The Dr. John Delony Show - Our Son Is Slacking in College...Should We Pull Him Out?

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

Telling your kids the truth isn’t always easy. Learn how to have hard conversation as we talk with a widowed and remarried father about sharing his story with his kids, as well as a mother who wants to help her son who’s struggling in college. I feel lost and don’t have any motivation My wife and I are both widowed from previous marriages. How do we talk to our young kids about that? My son is struggling in his freshman year in college. How can I help him? Lyrics of the Day: "Paradise City" - Guns 'N Roses Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Resources: Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq 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 to a young man whose life feels stuck and he doesn't know what to do. We also talk to a young father of three beautiful young girls, and he lost his previous spouse and doesn't know how to tell them about it. We also talk to a mom whose son's failing out of college and she doesn't know what to do. Stay tuned. Hey, what are you doing? This is John with the Dr. John Delaney Show. Man, I hope you're doing well.

Hope the New Year's going all right. Hope you're staying out of trouble. Hope you're staying off the drugs. I don't even know if, I don't know what that means, but I hope you're staying in school. I was trying to think of some back to school special language. Stay in school, don't even know if I don't know what that means, but I don't know if you're staying in school. I was trying to think of some back to school special language. Stay in school. Don't do drugs.

That's the new that's the new tagline for the show. James, stay in school. Don't do drugs. Does that work? You're the producer. Usually I come up with a great idea and James tells me in the meetings, it's not a great idea. And he's right. That's not true.

A hundred percent of the time. You're right. Have I ever had a great idea? And you're like, I've never had a good idea. I have so many ideas and they're not great, man. They're just not good. Kelly's ideas are good. James are good.

Siri's incredible. Man. You're being very self-deprecating. You have a lot of great ideas. I think my wife would disagree with you, too. All right, let's go to Jason in Chicago. Enjoy tone. What's up, Jason?

What's up, dude? Hey, nothing much. I'm just a 20-year-old guy. I'm having a little bit of trouble right now. I've been having some physical issues like back pain and shoulder pain due to working a physical job and slightly nervous, I guess, about my

future because I'm this young and I'm already having seizures. You're already having seizures? No, like these issues. Issues. Okay. So, hey, will you do me a huge favor? Yeah. Okay.

We're going to pretend that we we're gonna start this whole call over and instead of being like i'm just this like kind of 20 year old loser in chicago i'm gonna be like hey we're gonna go to jason in chicago then i want you to say hey i'm jason i'm 20 years old and man i'm working hard i'm kind of nervous about my future and then i want you to choose to lift up your language a little bit is that that cool? Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that. No, don't be sorry. It's all good. We're learning. We're practicing. Ready? All right, let's go to Jason in Chicago. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. What's up, Jason? How we doing?

Hey, we're doing pretty good. I'm a 20-year-old guy, and I'm having a little bit of issues. It's working pretty hard. Physical labor. What kind of physical labor do you do? Warehouse. Warehouse. Just throwing boxes? Package handling. There you go.

Okay, throwing boxes. Yeah, man, that's hard. How long have you been doing that? A year and a half. Okay. So how can I help, man? I don't know. It's just been kind of raining on me.

I'm just having like a little bit of issues with my physical health, I guess. Okay. Like back problems and shoulder. At this type of age and it's kind of, it's, I'm a bit afraid of my future, honestly. What do you want to do with your future? Not sure. Actually, I bought some tools, and I've looked into cell phone repair.

Okay. So when I ask you, like, man, if you could see it all come together, and if I could just snap my fingers and make all my dreams come true, I want to repair cell phones. Is that right? Maybe. If that's it, man, I stand behind you.

Is that it? What do you want to do? That might be it. That might be it. That might be it. Honestly, I'm not too sure, to be honest. Where does that self-limiting belief come from? I guess I don't have much experience in the world. Why not?

I live right now. 20 years old. You still live at home now? You've been living at home? Yeah, I've been living at now. 20 years old. You've been living, you still live at home now? You've been living at home? Yeah, I've been living at home. Okay. Do you live out of your house now?

No, I still live with my mom. Okay. So how can I help you? I find plenty of job. It's just, I don't know how to go. I'm a bit nervous, sorry. No, it's okay. I'm nervous too. I'm not very good at this.

You're way better at this than I am. Okay, let me back out a little bit. What do you want from your life? Don't overthink it. Just rattle them off. What do you want for your life? Don't overthink it. Just rattle them off. What do you want for your life? Do you want to get married? Maybe if I find a one.

Okay. There's not a one. You're going to have to choose to marry somebody. The myth of the one isn't real. Do you want to have kids someday or no? Yeah, I'd want some kids. Okay. I've got a couple.

It's awesome. It's also've got a couple, it's awesome It's also exhausting and expensive And it's the best Do you want to live with your mom forever? Have your own place? No, yeah, I have my own place, definitely You want to live in the south, in the north, east, in the west? Where do you want to live?

Um That I don't know I mean, the snow is, you know, kind of hard There's no sales tax in Tennessee I mean The snow is you know Kind of hard There's no sales tax in Tennessee I mean there's sales tax There's no income tax Yeah there's for sure Sales tax

So Here's the thing It feels like you're trapped man You've trapped yourself By an inability to imagine Anything other than This immediate moment Is that fair?

Yeah Definitely Do you struggle with Any sort of mental health issues? imagine anything other than this immediate moment. Is that fair? Yeah, definitely. Do you struggle with any sort of mental health issues? You ever been diagnosed with depression? Not that I know of. Not that you know of. Okay. How'd you do in school?

Not that well, but I've been going to community college and I've done kind of good. And then I started not having the discipline to do well. Why do you choose to not have discipline? I kind of feel directionless. You kind of feel directionless? Yeah. Just, I'm not sure where to go.

Like I'd want to go somewhere, but I'm not sure where, like as a career and just-wise, I'm not sure. But that's different than discipline. Why do you choose to not have discipline? I get being lost career-wise, but every day you can choose to wake up at 5.30 in the morning and get some exercise in and to eat

well and to do a little bit of service and to do a gratitude journal and to get your homework and assignments done and study for that day's quiz or exam you can make that choice every day and but you don't you choose not to do those things why do you choose not to do those things uh i guess um not to do those things? I guess I'm not too sure. How'd you find this show? Oh, I've been watching YouTube. Okay.

I've watched Ramsey and then I saw Dr. Deloney's show, Dr. John Deloney's show. Yeah, that's me. I've watched asey, and then I saw Dr. DeLoney's show, Dr. John DeLoney's show. Yeah, that's me. I've watched a couple of episodes. Yeah. Yeah. How much YouTube do you watch?

Oh, man. Yeah, that'd be a problem. Okay, so here's what I want you to do, okay? You feel stuck, and I get that. There are millions of people watching this right now who are stuck. And they don't know where to go. They don't know what's up, what's down. Really crazy.

It's just bonkers when you look across the media landscape right now. You know what is absolutely getting crushed in the media landscape? Is any sort of like books or, you know, courses to correct, to help, to change your life. And I think people are absolutely stone exhausted i think 2020 they all ran out and went yeah let's get them and then 2021 they just said whatever dude oh cool new variant cool whatever and i think there's been so much loss so much chaos so much misinformation so much ups and downs and sideways that people are just cashed.

Here's the good news. That means if you will get up and be disciplined about a few things, you will go so far so fast. That means if you will care about Jason just a little bit, that care you invest in yourself will magnify. And for anybody listening, if you feel stuck and trapped and you want to make just a tiny little step towards a new direction, everything can change.

And so here's what I can't do. Jason, we could talk for five hours on what do you want to do with your life? Where do you want to go? What do you want to be when you grow up? All those things. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you some stuff, okay? Okay.

But I'm going to give it to you, but you've got to promise you'll use it. Do you promise? I promise. All right, here's five things I'm going to roll out. I'm going to ask five things of you, and I'm going to give you some stuff. Cool? Awesome. Number one, are you currently enrolled

in community college? Oh yeah. Yes. Okay. That means you pay for the counseling services. Yep. I want you to make an appointment today. All right. Shoot an email to him and say, I'd like to schedule an appointment. Say I am lost, directionless, and I need some help. Okay. I want you to use those words. I want you to go sit with a professional and set up over a couple of sessions and walk alongside them. You're already paying for the service. You might as well use it. Okay. Number two, I'm going to send you a copy of my friend, Ken Coleman's new book from paycheck to purpose. So stay on the line and Kelly's going to get your information. We'll mail that out to you. And I'm going to send you a free one of his assessments. I love giving away Ken's stuff. It's so great. It doesn't affect my bottom line at all. It's so good.

But Ken's assessment, and it's a guide you work through to say, what am I going to be? What do I want to do with my life? Okay? Yeah. The fourth thing I want you to get on Amazon today, you love the internet, and I want you to order the book, Jocko Willenick's book, Discipline Equals Freedom.

Okay? It'll cost you like 10 bucks. Yeah. Is that cool? Yeah. And then here's number five. I want you to write a letter to Jason in five years. And in that letter, I want you to describe exactly where you are, where are you living? Are you married? Do you have kids? What are you doing? Why are you doing it? I want you to be very, very specific about where you're headed.

And that letter is going to be great discussion material for you and your counselor there at the college. And from that letter, I want you to pull out some of those things and make bullet points and hang them up on your wall so you can look at them every day. And in Jocko's book, you're going to work through a workout program and a daily routine and a set of practices that you're going to be committed to. You're going to read Ken's book, and you're going to do some direction. Like, yeah, I think that sounds like fun, man. I think I would love doing that for a career. And you're going to walk through his plan on how to get clear and get the job that you want, how to stay in that job.

But all of this starts with an idea that I am no longer going to be directionless. I'm going to choose to not be directionless. I'm not just going to sit here on this island and go nowhere. I'm just going to start going somewhere. And along the way, I'm going to pick up the wisdom of some smart people who've been down that road before.

I know it feels scary. I know it feels lost. Big thing, get off the internets, bro. Just turn them off. Just turn them off. And I know I make my living on the internets, but you need to turn them off.

Turn them off and go be with people. Go outside, be with people. Go outside, be with people. Go exercise, go for a walk, go serve your neighborhood. Go get a trash sack and just start picking up trash in your neighborhood. Listen to the podcast and quit watching on YouTube. Just get outside and get some fresh air. Go do something great for your community, okay?

Be the guy that's always picking up. Do something. Get off the internets, brother. We love you. Hey, after you get these five things done, I want you to holler back at us. We're going to walk alongside you and see what's next. All right. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney show. It seems like everybody's talking about how crazy the housing market is right now and how powerless homebuyers feel. Mix that with the stress of

moving and life change and job change. And you've got a tornado of anxiety fueling one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make. This is not a good idea. So if you're a new home buyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control, like the people you choose to help you in the home buying process. You need folks like my friends at Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is a Ramsey-trusted provider

that's been helping people with their home mortgages for decades. And their Home Buyer Edge program will help you skip a bunch of the stress. Here's how it works. Apply to become a Churchill-certified home buyer and cap your interest rate for 90 days. Then you'll get a $5,000 seller guarantee

to help your offer stand out. So go ahead, take a deep breath because Churchill has your back. Check them out at churchillemortgage.com slash Diloni and get the home buyer edge today. All right, we are back. Let's go to Chris in Pennsylvania. What's up, Chris? Hey, how you doing? Remarkable. How about you? All right, we are back. Let's go to Chris in Pennsylvania. What's up, Chris? Hey, how you doing? Remarkable. How about you?

I'm doing all right. What's up, dude? How can I help? Yeah, so I have a question for you. My wife and I, we both have lost our previous spouses. Wow. How old are you? I am 38, and my wife is 35.

Oh, my gosh, man. I'm so sorry to hear that for both of you. Thanks. Man. How long ago for both of you? Hers was, she lost him about eight years ago, and mine is going to be eight years here in January. Okay. All right.

Wow. Okay. We have three kids, three girls. I'm a hashtag girl dad. Me too, man. But only one. Yeah. And what we were talking about the other day, and we're both huge fans of you,

and we wanted to know is when and how do we bring up our previous history with our daughters? So they don't have any idea? No. How old are they? The oldest is four and a half. Okay. Then we have two and a half. And then six weeks.

Oh, gosh. When did y'all have this? When did this come up? When did you think, like, when did y'all have the conversation, you and your wife? Like, we're going to have to tell our daughters at some point. We've talked about it in the past, but last week we were driving somewhere, and I think I was telling her about a show. I just listened to one of your shows, and I'm like, Hey, we should probably think about this. Uh, and another, another aspect of this is we actually last June had a miscarriage

at six weeks and we also have not brought that up. So, um, man, broadly speaking, your kids will not, and I, I mean, I wish there was a nicer way to say this. Okay. So just take my blunt language here with a grain of salt, um, or take it with grace, because I wish there was a more graceful way to say this. Your kids will not have the baggage of your past that you do. Right. Their story will simply be the story of their world, which is both of their parents were married to other people who passed away. And so normally, especially with a four and a half, two and a half, it's one of those things that if it comes up in natural conversation, and here's a good example. My daughter's five. She has been really curious about,

like, tell me another story about when I was a baby, or let's look at pictures of me as a baby. She wants to know some of that history, and she's five or six. That's about when I think the curiosity will start. When did you and daddy meet? When was he your boyfriend? When was she your girlfriend? And kids don't have quite the same, not quite, they don't have nearly the same perception of time. And so forever started when they had consciousness. Does that make sense? So the idea that there was a before them is weird. And then when they realized there was a before them, then there was a before y'all two were together.

And then there was a before, like what? You used to date other people? So the whole thing is just like their world expands like an accordion as y'all have these conversations. And so what I don't want you guys to do is feel pressure that we have to have this big, grandiose conversation with them. And because they've got to know about their past

and their parents' past, they got to know it. And then all of a sudden, you use your needs as, use them as a proxy to get your needs met which is i don't want to have these secrets in our in my house versus right when they come up then you have these conversations i will say that having some sort of context for death is is good. Whether that's a goldfish, a grandparent, a pet, one of the most... Yeah, we... Go ahead. We had a neighbor

six months ago. He passed away from COVID. So I think she kind of gets an idea, but it's still hard to gauge on whether she truly understands what death is. So this is a great, great opportunity

to you and your wife separately, together, get with your daughter and say, hey, we just want you to know that we've been really sad that Mr. Tim down the street died. And your daughter may ask, well, what's died? Or he'll come back or whatever that looks like. And you let her know, here's what grief looks like. In a way, my friend Rachel Cruz says, Cher, don't scare. In a way that she goes, oh, my parents experienced sad too. Because then it humanizes grief,

humanizes y'all. it makes your daughter one day when she feels grief she won't feel crazy because she's got a picture of it because she saw you guys grief and then you'll always have this anchor point of death so that when it comes up with uh you and daddy you know uh when y'all first got married or whatever, however the conversation goes, right? I'm trying to pretend I'm a four and a half year old and I'm there psychologically, but you know what I mean? It will come up and that's when your wife or you, whoever gets this question in a non-dramatic way, but in a factual, this is just our life. This is, I got blonde hair. I was at one time married to

somebody else and they died. Remember like Mr. Tim? My previous wife died. And here's where that can get scary for a kid. You mean mommy could die? Yeah, she could. She probably won't. And every day we tell mommy we love her. She probably won't. But yeah, we all die someday. And that's when you get the existential crisis between four to seven years old and they start to realize, oh, there was a before time. Oh, there's going to be an after me too. And you may remember that from your childhood. And so it's just a part of their story. The greatest gift you can give your kids though, is to let them know that you're a person and you get sad sometimes. It may be eight years is eight years. Do you still have like a, I don't know, on your first wife's birthday, do you go have a drink or do you go out with buddies?

I mean, do you still have seasons of sadness? Yeah, there's definitely still seasons, especially I would say the biggest ones around the time when everything happened, which is coming up in a couple weeks. So it's great. So that might be four and a half, depending on your kid, feels a little bit early.

Five and a half might not be, depending, again, if my daughter, if my wife and I had the situation, it wouldn't be too early for my daughter, but also granted, I'm kind of a weird dad. And so we talk about death a lot at my house. And so, um, her therapy bills and my sons are going to be different later on down the road. Um, in some families, it might not be appropriate until seven or eight. Or the poor family the other day that shot one of his buddy of mine and his daughter got a hold of the questions for humans cards I have and found out Santa Claus wasn't real and she's nine or ten.

She found out from me, right? So that might – Ouch. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. So that might not be – you're going to have to know your kid. But it might be, hey, daddy's really sad today. And I have a story I have never told you, but I have a story.

I was married before mommy. I had another wife, and she was in a car wreck. She got sick, whatever the story is. And again, you're talking a 30,000-foot story because she's five or six. She passed away, and like Mr like mr tim she died and uh just once a year daddy gets really sad and um when i get sad i like to be around people that i love and i like to write letters i like to hug and sometimes i even cry and it's that level of honesty and vulnerability that is gonna i, you're talking legacy changing stuff,

brother. Like you're giving your daughter's tools that she will use for the rest of her life. And she will ask hard questions and it's, it's, she will take your cue, her cue from you and your wife as to, are my parents trustworthy? Can I ask him hard questions? Are they safe to go to when I'm scared or nervous? Based on how y'all answer those questions. You know what I mean? Yep. Yeah.

I'm sorry that that's been your road so far. And I'm also really grateful that y'all found each other. And it looks like y'all have created a beautiful life. Yeah. It's all part of God's plan. It's surreal though, right? Like when you sit down and look at it it really is do y'all ever have those weird moments

yeah can I ask you one can I dig in for a second sure I've had a couple of buddies in my life whose spouse has passed away they got remarried and then they had kids and the inevitable you know I had a couple of buddies in my life whose spouse has passed away. They got remarried.

And then they had kids. And the inevitable, you know, two-drink question is like, oh, my gosh. The greatest things in my life are my kids. They wouldn't be here if the worst thing in my life hadn't happened. You know what I mean? You get these weird existential loops. Have you all had those conversations together? Yeah, we have. How did we have yeah my wife brings that

my wife brings that up a lot she's not helpful wife so she'll just come over you know she'll be sad and be like sad and unhappy because she'd be like you know there was a point in my life where kids are never in my future and she's and now look at us. Now we have these, but the time we haven't really talked about in the last six weeks, but we had this two beautiful girls that are just amazing. And now we have three and pretty sure our family's complete now. Uh, but fingers, fingers crossed.

It's quite a story. Yeah. So here's what I would, um, want to encourage you with never keep secrets from each other. And you can choose not to go down those looping spirals. We've become obsessed in our culture with the scientific method, like the asking hard questions and let's follow the plan until we get to the answer. And the other thing we were obsessed with

is taking everything apart to its smallest piece. If we can understand what makes up the atom, then we can understand what makes up humanity and we can understand what makes up the cosmos. That's our current ethos. And so sometimes we want to know why. Why did this happen and back it out here? And we can make ourselves crazy on these reverse engineering explorations of our life.

Right. And man, what a gift just to say, I don't know, but look at these three beautiful girls now. You know what I mean? And our pain is a part of our story and so is our joy. You're a gift, my man. I hope that helps. Ultimately, this is a bad analogy. Have you all had the sex talk yet at all with your daughters? No, no. By the way.

Not looking forward to that day either. It'll come sooner than, it'll come in the most random. You'll be in a Target and it'll be like, oh, oh, we're talking about tampons. All right, I'm in, I'm in. And you're gonna be ready to rock and roll, right? That happens. But in a similar way, if we can have those conversations with our daughters and with our sons and not let them feel one iota of weirdness or shame about their bodies, then they don't have weirdness and shame about their bodies. And if we don't have weirdness and shame about our bodies, they don't learn weirdness and shame. Similarly, if we are bold enough and courageous enough and honest enough

to understand, like to speak out, death is part of this. It's built into the system here. We've made it this evil, hush, hush, don't talk about a thing. And it's a part of all of us. It's all of us, right? It's just the operating instructions, right? Yeah. How do we get into the miscarriage side of things? Because I feel like that's a slightly different discussion with the whole, you know, there was a baby in mommy's body and then there wasn't. And just, we weren't really sure how the, like, we don't want to hold it from them,

but we just don't know the best way to approach that. Yeah. I, I, again, if, if, if this was a week six, um, miscarriage and the kids didn't know, do they know that mommy was pregnant? No, we hadn't told them yet. Okay. That might be something I'd hang on to. And cause, cause again, the four and two and babbling, right. Um, I'd probably hang on to that. Um, and if either of you have a season of grief around that, around that

passing, right around that miscarriage, then you let your kids know that mommy's really sad. Mommy's really sad. Daddy's really sad. And then over time, that conversation, you'll have that conversation with your daughters. And it would be, we've experienced multiple miscarriages. I got the names of our babies tattooed on my body. And those are conversations I've had with both of my kids. But again, they're a little bit older and we have a context of that type of discussion in our house. And that's not for everybody at age five or six or seven.

But those conversations will come. Again, that's setting up a, I'm willing to be vulnerable and tell you about my life. Not about, you've got to know all the things going on behind closed doors with me and mom. You know what I mean? Yep. Did I remember hearing you say in a previous episode,

there was about three weeks before having this latest baby. And my wife was just very overwhelmed with emotions and like, she's grieving, you know, the losing that one baby baby but now we're having this one i could have swore i heard you say something that's a natural body response so was i correct in that because i told her and she really was glad that i'd heard that from you but we just wanted to kind of get clarification on that about grief being a natural body response

yeah it's like it like we were excited the baby was coming, but she was extremely sad because, you know, we had lost the other baby. Well, I mean, so you went through a terrible thing. You have this grief and then you get pregnant again. And that grief was devastating to your body physically, psychologically, spiritually. Your body felt that. It experienced it. All of the stress hormones and the lack of sleep and the lack of nutrition and the lack of intimacy, all those things, the isolation. So it puts a pin in that, to use a terrible Google Earth analogy here.

And then it remembers. And the next time she gets pregnant, it sounds the alarms. Hey, remember last time, look out, look out, look out. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, a lot of that. And so what you have to do

is to recognize in a graceful, curious way, dude, my body's just trying to love me. And once your body recognizes, oh, no, I'm in control. I appreciate it, and I remember that too, and it was hard, and it was terrible. That's why you hear me say that all the time about writing letters. What letters cause us to do is to pause for an hour or 30 minutes and to think clearly, write things down, look for evidence, demand evidence to these things, and to then process. And the whole time you're breathing and you're slowing down and you're being intentional.

And what you're doing is you're telling your amygdala, hey, we're still in control up here. We're good. You don't need to run off and set off every alarm we have. Set off the anxiety alarms or the depression alarms or whatever's going on. And then we can move on to the next. Doesn't mean we're not sad. It doesn't mean we're not joyful about the new baby and sad about the baby that we lost. It's both and, same time, all that's the same time. And there's no right or wrong way to do it. But yeah, it's just most people fight their bodies. They want to shut off that sadness, and the sucky part is joy and sadness are on the same switch, man.

Okay. You know what I'm saying? So feel them both. They're both right. It's when one takes over that you say, well, maybe we need to go talk to somebody. When I just can't acknowledge the joy of this new baby because i can't get the baby that we lost out of my head i keep seeing the i keep reliving that experience i keep reliving the miscarriage i keep reliving the cramps i keep reliving the headaches and the

crying it's when you can't stop and it loops and your body gets stuck in that loop loop that's when you go see a professional. I hate this. I'm weeping and at the same time I'm holding this baby and laughing. That's part of the journey. Can I tell you this? Thank you. Those three girls won

the dad lottery when they got you. Well, thanks. Like for real. But my wife says to. She's lying to you. She's supposed to say that. I'm a podcast host.

I know. I'm just kidding. Your wife's a genius. She knows way more than my idiot butt does. Whatever. That's awesome, dude. Yeah, you got a lot there, man. Y'all got a history of grief.

Grief is a part of your story. And so over time, as your daughters dig in and ask questions and ask to be invited into your story, talk to them. Share, don't scare. But let them know, yeah, death is a part of our life. Same with the dogs, same with the goldfish, same with our neighbor down the street, Mr. Tim.

Same with all of us. It's hard. Sheltering our kids from that type of reality does nobody any good. We'll be right back on the Dr. John DeLong Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, October is the season for wearing costumes and masks. And if you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going as Brad Pitt in Fight Club era because, I mean, we pretty much have the same upper body, but whatever. All right, look, it's costume season.

And let's be honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind costumes and masks more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social setting. We do this around our families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can learn to be honest with yourself

and you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic, direct life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for your schedule. You just fill out a short online survey and you get matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com

slash Deloney. All right, we are back. Let's go to Mary in Casey, Missouri. What's up, Mary? What's up? Hey, Dr. John, how are you today? I'm good. How about you? I'm wonderful. I'm so just honored to be speaking with you. So I reached out. We have a son. So I'm divorced and remarried. We have a blended family and our middle child, who's my oldest, is 18. And he's a freshman in college. We are in baby step seven. And so he really wanted to go away to school. He struggled his senior year of high school. And so with grades and that kind of thing. He struggled academically, psychologically? Yes. Academically started to do some poor, you know, made some poor choices with drinking and vaping and that kind of thing. Um, my husband and I had a lot of talks with him

about, you know, this is a fresh start. We believe in you and he really wanted to go away. So he did. So he's, he's, uh, down in the Ark at university of Arkansas and, uh, really, really, really struggled. Classes, just like he's very social, right? So he's high social, didn't get into a fraternity, made a lot of friends, and the social life just took over. And so here we are at the end of the semester. He's on his way home right now and, um, has all Fs. So, um, he has a life coach and he's worked with her for about a year now and we've all believed in him and we really, really want to see him succeed. Um, he has, he really, really wants to go back, but it's expensive. Right. And I, I And I just got a loss as to what to do. I want to, his dad told him he would not pay for last semester.

So that's when my husband and I did. So now it's his dad's turn to pay. And it's just really hard because he's failed. And yet, right, he's only 18 and I believe in him. And I'm just so confused as to what to do. And I'm concerned about him. He's admitted that he's drinking a lot. I know that he vapes quite a bit. He says all of his friends are vaping. So I'm concerned about his health. I'm concerned about his future and just kind of lost. So I

reached out to you because I think the world of you. I appreciate that. And I've, I've had this conversation. I can't even tell you probably a thousand times in my career with, with people in your exact situation. So, um, here's what I'll tell you. Um, the greatest gift you could give your 18 year old son right now is to feel the weight of the consequences of his actions and that will be hard on you it will feel like a betrayal to him but he's 18 year old man now as much as he's a kid he's a child and you're gonna hear me tell other people that you're eight they're 18 year olds or children and i will. I'm telling you, yours is an adult. You're playing a long game with him now.

You're playing a, what does a 30-year-old son look like? And we're going to reverse engineer that. And so right now, it feels like the whole world. It feels like everything's crashing down. You feel like a failure because your kid failed and what did we do? And could it be this? And is it the divorce?

All those things. You can get existential about it and that's fine and all good. The reality is he went to college. He decided to drink and party and hang out and he flunked out. He's going to be on academic probation. If it's my son,

my son's coming home and he's going to get a job and he's going to go to community college and prove to me that he wants to be in school. And the language I use in my house is all about choice. So if one of my son, I hate when parents weaponize interactions with kids, meaning, oh, you didn't get your thing done? Well, you're not coming fishing with me. I don't like that. But here's what I do.

The same – the consequence is the same, but the semantics means everything. I will sit down with my son and say, I did this recently. If X and Y and Z does not happen, that is you choosing to not come spend time with me on this trip. And I will choose to be heartbroken because this trip is no fun without you. I don't like hunting or fishing alone without my son. And if you choose to go to bed early or hang out and not get your stuff, I will be sad that that was your choice. And in the same, and so I'm not weaponizing my relationship. I'm letting him know that the weight of this interaction is on his shoulders. He's got some choices to make. And I would sit down with your son and have that same conversation.

I want you to go to college. I want you to go to University of Arkansas where it's a great school and it's great this and career and blah, blah, blah. Great. So far, you have chosen to drink and to party and to fail. That's the choice you made. And I'm choosing to be heartbroken about that because I know you're smarter than that and I know you're more capable of that. But these are choice you made and I'm choosing to be heartbroken about that

because I know you're smarter than that and I know you're more capable than that but these are choices you made if you choose to get all A's at community college then I will choose to reinvest in your education but at this point the choices you have made suggest that you don't even want to be in college

you see how that I want him to feel the weight of the decisions and the choices he made. Of course he wants to go back. Of course all of his friends are there. Of course the girl of his dreams is there. Of course all of the – but the choices you made. I want a million dollars too, but if I spend all my money every day, then I'm choosing to not have a million dollars.

Right? So the greatest gift you could give him is to let him know that there are consequences to his choices and to love him the whole way through, by the way, love him the whole way through. Some parents have to gear themselves up for this conversation. It ends up being a, so yeah, so you got it. I wouldn't do that. Let him know that you're heartbroken too. So thank you. This is really good. A couple different scenarios. He's meeting with his dad tomorrow and he's asking dad, I want to go back. Please believe in me. He's written him a letter, et cetera, et cetera. They don't have a very good

relationship. If dad chooses to fund the next semester, which is completely out of my control, then what? Then here's what's going to happen. He's going to go back and he's going to flunk out and they're not going to let him go to college there ever again. And so the number of times I counseled students and their parents away from the college where I was getting money for their enrollment so that they didn't put themselves in a position where they could never go again.

And by the way, if you flunk out, you've got to report that on every application to another college you ever try to make. And so whatever life coach y'all have, by the way, sounds like they're terrible. Like I, that's just, paying for a year of a life coach and my kid drinks his way through freshman

year I'm not going to pay that life coach ever again right yeah like I don't know what that life's life coach rs program on the internet I don't know um but I like I would never let my kid go back without a game plan without without really strict accountability. Who's going to walk alongside you? Who's going to, and by the way, I'm a grownup. I don't have time to babysit my 18 year olds. Like I want to see all your assignments and dude, you're in college. Right. That's the thing. We're, we're, well, do we have weekly, you know, my, my wonderful husband has said he can report to me every Friday at five or whatever, what his grades are. I'm like, this just doesn't, I don't know. It doesn't feel like he's a teen, you know.

And at the University of Arkansas, I guarantee you they've got a counseling center and a tutoring center and a academic support center and faculty tutors and GAs that help the faculty tutors. The chances to be, you have to decide, I don't want to be successful at the University of Arkansas for you to flunk out. It has to be a choice you make. And if you've got learning disabilities or learning exceptionalities, they've got ADA office

and the 504, ADA 504 stuff. They've got all kinds of organizations and groups. The resources are endless. And your son made a choice to flunk out of college or flunk the semester. And so the most loving thing I think anybody does

is doesn't set himself up in a position to, you don't buy your 16-year-old a Ferrari because they don't need that. I'm protecting you from the, from your bad decision. I want you, if you're going to hit the gas, I want you to hit Honda Accord gas, not Ferrari gas, right? I want you to make an 80 mile an hour wreck, not a 280 mile an hour wreck. Well, right. And I mean, he had his, he had his car. We had to take his car away. He was driving too fast. We warned him and warned him. We got rid of his car.

And similarly. He's been reckless. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And so I don't want him to be put in a situation where he's gonna have his 18-year-old plans. I really, really want this. And hey, I believe he really wants it. I believe he got embarrassed.

I believe he's ashamed. I believe it was a wake-up call. I get it. I think it was an old Bobby Knight quote, a little basketball coach who said, everybody wants to be a champion. Everybody on the court wants to win that game. But the game's not won on that court.

The game is won the year before in the weight room and in the practice room and in the film room. Right. And so your son really wants this, but he doesn't have a plan. He doesn't have the acumen. He doesn't have a success strategy. He doesn't have any, he's had two years now or a year and a half of, of substandard academic success. He needs to get a couple of wins under his belt. Get that at a local community college, either for free. If, if Arkansas has that

program, I don't know what state you're in. Oh, you're in Kansas City, Missouri. If they've got a free community college program, or it's going to be like 50 bucks an hour or whatever, go do that, right? But set him up in a position to get some little wins so that he can choose to make bigger win decisions. And this is one of those, I don't know what your relationship is with your ex-husband, but I'd call him and say, I know I don't have any say

into what next semester looks like. I believe the best thing for our son is that he feel the weight of his consequences and that he spends a semester at a community college. Let him show us this is what he wants. I know that it can be pie in the sky, depending on what kind of partnership you have with your ex, but I would probably make that phone call. Let him know you love him, your son, and let him know he's got to feel the weight of the consequences of his choices. Thank you so much for the call, Mary. Great, great question. Great question. All right, as we wrap up today's show, the Beatles, huh? Just kidding. Smashing Pumpkins. Just kidding. Kelly's favorite song of all time. I don't even, this is like in the late 1800s, this record came out. When did this album come out? Do you even remember?

Was it 92? 88? No, I believe it was 89. 89. Oh, my gosh. Did they have electricity in 89? Just kidding. I was alive then, too. It's off the Appetite for Destruction record. The song is called Paradise City. Look at the smile on Kelly's face. It's ear to ear.

It just makes her happy. It's so good. And it goes like this. Just an urchin living under the street. I'm a hard case. That's tough to beat. I'm your charity case, so buy me something to eat. I'll pay you at another time.

Take it to the end of the line. Rags and riches are so they say. You got to keep pushing for the fortune and fame. I've always thought it was keep pushing for the punch in the face. Till just now. Keep pushing for the fortune and fame. You know, it's all a gamble when it's just a game. You treat it like a capital crime.

Everybody's doing the time. So, take me down to the Paradise City where the grass is green and the girls are pretty and smart and brilliant. I hear you, internets. Oh, won't you please take me home? Take me down to the Paradise City where the grass is green and James is kind.

I wonder what that would be like. Oh, won't you please take me home. We're taking everybody home right here on the Dr. John Deloney Show. See you soon.