’t just, if especially I see why I have to do this a lot. Don’t abdicate just because the Bible says, and for a lot of years in America at least women have been abused and taken advantage of because of that scripture. It says, wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord. I think that that scripture is probably one of the most misunderstood and abused scriptures and all of the Bible and so many women have taken that to mean that they don’t have a voice or they, they should not go against what their husband is saying when in reality that’s not what it’s saying at all. Because if you take the Bible and holistic in the holistic way and interpret the whole Bible, then you’ll see the other scripture that talks about men lay your lives down. Love your wives like Christ loved the church and laid his life down for her.
So if guys are going to the cross and they are laying their lives down for their wives will then that frees the wife to submit to a husband who submitted to God first and is living for him and is loving and being kind. So there’s a whole really in depth way to deal with that biblical authority and understanding. Submission is not becoming a slave. It’s, it’s being set free actually to live a life of love and power together. So you have a voice. God wants you to learn how to use it effectively and healthy ways. The best time to do that is not in the middle of a fight. Think about this is a guy and a girl. If you guys are in a lockdown battle, a fight, let’s say it’s a fight for your Marriage Counselor Edmond life. You’re in a war. And is that the time to learn how to effectively communicate or is somebody that’s in the throws of a battle?
Are they thinking only of how to protect and how to win that battle? Right, so if you try to have a conversation with somebody who’s fighting, then they’re likely to take a swing at you. They’re likely to do something that is gonna cost you both equity at the very least and the relationship. If you keep bringing up issues when it’s hot, your move is to bring issues up when there’s not conflict around. This is a great move. You say, Sean, you’ve given us a lot about differences of men and women. Let me just give you one little nugget. Bring up cop. Bring up these issues when it’s not hot, when it’s not in the throws of battle, unless there is abuse going on, right? Then your Marriage Counselor Edmond move is to talk to your spouse later about the issue because when you humiliate, when you undercut them in the middle of or in front of the kids, neither one of you will come out a winner.
There’s going to be a, there’s going to be a cost and the cost is going to be, your kids are going to suffer, you’re going to suffer. Whether it’s direct or whether it’s passive aggressive, there will be a cost and it’s a cost that you simply don’t have to pay. So another thing to consider is a proactive plan. Think about in advance. So if your spouse is constantly fighting and arguing with the kids, then you might go up to them and after you know, when they’ve cooled down, maybe the next day or something, let’s say a wife’s going to her husband, he might say, Hey, can you help me with something? And he’ll say, what do you need? And he said, well, you know, I struggle when I get caught up in these arguments with the kids on what to say. And then I find myself in a power struggle.
And what I really want to do is I just want to let go of the rope because they can’t, they’re going to fall on their backs and they can’t argue with somebody who’s not engaging them back. What do you think I can do to walk through this situation? And a lot of times he’ll help you cause guys love to do what? Solve problems. They like to feel like the hero. So if you help him solve a problem for you, then it can translate for what he can do in his situation. Now, there are a lot of different ways to approach, but why is when you do this in a way of honoring your spouse, it will have a profound impact on your Marriage Counselor Edmond marriage and your relationship. When you do it in a way that dishonors or invalidates them or disrupts, he feels disrespected. He’s just going to be probably not very nice or be unkind.
Another thing to consider with men is we love the team concept. We understand sports, we understand how teams are called to work together, how we go to battle together to defeat the opponent. And for us as Christians, the opponent is the devil, the opponent’s not the other person. It’s not the person that’s even doing the things that hurt our feelings or causes strife for stress. The enemy’s the devil. And so we aligned together. Even though the devil may have, we may feel like the devil sometimes come through our kids because of the way they talked to us because of how they treat each other because of how they get in trouble at school. But that’s not, they’re not the devil. They’re not the enemy. They’re your kid. They’re lovable little creatures. God blessed you with. It’s good to remind you of that in myself of that oftentimes when they’re not being kind.
So go into the team, help you can talk to your, your, your husband’s saying, I want to be in your same team. How do I, how do I get on your team? What can I do to be on the team? What can I do to support you in this cause you’re leading the family and you’re the captain of our team. What can I do as your wife to kind of be a part of that? Help me understand and, and, and go through the analogy as the conversation evolves and say, you know Hun, I feel like today when we were parenting the kids that I was shooting at disco and you were shooting at the opposite goal and we were scoring points against each other and instead of scoring on the same team and winning the game, we were scoring against each other and everybody lost.
Guys love analogies like that. And there’s a, there’s a great understanding with guys, I even see it in my young son who on our football team, when I coach, I’m able to use these analogies at home that I use as a coach on the field of, Hey, by way you’re part of this family. We’re on the same team and you’re strong. God give you the strength and you know, mom is not somebody that you wrestle with. Dad, you wrestle me. We can paint each other. We can talk about toots. That’s, that’s art kind of conversation. You talk about mom, mom, you’re beautiful. He can talk about your Marriage Counselor Edmond feelings with mom but don’t go up and, and bump into mom hard. And you know, cause my son, he’s 11 but he’s about 115 pounds when he comes up to give you a hug and he’s not fat, he’s strong, he’s big, and you feel him come.
You know what I’m saying? You feel him run into you when he gives you a big hug and runs at you. And it’s just training him. But he understands that team concept of that, his role, his strength, his role is to protect and to be honored and use a strength for good and not for evil. And just like on the field, hey bud, you know there’s people on the team that don’t pull their weight. Every team has these. And we talk about the same thing as true in the home and parenting. And so when you’re parenting young boys, and when you’re talking to older men, we get the concept of sports analogies. Now there’s always those rare ones that don’t. And that’s great. You can use whatever analogy fits the situation with them. Now the next one, I’m going to go over the next podcast.
It’s going to be shorter and it’s gonna be talking about women and it’s going to be summarizing these last podcast because there’s so much that my minute 23 and I really want to cut it and I want to encourage you to go back and listen to the previous podcast on parenting because I have done this for 25 years of counseling people and seeing almost any kind of situation you can imagine. But I want you to know I’m not there. I have not arrived and human listening. You women listening, no matter how old, no matter how many kids you have, we are always called to learn to listen. And I hope this was helpful learning and listening and maybe you want to share this with some friends. That would be great. If you’re rating on Google or iTunes, it means the world to us because it gets the word out that people can change.
And also you may say, Shawn, this is great, but I just need you to get specific. I need specific words for me. I need a parenting program. I need something. Well, we have a team of counselors that marry biblical principles with cutting edge counseling techniques. They would love to get to know you, your story, and then jump into it with you and walk with you through the season of life. And you can do that by going to New Vision Counseling Dot Liv new visit, counseling.live, and you can start the process of what better looks like for you today by making one good decision after another.