Transcript:  Wisdom

Welcome to the Us and Kids Podcast! I am excited to be your host, Jan Talen. I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a wife, a mom, and grandma.  

This Us and Kids podcast is about how to be married forever while you parent togethe. You and I know this isn't an easy task. And that's why I encourage you to subscribe to Us and Kids in your favorite podcasting app. If, after this episode, or another one that you listen to you would be inclined to leave a review, that's always helpful to the other people that are wondering what's the best one to listen to. Your feedback is really helpful to them. 

 And today, we're going to talk about something that probably each one of us, at some point in our life or another goes, "Oh, that wasn't the wisest thing I could have done." And so, we're gonna talk about the word wisdom. What are the qualities in it? And, how do we continue to grow it? For each letter, I'm going to give a little blurb about what I think could be behind that letter, in acrostic form. I'm going to make a sentence or two about wisdom, as an adult, and how to develop wisdom in your kiddo. Let's get started!

Wisdom is spelled, I think you know this... W I S D O M. And so, we'll start with the W. Wisdom often means that we are walking, doing life with other good people. Now, that might mean other good, self controlled, wise people around you. But it also might mean, like for me, that I continue to work a relationship with Jesus of the Bible. He knows me, and I know Him. And, He's the wisest person I know, so why wouldn't I rub shoulders with Him?

 For you, who do you walk with? Who do you rub shoulders with that is a step ahead of you, that has some qualities that you would like to develop? They're a little bit ahead of you and you can learn from them. This is what we mean when we walk or do life with good people. So that's the question for you is, “Who am I walking with that's a step ahead of me?  Who encourages me to be my better self?”  And then, who are you letting your kids engage with that is a step ahead of them? This often means that we are watching who our kids are playing with and if their families are healthy and good. 

As the kids get a little older, and they have an opportunity for something like a youth group, or a good soccer league, or sports league, or for our teenagers... Wildlife, or Young Life, or a church youth group, with good leaders. Those are the people that are a step ahead. The teens can imagine being that age, and that means that they're more willing and interested in following them. I know, we don't usually talk about teenagers in this podcast, but some of this is important. Understand how important it is for our teens to grow in wisdom because as their world expands and they get their driver's licenses, more access to internet stuff, their friendship base grows the opportunities for regretful decisions grows. If we can be sure they're grounded with wise friends and leaders that have good self-control and decision making, then our teens have a better chance of success without regrets.  Sometimes, as adults, as parents, we are too many years away from them for the kids to really connect. And so, then, we put out another person in the middle. Doesn't mean that you don't connect as a parent. Don't get me wrong there. This just means that our kids need to be around other kids who are also making good decisions. That's W... Walk with good people.

I is insightful. How do you grow insightfulness? Part of this is by lowering anxiety, taking time to think as well as access empathy. Insightful means that we are looking all the way around the situation so that we don't get tunnel vision.  It helps us avoid this type of narrow thinking, "Well, this is what I think... so this is what is right, because this is what I think." Insightful means that we've taken in a variety of ideas, and then put them together into something that makes good sense in the moment, but also has no regret in the long haul. 

So how do we teach this to ourselves? Part one, we help each other slow down. When we're really ticked about something that our kids have done at two years old, or at seven years old, or at 14 years old, one of us says, "Hold on. Let's not decide a consequence just yet. Let's just talk it through for a minute." This has helped my husband and I, more than once, when one of us has said, "Pause for a minute. Let's just let them be for a few minutes, and let's talk about what else we don't know." As we thought about what we didn't know, and what else we wanted to know, it gave us insight into our kiddos motivations and helped us understand where our kiddo needed our support versus where a kiddo needed our stern conversation and consequence. 

How do we build insightfulness in kiddo? Well often, we do the same. We slow down, and we help them slow down. Sometimes, in the moment it can't be done. But it's okay and it's wise to go back to a situation and say, "Remember how you pushed Jimmy off the trampoline today, and then you stomped off, and you said I don't care?" And, little one will probably be looking down in shame. And now you're going to put your arm around them and say, "We're just going to talk about how come that happened, so that you can do it differently next time. We’ll talk when you want to and how you want to, because I can see the way you're looking right now that you didn't really want to push your friend off the trampoline, and you're sad about it." Listen to how I'm helping through my language, to access both the kiddo’s action and visible emotion. As I do I give them space to wonder, "What else could I have done?" I might include wonders about what was Jimmy doing on the trampoline that was bothering you so? And, how could you have changed Jimmy’s behavior without shoving him off? The kiddos don't always have answers for it, but we're just planting those seeds to think about it. We're teaching and training, we're giving them permission to rethink about a situation instead of just stuffing it down in the bucket of shame. Let's pull it out.  Dust it off, and figure it out. That's what insightfulness is. 

So, so far, we're walking with good people, and we're insightful. Let’s add the S. Wisdom keeps us sensitive. It keeps us emotionally gentle, so that we can care about other people. And, we can take care of ourselves. With wisdom, when we're walking with good people, we have other good input. As we build insightfulness into our thoughts by looking at the situation  from a number of different arenas, or options, we can be sensitive to what else is happening. And, we can be gentle. This helps our kiddos be less selfish as they say "I could see that my friend really wanted my dolly, and I have another one. So it's okay if she plays with that one." That's S for sensitive. She has watched other people share.  You've taught her how to share, and you've taught her how to be insightful. And, so she could see, her friend really wanted that dolly. And, she knew that she would be okay if she played with a different dolly, and her friend played with her favorite dolly. 

Sensitive, as adults, means that we have enough emotional and psychological stability inside of us to give a part of us or our things away without needing recognition or payback. It’s knowing that when we give something away emotionally or physically to calm, or to care for someone else, that it's okay. We don't feel like somebody that owes us and needs to repay us. We're just able to be generous there, emotionally, and in many, many other ways. 

And D. Wisdom keeps us from becoming dumb, like doing embarrassing things. So, I know it's sort of a silly word. It doesn't fit with the rest of the W. I. N. S. right now. But D does keep us from becoming dumb. Wisdom does. It slows down our fast thinking and fast, fast, fast emotions, and keeps us from becoming overreactive, or insensitive, or acting in a way that we walk away with shame and regret. So when we use walking with good people, being insightful and sensitive, we are able to give a better response, both verbally and non-verbally.  It slows us down enough that we are actually able to respond with compassion: either with our choice of what we do, or in what we're trying to lead someone else to do. How does it help with a kiddo? Nobody wants to feel, or act dumb. The other word for that is embarrassed, or full of regret. It confuses our brains tremendously. So, when we teach kiddos how to slow down and think, "What's my best choice? What are my choices? W I N S. Now, from my choices, what's my best choice?" And that backs them away from regret, shame, and embarrassment, and keeps us in a much more steady zone.

All right, let's move on. O... this is about others. You could hear, we're in it already. If we're walking with good people - that's other people. If we're being insightful, we're considering other people. If we are being sensitive towards ourselves and towards others, and if we are avoiding shame and embarrassment... the dumb part, keeping ourselves from being dumb, then we’re thinking of others and protecting them from those regretful choices too. Our friends are probably going to follow us in some way, and when we walk around the edge of that embarrassing danger and back away we help them to have the courage to follow us. 

So wisdom adds this awareness of others, awareness of ourselves... It's an O for ourselves, as well as the awareness of others. This means that in considering others, we also consider ourselves. It's a balancing space between these two. As we look at how others would react to what we want to say, or what we want to do, how others might need a different angle, or a different level of intensity, that we can then make that adjustment. When we have a good balance of our emotional awareness and of others emotions too, we can blend emotional energy with wise behavior. This is part of what being around others, and integrating with them well does. It balances emotional energy, along with wise responsible choices. It's not a fun squisher. It's a fun maker, because it creates such great emotional safety that people feel comfortable being themselves. 

So how do we do this for our kiddos? This is mostly talking and teaching. It's not fast. It's over time, so just start when they're young. This means you can start modeling this your kiddos are infants, one and two years old. There's so much egocentricity in those ages as they are becoming aware of themselves, which is age appropriate, that teaching this so that they get it can be hard. You say, "I'm getting nowhere." It's because it's how their young brains are made, right now. But keep teaching, and keep talking, and keep training towards good behaviors and choices.  And, keep helping them find ways to calm themselves down as they keep learning to talk and communicate their thoughts and feelings to you. As you do, their ability to consider other people and understand other people will be easier. As they grow into that developmental space of a 3, 4, 5, 6-year-old age range you should be able to see some interaction with other kids that you can teach about. For example, asking, "How did that make Johnny feel? What happened to Susie when you took away her doll? What did you notice?" And then, they'll be able to process it, while you wisely lead them through a calm, non-shaming thoughtful conversation. It will last about two or three minutes, but you're going to do it several times over the course of those years. And, as you do, they will catch on.

Our last letter stands for maturity, the letter M. Now, we all would like to think that we're mature, right? We are very grown up. We can make good decisions. And then, I wondered what the word means? So I looked it up. There are lots of things that we can say about maturity. I'm just going to pull a few of them out here, because we are training our kids towards becoming mature. They won't be just yet because they are kids. So they are going to act immature. Our task of parenting is that we continue to become more mature, as we lead our kiddos into it. As we do, we will grow in wisdom. Wisdom gives us room to take responsibility for our actions, for our choices, for our emotions. We pause on the blame, and the shame, both to ourselves and to other people. And we say, "Yes, that is what I did. Yes, this is why I did it." And we explain where we are sorry, because we can see that it had deeper implications than what we intended. Or, we were being cruel, and we intended yucky implications or actions, so we own it, and we apologize. It's a part of maturity.  

You help your kids learn how to do that, by not just saying they're sorry about something, but saying they're sorry because they understand it helped their friend feel left out or rejected. And, they are emotionally sorry for that. Here's what your kiddo is going to do next time. And they have a new plan of action, so that they can include their friend instead of becoming instantly angry and saying, "You're not my friend, and I don't want you to be my friend anymore." We talk that through and help them take responsibility. 

Maturity has this ability to stay somewhat even keeled. Even when our emotions are high, our thoughts work with those emotions. Often, I have said to my clients, "I don't really care how big your emotions are." A therapist said that. Yes, I did. I say it often.  "I don't care how big your emotions are. I care whether, or not, your thoughts can keep up with them, so that as your emotions rage... are your thoughts wise, and responsible, and sensitive, considering others? And, not leading you into places that are full of regret, or that will put that label dumb on it? If your emotions are too high that you can't think clearly, then you pause... this level of self control that comes with maturity, until those emotions calm down and you can gain more insight. This is what maturity does. It says emotions and thoughts have to work together. If I need to consult with one of my wise good people that I walk with, I'm going to do that. It's a sign of maturity, not a sign of weakness. 

Another thing that's included in maturity is that we're willing to consult with other people.We aren't afraid to do that. And when we learn something new, after consulting with someone else, after considering and looking into why did we make the choice we did, when we learn a different way, we do it.  Nobody can do it consistently. Be gentle here. But when we learn something new, we work on putting it into action. It builds our emotional intelligence, and it builds our relationship with other people, because we become more trustworthy and more followable. This helps the steps we're taking in our life, and how we live our life and manage our interactions, become something that is attractive, emotionally and relationally attractive.This is good. 

We're going to teach our kids how to do this as well: How to pull their emotions down, so that they can say their words. And then, you're going to talk those things through with them. You're going to help them. So when we say, "Next time you want to throw that ball through the window, what are you going to do instead?" When you see them gripping that ball, and you can see all the body language around them, you are going to come right next to them, as close as you can.  And not scream, "Put the ball down! You can't! You said you weren't gonna do that!" That's not gonna be very helpful. But if you can say, "We have a different plan for the ball. Remember, hey remember, we have a different plan. And, let's go do the plan." You're not going to be ridiculing here. You're just going to be encouraging, "What, what are we going to do with the ball?" And, instead of throwing it we help this kiddo bounce it, hard. But you made a different plan, and that's what you're encouraging your kiddo to do...  is to practice what they promised. 

Another thing a mature person does is know their limits, so they know when to say no. And they know when to say yes. They know when to ask for help. This is what we teach our kiddos too. Say, "Do you need some help?" And they'll nod, and you'll go, "Good, thank you for telling me. So next time, just say, Mom I need some help." And then when they do, you're going to respond sensitively with, "Of course, I'm coming." And then, do it.

Another part of maturity that we've talked about here is you keep taking into account how other people will be influenced by what you do. We have positive influence and negative influence. We just have to continue to remember to consider how is my influence on others? Is it for their best? Or does it drag them down? We want our kiddos to understand this concept while they grow.  Remember that they are learning, so you are teaching. They're gonna follow what you do. They're gonna copy you a lot! So practice what your influence is. And, make it good influence, that doesn't add shame and regret, but that adds intention and courage and confidence to make changes that you want your kiddo to have. 

One last piece about maturity, and also about wisdom...we use wisdom, walking with good people, using insights, balancing emotions and thoughts, so that we can understand things from many different directions. And then, being sensitive and gentle to others, those key things keep us from becoming dumb.Then we can consider others well, and build that maturity that brings resilience to our hearts and our minds. We remain steady, not easily thrown from one way to another. We become wise, because we can include others in our thoughts and our reactions. And, we can include our emotions, our desires, and our actions.

You know, this is not easy stuff. The DNA For Fun Communications Course teaches a whole lot about how to do this. This course teaches how to balance emotions; and how to build good thoughts; and how to listen well, and how to speak to other people hear you; how to manage emotions through touch; and through turning towards; and to honor; and through equipping; and giving benefit of the doubt. It's a worthwhile course, and I hope someday that you stop at the website.

Take a look at it and don't be afraid to shoot some questions to me. Or to just give it a run and give it a purchase. It has a good guarantee with it, and good interaction with me throughout the course. You know parenting is a tough deal. Growing up and becoming wise, is an ongoing person for anybody of any age. So I just want to encourage you to continue to build up yourself and build up those around you.

Thank you for joining. Thank you for being a part of the US and Kids podcast today. I'm glad you joined, and I hope that you have fun using all these good ideas. The printable is there, but a little reminder, so that you can see what we talked about and can pull it up more quickly than trying to go back to the podcast. And, share one with a friend. We'll talk to you later. 

Thanks for joining.

 Bye, bye.