The Parenting Relationship - Getting Kids to Listen By Listening

Today's episode has to do with parenting, and it's not something that I've talked all that much about in the podcast, but I'm going to be doing more as we head back into the school season. But right now, it's still mid-July, and if you have kids who are home from school and in your space and in your home, I can imagine that there are times when you may wonder, how do I get these kids to listen? How do I get them to obey? How do I get them to do what I need them to do? They're driving me crazy because they're on top of each other and there's stuff to get done and now the house is a mess and they tear in and out of here. Whatever it is that you're going through, I want to give you a few tips for building relationship with your kids. But maybe your kids are already grown. These still work. These still work because people are the same. No matter who we are or what age we are, whether we recognize it or not, we all need to be in relationship, to be understood and cared about and to understand what the rules are.

I'm going to give you three takeaways as you try to figure out how to get your kids to listen or how to have an impact on your young adult children's lives. The first starts with modeling. Look at your own actions. Are you able to manage your own emotions? Are you able to regulate your needs? Are you able to listen to yourself when you have intense feelings and find out what needs might have some desire to be met that you are ignoring or that are being minimized, or that you're judging and criticizing yourself for? Because if you're doing that to yourself, it's likely that you're not listening to the needs of your kids with a present solution, focused mindset. Maybe you are. Maybe you deny yourself and you're just amazing at listening to your kids' hearts, but your kids need you to model taking care of oneself. It is not selfish to meet your needs and take care of your needs and notice what your needs are so that you can manage them.

It is modeling for your children how to be good caregivers to themselves as well as how to love others. They need to see you making good choices in the way you live because that's how they learn to live. The way you talk to them; that's how they learn to talk to themselves. The way you talk to yourself; that's what they see. That's how they then talk to themselves. When you can understand what they're going through rather than just beat into existence compliance or harsh correction, but understanding and compassion and grace. They learn to internalize understanding, compassion, and grace.

When you work on relationship with an open door policy that says you are welcome here even if you're not perfect, they learn relationship is more important than rules. Now I will tell you it's nice when the household rules get followed. It's nice when things are clean and the kids comply and when we have a close relationship. But if you find that you're having these stuck points where nothing is getting through and you're judging yourself as if you're a bad parent or feel like all you do is complain and grumble and correct and yell, I want you to think about these things. Are you modeling love and respect like Jesus would? See your kids towards yourself as well as to them and to your spouse. Start with modeling a well lived life.

Secondly, give understanding over insisting on compliance or harsh correction. Understand the feelings, understand the needs that they have, understand what they are not capable of developmentally, and give them options.

Give them choices, teach them, come alongside them. Understand if they don't want to do something and instead of it's okay that they don't want to do something, but they must do it. It's okay to feel that way. And when we feel like that, there are some ways we can deal with it. We can do a little bit now and we can do a little bit later. We can do it all now and get it all over with. We can do it later, but it might be on our minds this whole time. Which one would you like to do right now? A way that you come along and problem solve with them allows them to realize there's more than one way.

They don't have to get rebellious. They can listen to you, they can listen to themselves, they can listen to the Holy Spirit, they can have grace, and they will comply. They may not comply in the exact way because relationship is more important than rules. Listen, talk, show respect, and respect doesn't mean that there aren't times when someone is being willfully disobedient, that you don't have to have punishment or discipline. But you do have options to focus on modeling the behavior you would like to see, speaking with a gentle answer that turns away wrath, giving grace, love and respect, and offering that understanding and empathy while you cultivate relationship. Because in a relationship, I've never met a kid who doesn't want to be loved and valued. They may have had lots and lots of trauma on them and look like the worst kid in the world, but listening, care, love, and valuing is never going to hurt them. And they may need rules and tough love in those ways sometimes.

But if the relationship is there, the respectful modeling is there, the understanding is there, the choices of healthy ways to manage things and deal with things are there, they're going to be a lot less frustrated and so are you. Which one of those would you like to work on today? Because we can all stand to improve our relationships our care, our empathy, our understanding, and how we live our lives. To model after Jesus, feel free to go and pop into Instagram or Facebook and share the thing that you'd like to work on. I'd love to hear from you. Take care.