What’s The Episode About:

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will share some behind the scenes content from their recent relationship development parenting live event day and specifically focus on sharing one major nugget that we can all implement immediately in our parenting. Listen in as they dive into the differences between demand parenting and relationship development parenting, and share some real-life parenting scenarios where relationship development parenting works perfectly so we can easily apply the same with our kids at home. Key Points Discussed: 

• The recent relationship development parenting live event (00:55)
• The reality of what the parenting job is and how to properly approach it (05:39)
• Empowering our kids by teaching them the skills and tools to navigate real-life (09:03)
• The two ways of getting the biggest building in town (15:27)
• Robbing our kids of the skillset that they need to be prepared for the world (19:31)
• Stop yourself, ask yourself, and reach out when you’re stuck (23:40)

Where Can I Learn More:

• The 14-Day Boost Program
• www.CashflowTactics.com
• Have you signed up for The D.I.R.T. ?! http://bit.ly/2KlobXZ
• Check out our programs: www.RelationshipDevelopment.org/Programs
• See our upcoming events: www.RelationshipDevelopment.org/Events

When Did It Air:

November 8, 2019

Episode Transcript:

Paul:               00:00 Hey relationship transformers. Welcome to the Relationship Transformer podcast. Today, Stacey and I are going to share some behind the scenes content from our recent relationship development parenting live event day. Now, I know a lot of you have been wanting more about our parenting content, so we’re bringing one relationship development parenting nugget that you can use today in today’s podcast. So let’s queue up the intro and dive in.   Intro:              00:26 So the big question is this, how is it possible that one person alone can transform any relationship, save their marriage, great their unshakeable love and unleash passion, divorce, proof their family without needing their partner to get on board and do this with them and yet still get to be happily, authentically you without compromise. That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer.   Stacey:             00:55 Alright, awesome. So, we just did one of our relationship development parenting live event days. Our Relationship U students were the audience. We’re filming content for the relationship development parenting course that’s coming out sometime in 2020, and it was off the hook. Right? You want to talk about some of the…?   Paul:               01:16 It’s funny because the way we approach so many things is so different. It was noticeable to us, even in the front of the room, that every once in a while we would drop like a nugget, and there would be gasps in the audience. Like, literally hear them go, “Aaaah!” Like, because like, the kapow and the brain of realizing something that has been off your radar has that effect, and to watch their faces, and to hear those noises gave us the feedback we’re looking for that, Yes, you’re getting this and it’s getting through.   Stacey:             01:44 Yeah. And that’s what really parents are looking for. It’s like, Oh my gosh, when we can show so many things that we have no idea, we’re so unconsciously doing that are literally creating the stuff that we hate about parenting, and teach you how to stop doing that, and what to start doing instead to get great results. Like, it was mind-blowing. And so we wanted to bring.. I know so many people are like, “Oh my gosh. I want the course right now.” Well, let me tell you, it’s going to take a while. It’s gonna take awhile for us to build it.   Paul:               02:16 And you’ll want it be very comprehensive.   Stacey:             02:17 Yeah, no question. Because the minute we solve one challenge, you’re like, “But what about this, and what about this, and what about this?” And we’ve actually… we’ve got it, we’ve solved all that, but it’s going to take us a while to put together that in a course, a step-by-step course with a framework, where all the tools are. And we are building that.   Stacey:             02:34 And that’s why we filmed this day. We just had a Relationship U two-day live meeting, and we added on an extra day for them and said, “Hey, if you want to be at the filming of the relationship development parenting live content, you can come live as the audience.” And like, pretty much everybody that was coming to the Relationship U came for that extra day, and they just devoured it up, pages and pages and pages of notes. And, we wanted to bring one nugget to you, because this is one thing that we can teach you in a podcast, where you can really start using it right away. So, let’s talk about the difference between demand parenting and relationship development parenting. And, this is same as the difference between demand relationship and relationship development, but in demand parenting, again, we’re using demand relationship with our kids in our family, and basically as you know, in demand relationship, there are two players. Right?   Stacey:             03:32 The power player and the non-power player. Well it’s really clear in demand parenting that the power player is the parent and the kid is the non-power player and there’s really no question about it because the kid knows, right? They don’t have power. We have all the leverage and basically even with the best of intentions for our kids, what happens is when we run to the end of our skillset, we reach for demand parenting, right? Well if you want to go this weekend, that room better be cleaned or you need, if you want to do this thing, you better study for that test. Or even with the best of intentions, we are using our leverage, our power in order to get our kids to do what we need them to do. And just so you know, cause I know what happens when we start talking about this. So many people are like, Oh my gosh, so what is this? I’m just gonna do nothing and my kids are gonna run around like crazy. Like I get it. That’s demand relationship.   Paul:               04:29 There’s been a lack of people understanding that there was another way and it’s not all or nothing.   Stacey:             04:34 Yeah. So you know the opposite of that is the, you know the other side of demand relationship where we become the non power player. The kids just go wild and nothing gets done, nothing happens. They walk all over you and like nobody’s saying that you should do that. That’s not relationship development parenting, that’s still demand parenting. It’s just the flip side where a lot of parents have actually fallen into that. Right. We just, we don’t want to parent our kids the way we were parented maybe and we want to be as kind and as loving as we can and in doing so I, you see it all the time, right? The kid who’s hitting their mom in the store or somebody telling their parents to shut up or like the moms do or the dads doing everything, the kids are doing nothing. Everything is craziness and it’s because we don’t want to assert ourselves. We don’t want to drop the hammer. We don’t, we don’t want to be authoritative in that way because maybe that was done to us or we just don’t want to be that person. Both of those are stilled a manned relationship though. Both of those are demand parenting. Neither of those is relationship development parents.   Paul:               05:39 One was just the power player and the others assuming the non power player role, neither one is the right place to be. And even these parents who decide like, Oh, I’m going to not do it the way my parents did and I’m going to let them do whatever, you know, whatever their, their wording is for this and how they want to free them from that model. And when they assumed the non-power player role at that point, they’re basically giving up on their job as parents. We have a job to do as parents. We’re not saying not be a parent. You have to be a parent. You’re the only one who’s going to be apparent for those children. Right. So we have a job to do. And it’s not like either I do it or I don’t do it at all. No there’s a whole different way to approach this whole thing. And that’s what we teach is you know, the reality of what the job is and how to properly approach the job quite frankly.   Stacey:             06:22 And it’s just like in relationship development that we use in our other relationships, relationship development. Parenting is the same thing. It’s a skillset and it can be learned. It’s just that nobody ever taught us this. And that’s exactly why we’re building this program and, and teaching these tools. So I’m going to give you one of the fundamental differences here so that you can understand. So one key difference between demand parenting. And just before we do that, actually I just want to take a step back. I want to make sure you get that there’s so many negative consequences to raising our kids in demand parenting and, and we can go into this deeper and another time cause we’ve got like so many awesome nuggets about it. But one of them is just like in relationship development versus demand relationship. When all that’s been done with your kids has been control or demands or manipulation or guilt, shame, blame, whatever it is, all of that is based on control.   Stacey:             07:19 None of that is based on relationship. And when that happens, if all that’s been done throughout the course of your child growing up has been demand parenting. As soon as they become bigger than you, financially independent from you or no longer need to live in your house, they are out of there as fast as they can. And you already know that maybe you were that kid because nobody likes to be controlled and a kid will only stay as long as they absolutely have to in a situation where they’re always being controlled. So just understand that, you know? Yeah, you can try to do demand parenting and, and I get it. Everybody runs to the end of their skill set and they resort to demand parenting. But understand what you’re creating, right? When people say, Oh, a little kids are so cute, but watch out for big kids.   Stacey:             08:07 There’s a reason. There’s a reason because once a big kid starts finding their own personal power, they don’t want to be controlled. They are going to lash out. They are going to alienate themselves from you. They are going to try to get away as soon as they can. It’s not just because they’re becoming teenagers. It’s actually because the relationship that we’ve created with them was based on control, not real relationship. And the boomerang of that sucks. It sucks for us as parents. It sucks for the kids and it’s just like the boomerang of demand relationship and our love relationships. It’s the same thing in our parenting. And so one of the key differences that we want to teach you today about the difference between demand parenting and relationship development, parenting is in demand parenting. Very often. What we’re trying to do is control our kids’ environment so that they can have the life we want for them.   Stacey:             09:03 In relationship development, parenting, the goal is to actually empower your kid by teaching them how to navigate real-life, teaching them the skills and the tools to navigate real life and not trying to control their environment. I’ll give you an example. In demand parenting, your kid comes home off, the bus comes in and they’re crying. By the time they get in your door all about some kid that was mean to them on the bus and this has been happening every single day for weeks and now they made up a name and they’re calling them a name and all the other kids in the bus are calling them a name too and please don’t make me go on the bus tomorrow, Kate, you drive me in and all of this and they’re crying and they’re in tears because there’s kid is bullying them on the bus. Now I know you have the best of intentions for your kids.   Stacey:             09:50 We have the best of intentions for ours to at a lot of us. The first instinct is, I’m going to talk to that bus driver. Why aren’t they sticking up for you? I’m going to talk to that kid. That kid’s parents. I’m calling the principal. I’m calling, you know, forgetting it. You know what? No, I’m going to be the bus driver. I’m going to apply to be a bus driver. I’m going to be your bus driver. I’m going to parties. I in the face like nobody. You should talk to you that way. Like we start to get involved and try to take the pain away from our kids. We love our kids. We are the best of intentions, but a lot of what we’re doing, a lot of our actions is actually to change our kids’ environment and experience of the world. So that is what we want for them.   Stacey:             10:30 It’s the happiness we want for them, the safety, the good feelings. We don’t want our kids to suffer like that and I get that. I get that instinct. But what you’re doing is you’re really robbing your kid of the personal responsibility. And the skill set to learn how to navigate life when someone’s a jerk, which is really a regular part of life. Sometimes it’s their sibling that’s being a jerk to them. Sometimes it’s, it’s me or you like sometimes it’s one of the parents is being a total jerk to everybody in the house. Sometimes it’s grandma, sometimes this a teacher, it’s a, it’s the neighbor kid, it’s the kid on the bus, it’s the kid had swim. It’s, it could be a cousin. Like learning how to navigate life when someone is a jerk to you is actually a skillset. And so the relationship development, parenting approach is to actually teach and train our kids how to navigate life with someone who’s being a jerk, whether on the bus or otherwise. Not trying to control our kid’s environment so that we can have that environment be what we want it to be for them.   Paul:               11:36 You know? And also this can be more subtle than that too because you’ll see this a lot where something happens and immediately the child didn’t ask for help. They’re just telling you what happened. And immediately the parent is right. They’re like, Oh, here’s what you should do and I’m going to do this. And like they’re right on top of it. Like, you know, they’re just surrounding the, let me, let me fix it. I’ve got all this covered. Here’s how you’re gonna approach it this way. You gonna do blah blah blah, blah blah, and I’m going to do that. Like to totally involved and immeshed in this moment. The kid might’ve just been like, Oh, I was just sharing what happened. I didn’t need you involved. And it’s another form of that that we do unconsciously with the best of intentions as always. But it’s self-defeating because here’s the outcome.   Paul:               12:16 You may be there right now, you might be there to get involved, you may be there to give them advice, you may be there to help them right now and every time you do, just like Stacey said, and you take that responsibility away from them and you don’t empower them to actually help themselves navigate those moments. The clock is ticking. The clock is ticking tool. When they do go off to college for example,   Stacey:             12:39 or move out and find themselves in a situation where you’re not there.   Paul:               12:42 Exactly. You can always be there and what have you done to empower them? The opposite instead of helping them, you’ve weakened them because they weren’t prepared for those circumstances without you getting involved. And we do it with the best of intentions just like everything else in relationship, but we don’t understand the consequences of it until later. At the same time, we’re enforcing all kinds of control as our model and then we’re getting involved in protecting them from the real world, which they need to learn how to navigate, which is like wrap, I always say it’s like putting them in a big, you know, a plastic bubble so they’re protected against any impact. And then the day comes where you know they’re leaving the house or you’re ready for them to move on and they’re completely unprepared. They’re like, okay, go ahead. And basically, it’s like throwing them to the wolves at that point. Like, now I’m super unprepared, I’m older, I have these new responsibilities and I didn’t know how to navigate this path along the way. And all of us have to remember, we must become the people we need to become to deal with the circumstances that we have in our world. Whether that’s parents who constantly are facing new challenges or kids in this world isn’t getting any easier.   Paul:               13:46 So there’s a way of doing it to where you’re not just like, all right, kid is all on you. Like again, not, not one extreme or the other. There’s a way to navigate this and do our jobs as parents to prepare them to be the people they need to be when they are ready to go out on their own. So again, don’t take the knee jerk reaction here and say, Oh, okay, so I’m just not going to do anything for them. And let them know them, deal with it, deal with it, suffer good. Uh, train school of hard knocks. That’s not the answer.   Stacey:             14:13 That still demand relationship, right? Just like, I’m going to exit and it’s all on you. Like it’s our responsibility to train. And teach our children the skills and tools they need to navigate life. Now, if you don’t know what the skills and tools are for them to navigate that bully or to navigate when their sister or brother is being mean to them or to navigate when the teacher is shaming them, it’s your responsibility to learn those tools and strategies. Because if not you who, who’s going to come and teach your kids? It’s gotta be you. And so I’ll give you this example because I know so many of you are like, alright, what do I do with the kid on the bus? So here’s the thing. I mean we’ve done this with our kids. We’ve taught dozens and dozens of people in our relationship. Your community, how to do this with their kids. When it comes time for you to teach your kid how to navigate a bully or somebody who’s being crappy to them, it’s about teaching them how to navigate that moment, meaning, all right, so here’s the thing. Some people are just going to be mean. For example, there’s a story about do you know how to make the biggest building in town? Actually, this was Tony Robins taught this story.   Stacey:             15:27 He said, there are two ways to get the biggest building in town. One is to do the work and build the biggest building in town. The second way is to kind of do a half-ass job and to build a building and then go find the building that’s bigger than yours and knock it down. Now you have the biggest building in town. Well, here’s the thing about people. A lot of people when they’re in pain or they don’t have skills, they go around knocking down the biggest building in town so that they can feel like they’re the biggest building. So when a kid is in pain, when a kid is not happy with themselves, when a kid is not feeling joyful at home or whatever is going on, it’s very, very natural and predictable actually for them to go around putting other kids down so that they can feel better about themselves.   Stacey:             16:17 Think of it this way. If that kid’s parents were constantly bullying him, if that’s kids, siblings were constantly bullying him. He’s going to come to school and look for a kid that he feels like he can bully because he hates being on the non-power player. End of that and he wants to be the one bullying. He wants to be the one to feel like he has the power because he hates what it feels like at home. So he comes on the bus, he comes to school and he looks for kids that he can put down so that he has a place where he feels like he’s the one in charge. When people have ugliness, darkness, pain inside of them, they like to get it out, put it on someone else and it doesn’t matter what’s going on. None of it is factual. It could be your last name, your ears, how tall you are, harsh, short, you are what you’re wearing, your you’re what you’re carrying.   Stacey:             17:10 It doesn’t matter if a kid wants to make someone else feel bad so they can feel better, they’ll find something and it’s irrelevant. All of it is a lie. It doesn’t matter what it was, it’s about them and how they’re feeling. And so there are a few things that we can do. One, we can learn how to use the tool that Paul and I teach, which is drop your sale, right? Think of yourself like a sailboat. When you put your sail out, you catch everything right? You don’t have the wind can totally catch a sail and jerk it around all over the water. But if you drop your sail, that wind will blow right by and you can still navigate your boat where you want it to go. And it’s important in life to learn how to drop your sail and let people’s garbage blow right by you.   Stacey:             17:58 Understanding that through the lenses you’re wearing, that’s about them. That’s not about you. They feel bad. They’re trying to make other people feel bad and let it blow past you. And then, of course, we have way more tools. We teach loads and loads and loads of them on how to mask to your state and how to understand how to view other people and have it be about them and what they’re navigating and not make everything about you and how you feel about the interaction. These are key skills for navigating life. These are key skills for navigating relationships. If you take everything that somebody says personally, you’re going to be in pain your whole life. It’s kind of like giving somebody a, giving everybody on the planet a prod to poke you with and just saying, Hey, you can say anything you want to mean. It’s basically you’re just prodding me.   Stacey:             18:45 You’re poking me. You can hurt me. It will. Like, you don’t need to give everybody else on the planet that power. You need to own your own power and be able to be the observer as you see other people navigating life and what they’re doing to try to cope with their life. These are the skills and tools and strategies that it’s our responsibility to teach our kids because whether it’s okay, fine, so they’re not going to ride the bus anymore. Well, what are you going to do about the crap that one of your parents says to them? What are you going to do about the shaming that their teacher’s doing all day long in class? What are you going to do about your other kid that’s totally bullying them in your house? It’s a fact. There are going to be times when you’re going to lose your shit and you’re going to be mean to your kid and you’re going to want to apologize later.   Stacey:             19:31 We have to teach our children how to navigate life, trying to control their life, make their life what you want it to be for them is robbing them of the skillset that they need to be prepared for the world, which was all you wanted for them in the first place. I know that you have a good heart. You’re trying hard. I totally get that and it’s not fair that nobody ever taught us all of this and that we don’t have the skills and tools to do a, but we’re here now. We have the ability to teach you the skills and the tools to be able to do this and it’s really giving you what you want for your kids to actually create the relationship that you want to have with them later on and have them be prepared for life. So a couple of key points there.   Paul:               20:16 I just want to point out to you to wrap that up. Think about it this way. So we’re talking about this in the context of overprotecting your kids basically from everything that’s negative in the world and you getting involved and notice a pieces of what Stacy was saying is, first of all, giving them some tools to deal with it in the moment and also the proper perspective, which is when someone’s acting out against you, it was never about you in the first place. Your kids need to understand that when someone’s having this negative behavior where they’re trying to put somebody else down is because of what that other person needed from the moment to feel significant, to feel important, whatever   Paul:               20:48 it is, it really never was about you. You just happen to be the target of the moment. Amen. And putting that into the proper perspective. So the alternative is what happens is when we overreact and we try to protect them, you’re basically validating that whatever it was that they had brought to the table, meaning like your ears are too big or you’re, you dress funny or whatever it is, has any kind of validity. Like you’re, you’re basically giving it validity by like reacting to it, which is what you’re doing. You’re not being thoughtful and responding to it. You’re reacting.   Stacey:             21:16 Amen.   Paul:               21:16 But also what’s happening is you’re giving a validity like, Oh, you need to be protected from this. No you don’t. No, actually you just needed to understand what was really happening there. So your kid doesn’t take it personally, wrongfully taking it personally or feeling like they need to hide from that.   Paul:               21:29 We’re building that in as part of there. People think I dressed funny beliefs. You’re allowing beliefs to be created by trying to protect them from that instead of addressing the real core principle, which was it was never really about you. It was about what they need in that moment that they weren’t getting. So they went to you to try and get it. And that’s what it comes down to. So that’s a huge difference in meaning for your child. That doesn’t leave the lingering crap that’s related to all the other stories that their monkey brain will tell them as why somebody was being mean to them. And now my mom or dad had to get involved to protect me and now I feel even less capable and now I’m, maybe I’m embarrassed because I couldn’t do it myself. Like all these negative spin-off or dynamics that happened just because we didn’t approach it the right way.   Paul:               22:11 You know, again, I a difference of preparing them versus reacting to the world and trying to wrap them into a bubble. One that you will never ever get your full hands around unless you want to try and corral, I don’t know, 7 billion people that come around.   Stacey:             22:23 yourself by the way, because you lose your crap and you have bad behaviors.   Paul:               22:26 So let’s look at that for a moment. So now if you properly prepare them, that was about the other person that’s used. That parent loses their crap, right? They have a moment and they lose it. How easy is it to go back and now to that child and say, that was totally me. I’m so sorry I was having an issue and take personal responsibility. Set the model, be the one to show the example and show them how it was never about them in the first place.   Paul:               22:47 It’s not that hard. It’s a world of difference of outcome. That’s right. It’s not that hard to shift this. This is just like one tiny example of the kinds of things that happen on a regular basis that we take for granted and you’ll probably find no shortage of people that want to line up and say, Oh yeah, I’d go down there with you too, that bus driver and tell them off, or let’s go find that kid. Let’s get well, like whatever it is that the reactionary model that we’re so used to, you will find no shortage of people who are willing to line up with you in that mindset. And it’s not going to fix anything and it’s actually disempowering your child as part of the process. So this is truly.   Stacey:             23:22 your relationship with them on the way.   Paul:               23:24 it is. You’re not building anything. It’s just a reaction. The world needs to get away from this reactionary model and come to one that’s actually one of understanding. So like you need to start that in your own home. If you want to see this go like start with the man in the mirror. This is what you want to do.   Stacey:             23:37 All right, so give us some action steps Paula, start doing now.   Paul:               23:40 So some action steps. First of all, number one, stop. When you know that you’re stepping in to control your kid’s experience, stop yourself right there. You’re like, Oh, wait a minute, I’m stepping in a stop right there. Catch herself. Number two, ask, ask yourself, instead of trying to control this situation, how can you teach your kid how to navigate this moment of life? Because it won’t be the only one like it and teach that to them like there’ll be others like this. So let’s work on how we can navigate these moments.   Paul:               24:10 You don’t have to worry about these next time they come up. Number three, reach if you’re stuck, reach for the hand of Vlad, right? And what we mean by that is the person who has already navigated this successfully many levels ahead of you. So do things like join our Facebook community at MyRelationshipDevelopmentCommunity.com or get into our 14-Day Boost program, the Quick Start program, or Relationship U program, and get your tickets for the next relationship breakthrough retreat. There are so many ways that you can reach out to us as the hand of Vlad, for example. But again, follow those steps. Stop the old model. Ask yourself what can be done differently. And if you’re stuck still there of how to navigate these things yourself, then reach out for to the hand of help that can give you the proper answers that you need to help not only you navigate these situations, but also to empower your child to navigate these situations.   Stacey:             24:56 Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Hey, don’t forget, get into our next 14-Day Boost program at 14DayBoost.com tickets for relationship breakthrough retreat are going to be going on sale soon, so go to relationshipbreakthroughretreat.com and sign up to get notified as soon as we announced the dates and the location, or if the, if we’re open when you’re listening to this podcast, secure your tickets. Don’t miss out because it’s transformational. There’s real tools and strategies. You don’t have to guess. There’s a proven methodology you can just plug it in and let it work for you. I hope this podcast has served you. If you’ve loved it, take a screenshot, share it, tag us in social media, use the hashtag relationship transformer podcast and until next time, remember together we are changing the way relationship is done.   Outro:              25:51 Hey, would you like to get big results in your relationships in just 10 seconds a day? If so, then subscribe to our daily inspiration for relationship transformers or the D.I.R.T at www.MartinoPodcast.com/DIRT.