Welcome to better today with your 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.
I’m so glad you made it. Welcome. I am going to talk today about something that is very near and dear to where I am at in a season of life and where I know a lot of you listening will be at as well with your kids and it’s how to stop arguing with your kids a proven path to a peaceful home. Now, when I was at church this Sunday, a guy got up to speak, was not the pastor and still I’m sure in his mind he had a template of what the day the morning should look like. And so he starts with 0.1 and he says, Hey, this is about money. And 0.1 is, and when he started to go to the 0.1, a baby led out this blood curdling scream and did not stop to the point where that guy’s speaking had to stop talking because he simply could not overcome the screams that were very angry and belligerent of his little baby.
It was not happy at all. So Marriage Counselor Edmond had to stop. Finally they get the baby situated and then he goes, now point to is, and as soon as 0.2 began, the cell phone rang, Ding, Ding, Ding. And it was the loudest ring I’ve ever heard in a church service. I think the acoustics are amazing. So just reverb off of all the sound panels and then he’s like, I don’t know. I bet you in his mind he’s thinking, what in the world is going to happen on 0.3? So he goes into 0.3 somehow he’s made it this far and then this guy stands up about half or three girls. Hey man, hello nucleo. And he says, oh, can you imagine being that guy? You’re not the normal speaker. You may or may not have ever had public speaking experience. I bet. When he was envisioning and going over what he was going to say and practicing it, I bet you those three things or not a part of his practice.
What do you think, and this reminds me of childhood, of how Marriage Counselor Edmond try to raise our kids to love God and we have these great expectations of what we think our kids childhood will look like. I know that my wife and I, you know, we’re not with our kids. We would sit down and we would be so excited about what they were going to get into about how much they would love God, how much joy they would bring to our lives. And then we had a baby. You see, we did all this dreaming just like Martin Luther King. We too, just like you had a dream of what it would look like and it was rose colored and exciting. But when we had a baby, there was a lot of things that we did not plan for. I did not plan for staying up all night. I did not plan for when my daughter was sick and my wife had to work when she was young having to take off of work because she couldn’t, I didn’t plan for a lot of what happened.
And then when Marriage Counselor Edmond had our second child, my son, he didn’t, he was very different. He came out like that baby and point number one screaming. And I think for nine months he only take, took a few breaths in between to stop screaming. And maybe that’s you and your situation right now. Maybe you found yourself with a dream that you had before you had children and then they developed this thing called language and their first word was, no, no, no, no. I think there’s songs that these little toddlers make about the word no. And then as it evolves, it escalates into the teenage years. They have a know combined with what they want combined with for thought strategically and manipulation to where they actually have good points that you must consider and sometimes even concede. And so we have a different version of parenting than what we typically envision before Marriage Counselor Edmond had kids.
And then the less we reconcile those two realities, the one where we dreamed about it and visioned it and hoped it would be a certain way if we stay there than every time our current reality and parenting does not meet our expectations of the dream. We’re going to react in hostile ways. We’re going to become passive, we’re going to start yelling, screaming, demanding our way. Or maybe your way is more passive. You’ll become passive aggressive. You’ll maybe abdicate your role and give up your role as parent and just kind of let the kids do whatever and chauffer them here, chauffer them there. And that’s no way to live life cause I’m sure God has created something far greater for you and your parenting journey. So what can you do about this? Well realize that it’s hard to parent kids. It’s not an easy endeavor. Although it is a legacy, a eternal endeavor that God has given you and equipped you and anointed you.
Why don’t we keep seeing you so much? Because I think we can feel like we’re a failure. We can feel like we’re not doing or measuring up to God’s standard or even our own standards or spouse’s standards or your in-law’s standards. And then when that failure starts to create, guilt starts to create shame. Well then Marriage Counselor Edmond began paralyzed and instead of reacting out of love, we are responding out of love. We react out of anger, out of hurt, out of frustration, out of shame, and those never have good outcomes. And when we’re triggered in those kinds of ways, we hear this boom, like an atomic bomb exploding and nuking and destroying everything in its path. Now your way may be very out there and outward or maybe your way like some of us is internal and maybe you’re quiet and passive and it just hurts you and brings you into a depression, into a sadness, into something where you’re just having a hard time getting out of.
Well, when we start realizing this, we have a great opportunity to get help that we need. You know, nuvision counseling, the counseling practice that I own and I have a team of therapists that marry biblical principles with cutting edge counseling techniques. Well, what we do is we help equip you with the resources and tools to start succeeding in life. We believe in you because God is anointed you. We connect you to scripture and what God says you can do, who God says that you are. We connect you with resources outside of us, with your church, with your community, with friends, with maybe even your employee wherever you work. Maybe there’s friends there that you can develop that are safe and healthy, and Marriage Counselor Edmond equip you with tools dealing with anger, how to talk in ways that you feel great about how to resolve issues with kids without fighting and constantly getting into arguments with them about what they should and should not do.
And so in seeing that what you can experience is God’s movement in your life. And these solutions come in various forms. Some of the ones I’m gonna talk about right now are when we stay calm in these situations, we will have a way better outcome as a resolution. What do you mean Sean? Stay calm. Well, that’s easier said than done, right? I totally o that allowing ourselves to continue to spiral downward doesn’t work. We know that reacting doesn’t work. Marriage Counselor Edmond know that fighting fire with fire doesn’t make your home a better place to live and makes your homes a wasteland because it scorches all the life out of it. And I know you don’t want it that way and that’s why you’re listening to this podcast because you want better for your life. You don’t want to yell back at your son when he yells at you.
You don’t want to be disrespectful to your daughter when she’s disrespectful to you. And when you have a toddler, you don’t want to react the way a toddler reacts, even though you might see that on the news and politics and Hollywood and different situations that a lot of our society does act like four year olds. But that’s not God’s way, nor is at his best for you. What God’s way in is best for you is to come with a plan and I’m going to give you some very practical steps to do that and how to stay calm and choose to respond with intentional words, intentional actions so that you can create a family that you love to be a part of and that your kids are proud to come home on Easter, on Christmas and Thanksgiving, even when they go away to college. That’s what God has in store for you.
So the first one that Marriage Counselor Edmond can do is focus on the sin they have. Don’t focus on that. They’re an awful kid because they forgot to put their shoes up or because they’re not immediately getting ready for bed. Focus on what you can do to help them navigate that. Whether that’s a consequence, whether that’s an encouraging word, whatever those elements are, bring those to the table that you can have that discussion with them about or give them that directive instead of allowing their sins to trigger your emotional hurts. Reactions, because we don’t want a scorched home. We want a home filled with love, with nice cushions that you can sit down and be comfortable and feel loved and valued in and so can they. The second one to consider is what do you need to address in your personal life? What areas are being triggered in your heart?
Do you suffer from extreme fear of failure? Are you sensitive to rejection and become easily offended by what they say or what they do? Are you living as a parent or appear in the way that you relate to your children? And I think getting help. I mean, I love going to talk to friends. If you have a pastor, if you read books, I do all of these things for my own personal life, but I also believe in professional counseling. You can go to us. He was in counseling dot. Live New Vision counseling that live team of counselors to help you and join you in your story because you are so worth it. Your kids are so worth it. Don’t just allow yourself to stay the same way in the same patterns. The third is asked to talk to your kids, asked to talk to them.
Don’t just come up and start lecturing them, lecturing them, lecturing them, treat them like human beings. They may be younger and they may be smaller, but in value they are the same in the eyes of God and we do best when we treat them with this kind of value and honor as well. They have little bodies and they have a little number next to their age, but their hearts in their emotions are just as impacted and they’re just as valuable as we are. So it’s good to remember that just because they’re little doesn’t mean their issues are any smaller to them than they are to you. And then the fourth one is there’s something called a Redo. What’s a Redo? Great question. So glad that you asked it. I love this for our family or Redo is when somebody gives a nasty face, says something in a contemptuous voice or their tone is mean or unkind or irritable or they just are not being loving or kind or gentle or what they said is just off an inflammatory.
Then you say Redo. And because you’ve had these conversations in advance of what Redo means to your family, you are not to argue when somebody says Redo, you are just empowered to have a chance to Redo what you just said in a way that leads to a building of our relationship instead of a tearing of a relationship down. Redo is a really impactful way to be intentional about what you say the second time so that you’re building bridges instead of building barriers between you and your children and you’re creating that life and that home of peace that you so desperately, desperately want. The last thing our children need in those moments of high stress when they’re emotionally reacting and oftentimes overreacting is us to add our own emotional baggage and yelling and screaming or cursing or hitting and slapping and poking and prodding and all those kinds of behaviors on top of what they’re already at a young age trying to deal with and cope with.
Oftentimes it’s easy to forget that our kids are that just that they are kids, they’re not adults. Now teenagers, there should be more expected out of them than a four year old or three year old for sure, but they still do not have the brain development, the experience or the capacity to deal with issues on the high level and the strategic ways that Marriage Counselor Edmond do so when we have a Redo, we can redo that situation in a way that we craft opportunities for success instead of react in ways that create failure. Now speaking of crafting, I want to go over something that I love in all areas of counseling and it’s scripts and these are your parenting scripts. I have marriage scripts, I have self esteem scripts. What we say to ourself, I have overcoming depression scripts. I pretty much have a language and a script for every issue that people come in with so that we are intentional about the future seeds that we are selling so that we can have the harvest that our heart most desires.
And for you, that’s an amazing family filled with love and peace in your home. Now to start this off, there’s a scripture. It says, proverbs 15 verse one a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger as really good. I’m gonna say it twice. Proverbs 15 one a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. So when we’re talking to our kids, remember our gentleness is the example through which we want them to follow our compassion or empathy. And so think of scripts that you can say to your kids. What words can you say that would really help them out in times of most they most need that help? Well, let me give you some examples. Let’s say that my son gets angry at a sister for something and he just loses control and he’s not able to moderate his emotions and he’s yelling and screaming and ah, and throwing a tantrum.
Well, what I could do is I could say, buddy, I need you to calm down. If he doesn’t, then I could say, hey, but it’s obvious you need to go to your room for some time. You’re not talking and acting in a way that I know you want to because you’re an amazing kid. And you love God and you love us, so just go take some time in your room cause you need it and you can process and think about that and I love you so much. I’m going to come in there and a little bit and we can talk about this now. There’s hundreds of different variations of how you can talk about this. There’s different ways depending on their age, depending on the issues that you can deal with this situation. Another one is when your teenager is starts to argue with you and debate and you’re getting overwhelmed and frustrated or maybe you just need to shut it down.
Well then a great script for that is, Hey Hun, this is your daughter. It seems like this is really important to you and I want to give it the attention it deserves, right now’s not a good time. I see that we’re both getting upset and I want it. I want to honor you and I want to hear the heart of what you’re trying to communicate. So go and write out your points and let’s see at five o’clock or maybe an hour. We can talk about this later because I want to make sure I dedicate the time needed for you to really hear what I want to say and I can hear what you want to say as well and we can have a great conversation and hopefully accomplish some great things together. Does that make a lot of sense? Because to me, when you continue to use these scripts, you continue to sow seeds into your future that you want to live in.
Great News is you get to create that feature yourself. The next solution is to allow failure as part of the journey and accept it, allow failure on their part as part of the journey and then accept it. For example, if every time my daughter, let’s say she doesn’t practice for her play, if I harp on her every day, then I’m getting in the way of God moving in her life of the Holy Spirit moving because if she goes on stage and is not prepared, she will likely not forget what that feels like and the next time I won’t need to be the bad guy of encouraging her. The situation and circumstance will be the lesson that she learns because so often times in our society today, especially in America, we are taught and tempted to rescue our kids so that by the time they leave our house, they’ve had very little adversity because we’ve rescued them from their teachers at school that get them in trouble for their bad behavior.
We rescue them from their sports team. When the coach sits them on the bench because they don’t practice at home, then they don’t get to play in the game. We’ve rescued them from all of these situations where God wanted to use them to learn instead of allowing them to suffer the consequences of their decisions and letting them fail. Now, I don’t think you should let a toddler run in the street. I think you should scream and anything you can do to make sure they don’t run in front of a car. I think we have to use wisdom in the areas we let them fail. And also we need to separate ourselves that their failures are not our report card, especially moms have a difficulty with this because often they’re the ones that stay home, they homeschool. They’re the ones that homeschool like us. I know my wife, it’s really hard for her not to allow our kids’ behaviors, their performance, where they treat others to be her report card.
And it’s, and it’s hard for me to, because we love our kids and we adore them and it’s one of our highest callings in life is to raise world changers in way that they love God just as much as we do, if not more. And I know you’re listening to this because you care about your kids too. So allow them to fail. Accept that as part of the journey that God wants to use to grow them through the university. So their roots go deeper. So their, their, their lives and their coping skills become stronger and more. They become more skilled at handling adversity in your home so that when they hit the big world, they don’t get taken out. God’s able to take them up because they’ve learned lessons in your health because you’re an amazing parent. And then pray for their hearts. Don’t just allow yourself to react to their behaviors but really go deeper.
When we react, that’s when we say bad words. That’s when we say things that shame, that’s only spank out of anger instead of spanking and disciplining out of love. That’s what we have, these reactions that cause harm and instead of responses that build bridges to a better future, a better family, a better you, better them. And this is the way of the Lord for all of our lives. Spanking and reacting in anger that is, that is unbridled and not submitted to God is always the wrong move. Now there is an anger that does give you a few to stop and righteousness like Jesus showed in the temple, but mostly anger when it’s in our society. And in our homes doesn’t look like Jesus. It looks like it looks like the devil, if anything, and it destroys its steals and it consumes our families. So these are some great ways that you can start moving towards the wind, puts the winch on.
Great question. The wind is when we respond in love with discipline, the win is when we respond with words that breed life, that sow seeds into our future that are going to create an amazing life for them, for us and the kind of family that our kids will want to come back to you. They’ll want to come back to you. We can only do this when we take the time and we schedule a time with our spouse, with ourselves, with God, with our kids, to be very intentional and we leave margin in our life to create these winds to succeed. Not just today but every day moving forward and into the future as well. Well guys, thank you so much and you know, just a word of encouragement that we often, you know, we don’t have an easy family. We have three strong will people, myself, my daughter, my son, and we have a wife who’s more passive but amazing.
And my kids both have a will in a way and they’re strong willed in both of their own ways. And so we are constantly having a home that has a lot of conversation, has a lot of conflict, but we also have a lot of movement towards healing and reconciliation. And even this weekend Marriage Counselor Edmond had a challenging situation with mother’s Day. Not starting out the way we all wanted it to, but I just, I sit down to do this podcast and I see before me this note that my son leaves mom and dad, thank you for letting me do apex. It means the world. It’s this online program to inspire kids by a kid and they really are tuning in and liking it. And so just be encouraged guys, that God will give you things like that little note in your life to move to your next best season or God bless and I hope this was amazing and helpful.
If you haven’t yet, please rate us and review us on iTunes. It means the world. And also share with your friends. If you know somebody that needs this, and maybe you’re that person, maybe you want to even go to the next step. Well, guess what? We have a team of counselors that marry biblical principles with cutting-edge counseling techniques, and we want to join you in your story to help you discover what better looks like for you, and then equip you with the tools to create it. And what you can do that today by reaching out, go to New Vision counseling.live. That’s New Vision, counseling dot Liv and you will be so glad you did because you’ll be able to create a great life, one great decision after another. So start today.