Everyone. I’m Sean McGuire and this is the New Vision counseling.live OKC Christian marriage counseling podcast, a place where we help you discover what better looks like for you and then equipped with the tools to create it. In our episode number 34 which is today we’re going to talk about something really important. If you have any idea about what it’s like to be a parent, then you’ll really appreciate this podcast because when I go, we’re going to talk about the seven keys to great conversations with your child. So I’m going to go over seven keys that will help unlock an intimate relationship or going deeper into relationship with your children. And I think you’ll find this extremely helpful because so often in times with parenting, we don’t know what to do. We have more information that we got access to in a day than our parents had in a lie our our grandparents had in a lifetime.
Because of the advent of the Internet and all the social media connection points that we have, we have so much access to information, but yet as parents we could find ourselves really struggling to know what to do. In our specific situation. So I remember when my kids were really little. My little Berkeley was just so young when I came home from work. She was so easy to talk to and connect to, especially when she didn’t have language skills yet. She had dad, dad, no, yes, lot of facial expressions and body language. It was so easy to talk to her and even as she was a toddler growing up, she would sit in my lap, we would talk, she would tell me about her dolls and her dinosaurs and her sitting on her brother pretending he was a dinosaur or a horse and that was just such a great time and it required very little effort on my part to really dive in deeper to an intimate conversation because it would calm conversation was really simply about topics that she had going on that day that were funny.
She was so adorable and cute that there was really not much that I needed to do to really prepare for our situations or conversations. She didn’t complain a lot. And so that was easy for me. But as my daughter, Berkeley got older, the conversations also matured. She had different levels of thought about her day. She had different levels of interpreting. You know, my brother got on my nerves today because in school he was being silly and funny and making noises and I was trying to focus and I was trying to this and or she went to a friend’s house and she came back and she’s like, Dad, ah, they just are so this and that. And I tried to get them to go outside, but they just wanted to watch movies or they just wanted to play video games or they just want to talk about boys.
Praise God. She’s not there yet. So, and I’m praying that God or Jesus comes back before she does get to that space of her life. Well, now that she’s older, it requires a different level of thought and investment. Now, let’s just say as much as I’ve helped teachers, parents, principals, administrators, church programs navigate how to handle kids, how to effectively meet their needs along the developmental stages of their life. And you know, a seven year old needs a lot different communication techniques and a lot different assets as far as props and you know, music and different elements to help them engage. Then the two year old and a 13 year old needs a whole different level of engagement. So as she’s grown, I’ve needed to grow with her. And at first there’s been areas in our relationship where I didn’t trend with her. I’m still looking for her to sit on my lap and that to be enough in us to snuggle and that to be enough.
But she requires a different level of a connection at this stage. So, and I know a lot of you as we’re talking are going to be able to relate or already are relating because when I try to talk about, hey, how was your day? She tells me, but she starts complaining and for a while I would be like, Burke, start reframing this reframe. What’s the good that you can extrapolate from us? And she’d complain about hurting her leg. And I was like, well thank the Lord that you can get better through exercise. Or she’d complain about her allergies and her body and her legs breaking out. And I said, well, what did you eat today? And I would begin to methodically help walk her back through how she could improve, like in OKC Christian marriage counseling, when in reality, that’s not what she was looking for. We both were looking for what we enjoyed when she was younger without a lot of effort.
But I needed to meet her where she’s at. She didn’t need me to fix her problems. She immediate listen. And until I started to listen more and not just automatically counsel her, now that I OKC Christian marriage counseling counsel, but just I’m a guy. And so my natural tendency is to reframe and solve, reframe it to a better perspective so that we can put the problem out here. Then it worked towards solving it. But wife is really good at challenging me to do better at connecting with the kids in a way that they need, not the way I think they need. So I’m going to give you seven keys that I’ve found helpful. Now I can give you 700 keys that you, we could talk about, but this is just to get the conversation started and I think they’ll really help you begin preparing. And one of the first ones is let them see that you care.
Let them see your heart. Let them see an experience that you value the time with them. Let them feel the empathy come off of you. This is a big one because if they just think you’re trying to solve them, like my daughter, she’ll just get frustrated. Get up and walk away and be like, Dad, quit trying to fix me. I don’t need, I don’t need you to fix me. I’m your daughter, not your client. Not that my daughter has ever said that, but, but you know, maybe you’ve had an experience like that or maybe you’re a mom with the sun and they’re just so energetic that you’re like, ah, and you start stressed out because of the amount of energy and activity they bring overwhelms you. And so instead of bringing that overwhelming to the table, maybe you can take a bath before you talk or or, or some kind of way to get into a place where you can be empathetic here and, and really just be present with them and let them feel that you love them, that they’re, they’re, they’re good just the way they are.
Not that you don’t want to change their behaviors because we do, but there’s just something about letting them feel the acceptance that really impacts your relationship positively today and man, compound interest over the course of a lifetime of relationship. The second key is don’t criticize, condemn, or complain about them. This will really be a real buzzkill to your relationship if you do. Now, this is such a big deal to me because I’m trained to see what can be improved on and they’re rapidly move towards solving the problems. I do this all day when people come into my office, whether they’re business leaders wanting to know how to solve personnel issues or whether they’re a mom or a dad coming in, wanting to know how to navigate parent or even in OKC Christian marriage counseling, you know, Edmond where I live or Oklahoma City where I work in both, you know, I saw problems and so as a parent refuse to try to fix them, refuse to try to make it better, refuse to complain about their behaviors.
You know, just, I really worked at being a great parent, but this is an area that my wife and I constantly need to work on is I can, I will criticize and critique what they’ve done to create the scenario with their friends. Or if there, my daughter has struggles with allergies or when she eats differently, I can, I can see by her eyes, I can see by the way her skin looks typically the way she’s caring for her body or not caring. She’s not drinking enough water. Now money of you may not have that kind of, uh, ability to see that fine into your kids because they, their bodies don’t respond like that. But there you have, you might likely have other areas, whether it’s picking up their room, whether it’s the way that they talk to you as you’re trying to connect with them.
Don’t condemn them or complain or say, you know, you’re so lazy, you’re such a non contributing to the family or you’re so dumb. Why do you do that? That’s going to always have a negative impact longterm on your relationship. There’d be no exceptions to criticizing, condemning and just complaining about your kids or to your kids that will have a positive outcome. It’s just not the way they or we are wired to d relationships. The third is, is bring the patience of job to the situation. Number. Job Lost. His family had boils all over his body. His wife said, why don’t you curse God and die? And he’s like, how can I curse God? He’s given me all this good stuff and, and we need the patience of job that they’re not or what they’re bringing. We need to ask God to give us patients so that we can stay present and we can love them through whatever circumstance they’re in.
And when we’re patient, we can listen to your son or daughter go on and on and on about maybe they love drama like my daughter. Maybe your son’s really into football. Maybe they’re really in two Pokemon cards or whatever. The relevant thing of the day is fortnight. Maybe they’re into something that you just cannot believe. My little ponies was a big thing when my daughter was little and actually ask God to give me a desire and a joy for my little ponies. Funny enough, my son, and we’re all really still in the marvel characters, the superheroes, we were really into dinosaurs. So all of these, when you’re patient and you’re happy, then you’re able to really engage them where they’re at and you’re able to let the conversation flow. You know? I know it had been an Oklahoma City. It’s big family as big around these areas.
It’s promoted. I’m sure it was promoted a lot more 10 years ago, but, but even now it’s really promoted and I’m thankful that we’re in this society, but even with that in our environment, I still need to bring as a dad or you as a mom, a level of patients to the situation because just because there’s an environments that may be, you know, culturally positive for our kids. We need to own this, that the biggest changes will happen in our one on one interactions with our kids. That’s when they’ll get to know us and know if we really value them or we just want to fix them or we want to make them better for whatever reason. And that will have a great opportunity that we’re continually be a great opportunity to build and patients is a big deal. Um, and I would say this is one of the number one areas that I asked God daily to help me in.
This is an area that if I’m going to apologize about something during the day, it’s likely because I was not as patient as I could have been in a circumstance. Now I know none of you out there can relate, especially your dad’s. Sure. This says you can’t relate to this at all. So the next one is ask open ended questions. What do you mean? Well, don’t ask, did you have a good day? That’s a yes or no question. Did you pass your test? That’s a yes or no question. Ask a question like, tell me about your day. Tell me about your day. Or You could ask a question. They say, well, I had a great day and we’ll tell me about what was great about your day. What about that day was so great and that gives them the space to talk. You know, I remember we had one weekend where we were just together.
It was freezing outside and our kids were fighting a lot and we, we had them do speaker listener, which is a technique, or you really focus on these rules that puts you in a position to not call names, to listen to people and to connect to the message they’re trying to communicate instead of the message that you might here. So it’s a really a clarification exercise of understanding the heart of what somebody’s saying and so why that’s such a big deal. As we did that a lot, this and this weekend and most of it was like no more deep conversations. I can’t help it. I can’t take it. I can’t take anymore. He had his hands in his ears because he like, I can’t take any more deep conversations. No more, no more emotional talk, no more emotional talk. He started making up, started combining words that we use in a, in a way where he was frustrated because he had gone beyond what he was capable of at the time and so that’s the extreme, but most people don’t live there.
Most people are going to stay over here in the shallow water and you’ll really never get to know the heart of your child through the lifespan. If you ask simple yes and no questions and guys, I said there were seven and there is seven, but I’m going to do a part two podcasts and I’m going to let you just kind of marinate on what we’ve talked about so far. The first one is let them see that you care. Let them see the empathy that you, you love them. You accept them, you value them. You sit them just the way you are. Now. You might want to change them, but you accept them and let them feel that. Love that valuing of them. That’s huge. That’s a start. The second is refuse to criticize or critique or trying to fix them. Now this is me talking to a mirror right now because they just need you present.
They just need you there. Third Brain patients to the conversation each time. You know, I had a buddy named Blake Kelly. He lives in Edmond, Oklahoma. Well maybe he lives in Oklahoma City now, but um, he knew me through OKC Christian marriage counseling, if you know who he was, never a patient. I decided that what he would go a different route when I first met him at a men’s event. But he, he was really big in it telling me, he said, Sean, when you take your kids fishing, you need to remember it’s kids fishing, which is another way of saying be prepared to have a lot of tangle lines, not catch a lot of fish and be baiting hooks nonstop. Don’t have an expectation that you’re going to fish to catch a lot of fish. Has the expectation that you’re going to fish to build memories, to build a relationship.
Now unfortunately Blake got me five years into my kids life so I had had expectations, but really adapting them to being patient. Change the landscape of the way I was able to spend time fishing with my kids and it really being patient opens up the door to have conversations with your kids where you get to know them on their terms and not just the boxes as that we set as adults of the way they need to communicate with us. Now the fourth one is ask open ended questions. Don’t ask yes or no. How was your day at school? Did you get in trouble today? Ask what was great about your day to day at school or was there anything that you like prayer for from your day today or something like that? Guys, I hope this was amazingly helpful. I know that for many of you, this has been great because you’re parenting, you’re in the fight, you’re in the battle and you’re doing it right now and you want to be the best parents you can be.
Or maybe you have other friends and this is a great podcast to share with them. I’ve had to be inspired to move forward and to creating intimate conversations with your friends and with your friends’ kids. And this could be a talking point for both of you. Something else that really makes a big difference for us in Ebit in Oklahoma City is sharing this on Google or reviewing us on Google, our website, New Vision, counseling.live is a place where we hope that you will go or send your friends too, uh, and contact us if you need more than just a podcast. And also the way that you review us on there. It means a lot because that’s how people make decisions today. And we want to impact as many people as we can and we want to show you that you don’t have to be stuck, that you can be a better parent, a better husband, better wife, a better man or woman in the sphere of influence that you have in this day and age. And that happens through when you share this with others. And when you review us on Google, we really appreciate it because that new budget counseling, we marry biblical principles with cutting edge OKC Christian marriage counseling technique, and we’re on a mission. We help you discover what better looks like for you, and then equipped me with the tools to create it until we meet again. Create a great day and great days turned into a great life. Talk to you again really soon.