The Dr. John Delony Show - Navigating Social Media with Teens

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode   Our 14-year-old daughter is being secretive and deleting texts. How do we navigate social media while maintaining our relationship with her? We've been married 11 years and my wife seems to have checked out. I am becoming bitter and angry. What can I do? I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression – by Terrence Real I'm caring for my first foster baby. How do prepare myself and my family for the time when we have to say goodbye to the baby? Lyrics of the Day: "The Fire" - The Roots feat. John Legend   As heard on this episode: BetterHelp 5-Minute Coverage Checkup   tags:   These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.`

On today's show, we talk about teens and social media usage. We talk about a marriage that's falling apart and folks are getting resentful and angry. We talk about the joys and challenges and heartbreak of fostering young babies. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up? This is John, and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show. We tumble to the ground and then we say, I think we're alone now. Dude, that song is stuck in my head, man. Doesn't seem to be anyone around.

Dude, I'm so glad you're here, and you caught me in the middle of singing. It's such a good song. That song's so good, we had to put it at the front of the show today. Actually, me and Kelly were having a little moment. Makes me feel good. Not that kind of moment. We were having a moment, and we were singing together, and then James cranks the show up, so here we go. So, hey, welcome to the show

Kelly's turning bright red and she doesn't even get embarrassed but she is now so give me a shout 1-844-693-3291 if you want to be on the Dr. John Deloney show you can sing some songs with us trying to get away into the night that's so rad Tiffany Hey, 1-844-693-3291. Give us a shout or go to johndeloney.com slash show. Fill out the form. It goes to Kelly.

Hopefully, she will stop being bright red by then and then she'll be able to check it out and get you on the show. As a reminder, we talk about mental health. We talk about relationships.

We talk about everything on the show. Whatever's going on in your life, give us a buzz. And James, Kelly, Zach, this is a big day. It's a big day because this is a big month. And we are in a world where there are a whole bunch of different months and weeks and days. It's like National Pony Day and Box Turtle Day

and National Hug a Rabbit Day, whatever. But this is huge, ladies and gentlemen. I'm drum rolling and I'm not a good drummer or a drum roller. I didn't learn my rudiments. But listen, there are a ton of underrated holidays, but the month of May has one of my favorites. Hang on to your hats, kids. It's National Life Insurance Day, and Life Insurance Month. And it may not sound like the most fun,

but it is importante. That is Spanish for super important. Muy importante. Life insurance protects your family financially when you pass away. And some of you are like, are you seriously doing a commercial right now? Yes. Listen, this is a big month. It's National Life Insurance Month. So it protects your family when you pass away. So they're not dealing with money stress on top of losing you. And I'm making jokes. But listen, I have sat with multiple people whose husband has

passed away, whose wife has passed away, and they look me in the eyes with a very, it's a very unique look. It is a hollow, terrified look that says, I don't know what to do. And I've had folks tell me in the middle of the night, I'm going to have to go to work on Monday because we don't have any money. I've had folks tell me, I don't know what to do. And in that, I don't know what to do is, I don't know if there's a will. I don't know if there's life insurance. I don't know. I don't know what to do. Life insurance protects your family. Listen, last week, I'm changing my life insurance coverage here. Pretty sure my wife's going to off me, and so I'm changing the coverage. I got blood drawn last week in my office. They came up here and drew my blood, did all my, like a miniature physical here for life insurance. I'm doing it.

You do it. You got to get the right kind of insurance. The only kind of insurance that we recommend here at Ramsey Solutions is term life insurance that's worth about 10 to 12 times your income. No whole life, none of that nonsense. You can Google Dave Ramsey on YouTube and find out why. Term life insurance, our free coverage checkup tool will help you find the right term life policy plus other types of insurance. Listen, if you're listening to this show, you're listening because things go awry in people's lives. Things they weren't expecting. Relationships falling apart. Challenges with kids.

Challenges with schools. Whatever it may be. Things will go awry. Right? Having life insurance makes sure the people around you are taken care of when you're not here. Okay? Get your results, your free coverage checkup tool. Text CHECKUP to 33789. Checkup to 33789 to find the best coverage for you.

All right. Seriously, it's National Insurance Month. Take care of the people around you by getting the right kind of insurance. All right. let's go straight to the phones. After my excitement around National Insurance Month, let's go to Amy in Kansas City, Missouri. Amy, what's going on? How are we doing? Hey, John. How are you? I'm so good. How about you?

Well, I'm struggling a little bit here. Uh-oh. Okay, bring it on. What's going on? Okay. Okay. So, my husband and I, we're still kind of deceived and scared. Our 14-year-old has been sneaking around on social media, deleting texts, and is being medically influenced by a church friend.

And so, we don't know if we've made the range range, I guess, electronics in her life too tight. And we kind of need advice on what our next step should be. Okay, so recap here is your daughter, how old is she? She's 14. She's a freshman. Okay, so you have a freshman who's got access to social media, right? Does she have a phone and everything? She has a phone, yes. Okay, so she's got social media. she's deleting posts and deleting texts and communicating

with her friends, and you feel hurt and deceived by that? Yes. Okay. So you mentioned something about a friend that is participating in this drama, so what's the friend's role? So it is a church friend who's 13, so about a year younger. And so just to give you a little bit of background, we've always told our daughter that we will always have the passwords to her phone. Talking to the phone, talking to the phone.

Okay. There you go, there you go. He's never been allowed to be on social media. We kind of found this out a couple years ago, tried to put an end to it. And we recently read a few texts from a church friend that was coming out to her saying that she was bisexual and just was kind of influencing our daughter. And we immediately questioned our daughter on that. And she kind of broke down into tears and kind of revealed to us that she was feeling pressured. So that's kind of the negative influence.

But we've never allowed her to be on social media. And with school devices and with this phone, we've always had access to passwords and that sort of thing. So we're kind of just feel like we're treading in water that we don't really know how to handle all this. Okay. So there's a lot here, but I want to keep going back to, did you guys get her a cell phone? So, yeah, mistake one number one, when she was studying middle school in sixth grade, we got her probably the dumbest phone ever.

We got her a track phone. Okay. So it was basically for safety reasons. So she was going to come home from school, be home for 30 minutes by herself. It was basically text my dad, tell us what's going on, and that was it. She couldn't, John, even laugh, but she couldn't send us emojis on this phone. She couldn't download apps, and we were very content with it. But now she's 14 and she's got a phone, right?

Yeah, so now she's got a different phone. Okay. And once again, we told her, you know, absolutely. But listen, the folks who designed phones, the folks who designed apps, the folks who designed social media, the folks who designed text messaging, from the dings, the volume, how the dings hit, to how the apps work, to the photos, the way it, the ease, the way it reads your thoughts and your minds before even, it's designed to bypass all thinking and go directly into your emotional and fear-based parts of your brain. And so I'm going to hold your 14-year-old, and I might get some flack for this, I'm going to hold your 14-year-old 0% responsible for this and here's why you can't expect a child's mind that is hardwired to find out where they belong hardwired to find out who's my friends hardwired to find out where

they rank on the social standing and you give them a box that has been designed by tech people and neuroscientists to hack that part of their brain and they get mad at them for not using this tool correctly. Okay. It's the mom and dad's responsibility to put up boundaries to protect their kids. And so, when a child breaks down crying and says, I'm feeling pressured to participate in any sort of conversations, here's the next step. The next step is somebody's going to reach out and say, hey, I'll send you a picture if you send me one.

Or the predatory grown men all over the world who are scouring earth for people just like your 14-year-old daughter. They're going to make her offers that her 14-year-old brain can't refuse because she is a child. And so when you hand a kid access to earth and earth shows up access to the world and the world shows up that overwhelms and scares a 14 year old to death

and so yeah she's not making good decisions but she's a kid right it's the same reason we don't let kids drive or smoke cigarettes or buy beer or buy guns because their brains aren't ready yet. A 14-year-old has a – I mean, you and I remember being 14 in our little middle schools, right? Remember what a nightmare that was? You know what I mean? I just wanted to be cool like on the seventh grade B-team basketball team, right? And there was like 12 guys on that, 12 kids on that team, not to mention all the kids on planet Earth, right?

And so I would never begrudge a 14-year-old from texting with her friends and then hiding them. Or you promise you won't tell, you swear you won't tell. That's what 14-year-olds do. That's why they need us in their lives to protect them. I do understand that that makes their kid weird.

And here's how I know that. Because my 11-year-old came home a few weeks ago bawling his eyes out because he realized there's a whole universe in his school of kids on TikTok and texting and all that. And he wasn't a part of it. And you know what I did? I don't know if his therapist, when he's 30, is going to thank me for this because he or she may make some money off of me. I actually pulled up some of my YouTube show and some of my podcast reviews and let him read what people say about his dad and just the idiots who just post stuff. And his eyes got really big. And I said, it's my job to make sure nobody says that about you until you're old enough to understand what you're getting into.

And that's why we don't let you have it. And so in my house, we're scorched earth on it, man. I'm just not going to put that kind of hate and poison into the hands of a 14-year-old. And I know that's going to make my kid weird and it's going to make him an outcast. And it means I'm going to have to backfill that relationship, right? But I do think it is really hard to put a 14-year-old in that kind of position and then get upset that they're not using that correctly. I mean, let's be honest. You know this, right? Yes.

So what changed between your – you guys are really tight on it with that track phone. What changed that you were like, okay, we'll just give her this other big bazooka of a phone. You know, she's always been, we've never had behavior problems with her. She's a great student, and we've never had issues with her. So I guess we decided that we can trust her. And she was persuasive. All my friends have one. And we reluct we did it.

I don't know how to backtrack. I love that. That's a great question. And listen, I don't want you to feel bananas. 99% of the parents I talk to say what you just said. I know in my gut this is crazy, but I don't want my kid to be the only one. And what I'm calling on parents is to stand up and be the only one, because what you're going to find is a lot of other parents, it's like an arms race. A lot of other parents would be all into. I hear this with those video game systems. They walk in

and see their kids playing Call of Duty and they're like, there's a lot of murder going on on this screen, but I don't want my kid to be the only weird one. And so, okay. And vice versa, right? And we can do this all in and on but especially with these phones and social media and texting and so here's how you backtrack you have a hard hard conversation with your daughter and you let them know hey we didn't feel good about this and we did it anyway and this was our fault and we're sorry for putting you in this we're sorry for handing you the keys to our car and telling you to go drive to the mall because you're 14. And I wouldn't beat her up over, you lost our trust and all that. Man, you put a 14-year-old kid in a position that's really challenging for them to be successful. And so I would tell them,

I would own it all and say, hey, we set you up in a position to fail. We're going to take your phone. We're going to take social media off this thing. We're going to not give you that kind of access to the world. We're going to want you to have friends over to our house. We're going to love that. We're going to love on you. We're going to be connected to you. But we're going to, this one's going to go. And she's going to think her world just ended, right? Think you are taking cocaine away from an addict, right? Or beer away, because that's really what you're doing. And you're going to have to weather this upcoming storm. And the storm

is going to be, you suck, you're the worst parents ever, why do you hate me, you're ruining my life, all those things. And now you're playing a long game. Right? Now, the chances of you actually doing this are very small, and I know this. I've been working with parents for almost two decades. No, no, no, no, no. You don't understand how much we people are

and just worry, but we are 95% there. Okay. So, so tell me this, because this, this question is going to help all 31 people listening to this. And by the way, we're way past that now. So I won't even exaggerate on this. You're going to help millions of people with this answer. You are already there in your soul. What is keeping you from just walking in there and taking that phone and smashing it into a million pieces and say, I care for your heart too much to ever have this conversation again? Like, what is the thing holding you back? What do you think is going to happen?

I mean, I guess we're scared about struggling in that relationship. We have a great relationship with her. And I think she wants... She's also a follower and not a leader with her friends and in school. And I think I'm just fearful that we're just going to push her away even more. And we wanted to give her this responsibility, and like you've explained, it was too much. We couldn't put that in.

It was unfair of us to put that in her lap. So that's what I guess I'm fearful of, is just her just shutting around all walls already. She's 14, doesn't like to talk to us about certain things already. Right. You know? And this may be an incredible opportunity for you to go first. And maybe not, but this may be the first time she's heard you go first

and say, hey, I screwed this up, and I'm going to have to do something really hard. I'm going to have to take this away. And maybe if you want to be bananas, Amy, you can lean in and say, I'm deleting social media off my phone would you be willing to do that for her? yes I would and so if you showed her

delete social media off the phone and said I'm in this with you and your brothers and sisters everybody's going to be off social media and that means we're going to have to talk as a family and we're going to have to figure this out and I'm'm gonna do something so cheesy which is i'm gonna have three questions i'm gonna ask you every day you're gonna have to go full cheese sandwich on this one and just own

it you're not her friend you're her mom own mom own full mom on this one and let her know that you're in it with her and then start asking her questions and then just keep showing up and just keep showing up and keep asking those questions and she's not going to talk to you she's gonna i hate you oh my gosh you keep showing up and keep showing up and keep showing up what i mean by showing up every day you see her go grab her face and say i'm your mom i'm gonna hold your face for a second look her in the eye and say i I love you. How was today? What's that boy's name? I want to hear it. How's your friend who's struggling?

How's she doing? Did you tell your friend that you loved her today? Put notes in her room, write notes, whatever you got to do to slowly relearn how to connect with your kid. And make no mistake, this is going to be hard because you're going to have to walk back a lot. You're going to have to walk back an addiction. You're going to have to walk back what she feels is her social

connection to the world. And this will be hopefully one of the greatest things that ever happens between the two of you, especially if you live it out. It's going to be tough. Parents out there, follow your gut. A 14-year-old cannot self-regulate themselves. They can't. They can't. And these devices or these companies are preying on your kid for their data. They're building psychometric maps of your kid, and that's not woo-woo.

That's just, they put that out there. That's documented. And man, there are grown-ups, college kids, high school kids who are preying on 14-year-olds too. Moms and dads, your kids need you to be firm and stand up in this. Be the only parent. It just takes a little bit of courage. And then you're going to see people around you slowly start to have more courage and more courage and more courage.

And even if they don't, do the right thing. Remember what your mom said? If Billy was jumping off a bridge, would you do it too? I'm doing that to you now. You know it. You know it. It's not good for them. They need you, Mom and Dad.

They need you. Thank you so much for that call, Amy. That is a conversation that's happening in households all over the country, and so I'm grateful for your vulnerability there. Time to turn it around. Let's do it. All right, let's go to Patrick in Jacksonville. What's up, Patrick? How are we doing, man? How are you doing?

I'm doing alright. We're rocking and rolling, man. Good to see you on the Ramsey show. It's an opportunity to talk to you on your show. Very cool, man. I appreciate you taking my call. You got it, brother. So what's up, man? How can I help? So I've been married for 11 years. Got three kids and my wife. I've been divorced twice.

I have problems in relationships and i'm trying to make this one work um hey i don't pause that right there thank you for that patrick thank you for that i've talked to too many guys in your situation that would roll their eyes and say yet again i'm getting screwed on this deal or I'm getting hosed on this deal or whatever. And your first words to me are, I'm trying to make this work. And so I appreciate your vulnerability there, dude. That takes a lot.

Is that new, Patrick? It's new-ish. Okay. I've been trying to make it work on the third time now and the fourth and the fifth. Hey, there we go. Every day is a new chance to start over. All right, man, so how can I help? So the problem I have is I've come to the end of my rope and I get angry and mad and upset and frustrated

and want to nuke the whole thing and let go, but I'm asked to hold on, and I do. But I just feel like my wife's checked out. Yeah, I would imagine so, based on just what you just told me. So, I mean, if somebody who I loved and had chained myself

to, had hitched myself to, got angry and just wanted to cash out every time, yeah, I would be checked out too. I mean, I can imagine that's a roller coaster and a whiplash. So, brother, why do you get angry and yell and scream and say, I'm out? I just feel like I'm dragging this thing out by myself. She spends the majority of time I see her on the back porch scrolling on her phone or watching videos. I mean, she hadn't sat down at the dinner table with me and the kids for over a year.

And how long have you been with her? We've been married 11 years. 11 years, okay. So what is it about you, what is it about your family environment that she wants no part of? I don't know. You gotta know. You've been with her over a decade.

I think it's just distractions. I know, but what does she need to distract herself from I don't know what about you is she distracting herself from accountability I mean I try to hold her accountable for responsibilities that she's not doing. And give me an example of that. Uh, she's a stay at home mom. Uh, she has a hard time keeping up with the house, keeping up with the kids, keeping up with the kids clothes routines. with the kids' clothes, routines.

I mean, it's gotten better, but it's just a challenge to keep on task, on track, to grow, to be responsible, to be accountable, to say, yeah, I'm going to do this, and then it gets done. I mean, I don't know what she's running from. I mean, we've had knockdown drag outs. We've had reconciliations. We've had, I left for 30 days and came back because I didn't want to leave the family. Uh, but that was two, three years ago. And I know she looks back on it and this last anniversary was a good one, and we've made some steps, but I just don't see the work.

I don't see the commitment. I don't see the accountability, the response. I don't see it. How come your first marriage didn't work, brother? I was young and stupid. Elaborate. Got married. I got married as a young Marine.

Deployed, came back. Things were fast and loose, and it was stupid to get married in the first place. You didn't answer my question. That was excellent evasion, but you didn't answer my question. Did you cheat on her? Uh, yes. Yeah, okay. So why didn't your second marriage work?

She fell in love with somebody while I was deployed. Okay. Came back, got married. She separated and married him. Okay. And what was it about this woman that you're with now that made giving it a third shot sound good? Well, this one we got when we were dating. Again, I was coming off my second marriage

and going to the bars, doing the thing, and ended up pregnant. So I wanted to make it work. Make sure that my child had a father and a mother. Mm-hmm. And we considered abortion

and we both didn't want to do that okay and so we've pushed through and we've had two more kids and you know nine more years after that and a couple houses new job so I mean we've

pushed but you know I'm sick of pushing. Yeah, you know, I can hear that. And I promise you, with everything I got, brother, she's sick of being pushed. That's why I stopped pushing. But leaving it go and just kind of set goals out there hasn't worked either.

I mean, I've separated bank accounts because the financial responsibility isn't there. Hey, listen, listen. Is she done? No, that's the thing. She says she's not done and she wants to work it out. She wants to keep working. Okay. The way you've described your wife to me

as though you were describing a teenage daughter that you can't get under control i feel that way she is no more your partner and raising family and just trying to suck the joy out of life the the wreckage that life is just misery after misery and that's what partners can do for each other when their marriage is just rad is they just find joy is you have put her in line as another child and you might feel like you have to

but she's another kid with goals and expectations and achievements that she needs to accomplish in order to make sure your house looks the way it needs to be and that her body looks the way it needs to be and your sex life needs to be and all those things. And at some point she checked out, possibly early on. And for most of us, I don't want to over-gender this, but most of us men,

we know one thing, and that's to push harder. And if we're losing a fight, then we think we need to swing harder and kick harder and go for takedowns harder. And you just said it perfectly. I'm tired of pushing, man. And I want to honor that. This relationship can handle no more pushing.

And if you back up 10 steps, 15 steps, and you look at this woman, not as a problem to fix or as somebody to get in line, but as somebody to sit next to and hold their hand and say, baby, I'm so sorry. We got to start over from square one. And what you've got now is a relationship that's over 10 years right so y'all are in a tough window you got three kids how old are your kids uh six nine and ten oh brother y'all are in it right you've got 5 000 activities all day every day some kids running in there yelling and screaming the other kids saying everybody shut up and there's moods everywhere right you're in it right and you've got this woman who's at home who's desperate to be seen and known and to be loved

at a vulnerable level and she's being given tasks and when she fails the tasks you take away the task and say i'll do it myself you see how she's almost as though she's a member of one of your units instead of your wife? I do, but I've taken those away. I used to do that, and I've stopped, and I've asked her what her goals are, what she wants to accomplish, what she's trying to do to grow. I've tried to include her in the conversation, to include her in her finances, getting her stuff in order on her own time, on her own accord. I've stopped pushing. I've stopped dragging.

I've stopped, other than me being attached to the relationship, is what I feel like I'm dragging now. How do you how do you inject joy and safety into her life besides the fact that you're an ex-marine

and you can kick people's ass like how do you how do you inject joy and safety into her life I mean I try to spend time with her, dedicate every Tuesday to her. Okay. Try to. And what does that dedication look like? Coaching? Opportunities? No, just spending

time with her. I mean, the five love languages, quality time and words of affirmation are hurt. Okay. So I try to, when she does cook dinner, when she does get dressed up or get dressed, I try to acknowledge it when, you know, so I try to feed her her love language. But you see how you've, just those two examples, when she achieves and does the right things Then I let her know She's not your child brother, she's your wife And so here's the status of your relationship. Okay, and I don't want you to mistake me

I know you love this lady and I know that you really want to do this, right? and There's a sacred moment when a guy realizes I'm trying to fix this engine in my car and all I have is a wrench and a hammer and these two tools aren't working. Oh, and by the way, she's not an engine in a car, right? And there's a humility, a humbleness, a vulnerability, which is the anti-marine move, right? That's rolling over on your stomach and on your back and exposing your belly and saying, you could hurt me, hon.

But I have to tell you, I'm out of tools and I am going to go learn some new tools. I would love for you to come with me. And she's probably not going to go, man. When's the last time you went and started talking to a counselor on some new tools to help you be a better man, a better husband, a better dad? I went to a counselor on my own.

I mean, COVID had it mobile. Right. But I talked to a counselor for about three months and I got the advice that she is who she is. Her past actions are going to be

her future actions and you've got to come to terms with it or... Yeah, get a new counselor. That one sucks. Counselor sucks. That's why I stopped going.

Yeah, the counselor's terrible. Counselor's terrible. I mean, it kind of stuck with me, but that's not... That doesn't help. Every single person can change, but they can only change if they are tethered into something bigger and stronger than themselves. And it sounds like your wife is exhausted and detached because all she's been is a series of accomplishments, achievements, failures. She's got to live up to the standards of her Marine husband.

And here's the thing. Here's the truth. You know that if fill in the blank, if she got control of her money, if she exercised, if she ate differently, if she fill in the blank, that those things would help her. But she's got to come to those things on her own. And she has to hear those things from somebody that she can actually hear them from. And she's got to be tethered into you for connection, right?

She does not need any more information from you. She needs you. And so here's what you're going to, I want you to keep this picture. And I've used this image a bunch. I'm going to continue to use it because it works. You guys have a relationship that's 10 plus years old, three kids, right? You're going to have to excavate what you have right now and rebuild something from the floor up. And if she won't participate in the early rounds of the architecture and design, cool. But I'd love for

you guys to sit down and just dream together. Is this what this is going to be for us? Are we going to be back porch scrolling through Instagram for the rest of our life? What do you need? What can I, how can I bring you joy? And you can't make her do anything. Your counselor was right on that. But what you can do is inject joy into your home.

And that comes from you doing the things that you can control. You working on your thoughts, your actions, your behaviors, your way of treating people in the world. Not lecturing her on what she eats, but you being a model. Not lecturing her on, you know what you should be doing? You should be exercising, getting your finances right. But instead bringing your three kids around for budget day, hooray, and bringing, I don't know, Reese's peanut butterups or whatever is going to make your kids excited about it. And you're going to teach them how to budget. And you're going to do it with joy and with laughter and with fun, not with military precision. Military precision is important, but only when you have full trust does that work.

When you've signed it all over and your wife's not signed on anymore. She's not signed on anymore. She's not signed on anymore. And so what's the best way? I mean, you're headed towards, if you're not there already, towards bitter, bitter resentment. And then it's hard to come back from that, man. And so I want you to go about wooing your wife again. I want you to go about finding the things that get you all fired up, that get your heart beating again, that excite you about your kids, excite you about joy and love in your house. I want you to go find another counselor because the one you talk to sucks. Anyone who says, well, it's just the way it's

going to be. You got to get used to it. Terrible, terrible. You either leave or you both grow together. And I think every single person can grow. 100% of them. If they have attached relationships, if they are anchored into something solid, right? And dude, I know you're tired, man. I so know you're tired. I hear it in your voice. So stop working on her and I want you to start working on you. And I want you to reverse engineer your life. Find the places where you can be patient, where you can be kind, where you laugh a lot, right? Where you forgive other people, including yourself. Where you don't identify with the worst things you've done and the stupidest things you've said and the dumbest decisions you've made,

but you identify with the future where you're taking these kids. How are you going to love this woman? I want you to grow that way, brother. And there's a big, awesome world there. I want you to grab a book called I Don't Want to Talk About It by Terrence Real. We'll put it in the show notes. We'll link to it. But I want you to get it on Amazon today.

I want you to read that book. And if you're not a big reader, get the audio book and start from there. Okay? I Don't Want to Talk About It by Terrence Real. Man, thank you so much for that call, Patrick. I know that's hard, brother. I know that's hard. Here's the 30,000-foot ultimate umbrella statement.

You can't fix her. You can fix you. What I promise you is if she's really in, watching you infuse and inject and create a platform of joy and love in your home with those kids, a safe place that's not a repair manual, but just someone who loves her. She's going to say, hey, something's different. Something's new.

What's going on? Right? And then you've got to have in your head your or what moment, man. At some point, you've got to say, I'm out. I know you feel shame that you failed once. You failed twice. I get that. But you're going to have to keep that line for yourself too, man,

because you don't want to drag your kids down. You don't want to drag this woman down any further. Hey, I want to take a quick break and talk about something important, your mental health. If you cannot find an in-person counselor in your area or you can't afford one, I've got a solution. I've partnered with BetterHelp for customized online therapy for you. Video chat, phone, or even text chat counseling with licensed therapists that are going to help you become a expensive than traditional therapy, and you're worth it. BetterHelp.com. Take care of yourself.

Start today. All right, this is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, and we are going back to the phones. Let's go to Morgan in Kingman, Arizona. Morgan, what's going on? Hi, Dr. Deloney. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for calling. How in the world are you? Good. How are you? Good. Hi, Dr. Delaney. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for calling. How in the world

are you? Good. How are you? Good. Good, good. All right. So what's up? How can I help? Okay. So we just became a first-time foster family a few months ago to a newborn baby. Yeah, dude. Congratulations. Thank you. What? Hey, that's a long, arduous road. You are a hero without a cape. It is super hard. Do you have your own kids? I do. How many you got? I have a seven-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl.

Oh, my. You are changing legacies. Oh, thank you. Listen, I know you feel like things that all the trains have derailed everywhere. But listen, what you are doing for those two kids, your biological kids, what are you doing for that foster kid, what you're doing for your marriage is messy and bananas and extraordinary. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So what's your question? So my question is, this is our first foster baby. We want to do foster care for a long time. I am terrified to say goodbye to this little one. And the main goal of foster

care is reunification, which I think is great. That sounds super good until you hold that baby, right? It is. It's so hard. I just think about not seeing him again, and I don't know how I'm going to do it and how I'm going to help my kids do that. So I'm wondering if you have any advice or any tools. Yes. advice or any tools yes so i actually um i've got several close friends who have i've just been able to watch navigate this for 10 15 years some of them and so um yeah there's some tough lessons

learned and some beautiful things that have come from this it's hard to see when you're in the middle of this banana season right um you said the most important thing that's hard to get people to turn to, which is, what is my number one job? And it's to hold and love and model the love for this baby, knowing that the single most important person in his life is not me. And that is so hard to do, right? Right. And I know that mentally.

Yeah. Yes. I'm trying to get there emotionally. So I want you to be really graceful with yourself, especially with baby number one, baby number two, baby number three. This is so, so hard. So let me ask you a few questions about this. Do you have any connection to baby's mom or dad?

Are you a part of helping them with services? Can you be? I can be. The only reason I'm not is I have two little ones of my own, and I have no judgment toward family whatsoever, but I get a little nervous bringing people into our lives that I don't know. Sure. If that makes sense. Yes, and you've brought a baby into your life, and so you've brought an entire family system into your life. And so you can't bring this baby in.

You can't take the good parts without the scary parts. That's true. The good parts of this little baby, the scary parts, they're an entire family system that if it were working perfectly, this kid would not be in this situation, right? So one or two of my friends who have done this beautifully have actually taken the hearts and minds of the family this baby's moving back into into consideration so they have offered things like parenting like parenting coaching for the mom or the dad, regular coffee visits.

How are you doing? And here's what happens over time. Not always, but most of the time parents will take you up on that because they're desperate. And they will see something that you have that they don't, which is peace. Right? Peace in the only chaotic peace that a mother of a nine and a seven year old have. Right. Which is which is not day to day peace, not sleep, not hair looks good or my makeup's all great.

But that peace that knows this is right. You know what I mean? And so offering, hey, I'll meet with you once every two weeks. I'm going to get a babysitter for my kids or while they're in school. We're going to go meet for coffee somewhere. And if you don't feel comfortable yet in your home, that's great. That's no problem. But it will give you a sense of empathy for them too, because they've got a story to tell as well. So I'm going to tell you about a conversation I had in grad school that was a healing moment for me. It was a moment of shame for me and then a moment of healing. So I was working in a placement with an extraordinary psychologist who just worked with traumatized kids.

And we had just left another situation where a mom was not working her services and in my head had chosen drugs over her kid. That's how I had framed this thing. And I was so angry and I was running my mouth, and he gently turned to me and said, and I said something along the lines, some patronizing, man, I can't believe that whatever mom chose whatever instead of that beautiful little kid. And the psychologist just said to me, man, if you knew mom's story, meth makes a lot of sense. Her life has been hell. And just that one sentence of, man, if you knew her story, you have no idea. Right? And it instantly made me feel ridiculous

for running my mouth about a mother who I didn't know. Comparing her situation to mine, I had a newborn and I thought I was all high and mighty. But what it really did was it sent me on a rabbit hole of empathy. How can I hear other people's stories and hear what's going on in their hearts and minds? And how can I be a part of that narrative, not the blaming and shaming and screaming and yelling at people narrative? And so, listen, once I started hearing these stories, oh my gosh, seven drinks makes a lot of sense, man. You know what I mean? And it helped me navigate a whole new – it opened my eyes to a whole new thing. So I'm telling you, your first thoughts are – I'm not judging, but we've all been there, okay? I think it would do your soul a world of good to offer – and they may not take you up on it, and you'll get frustrated by it.

But you're going to get to see another side of a human being's story. And you may get to pass along some great skills. And all of this is headed towards this. A lot of these families are still in connection with my friends. The kids are still in connection. Their parents are so grateful for the human connection. Because they have court. They have the mandated counseling. They've got the AAMs they have have to attend they don't have any relationships and that are outside of the family or drugs or whatever and what a gift you can be morgan

okay so here's here's another thing um and my friend slade has has taught me this and i have never done it so i'm just talking to you third hand, okay? Mm-hmm. He says they own the collective grief every time, as a family, they take the kid back. Mm-hmm. It just hurts, and it stinks. Yeah. changing about teaching your children, modeling for your children, that relationship is risk and relationships include pain and it hurts and it's worth it.

Right? That's a really good way to look at it. And so what I didn't know until I was married for 10 years was that relationships suck and they're really hard. When I started thinking of exit strategies, right. And you will have given your kids an understanding of no, no,

no relationships are really hard and they're good and they're worth it. And they're so awful. And you cry and, and, and they're still right. And you will get to honor your kids that, and there is no magic sauce for that. There's just lots and lots and lots of hugs.

Slade, who's like a super in shape like he was my workout partner for years he talked about they dropped off one of their kids and they just made their way to a taco bell which is not a food him and his family would normally eat and he said they were they were just silent and then the person in front of them just mysteriously paid for their minivan full of people. And he said there was some moment of grace there. They all cried. They all laughed. And there was just this collective, this sucks, but we're going to be okay. And let's go help somebody else.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So I guess I need to get past my, I'm very positive. Everything's okay. Everything's okay. Everything's good. We'll be fine. No. And maybe need to get more into the heaviness of it that it's going to suck.

Well, and you will be fine, right? And you'll be fine. Yeah. And relationship is worth the pain, right? And just because it hurts doesn't mean it's wrong. And our kids are growing up in a world where discomfort has been pathologized right discomfort has been made the bad guy and it's not right discomfort's just a signal that we really loved hard and it hurts what a magical gift you

will give to them and bring them along for this ride let them know hey it's their foster baby too they get to help with breakfast and diapers and reading stories oh my gosh you are giving them a magical laboratory for love are they oh thank you they're awesome helpers yep they love this little baby and it's been great awesome so listen don't ever let them catch you talking bad about the other family. No, I never do. Don't ever let them catch you trying to hide emotions. Just live and love recklessly in front of them. And let them absorb all of you, all of this baby.

And man, what a gift you're giving them. What a gift you are giving them. There is no way to make this not hard. It's just hard. Right. But you've given me a great perspective of where to go with it. Well, and I really, really want you to think about channeling into a conversation or a meeting, a regular connection with this baby's mom and or this baby's dad.

If it's safe and the courts will allow it, I would love to see you reach out and do that. It's going to be clarifying for you. And along the way, if you really believe reunification is the best, and that's where you got to be, it's where you got to be. And I know you look at your house and you think nobody could love this baby like I do. You also have your two kids and you know that nobody could love your two kids like you can. Right? Right.

And so that little baby's got a mom and a daddy out there somewhere. Right? And they're loving sideways and crooked, and they are broken and stumbling. But that right place for that kid, unless there is pain and hurt, is with their mom and dad. And so, man, you can teach them, hey, they really love this. This baby loves this. And laughs when you do this and loves having this. You could be such a bridge to that family and a gift that will be legacy. I mean, family tree changing for your family and theirs.

And for everybody listening, foster parents are absolute rock star heroes. It is the hardest thing. Whether you're fostering to adopt or you're just doing foster pairing, you are opening up your heart with full understanding that there is hurt on the other end for you. Best case scenario, the kid leaves and it hurts. Worst case scenario, parents aren't able to complete their services or choose not to complete their services or whatever. The baby has to move on to a foster home. You're hurt.

But in the middle, you get to model for a baby that they have value. They're worth being loved. You get to model for a middle schooler that's never had somebody look them in the eye and say, you have worth. You get to take little snapshots in history and plant seeds in kids' hearts. Oh my gosh. And it is hard, hard, hard. And it's holy, holy, good, great work. If you've ever thought about fostering, please consider doing that. Please consider doing that. All right. So as we wrap up today's show, man, you know what? We're going back to 2010. The album is called How I Got Over.

You don't think the Roots need to invite anybody but they did. They invited John Legend on this track called The Fire and it goes like this. Yeah, and if I'm ever at the crossroads and start feeling mixed signals like Morse code, my soul starts to grow colder than the North Pole.

I try to focus on the whole of where the torch goes. In the tradition of these legendary sports pros, as far as I can see, I've made it to the threshold. Lord knows I've waited for this a lifetime, and I'm an icon where I let my light shine and there's something in your heart and it's in your eyes it's the fire inside you let it burn you don't say good luck you say don't give up it's the fire inside you let it burn the roots with John Legend this has been the Dr. John Deloney Show.