Transcript: A+ for Application

Welcome to the US and Kids Podcast. I am your host Jan Talen. I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, but I'm also a wife, a mom, and a grandma. And, with my own marriage and with my clients, I have worked to help us avoid the pain of divorce and achieve that grand balance of being married forever, while parenting together. I know, you know, we know, this is not an easy task or easy work, but it is very rewarding. And, that's why I do this podcast is to help build marriages forever, while you parent together. 

Today, I'm glad you've joined us, because we're tying together the last three podcasts about upgrading your marriage, so that it will last forever while you also become more awesome parents, i.e. taking care of your kids together. We've talked about the D:  Defining your desires and dreams. These are usually based on what you value. Values are principles, including emotions and thoughts, that form the driving force behind our desires. A short example of this might be a sentence or an experience that would say, "My dad was scary. And so, I made a vow to not marry someone who has scared me.”  Peace and calm, emotional security, became the value.

Then, we moved on to two other podcasts that talked about the Necessary core communication skills we need for living out those values in ways that hold relationships together. And today, we're going to take those values, add a core skill to it. And then, I'll give you an example of how to Apply it. This is rather simplistic, because usually we don't use one core skill at a time. We usually use two or three, but for the sake of just getting your brains thinking about how does this work, I just wanted to give you good, little handles to hold on to, so you can start to build with it. 

The values I'm going to use are ones that I think are fairly common. They may not be yours. So just listen for how the process works. So the values are going to be: kindness,  financial security, cleanliness, intimacy, being together, scheduling, use of screen time, and well-behaved kids. I chose eight values, because there are eight core skills. With each one of the values, I'm going to have an event and a core skill that goes with it. 

So, this is the first one. We're going to talk about kindness. That's the value. This is my defined desire. I want kindness in my household. So, my spouse and I have to talk about what does that mean, and as we did we came to realize that most of our kindness, how we read if something was kind, was via the tone of voice. And so, as we listened to our kids, as they learned how to talk and interact, and as we listened to how we talk to each other, we realized that as soon as we heard a tone of voice, (somebody's being too sharp, or too snarky, or too sarcastic, and that line can be fuzzy), that connection between us, that hormonal interaction that says, "Oh, I like you." "Awww, you like me?" felt weaker, instead of helping us feel better and more secure. That connecting part  has the emotional piece of “we're in it together” and that piece was crucial. And, kindness kept us connected.
The way that we stay connected was by watching our tones of voices and helping our kids be able to verbalize what was going on. That's taught more in the Learning to Speak module. It teaches how to speak in ways that other people can listen without becoming too frightened. As soon as we become frightened our connections usually fall apart. So, we had to monitor our tones of voices a little bit more, especially when we could see that somebody was already scared.
So, for our kids, it often meant that I had to be kind, even when I was ticked.  That took a minute. I had to step away. I had to take a deep breath or drink your drink of water and just get myself reset. So that when I said to somebody, "This is not something you may ever do again. That kick to your sister, or towards me, is not going to be okay. And, we are not going to do that again." I was very clear. But, I want to connect with kindness, so that they understand that behavior is not okay. Think about how do you use your tone? And, how does it connect and keep the two of you and the family you have connected, the emotions between you feeling safe and calm. 

Okay, value number two is financial security. The core skill we're going to use for this is emotional control. This is the necessary skill.  It's the N., the emotional control. The name of the module when we learn it in the D.N.A. For Fun Communications Course is Managing the Emotional Me. And, this is going to be around the purchase of a car. And, somebody came home saying, "I found my car!"
And, the other person is looking like, "You found your car? That's nice."
"Yeah! You want to see it?"
"You got a picture of it?"
"Oh no. I don't have a picture..." and they grab your hand.
And, they're taking you outside, and there is a different car. (It's) not necessarily brand new, but new to you. And, you become a bit emotionally unglued, because there wasn't money anywhere for a car. Not $22 for a car, and your sense of emotional security and financial security just became blown apart. "How are we going to pay for this? What are we going to do? We're already maxed out. We can't take care of this."
And, you can feel that Necessary core skill of emotional control fall apart, because your value (financial security) just got stomped on. So now, you're ramped up. Your spouse was ramped up with excitement, because the car was so cool. "It's such a good deal. You couldn't pass it up." 

Okay, what are you gonna do? Emotional control says you're going to take a breath. You're going to think about what words do I actually want to have remembered in five minutes, in five hours, in five months, and five years. And, you're going to say, "Step aside. I got to think about this a little bit. You really surprised me. I didn't know we were doing this today."
And, both of you are going to take some minutes to get your heart rate down, so that your brain can think. You can think about your emotions, and certainly that would be wise, and also think about your connection. And, how do you want to speak and listen to the other person, so that this doesn't turn into being a bloodbath between the two of you. But instead, ends up being a really value based conversation about emotional and financial security.
That's the Application here is about emotional control when you become really stunned by something. And, usually that means walk away for a few minutes. Do your screaming and your crying into a pillow; in the bathroom; out in your own car; away from other people until you have actually put together something that would be helpful and constructive to say. Either a question for more information, or a comment and saying, "Let's explore how this blends in with the value and the desires that we had said we had about wanting to be financially stable? Because I don't know how this fits into that picture? Explain it to me how you thought about it?" Now, you can hear the emotional control that goes into that when you're really distressed. And, it took 25 minutes or so to get there. Don't talk until you are there. (When you) are under emotional control. That's the application. 

Let's move on (to) the next one. It's the value or the desire to have a clean house, a clean living space. Now, sometimes this is cars. Sometimes this is the lawn, and sometimes this is the house. Sometimes, it's closets. Different people, different levels of desires of cleanliness. And often, because there are different levels, there are different expectations. So, the Necessary core skill we're going to use here is Listening well. Listening with empathy, so that as I hear my spouse talk about, "The children shouldn't eat in the car! The car should never have food in it, because the car has to stay clean. Food is meant to be eaten by the table." And, as I listened to that with empathy, I can hear their value for and their desire to have a clean car. It's part of their identity is how that car looks. And, as part of saying, "My children are well-behaved, because they don't leave the car totally trashed."
Listen to how this lays out a little bit. And, so as I listen, my necessary skill here is going to be listening to them talk about that. I'm going to begin to understand that this has lots of layers for them in terms of how they think other people see them. And, as I listen to that, I'm going to be able to just reflect back and say, "I can hear that the value of the car, you think, stays higher if it's not messy. And, that other people will respect us more as parents if they see that our car is neat." And that, whichever spouse, and it can be either one, can say, "Yeah, that's the truth." And, as I listened to that, I may understand more where they're coming from. 

Now, for me, because my value is not necessarily cleanliness in the car. My value is happy, quiet children, so that I can drive in the car. And, sometimes (we're) just pressed for time, so we're going to have to have a snack in the car. We then need to be able to say and communicate clearly back, "How are we going to balance your desire for cleanliness, along with my desire to get someplace on time and have the kids, sort of put together, mentally ready?" You're going to have to talk about: what kind of food goes into the car and what doesn't; and how often we should clean the car; and who's in charge of cleaning the car; and that kind of stuff. But you can hear, we're talking about our desire for cleanliness. There's not really a disagreement there about cleanliness. It's about what cleanliness means. And, by using understanding that we can reach an agreement by really listening carefully to what that other person is thinking. 

Let's move on to the next one. The value or the desire is intimacy. Yes... bedroom space. The fun and the frolic, the laughter, the calmness or connection that happens when skin meets skin. But, the event is when there is post- baby tiredness. And some of you will say, "Yeah, we've been in post baby tiredness now for seven and a half years." I understand that. What's the Necessary skill for getting yourselves a little bit more on the same page. That's a necessary skill of being able to speak clearly. Speaking has so much in it, because it includes your eye contact, your tone of voice, and your body language. Remember that speaking, the actual words are only 15% of that conversation. All of the rest of the communication in that conversation is the nonverbals. It's the eyes, the tone, the look, the body language. If you are: shrugging your shoulders, looking all over, holding onto your phone,  rolling your eyes, really loud, or sharp, or short then you will be not taken very seriously.  But if you are  absorbing and talking and listening and speaking with compassion and gentleness then others feel valued and connected and the conversation will have value and impact.
Talk  about your own value of intimacy and how it connects you. And, then when you’re more connected, you feel more secure about us. And when you feel more secure about the relationship, you’re more willing to be helpful towards the relationship.
Listen to what speaking just did. It explained all of the needs and desires behind, "I need to be intimate with you. It settles me down, but it also strengthens us." Now, the other person might say, "It doesn't settle me down. It's just one more thing in my to-do list. And, we haven't been kind, or gentle, or helpful, or or anywhere near emotionally vulnerable with each other. So, moving into that naked space is not on my radar. I need more stuff in the middle. More helpfulness; less snarkiness; more just doing something without me having to tell you; that would be connecting for me. If you meet my needs outside of the bedroom, I think that I can meet your needs more closely in the bedroom." 

Listen to how we're speaking. Of course, it's a dance with listening. Right? Listen  to the gentleness that happens as we talk about the value. You both have one... that desire to be intimate. And, it just came out, through using the core skills of listening and speaking, that high need intimacy, outside of the bedroom and inside the bedroom. Speak gently. Speak clearly using that first pronoun I a lot. 

Let's move on. The next value is about being together. We've touched on it a little bit here and there, but we're just going to build it a little bit more. So the value or the desire in the D.N.A. program would be, "I just need to be with you. We need to be together doing something together." And, this might be like as a family. Sometimes when we can send our kiddos off to school, we all of a sudden have a little ache in our heart that says, "I missed them. I mean I used to be with them all day long. And now, I hardly know what's happening in their life." It happens when we start to send our kids to daycare. And, we go, "Oh, there's a whole lot about them all of a sudden I don't know." And, our necessary skill for bringing togetherness back in is often going to be touch. Now, not always, but our necessary skill, in this situation, is going to be touch. 

So, I'm going to talk about the five or six-year-old who just started to go back to school. And, they're a little off. They come home, and they're rambunctious. And, they don't listen, and they're just busy, sort of, chaotic. And, you'd like, you want to say, "How was your day?" Or, "Tell me something about your day?" Or, "Did you do any reading?" "What songs did you sing?" And (they) say, "I don't know." "I don't care." "I don't know." "Leave me alone, Mom," comes out of their mouth and your heart sinks, because your desire was to reconnect with your kiddo. And, they don't seem to have that desire at all.
If we use, often, our core skill or necessary skill of touch, it will often turn on those connection hormones that help us once again, say, "Oh, Hi." And, all the sudden heart rate goes down and the ability to focus in happens. So, that if I were to say to my five-year-old after school, "If you have a few minutes, let's hold hands and let's go get the mail." It's a short walk, but the holding hands, that touch... "Let's sit on the couch, and let's have our afternoon snack together." Or, "Let's go, and let's do this little task together." But, on the way, you touch this shoulder, you hold their hand, and you look into their eyes. Often, in that touch, those kiddos will reattach to you. And, they'll look at you, and they'll listen. And, they'll see that, because you're saying, "You're important to me," all of a sudden, they're going to remember, "Oh, yeah. You're important to me too."
Rarely will a five-year-old actually think those words, but they will feel it when you touch them. And, that will help you feel like you are valued as a parent. The feeling is important. It's okay. The feeling that you are valued as a parent will also feel like now that little person that you love so deeply, is reconnected to you.
Do it throughout your parenting life. Touch your kids. Don't drop that touch when they're teenagers. Touch your kids. Hold their hands. Snuggle on the couch. Give them hugs. Look them in the eye. Touches say, "You're important. You're valued." That's the value you have is to be sure that they know that they're valued. Being together is the desire that you have. Then use touch in wise ways to bring you together.

The next one is a value or desire to have schedules under control. Part of this means somebody doesn't like to be late. Somebody doesn't like schedule surprises or changes. This is their desire is, "I want to know what's going on. I want to be able to plan for it. I have to mentally gear up for things." And, this core skill here is going to be Benefit of the Doubt. The Necessary skill, core skill, is that benefit of the doubt and is shown when we give grace when there's a behavior, or line of thought that was missed or messed up a little bit. And so, when there's something that just all of the dots don't exactly line up, but because we know and trust the person that we're with (and this can be a kiddo, as well as it can be an adult), that we give grace and say, "It's okay." And, we use our adjustment coping skills to not hold a grudge, to not be overly harsh in punishment or discipline, but instead to just use the time as a learning experience. 

So, we'll talk about it from both angles. One of them is the seven-year-old who's coming home and not taking the papers or the info home from school. And, you're going to to tell me that they don't send those papers home anymore:)  But, some of my parents say, "Yeah, we still have papers in the backpack that we have to do. And, the papers sometimes say you have to go on the website and sign dotta, dotta, da..." But, the kiddo is not informing you, and the kiddo was supposed to be the deliverer of the message about this band concert, or about this activity, or about this field trip. And, you didn't get that info. So school is calling and saying, "Your kid needs mud boots. We're going to the pig farm." And, you can be really ticked at your kid, because they didn't tell you about the schedule. And, they didn't communicate it with you. They were supposed to.
That messes up the value here of not being embarrassed; and knowing the schedules; being on time; being put together here. Your core skill is going to be benefit of the doubt. This is a necessary skill to say, "Oh, yeah. You're right. We'll have to get those boots to you. Where can I meet you?" Or, "Can they wear the shoes that they have?" And, figuring out, instead of, berating your child in front of someone else and instead of screaming at them when they get home. You simply use those other skills. Touch, speaking, and listening to say, "Can you tell me why you forgot to tell me about the pig farm?" And, the kiddo might say, "I didn't hear about it. I was in the bathroom." They kiddo might say, "Mom, I hate pigs. I don't want to go. I didn't want to go." Oh, because when I give benefit of the doubt and I listen again, I get information that keeps me from being really cruel and helps me extend grace. My desire is that the schedule is nicely put together. My benefit of the doubt, that core skill, helps me to make my emotional adjustment when the schedule is messy. 

Well, what happens when it's an adult who misses and messes up the schedule? They know full well what you want and what your expectations are. And, so now, you feel it as a personal slight. Do you get the benefit of the doubt to that? Or, do you just scream at them about it, because they are not honoring you and aren't matching your desire to have an organized household?
Once again, we're gonna listen carefully, so that we can use benefit of the doubt to find out what fear or what other event took greater precedence? And maybe, there was a value that made it higher. "Yeah honey, the schedule got messed up. And, I couldn't communicate with you. I had to get my co-worker to the hospital. And, as I did, my phone went dead. We were in her car. And, I didn't have a charger. So, you're right. I messed up the schedule."
As soon as they say that, and even before that, I wouldn't be able to think usually my spouse is trying to communicate if the schedule changes. I wonder what happened? And then, I would be able to say, as I hear the story, "I think he did the right thing. And, we all adjusted. We'll be okay." Benefit of the doubt has grace in it. And, you can hear me now apply that grace with kindness. 

Okay, the next one. The desire is that screens are kept to a minimum when at home. Screen use: phones, tablets, TVs, all of the others that there could ever be. This would include earbuds. Screen use... our desire here is that it's kept to a minimum so that we are personal one on one connection with each other. We are aware of the humans in the room, not the humans on a screen.
And so, our Necessary core skill is going to be Turning Towards. This is the skill. So, necessary skill of being able to stay close to each other, face to face with each other. Not stone cold silent, not absolute turn your back, and not screaming in anger or frustration. Turning towards is usually an emotional control; listening; and speaking; and benefit of the doubt, in order to stay connected while we are in tension or under tension.
So, somebody, we find out, has been getting up between two and four in the morning in gaming. And, all of a sudden, we are like, "What? I thought you were just getting up to put a kiddo back to bed? And, you're up gaming? That is why you're so tired, and exhausted, and crabby? Oh, boy. Am I mad right now!"
So, I can feel that emotional control wants to just fall apart. How am I going to use turning towards and staying connected when I'm this mad? Part one, I'm going to use what I learned in emotional control. And, I'm going to take a deep breath, I'm going to settle down a bit. And, in that turning towards, I'm going to also use that “I” sentence. This is my application. I'm going to look and say, "I'm really curious about why this is okay for us? We agreed, I thought, that we wanted, we desired not to have screens. And now, I feel like you've double crossed me by not only pretending like you don't have screens in the day, but now, going behind my back at night. You broken trust!  What's up?"
And, listening carefully, it's the turning towards where I really want to know, "Why was this okay for you? I don't understand this?" The curiosity in turning towards is so important, and the calmness. This is a lot of emotional control, a lot of really just intentional listening and control over words. The application here helps it, so we can understand what's happening between each of us and the trust that was broken and steps to repair the trust. 

Our sixth one, the value, the desire is to have well-behaved children. Well, that's a great desire and let's remember parenting children is a process. We are never done. They are always changing, and we're always changing. And so, they may be well-behaved one day or in one place, and then way off the next. I agree with you. I think that working towards having well-behaved children as a desire and value is a good idea. I also want to remind you to set the standards with flexibility. I, sort of, want to say with a wet noodle, because it moves, has to move a lot. Kids have such limited language that often what they have to do in terms of creating emotional balance for themselves is that they have to move, or they have to be loud, or they have to be naughty just to get their own anxiety out. That doesn't mean we don't parent it. It just means our approach to parenting is really in a gentle way of trying to understand what's going on with them. So, the Necessary skill in reaching our desire of well-behaved children is Honoring them, Protecting them, and Equipping them. 

Let's talk, just briefly, about this balance between protect and equip. In my mind and how I've taught many, many families is that we use protection.( "No. You may not do that. I will stop you from doing that.") unless, we can equip them. So, I'm going to date myself a bit. This is about my teenage daughter, and she had gotten her driver's license. And, this was in the days pre cell phone. Yes, those days existed. And so, we insisted that she had change. And that, in her routes, she paid some attention to where the pay phones were. Yes, those were things as well... pay phones. And, we wanted her to know how to use it, because if she was in trouble driving the pay phone was the means to which we would have to communicate with each other.
We knew it couldn't protect her on the road, but we also knew we could equip her. The other thing all of our kids had to do before they drove that car off the driveway is they had to know how to change their own tire. They had to know what all of the dipsticks meant. And, they had to know what it felt like to drive on a flat tire. If the funny lights went off on the dashboard, they were expected to communicate with us. Because, we were moving them out of just protecting them by riding in our own cars, with us being the driver, to being sure they were equipped to go out and drive themselves and know what was happening to their cars.
When we have little ones, we protect them until we can equip them. So, it’s little things, right? Okay, we protect their little bottoms by giving them dry diapers until we can equip them by helping them potty train, and: use their own undies and pull up their own pants and go to the potty by themselves and all over those things.
We are teaching them how to be honored. Respected is another word for that. And, when we respect our children, which is honoring them we protect them when necessary and equip them as soon as we can to the best that we can. When we say to a two-year-old or a three-year-old, "Put on your shoes," and they put them on the wrong feet. I'm fine with that, because they have just become equipped to put their shoes on.
We are just going to cheer them on and accept that level of behavior as being good for them. And then, as they continue to grow, we're going to continue to help them do things a little bit better. We use this skill, and necessary skills certainly, of honoring, and then saying, "Well, this time I'm going to protect you, because I want you to watch how I do it. And, pay attention, so that the next time you can do it yourself." We're going to move you out of protection into equipping. Listen to how we do that. We can do that with our spouses too as long as we are not too parental, and we use a lot of honor and respect in it. 

Okay, this is a longer podcast. You're going, "Whooo Jan. You went a long time." I know, because there are 8 of them. And, I wanted all of that Application in one place so that you could really see that when we live our Desires, and we are somewhat in agreement with them as husband and wife, and we use the Necessary core skills, then the Application makes sense. And, the behaviors the connections build up delightfully strong marriage that can make it through storms that happen in life and can help us have well-behaved, well-balanced family life. It is married forever, while you parent together.
And, that's why the D.N.A. Program is becoming available again in the next three to six weeks. I look forward to connecting with you there, and I just want to cheer you on.
Grab this printable. It's going to have some of these things on it where you guys can do your own little worksheet and can continue to talk about how do we apply these and learn about them and apply them.
Alright, I'm always cheering for you, knowing that parenting and marriage is hard work, and it's worth the work.
So, go for it. Hug each other. Talk with each other. Do something kind for each other. And, we'll be back again next week.
Thank you. Bye, bye.