Parenting Beyond the Uniform: Guiding vs. Commanding

Good day. This is Dr. Jana Price-Sharps from MindPilot. Today we're going to talk about being a first responder and a parent. One of the problems and gifts simultaneously of being a first responder is that you have seen a lot. And because of that, you want to protect your family and your kids, your spouse, significant other parents, whoever, um, from having to see the same things, right? Uh from being hurt, from uh being attacked, obviously, uh getting in a car wreck. You know, there's so many facets to this. And it also depends on your life experiences. But I think sometimes when people have had a lot of experiences, the tendency is to protect, which to some extent is a good idea. For instance, maybe it's a rainy day and you say, Hey, I know that that street tends to flood. You might take a different route out if you're driving today. Okay. But what about the tendency to want to control every aspect of a kid's life so they don't get hurt, or they do everything right, or they don't mess things up. And that sometimes will come out as what are you doing that for? Why aren't you doing that? When are you going to do that? How are you going to do this? Uh, I told you to do it this way. You need to do it this way. If you do that too much, then you end up with a kid who will not make a decision. They get very nervous about making a decision, they don't want to make you mad, they want to do everything perfectly, so sometimes they just don't even try. And so it's worth thinking about and taking a step back and evaluating how you're talking to your kids. And that includes grown kids. It's not just for the little ones. Um, you know, the parenting is important. I've talked a little bit about this on the show. Uh, truly, kids need to be responsible and they need to um, you know, be monitored so that they're not just kind of running wild, that they have some structure and some boundaries and that kind of thing. But it's it's really it's on a continuum, isn't it? You know, and and also it depends on the personality of the kid. There's some kids you have to tighten that up a little bit because they will, you know, really run if you don't. And there's other kids that need very little of that because they are very good at self-monitoring. But sometimes you'll get kids that are kind of passive in their personality type. And if you are a very strong type A person, which you probably are if you're listening to this, it is easy to run over the top of them and not allow them to have a voice. So I really want you to take that step back and think about your relationship with your kids if you have kids, and think about do I let them have a voice? And do I hear them out before just kind of crushing them? And do I give them guidance or do I give them orders? Do I have a discussion with them, or am I running a fire truck or a police car or in the military and I'm giving them orders as if they're working for me? And there is a big difference, but the problem is, and we've we have talked about this before on this podcast, you spend so much of your life in positions of power and authority where you're giving orders, you're giving instructions. But typically, as a first responder or in the military, you're not gonna give instructions like, hey, would you mind doing this? It's more like you need to get this done. Why isn't this done? You know, I told you a week ago, and this still isn't done. What is going on with you? You know, and for some kids, they just go, oh yeah, I'll get it done. All right, I'm gonna go do it. Other kids, it just crushes them. And so you really need to think about the the child that you're working with or the adult child that you're working with, and how that is going to impact their response. Some kids do much better with, hey, you know what, uh, I told you last week to get this done. Are you okay? Because usually you do a really good job of getting things done. So what's going on? You know, a lot of kids will respond much better to that than what what in the world is the matter with you? Why aren't you doing what I've ordered you to do? So I want you to think about it, and I want you to think about what is effective. I love that term because so often, and I grew up with this saying, and and I'm sure many of you have as well. Uh, I've always done it that way, my dad did it that way, my mother did it that way, and that's the way we do it. Okay, but ask yourself, is it an effective way of doing things? Or is it the way you've always done it? Will a different way work better? Will you end up having a relationship with your kids rather than kids that are starting to avoid you? Will you have more luck getting them to do the things you need them to do? Or are they going to end up being very bitter, resentful young people, no matter what that age? And so I'm not saying I have this 100% dialed in. I get it. It's not easy to be a parent. Um, but one thing you might want to ask yourself is if somebody said that to me that way, would it make me want to do it, or would it make me angry and I would dig in my heels? And so really thinking about how you're mentoring your kids is really a very useful thing to do. And that's not an easy process, and it's a hard process. Uh, it's hard because none of us really want to think about, you know, there are other ways we could be doing this and we could be doing this better. I mean, that's a difficult thing to tackle. But I do think that I rarely meet a first responder that doesn't truly love their children. But I have seen a lot of first responders later in life. They retire, and now their kids don't really call or don't really reach out to them a whole lot, or kind of avoid them. And they say, Hey, how about we go fishing? And they go, Oh, I've got these things to do. It reminds me of an old song, which some of you may have heard, The Cats in the Cradle, right? And I think that you don't want to be that person. So start building those relationships. I'm not saying don't have boundaries. I'm not saying don't tell kids no, especially if they're under the age of 18, right? But how you tell them no makes all the difference in the world. So it doesn't mean that you don't parent, but it may mean you communicate the parenting a little bit differently. Something to think about, something to kind of add into your list of things that you might want to try something different if it's not working for you. And if you're already doing that, kudos. Great job. But if there's some things that you could add in, please do that. All right. You have the right to have a happy life and a good life. You have the right to wake up happy in the morning. I hope this was helpful. Thank you for joining me. This is Dr. Jana Price Sharps at Mind Pilot.