Episode 193

Kyle And Sara Wester (36:23.149)
Okay, 2026 is fast approaching. And I hope in 2025, you had a lot of great moments with your family. And I'm there's a lot of areas you would like to do things better. Well, Sarah and I thought today, what we wanted to do, we sat down and thought, what are the 10 things we would, if we could like just say these 10 things, if you just change these in your family, it is going to exponentially help you have healthier and deeper, more connected relationships with your kids.
and with your spouse. we compiled these 10. We thought it'd be fun to do a list today going into 2026. We've also got some really cool news at the beginning of this episode. We're talking about things that are upcoming with the podcast, but also some cool speaking things that are coming up. And if you haven't already, please take a moment to like, ⁓ review comment, that really helps our podcast. But as you're listening to these 10, ⁓ would really love for you to be thinking about
What's one thing you want to leave behind or what's one thing you want to stop doing or, something you have in the past that exponentially helped your family become closer and more connected. ⁓ because we'd love to hear those. So make sure you, if you want to email me at Kyle at art of raising humans.com, or you could also comment ⁓ on this podcast, just the different things you're wanting to leave behind in 2026. So get ready. If you want to get a pen and paper to write down these 10, it is really going to give you.
some really specific ways to change the dynamics in your home. And especially if your spouse and you can listen to this together, it'd be really, really helpful. So I hope you enjoy this episode.

Hello and welcome to the Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hi there, I'm Sarah. And you know, Sarah, we've had some pretty awesome guests lately on the podcast. We ⁓ have. You know? Yeah, I mean, if you haven't checked it out, just a few weeks ago we had Dr. Dan Siegel on the podcast, right? We had Tracy killing it on Instagram, right? ⁓ Before that we had Tina Payne Bryson and we've got several more guests that are still to come up and show. But I wanted to let everybody know, especially all of our listeners who are in Tulsa.
We've got a really cool event happening January 26th. ⁓ Tina Payne Bryson is coming to Tulsa and it's going to be awesome. She's going to do a full day. ⁓ we don't know quite all the specifics yet, but I wanted to go and throw that out there. If you are interested, ⁓ we're going to see she's partnering with riverfield, which is a private school here in Tulsa. And, they're bringing her out here to do some parenting training and some teacher training. So if you are interested, just kind of mark that on your calendar and we'll give more specifics on this podcast.
⁓ as those kind of come available to us. Yeah, yeah, we'll share it as we know more. Well, know, Sarah, something that's really popular around the New Year's to do New Year's resolutions, right? We've even talked in the past about how we do that with our kids by setting goals and doing different things like that with our kids. ⁓ But we wanted to do something a little different this year, you know? And it's not something we want to do to judge parents. It's not something we want to do to criticize parents. Yeah, no, parenting is really hard. So that's never our...
our thought or intent and it's all, we're growing and we like to share that with others. So to some extent we wanted to take a different approach to as the new year's approaching is we wanted to make 10 things we would like parents to do differently in 2026. Yeah, so we're still kind of tweaking this, but it's like things to leave behind. Oh, okay, things to let go of. Oh, okay, like that. It's these things that we, as parents, you know, you find yourself doing something and you think,
I think this is hurting things, not helping things. So it's kind of a list of the things that we just say, let's leave this behind. ⁓ If we can leave these things behind, not that it's easy, not that it'll happen overnight, but you will build stronger connection. Your family will come together more. You'll have less resistance. You'll see things shifting.

Kyle And Sara Wester (2:18.862)
And so this is kind of our 10 things to leave behind to move in the other direction. Well, and this is a kind of behind the scenes look of how we do the podcast, because I just wanted to call it 10 things I want parents to stop doing in 2026. And Sarah was like, I think that sounds really harsh. Let's let's back that off. Let's say it a different way. Because really what you're saying is true. It's these these 10 things when parents keep doing them and we were bringing these up because we see parents do them a lot. Even we've done, of that will point out we struggle with these two.
they undermine your ability to create the kind of family you want. And actually the relationship with your kid that you want, long term. Many of them are just like short term things that are trying to fix a problem that actually create more problems. right? Okay, here we go. And these are no order of like the worst to the best. It's just top 10 things that we kind of thought of and thought, man, if parents would just leave these behind, oh my God, 2026 would be so much better for them, right?
Okay. So the number one, this is really common ⁓ is ⁓ stop grounding your kids. ⁓ Okay. Why is that important thing to leave behind? Yeah. And we're using the word grounding. It can be time out. Sure. Sure. But it's like, okay, the kid had a problem, right? They did something wrong, messed something up, made a mistake. They were a kid. Yeah. And, ⁓ we put them in isolation or we say, now we got to remove all this. You go be there. Yeah. ⁓ And
Really, if you think about it, the child is needing a skill. ⁓ it's how to manage their angry feelings, if it's what to do when they really want something, you know, like don't just go and steal that cookie or whatever it might be. They're needing to know what to do and just isolating them doesn't teach them that. So instead we want to pivot to say, let's leave behind that stuff. ⁓ Let's move in the direction of going towards the child.
and helping them learn what to do in those situations. Yeah, and most common ones I see, Sarah, lately has to do with grades. They're not doing well in school. It has to be they're on their phone too much, right? And then immediately, it's almost like the thing I want parents to be more thoughtful about in 2026 is this equation that they're kind of using that I know I was raised with and so were you and most of us were, where a kid messes up, does something bad, makes a mistake, and then we add some kind of punishment. And like you said, it could be timeouts.

Kyle And Sara Wester (4:39.736)
but most of them when they're older it's grounding. It's like you have to do this equation. They mess up, you have to ground them, and then that's gonna make them do it better next time. But what you quickly alluded to that I wanna highlight is what's the skill they're learning? Like come on, we've all been grounded and we all know it's kinda like we just went in prison for two weeks, couldn't hang out with our friends, couldn't watch TV, couldn't whatever, and we're like just waiting, inviting our time. And I don't know if you know this, when prisoners go to prison, they aren't taught how to be better.
Like they don't come out with a whole set of skills. That's a shift that we're hoping. We'd love to see that. But I'm saying, then they, you're going to magically be better because you were gone for a while. Yes. You know? Yeah. And we are just learning that that's not really, we need to build the skills and then they can do it differently. And I want to give you some insight. talked to the teenagers and that's how the teenagers feel. They're like, Oh yeah, I messed up. They have to ground me. I mean, this is what they have to do. And then I learned my lesson and now I'm going to do it better. And I would say,
What was the lesson you learned? Well, just not to do that. Yeah, but what are going to do instead? I don't know. They really don't know what the other thing is. like, I got bad grades. Well, how are you going to get better grades? I'll study harder. Weren't you trying that before? I did, but then I got distracted and busy. So how are you going to fix that? There was no conversation. Or you're on your phone too much. How are you going to be on your phone less? I'll just be on my phone less. I'll just try to be on a list. But isn't it really hard? Yeah, it is. I'll probably end up being on it a lot. I'll just get grounded again. And it's like that whole type of dance.
I mean, every parent listening, know that that's what keeps happening. You know, like if grounding really worked, then the problem would just go away after you grounded them, right? But it ends up being, they just end up getting sneakier. They end up hiding it better. That's typically what they tell me they're learning over those two weeks is why did I even say anything about it? Or why did I get on the wireless when they were home? They saw I was on my phone or whatever, you there's all these kinds of things. So if we stop grounding them, then we start focusing on what is the skill they needed.
And how am I modeling and teaching that? Yeah, they made that decision, whatever it was for a reason. If we can just get to what ⁓ was the beginning, ⁓ you know, that led to them making the decision you didn't like. you know, what other options were available? Do they even know those options? Do they know how to think through that? So if we could just back up and start there with them and be curious, ⁓ it would help. Well, being curious would be great. Yeah. So number two, Sarah, number two was, and this we hear a lot too, ⁓

Kyle And Sara Wester (7:1.026)
And I would love for parents to let go of this in 2026. Stop telling your kids, ⁓ don't talk back to me. ⁓ Okay. Once again, why would that be a good thing to let go of? Well, ⁓ really we want that. Okay. This is going to sound crazy, but we want them talking back. ⁓ We want the conversation. We actually don't want kids there. There's all kinds. I mean, like my brain is just full of this could be an episode, but, ⁓
We want kids who have their thoughts, know their thoughts and can communicate their thoughts. We may want that done with kindness or with certain parameters, right? But the bottom line of just don't talk back, you want a silent child who just does what they're told by ⁓ authority. then later you feel like, how come my child doesn't open up? How come they don't talk to me? Or why do they get themselves in this position? They're just blindly following this person, this friend, this boss.
We actually want them to be aware of what's going on inside and we want to work that out with them. Or there's so many times where a kid's having a hard time with a teacher and the parents will say, I tell him to go talk to the teacher and the kid won't because the kid will tell me they think the teacher is going to think they're being disrespectful or rude or like they'll just tell me not to. And there's so many times even Sarah where I'm talking to a kid and I'm saying, why don't you tell your parents that? And like, no, if I did that, they would just say, don't talk back to me. ⁓ Right.
So instead, then the child doesn't get to learn how to have that conflict, how to pull out their thoughts and feelings and have that dialogue with another person. ⁓ so if we can just go, you know what, this is training ground for my child to have these conversations. We have different perspectives. We have different wants and different needs. And I want to teach them how to share that, how to have their voice heard, how to do it in a certain way, and how to resolve those things.
So just see it as that training ground versus them talking back. Well, so I would add to that two things. One, we want a dialogue. We don't want monologues, know, us monologuing to them and then monoling back to us. But two, the changes instead of saying, don't talk back to me, ⁓ this is how I want you to talk back to me. Right. So there is guidance in it, ⁓ but you get to tell them that. Right. Like you get to say, I'd rather you say this. If that's what you're trying to say, just say it like this. Right. And then the kid starts to learn, like you said, a skill in the home.

Kyle And Sara Wester (9:19.608)
where it's safe to mess up how to talk back to people, whether it's their boss or whatever, you don't want them just blindly following people. You want them to know how to talk back. And you model it. Yeah. so number three, so that was number one was stop granting your kids to stop telling them to not talk back to you. Number three is ⁓ stop demanding respect when you aren't modeling it. Okay. Well, what do we mean by that? Kind of getting there with this last one leading up to this one, but it's
I've got to do what I'm asking them to do. So if I say, don't yell at me, that's disrespectful. I need to not be yelling at them. If I don't want them to be condescending or patronizing or, know, just in there and when they do talk, I want a certain, you know, kindness you could say, I don't really love that word for this, but, you could say there's here's how I want it done. I need to do that first. I need to always be stepping up and
doing the modeling, respecting them, respecting their perspective, respecting their values, their wants, their needs. ⁓ And if I show them that, ⁓ they learn it from, ⁓ kids learn so much from modeling. So they're watching you even unintentionally and learning how to do that. I think lots of times this happens though, Sarah, because there's a misunderstanding of what respect is. ⁓ Many times people think respect is a kid learning how to say, yes, sir, no, sir, ⁓ just doing things without talking back, right? Those kind of things. ⁓
saying you're right, I was wrong. They think that's respectful. When really respect in a marriage and in any other relationship, besides the parent-child apparently, ⁓ it's about us mutually respecting each other. ⁓ If I wanna do something and you don't wanna do it, I value that and I listen to it. I think the problem is we learn at an early age to disrespect the kids by just dragging them everywhere. And it's just like ⁓ our needs and what we need to get done.
whether it's like we need to get to work at this time, we need to get out, the kids are always supposed to put their needs and wants aside for ours because we have to get somewhere, we've got to get something done, right? So it's not intentional, I don't think the parents intentionally doing that, but we do get into the habit of saying my needs and wants trump yours, right? Now some parents do slip into where then the kids needs and wants always trump the parents. That's not respectful either. So like in a mutually respectful relationship, we hold both.

Kyle And Sara Wester (11:39.916)
wants, needs, desires as equal, right? And we learn how to hear both of them. So what does that look like? That looks like, on a simple way, and this was a simple thing I'd with our kids, I'd be wrestling or tickling them, and then they would say, stop, stop, stop. And I'd say, okay, okay, I'll back off, okay, you don't want me to do it anymore? And they'd say, well, just give me a break a minute, and then, okay, do it again, and then we go. And sometimes, when we grew up, parents or adults would do that stuff. They feel like they could put your hands on you without ever asking you. Or even something like, they wanna give a hug to a kid.
and a kid's squirming, but they're forcing the hug on the kid. That's disrespectful. The kid is saying, I don't want to be hugged right now, right? Why don't I just ask the kid, can I give you a hug? ⁓ That's what you would do to another adult. Why does the kid not get the opportunity to say, no, I don't want that right now? And then you could say, if not, when? I would love to give you a hug later, right? So those kind of respectful conversations, if you start early, then you're modeling to the kid how to do that with you. So then they don't start thinking it's their job to either, like,
to completely give away their wants and desires or try to overwhelm your wants and desires with theirs. Instead, we both hold them together. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great summary of them. So number four, ⁓ stop expecting, and this is one I gotta get, I gotta get this down, because this can be frustrating. Stop expecting kids to learn something the first time. Yeah, this is really hard for us parents. ⁓ It takes too much time. Yeah. just.
I told you how to do it, just learn it. I mean, I told you how to do it 50 times. That's come on. I know, yes. But we know that that's, if you go into the brain science, it's just not how kids do things. It's not how humans do things. I I hear that. I know. You and I have read a lot of marriage books, and we've learned how to do our disagreements differently. And it took many, many times. And still, we still mess up at times. we're still. I mean, think about anything in your life, some habit you wish you had that you've tried and you've worked on.
and how old you are and if you haven't mastered it, then we look at these little kids and think, I told them when they get up in the morning, make their bed, brush their teeth and they still don't do it. ⁓ just hold that, you know, the grace you should be, I hope you're giving yourself and going, okay, I'm working on this. Look at your child and it's the same thing. They need the support. They need to be told, yes, they need to be told again. ⁓ And hopefully with patience. Well, and when I'm thinking about that, Sarah, ⁓ that's what I love about

Kyle And Sara Wester (14:2.254)
team sports or other types of activities kids are doing, right? Is nobody thinks a kid's gonna learn a dance and just know it the first time. Or some kid's gonna learn how to take a soccer ball. I mean, most of practice, like our youngest has now been doing it since she was four. And she's still at practice. They're still doing some of the exact same skills. All they're doing is a lot of just speeding it up, right? Or adding some intensity to the situation. But it's still the exact same skill. It's just passing, stopping the ball, shooting it.
That's all the same stuff and we don't expect them like you did a practice. Why did you not get that? So in since like I showed them how to clean their room, I've done it two or three times. How many times have they gone to soccer practice? They go twice or three times a week for years, right? Skills take ⁓ and I made this this may be discouraging to parents, but ⁓ Dr. Becky Bailey says a thousand times in context ⁓ of the kids seeing it done and the kid getting to practice doing it. ⁓ That's when they start to master that skill.
So it's over and over, just like math, just like reading. They've gotta do it over and over before it starts to click and it becomes just second nature. yep. And so if we can just be patient, it actually helps the process go better. You can just see, okay, we're doing this again. We're doing this again, we're doing this again. And then you help kids be patient with themselves, be patient with you. And so there's a lot less tension in the home when we realize we're playing the long game.
We're not trying to solve a short-term solution. We're trying to play the long game to raise kids who have these skills mastered. Right. And their brain won't even be done developing ⁓ well into their mid-20s. So that's what I was saying with children. It's like, if I'm an adult with a developed brain who's still struggling, ⁓ then of course a child whose brain is doing so much work to grow and develop is going to struggle with learning and mastering ⁓ all the skills they have to learn and master. ⁓
So number five, this is also one we still need to work on quite a bit, Stop taking your child's words and actions personally. ⁓ That's a hard one, guys. Come It seems really personal. Right? Because you're trying so hard, you're working so hard, you have that inner child, which we won't even get into. Those are the buttons that are being pushed. And so ⁓ you want to show up and be such an amazing parent. And then when that's when it

Kyle And Sara Wester (16:20.046)
it feels to you like that's being called into question by this little human that you care so much about. Or you feel like I'm failing this behavior, they're still doing this or they're having a meltdown. It's really hard to step back from that. You usually are well down that road before you realize that you're Well, if I can give an example of just what happened a couple days ago. I remember our youngest, I was asking her to clean some stuff up in the living room. She loves to put little piles of things.
She likes to be doing crafts and then leave those crafts and then not pick up those She's inspired by something new. Exactly. So then I'll be like, honey, I want that stuff cleaned up. And then she'll clean up one thing and then go off to something else. And then ⁓ I can feel my anger rising as I start to take it personal. ⁓ my brain starts to go, ⁓ she is like purposely not valuing what I say. She doesn't care. I mean, the voice of my own, she doesn't care what I've asked her to do.
⁓ She thinks whatever she wants. my gosh. She's so selfish It doesn't like yes all these kind of things will start going in my head and and I'm taking it very personal as if she's purposely trying to ignore me and not do what I ask, know and that all that's gonna do is put me against her and Make me like an enemy to her. Yeah, and and I would say there's probably a piece of you That's it's like you're saying she's so selfish. It's like I am failing as a dad because she ⁓
I'm deeming her selfish and that is on me. It's my fault. ⁓ so it's these stories we are all building. We're building in our own heads about these things. Yeah. So what can we do instead? Like instead of doing that, instead of taking it personal, we can do what? to catch ourselves when we are taking it personal. Yes. But just see it as the, it's kind of comes back around a connection ⁓ and just seeing as a skill to be built ⁓ and stop judging ourselves. And then, well, if I can add to that,
⁓ I was thinking what I would do and what I try to do myself is try to coach parents with this that your child's words, actions, thoughts and behaviors are about them. So they tell you about them. So if you were able to stop and differentiate yourself from their actions and their words and understand they are communicating to you about them. Right. So in that moment when, she's not picking up that stuff, it just tells me more about her that in that moment she's

Kyle And Sara Wester (18:37.838)
Still learning that skill. She's still struggling with staying focused and getting it all done. she thought something said that when I said I was learning a skill. But I think it's when I write it down, it just becomes so stark that yes, it's obvious that her words, thoughts, actions are about her, but yet I'm making it all about me. Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So number six, okay, and this kind of ties into this. This would be so helpful in every relationship you have, by the way. Stop assuming the worst intentions.
Yeah, I was thinking about this one as we were going over the last one. ⁓ that's really kind of the issue. Even with that one is just, you're assuming you're going right to this is intentional. This is personal. This is they're out to get me or they don't care or they are an awful little human, you know, ⁓ and, ⁓ all throughout words like lazy, but I hear that a lot. That's kind of why I put that in there. I hear this a lot. The kid is like,
not doing it as fast as you would like or isn't prioritizing what you want them to do. So the kid is lazy and they'll hear the kid telling me this. And then they all like the kids, I'm so lazy. I'm just a lazy person. It becomes part of their identity. ⁓ Right, right. There's all kinds of labels, all kinds of labels we put on our kids. And, and a lot of times, you know, again, we're putting labels on ourselves. that judgment inside of yourself? You were told that probably as a kid too, ⁓ you know?
Or you were the opposite, were praised for not being, but again, it all comes down to this judgment. And instead of letting go of that judgment, just looking at the situation in front of you. Yeah. And being curious, right? Like really being curious, instead of like, go ahead and start with this truth. We cannot read our kids minds. Just like I can't read your mind. I may assume, which we all know what assuming does, I may assume I know why my kid's doing something, but I'll tell you most of the time, you're not correct.
Most the time you're lacking the necessary information to draw a legitimate conclusion to what's going on. So lots of parents don't even ask the question or they lead the question by being judgmental and critical. Like I already know the answer. And so the kid is less apt to open up to you when really this moment is a moment for you two to come closer together. And if you just assume the worst, they're going to pull away from you and you will continue to have a ⁓ file in your mind that just continues to back up this negative.

Kyle And Sara Wester (20:58.914)
impression you have of your child. They are lazy, they're disrespectful, they're rude, all that, they're manipulative. That's a big word I hear a lot. And then you'll start to be hyper vigilant to watch for all those things. And you will begin to form a picture of your child that is not accurate. And your kid will not want to spend time with you because the kid is tired of you assuming the worst of them. Who wants to hang around that? Nobody does. And really the bottom line is they're doing the best ⁓ that they know how to do. They were trying to solve some kind of problem, manage some fear, anxiety.
They're overwhelmed or stressed. mean, it all comes there. There is a reason behind what they're doing and we can step into judgment and think we can figure it out. But if you just look at them and go, huh, I wonder what led them here, you know, and just hear that and receive that, accept it and move from that place. Love that. It's a huge one and it will help help your marriage and every other relationship you have. Number seven. Oh, because we as parents are also
doing the best ⁓ we know how to do. Even when we mess up, it is, and in that moment, our attempt ⁓ at handling the moment in front of us. And we might be stressed, tired, work, we might have all these things going on, we're scared about, ⁓ know, worried about being late to work, we can't be late again, so we're screaming at our kid to get in the car, even though we'd agree that screaming isn't the best option, you know, we're still in that moment doing the best we know how. Yeah, love it.
Okay, so number seven is let's stop comparing our kids like siblings, stop comparing the siblings, or just to anyone in general, like stop comparing your kid to anyone else. ⁓ mean, that is so damaging to the kid, because the kid starts to think mom or dad just would love me more or be more proud of me if I was like my brother. It's just going to increase sibling rivalry and conflict and all that stuff. ⁓
just comparing, let's just toss out comparing ourselves as a parent. We each have our own story, we each have our own temperament. My child is different than your child. I have a different backstory to who I am as a person compared to you. ⁓ So ⁓ it's ⁓ so illogical in some way to even compare. Because everyone's in a different situation and a different person. And so how can we compare? And developmentally, I worked with a lot of babies a long time. ⁓

Kyle And Sara Wester (23:23.128)
time ago, a while ago. And, and yeah, they all crawl at different points. They all walk at different points. They all say their first word. ⁓ And it's true for every area in life. One child might master reading at a different age master, you know, it doesn't matter what it is relationships, their social emotional ⁓ development, how well they can make friends, or you might have a child who's, you know, talks to everybody. And you might have another one who that's a skill they're building.
So you saying instead of comparing, let's accept them as they are, where they are. Yeah. And in ourselves and ourselves, that's right. We're growing. We're all learning. Yeah. I do remember all our kids, like they didn't really ⁓ start walking till like 14 months. Yeah. They were late walkers. Yeah. And we'd be around these families like kids are walking like six months. We're like, what the crap are they doing with those kids? And we would be like, are we messing up? Are we doing something wrong? Should we be doing more tummy time and crawling thing? Like, I guess we're not being active. that you're always just like so.
And sleep was the same way. were comparing like, why are our kids waking up all the time? And like that one parent said, were, know, he was sleeping by six months and never woke up again. Like, my God, we're failing as parents. And it's the same thing the kid feels when we compare them. So why am I not better like that? That one kid, you know, I've had many kids who start to resent their siblings or other friends of the families because mom and dad are constantly bringing up, why are you not more like this? Or kid does that. Or it's easy for him. Why is it not easy for you? ⁓ Okay. ⁓ eight. Okay. Let's stop confusing.
being busy together with spending meaningful time together. ⁓ What does that mean? Because I think sometimes families will think they're together a lot because they're driving to appointments and they're at soccer practice together and I picked them up from school and you you're in the home a lot but that's different than intentional together time ⁓ and it's really really important.
to be aware of, I with my kid or am I actually connecting with my child? actually seeing them, noticing them? Yeah. Or are we just going places? Right. Yeah. And that's such a big difference because the connection is where the power is, not just physical presence around each other. slowing it down, right? Lots of times, those times when we're together doing things, we're constantly focused on a task. We're not really focused on hearing each other. And I mean, is once again, it's not

Kyle And Sara Wester (25:41.804)
rocket science when it comes to marriage. Like if all you and I did was just like tasked together, you know, we could still have an okay marriage, but if we want like a flourishing marriage, we got to spend time seeing each other and really hearing each other's heart and all that kind of stuff. Right. And the kids desperately want to be seen and known. They don't want to be just a passenger in the car with us. Yeah. You can eat dinner with connection or you can just eat dinner and the thing is done and you've eaten.
And I'd even say, I think you're saying that to me. think you're saying, well, I was thinking of an example. Okay, go ahead. Sometimes we go on walks. Oh, shoot. This is about me. As a family. Yes. And we're walking and there's connection. There's conversation and stuff. then sometimes walking is just a task that's being done, even though we're all outside. Yes. Yes. And sometimes you're not even walking with them. No, because everyone's doing too slow. I want to get them all done with. So that's a good example of.
And not even saying sometimes it is a task. So it's not to say going for a walk, sometimes it needs to be a task and we need to get it done because we want to exercise. And we need food, but we need to be aware. You know, what am I doing in this moment? Am I completing a task? Do I need to connect? You know, so I love that. So important and something I definitely need to work on because even when it comes to eating, sometimes I just want to eat and move on. But like those, there can be a lot of beautiful moments happening, eating.
And we're all eating slowly and talking and laughing and all that stuff. Right. When I noticed when I'm stressed, I move into that task a lot. I'm just like, get it done. Get this done. Get that done. You know, because I'm, I've got this whole to do list and, oddly enough, sometimes it doesn't go very well ⁓ when I see it that way versus, ⁓ let me pull in some connection into this. yeah, that's great. Okay. So number nine might be a little touchy.
Okay, a little touch, right? So yeah, don't get too mad about this or beat yourself up about it. But number nine, stop criticizing your kids' screen time while staying glued to your own phone. Hear this from a lot of kids. A lot of kids are like, they're not going back to that meaningful time together. Like they're just all sitting in a room in the same place and the parents are just on the phone the whole time. And then the kids like, and then I get yelled at for being on my phone too much.

Kyle And Sara Wester (28:2.766)
⁓ And then the parents always have what the kid thinks is excuses for why they're on the phone ⁓ is like, it's work. It's this, it's that, right? And kid's like, I've got important things I'm doing too. I'm doing school. I'm talking to that one friend about that project we're doing. And you assume, going back to worse intentions, you assume I'm just on the phone for negative things. ⁓ And so it a real- we ⁓ don't honor their value system. connecting with friends as a teen is-
Really important sure. mean they have this high developmental drive to do that So where we feel like you're just talking to your friends, that's really valuable to them. You're saying I'm doing work So I have good reason you don't have a good reason, you know Yeah, ⁓ I just think it's it's important and something we've tried to do is tell our kids you can give us feedback Yeah, if you think we're on it ⁓ more than we would like you on it. Just let us know right even I remember early when Abby got her phone
she had a lot of fun proving to us that she had less screen time than us. And it was like a badge of honor. She'd be like, how long were you on this week, Dad? And like, so she kept doing it she wanted to show herself that the phone didn't ⁓ own her, right? That she had control. And it's really played out well where she's been really disciplined about the phone. ⁓ so really, guys, we don't have a lot of discussions about screen time because we've been pretty open about ours. We've been pretty open, like, I need to be on the phone less. Or I notice I'm on the phone this much.
I feel like I'm just more distracted and I'm thinking about, I'm more stressed in general, right? Even if it's for good reasons like work, just structuring that. it's not just the phone is constantly being picked up, ⁓ you know, ⁓ downtime, we don't eat with our phones. There's things like that where when we're watching movies, we're not just on our phones all the time. So we just have some structure around that that we are doing ourselves to ⁓ try to.
just model that and hopefully not be on it all the time. And because I know I feel drawn, I'm like, oh, I've got this list. know. I know. I've got to keep the yes. Yeah. And we can all justify that it's all good. I'm not looking at TikTok. I'm not looking Instagram. I just need to organize it so it's not looking And even lots times we've been purposeful about explaining that. Hey guys, I'm going get my phone for a minute to do this. Right. And that modeling to our kids, hey, if you're going to be on the phone for a bit, just let us know what you're doing. Right. And so

Kyle And Sara Wester (30:16.326)
Abby might say, I'm going through some of these pictures and editing some of these or whatever, you know? And so just having those conversations where we're open, transparent, but going back to mutual respect is I will not ask you to do something I'm not willing to do. So I think we all, this is a very important time where we need to model and guide and disciple our kids on how to have a healthy relationship with their phone. And so ⁓ asking them to have that back and forth with you where you're open and not defensive and they can talk back to you about it.
That's gonna help them have the skill they need to manage it better. So then the last one, number 10 is stop giving advice when your child is simply needing you to listen. Oh guys, this is so hard. It's so hard. Sometimes you're just, I mean, it's your job as a parent. I know. all the answers. I do. You're brilliant with I'm so wise. Share this. Yes.
and they're just these hungry vessels wanting you And if you just listen to me, it would solve all these problems you're having. Everything in life would be perfect. We've been there, done it, honey. Let's just listen to me. But anyway, yeah, a lot of times, even when you have a brilliant answer, that's just not what they want. we actually don't want to always provide the brilliant answer, right? Because we want them to come up with the answer. especially teenagers, they kind of already have it. ⁓ They actually don't need us to talk as much as we think.
We to talk. We want them to sort through it and by asking questions and just listening, we help them learn how to, you know, pull out their own brilliant wisdom, their own wants and needs and desires and think through things and problem solve. And they might come up with better answers than we would And they'll blow you away. If we do that for them, how do they learn how to do that for themselves? Exactly. Okay. So that's important one. I think the way to do that is to maybe, if you're about to give advice, just say, Hey, is this a moment you want me to listen or do you want me to just
to you wanting some advice. And then that can clarify for you why the kid can't. And I'm telling you, most of the time the kid will say, just want you to listen. ⁓ And then the kid will stop coming to you because the kid thinks you're not listening, you're just trying to give advice. And ⁓ I've said this a lot this episode, it's just like a marriage.

Kyle And Sara Wester (32:22.990)
Most marriage counseling is one spouse coming to the other spouse just wanting them to listen and they start giving advice and it causes all this conflict. And the other spouse stops coming to them and they start sharing with their friend or their parents or whatever. They stop going to the spouse. And if you want that person to keep coming to you, they want you most of the time to just listen. And once you've listened and you've understood, your advice is actually gonna be better. As I was gonna say, if...
If they're inviting your advice, they're much more likely to listen. We do all this talking and they don't listen. Yeah. Cause it's not invited. Yeah. So I want to do a recap. ⁓ I got one more thing to say about that. really cool thing is our daughter, we've done this enough with her now. She'll actually tell us, we jump in with advice and it's, I'm not even thinking about it. Yeah. They just say something and I'm like, blah, blah, blah. You know, and she'll say, I, ⁓ I, wasn't.
asking. It's good. And it's because we want her to talk back to us. Yeah, tell me if that's not what you wanted. Okay, cool. Thanks for letting me know. Okay, so I want to do a recap. Okay. And I want you going into 2026. If you want to, like I said, create these deeper connected relationships with your kids, start new habits with them. I just think these are good places to start. Number one, let's stop grounding our kids as a main discipline tool. Okay. So instead we want to focus on what is the skill the kid is needing.
and how are we helping support them to get that skill? Number two, stop telling our kids, don't talk back to me. Instead, start thinking, how would I like them to talk back to me? Because of course you want to have conversations with your kid the rest of your life. Number three, stop demanding respect when you aren't modeling it. So respect is about us mutually listening to each other ⁓ and valuing each other's wants and needs. Nobody's wants and needs trumps the other one, right? And this is going to lead to more respectful relationships among the siblings, among their friends, all that stuff.
Number four, stop expecting kids to learn something the first time. Play the long game. Realize skills take a thousand times in context to master. So play the long game. Realize walking really well, running, ⁓ eating, sleeping. These are skills that just don't happen overnight. They take time. That's just like cleaning your room, being able to express your feelings, regulate your emotions, all those things. Number five, stop taking your child's words and behaviors personally. It's not about you.

Kyle And Sara Wester (34:33.110)
It's not about you. Even if they say it is about you, it's actually not about you. It's about them. And so seek to understand them. Number six, stop assuming the worst intentions. ⁓ See the best in them, right? Believe they're doing the best they can. ⁓ Because that's what you want them believing about you, right? Number seven, stop comparing siblings or comparing your child to anyone else. Instead, accept them as they are and where they are. Number eight, stop confusing being busy together with spending meaningful time together.
Really focus on how are we connecting? How am I seeing you? And is this moment really deepening our relationship? Number nine, stop criticizing your kids' screen time while staying glued to your own phone. Have an open dialogue about how they view your screen time and how much you're on it. And make that an easy conversation that we can start having on a regular basis about how we have a healthy relationship with our phones. And number 10, stop giving advice when your child simply needs you to listen. So we just said that. Ask them what they're wanting. Are you wanting advice or you just wanting me to listen?
So I hope these 10 will give you kind of ⁓ an idea instead of a New Year's resolution, maybe just a different framework of how things could be changed to have a healthier family interaction. So I hope that, I hope you don't feel judged or criticized. and I are working on these things too. ⁓ So I understand it's all a work in progress. We've got a lot of growth to do as well as you do, ⁓ but 2026 doesn't have to be the same as 2025. It can be even better. So we hope you are encouraged.
and feel like we've given you the tools to do that. ⁓ And look forward to talking to you soon.