The Dr. John Delony Show - Should I Sacrifice My Career for My Relationship?

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

Join us on today’s show as we hear from a lifelong educator noticing a sudden spike in teen anxiety, a mom with a son whose negative self-talk is out of control, and a woman wondering if she should give up her career in the military to follow her fiancé. As a teacher, student anxiety is off the charts. How can I help them? How do I help my teen accept criticism and avoid negative self-talk? Should I change my career plans to be closer to my fiancé? Lyrics of the Day: "Friends in Low Places" - Garth Brooks 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: Own Your Past, Change Your Future 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.

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. As a teacher, what we're experiencing in the classroom is the phone situation. Students are, you know, zoning out really fast. After two years, three years of absolute, complete, and total isolation, that phone has become their heartbeat. Yo, yo, what up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so glad that you're with us. We have a packed house. And by packed out there in the lobby, I mean, I think three. Yeah, it looks like three. Man, they are lining up out here from all over America. Are y'all from all over America? Look at that. From all, you don't even have to, busted. So glad that

you're here. All three people here and all 11 listeners, we're so glad to have you. If you want to be on the show, give me a shout at 1-844-693-3291. We talk about mental health, relationships, your marriages, your boyfriends and girlfriends, school, whatever's going on in your heart and mind, the people that you work with, whatever's going on. Or you can go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K, fill out the form, and it goes to Kelly. Love to talk to you on the show. We got a packed show today, so let's get right to the calls. Let's go to Kim in Columbus, Ohio.

What's up, Kim? Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. Very cool. So what's up? Well, I'm a teacher and I have a situation that is becoming, growing every year. But when I'm working with a large group of students, I want to know what's the best way to assess and address the student's anxiety levels. Should I immediately back down when they push back? Great question. Yeah. Give me an example. When you say they push back, what does that mean?

They will shut down. They will, no, I'm not doing it. I can't do it. Those kinds of things. And I teach a subject matter that is related to their future. It's for career and college. I teach business. And so oftentimes it's about presentations that are verbal.

Sometimes it's about rapid response. Sometimes it is, you know, ways that make them feel a little uncomfortable. Everybody does a little bit, but I have some students that the level is just so high. Yeah. They can't even do it. So have you gone through at the college level, we had to do this. I don't remember doing it when I was a high school teacher. Um, but that's more of that's more of like I wasn't a good high school teacher. So I think that's probably more to it. But have you gone through pedagogically and pulled apart? I'm trying to speak, say this and not sound like an idiot or sound like a nerd.

Have you sat down and said for this next section, the goal here is to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And here is what the business world looks like when your boss walks by and says, why are you working on this? And your heart starts racing and you go to firefight. And so here's the skills we're attempting to learn here, and we're going to on-ramp into it. Have you pulled it apart that way for them so they know why they're engaging in these things? Absolutely. And, you know, trying to have them understand the why behind it always is important, no matter what the assignment is. Love it. Love it. Love it. Okay. So there's a couple of things that I've been successful with at the working with students. Now these are college

students. So again, it's a different population. so extrapolate from it what you will, okay? I actually got this from my wife, and she's a savant. She's a genius working with elementary school kids, so we'll find you in the middle here. Yeah. I would pass out note cards to my college students, and I'd say, write down on this thing, something you didn't get, something that I blew by and that you are going to loop on for the rest of class, something that you're struggling with. Here's what I was providing them. I was providing them a release valve.

Like just think on top of a machine. And I ultimately moved to a folder and this sounds so cheesy and lame. It was incredible. It was a folder that allowed them to every class period. How did you do? One out of three, did you show up prepared? Did you pay attention?

Were you locked in? How did I do one out of three? What's one thing you learned? What's one thing you screwed up? And we just had a folder and they got to design the folder. They had to talk about why they designed the folder the way they did in class. Here's what I was trying to give them.

A, some autonomy. A, I want to teach them you own the learning process too with me. This isn't a one-way street. And I want to, like in the college world, you're paying me a ton of money. I want to make sure, not that I'm giving you, like that I'm, this isn't entertainment, but you're paying me a lot of money to teach you biology and if I'm not communicating in a way that you get biology when we're done I need to be better at teaching this because that's what we're that's the transaction

we're making here and so but it gave them some autonomy and what I ran into really fast was it they began to take ownership of I've got a role to play here. And so some of my favorite ones was when someone would say, you had a two, Deloney. Like you were kind of, but I didn't show up prepared. And so I'm going to, right? They had to think about that for a second. Here's where anxiety loops in. Anxiety starts with, I'm disconnected, right?

I don't, my relationships are screwed up. I feel like I don't belong in here, right? I don't feel like I'm alone and I'm disconnected, right? My relationships are screwed up. I feel like I don't belong in here, right? I don't feel like I'm alone and I'm scared or I'm in a situation where I can't control what's going on here. And I can see situations, especially for high school and college kids, middle school, everybody,

where it checks all three of those boxes. Yeah. And so how can I reconnect them? How can I make them feel safe? And how can I give them some, but not all control? Because high school kids can't handle all control. That's why they're in school, right? College kids can't. Surgeon, like students can't, right? So, and here's the other side of it. I am, I think we've done a systemic massive injustice to young people

and to their families by making it so hard to give a student the grade they earned that happens to be non-passing you as a teacher know what it's like when you fail a student you didn't fail them you gave them a grade of F

or now it's if you give them an 88 it's like when you fail a student or you didn't fail them. You gave them a grade of F or now it's, if you give them an 88, it's the end of time, right? It's just the incentive is to just give them a 90 and move on with our day. The incentive is to just give them a 70. It's not worth all of the other meetings and the documentation and the drama and the this and the fights and the lawyers, it's not worth it. And so now we have a group of students who don't understand. I can't in good conscience, I'm being an unethical citizen. If I communicate to the world via your report card that you passed this course, right?

And so I think the other side of it is accountability. And what I find is people often rise to the level of that accountability. What does that mean? That means a school has to say from the principal down, we fail students here. That's who we are. And I don't know any public schools.

I don't know any private. I don't know any schools that are doing that anymore. That's just hard, right? Right, right. And when the students think they can't, then they can't. Yeah. Does that make sense? It does.

And I've been a teacher for 25 years. So you've seen the shift, right? I have. And I've seen the level of anxiety in our young people continually rise. I'm glad they have words to put to it. But, you know, I guess I feel like I really want to move them in the right direction. It's not to harm them. It's to help them experience things that they will experience in the future. So I appreciate that. I got some

great suggestions. Here's a great gift. If you gave them, I just go back to note cards because they're so cheap for all of us and they're so inexpensive and it's giving them a tool. I still use a note card in my personal life every day. If you gave them a note card that said, what's one thing you're anxious about today? Write that down and pass it into me or write in your folders that y'all all have, that you carry around,

that you turn in at the end of every class. And that's one thing I would do. They turn them in at every class and I'd go through. I'm gonna take time I don't have, but it ended up saving me time down the road, right? Absolutely. But what's one thing you're anxious about today? And if it was my mom comes home at 10 o'clock and I don't get to go to bed until midnight, then I'm going to pass that on to the counselor.

If it's I don't make – I don't do well in front of the class, then we're going to – I'm going to have a conversation about I don't know how to say this kindly, but y'all are going to have to work through that because that's a cornerstone of this class is getting up in front of other people, right? So anxiety for me in the classroom is a context, not an excuse. It gives me some, I need to provide safety, and that's just the new role of a teacher as much social worker as they are pedagogical communicator, right? Or a subject matter communicator is a better way to say that. How do I provide safety and belonging in context? And safety doesn't mean everybody gets an A and everybody gets to say what they want and everybody feels warm and fuzzy. Safety means you can fail and you're going to land somewhere soft. Right. You're going to get up in front of class and say something really ridiculous and we're not going to execute you for it.

That's safety, right? Right. And they may not have that in the workforce. They probably will not, right? No, usually not. But being able to get that out now is better than experiencing it later when they could freeze up. Well, and you're teaching them,

oh, that's what this feels like. And here's what I can do about it. Right. There's a thing I can do. Shutting down is not an option unless you want to have no rent in the future. If you want to have no,

like that's not a thing. So what is it that you're going to bring to the table here? Right. I see up on the board, Kelly wrote me a note up here that you've got two questions.

What's the second one? I like talking to you. You're making my heart feel good. Oh, good. The second one sort of is related, but I can tell you as a teacher what we're experiencing in the classroom is the phone situation has really gotten tough. So, you know, my why, I was in industry for 14 years before i became a teacher and my whole why is hey i want to get you ready for career it's college and career but ultimately it's career and so what i want for you to do is to learn the things that will give you that advantage

but what my problem is students are you, you know, zoning out really fast. The phones are coming out. They're watching videos, texting friends, listening to music. They would rather do that than they would, you know, me. And so, you know, I don't want to feel rejected. I don't want to take that personally. But it feels personal when I work really hard, you know. I spend those nights creating those lesson plans

and coming up with fun activities. But that phone is such a compelling thing for them. And it's the rule. The rule is not to have it. The statement is made at the beginning of class every day. Hey, let's put our phones away. Let's eyes up for it and let's listen. Let's get into it.

But, you know, what advice do you have for me that I can, you know, continue to get that idea, my why across to them, what it is that I do, what I do? I love that. So when it comes, like, I had an advantage in this discussion because the last group of students I was with was graduate students that I was that. So when it comes, like I had an advantage in this discussion because the last group of students I was with was graduate students that I was teaching. And I would tell them if your phone rings in class, you've, that's your choice that you're choosing to leave class. You're out. Like just go. Right. And so that was, and they're all in their twenties and thirties. And so everybody's grown up in adults and you can imagine the one time my phone rang in class, and the whole class was like, ooh. And so that's different with grad students.

With 14-year-olds or 15-year-olds, here's a way to reframe that for teachers, and it's not going to solve the problem, but it's a reframe. That phone with exhausted, fried, burned out, super anxious, super in debt parents. After two years, three years of absolute, complete, and total isolation. Yes. That phone has become their heartbeat. It is a cheap neurological hack. It's not real, but the drugs it gives their sweet brains, it's everything. So think of it as somebody's climbing up on top of a roof and you see them and you're like, hey, I built you an incredible ladder out of steel.

And they're crawling up something on like PVC pipe and duct tape and they're about to fall and break their neck. Your impulse would be to climb up there, throw your ladder up and just yank theirs out from under them. And what they're going to, it's going to, if you take their phones away, and this is awful, hear me say, I know this is bad. I'm going to send a 14 year old into fight or flight. They're done for the day. Right? So here's what I'm going to have to do as a teacher. Number one, I'm going to have to do as a teacher. Number one, I'm going to have to create some sort of environment that makes it not welcoming. That means I'm going to – I had to change how I taught over 20 years. And I hated that because I thought I was incredible.

I thought I was the greatest teacher of all time. And that means I had to chop things up in smaller bite-sized pieces we would do a piece of lecture and then i'd put them in they had to work on something and then they had to give to the class then we're back to right instead of me just lecturing for 45 minutes and they do this the homework at home right so i did i had to chop it up because that's where their attention span is now also i don't know what it looks like in high school again every school is different there's so much drama yeah the country is it possible to have a basket where all the phones go in and you put yours in first? I know some teachers that do that. They don't do that in this building. Those phones are,

you know, little mini computers. They're quite expensive. And to be able to completely keep track of them is really impossible. So, you know, when it comes to test dates, they're pretty good about it. They'll, you know, put it up in the front. But on a regular, everyday basis, it is pretty scary for them to let go of that one thing. Do you have, I mean, you sound like, I would love to have had you as a business professor, as a business teacher. Do you have connectivity to,

let me just say it this way. Here's something I did in a course. So one of my courses was, that I taught was, basically how to run a university, okay? It was an administrative course. And the course out of the gate was mostly geared towards teaching administrative theories. Here's the way you can run a school. Here's another way you can run a university. Here's another way. I taught that way for a few semesters. And then one semester, I blew it up.

And what I did was I called my friends. One was a college president. One was a college CFO of an entire system. I think had a billion dollar budget or something, something massive. A provost. I called in people who actually do these things. And I had them teach part of the lesson at the beginning of class. I broke up my students into small universities and they were all like, one of you is a president, one of you is a CFO, one of you is a provost, chief academic officer, right? And then they had to sit in front of a press. So we talk about firing and administrative stuff. Then the president would walk in and they had to fire a real college president. It was amazing. But then after class, we got to talk about, here's why we just did that. Here's what that looks like.

And so by bringing in professionals, I don't know if you can do that in a high school level, but it was, it changed everything because in the theory, it wasn't just something in a book that they were half asleep. It was, oh, I just had to present a budget to somebody who does, who does budgets for living. And she just eviscerated us appropriately, right? Or she affirmed us, I feel so good. Here's why budgeting theories matter. Does that make sense? Is there a way to bring in people in your community and then reverse engineer it?

Absolutely. And the light bulb's going off over my head. Awesome. That's fantastic. I can see we have a lot of really great human resource professionals who would love to come in and explain to our young people about why it's important to take control of that compelling feeling about the phone in the workplace. So I think that's a great idea. If you, and I'm jumping into your classroom and you're not even there. But if I've got 30 students and I broke them up into, you know, X number, six groups of five, and they are all running a business that has to cash flow at the end of the semester.

What I know here at work, I've been hired by two different executives who hated public speaking. And they hired me as a mouthpiece. Like, you're the guy that's going to go out in front and speak. Right. And they knew as a leader, I need to hire my weaknesses. That's what a good leader does. And so maybe they're not going to be presenting every week or all the time, but they're going to be a part of helping create the presentation. You see what I'm saying? So they're creating their business world moving forward. I think there's just some, it's both and it's these phones have taken over and I have to understand it's a lifeline for them and they shouldn't have them. And as a teacher, I have to recognize they do. And as a teacher who gets students an hour a day or three hours a week

or something like that, I can't fight their parents and their home systems and their trauma and their tragedy. I can provide a safe place where they can fail and land softly. And then I can reimagine how I teach so that they can see applicability. Here's how this is gonna actually work. There's a person that does it. And here's why this theory is important.

Or here's why this practice is important. Here's why you gotta speak up loud because that woman's gonna look across the table at you and say, I'm not giving you any money. And what a gift. Let me just say this, Kim. On behalf of all teachers everywhere, you are, you make my heart feel good that you're figuring all this stuff out. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you a couple of things. Okay.

I'm going to send you, I'll send you five. I'm going to send you five copies of Redefining Anxiety. It's really thin. And I wrote it so that a high school kid, a college kid, anybody can read it and get it. And you can, you can have it in your desk drawer. And I wrote it so that a high school kid, a college kid, anybody can read it and get it. And you can have it in your desk drawer. And if somebody's really struggling, you can hand it to them. And it does direct people towards counselors. So you might say, you need to go see the counselor. They're going to roll their eyes. You can say, hey, read this, check this out. That might help. The other thing I want to give you is I'm going to give you two copies of my friend Ken Coleman's book, From Paycheck to to purpose. If you get a couple of students who are thinking about, man, what would

it look like to do like find work with meaning, man, what a great gift this book could be to give to a student. You could check it out to them. And it's pretty cool. And a teacher points at you and says, Hey, I believe in you. I think strongly of you. Here's this thing. Read it over the next couple weeks and bring it back to me. Then I think that could, it's inspiring, right? And I don't know, it's a good bridge between a teacher and a student. So there's a couple things we can give you. Thank you for being so wonderful. You're so great. And everybody, we'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being

honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own 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 behind costumes and masks, 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 be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic 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 just about any schedule.

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, we are back. As you all know, most of you know, I work here at Ramsey Solutions, which was a company based on Dave's commitment to teaching people how to not live life in debt, to live life free with the reins off, to run and live and give wildly. And so one of the things that we know is that being a teacher is expensive to get the degree. It's expensive to be a teacher. They're grinding it all day long. And so we've got Ramsey Education, which is a whole wing that teaches financial principles for middle school, high school kids,

and into college too. But here's the thing. You work so hard, teachers, and you care so much. And teachers have taught the foundations and personal finance curriculum to millions and millions and millions of young people. It's incredible. April is National Financial Literacy Month.

And we're gonna celebrate teachers with a giveaway, a teacher appreciation giveaway sponsored by the Borrowed Future podcast, the Borrowed Future documentary. Teachers can win cash. We thought, how can we love you? We're just going to give you cash, right? Up to $5,000 for a couple of different teachers,

$1,000 across to teachers. So here's the deal. Teachers, don't miss out on this. If you know and love somebody who's a teacher, sign them up for this. It's cash, it's cash. It's us just saying, we don't know you, but we love you because we know what you've been going through.

Go to ramsaysolutions.com slash teacher, ramsaysolutions.com slash teacher for a chance to win. Let's go to Sarah in San Antonio. Hey, Sarah, what's going on? Hey, John, thank you for taking my call. Of course, thanks for calling. Thank you so much. What's up?

So, okay. I guess I'll lead with the question and then like provide the context afterwards. Hey, take a breath, take a breath. Okay, okay. You're good, you're good. You're safe. I'm very concerned.

I have a teenager and I'm hearing a lot of negative self-talk from a teenager a lot. And I've noticed this come out. He doesn't take, shouldn't say criticism, like just straight up criticism, but like constructive criticism. When I point out room for improvement, even he's very bold, a very bold thinker, very binary, like extreme all or nothing kind of person. And it's beautiful in a lot of ways because there's a lot of passion that comes with that. But if there's one little struggle, one little thing that doesn't go the way that my child thought, um, just kind of a crumble,

like implosion, self-negative talk. And, um, I just, I don't i don't know like it makes me worry that i'm just like how do i help my child to grow up to be this man that can continue to learn continue to be a teachable person and be confident within themselves and not be afraid to try new things. Yeah. Thank you. I love your heart, man. Thank you so much for that question. You've probably heard me ask this question before.

And so I'll ask it to you. Sure. Are you okay with, can we have some hard, like just honest, two people hanging out conversations? Is that cool? Yeah, that's great. All right. And I'm going to ask you a few questions that you can choose to either take really personally or you can,

these are not directed at you. These are just context questions, okay? Of course, yeah. So anytime I have this conversation with a parent, and I've had this a bunch, okay? So I want you to know you're not alone. This is a common conversation. Where, where in your son's world would he learn that this is the way, where would he learn perfectionism or where would he learn, uh, I need to get all this right.

Okay. So I've been really, that's an excellent question because when he was like, I mean, I'm telling you, this started very, very young. Um, most two year olds and three year olds don't feel embarrassment. Like, you know, you'll feel like a little girl, like dancing, you know, at the part, like they don't feel that social embarrassment, but my child was the one that felt embarrassed. If anybody pointed out, oh, how cute or oh, how funny, he would withdraw and he would become self-aware and insecure very, very early. Okay, can I pause you there? Can I pause you there? Of course.

So a common, I'm not saying this is you, but a common reaction to that when somebody points at a cute kid in a playground. The kid withdraws. That's their natural inclination to withdraw. Whoa, this is too much. I don't want to be around this person. And as a parent, I'll just speak to myself. I've got a kid that's very similar.

I get embarrassed because my first thought is like, say thank you, like shake their hand. What are you doing? And I get embarrassed because I believe that their withdrawing is a reflection of my parenting

and who I am is wrapped up in this. So what do I do? I go to my child, my son or my daughter, and I say, uh-uh, no, they just said hello. You go over there and shake.

Like, this is the way we do this. And what I didn't realize I was communicating to my kid was how you feel doesn't matter. What makes you, and this is the word, feelings are overwrought and we have a culture that's overrun with feelings. So we'll get there. What their body was telling them is this is not safe. And I told them, you ignore your body. You do this. And the feeling that you just mentioned that some kids, I mean, that most kids just, actually, it's not accurate. The ones that are at the park do, or the ones that are at this particular thing do, but lots and lots of kids prefer to back away a little bit, or they feel safer around kids themselves. And so if we do this over time, what a kid begins to learn is a disassociation between what their body says is safe and what everyone around them needs from them.

What am I supposed to be doing? And so they tune their radar to everybody else to the point that, and again, I am just spitballing here this with your kid, okay? You could say like, John, none of this happened within our house, But you come all the way full circle, and then all of a sudden, the child's like, one wrong mistake sets off the we're not safe alarm. Because the full line here is this. When a kid gets overwhelmed, that's their brain saying we're not safe here. And so where I'm going to start is less with what are the right things I need to tell them so that they can just get, okay, you got a D on a math quiz, get over it, let's move on to the thing. Their brain is saying I'm not safe. Either I don't belong here, I'm not safe, or I'm out of control.

I'm not stupid. I'm not smart enough for this. What I found with my own son and my own daughter, I was guilty and I've worked really hard to take this language out, is when they got an A on a math test, I cheered like crazy. When I saw them really working super, super hard, super hard, super hard, super hard, and then they didn't get a good score on it, they got a retake, I would say, oh man, well, you'll get it. What I communicated to them was, dad loves me more when this is happening than when this is happening.

And so one of those becomes infinitely more safe than the other. And so where I would look to start is where negative self-talk is, but negative self-talk is often picked up in the home. That's just like kids learn from how dad talks to himself or how mom talks to herself. And so if there's a lot of that going on, I'd look around the ecosystem there. So Kate, I just threw a lot at you. Is any of that resonating with you or are you like,

you're kind of off, man? It doesn't hurt my feelings. No, I think there is a lot of truth in what you said. In parts with the grades and stuff, I never really put too much stock in the grades. I always focused on, is there effort? Are you learning something? That type of thing. But in other aspects of when he was growing, I did a lot of homeschool know, when he was growing, I, I did a lot of homeschool with him when he was very, very young. And I focused a lot on education.

I was a stay at home mom and, um, I really enjoyed, you know, spending a lot of time in the library with him, reading to him and, you know, just having a lot of conversations with him and talking with him and teaching and teaching. And honestly, I almost feel like I overtaught him to the point where it was like everything was like turning into almost a lesson. And I tried to keep it as natural as possible. And, and I, over time, I've kind of learned to step away from that. Like now we just sit around and watch Marvel movies and we just hang out and, you know, laugh about, I don't know, whatever, you know, is going on. And I've kind of learned to gravitate away because I started to see that like, okay, yes, I laid a foundation for him, but we need to bond, you know.

Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. Yes. It's both ends, right? There's academic knowledge and we can turn everything into a lesson. And our kids learn when we turn everything into a lesson that the best way I can find love with my parents is to be right about things. Yeah.

And how do I undo, how do I undo a lot of that internal internalization that he's made of that? So it is a couple of beautiful ways to unwind that. And it's going to take, you're playing a long game here, okay? And also, let's not hold all the blame on mom and dad. He goes to school in an ecosystem. He lives in an ecosystem that tells kids from kindergarten, if you don't get in the right first grade class,

you're not going to get in the right third grade class. And if you don't get in that class, you're going to not go to college and you're going to be a loser and broke for the rest of your life. That's the ecosystem he's in, right? And you can homeschool, you can avoid it for a while, it eventually catches you. And if you go homeschool all the way through and then you go to college, or you don't go to college and you just go straight to the workforce, you end up there. If you don't get to this job title by this, so that's the world he's inhabiting. And that's hard when his orientation towards the people he loves the most is I gotta be right.

I gotta have the right answer to this. And there's a lesson everywhere. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? So a couple of cool things you can do to unwind it. One, you've heard me say a lot,

get a journal that you share with him that goes back and forth. It's gonna be a conversation with mom. And kids can often read and reread and reread and reread things that when we tell them, they don't hear it. They're going to absorb it in a way and adults do that too. But having something that you put on his bed and he's going to write before bed and he's got to do it. And then he's got to drop it off on the counter when he goes to school. And sometimes he's just going to write

like today was good and you can do the prompt. The second thing is stay on the line. I'm going to send you all three decks of the conversations with humans. Some of them are going to be, there's one for dating couples. You're going to have to skip a chunk of those, okay? Otherwise, you're going to be making another call to this show. And I'm going to have to refer you out to somebody with way more credentials than me. But here's what we're looking for. I want to give my, like, here's a question I have in my car. I spent seven or eight years trying to teach my son why old punk rock and why old hair metal was the best.

And what I realized was he didn't like it. It just didn't resonate with him. But he really loved 90s country to all of my soul's chagrin. And now I've started to say, hey, you're singing along to this song. Tell me what's so great about it. And I don't give him an answer. And I say, that is fabulous, phenomenal.

Why do you, why do those words, why does friends in low places resonate with you as a sixth grader? Because you don't go to a bar, you know why do those words, why does friends in low places resonate with you as a sixth grader? Because you don't go to a bar, you know, like why is, and he's like, man, it's the melody and it's this. So what I'm giving him, I'm giving him control back a little bit of the most important thing I can give him, which is his thoughts and his feelings and his actions. And so I'm going to ask him open-ended questions in a non-threatening way. The cool thing about this deck of cards is, is it points back, it's not me challenging you with questions. It's just, hey, this is just in a non-threatening way. The cool thing about this deck of cards is, is it points back.

It's not me challenging you with questions. It's just, hey, this is just in the deck. And he gets to learn, what's your favorite movie? And he's going to say it. And you're going to say, my favorite movie is this. Why? He'll tell you why you tell yours. And he's going to be able to go, oh man,

we have different answers to this. And both of us are right. And we both still love each other. You see what I'm saying? So I'm not going to attack the perfectionism. I might, if it gets abusive, if he starts hurting himself or cutting or getting angry, right, raging out, I'm going to have some direct interventions there, right? And I do that with my own family. But broadly speaking, I'm going to circle all the way back. I'm going to begin to teach him that I love him regardless of his answers. I'm going to teach

him, hey, I changed my mind on this. I used to think this and now I think this. There is no greater gift you can give your kid than saying the words, I changed my mind. See what I'm saying? So remember this one phrase, behavior is a language. And when a kid is dysregulated, whether they're yelling at themselves, they're wild because they got a 99.5 and they didn't get 100, they are doing drugs. Whatever the thing that they are doing is to cope with the fact that they're dysregulated. What they're saying is my body is telling me I'm not safe. And that's the greatest gift a parent can enter into that moment. Writing things down, going first and connecting with a, like, just open-ended questions about things.

And relational. Let's, like, have a date. A son and mom date. We're going to do that every two weeks. And the older he gets, he's going to roll his eyes out of the back of his head. Oh, my gosh. And you'll be like, if you keep doing that,

I'm gonna hold your hand the whole date, right? We're gonna, we're gonna have dates and then you know what? He gets to pick where we eat every time and we're gonna let him

slowly get some control back, some autonomy back and you're gonna say, that's not even my favorite restaurant but that's for sure where we're going and then you're gonna find

something good on the menu and you're gonna eat it and you're gonna say, that's great, you picked a good place. This was good. I'm glad you picked this and we're gonna going to begin to teach him. I can breathe. My relationship with my mom and my dad isn't based on right answers. It's based on they love me,

full stop, period. And now I can rappel off the edge of that rock and swing and do life all kind of wild because they love me. Moms and dads, everything's not a lesson, but everything's about love. We'll be right back. 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 churchillmortgage.com slash Deloney and get the home buyer edge today. All right, let's take Una Moss. Let's go to Alicia. Gosh, this is the second show in a row with someone from Oklahoma. What's up, Alicia? Hello, how are you?

Good, how are we doing? I'm doing pretty good. Hey, the last person I talked to from Oklahoma did a good job, so I trust you. I trust you. Okay, I'll try. Too much pressure. All right, so what's up? What's up? Okay. Um, so I have been in the military for seven years. Um, my fiance has been in for four and we're kind of at this point where I'm trying to, to decide if I should stay in the military for another year and a half or, um, and get out, or should I like continue on and be separated for, from him for like potentially two plus years. Hmm.

Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. So y'all, y'all are both in the service and you're getting stationed on opposite ends of planet. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you want to do? Um, I, I love the military. Like I said, I've been in for seven years.

I feel like it's, I think, the only thing I'm good at. Or maybe I've done it like my adult life. So I'm just very comfortable here. There you go. You saved yourself like seven months of counseling just there. You're good at a million things, but you're comfortable. Okay, cool. Yes, I'm comfortable.

And so I think it's like the unknown of getting out, but I also want to be with him. And I don't want to be like geographically separated for over two years. Right. So the word that keeps coming to mind is unknown all across the board here. And you have to decide which unknown do you want. Do you want unknown of this boy? the military? Or do you want the safety of, I know what's going to happen Monday, the Monday, 11 years from now,

I know what's going to happen. Oh, that's so tough. Not really. Well, I like the safety. I really like the safety. And that's why I like him because I feel really safe around him.

Yeah, but you're not safe if he's 17 hours away. Yeah. Do you feel safe around him or is the idea of him safe? I feel safe around him. Okay. Because sometimes people pack up and move across the country because the idea of somebody else, the significant other, felt good. But when I got next to them, it wasn't them. It was the idea of them. And the reality of them, the unknown of them, was heavier than the illusion I had earlier.

But you're telling me that, no, when I'm in this, like this, this guy may be it. Yes. Yes. Can I ask you another weird question? Yes. Yes. Go for it. Because you've had a, you've had a front row seat to this.

Is there any trepidation? Are you nervous about being a military wife? Yes. It's just, I don't know. I, we kind of have certain perspectives of them, good and bad. And I just don't want to be on the other side of it. That was the nicest. We kind of have certain perspectives of them. So good.

Like they're this like just group of gremlins running around. Yeah, and their life is so hard, right? But yes, you've been on this side of the fence for seven years, looking through the little hole in the fence, being like, ugh. And now you're like, oh no, I'm going to be one of them. Yeah. So have you sat down and had an honest conversation with a military wife about that world, that life? No, actually.

You should probably do that. Seems like a good idea. Okay. Do you think? Yeah. It seems like you're stepping into the unknown and what's cool about, what's a good way to step into the unknown is with data.

Okay. And the best way to get data is to sit down and be like, hey, I've talked crap about y'all for a long time. What's your life actually like? And you may have to have some egg on your face and be like, oh my gosh, y'all's life is not what I thought. Even though we just thought y'all all got together and talked crap about the people in service

and, you know, just complained about. It's actually pretty hard. You know what I mean? You'll have to just kind of be like, I'm sorry about that. By the way, as a guy who's had an egg on his face pretty much every day throughout his life, it's cool. It's all right. You just say I'm sorry, and then you do better next time. Okay.

Do you want to do that? Do you like this guy? I do. I do. What are you going to do when you get out of the military? I don't know. That's why. I don't know. You have some idea. I've been here so long.

I would like to be a police officer. So that was like my backup plan if I didn't make the military a career. But I know that can be equally as challenging yeah that's a whole other adventure um i wouldn't compare challenge but that's a totally new adventure that you'd probably be incredible at and do both and and is super flexible right precincts all over the country are hiring police officers so here's i what I'm going to tell you. I'm not going to tell you what to do. I don't have that.

I don't have permission to speak into that and be like, I think you should do this or this. I don't know you. I don't know him. I don't know y'all's situation. I think you have a choice between do I want the unknown? Do I want a new adventure? And I don't know what's behind door number four.

I think I do. Or do I want comfort and routine? And I'm willing to forego a really great relationship. I'm willing to forego a brand new career for safety and comfort. And I'm not going to judge either way. I know how I've chosen to live in various moments of my history, but my life's different than yours. So what are you going to do?

I think I'm going to get out in a year and a half. When you just said that out loud, how does it feel? Terrifying. Pretty terrifying, but relaxing at the same time. I think it's good to, guess make a decision If you get out And you go be a police officer And y'all break up Can you go back in? Yes But I think there would be like a

I think they give you a minimum Of like a certain amount of time That you can't You have to wait so many months Before you can get back in Gotcha I'm just wondering what that looks like I'm going to do two things like a certain amount of time that you can't, you have to wait so many months before you can get back in. Gotcha. I just wondering if what that looks like. I'm going to do two things.

I'm going to send you a copy of my friend, Ken Coleman's paycheck to purpose book. Just teach you what do I want to do with my life? And what does purpose look like? And is a bestseller. It's a good book and I'll just send it to you for free. Okay. And how long have you been with this dude?

Since 2020. Oh, y'all are COVID lovers. Yeah. I was going to say COVID daters, but you're COVID lovers. You're about to get out of the military for this dude. So is this like you see a runway here for y'all? Yes. So we want to like elope

later this year. Come down to Nashville. We'll do it here on campus at Ramsey Solutions. Do that. Okay. I'm sure that will go well.

He loves Dave, so. Do what? He loves Dave, so. Come on. All right. So here's what I'm going to give y'all for your about to be engaged gift I'm gonna give you a your subscription to ramsey plus if he's a dave fan hook you up. Okay

And here's what's gonna do for y'all. This is gonna be a way it's gonna be a tool that y'all can use Obviously, it's get out of debt and all that kind of stuff. It's got all the the app and all the stuff but more than that it's a It's a conversation starter for two people who are learning to be on the same page together. And some people are married for 20 years before they figure out how to get on the same page. And they got four kids and they realized we're in a mess. And then some people like you are like, let's do this on the front end. And so as you say, I think I'm going to transition to something else. I'm going to get out of something that is highly regimented, that's run pretty much

every minute of my life for the last almost decade. That's terrifying. I'm going to get out of something that is highly regimented, that's run pretty much every minute of my life for the last almost decade. That's terrifying. I'm going to start something completely new. I'm going to do it with this guy. This guy. Does he have tattoos everywhere? He does not. Oh, he doesn't?

Get him some. Come on. I'm just kidding. I'm going to—this non-tattooed-up guy who's probably wonderful. He's an extraordinary guy. We're going to start practicing this stuff together. And we're going to have some conversations about, hey, how do you do money? How did you grow up with money? How do you grow up? What do you think the role of a military wife is? Are we going to move from I? It's going to give y'all a runway to what could be a lifelong

awesome marriage. Thank you so much for giving up everything so my family can putter around and do our life. I'm grateful for you, Alicia. Thank you so much. And thanks to that boyfriend of yours. He must be something special if you're going to give that up. And always remember this. There's a map back. If you go out into the unknown and you realize you made a big mistake, there's a map back.

Okay. This isn't an all or nothing situation. Cool? Cool. I'm grateful for you. Good luck. Have fun. Let me know when you put in your resignation and you say, hey, I'm a year out.

And he proposes, will you let me know? I will. Oh, so cool. You're the best. You're the best. You're the best. Hey, we'll be right back. Hey, what's up You're the best. You're the best. You're the best. Hey, we'll be right back. Hey, what's up?

Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, as we wrap up today's show, the booth brought me these lyrics. I actually love this song. On behalf of my heartbeat,

the other half of my heart that beats out into the world, my son, song's for you, my man. Garth Brooks, Friends in Low Places, and it goes like this. Blame it all on my roots. I showed up in boots and ruined your black tie affair. The last one to know, the last one to show.

I was the last one you thought you'd see there. And I saw the surprise and the fear in his eyes as I took his glass of, not champagne, son, you're in middle school, glass of water with bubbles in it. And I toasted you, said, honey, we may be through. You'll never hear me complain because I got friends in low places where the chocolate milk drowns and the, I don't know, cereal chases my blues away. And I'll be okay. Not big on social graces. Think I'll slip on down to the oasis.

I've got friends in low places. And we all have friends in low places right here on the Dr. John Deloney Show. See you next time. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Coming up on the next episode. How did your brother scare you? He would like literally push us down and like get in our face and like pin us down.

And like wouldn't let us go. Your older brother is supposed to be your pathway through life, right? Supposed to clear the deck for his baby sister.