The Lazy Genius Podcast - #285 How to Parent When Kids Constantly Change

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

Being with and loving and helping guide kids is a privilege, a challenge, and can be exhausting. What works today won’t work tomorrow. What works for this kid won’t work for that kid. What works for you when you have energy doesn’t work for you when you don’t. Today I want to offer some words about that shift and then offer two simple “start small” steps to begin connecting more with your kids.   Helpful Companion Links 2022 Holiday Gift Guide Download a transcript of this episode.   This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, you're listening to the lazy genius podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 285, how to parent when kids constantly change. Now, if you're not a parent, let me speak to you first. If you have kids in your life in any way, students, nieces or nephews, neighbors, whatever, and you want a lazy genius perspective on just being a person around a kid. I think this episode could be helpful. Now, obviously parents and full-time guardians, they're the ones who are kind of on the front lines of kids constantly changing, but this is not just a parenting episode. It's really about how to be a person around kids who are trying to figure out how to be a person. You can also skip this episode if you want.

If you don't want to listen, which is totally fine. You can go peruse the new lazy genius gift guide on the website. That is also an excellent use of your time. By the way, that gift guide, it is up on the website. If you click on, if you go to the lazy genius collective.com and then you click on blog, it is, it's on the blog. It is items across three price points. And all of those items are things I either use, I have given or I have used or given enough

from that company that I know that that thing is trustworthy, right? So that exists if you're interested in it. You can go check it out. Okay, to the episode. Here's the challenge. kids change at a crazy fast pace. The minute you think that one parenting approach works, it doesn't anymore. The minute you think, this is how we communicate now.

You don't anymore. The minute you get them a pair of shoes, they don't fit anymore. We will not actually be talking about shoes in this episode, but I want to say that physical changes happen fast too and these children need to stop growing out of things. But again, not today's episode. being with and loving and helping guide kids is a privilege, a challenge, and it can be exhausting. What works today won't work tomorrow. What works for this kid won't work for that kid. What works for you when you have energy does not work for you when you don't.

There are a lot of things that are in constant shift when it comes to adults being in relationships with kids. So today, I want to offer some words about that shift and then offer two simple start small steps because that's what we do here that you can take today to begin connecting more with your kids who are constantly changing. Also, full disclosure, if you're new here, I have three kids. I have two boys who are almost 13 and almost 11 and a daughter who is six. By almost 13 and 11, I mean my boys both have November birthdays, so we're coming up on that. We are a whispered. away from having a teenager. What is happening? So yes, I have kids, but I'm not a parenting expert. And honestly, I'm not sure anyone is really, because kids are too different to be an expert in all of them.

I'm also not really sharing parenting advice. I'm not qualified to do that, nor is that the purpose of today. I want to offer some perspective and then a couple of small steps. So first, let's just talk about the challenge of changing kids and see if we can't get a little more perspective. on it. I already said this, but how we interact with kids is constantly changing because so are the kids themselves, right? This is important to remember. It is very simple, but very important to remember. One of the 13 lazy genius principles is to live in the season. What can be strange about parenting specifically is that parenting itself is a season, a long one. But within that season are many seasons that don't give you a warning of when they're going to start or stop. You're just trucking

along and then bam, you have a walker, you have a talker, you have a teenager who used to talk but doesn't at all anymore. You can be hit with a ridiculous number of changes on a dime. The season of parenting is full of many seasons. And I mean many like, M-I-N-I, like mini, many, many seasons. and it can be hard to navigate that with grace to you and your kid. So let's just name the reality. Kids change. So will you. And therefore, so will your relationship with that kid.

Next thing. It's very easy in parenting and caregiving to feel behind. The point of raising a kid is to help them be a person in the world, right, to eventually leave you. Oh my goodness. there are so many things a person should know in order to leave the supervision of a reasonably responsible adult. And so often, so so often, those skills feel like too many and that you're running out of time. So as each transition occurs, as your sweet little elementary school kid is suddenly halfway through middle school and closer to getting a license than ever before,

and that same kid still asks how many seconds to microwave a hot dog, you worry, pals? you worry. It is very easy to feel like you are always behind, that you've forgotten something, that you're failing your kid, and that you missed your chance during that previous season of your kid's life. Did you forget to teach them Spanish when they were three and now they're eight and it's just too late to capitalize on that malleable little toddler brain? There are so many ways we can struggle in feeling behind in a wide spectrum of what is reality. Because frankly, there are things our kids need to learn. They're absolutely a lot. are, at least eventually, right? They need to learn them eventually. But what's the order? What's the order to

teach them that stuff? How comprehensive should those skills be? Does a kid need to learn to cook everything? Ten meals? Three? And by what age? 12? 18? Are they still calling you from college or from their first department asking you how long they should microwave hot dogs? It's a lot. I do not have any solutions to the allotness of it, at least not in this episode, but I am here to say that it is a lot. You are not behind. You are not failing. You have not lost your chance. And even if you argue with me that you have lost your chance because something very specific

has passed its time, the perspective of, I lost my chance. It doesn't do anything except make you feel ashamed. So maybe just don't let that idea linger very long. Your kids are fine. They're going to be fine. We'll be right back. Aw isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art.

I'm Dacker Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. So kids are always changing and consequently we feel very behind. One final perspective I want to offer you is that your kids, whether yours by birth or law or proximity or profession, are trying to figure out how to be a person just like you are. That journey never stops. It never stops. And I think the sooner we embrace that as adults, the better we can love and support the kids around us. Now, obviously, there are some, you know, fairly universal things that we hope all kids experience.

We want them to learn to exist as kind and faithful citizens wherever they live. We hope they have empathy and understand other perspectives. We hope they can pay a bill. We hope they know to not put aluminum foil in the microwave. We hope they can cook an egg. You know, the list is so long, y'all. And we feel the pressure of helping them be a person. And for some things, there are limited paths to get.

the thing done, right? Aluminum foil in the microwave is a binary choice. Like, don't do it, right? Yes or no. Now, how you pay bills? There are a couple of options for that. Cooking eggs, maybe a few more options than that. But how our kids exist in the world is likely going to be deeply personal to them. How they feel around other people. What makes them happy? What makes them feel comfortable enough to speak in front of a group, how they get their energy, what makes them come alive, what matters to them. They're just trying to figure out who they are, where they are, with what they've got. As the adults in their lives, we can be part of that. We can be part of encouraging them and teaching them and making sure they know about the foil in the microwave.

But we cannot make them into a certain kind of person. We do not have control over who they are and what they do. Not really. Plus, if you are a parent and you're trying to figure out how to do this whole raising kids thing one day at a time, it deeply impacts who you are as a person. It changes how you see the world, how you see yourself, how you prioritize your time, how you interact with other people. You are also learning to become a person. When two people who are trying to figure that out bump into each other, sometimes sparks are going to fly, right? It can be frustrating, even explosive, depending on the personalities of the people. So this is me reminding you, and myself, and myself, to have grace for this process. Our kids are trying to figure it out

just like we are. But they also have way fewer tools and way less knowledge and a way underdeveloped brain to do it. So we can be a little softer towards them in that process. Now, those are some large perspectives without like a lot of practical takeaway help. I understand that. So as we close, I want to offer two simple things that you can start doing right now. These two things do not require anything from you except you. You don't need books or to follow a new parenting accounts on Instagram, although both of those things are great to do. But sometimes we think that we need to add something new to make it work. I'm here to tell you that's not always true. In many cases, you already have what you need.

So here's the first thing I would love for you to do. When you are with your kid or a kid, I want you to simply pause and affirm their humanity. Just look at them and embrace that they are like a little person trying to become a slightly bigger person and that you care about them and you care about that process. That's it. And I think the more that we do that, as adults, the more we take the slightest pause to notice that our kids are real people with big hearts and lots of ideas and more fears than they probably let on, and that we do not have all the answers for them or know the right way all the time, and that that's okay. The more that we pause in that mindset, especially in the midst of those hard transitions where our kids are changing

constantly and we feel like we're talking to a stranger or just making it up as we go along, the more we do that, the more we stay grounded. The more we see them, the more we stay loving. We stay connected to them and to ourselves. So that is the very first very, very small step. Pause and affirm their humanity. They matter. As people, they matter. The second thing is to seek the wisdom of right now by asking what matters. If you're feeling stressed out or overwhelmed by something parenting related, especially when it's a new season of parenting and your kid changed without telling you first, I want you to affirm their humanity and then ask what matters most right now? Seek wisdom for this moment and this moment only. There will be time for you to try and build it big, for you to take the parenting class or read the book or create the system.

You're very good at that energy. I have no doubt. The energy you're probably less proficient. at is this much smaller energy of just seeking wisdom in the moment. What matters right now? What does my sweet changing kid need right now? You don't have to have the answers of how to properly navigate yet another scenario where your kid is changing, not all at once and not right now. Maybe instead right now, you can see them as people. And then name what matters most and seek wisdom for that singular moment. Big systems and choices will probably happen without you're having to

work very hard. This small work is less compelling, but it is worth doing by a landslide. So our kids are constantly changing. In fact, it's hard to live in the season of parenting because of all the sudden mini seasons, right? And it's also easy to feel very behind because of it. we're all becoming people. So instead of wallowing in your own deficiencies as a parent, which I bet are significantly lower than you tell yourself, affirm who they are, see them as sweet people that you love,

and then name what matters right now. Seek wisdom for right now. And then do it again and again and again. That's not a comprehensive way to parent when kids constantly change, but it sure is a necessary part of it. Before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Bree Pepperman, which I'm obsessed with that name, by the way. I actually featured Bree's ID on Instagram last week because it was very relevant to last

week's episode about email, but it's too good and too timely not to share here. Bree wrote me this. On Black Friday every year, I go through and unsubscribe from any promotional emails I don't want to get anymore. Typically, any retailer that has your email address will email you that day. So it's super easy to see which ones you get and want to stop getting. Takes about 10 minutes and really quiets my inbox. Bree, this is such a great tip. Several other people wrote in and said that they do the same thing. It's like a Black Friday email purge, which I just love. I love that so much. And you're absolutely right. Every single company is going to

email you on Black Friday. Like, no question. So you can just know that that's your day to unsubscribe. if you want to. I think also it helps you see what content in those emails really matters to you. Every company, understandably, wants you to buy from them on Black Friday. So if you have the mindset of essentializing of getting rid of what's in the way, which is a lazy genius principle, you'll be more likely to use that perspective as your filter rather than the shopping filter, right? Not that you shouldn't buy stuff on Black Friday or be interested in someone's sales email. But if your point, when you go into your inbox on Black Friday is to eliminate rather than add, you'll be far less likely to add with stuff. And then you can clear out your inbox at the same time. It's so great. So thank you for sharing

this Bray. And congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. All right, that's it for today. Thanks so much for listening everybody for sharing these episodes, for buying the books and for just existing here in this community. I'm just so grateful for every single one of you. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra. I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, in A,

Plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to becoming you wherever you get your podcasts.