0:00:00 – Speaker 1
nextTalk contains content of a mature nature. Parental guidance is advised. Welcome to nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim on AM 630. The word Mandy is the author of Talk and Kim is the director of nextTalk, a nonprofit organization helping parents cyber parent through open communication. Follow us on Facebook, instagram and Twitter, find our video series and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
0:00:34 – Speaker 2
What do you do when your kid messes up?
0:00:38 – Speaker 3
They’re all going to.
0:00:39 – Speaker 2
They are all going to All of our kids are going to mess up.
0:00:44 – Speaker 3
Well, I would venture to say they already have.
0:00:46 – Speaker 2
Well, they already every day. We’re living in it Every day.
0:00:49 – Speaker 3
Yes, so we wanted to share five helpful tips for when your kid messes up. We actually have 500, but we figured we’d narrow it down.
0:00:57 – Speaker 2
We narrowed it down for the time we have, so so let’s start with that. Let’s just because we can talk about. It could be big or small, so this could be like a little white lie. This could be not putting your laundry away. This could be not following orders. This could be something bigger, like sharing nude photos or bullying somebody online, or drugs alcohol, choosing sex or a sexuality or something that you are like? Whoa, I am not for this.
0:01:26 – Speaker 3
It could be big things like that I really have been thinking a lot about that, and one thing that keeps resonating in my head is that my reaction to my kids actions matters big time. I’m in system. I just I have to really reign it in and think about what my reaction is going to be before something happens, and so that’s why we wanted to really delve into this and have a plan before the next thing happens.
0:01:49 – Speaker 2
Well, because when we respond with emotion we’ve done a lot of shows on responding with emotion, so many emotions, we know it can break down walls. I mean and this can you know with our husbands, with our coworkers, with anybody you know we respond badly, we say harsh things that we could never get back or we over respond. We over respond. It just is really bad for the relationship. So, if we can think about it before the mistake happens, on, okay. These are the steps. This is kind of why we wanted to do this show.
0:02:18 – Speaker 3
Number one default to love, love your kid no matter what. Now you’re probably saying you guys say this all the time. Well, yes, it’s just like you know. With your child you say 500 times the same thing, over and over. It’s because it’s that important.
0:02:32 – Speaker 2
Okay, so here’s where I want to talk about how the generations are different, because when I grew up, you did something awful, like really bad. You got kicked out of the house. You got like hardcore, like get out, right. I mean I think we’ve all can, either us or our friends. We know this right. There’s a couple nights I had to sleep in my own car, not that.
0:02:56 – Speaker 3
I didn’t deserve it. When it’s pushing a button, I can see it your face is turning red.
0:03:00 – Speaker 2
I totally deserve it, but here’s the problem with how the world has changed. Okay, your kids now can literally go online and be picked up by a stranger in five minutes, and that person can be a sex trafficker. So when we turn our back on our kids, they are at a higher risk to find acceptance and love online, and that can come from really bad places, harmful, horrible places. So we have to recognize again the shift that’s happened and why it’s so important not to just kick out or turn your back on them yes, or withhold love, or shut down conversation because and go listen to the show understanding their culture.
0:03:45 – Speaker 3
If you don’t understand their culture, you don’t realize how your action could result in them being in greater danger.
0:03:51 – Speaker 2
Well, and above all, that this is what Jesus did. Yeah, and we see this with the woman at the well, you know, the Samaritan woman who had five husbands. He loved her despite of her mistakes. We see it with a prodigal son story. You know, he came back, the dad loved him. And we see it with the adulterous woman totally in sin. God saved her from being stoned, you know, jesus saved her. So, above all, that just model the grace, because Jesus did.
0:04:21 – Speaker 3
I want to be real honest here, and Mandy will agree with me on this one we are not Jesus, we are human and we want to always walk as he did and do our best. But don’t feel like you have to know all the answers and have it all together in the moment, and I think that’s where a lot of us get tripped up. We’re like but they just told me this big thing or this bad thing, or they just did this thing. That’s so annoying. In that moment it’s OK to take a breath and step away and say I love you, no matter what you’ve done, I love you. I just need a minute. That’s kind of become my mantra, because a lot of times I don’t know what to do in the moment, I don’t know how to react, and that’s not what we’re saying here. We’re saying default to love, tell your child you love them no matter what, and then step away till you’re ready to actually work it through.
0:05:08 – Speaker 2
Yeah, that doesn’t mean, when emotions are down and calm, that you’re not going to have some conversations about what happened, or that they may have face consequences, but you don’t just respond in the reaction.
I know I work with so many parents and they’re like my kid shared a nude and I just ripped the phone away and told them they could never have their phone back. Well, do you really mean that? I mean because what you probably mean is, once I can trust you again, you can earn it back, like, of course there will be consequences, and so we just have to know what we’ve got to do, what we say and mean what we say. One of the things as you were talking, kim, that kind of popped in my head was to the listener out there that said I wish I could go back, because when my kid came out to me or whatever, or did something horrible, I responded badly. Here’s what I want to say to you An apology goes a long way.
An apology goes a long way and, like Kim pointed out, we’re not Jesus. We are going to mess this up sometimes. We want to respond with grace and love all the time, but we’re human and so an apology goes a long way. Create that to create more conversation. Go with the apology and that is the start of a good conversation. Then Absolutely.
0:06:21 – Speaker 3
And what a great model for your kid to see you apologizing and humbling yourself. And that again just goes a long way. And if we default to screaming, shaming and shutting down, we close the door on helping our child do better. And that’s exactly what Mandy’s saying. If that happens, if we do that, there is a second chance. I also just want to throw in here about little kids, because I know we have a lot of moms with young ones and you’re thinking well, my kid is not coming out to me, there are three or there are five, or we haven’t faced any big things.
0:06:52 – Speaker 2
Yet they’re just in target, rolling on the floor screaming like crazy. Yes, that’s what they’re doing.
0:06:56 – Speaker 3
That’s what they’re doing Were you with me yesterday. So I just want to say something that I have learned with my littles is that it’s almost as if they’re testing you, as if they are watching you with these little things, and this is our practice ground, parents, this is the time to get in the practice of doing this default to love. We get to hear this information early so we get to start as young as possible. And when they do these little things, when they tell the white lies we’re struggling with the white lies right now with one of mine when they do those, if our reaction is grace and if our reaction is calm and that we walk them through it and we’re able to sit with them and explain the why behind why it’s not OK, then when they get older and it’s the big things they’ll know that they can still come to us and we get to work through that with them. So this is a great opportunity for you to set that groundwork.
0:07:49 – Speaker 2
Well, and even if you have older kids and you’re like I, haven’t been doing this, you can still catch them in little things and extend grace, to teach this message Never to wait. That happened recently in our home. I’m not gonna say which kid, but one of them, one of them. I was just disappointed in their actions and you could just see on their face that they knew I was. I didn’t have to say I was disappointed, they knew right and I could see the tears welling it and my immediate reaction was to start preaching Like do you? How many times have we you know better? You know. That was my immediate reaction. But I literally collected myself and was like okay, wait, we are a nextTalk.
0:08:25 – Speaker 3
Family now, this is not how I’m gonna respond.
0:08:29 – Speaker 2
And I looked at this child and I said I love you the same, no matter what, no matter what your actions, and I’m not joking, it was like butter melting in my arms and tears and just that. And then later, like two days later, we had lots of conversation about what happened and there were some consequences and there were how it could have been handled differently. But that first step was just the loving, you know, and it just made all the difference.
0:08:54 – Speaker 3
It’s incredible.
0:08:56 – Speaker 2
I tell you. I would also say you know you said take a moment and step away. Like I love you, but I gotta have a minute. I would say at that point make sure you’re not tempted to sweep it under the rug at that point, cause sometimes you’re like I don’t wanna go back and talk about this.
I just don’t wanna. Here’s the thing we can’t afford not to talk to our kids Colossians two, eight and nine and says don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world rather than from Christ Y’all. That’s what’s happening on social media every day. It’s taking our kids captive and it’s all kinds of crazy philosophies and if we’re not actively talking and using all these teachable moments, we can literally lose our kids to that. And so, you know, don’t sweep it under the rug and every time that you have to go back, be in prayer. You know, reach out to a mentor or a trusted friend that can guide you and give you some good advice on how to have the conversation. And don’t ever underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit either to give you the right words in that conversation.
0:10:06 – Speaker 3
Absolutely, I’m glad you brought that up. All right, so number one default to love. Love your kid, no matter what. Number two get your child the help they need Professional medical attention, whatever it is at all costs.
0:10:20 – Speaker 2
So this is kind of for the big things. This is the big well, it can be. It can be. It can be. But like, for instance, if you have a suicidal child, get help immediately. You can Google the National Suicide Hotline, it’s 1-800-273-8255. You need to get help. You need to get professional medical help. If your kid is cutting, if they are addicted using drugs, you need to talk to your pediatrician, get a counselor referral. And we just wanted to throw this in here because don’t miss this step.
0:10:51 – Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely, and you know we are big advocates of counseling. I’m just going to say it’s got to be a good counselor.
I hear story after story of people saying, well, we went into counseling and it just wasn’t a right fit and then we just stopped, please don’t stop it’s hard to find good Christian counselors so hard to find good Christian counselors Don’t give up and if you’re in the San Antonio area, reach out to nextTalk and we can give you some referrals of some that we really know do great Christian counseling. But keep going. I always tell families continue and try someone new until you find a good fit. We also have some podcasts to help you out with licensed professional counselors. We have Help my kids addicted to drug and alcohol or alcohol. We have Help my child is suicidal. We’ve got a lot of different podcasts that support you.
0:11:40 – Speaker 2
And I would say this last thing sometimes, when our kids are in crisis mode, it all becomes about what did we do wrong? It becomes about us as parents. Like I’ve been there, my kid makes a mistake and I’m like what conversation did I miss? Why did they think this was OK? And so I would say get your child the help they need first. There’s going to be time for self-reflection on what you could have done different. But I see a lot of times when parents contact us that they’re stuck in the guilt and I’m like well, have you taken your kid into a counselor, have you? No, I’m just so. I just can’t believe this is happening. And it’s like get your kid the help they need first, and then we can all heal as a family and self-reflect.
0:12:22 – Speaker 3
Absolutely. And just to add on to that just a little bit, because it’s such an important one, I feel like sometimes God is calling us to put things down for a minute. And that’s really hard to do because life is so busy and we get busy, we have all of these things going on and sometimes we just need to stop. Don’t make it about us and give our kids the time they need to process whatever is happening and get the help that they need. And that’s going to take some time and energy. So put stuff down so you can get your child the help that they need.
0:12:51 – Speaker 2
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0:13:19 – Speaker 1
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0:13:45 – Speaker 3
Investment advisory services offered through PAX Financial Group MUSIC. Today, we’re sharing five helpful tips for when your kid messes up. All of our kids have messed up, will mess up In preparing our hearts and our heads. When the next time comes, maybe our response can be different, maybe it can be a healing moment, maybe it can be a time to delve into incredible conversations that really change things, and so we wanted to give you five things to hold on to for the next time this happens. We started out with one that you hear say all the time, and mainly because it’s so important default to love Love your kid, no matter what. Number two get your child the help they need Professional, medical, whatever it is. Stop what you’re doing. If it is an emergency or it’s a threat to their life or their health, please get the appropriate help that they need Now. Number three have calm conversations with your child.
0:14:42 – Speaker 2
Yeah, this may be a day later or it may be that night. It’s when the emotions are kind of down and you’re ready to have real, maybe hard but calm conversations. It’s not a debate and timing is everything on this. Be careful with this. If your kid has been at school all day long and you get in the car and you’re ready to have a serious conversation, they may need a minute. They have been class after class after class after class and that may not be the best time. I love bedtime. It’s great time that works for my kids. Figure out when is a good time when your kid will talk With my son. It’s playing basketball. When we’re shooting hoops, he’ll start opening it.
So, just find out what works. But timing is everything and pray about that. Pray about when am I supposed to bring this up and how am I supposed to bring this up. And then we have some specific examples of how you can start this conversation.
0:15:35 – Speaker 3
Well, and I would say too, sometimes your first reaction feeling is just charged with emotion, and there have been times where I have felt like the world is falling apart or it’s the worst thing ever, and I’ve shared it with a friend, like a heads up mom, like someone who’s a little bit older, like Mandy, or two years older, right?
0:15:55 – Speaker 2
What do you do with girlfriend?
0:15:56 – Speaker 3
Only one Throwing me under the bus Two years, always, always, or just someone that has been through it before and I share it through all of my emotions and they’re able to talk me down a little bit most of the time and put it into perspective a little, so I can process all of that before I bring it to the table with my kid, because they don’t need all of that. That doesn’t help. So when you step away and pray also sometimes processing it with your spouse or processing it with a friend helps you to prepare for that conversation.
0:16:23 – Speaker 2
I know. One thing that I always think of is what were they thinking? Like I go back to that what word they know better? That’s kind of what I think you know.
0:16:32 – Speaker 3
Well, let me tell you about that. Yeah, I wanted to share this story, just a vague version of it. One of my kiddos was with a friend who’s kind of like an acquaintance, and that friend had an idea to do something that just was unsavory I should put it that way Unsavory, unsavory I’m turning into a southern woman. It wasn’t terrible, I’ll just tell you that. But in my mom’s eye, because my children are my babies, it just felt terrible. Yeah, and you know, the Holy Spirit was so good.
The Holy Spirit really spoke to my heart in that moment and said go check on these kids. And I walked in just in time to catch this thing. And again, it wasn’t terrible like it sounds, but in that moment old Kim would have screamed and grabbed the other child and threw them out the door and said some unsavory words. But I stopped and I focused on my child and I just looked that child in the eye and their eyes welled up with tears, just like what you were saying, yeah, and we calmly walked out into another space where it was just that child in me and we just sat and there were tears and hugs and I said I love you, no matter what, it’s okay, it’s not that big of a deal, but let’s just sit here for a minute.
And the conversations that came after that were incredible. And you know my first reaction was this how could this happen? How could you think you know better? You know better, you know better and in the we want to go preachy style. I did, and I had to walk away. And it was all the way. The next morning that child and I were sitting on the couch snuggling and I said and again it was a Holy Spirit moment he said ask again how this happened. And I said walk me through it, walk me through what happened. I wanted to understand how you couldn’t know better.
0:18:31 – Speaker 2
You wanted to get in his mind and think what were you thinking, without saying that condescending in me.
0:18:38 – Speaker 3
Exactly, and it was incredible because this child walked me through the process of their thought process and what happened, and then it made total sense.
And I was like oh, my goodness, and I realized it was something I had not shared with my child. I hadn’t in detail said don’t do this. This happens, don’t do it. Or here’s what you can do when this happens. When someone you trust or care about asks you to do something that you know is wrong, it’s okay to say no, right, because we had talked about it in different contexts. But never like your buddy says this and it’s not really a bad thing, but you know it’s probably not right. You’re not gonna hurt them by standing up for yourself.
0:19:20 – Speaker 2
We always talk in terms of a monster, Like if you’re in the bathroom and somebody tries to do something. Kick them and run and crush them.
0:19:26 – Speaker 3
We’ve had all those hard conversations.
0:19:28 – Speaker 2
We don’t talk as much about the best friend who is trying to manipulate you into something and that was exactly the situation. Well, and I loved when you called me. You know that you were like oh my gosh, the Holy Spirit, this was great.
And when you were telling me the story, when you said, walk me through it, I was like this is a line that we can give parents, Because that allowed you a window into literally what he was thinking and you had more grace and empathy. And I think the best thing out of all of it was you tackled the real issue, Because then you, getting into his mind, you realized, oh, we need to have this conversation and had you not wanted to get into his mind you wouldn’t have tackled that.
0:20:13 – Speaker 3
You would have just said don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t do that. And I was able to apologize like I’m so sorry, like we never. And you know, as parents we wanna say well, they should know that that’s what you do, they should know that they say no, but they really don’t parents, and I know that’s hard to digest, they don’t know. And so being able to tell him that, he turned to me with again tears and I said thank you, mom.
0:20:38 – Speaker 2
And now I feel like I know what to do and you’re his safe place now and I’m his safe place and he knows you’re gonna love him.
0:20:43 – Speaker 3
No matter what and I wanna share this to you Really important, really quickly is that my husband happened to be home at the time and I walked in with my child and I walked in and I grabbed my husband and went in the room and he sat in my husband’s arms for probably 45 minutes and just cried and my husband didn’t lecture him, didn’t yell at him, just held him and he didn’t ever have to say a word, but that told him that I am your safe place. Yeah, any chance that we can do that?
0:21:10 – Speaker 2
Well, and let’s just dive a little bit deeper here, you know things like if your child is cutting or using drugs again.
We’re trying to figure out what are they trying to numb in their life. The conversation isn’t stop doing this, it is why do you feel the need to do this? Will you walk me through how this happened? And that’s when you can tackle the real issue, because so many time kids do that, because they’re acting out for some reason. So we gotta get to the real issue. The other thing and this one’s hard you gotta take responsibility on your part, and what I mean by this is I keep bringing up sharing nudes.
I deal with this a lot, with good families contacting me. My kid shared a nude. I can’t even believe this happened. And you know I always say you’re not alone. This is blind sighting, all of us. But then when the parents are, the emotion is out of it. I have the hard conversations with the parents and I say did you ever talk with them about not sharing a nude? And they’re like oh, I didn’t even know I had to. Like isn’t that common sense? Okay, that means we don’t understand their culture. Again, go back to that show and listen to that, because the world has changed.
0:22:13 – Speaker 3
We have to have these hard conversations, have calm conversations with your kids, so important. Moving on to number four, make space for healing. Once you get the child, medical attention if needed, then you can start to heal your family. It is a process. It’s not gonna be all better overnight. You’ve gotta pray and you’ve got to look to God for peace.
0:22:32 – Speaker 2
I love Exodus 14, 14,. The Lord will fight for you. You need only be silent. I love that one. Find your peace in Jesus. Reach out to your church, get a support group, contact us at nextTalk. We you know, if you’re in San Antonio era, we work with counselors. We vetted them out. We can refer you to them. But you need to be healed of this all of you. You need to walk through the healing process.
0:22:59 – Speaker 3
And it’s gonna be an ongoing thing. So allow your child a safe place. To do that and I just have to throw this in there because I see it so often You’ve gotta protect that safe place for your kid. Ask them who you can share this with and when it’s their story too.
0:23:13 – Speaker 2
It’s their story, not yours. It’s not your story to share. So please don’t share it on Facebook and with all your girlfriends and with grandma, who might accidentally share it at the dinner table Again every story that’s in my book, every story that we share at nextTalk our kids we have approval from them to share it.
0:23:28 – Speaker 3
Number five don’t compare yourself to others. Oh my goodness, aren’t we so good at that? We all have our own struggles behind doors, closed doors Everybody does. Do not fall into Satan’s trap of comparison.
0:23:39 – Speaker 2
Satan is gonna make you feel like you are a failure as a parent, like you missed everything, like you can’t tell anybody in your church because you’ll get judged. And let me tell you, if you get judged at your church, find another church, because a church is supposed to be loving and accepting, like Jesus, a place where we can go and get healing. Proverbs 14.30 says a peaceful heart leads to a healthy body. Jealousy is like cancer in the bones. Do not look around at church and they’re not dealing with this. They’re not dealing with this Because I will tell you firsthand, everybody’s dealing with something Absolutely Like. We work with a lot of people that look perfect on Facebook and the world is crumbling behind the closed doors. So be careful of this comparison trap. We are all struggling.
0:24:28 – Speaker 3
I think everyone would agree that comparison takes up a huge portion of your brain, if you allow it to. It takes time and energy and it can be a huge distraction from the work God is trying to do in you and your family, so don’t give it space. Pray against it.
0:24:44 – Speaker 2
You need to work on all the other things One, two, three and four and this comparison, like Kim said, don’t give it your brain space. You need to focus on your family. You need to focus on healing, you need to focus on figuring out that underlying issue with your child and getting them the help they need.
0:24:59 – Speaker 3
Again, we just wanna remind you. Every kid is going to mess up. Now is the time to prepare your heart and mind All right, so let’s go through those five steps one more time. Number one default to love. Love your kid, no matter what. Number two get your child the help they need Professional medical, whatever it is. Make that a priority. Number three have calm conversations with your child, even if that means circling back a day or two later. Number four make space for healing for you and your family. And number five don’t compare yourself to others.
0:25:33 – Speaker 1
Thanks for joining us on nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim on AM630, the Word. You are not alone trying to figure out how to parent in this digital world. We are here with practical solutions to help you. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Find our video series and podcast at nextTalkorg. Are you ready for the nextTalk? Downloadedorg.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
