The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Raising Values: Navigating Your Child's Authenticity

Episode Date: November 19, 2023

https://www.facebook.com/RaisingValuesPodcast/https://linktr.ee/PBNLinkshttps://www.instagram.com/raisingvaluespodcast/http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.prepperbroadcasting.comhttps://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastAs our children grow, we begin to be faced with changes in dress and habits, preferences and interests, and the blossoming of that child into the person they will one day become. How fast, and even to what degree we allow them the freedom to explore themselves is a question for which there may never be a definitive answer. As parents, Gillian and Phil both struggle with where to set the guard rails to help guide their daughter towards the person she wants to be, while also becoming a woman with the sort of moral fiber and values they hope to instill.Raising Values Podcast is live-streaming our podcast on YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices.family, traditional, values, christian, marriage, dating, relationship, children, growing up, peace, wisdom, self improvement, masculinity, feminity, masculine, feminine

Welcome to the Raising Values Podcast, where the traditional family talks. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You can support the Raising Values Podcast through Patreon. Phil and Gillian are behind the mic, and we hope you enjoy the show. Welcome back to Raising Values. Good morning. Welcome. We have to make the show awkward. We always do.

It's like a requirement. It is. I think I did pretty good. So far, so good. So far, so good. Welcome to Raising Values podcast. I am Gillian, and this is Phil. This is Kathy. We never do that. We never introduce ourselves, I guess, because we always just figure it's just our friends that are watching.

Well, and our names are littered all over the metadata, and it's on the screen right now, and, you know. You're right. Don't take it. Don't. I have a meme for this occasion when your wife admits you're right in front of witnesses. And I have the whole internet that now knows for, like, what, maybe the fourth or fifth time I've announced that you were right on the podcast. They're going to take your wife card from you if you don't stop. You were about to say woman card.

I was going to say woman card. That's probably even more accurate than a wife card. Yeah. So anyway, good morning. Hi, Jim. Good morning. I've said good morning like six times. I'm sorry.

Y'all know me by this point. I am awkward. Until we start to the topic, which today is navigating your child's authenticity. I didn't hear, see anything. Thank you, because nothing happened. I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. Yeah. It's recorded. Navigating. In video and audio forever. Oh, okay.

I have proof that you admitted I was right. You were right. Again. Navigating your child's authenticity. So guess what? This one wasn't discussed on our walk this week. I always say how we talk about or come up with our topics on our walks,

and this one didn't. I was actually scrolling through Instagram, and I came across a reel from, some of you are going to be like, what? She likes her? From Drew Barrymore. I do like Drew Barrymore.

I think she is, I don't know. I think she's just really cool anyway you know she has her own talk show now and so in this reel she I guess she does this whole thing like they do with most talk shows where they talk

to the guests before the show starts and all that stuff and there was this young girl she was probably 15 or 16 years old in the audience. And she was dressed in all black and she had on the tall black boots and bright lime green hair and, you know, makeup was all done. It was, you know, very emo, like early 2000s emo kind of thing. And she stopped what she was talking about and she turned to the mother of this girl who by the way was very like midwestern straight laced conservative

conservative like short i mean no makeup on mom it didn't look like she had on much makeup at all, if any. Anyway, and so she was asking her like, how she was talking about how Drew Barrymore was talking about how she's kind of battling on and off with her daughter right now with her daughter wants to try new things and experiment. And one of the things was she wants to dye her hair bright green and Drew Barrymore, and this would, this kind of shocked me, kind of has a problem with that. Like she doesn't want her daughter to color her hair that bright green color. She always like surprises me. Sometimes she's like super, just super duper liberal.

And then sometimes she's like holds on to a conservative side a little bit. But anyway, so she was asking this mother in the audience, how do you navigate that? How do you allow her to be her authentic self, but still giving her the parameters or the boundaries that she needs to have as a child? And so I was like, whoa, this is awesome. Because we do this with our child. And I would imagine that most parents, I would hope most parents do this with their children of wanting to allow them to learn who they are and express themselves in the way that makes them the most comfortable. But also making sure they understand like there are boundaries to this and you're still 12 kind of thing.

Well, she's 11, but you know what I mean? Yeah. And when we talked about this, like this is a, this is something I refer to as installing guardrails where it's like, you know, between this guardrail and this guardrail, I am very content to let my daughter pretty much have run of the roost. You know what I'm saying? Like if she wants to wear a dress today and there's no legitimate good reason why she shouldn't wear a dress put on a dress honey if you want to wear you know if you want to redecorate your room redecorate your room like within these guardrails i'm pretty okay with most things because i'm trying to allow her to figure out who she is and express herself and

like really at some point she's 11 now but at some point between now and adulthood, she's going to have to figure out who she is as an individual separate from the two of us. She's going to figure out her own preferences, her own wants, her own internal drives. But what I'm saying is those guardrails are there because there are things on the other side of those guardrails. And I'm like, these things I think are a problem. These things I think are detrimental to you. They are harmful to you, or they just don't portray you in a way that I think you want to be portrayed to other people. So these are the guardrails that we're installing to say, everything in here is inbounds. Everything close to the guardrails, you better come talk to us about beforehand. And everything outside the guardrails is totally out of the

question because, you know, at the end of the day we have to draw a line somewhere so that we have a daughter who is, we feel has like developed proper morals, a certain standard of conduct she's going to abide by. And, you know, like call it what it is. These days there's a lot of, there's a lot of personality where the idea is like, if it feels good at the moment, do it. No consequences be damned. And you and I both know at 39 and 41 years of age that there are things like reputation that follow you around for a long

time. So the two of us with four times her age and maturity have to kind of have an eye to the future of, if you do this today, it might come back to bite you later. And she may not appreciate that at 11, but we do at our age. And I was going to also say, you were saying, like, find herself outside of us, but find herself outside of her friends, which is where she is right now in life. She's trying to figure out where does she fit in with her friend group or, you know, I forget what, anyway, never mind, where she fits in with her friend group, but then where does she fit in with herself? And so that's really hard to navigate. And luckily, and I tell her this all the time, and I don't know if she very, like if she believes me very much, but I remember what it was like at 11, 12, 13. I remember

my teenage years. I remember those thoughts. And I always, like when she was younger, she would ask us questions that I used to ask my parents. And I didn't really, I guess I did. I expected my parents to know the answers, but it was questions to things that my parents really couldn't have had the answers to. And she's asked those questions of me. And I think that is so weird that I don't know if it's normal for all kids to ask questions of life and questions of like you know those big broad like where did we come from or these what ifs and all the things that goes on in her little brain or if it's just hereditary like did she just get that from me like is that something that a trait that carried over where, what am I trying to say, Phil?

It's like she has just a constant need for information. Like she is constantly seeking out information. And that's being a child, one. I mean, from the time you were born, you were seeking information. You were answering questions. You were testing things to see what works and what doesn't work. And, you know, babies learn, oh, if I cry, I get milk. If I cry, I get attention. If I cry, I get warmth and, you know, things like that. And then they start to learn, if I laugh, I also get attention. If I coo, I get attention. You know, so we learn

from a very young age what works and what doesn't work. It was like I said on the walk we were having the other day. Human beings, you have to understand that a human being is one of, if not the most intelligent animal on the planet. We can all agree on that, right? Depends on. Okay, I didn't say the smartest. Okay, I didn't say the smartest, but we among the animal kingdom here on the earth, we have the highest aptitude for learning how to manipulate our environment. It's probably the best way to put it. We have the greatest potential for learning that.

I think in some ways ancient humans were probably smarter than we are now because they knew more about nature than we had. We have supplanted nature with technology and consider that to be a more powerful force in the world, which I don't believe. But anyway, neither here nor there. But the point is, so I firmly believe that when we're talking about like a six-month-old, a one-year-old, a two-year-old child, that child is absolutely intelligent enough to figure out how to manipulate the environment around them. Like you said, they learn very young. If I do A, I get B. And we were having a discussion in the guise of like children who misbehave to get attention or children who like obviously we can see are manipulating their parents because their parents, I would say, allow it, even though the parents are probably bristle at that, but they allow themselves to be manipulated by their kids. And children, like, I think we have the misconception that like children are, you know, they're these tiny little humans that don't really understand the world around them,

but I would argue they probably do. And they know if I do A, I can get mom and dad to do B. Or if I do A, I can get mom to do B, but it doesn't work on dad. Or I know that if I'm with grandma, I can do A and mom and dad will let me get away with it. But if my grandma's not around, I can't get away with it. Kids learn. They learn, like, they learn a complex system of how to manipulate the world around them. And they learn that instinctively. So my argument is always I believe children learn probably before they can even put it into words how to manipulate the environment around them.

And if you take the negative connotation away from the word manipulate, it's literally just input and output. But don't you think – okay, so humans are animals, and I think people forget that, that we are animals, and that it's just a form of survival? Well, I mean— I mean, cubs do the same thing in the wild. Yeah. So, anyway, yeah. No, I agree with you i mean it it it probably does all stem from like very basic survival instincts but i mean if you look at every animal in nature to some degree they most of them above a certain

point understand how to manipulate the environment around them but the critical difference with human beings is that we have see there there are certain animals that exhibit preemptive thought and we refer to that as survival instinct or genetic heck instinct you know i'm saying like an animal understands there's a storm coming i can feel it coming i better find cover and we say oh well that's just instinct i'm like no that's that is that animal has learned that these things precipitate this event which causes you to have to find shelter immediately and human beings can exhibit that too But what human beings can do that most animals can't, at least in my experience, is that human beings can cross-associate.

So in other words, like an animal has to experience something in order to apply it. But a human being can experience something and then apply that to something else that's not exactly the same, but it's close. Human beings' instincts are able to kind of like, I guess, cross-pollinate from one situation to another, if that makes sense. Yeah. I think other animals do that too. But anyway, so back to navigating your child's authenticity, you know, it's, I, so far I haven't found it hard, but I think our child, I don't know. She's not, ours is not easily influenced. Knock on wood. Sorry, Stuart, knocking on wood. She's not easily influenced by her friends. She has always been a child who knows what she

wants. She knows what she stands for. And she's going to stand by that no matter what, even if it makes her lose friends. And she is dealing with that right now in sixth grade is, this is what I'm about. And you're not about this. And so it makes it very hard for me to be your friend. And so she's kind of, uh, she's kind of learning who's, who's a friend and who's not a friend. And she's basing it off, totally off of what does she stand for? And what does she, um, of what does she stand for and what does she represent? And what's funny is that one of her teachers this month, so every week the enrichment teachers at our school give out what we call a Katja Award,

and we have a spirit word for the week, and this week's spirit word was acceptance. And so a lot of teachers were giving Katja awards to students that accepted the assignment easily. Or, you know, I gave one out last week because it's a two-week thing for accepting new students and accepting kids that are on tours and making sure that they feel comfortable at our school. kids that are on tours and making sure that they feel comfortable at our school. Piper got an Akasha award on Thursday for accepting herself for who she was and not backing down and being true to herself. And, you know, there was a lot of things that the teacher said about her. And I was very touched by that and also very proud because that is a skill that she's going to need. I mean, even like right now she needs that skill, but she's going to need that skill throughout life. And as she grows up, she's going to need it more and more and more because

she's going to have the influence of more and more people in her life. And if she can already say, this is who I am. I like mushrooms. I like wearing dark clothes. I like wearing dresses. I like, you know, whatever. I don't like makeup. I don't like having short hair. She knows what she wants and who she is at 11. Now that's going to change. Of course it's going to change. I mean, I'm not the same kid when I was 11. At 11, I needed to have a bow in my hair no matter where I went. And obviously, I'm not that person anymore. But at 11, she knows who she is. And I just hope that she can continue that. But as a parent, like you said, the guardrails, I guess a lot of times it boils down to, sure,

you can be your authentic self, but you still have to be kind to people. You still have to be someone that other people want to be around. One of the guardrails is you're not going to go around and cussing people out because you get pissed at them. You're not going to go around and act a fool because that's just what you want to do. Those are guardrails, and you're not going to cross those things. But sure, wear the black and have the mushrooms in your hair. In the summer, sure, you can color your hair pink or purple or whatever color you want. Just know that when you get back to school, you're following the dress code kind of thing.

Those are guardrails. I need to circle back through a couple of these. So Jim was saying he thinks what you were describing earlier, all the questions, is just natural, you know, common curiosity stage that all kids go through to figure themselves out. And, I mean, yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. Joe was asking what authenticity or I guess what our definition of authenticity. And I guess like for me, it is like for most people, there is kind of a public face they put on. And then there's the person they are really deep inside personally that only a few people get to see.

And for some people, that is exactly the same person. Like they just don't disguise it at all. But I can tell you that as much as I try to be that person and I can do that most of the time because like I'm very selective about my friend group. You know what I'm saying? Like I have a very, very small circle. And if you can't take me as I am, I don't even want you around because I'm not putting on a happy face for you. Yeah. But I have to work with people and I have to like, you know, be professional business Phil in that setting. Trust me, there have been moments where I've come about this close to coming off mute and telling somebody about themselves because they said something a little bit crazy to me. And I had to like mute, scream and holler and let it out, making sure I was still on mute, and then come

back as business professional Phil. So like authentic Phil is grab you by your collar and explain to you how badly you have screwed up by assuming I was somebody you could talk crazy to. But work Phil cannot do that. I'll be fired Phil. I think too, Joe, it's different for an adult and a child. I think because as an adult, hopefully you've had those guardrails set up by your parents. And so you understand I can do this, but I really shouldn't do that kind of thing. And as an adult, hopefully you have those same intentions as you deal with people. deal with people. But for me, being my authentic self, which probably didn't really start until, I don't know, maybe a year ago. 35. Okay. Yeah. I'll take 35. I was kind of dipping my toe in the water of being okay with

being my authentic self. And then it wasn't until the last year where I was just like, of being okay with being my authentic self. And then it wasn't until the last year where I was just like, screw it, this is me, this is who you get. But I, my entire life had this facade of this is Gillian. She's prim and proper. And even Phil, when me and Phil first met over the internet, before dating was, before internet dating was a thing, I had sent him a picture of me.

I was sitting on some steps in my apartment at the time I was in college. And, um, I mean, there wasn't anything to it. I was just sitting on the steps and I was smiling and he had, uh, made this assumption that I was this, what did you, goody two shoes. It wasn't the picture. It was the way you were coming across in the emails. Oh, okay. Well, anyway, I had this like, whatever, facade for that. And Phil picked up on something. But I, now looking back on it 20 years later, I think you were being very guarded.

Well, hell yeah. But that wasn't the way I read it at first because you have to understand that even at that point in my life, I was still very attenuated to a person hiding who they were from me. And that put me very much kind of on guard when I could feel like, I don't know who you are yet because you're not showing me. And I felt that from you right from the word go, I didn't realize it was being guarded to prevent heartache. All I felt was this isn't the real her and I don't know who the real her is yet. Yeah. So yeah. Call me socially a moron and very intuitive all at the same time. Like I felt something. I just didn't know what it was.

Yeah. So for most of my life, I had this guard up. I did. I had a guard up. I had a facade. And you didn't get to know the true Gillian until I knew that I could trust you. Which is probably about six months of dating. Yeah.

I would think into six months, like you didn't even really know who you were dating the first six months. Not to say that that's a bad thing, but anyway, even family. There are family members that I still have a guard up, and that's probably why we don't talk so much. But anyway, about 35 years old is when I started to dip my toe into being that authentic self and not really caring what people thought of me or whether they were going to be my friend or not. Because for some reason, I was one of those people that were like, everyone needs to be my friend. I need to be friends with everyone. And I have to be nice to everyone. And everyone wants to be nice to me.

It was just one of those things like I just wanted the acceptance. And now I just don't care. This is me. This is who you get. And, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna pick up the phone and call you every day. I'm certainly not going to text you every day to check on you. And I'm not going to chase a relationship with you if you don't come and chase a relationship with me. And it's, I say this all the time on this show, energy given to me is the same energy you're going to receive. So if you are active in my life, I will be active in your life, but I'm not going to chase you.

I'm also, you know, I have my own thoughts about things, you know, for a long time in the last five years, I guess. In those five years, I've been very shy to tell people that we were preppers. I've been very shy to tell people that, as Joe puts it, I'm a druid. Because I grew up in such a religious part of the state, I guess you could even say this country. gosh, I'd lived in the Bible belt of Baptist for so long. You did not show your sins. You did not talk about your transgressions. You didn't do any of those things because it wasn't like you were going to be taken back into the fold and loved and worked through it and everything else because my family was kicked out of the church.

So it wasn't like we had this warm... I've never had this warm, comfy, cozy feeling with religious people because I'm so afraid that... You'd be judged. I would be judged so harshly that it wouldn't matter if I was a good person or not. If I made a mistake, I was going to be kicked out of that friendship or kicked out of whatever group that was. So now I'm just at the point, long story. I'm just at the point where this is me. This is who you get. If you don't like it, it's too bad. There are so many other people out there that you can be

friends with and maybe I'm just not her. So. And conversely, like, I feel like I obfuscated a lot of those years because like, I can remember, and again, like some of this, I will call my father out because he's probably still listening. But like some of this probably comes back down to the way I was raised. Like my dad raised me and my brother from a very, I feel like a very young age to like figure out who you are, figure out what you stand for, be prepared to like throw down over your beliefs. Like if he really raised us to figure out who we were and what we stood for and what was worth fighting for figur or literally, at a fairly young age. And so by the time I got to like a lot of the years you're describing, I had already decided these are my non-negotiables with friends, with relationships, with classmates, with anybody, and I'm not willing to compromise on them. So for me, it was always a, I had like a very small group of core friends that

I felt like I could depend on. I had a larger group of kind of like associates and just people I knew from classes or from whatever, but I didn't really let them in because I thought to myself, I'm like, there's something in me that you're not going to appreciate. So you're just going to have to stay on that second tier forever until, you know, until you change your stripes. Cause I'm'm not changing mine and even by the time we met like i was in a transitionary period when we met because you know combat veteran everything i was dealing with at the time i was trying to relearn who i was and i know we've talked about like a lot of the changes in like my opinions my viewpoints that i've undergone since 2005 but like it's been a lot of like me

relearning things that I had already felt like were established. And then all of a sudden I had this really transformative experience where I was like, okay, now I have new information. I have to factor into the, the, the pantheon of like who Phil is and how he reacts to the world around him. But I, I feel like I came into my teens with a lot of that already built into me. Like I was very willing at a, you know, even in my teenage years, even in my early teenage years, if I saw a bully picking on a smaller kid, I was spring loaded to the jump in, get in the middle of it, break it up position. I was, you know, like I absolutely had no tolerance for a man picking on or pushing around a woman. That was something that was like, that came from the house. Like

we don't put up with that. So I came into the world with a lot of these things already kind of figured out and knowing this is what I stood for. And if it costs me friends, it cost me friends. I didn't care to me to me being being true to myself was always infinitely more important to me than having friends and my i mean you know this about me because of who i was when we met but like i came into this relationship very much from the point of view of if i have to walk through the rest of my days by myself, I am cool with that. You're not here because I need you. You're here because I want you to be with me.

I want to be with you. And it was always, it was the same way with friends. It's been the same way with the world. If I have to walk by myself forever because I want to compromise on my values, cool. I feel like Piper got that from you because I do think that she is walking in those same footsteps

as you did. I'm hoping, crossing fingers, praying that by high school she will have enough confidence in her authentic self that she'll be okay. Will she have bad days?

Of course. And, you know, reading through a lot of the comments, middle school is brutal. She's in middle school. She's sixth grade. You know, she has one more year in middle school and then she's in high school. And it's going to be a, I mean, it's triple the size of the school she's in, probably even four times as big as the school she's in now. So I don't, you know, Piper and I like to, we don't like to, but a lot of times we say, you know, so-and-so is going to be eaten alive when

they get in high school. And they will. And they will. I know they will. And that's unfortunate, but I don't think she's going to be one of those kids that's going to be eaten alive. and that's unfortunate, but I don't think she's going to be one of those kids that's going to be eaten alive. I think that she will have a small group of friends who can put up with her, I wouldn't even call it an attitude, but herself. She's headstrong. I think she's, and I think. Piper, okay. Piper is a mix of the two of us because she definitely has a lot of my kind of like internal strength, if that makes sense. Like she knows who she is. She knows what she wants. She knows all that.

That is like hewn out of granite in her. But she's not like me in the fact that she wants to be around other people. She doesn't like to be by herself much. No. She likes to be by herself when she needs to recharge and reset. But as a default, she wants friends. She wants to be in a social circle. She wants to be in a social setting.

She had a great time the other day with two of her friends over to spend the night. But what, and this child amazes me in the things that she says sometimes. We were on our way home. So we have a guidance counselor this year at school. And our child has been using this guidance counselor on a daily basis. And not even just because – I think one of the reasons she goes to the guidance counselor so much is I think she values what she says and she feels heard and she feels it's not mom and dad kind of thing. And so I swear I pass the guidance counselor's office daily and sometimes I look in and there's my kid and I'm like, what the hell is going on

now? Like there's a lot of drama in her class. There's a lot of girl drama in her class. And there was a lot of girl drama last year, and she's kind of learned how to navigate some of that, but there's still so much drama. And as strong-headed and strong-willed as Piper is, she still wants to be liked. She still wants – she doesn't like tension. She doesn't like fighting. She doesn't like – this one is, this one can be trusted. Uh,

I know her anyway, I work with her. Um, but she, she still is a little girl who wants to have a friend group, but what she told me, and I asked her if, um, her, the counselor had said this to her or did she just come up with this on her own. But she said that you can have a friend group and you can have a friend circle. And I said, okay, well, what's the difference between a friend group and a friend circle? Well, a friend group is your core group of friends. Those are your best friends. Those are the ones who are always going to be there for you. Those are the ones that are going to tell, tell me that's really dumb Piper. Why did you do that? Or why did you say that? Or you need to go

do this. And that's what her little friend group does. I said, okay, well, what's a friend circle? Well, a circle can get bigger and smaller depending on how many people come into your circle. They aren't your best friends, but your circle gets bigger or it can get smaller. And I was like, holy crap, how profound for an 11-year-old to think of a friend, you know, her friends like this. And, you know, and she says in that friend group, that friend circle gets bigger sometimes in a day, and then by lunch it could get smaller by lunch, you know?

And I'm like, holy crap. This is like, I wish I would have thought something like this when I was in middle school, getting bullied and picked on so much and just, you know, running to my core friends in middle school. But she's like figured this out. And I don't know if she's told her other, you know, friends that she has at school about this group versus circle kind of thing. But I thought that was pretty profound for an 11 year old to think like that about her

friends at school. And, and, and when she described it, I, I, you know, I'm on duty with her sometimes. And so I get to see these little circles and these groups and yeah, they change daily. The lunch table changes daily because they can pick where they want to eat lunch. And, um, some girls are there one day and then they're not there the next day. And most of it's because of drama. Um, they're, they're always fighting 11 year old, 12 year old and 13 year old girls are just, they're so hard. It's such year old, 12 year old and 13 year old girls are just, they're so hard. It's such a hard time for them.

And I'm sure it is for boys just as much, but I can only go off of what I know as a girl and what I see my child, my daughter go through. I can't offer anything cause I'm, I've been told over and over. I was a very atypical child and teenager. And she can be a little bossy but she i i have noticed and i've tried to counsel her in that and that that is kind of where this idea of like navigating your child's authenticity i think kind of circles back around because it's like you know like i i am i am overjoyed I've always said that like there were two things. I, three things that I like had

to teach Piper no matter what. One was how to take care of herself, which is a big overarching. She's got to know how to provide for herself. She's got to know how to like, you know, care for her own personal hygiene. She's got to know how to take care of herself or she's always going to be dependent on somebody else. And I can't abide by that. Two was I had to teach her morals because I just can't. Like, I have this very deeply ingrained idea of, like, the fact that, like, the last name we have links us to our families, and the last name, your maiden name, links you to your family, and therefore our behavior will forever reflect upon our parents and their parents

and so on and so forth. I don't think people think like that anymore. I don't care if they do or not. Well, I'm just saying, like, I know you do, but I don't think people think like that anymore. Maybe if we lived in a smaller town. Definitely if we lived in a smaller town. But nobody knows us. And we've been here for 11 years.

And nobody knows us. But regardless, it's still an expectation I have of her that like you are our child. You represent us forever. And I expect her to behave in a way that's going to represent us well and not be, you know, the little whatever that the whole town thinks badly of. Because like that's my kid. I don't want that. I don't want that on the entire family. But the third thing is I have to teach her how to modulate herself.

Because, yes, she could be a little bossy. She could be a little demanding. And a lot of that is like directly linked to just how strong will that child is. At 11 years old, I'm confident that if I let her out that front door, she would just bring the whole world to its knees because she has that strong of a will. She does. But I have to teach her how to modulate that at times because if you don't let anybody else ever have their way, nobody wants to deal with you. If you-

That's what we deal with. And that it is like that in friends it's like that in if one day she decides to date and maybe get married it's going to be like that in a marriage you can't have it all your your way all the time it doesn't work so like i find that some of what i'm having we're having to struggle with sometimes with her is the it's good that she has found she's navigating who she is and part of who she is is she's a very strong will determined person i think that serves her very well in a lot of ways but she has to learn how to give up she has to like it's kind of like

conversation she and i've had about the there's a time to question authority and there's a time to challenge authority and then there's a time where you authority and there's a time to challenge authority. And then there's a time where you don't challenge or question authority because you can't win. And like this coming from a politically like a small government anarcho-libertarian, like I tell her frequently, I'm like, you are always allowed to question authority. Always. There's always a way. If something doesn't make sense to you, you are entitled to an explanation of why it is that way. But you have to question authority politely. You can't scream and yell and holler because no one's going to give you an answer at that point. that she was given. She was, well, yes, I think it was polite, but I still got a phone call about it, you know,

which I think I've said this on the podcast before, but, you know, she was given a rule for the playground and a little boy was breaking the rule and she asked the teacher, why does he get to break the rule but I can't? And was told to go play. And so I got the phone call that she was arguing with this teacher on the playground about rules. And I said, well, did you tell her that that was the rule?

And yes, that's the rule. And I said, well, then what do you want me to do? You told her one thing. She's holding you to that rule. You can't make exceptions for that. And I'm thinking, great, we'll go get ice cream afterwards kind of thing. Yeah. But, yeah, she is very strong-willed.

And I do think that if she were to go do whatever, whatever you said, let her off out into the world, she could. She'll bring the world to its knees. Yeah. But she's also big emotions. Huge emotions. Big emotions. And I think that's why she has such a hard time with her friend groups and the girlfriends that she has at school. And all of these middle school girls and even some of the boys.

school girls and even some of the boys, you know, I think, I think that's where she gets me that comes in where she, she wants to be their friend, but then she battles with the you part in her brain and heart. And then she's like, but I'm me and they're them and kind of thing, but I don't know. But yeah, so she does utilize the school counselor a lot. And I asked the school counselor, I don't think I told Piper this and she's waking up now. So she's probably listening. But I asked her, I was like, she's in here an awful lot. Is she using you to bounce ideas off of you? Or is she tattling? Like, is this a tattle kind of thing? And she goes, no, it's not a tattling thing. She really is trying to navigate how to express herself and be herself while still being a part of this group.

And I think it's harder because she is in such a small school. There's 50, I think 56 kids in middle school. And that's fourth through seventh grade and there's 56 of them and they do everything together. Um, and so there's not, there's not a lot of kids to choose from to be in a friend group. And then because you're in a friend group, then other kids get their feelings hurt because they're not in that friend group. And so I don't know, she's, and I guess in a way, I'm kind of glad that she's having to deal with this now. And I hope and pray that when she gets into a much larger high school, that it'll be a little bit easier. She'll find her group. I mean, she won't even know a lot of the kids in her class for a long time because it's going to be so big.

I don't know. We'll see. But as far as like being her authentic self, I think there are different aspects to it. Like I said, the physical part of it. She loves to wear combat boots. You know, she is really finding her own. She'll wear combat boots with dresses. She has her own style. She wears combat boots with pants and, you know, mushrooms are everywhere. If you have seen any of the posts we made over the summer, you know, we totally just redid her whole bedroom and one wall is just all mushrooms and she's very cottage core. So, which kind of lends itself to the whole

forage thing, you know, being in nature and all that stuff. So my little druid baby back there is, you know, full gear. But then she just has those, she has her own guardrails for her friends. Like this is, guardrails isn't it, but she has her own standards for herself emotionally. And she's, I'm very, I'm very happy with the way that she is so steadfast on those things. Like I haven't seen her really sway very much at all on those, especially once she gets to know someone. And, you know, she has said to me in the past and like the last few months that she's realized who some of these girls are that were in her friend group. And she just doesn't agree with that. And so she has said, I'm just going to distance myself. And I was like, okay, great.

Distance yourself. You can be – you don't have to be their friend, but you have to be kind. And that's one of my guardrails is you have to be kind to people. You will not go to school and bully them. You will not go to school and call them names. You will not, you know, tell them about themselves because you feel like you need to be the one to tell them about themselves. You will, that is not your responsibility.

You will be kind to them. Yeah. The thing I've tried to impress upon her in the past is because like, obviously, based on my background, like I have very little moral issue with exerting my will upon somebody else. If I feel like I have to, to accomplish my goals, you know what I'm saying? Goes into like the whole self-defense philosophy and a lot of things but the thing I've tried to explain to Piper is I'm like what you have to what you have to establish at some point in your formation is what your goal is and whatever your goal is every action you take has to be in the pursuit of that goal so I've explained to her in the past I'm like if you have somebody who's being ugly on the playground they're ugly to you you. You have a couple options. You could be ugly back. You could walk away.

You could try to defuse the situation. There's things you can do, but what's your goal? Is your goal to make that person leave you alone? Then anything that accomplishes that goal is probably okay, but are there going to be consequences for using that action? And that's the other part of this equation. It gets to the things like, if you scream and yell at this girl to make her leave you alone, but all of your friends on the playground see that and they're like, wow, Piper is screaming and yelling at her. I don't want to be around her. Now you lose a whole bunch of friends. I'm like, so you have to think about these interactions strategically and think to yourself, what can I do to accomplish

my goal that doesn't have consequences connected to it I don't want to experience? Because I've always been very frank with Piper about the fact that like, you know, sometimes, yeah, you might be put in a situation where you have to pop a fuse on somebody. But you have to be, you have, you can't blow, blow a fuse emotionally. You can't make that decision emotionally. It has to be. Which is hard for her. It is.

Because she's like her mother and she has big emotions. Well, call it what it is, though. I do, too. She got that from both of us. The difference is. Yeah, I guess you do. You just hide your emotions a little better than I do. I'm a little bit better.

And better than she does. I'm a little bit better. I don't even know know it's so much at hiding them i think it's more of like i and again this comes from like a lot of military training and martial arts and everything else but i've learned to think through the emotions instead of letting them dictate my actions like that just comes with time and experience it also quite frankly it also comes from martial arts where you're getting somebody throwing punches and kicks at you, but you have to continue to think and override that fear instinct. Anybody in the audience that's ever done martial arts probably understands exactly where I'm coming from on that.

But anyway. Yeah. The thing with Piper is you're right. She has to learn who she is she has to learn what she stands for she has to learn what traits in her friends are mandatory or not acceptable and she has she has to figure all of that out in order to develop like her it's it's kind of like the discussion we were having last night, actually, about how everybody has their internal self-reflection. Like, this is who Phil Rabelais is. This is what I stand for.

This is what I'm about. These are my priorities. This is, if I had to write everything that I am into a book and I hand it to you, you could read that book and say, I know exactly who Phil is. Everybody has that idea in their head of who they are. She's still writing that book in real time. We all still are because we all still change. I mean, I'm 39 and finally writing that book. I don't know if 10 years ago, if you had asked me that question, that I would have been able to answer it honestly of who I was because I don't know who I was. I didn't know who I was.

But, you know, now I think I can answer that honestly. But, of course, she's still writing that book. She's 11 years old. She hasn't had the life experiences that an adult has. So she's definitely still figuring that out. That's why we're doing this podcast, this episode. And that's. But and see, and so like Joe says, don't lie, cheat or steal.

And then that you said, I will call you out in front of everyone at work and or in public. And in a way, she's like that. If you lie, if you cheat, or if you steal, she is going to tell you about yourself. And it might be by yourself, or it could be in front of others. Or it could just be that she's going to go to the guidance counselor and tell her or the principal and tell them or a teacher or whatever. She's known to do that too. And I don't want her to shy away from being able to, I don't want her to feel scared to tell an adult she's a child. You know, I want her though to also start to learn how to deal with those things by herself.

Like if she feels like she's been wronged, well, let's talk about that. Let's use your words. You don't always have to run to an adult to handle this. Like you can tell your friend, I don't like that. I don't like that you just said that. I don't like the way you made me feel. You know, whatever. She can handle that on her

own. And that's what I'm kind of struggling with right now is I don't want her to continue to use the guidance counselor as a crutch. And that's what I'm afraid is happening. But I also believe that the guidance counselor is giving her great advice. And a lot of times it's the same advice that she's getting from home, but because it's coming from someone else, she's absorbing that a little bit more. You know, it's not just mom and dad.

Yeah. Um, what do you mean by that tread? Be careful what you ask. You may not like what, like the answer. I think she, I think he means in reference to like Piper telling somebody about themselves

if they're, um, Oh, okay. misbehaving. Okay. Well, I mean, that's part of her authentic self. That's who she's always, always been. Piper has taken brutal honesty from a standard of living to an art form. But most of the time time she is brutally honest but it's not it's not hurtful she does she will package it in very you know pretty packaging and she got that

from you you know there are but then there are times where it's a knife to your gut kind of thing. Like she's going to tell you about yourself kind of thing. Yeah. Which is where I'm trying to navigate that whole, can you do it a little kinder? Like did you have to cut her throat, like rip her heart out when you said that? Could you have done that a little bit nicer so that she wasn't flailing on the field in emotional damage. As long as we understand that leaving them flailing on the field with emotional damage is always within the realm of possibility. Well, and I think that she's kind of made that name for herself.

Not so much, you know, the Piper's going to eat you alive kind of thing. But I think kids know that she's a no bullshit kid. Like what you see is what you get with her. I'd like to think we had a little to do with that. I don't. I think we kind of had a little to do with it. A little. But it's mostly her.

It's always mostly been her. And that's great. It'll be interesting to see where it takes her. interesting to see where it takes her. But I do, as a parent, you know, try to guide her in don't be a little shit. Really, that's what it is. Like, don't be a shit. Like, stand up for yourself and be kind to others, but also protect your heart and protect your, you know, well-being or whatever. And just don't be a little shit. Be someone that other people want to be around. Your father-in-law has sage advice.

As she becomes a teenager, Mom and Dad get dumber and dumber, not until she reaches adulthood, everyone reaches that at a different age, until they realize Mom and dad were right all along i have been forced to admit that my father is right more more than i would have cared for but taking this back around to like navigating your child's authenticity my dad and i are i think we're both very happy to admit that like he and i are very different people we approach problems in very, very different ways sometimes. And, you know, like to me, my authentic self was very different from who I would have been if I were just Carl Jr.

You know what I mean? Who are you laughing at? I'm laughing at Karina. She's not a donut maker, and I'm so going to use that with her. You'll have to put it up there that she said it's great that she can do that tactfully. I suffer from lack of tact. I don't know how to sugarcoat. I'm not a donut maker. I love that. See, I am a donut maker. Obviously, I carry sugar in my back pocket to sugarcoat everything because I don't want to hurt people's feelings. And I don't want, I don't like confrontation at all.

And so if I can avoid confrontation by, you know, throwing them a sugar donut, I certainly will. Whereas I have a little pinch of salt just in case I need to make the wound hurt a little more. Just, you know, only as necessary to get the point across. That's so funny. I'm totally using that. Yes. In any case, I think a lot of what you said, though, is like dead on. Like Piper, I feel like we're kind of fortunate and challenged at the same time by the fact that Piper is figuring so much of this out at such a young age.

But I mean, in my humble opinion maybe biased i think piper has always been very mature for her age yeah i do too like we've always we've we've gone to great lengths to not baby her we've always kind of like you know we've always left the guardrails wide enough that she has room to run and when we think she needs it we give her a little smack on the butt to get her get her moving but she's figured out a lot of this at a very young age. And like my only, maybe not my only, but my principal concern at this stage of her navigating this and us helping her navigate this is helping her to figure out this juxtaposition, her personality, where she has the, from me,

she has the, I don't care what you think. This is who I am and I'm not going to deviate from it, but she wants friends. And those two things, it's like, like I've told, I've told her this in the past.

I said, you can have things a hundred percent your way. You can have friends. You can not have them both at the same time. It's not possible. Yeah. If you want friends, You cannot have them both at the same time. It's not possible. If you want friends, if you want a social circle, you have to give. You have to compromise. If you don't, you will have no friends. Well, compromise is such a great lesson to learn, not even just for friend groups. You're going to have to compromise in marriage. You have to compromise at work.

You have to compromise. We don't compromise in marriage. You have to compromise at work. Compromise all the damn time. Compromise your face in a minute. Oh, hush. No, I'm joking. No, but I mean, yeah.

She needs to, she, that is one thing. And I do think she struggles with that a little bit because she wants things her way you know she has devised a plan in her head of actions that need to be taken and things to make things work and you know she has thought things through so so great greatly she's thought things through so much, whatever word you want to use, that she has a hard time compromising. And she has a hard time compromising when it comes to us too. Like when we, you know, or not even just compromising, I guess what I'm thinking of is she has a hard time being told what to do when she's already made a plan and she wants to

execute that plan, you know, and that plan could be something as simple as I'm going to take a bath at nine o'clock tonight. And it's like, no, you're not going to take a bath that late. You know, so she, she does, and that's just being a kid, but she does have a hard time compromising with her friends. So that is something that I want her to learn. But this is also like my opportunity to teach her a lesson is that, you know, like let's call it what it is. I would love to be able to compromise with the IRS about my tax bill every year. But sometimes as an adult, you understand that there's just no fighting that you have to, you are going to, if you fight, you will lose. So there's no point fighting. And like, that is something I've, I've expressed to her in the past is I'm like, you can always question authority, but you can't always fight authority or you can't always fight authority. But sometimes fighting authority means you are going to lose the minute you fight. And, you know, she, she does live under a dictatorship for the moment. So. Put, um, Tread's, uh, comment up there. So he asked, how are you navigating the internet and streaming and limiting it so that she keeps the physical contacts versus virtual?

So over time, Piper has been allowed to watch YouTube. A long time ago, YouTube and even YouTube kids was not allowed in this house. However, she watches YouTube on Phil's account. So Phil gets to see everything that she's watching. Plus, we do everything as a family in this living room. So she's watching YouTube while we're in here, whether I'm reading a book or Phil's on, you know, doing work or whatever. So we're listening, we're watching whatever. She's very rarely has a chance to do it on her own. And there have been many, many times where we heard something come over, audio, whatever she's watching. And we're like, nope, turn it off. Find someone else.

You're not allowed to watch that person's channel anymore. You're not allowed to watch that episode. You know, if like one of the rules is if the title has TikTok in it, don't even click play because you will be told whatever, you know, whether she's grounded or whatever. But normally it's not grounded. It's just, you know, if it has TikTok in the title, skip it. That's not grounded. It's just, you know, if it has TikTok in the title, skip it. That's not appropriate for you. She has a phone, but it's not a working phone. Like she can't make calls from this phone. And this phone does not have any sort of social media on it.

She will not get a phone until she's in high school, which is in eighth grade. It's linked to my Apple account, too. She's in high school, which is in eighth grade. It's linked to my Apple account, too. So, like, we have – when it comes to things like streaming and social media, like, you and I have exercised a ton of discretion and oversight over it, which I think is appropriate. I mean – And so for, like, her contacts and keeping in touch with her friends, especially over the summer and things like that, I don't know if you're aware of this, but Facebook has a Messenger Kids app. And so she can be friends with her friends, even though they don't have Facebook profiles, because I have a Facebook profile. She can

talk to the children of the parents who also have a Facebook profile. I hope I explained that correctly. We get to curate their friends list. Yes. So she can give me a request and say, I want to invite such and such to be my friend. And so I can go look for her parents or his parents on Facebook and say, you know, such and such, Piper would like to be such and such friend on Yahoo Messenger. She can't add people by herself. Like, she doesn't have that. That's just built in. She can't do that.

Also, I get, I read it in real time. I get messages on my watch and on my phone in real time. So as she's messaging her friends, my watch is constantly going off. And that's not a notification I ever want to silence because I want to know what she's talking about. And so I get to read those conversations in real time, which is helpful. But she does not have Snapchat. She will not have Snapchat. She does not have Snapchat. She does not have Instagram. I know some of her friends in sixth grade have Instagram accounts and they have Snapchat and they have all these things and they watch TikToks.

And I'm like, God, I just, I cringe. I cringe every time they talk about that kind of stuff, but she knows that she will never have those things. And hopefully she'll be honest about it. knows that she will never have those things. And hopefully she'll be honest about it. And she is a very honest child. Like she, she knows the password to downloading apps on her phone. She knows it. She's not stupid, but she still hands the phone over and says, mom, can I have this app? Or dad, can you please download this app? And you know, the whole conversation of, well, what is this app and what does it do? And why do you want it? All that stuff takes place. And then we can download the app,

but I know that she knows what the, um, what the password is and that she could do that on her own. If she really wanted to defy. I'll also say that like she is so far, and I'm hoping this continues through her teenage years and we don't have to readdress some of these, these behaviors she's exhibiting now.

But, like, she's also been very upfront when, like, she hears friends of hers at school having what she considers to be inappropriate conversations. Things that we have told her. Like when it comes to things like, you know, Piper's body, our bodies and, you know, things like that. It's never been for us that like we don't have these conversations. No, which is that. We don't believe that's healthy. But we have been very upfront with Piper about these are not conversations you have with other young, inexperienced and confused children at school. These are conversations you really should come and talk to mom i have offered her talk to me but i can understand she's not comfortable talking to me about little girl body things at her age and i'm i totally understand that all i've ever told her is

if you need to come talk to me i am willing but if you ask me certain things, I have no freaking clue because I've never been a woman. I don't know. But Piper's exhibited this very deeply ingrained knowledge of we should not be having a conversation. I am going to remove myself from this conversation because that is not something I am comfortable talking about. And it's never been, when she's brought this to our attention, have you noticed she's never once said, you two wouldn't want me to have a conversation. It's always been, I wasn't comfortable having, being part of that conversation. And I feel like that's another piece of her. Like she just naturally- And that's not just her, because I've had this

conversation with her class in my class before of because we were talking about internet safety and there was there was a lot of things going on their chromebooks that they were looking for and searching for and watching or doing that was totally inappropriate and we had the conversation of if you if if it makes you feel uncomfortable it's most likely because it's wrong like you don't need to be watching it you don't need to be doing it you don't need to be listening to it makes you feel uncomfortable, it's most likely because it's wrong. Like you don't need to be watching it. You don't need to be doing it. You don't need to be listening to it. If you feel uncomfortable, you need to click out of it and come tell me. And there were a couple of light bulbs that went off and they were like, yeah, I've been on a website before that made me feel uncomfortable.

Or I've seen an ad before that made me feel uncomfortable. And, you know, so we kind of explored that a little bit, but she has always been one to be like, I don't like this. This kind of makes me feel squeamish kind of thing. I'm going to tell mom and dad, or I'm just not going to go back to that again. So also with the physical contacts versus virtual, she's not allowed to talk to anyone that we don't know. So if there's a game, like last night, like last night, I don't know if you knew this. I heard. She wanted to download Among Us.

And when she was about seven or eight years old, she wanted the game Among Us 2. And so we had downloaded it and then realized that there was an open chat and you know all this other stuff was going on and so people could say and she could read i mean it wasn't like she couldn't read what they were saying but it wasn't the most appropriate conversations being had on this child's game um uh and so we told her she couldn't have among us we we took it off the ipad and she couldn't have it anymore and all that stuff. And so here she is 11 years old, almost 12. And she's asking if she can have Among Us again. And I said, why? I couldn't remember. Why did we take it off your phone in the first place? I remember you

playing it before. And she remembered very, very well why I had taken it off of her phone. And she said, you know, this had happened. You didn't want me to have it. phone. And she said, you know, this had happened. You didn't want me to have it. And then she was like, you know, I'm a little older now. I understand that there's a chat. I know that there's a way to disable it, blah, blah, blah. But so anyway, so she was very honest about that. But she's not allowed to be on anything where she can chat with people just in general,

like general public people. She can chat with people that I general, like general public people. She can chat with people that I know and have vetted and we know their parents kind of thing. Yeah. Fred's talking about a 14 year old ninth grader rebelling against the guardrails. 14 in ninth grade, she starts to rebel and being limited and gets her phone taken away from, for the smart mouth. I understand she's trying to grow up too fast and she resents. Oh gosh, that's hard. Um, again, it's just, it's a hard age. It's where I have a feeling we're going to get to one day where she's going to really want to be her authentic self.

I think the phones are such a downfall to teenagers. I don't even really want her to have a phone in high school because I know what that's going to bring. But she will be at a school where I won't be. And so keeping in contact with her is going to be, you know, utmost for her safety. But to be fair, you know, I'm sure it would be an unpopular opinion, but we could always just skip the smartphone, get her a really basic phone with no apps, and then she has no ability to use social media or anything on it, and it's literally only a tool for us to get in touch with her.

Yeah. I don't, I, I, I go back and forth on that too. And I think it was said in the chat up in, you know, earlier in the show that, um, you know, she's going, she will be bullied. She will be made fun of. And so you have to, you have to decide, is it worth her being bullied and emotionally, You have to decide, is it worth her being bullied and emotionally damaged because the kids are going to make fun of her because she doesn't have a smartphone, because she only has a flip phone. And I know what you – Do you know exactly what's going through my head right now?

I do know what's going through your head. Are we going to have this exact same conversation when she gets bullied for not having a BMW or Mercedes in the parking lot when she's 16? I understand that, and I do know that. To me, it's a principal problem. It's not even like I'm unable. I am unwilling to try to chase an appearance to keep her from getting bullied. try to chase an appearance to keep her from getting bullied. And if we're going to entertain the idea, well, we have to get her a smartphone so she doesn't get bullied.

Like, okay, well, we're also going to have to buy her $1,000 dresses for every dance. We have to buy her a $30,000 car when she's 16 and give her a credit card so she can keep up with all of her friends. But the answer... I don't think you have to go to the extreme for everything. It's not extreme though. It's principle. I don't think you have to

do that though for everything. I think if you were to give her a smartphone, it doesn't necessarily mean that she's going to get a Mercedes when she gets her driver's license. But what's the difference? You've got to debate a principle, not a dollar amount. Because if you can't apply a principle evenly, then I'm going to have a hard time swallowing it real fast.

Okay. Well, we could probably do this off the air so that. That sounds like I know I can't win this argument. Anyway, Tread, the Life360 app to keep track of her and where she is. I'm not saying that you haven't done this yet, but, uh, I think a serious conversation of you're doing this to make sure that she's safe. You're not trying to hinder her from being herself. You're not trying to, you know, let her not have any fun or anything like that.

I think that conversation needs to be had. And maybe, I don't know, I haven't had a 14-year-old yet in ninth grade, and I'm not looking forward to it. But I don't know. I don't know how to help you with that except to have these brutally honest conversations with her. I think 14-year-olds, I think teenagers in general, have to have hard wake-up calls. I think they have to have – I mean, I can remember when I was in high school, to help battle drinking and driving, I was in a skit. and drinking and driving, I was in a skit. I can't remember what it was called, but I was in a skit where they had taken an old crashed vehicle and we were bloodied up and bruised and cut and everyone was made to go onto the front lawn of the school. And it looked like there had just been

a wreck because one of the kids was drinking and driving. And of course the driver had died and, you know, real ambulances, real fire trucks, real paramedics, everything. It was just like, it was a real scene. And I think for a lot of people, it woke a lot of the kids up of this is, this is what can happen if you do this. And I think there's such a fog that goes over there's such a fog that goes over teenagers' brains that's not lifted until their mid-20s that you have to do, you have to be so brutally honest and show the gory graphic details of their life decisions and what can happen before they see it as a problem. Because to them, they're invincible

and it's never going to happen to them until your car is wrapped around a tree and your foot is hanging off, you know, kind of thing. From experience. From experience here. I wasn't drinking and driving, by the way. But you were driving like an idiot. I was driving like an idiot. And I was the one, which was the one which is so this is so crazy i went back through those pictures and i was the one that had a broken leg from the wreck um in this crash scene uh that that we did was it the same leg and it was the same leg that i had broken and that is some creepy foreshadowing i had to be put into the ambulance um in this whole

theatrical experience that i was in but um they you're right they just don't see the ambulance in this whole theatrical experience that I was in. But you're right. They just don't see the dangers in anything. They think they're invincible. They think they can live through it. I thought I could live through things and do stupid things and get away with it. And all teenagers do. They are always going to press the boundaries of things to see what they can get away with, even more than what a five-year-old does. You know what I mean? So brutally honest conversations have to happen with a teenager. Well, and to that degree, I guess my perspective really comes – And, yeah, they know everything, of course.

Yes, they do. You and I both knew everything. Not going to fight me on that huh I'm not speaking to you I'm still not speaking to you okay we'll see how long that lasts but um I mean I guess my perspective is

and this is like again parental philosophy 101 but like my perspective has always been that our job as parents is to put her on a trajectory that continues upwards after she leaves our home. And like what I've seen out of a lot of, not sound incredibly judgmental, but judgmental as hell, like failed parenting efforts, is I've seen a lot of parents who, as soon as that child kind of gets the least little bit out of their house, they just nosedive. The parent or the kid? The child. Because it's very obvious that the child was never taught to think for themselves, never taught to self-correct, never taught to take care of themselves, never taught to self-regulate. And they just go downhill immediately because mom and dad aren't there to prop them up anymore. And I've also seen a lot of kids, and we have this discussion in finances, because I can think of people, I wouldn't name on this podcast, but I can think of people by name,

who when they first kind of got out of the house, they started spreading their wings, they immediately ran into financial hardship because they were accustomed to a certain standard of living when mom and dad were floating them and the minute they have to pay for things like insurance gas rent food they they all of a sudden i can't go out with my friends anymore i can't afford cute clothes i can't afford my phone i can't afford any of this stuff and it's like yes you can't because you don't make any money, you know? So I guess like all this comes back around to this idea that like, yes, we have to put guardrails in place. And some of those guardrails are also going to be controlling our child's lifestyle so that they understand that like, you can't spend more than you make. And when you get out of my house, part of being able to take care of yourself is going to be managing yourself financially.

Like you can't just spend yourself into a hole, rack up 20 grand in debt by the time you're 20 years old. You'll be paying that off well into your 30s, especially when you're just starting out and not making a ton of money. I guess what I'm saying is like, you know, the guardrails that I keep talking about putting around our child and our children in general is really it's guardrails that are meant to guide them towards a goal long-term and not allow them to spear off into

the woods and wrap themselves around a tree figuratively. And I feel like if you don't have the guardrails there, sooner or later, most of those children are going to wander off the road and end up in the woods. And, you know, I hate to say this, but maybe experience is the only thing that's going to teach a teenager. Maybe experience is the only thing that's going to be that aha moment, you know, unhope and pray that it's not such a horrible experience that they lose their life or they, you know, have some form of, I don't know, life altering experience. But it's enough that it's a wake up call for them. You know, I was very, very blessed and fortunate that I did not die in that car accident. And I can think of a lot of things that changed in my life after that,

a lot of wake up calls that happened after that. But I also went in a totally different direction in some ways of, I know what being near death is like. And so I lived it up when I went back to college, which was stupid. I mean, I didn't drink and drive, but I still lived it up and acted like, you know, nothing had happened. But I just think, unfortunately, for some kids, experience is the only thing that is going to, that they're going to listen to. Because as a teenager or whatever, Tred, you're an idiot and nothing you say is real and nothing you say is going to penetrate because you're an adult and they know better. And like Joe said, teen is a 10 foot tall and bulletproof. And that's probably what she thinks right now is she's 10 foot tall she knows it she knows

all the answers and you're just a dummy and you need to get out of her way but that being said as parents yeah i i firmly believe sometimes you got to let them land on their butt before they learn how to walk and we we do that with piper yeah within boundaries because you know it goes back it goes back to goes back to things we said on this podcast before we're still in charge of her consequences so we get to determine what those consequences are and we get to we are we let it hurt enough to get the message across without hurting her if that makes sense like and totally understand. I totally understand the baked in parental urge to not let your children experience pain and discomfort. I get that. I feel that for my

own child all the time. But I also have to remind myself, my job as a dad is not to deliver her to 18 years of age, never having experienced discomfort. Right. That is not my, not only is it not my job, that would hurt her because it would prepare her for a life that is unrealistic. My job is to prepare her to take care of herself when I'm not here anymore. Right. So she has to experience discomfort and rules and people infringing upon her inner self. She has to

experience all that in the next seven years so that she knows how to deal with it when she's an adult. Because I see, I mean, if you crawl around the internet for just a little while, you see young people in their teens and twenties who get pulled over for the first time by cops and they go ballistic because they've never been confronted by an authority figure that said, yes, you were going to get out of the car and put on these handcuffs and get in the back of my police cruiser, you're going to jail because you did something you weren't supposed to do. And they try to argue, and they try to fight, and they try to plead,

and they cry, and they do all these things that seem very childish. Because that's the way they've learned as children to subvert. To get what they want. To get what they want. Yeah. And then they encounter a person, now that mom and dad aren't in charge of the consequences anymore, that crying and pleading has zero effect. You are going to jail. Yeah. So it goes back to that same idea I've talked about in the past. I'm very goal-oriented. I'm very laser focused on what my job is as a father. And I will not deviate from it. Like I don't care if she's mad at me.

It hurt between me and the audience. It hurts when she's mad at me. Like it genuinely, and I've expressed that to you sometimes where I've had to punish her. And I'm like, God, I hate punishing her. Like it, it upsets me to have to do it. But I've never been a person to shy away from what I had to do because I thought I had to do it. Yes. So Tread, to answer your question, yeah, it will be hell on and off for the next couple

of years. And if you think about it, think about it this way. Physically, physically, her, she is going through one of the biggest growth spurts ever in her life. Her brain is changing. Her hormones are changing. The hormones are, I'm sorry. That's just being a girl. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry for what you're going to go through in a few years. I'm going to tell you honestly that there have been days where she's come home from school and just pounded her forehead on my chest and wrapped her arms around me and teared up. And I look at my wife and I'm like, this is happening. Yes, it's happening.

But, I mean, a person's brain doesn't stop growing until they're about 25 years old. So, and when I was 25, I do, I remember having this, it was almost like my brain calmed down a little bit and the anxiety kind of calmed down a little bit. And I was a little bit more focused and a little bit more, and maybe that's just, I don't know, maybe that was just a turning point for me, but a person's brain doesn't stop growing until they're about 25. And so there's a lot going on with a teenager. So you do still have to remember that. And then you add in all the hormonal sides of everything.

And that they are in high school. And high school, I remember high school being worse than middle school. I just, yeah. So they're experiencing a lot right now. And the things that they're experiencing is not going to be a hard wake-up call for them for the most part. But for a lot of it, it's going to be a, I just want to fit in. I want to do this. I want to make sure I have friends. I want to be cool.

I want to express myself. I want to be authentic. And honestly, they lose themselves. You lose yourself as a teenager. You don't know what your authentic self is as a teenager. You're just going along with what your friend group is doing or what you think is cool or what you feel like is right and things like that. And in order to do those things, you have to go against the grain and you have to press boundaries and you have to figure out, I don't know, you have to figure out what you like and you don't like and what works and what doesn't work.

And just like a newborn baby is figuring out what gets me fed and warm and cuddled and loved, a teenager is still trying to figure out those things too, but in a different way with a lot more resources. And with a lot more complicated goals. Yes. Can we approach this real quick before we start to wrap this up? We're an hour and 20 in. Tred asked, did you ever go back and apologize to your parents for your actions growing up? I did. I did. I put my parents through hell, and my sisters put my parents through even more hell.

And if my sister is watching, she knows exactly what I'm talking about. Because we've had that episode where my sister, you know, she's a recovering addict. She's apologized for it, though know, she's a recovering addict. She's apologized for it though. And she's made good. Um, as far as I know, me and my older sister have both apologized to my parents. And along with that apology came the, um, I hope your, I hope your, um, your wish of, uh, one day you'll have kids and they'll be worse than you or something like that. Doesn't come true. But I did. I went back and apologized to my parents. And every now and then I still do, especially when conversations of the rec come up or whatever.

And, you know, my parents have apologized to us. I said this on an episode a couple of weeks ago, that my dad apologized for not being more present in our lives and, you know, working all the time and that things may not have turned out the same way had he just dedicated more time to the family instead of making money kind of thing. So there is this whole mutual, once you become an adult child of your parents, there, there does come this mutual, um, adult relationship of look i know i was a little shit and i'm sorry for that and i put you through hell and i know i wrecked the car

and i almost killed myself and at 18 you you had to take care of a paralyzed child but you know i'm better now but we're better better. So, yes, I did. I don't know if you did. What did you have to apologize for? Phil was a perfect child, wasn't he, Dad? No, I wasn't. I have apologized to my parents mostly just for being a difficult child. Because the same way you described Piper being super headstrong, questioning things all the time, I was not an easy child to raise.

questioning things all the time. I was not an easy child to raise. And it wasn't that I was like directly confrontational or like directly antagonistic. It was more just the fact that I always wanted to know why I always questioned things. I was very, very like headstrong and directed about this is just take that comment down. Oh yeah. But like, I was very, I was, I was just, I was a very difficult child to raise i was i was not a child that accepted just do what i said very well so like i know that i was probably a pain in the butt for my parents but i don't feel like i was ever like directly rebellious or antagonistic except in very limited circumstances but i have apologized to them for it's kind of a backhanded apology too because like there have been times where i've told my dad i'm like i mean i'm sorry that was difficult for you but you literally raised me this way

which is like a funny thing between me and my dad because he's very upfront about the fact that like yeah i raised both my boys to figure out who they were be their own men make their own decisions suffer their own consequences like i raised them both so that they could take care of themselves without me but the downside of that was sometimes those kids make decisions you don't really like and once they're like 17 18 19 years old and get out of your house then there's more decisions they might make that you're not going to like. And that would probably be a good episode for the future just to discuss like the changing relationship between parent and child as that parent ages and the child ages. Because like, it's like I told my dad, I'm like, you know, at a certain point when I'm

41 years old, I'm married, I have a child, I have a mortgage, I pay taxes, I have a career. I'm, you know, like I've reached a point where like anyone would reasonably say, okay, Phil's an adult. Well, that means that while I am still going to appreciate parental advice, the point where you can, the point where you can aggressively influence my decisions has passed. Because if I really think this is the way to do it, I'm going to do it. There's nothing you can do to stop me. So now the relationship has to change a little bit. Well, of course it does.

I have apologized to my parents for being difficult. Not like wrap my tree around a car, almost kill myself difficult. Although I'm pretty sure they would have appreciated an apology for me having having to come home tell them i was going to a war zone but you know that wasn't really my decision oh it wasn't directly my decision well that's what i was saying saying is like the decision to have to take care of their child in a wheelchair for a year and you know all that stuff it was my decisions that put me there and put them there. So, but anyway, anyway, I think, um, this was a great show and we all have things to learn and only the most experienced of, um, people can help us send help and drinks.

Yeah. Like I said, I mean, I, I think, I think in broad strokes, what we're really talking about is, is like,

we have to, we have to set, we have to, there have to be guardrails. There has to be, there can, there, there can be no raising a child without some kind of standard or some kind of

coercive force to keep them heading in the right, in what we think is the right direction. And those guardrails have to be wide enough that they still have some latitude to figure stuff out by themselves because newsflash mom and dad one day they're gonna have to figure things out by themselves and that's something you have to teach them too and that comes from making the guardrails wide enough but they have to be narrow enough that they can't jump the guardrail and go off into the woods at full speed either so like we we as parents and the thing of it is that with very few exceptions, I don't think there's a universally right answer for that.

I think that is down to those parents and to a lesser degree that child to determine that. Because I feel, call it what it is, I'm kind of an old school person when it comes to raising children. I think that what the parents think is right and wrong has to be what takes sway. I think the child gets a much smaller degree of discussion or input into that discussion because at the end of the day, the child is not responsible for the child's welfare. The parents are. So I think the parents have to figure out where those guardrails are, how tall to make them, how narrow to make them. And that's something that parents have to do. The only thing I would encourage those parents is to, like, think about what I was saying earlier about what is your goal.

Your goal is to raise a child that can take care of themselves ultimately. So, however, whatever guardrails you think get them going in that direction, that's what you do. You don't set the guardrails based on, well, in that direction that's what you do yeah you don't you don't set the guardrails based on well my kid's gonna be mad at me well kids are mad all the time they're teenagers they're they're kind of little jerks most of the time this is the stage where they begin to hate you yes and and you know what i've said it to my daughter and i love my daughter more in life itself but i've told her before i'm like my job is not to make you happy yeah like let's not your friend i'm your mom told her before, I'm like, my job is not to make you happy. Yeah. I'm not your friend. I'm your mom.

Let's level set expectations. That's not my job. Your job is to make you happy. And if you get married, your husband's job is to make you happy. It's not mine. My job is to teach you. My job is to teach you. Yeah. I do want to say though that for anybody out there that's listening that Phil and i are always available we might not always have the best advice and we might not even have the advice to questions that you might have but we are available if you ever just need like a little extra after the shows or whatever so you can always find us message us um facebook instagram

i don't really know how a youtube message thing works, but you can do that. You can also become a patron and get into the patron chat. And then you have not just Phil and I giving you great advice. You have 32 other patrons. You have 32 other ragamuffins that want to help as well, and they all have great intentions. Speaking of which, Joe, I don't think you're in the patron chat, and I know you're one of our newest patrons, so thank you. So if you'd like to join the chat on Signal, I'll send you an email right after we get off to fill you in on how to do that, if that's something you even want to do yeah and um it also seems like

uh youtube is the place that we're getting most of our um viewers at least we can't tell on rumble right now because of um stream yard and all that stuff but most of our phil said the other day that most of our listenership are not subscribed to our channel. So please subscribe to our channel. It doesn't take much. And anyway, so there's that. And I think that's it. I don't think we have any other announcements right now. Be on the lookout for Prepper Camp tickets. They're coming up after Thanksgiving.

Probably in about two weeks, that'll start. And you want to get those before they sell out. You also want to get on the list to go get a campsite. You also want to get them before the price goes up. Because when they first come out, if I recall correctly, they're about half off usually. And that price will ratchet up the closer you get to the event. So Prepper Camp, if you're even remotely interested in preparedness, survival, homesteading, or even just like primitive skills like blacksmithing, foraging, medicinal herbs. Anything you can think of is represented there.

Everything from like foraging in nature all the way to cybersecurity. Yeah. But if you're interested, it's definitely an event that's worth looking into. I happen to know the people that run the event. They're really cool people that are really cool to talk to if you could pin them down for five seconds. But it's well worth it. All I'm going to say is if you want to go, get your tickets early, contact Orchard Lake Campground and figure out your housing arrangements.

I am told that recently, within the last year or two, several Airbnbs close to the area have opened up. So apparently, if you don't want to camp or if you can't get a campground, there are Airbnb options that are not that far away. Yeah. 15, 20 minutes. Okay. That was an hour and a half show.

Fred asked where. Prepper Camp is held in Saluda, North Carolina. S-A-L-U-D-A. Preppercamp.com. If you go to preppercamp.com, you'll see all sorts of, I mean, that's their website. So you'll see information. Rick and Jane are amazing people and they put on an amazing camp every year. So you definitely want to attend if you can.

But those tickets are going to come up for sale within the next two weeks. And this year, you and Piper are coming with us. Yes. And I, even though Phil and Andrew are the official, quote unquote, podcasters for Prepper Camp, I'm going to weasel my way in there somehow with Raising Values. And we'll be down in the vendor area doing shows every day while we're there. To be fair, the entire Prepper Broadcasting Network that we're a part of are the official podcasters of Prepper Camp. And Raising Values is on Prepper Broadcasting Network. Yes. I'm sorry, James.

Prepper Broadcasting Network. That's what I meant to say. Well, let's go ahead and roll this one out. And we have coffee to drink. I have chores to do because we're getting ready for a camping trip in a week. So we got some stuff to get ready. Yeah. So next week's show

will probably be pre-recorded, but we're also talking about doing a show while we're out camping with our family. That's possible. We might do one while we're... I love doing shows

while we're camping. They're always so much fun. Well, we can do that or we could do... We could just record Sunday evening when we get home or we could record Monday fun. Well, we can do that. Or we could just record Sunday evening when we get home. Or we could record Monday. I mean, we have options. But if you're subscribed, you'll know. If you're subscribed, you'll know. And if you're not subscribed, you'll find out the hard way. Yes. Look for us on Facebook and Instagram. That's where I'm doing a lot of my

posts. So I think that's it. All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for watching and tuning in today. The audio will hit on Tuesday, just like it always does, because my producer here does an amazing job of editing all of this fun stuff. Unpaid and underappreciated. Oh, you're paid. Anyway, we'll see you all next week. Have a great rest of your day and your week. All right. Bye, y'all.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.