The Dr. John Delony Show - Teenage Daughter Says She's Bisexual, 12y/o is Addicted to Porn & Horror Movies

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode   My 14-year-old daughter thinks she is bi-sexual. How do we talk to her about decisions that can affect her life long term?  My 12-year-old has ADD/Asperger. He has a fixation on porn and horror videos. What do we do? My sister-in-law is a recovering addict. She is doing well in the last year; she lives on her own and got her kids back. She wants my kids to sleep over and I am having issues with that. Am I being too judgmental? Lyrics of the Day: "That Look" - Aaron Watson   As heard on this episode: BetterHelp   tags: sexuality/intimacy, parenting, kids, technology/social media, counseling/therapy, boundaries, relationships   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.

Hey, on today's show, we're talking about adult themes, so watch out for the little ears in the room. We talked to a dad whose 14-year-old daughter came home and announced she's bisexual, and he wants to know what to say and do next. We talked to a woman whose 12-year-old son is addicted to pornography, addicted to horror movies, and she wants to know what to do. And we talked to an awesome mom who has a sister-in-law who's a former addict and wants to keep the kids. Stay tuned.

Hey, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Thank you for hanging out with us. I'm so glad that you're here. We got a lot lot going on today, and I'm glad that you are along for the ride. We're going to talk about relationships, mental health, parenting, all of it, right? Everything you can imagine we're going to talk about today on the show. Give us a shout at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. or go to johndeloney.com slash show, fill out the form. It goes to Kelly, and she makes the decisions as to whether we all live or die. And speaking of Kelly and James, here's what just happened.

Just now, fresh off the presses, another Deloney screw-up. I left all my stuff in the other studio i went to grab it and evidently nope i'm not even gonna say evidently evidently is what people say when they are apologizing for something that they don't think they should be apologizing for it's like evidently i hurt your feelings you're evident i walked into a studio and I missed the big red neon light that says recording. And I just busted in the middle of someone else's session. I screwed up the whole session. And in the engineering world, that's the gravest sin. Unplugging is probably the number one sin. The second sin is walking in. So on behalf of America and the 17 listeners,

Kelly, James, I'm sorry. Proud of you for taking ownership of that. Not evidently. I'm just sorry. I hope that your eye... Kelly just looked at me like this. Yeah, I don't really give a crap. Hurry up and get to the calls.

I'm just stupid. Apologies are dumb. She told me she had an ocular migraine with my name on it. That means that your head hurts because you're looking at my face. Well, I was saying I was having an aneurysm and then we created the little, instead of my baloney has a first name, it's my aneurysm has a first name

and we went to Loney. Well, I'm not sorry about that. I'm sorry about everything else, but not that. Zach, I'm sorry to you too. Fresh start. Let's do it. Fresh'm sorry about everything else, but not that. Zach, I'm sorry to you, too. Fresh start. Let's do it. Fresh start. Put your bricks down, Deloney.

They're always making fun of me. I got low self. Whatever. All right, so let's get right to the phones. Let's go to John in Oklahoma City. John, what's up, brother? How are we doing? We're doing all right.

Thank you for taking my call. You bet, man. Thanks for calling. How can I help? Okay, I have a 14-year-old daughter. Okay. And it's recently come to her mother's and my attention that she believes that she is a bisexual. Okay.

Now, she is a very easily influenced young girl and has always had trouble making and building relationships. Her mother and I feel that she is being influenced by a group of young people she just wants to fit in with. I'm trying, and my wife is trying, to figure out how do we discuss with her about whether or not this is a real thing where she's being influenced. We're having difficulty navigating this, and I would really appreciate it if you weighed in and helped me out. Yeah, you betcha. So, first thing here, most importantly, I want to applaud you for having the courage to make this call. And our churches aren't great places to ask these questions anymore. Workplace isn't great places

to ask these questions anymore. And so I have, over the last five, six, seven years, I've just dealt with parent after parent. I've sat with mom after dad, after mom after dad, just wringing their hands saying, how do we best love our kid, right? And we want our kids' lives to be great and smooth and simple. And gender and

sexuality issues, mental health challenges, physical health challenges, what major they're going to have, how beautiful they are, how beautiful they're not. Anything you can imagine, a parent just wants their kid's life to be peaceful and smooth. And the hardest thing is when we realize they're not, right? Because they're kids, they're people, right? So I applaud you, man. I can hear it in your voice that this is weighing on you. So I want to step back, way back, and I want to speak to you,

and I'm going to speak to the greater audience here too, and then we can drill down to your answers very specifically, okay? So first and most important, and I never want you to lose this, because this, she comes home as a 14-year-old and declares, I'm bi, right? This is going to be one of many, many declarations she makes over the course of her lifetime, right? Yes. It was something that she actually was withholding from us because she didn't know how we would react, and we just kind of happened to find out. So we sat down and talked with her about this. Okay. Um, but I don't believe we handled it very well. How'd the conversation go? How did it go? Um, well, my, uh, my wife and I love her

to death. Uh, but she said, you know, this isn't how you're raised. These aren't the values that we believe in. And I ended up taking her out to dinner and her and I just sat and talked and I told her, I said, look, if this is the way that you are, then that's okay. Cause I love you. But I do want you to understand, you know, that if you're being influenced by other people, that if you make declarations like this, these things kind of stick with you for a very long time, if not lifelong, because sometimes people bring these things up as a way to mock and ridicule and kind of laugh. And so my wife is not handling it near as well as I am. I'm trying just to let her know that and that I love her, and I love her deeply, and that's never going to change no matter what. But I would rather her get firmer values and figure out where they're coming from and not allowing other people to influence her and trying to mold herself into what other people want. Right.

Um, because then that's conditional love. And I want her to understand that that's not the kind of love you're trying to chase after. And I'm just having a hard time explaining this to her because let's face it, I'm dead and I'm not sure that she's really listening. So here's, here's what I want to tell you. Um, she's not going to listen to you's what I want to tell you. She's not going to listen to you. She's going to experience you.

And the fact that you picked her up from your wife's comments and took her to dinner, took her and changed the environment, took her to a safe space, looked her in the eye and said, above all else and below all else and to the east and west of all else, I love you. And that's going to be something that will reverberate in her heart and mind for the rest of her life. As will when she had the courage to come and declare anything, right? And this is a third rail issue for some folks.

And so we focus on what the declaration was but the fact that she declared a thing that she had been un like worried to declare and she was initially met with how dare you right that confirmed in her i was right to hide i was right to squash who i am i was right to and not even who i am i was right to squash who I think I am at 14, right? And so what you did was noble and remarkable. I hope every dad in the United States follows that same trajectory. That when their kid comes home and gives them any sort of declaration that's different from the picture that we have in our minds for our kids. And I don't care who you are.

You've got an imaginary picture for your kid right no matter what how different that looks like you said hey i love you to the moon and back first and good for you all right so let's i'm gonna back way up here and just use this as an opportunity to have a broader conversation and then we'll drill in okay um it sounds like you know this but i just want to say it out loud our sons and daughters are not issues for us to solve. She's your daughter, right? And our kids are not soccer stars. They're not future teachers or engineers or high school dropouts.

They're our daughters, right? They're not anxiety disorders or a spark plug or a wallflower or a high school dropout or any other label we can put on them. They're our daughters, right? And very similar to spouses, often parents, we respond to any sort of threat to our status quo, right? Any sort of thing that makes us uncomfortable with what? Advice. And we have been told over and over that we all need to have the same answers,

all the right words, all the right directions. And our goal is to make sure kids have all the right information, knowledge, coaching, advice, right? And we've also come to believe that our kids are reflections of our successes or our failures. They complete us and that their failures are permanent. Their feelings are permanent. Their responses, dreams, high school grades, first, second, third majors in college. All this is forever. And if anything gets off the rails, they are failed. They are broken and all is lost.

Right? And so now you and me are the same. We spend so much of our energy and time and worry paving the way so our kids can have these easy transitions, easy times and smooth paths to wherever it is they're going. And the heart behind that is good, man, but the result is not. So I'm going to give you an example, okay? This happened to somebody that I care about. And it's not my wife, okay?

So this person said, Daddy, I want to be a teacher. Like as a child, let's say 12-year-old, 13-year-old. Daddy, I want to be a teacher. And the dad's response was, that job doesn't make any money. You are so smart. Why in the world would you waste your brain power on being a teacher? You should be a doctor or a surgeon or a lawyer, right? Don't waste it being a teacher.

And what the daughter heard was not the factual, like that's factually correct. You make more money being a doctor. That's true. But what that little girl heard was, your feelings are wrong. You're dumb. My feelings about you are right. In fact, you can't be trusted.

And you will always need to bounce your feelings and dreams off me. And that spirit and fire and wind that swirl and burn inside of you are not to be listened to or trusted. You call me. And when I'm out of the picture, you call somebody else, right? And this is how kids learn to disassociate from their bodies, how they learn not to trust themselves and how they learn how to need other people to give them self-worth, which is the exact thing you're worried about, right? It's how they learn how to look for value in other people and insight about themselves and other people,

because clearly they can't do it on their own, right? And so what if my daughter said, hey, dad, I want to be a teacher. And my first thought was, oh, my gosh, I know what teachers make. You're going to starve. But instead I said, tell me about that. Tell me about being a teacher. What does your teachers give to you that you would love to give to other people? Right? If you're ever interested, I would love to give you some money

and you can get some ice cream with Mr. Aaron or Miss Tally and go learn about what really being a teacher is all about, right? And so now you're teaching your daughter how to listen and hear and feel her feelings and how to demand evidence from her feelings, right? How to paint a picture of her feelings and see them and know them, how to learn to trust herself, how to learn to believe in herself. And you, dad, mom, become a trusted confidant. You become a trusted person, a safe person. And there's going to be times, this is the example that I love that McConaughey gave me was, man, your job as a parent is to let them climb trees,

even when you know they're going to fall off the bottom couple of limbs. Your job is to make sure they don't get on that one limb that ain't no coming back, right? And so there is these moments and you got to climb up and do that. So take me back to this moment. You guys discover it. You guys, what does that mean? She posted somewhere? Did a friend's mom call you?

How did you guys find out? She receives rides to school from the lady who lives next door, and this was something that my daughter had shared with her, apparently because she was scared to share it with us. Right. And you're right, by the reaction that she received by her parents. Her intuition was right. Yeah.

Yeah. So we, I'm sorry, I'm a little bit nervous. No, man, you're good. You're brave and you're good. I appreciate you. Yeah, we began to talk with her, and I think it was just my wife just kind of launched in and was just telling her, you know, this is not how you are. And I think a lot of it has to do with how I believe, um, other people are viewing, um, my wife and I, as if we're failures as far as parents. And when I say other people, I'm talking generally about family members, um, how, how, uh, how family members sometimes just judgmental.

And, um, and, and I think some of this is actually that we're worried that we're going to receive shame by who she is. And the longer that I think about it, the more that I believe that I think I'm just going to have to be okay with that kind of a shame because I love my daughter too much. Oh, man. That's so good. That to me is what protecting your kid looks like not taking your kid and beating him head over stick because a 14 year old made a declaration dude as a society we have decided 14 year olds can't drive they can't um buy beer they can't buy a lottery ticket. We have put so much pressure on these kids. And you know this as the parent, but for those who don't, this is new. This is an emergent cultural issue that's emerged in middle schools, especially in high schools,

is this declaration generation. You have to walk around and say, this is who I am forever. No 14-year-old is who they are forever. That's not a real thing, right? So whenever a parent, I get that I have a picture for you, and suddenly it looks different. And again, it's going to be across a number of different things. That initial conversation, everything floods your brain, right? Religion, politics, desire to keep your daughter from ridicule, pain, any sort of hurt. And like you just said boldly, man, I don't

want to face the music on this deal. Or we've got family members who are going to challenge us or our local community church or fill in the blank. And you want to shut it down, give her advice, give her religious perspectives and the rules of life. And here's what she's feeling from you. Your feelings and thoughts are wrong. You cannot be trusted. And even bigger, there is a line to where me as mom won't love you anymore. There is a line to where the God of the universe cuts you off, right? And so instead of launching into a response to a kid who followed her gut and shouldn't have told you, right? And I'm telling you what she did.

I'm glad she did tell you. When she says, I think I'm bi, what if the response was, hey, tell me about that. Where's that coming from? Where are these thoughts coming from? It's super normal to think so-and-so and so-and-so's pretty and attractive and to want to emulate and want to be liked, to want to experience things, to want to be desired, which is one of the core human feelings that we all desire. Tell me about that, right? And now what you're teaching a kid is, hey, this is a safe place that I can

go to for the rest of my life with, should I marry so-and-so? Should I buy this house? Should I move into this place? Hey, we're having twins. That's a safe place that I can go back to and back to and back to. And more importantly, you're teaching your daughter how to speak out loud, how to have these feelings and emotions and thoughts, and then how to lay them out and demand evidence from them, right? Is this real? Or am I getting this from somebody else? Do I just want to be accepted with this group of people? I went through phases where I was a poser skater. I was a poser metal kid. I was a poser Jesus freak kid. I was all kinds of poser kids because, man, I was just trying to find out who I was. I was trying to find out my identity, right? And so when a kid gathers up the courage and strength

and bravery and says something like this, it's both awkward and deeply true and deeply, she's 14, right? And so the issue here for me is not nearly as important as what you did, man. John, and I got to just commend you on it. It's not nearly as big as I you did, man. John, I got to just commend you on it. It's not nearly as big as I love you and you're my daughter and I'm a safe person that you can always trust. You can always bounce things off you. And I'm going to hear you. I'm going to listen.

I'm going to love. That doesn't mean you have to agree with everything. That doesn't mean you've got to just hoot and holler and run down the street and throw confetti. It doesn't mean those things. It means that your daughter knows, I'm loved, I'm tethered in here. Then that, when you're tethered in, then you can have those conversations about, hey, tell me where this stuff, tell me what you're thinking.

Tell me where your heart is on these things. I do think this. I do think there is an immense, it's insanity, the pressure that these young people are under to, quote unquote, declare. And I think it's mostly social, and I think it's mostly social media. And if I'm in your situation, I mean, this is me judging another dad, so take this for what you will. But my 14-year-old is not going to have a lot of places to make any declarations. Does that make sense? Right. She's not going to have social media as a 14-year-old girl. No chance, no way, no how. The research is too clear on that stuff. She's not going to have these platforms by which she can, quote unquote, say something she can never

get back. And for whatever it's worth, her classmates aren't going to hold stuff over her. They don't care anymore, right? Or a number of them don't care anymore. Even at the multiple Christian colleges I've worked at, people want to get on with their day. It's those of us who are parents, those of us who have understood life in different ways that are really struggling with some of these broader conversations. What about you and your wife's relationship here? I don't think that this has affected our relationship. I think a lot of it is that I'm trying to get her to... I guess the bigger thing is that we can't make her do anything or make her not do anything.

We can impose consequences for certain things, but we can't make her do or not do anything. And getting my wife to understand that we can't change her behavior. She's going to do what she's going to do. She's going to weigh the consequence, but she's still going to do what she's going to do, even when we're not around. Trying to get my wife to understand that is just difficult. Yeah, and I know that's hard. And I'll even challenge you a little bit. You could. You could lock her down, man. You could. And I've seen it happen. And I'll tell every parent listening to this.

I've had that kid multiple times over at my college, in my office, looking for some place to anchor into because they know for sure mom and dad aren't safe. Now, that doesn't mean you don't hold kids accountable. That doesn't mean you don't inject wisdom into their life. That doesn't mean you let them run wild, right? That's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about at the end of the day is a 14-year-old sat down and said, hey, I'm having these kind of feelings. And the instant response was, damn those feelings, right? Get those out of here. And so what I would challenge your wife on is this.

And of course, in a respectful, kind, loving way. Let me just, I'll just be honest with you. Parents who totally, totally disagree fundamentally from a faith perspective, even from a science perspective, whatever. I can't tell you the number of parents who have called me and said, I wish I could have that first conversation back. When it comes to my kids saying, hey, I think I am gay. I think I am bi. I think I am fill in the blank. How they most wish they could have that first conversation back. And so if I'm your wife and my daughter came and, again, put anything on the table for me, whether it's this particular thing that happens to be a third rail right now, if she put down, hey, I am dating a 17-and-a-half-year-old boy

and there's nothing you can do about it. I love him and I'm going to be sexually active and fill in the blank. Or I am going to such and such concert and there's nothing y'all can do. You can lock me in my room and we'll find a way out. Whatever the thing is, right? If you first initially meet that with, hey, thanks for telling me. We love you. And don't say I love you no matter what. Just say I love you. I love you. Thank you for sharing that with, hey, thanks for telling me. We love you. And don't say I love you no matter what, just say I love you. I love you. Thank you for sharing that with us. Now let's talk about that, right? Man, you are setting up a situation that diffuses that initially, and you're setting up a long-term relationship with your kid that if you ever do want to influence belief and influence

value and influence religious viewpoints and scientific viewpoint, it all comes back to that anchored relationship. That's why kids are leaving churches in droves. That's why kids are cutting their parents out in droves because they're going to places where kids will just listen to them, right? Well, they'll just feel safe, right? Kids will take accountability. They'll take hard conversations if they trust where it's coming from. Here's my guess, John. My guess is this isn't the first time your daughter's put something out there that your wife has pushed back really hard on her. Is that fair?

Yeah. Maybe she wanted to play soccer and she says, no, in this house we do this. Or, like, give me an example of something. My daughter has been into a great number of things. And finally, we just got to the point where we said, okay, if you're going to commit to something, you're going to commit. We're not going to let you back off anymore. So right now, it's guitar.

She decided she wanted to be into it. So now we're pushing really hard. Hey, we're going to follow through with this. And, um, Does that create some tension in the home? Oh yeah. Yeah. It creates a great deal of tension. Um, I, um, I work an awful lot and, uh, some, I, I guess what a lot of this is is that my wife has to deal with so much cause I, I'm just not there for the initial moments of these things.

And I feel a great deal of guilt about that. I got that. Yeah. Yeah, I got that, man. I can hear it on you, man. So for whatever it's worth in this particular situation, you pulled your daughter out of a hard response, and took her out and you changed locations and you looked at her and said, I love you. And I want to commend you for that. Okay. I want to commend you for that. There's a difference between what you think about what she said and what that ramifications,

all that will come in due time. But the right thing in that right moment is to hug your kid and say, thank you for trusting me. I love you. Right? I want every single solitary parent to hear me say this. Your kids are not issues. They are not their achievements. They're not their accomplishments. They're not their screw-ups. They're your son.

They're your daughter. And all of these conversations, all of the LGBT stuff, all of the, what am I going to be when I grow up? All of that is rooted out of, you are welcome and safe to come sit down and talk to me. And you want them to come back again and again and again and again. And it starts with those initial responses there. And so if I could tell your wife anything, it would be stop trying to win interactions. You can crush a child. That's simple, right? Parents can do that. I'll lock you up. You're grounded till you graduate. I spent several of my summers growing up as a child grounded for the whole summer, the whole summer, man. And I deserved it too, by the way. You can crush a kid. That's simple. Can you anchor one in

so that they can truly hear you, truly feel safe, truly feel loved, and then you can have these deep, broader conversations? And just like you said, John, at some point, you've got to get to a place where I cannot decide who my kid's going to be attracted to. I can't. I can decide whether I love them or not. I cannot decide when my kid's 18 and leaves the house. I can decide not to fund their college. I can decide not to pay their rent, all that, yes. But they're going to be who they're going to be. Are they going to be my son and my daughter?

Are they going to go? So thank you so much for your heart there, John. I appreciate that call so much. Again, reach out at John Deloney or shoot us an email at johndeloney.com slash show. If you've got more questions there, I appreciate your heart, man. All right, let's go to Ashley in Shreveport, Louisiana. Ashley, what's going on?

How can I help? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you? Good, good, good. So what's up? Well, basically, I have a 12-year-old son that has ADHD and Asperger's syndrome.

And he's, right now he has a fixation on horror videos, subjects, and pornography. And his counselor that we've been seeing for a couple of months, he doesn't seem to feel like it's a big deal. But we really do. He's 12? He's 12. Oh, my gosh. Well, stop seeing that counselor today. Jeez Louise, what a moron.

Why would he say that's not a big deal? I don't know. He's addressed it with them, but he always just kind of, well, you know, I think you're, you know, you're above that. You know, that shouldn't be something you, you know, you would be interested in. But he's 12. Every 12 year old on the planet is interested in naked people. That's why they have got parents that get between them and viewing naked people. Why?

Because they're children. God almighty. Any counselor that says, I mean, they shouldn't, but it's cool. Dude, should not be a therapist, especially a child therapist. Unbelievable, man. Just the scientific research about how these poor kids are blowing the herdonic sensors out of the back of their heads with, I'm getting fired up and this is not at you, Ashley. You are beautiful and lovely and wonderful and I'm glad that you called. I am just, can't

believe my own ears that therapists would do this. If a 12-year-old is coming to see me, this is a red alert moment because the research on these kids who start looking at pornography at young ages are unable to have erections at 23, 24. They are unable to hold relationships. They are melting their sexual partners because of their misguided understanding of what sex is. They're getting sex education from pornography. And this is a stop the presses moment for me. This is pull all the internet out of my house if I have to, turn every screen off in my house if I have to. I'm not going to put that garbage in my kid's head. I'm not going to let them have access to it in any way, shape, form, or fashion

ever. I don't care if they have Asperger's or ADD or anything like that, right? And the same is going to go with horror movies, quite frankly, when it comes to, what kind of horror are you talking about? I mean, it's anywhere from like Friday the 13th all the way through he's got fixations on serial killers. Ashley, where is he getting this stuff? He's got fixations on serial killers and killers. Ashley, where is he getting this stuff? He's hearing about it.

He hears about it from his friends. And the worst part is now that he's back in school, they all have Chromebooks. And he gets on and we'll look at his history and he'll do maybe five or ten minutes of classwork and then he's on YouTube and he's just searching and just all day. Listen, you are in the school principal's office tomorrow at 8 a.m. You take the day off of work if you got to. Because those are supposed to have filters on them. He's a child. They're supposed to have filters on them. They're a child. They're supposed to have filters on them. They're supposed to not be able to just surf the web.

They're supposed to have a lot of breaks in those Chromebooks, right? And I was intentional about asking those questions with my kid. You get in there that morning and enough. A 12-year-old shouldn't be watching rated R movies in school. They shouldn't be watching them at all, for God's sakes, man. Yeah, and again, is has nothing to do with diagnostics kids are into things that get their heart rate racing right that's their kids and this is not about his diagnostics this is about the fact that he's 12 right he's 12 year old boy

wants to check out naked people he's a 12 year old boy that wants to check out cool exciting who and ah violent crazy, crazy things, right? And that's a parent's job. That's a school's job. That's a counselor's job. It's a teacher's job to protect these kids, Ashley. So I would be all up in there. And if not, I'm going to throw that computer in there.

And then we're going to do this thing the old school way because I'm not going to have my kid in that poison, in that trash, no chance, no way, no how. We can't help the conversations that our kids are having with their classmates. I actually don't, those don't bother me. They give me a great avenue into my son's heart and my daughter's heart. And so I like hearing about words that they've learned and conversations. And some of them are hard and uncomfortable, but that gives me a great avenue to have conversations with my kid, right? So, and they're going to have that for the rest of their life. They're going to hear stuff right so and they're going to have that for

the rest of their life they're going to hear stuff at college they're going to hear stuff at the workplace they're going to hear stuff at some local bar having a beer with their buddies they're going to hear those things so that doesn't bother me because those are other 12 year olds what bothers me is there's no adults stepping up in this kid's life man that are saying not on my watch you know what i mean? Yeah. Yeah, I do. You're at a burn the ships moment, Ashley, for the heart and mind of your son. Okay?

Okay. Right. And I hate, hate, hate. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't just us. I didn't feel like we were overreacting, but when the professional tells us that we are. Nonsense. You tell that moron to call me on my own show. I'd love to talk to him. I would love to, right?

Or take this YouTube clip whenever it comes out and then email it to him and say, I want to discuss this at the next session. Except hopefully by the time this comes out, you're not having any more sessions. Jeez Louise. And by the way, is this the same guy that diagnosed your child as ADD slash Asperger's? No, that was a psychiatrist several years ago.

We switched to this guy because we kept having that reoccurring problem with him searching for things. And the group suggested that we meet with him because he may be more open to talking to someone, to talking to a male instead of a female counselor. And that's fair. Kids will talk to different people with different levels of comfort. That's awesome. But when you're working with a child, you have to remember that when your kid is seeing a child counselor, psychologist, whatever, you, the parent, are the actual client there. You get to talk through what the treatment's going to look like. Not that you get to decide what the outcome's going to be, but you get to come into those and

say, my kid is already developing a pathology and addiction towards pornography. We've got to stop this and I need some help. And if a therapist is going to say, well, I don't really do that. I do guided directive therapy with 12 year olds and say, you're an idiot. And then go find somebody else that's going to help you solve this immediate crisis of a problem with your 12-year-old. Now, here's the other thing. If your child truly is on the autism spectrum, and again, I want you to go have somebody else check this. Anytime somebody just throws Asperger's and ADD, the language isn't even what they use anymore. They've got different language for that diagnostic. And so I'd recommend getting that tested and see. But man,

if you start developing some of these long-term patterns, some of these long-term loops with somebody on the autism spectrum disorder, it is unfathomable how hard it will be to unwind some of that. A kid with ADHD tendencies who's coming from a chaotic situation who maybe doesn't fit in a traditional classroom and so we're just going to label him. That's a whole other conversation. But that kid is going to suffer from this addictive, this looping, this routine-driven,

this chaos-pushing. Man, he's going to be searching, searching, searching. So we've got to get extra intentional now about having alternative behaviors alternative things and for a 12 year old, that means complete restriction, not learning to live with, hey listen Ashley your mom gut was right

your mom heart was right okay listen, follow your gut follow your heart, you know that boy better than anybody okay right um thank you all right so listen you didn't screw anything up you listen to the professionals you did what they told you to and i'm super glad that you called um it's time to get in it's time to it's time to turn into advocate mama it's time to get in it's time to turn into advocate mama it's time to go be war mama now

and again you're in that school office at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning show the history and say this is not going to happen and it's not up to the 12 year old to not go to these sites because they're 12 right good grief you're going to drive me crazy alright let's take one more call from Renee in Toledo Ohio

and then I'm just going to have to go lay out in the woods or something. All right, let's go. Hey, what's up, Renee? How are we doing? Hey, Dr. John. How are you doing? I'm doing good.

How are you? Doing good, thanks. All right. So what's up? I'm so glad I get to talk to you. I'm glad that you called. This is awesome. What's up?

So my husband and I have had a dilemma. His sister has had a on and off again drug addiction for about 20 years now. About two years ago, she started cleaning herself up, and now she has her kids back, and she's living on her own, and she wants now for my kids to come over and spend the night. Yes, and we're having a hard time trusting what goes on there. And she wants now for my kids to come over and spend the night. Yes. And we're having a hard time trusting what goes on there. Okay. I have to have a hard conversation with her. I don't want it to deter her from any progress that she's made.

Right. I don't want to be judgy or anything like that. Okay. So there's a difference between being judgy and keeping your kids safe. Okay. So take the judgy part off and then also take this off of your heart and mind and soul. You are not responsible for the outcome of somebody else's response to your boundaries. That's their choice.

Okay. Here's my recommendation. I push back against the idea of sleepovers in general. I'm not a huge fan of them. If we do have them, they happen at my house. And that's more of a blanket conversation that I have not only with particular family members. That's just what I tell everybody, right? My friends.

If you want to do a sleepover, if my son or daughter wants to do a sleepover, it's going to be over at my house because I know what goes on in my house. And mine's a lot more related to Internet stuff than it is to running the streets. We just snuck out. I spent half my life spending the night at other people's houses, and we were just out roaming the roaming the streets um just because we'd walk out the front door at somebody else's house and i the world's different now and it was stupid then it's dangerous now right and so i yeah that's all before we even get to do i really

trust my sister-in-law you know what i mean and And so that's where I draw those lines is just looping back with my kids and saying, hey, we're going to do sleepovers. We're going to do them here. When it comes to actually having boundaries with your sister-in-law, if you don't feel safe, you don't feel safe. You don't need to apologize to anybody for that. On the other hand, I know some folks who have been in recovery who are incredible people. And they've got a past that, man, makes my toenails curl. And I've seen a lot of wild stuff. And now they are incredible people.

And I wouldn't mind my son or daughter. I know that my son or daughter would be safe there. It's my baggage at this point. And so you guys just have to decide. If y'all don't think she's there yet she's not there yet and don't lose any sleep over that if you do think she's there and y'all are just struggling then um that's up to you guys right but it's at the end of the day all this is about not people's feelings not people's is it gonna hurt this is gonna make

them sad it is about keeping my kids safe, first and foremost. Okay. And I know that's a lot easier said than looking at a sister-in-law. That's what I was thinking. Easier said than done, right? Cool, Deloney. Real cool, idiot. Now I've got to sit down and have this conversation.

I know it's going to be hard. There's no question. An easy way out of that conversation is a simple, we don't do sleepovers. I know your family, we just don't do sleepovers. That's a simple conversation there. If you guys love sleepovers, you'll have a group of friends and family that you do this all the time with and your kids are going to your then it's a harder conversation. And it may be that instead of coming at her with a we don't trust you, it would be a sit-down conversation about, we are bananas about screen time.

We're bananas about people going to bed. We are bananas about language that's used in the home. And I've had these conversations with people I love dearly, right? My parents are all about tech. And we send the kids over, we tell them, remember, they're going to, my kids know, oh, we're at grandma and grum's house now, dude, we're going to be all, we're going to get iPads, right? And we remind them, hey, we're those lunatic screen time parents. And my parents are like, I know, we know.

And then they go to the zoo and they go play, right? So, but I put my boundaries up there. So it's less about, I don't trust you and more about, hey, these are my expectations for every person on earth. Can you meet those? Right? And then you are the one owning the boundary. You're not just lobbing grenades at somebody. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. And that can be a much safer way to enter that conversation than one that doesn't wreck people's hearts and minds. And again, it's not yours to own that, but I also understand you're a good person and you don't just want to melt somebody down for things they did in the past. That's a great question. I appreciate your heart. And I know that that's a challenging place to be. All right. So as we wrap up today's show, I'm going to make an admission here that I haven't admitted before. And I don't want to say that I've lied on the Ask Me Anythings. I haven't, but I've just omitted. I occasionally really, really, really love country music, especially old country music like Cash and the Merles of the world.

I love them. But I got a buddy that I knew back in college who's just turned into a sensation man he's incredible and he had a new record out a few i guess a year ago now and dude it's so good man and i don't want to be that guy being like you should listen to my friend but man he's super good he's a texas country artist named aaron watson and i was looking through some of my favorite Aaron Watson songs and man, this song off his 2014 album, Underdog Record, it's called That Look and it goes like this. She keeps it all together and I always come unwound. She's cool, calm, and collected and I

want to paint the town and she's like a Sunday morning and I'm a dance hall Saturday night. She's like a stained glass window. I'm a lone star neon light. She has another side that no one sees but me. She's the only one that brings me to my knees. There's something about Sinatra and a bottle of Chardonnay without a single word. She takes my breath away. And when she gets that look in her eyes, when she gets that want you, need to love you. Right now, that kind of look in her eyes, she's always looking so fine that I can't believe she's mine. And when those stars align in moonlight and that girl's off the hook,

when she's good, she's good, but even better when she gets that look. If that's not a Texas country song, just when she gets that look. I love it, Aaron Watson. My man, this is The Dr. John Deloney Show.