Raising Teens Is Tricky; Raising Teen Boys Can Be Even Trickier!

Ben Dyson is back! You may remember him from his foster-to-adopt episode where he tells the story of growing his family from 2 to 4 boys. His oldest is now 16 and driving! Today we discuss  teaching a kid how to drive, strategies to keep them safe, and how to talk to your kids about the internet, fighting, and breaking stuff. I'm not sure we solve any problems today, but we will definitely make you feel better about what's going on at your house!

A Podcast for People Raising Tricky Kids

Transcript

  📍   Hey villagers. Welcome back to another episode of where the F is my village. Stephanie here. Thanks for joining me. Today we have special guest Ben Dyson. You may remember Ben. From kind of the beginning of the podcast. He came on and discussed how he and his wife, Becky had two boys and they started fostering and they ended up adopting two boys out of foster care. So they have a total of four boys. And if you want to hear more about that story, you should go back to the episode that he's on earlier. I think it's like in the first five episodes. 

But God bless them. They have four boys, which I have three and it feels like I have 20. So if they have four boys, it must be like they have 50. And today we just kind of chat about, first of all, his oldest has started driving, which I feel like that's around the corner for us. So I kind of grilled them about how they were handling it. 

And then we just kind of talked about. Just raising these kids and how we handle screen time and how we handle the internet and the kids breaking things and rules and punishments. And the fact that I can't even keep. Popsicles in my house because my children can't  handle it. And in this episode, I do reference that I'm going to buy some for the 4th of July. And guess what I did, I bought them on a Friday or maybe a Sunday. Anyway, I bought them two or three days before the 4th of July. I bought two boxes and they were all gone by the actual holiday. I got the red, white, and blue ones. 

And they ate them all. And I was like, you know what? Have a great time. Kids have a great time. I'm tired of telling you know about the popsicles. So just eat them. And when we don't have any on the 4th of July, then, you know, that's kinda how it's gonna go. And that's what happened. So anyway, If you, if anyone was wondering how the popsicles went. Um, now, you know, so. Anyway, thank you for being here. And without further ado here is Ben dyson 📍  📍  📍 

All right, villagers, I am here with the world famous Ben Dyson. Hi, Ben.

Bye, Stephanie.

How are you?

I am great, enjoying a wonderful hot day. How are you?

Oh my gosh, I'm good, I think. I'm excited that it's a holiday weekend. What do you guys do for the Fourth?

So, usually we just kind of hang out with friends, do the cookout, firework thing. Uh, but we're going on vacation this year, so we will not be here for the fourth.

Okay, is this a kids included vacation?

Yeah, let me, let me rephrase.

Is it a trip?

It's a trip. It's not a vacation. It is a trip. We, our vacation week, we sent the youngest three to an overnight camp together. And so that was our vacation week. Um, and then now we're just going on a family trip.

Okay. So anywhere exciting?

We're going to go on a cruise. So that'll be interesting.

Have you done that

of us. We have not, um, neither Becky or I have been on a cruise. So that'll be, it'll be exciting. Um, and we're going with her family. So there'll be 13 of us total.

Okay

Yeah.

I'm just stressed out So a friend of mine, I won't say who in case like it would bother her that I'm telling this story, but She has three kids and two of them are boys and they were on a cruise and the way the So, like, doors work for safety is that though no one can enter your room without a key, there's not a way, there's not like a slatch or anything that you can shut, like, right, yeah.

So, at like 3 o'clock in the morning, a front desk or whatever it is called their room, and they're so annoyed, answering the phone, and they're like, do you have a little boy named blank? And they're like, yeah, and they said, well, he's three floors down at our desk. He had

could easily.

so they stacked all of their, um, luggage in front of the door every night so that the kids couldn't escape, or at least they'd hear them trying.

So I've got one that it would not shock me if he tries to go to the buffet about 2am. And so I could see him, I could see him sneaking out to go grab a snack.

I would know it was coming to cause they'd be like, is this open 24 hours a day?

Yes.

No

They've already, they've already started asking a lot of those questions. I think it's only open 20 hours a day, so I told them they'd have to make due for the other four.

Okay, they got to sleep during those. Okay, I can't wait to hear about how this trip goes. Gosh, there's so much planning that goes into all of that stuff.

Yes. And my wife has done an incredible job with all of it.

Now, does she plan like the actual trip? Like where we're going to go and

She, I mean, it's a group effort. It's our parents 50th wedding anniversary, so that's kind of what we're going to celebrate. And so we've got to plan this whole group outing and um, so it'll be a good time.

okay. Well, brave of you. I hope you all return safely. No one goes overboard. I'll be watching. I'll be keeping an eye on the news.

we started giving those speeches early about staying away from the railings, it's not the time to fight with your brothers, so we'll see if it sinks in.

Oh my gosh, good grief. It's life or death, guys. Come on. Well, speaking of life or death, so, um, for the 4th, usually, so we live in city limits, so, like, you're not supposed to set off fireworks, but I guess our entire neighborhood decides that that doesn't apply to us, which is funny because a ton of police officers live in our neighborhood, and they all just close their blinds and stay inside on the 4th.

Um, but last year, um, Casey ended up running sound at a big concert on the 4th. So we did fireworks the day before and kind of really set it up with the kids. Like we're going to do fireworks the day before. It's all going to be the same. We're going to do the cookout, everything. But the day of, we're just going to hang out with our neighbors.

And it all seemed fine until it wasn't. And. Two of my kids, but one in particular, was furious we weren't setting anything off on the actual 4th of July. And, um, it got into like a real power struggle and yelling and screaming and the, um, street. So, and guess what? As a result, he was so upset. He missed the whole thing.

Like all our whole neighborhood setting off amazing fireworks. He was inside watching Star Wars. Um, so this year I was like, you're... Not working on the 4th of July, please. Like that was a nightmare. And also just like the safety stuff. Like our neighbors would just hand our kids, uh, sparklers and they're burning themselves and stuff.

So, so this year Casey will be on deck to provide entertainment and hopefully some safety. So.

Yeah, it's scary when it's just one parent to three children.

Well, it is, and most of the time it's fine, but there was a level of disappointment, and then there was a level of, like, safety. Two of my kids got burned. I mean, like, you know, sparkler stuff going. Because I'd turn around and be like, oh my gosh, you have two sparklers! What are we doing? You know?

Who gave you that?

who gave them to you?

And now it's burning you because you have flip flops on. Everyone's going to wear sneakers this year. We're going to have

Smart. See? Live and learn.

bare minimum safety. Okay, so... How is summer at your house with four boys? What do they do all day? Like, who's there? What does that look like?

So, it, it, our summer's kind of broken up into segments because of Becky's job. She works for a couple weeks while the kids are in school. Uh, or while the kids are out of school and then she's off for about six weeks and then she goes back to work at the end of July and the kids are hot or kids are still out.

So we kind of have it broken up into segments. So when they first get out of school for the summer, um, the oldest two are 16 and 12 and so they can stay home and they find things to do video games and play with friends and those kind of things. And the youngest two, we send to a camp of some, there's a, Martial arts program that has like a day camp that

Oh,

basically afterschool care.

And so we send the youngest two to that for the couple of weeks, just because there's no way that if we left four of them at home by themselves for two weeks, that things would end. Well, it

Well, that,

So,

my struggle too, because my youngest is eight and my oldest being 13. I mean, I was babysitting like newborns when I was, you know, 13, at least by then. So part of me is like, why, like, I really feel like they should be able to stay home and big brother is in charge, except for, except for, I just like the amount of fighting I think would be like the thing.

Like bad decisions and, you know, maybe like getting a food processor out or, you know, like just the adventures they would have, um, because we just recently got a food processor and there have been so many conversations with them about like the This is an adult assisted activity. You can loop like adults lose their fingers on these, you cannot use them.

And then we put it in the cabinet where it's out of sight, which is just a huge thing at our house, but we leave them alone for like a couple hours at a time. So, and it's usually like, there's just no other option. There's nobody else to be here. And, um, we just give them all extra screen time and put them in separate rooms.

That's really important.

that's the key, is separate spaces.

yes, and I put the oldest, like, near the front door and I set the alarm to the house so they can't get out. I mean, it's just, I wish it were not that way. I don't know when it'll ever not be. I mean, eventually it's going to have to be like, alright, if you're all teenagers and you want to kill each other, like, I can't hire a babysitter to come over here.

But, um, Childcare during the summer is tricky, and do they get bored? Like, when Becky's home, I'm sure she has stuff she'd want to be doing besides entertaining them all day.

Yeah, they get bored, but we've got a great friend network in the neighborhood, and so they play at each other's houses, and they go out, there's a creek in our backyard, and they went out yesterday and caught a fish in the creek, and just, you know, they usually come home covered in mud, which is its own separate issues, but

hose them off. Yeah, our...

they remember to hose off before they go tromping through the house

Right.

is the biggest issue.

Yeah, my kids, when their little friends are home, are completely entertained. I mean, for hours and hours and hours. But if their little friend isn't home, it's suddenly like... I don't, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to have fun or entertain myself and I don't know how many times in their lives I have rattled off, like, you have an entire closet of art supplies.

You have a garage full of toys. We have board games, like, there's a million and one options. I even bought some new board games this summer, um, but the desire to complain about boredom is huge. And so, you know, Casey and I. We have some child care, they go to camp a few weeks, and then it's kind of cobbled together, and You know, Casey was going to cover Tuesdays.

I was going to cover Fridays. Usually I'm working from home on Fridays. And I, the other day was like, we're going insane. This isn't, Tuesdays and Fridays are terrible. Um, so we just asked our babysitter what her availability on Tuesdays and Fridays is. Are you free on Tuesdays and Fridays? And she, she's great.

So, but it's just funny cause she is probably 17. So obviously she's not in charge of the 13 year old, but

Yeah.

she's just here to keep everyone alive and

Right. Send them in or, to their, send them to their separate corners.

well, and keep the fun going. Cause you know, I'm, she's not trying to accomplish work or laundry or something. She's just here to be like, what do you want to do?

You want to paint something? You want to play games? But, um, I love the summer. But then I also hate the summer because of the, I don't know, I just am trying so hard to give my kids like an 80s boring summer because I think that's where adventure comes. But they have to push through the pain of not having a screen or whatever.

So I mean right now they're on screens because I was like, I have a recording so everybody gets an extra two hours. Go

Yeah Yay They love it when mom mom has a recording.

Yeah, I can't be disturbed, kids. Um, okay.

I used to read I would read books all the time Apparently that's not a thing anymore. Kids don't like to read but I would read a Hardy boy book a day

Hardy Boys. Yes, and Nancy Drew. Um,

I never really got into the Nancy Drew, but I read the Hardy boys

Yeah, I can imagine a little boy not wanting to write about a little girl reading and solving mysteries. My oldest will read and I finally, so I complained about this several episodes ago on like trying to keep him safe from just inappropriate content reading and so for, for like a year now, we've just had to physically check books out at the library, but he can read them faster than we get there.

So I finally figured out that there is a children's Kindle. That you can buy that comes with all the parental controls and he has access to a huge library of books that are appropriate for children's like Harry Potter and all of that stuff is on there and then we can check digital books out from the library, but I check them out and I share them with him

Gotcha.

because we got into some trouble when we had Kindle Unlimited, there was content that I wasn't aware was available on there,

We learned some new things that maybe we weren't quite

we did. It was very, it's very good that we shared a Kindle account because I got some recommendations and was like, holy crap, what is this? What? So we were, but he does love to read. He's rereading Harry Potter right now and he's reread it, you know, a million times, but the

That'll take the summer right there.

Well, I mean, he can get through in an afternoon, so the thing with him is trying to get him to go outside and do something.

And then the other two, it's trying to be like, you can be satisfied. They've gotten really into Monopoly, and my mom watched them yesterday, and she taught them Texas Hold'em. So I think we'll be, I think we'll be doing some gambling this summer.

we went through a gambling phase with one of ours. We played a lot of poker that summer.

Well, one of the things, you know, I have two kids that have executive functioning issues and a lot of that is like seeing the next step and planning and then like having consequences. So honestly, playing Texas Hold'em is great for their brains. If you don't think about the gambling part, but sitting there and having to say what card it is and suffering because we're doing a lot of chess, but that chess takes a long time.

I think Texas, Texas Hold'em, you got to get your, uh, you, you know, you bust like immediately you lose your chips or whatever. Um, so, and actually my kid with the worst executive function bankrupted everybody yesterday at Texas Hold'em. So he did great. So he's. Practicing working memory and planning ahead.

So that's good.

Awesome.

I just think it's really funny that my incredibly conservative mother was like, yeah, let's play, let's, let's play poker today. Like she had the chips and everything. I don't,

kind of surprises me, to be honest.

you know, she's always got something up her sleeve. Always goes. Okay. So fighting, we touched on it briefly. I I had two, I have, when growing up, I lived with two brothers and there was fighting and like physical fighting, but not that much.

And.

ton with your two brothers, I would think.

Yeah, I mean, it was more, there was a lot of like them having tons of friends over and having like crazy wrestling matches and tagging people in and out, but it never turned, those never turned into somebody being pissed off. My kids can't play fully wrestle. Without it turning into like somebody's angry because of course somebody gets hurt you get elbowed accidentally or whatever but then also my kids Solve problems with attacking each other and I I don't know.

I texted a friend of mine who he grew up with three brothers and I was like, what was that like? And he was like, lots of broken stuff. We were, you know, bloody all the time. And I'm like, I, my mom, he said that the mom would sit them into the front yard. So it was just like, take it

Oh, wow.

And she bought them boxing gloves.

So she leaned into it.

Yeah.

So how do you deal with your, when all the boys have conflicts?

So it depends on the brothers that, um, you know, if it's the oldest and the youngest, you know, they can kind of wrestle around and play and usually it's. It's fine. And you can kind of tell just in the tone of the voices where things are headed and, and then sometimes one of the middle brothers will try to get in on the action.

And that's where things can really go wrong quickly because the two were having just a fine time. And now all of a sudden a new brothers entered into the mix and trying

Well, cause that's a, yeah, that's like a 16 and a nine year old. Right. So that's kind of the classic, like the big brother humoring the little brother. He's not wrestling at full strength, otherwise I'm sure he

not.

he could throw them across the room. And then you have the other two that are like, yeah, and they got to show themselves.

And the goal whenever I was a kid was to beat the oldest brother at wrestling. So,

My, my oldest Brayden, like you said, he's 16. He does a pretty good job of, Holding back and not trying to attack brothers whenever he's completely annoyed now, every now and again, you know, they just crossed the line and he feels like he has to go after them. Um, and assert his dominance is the phrase he likes to use.

Okay, this is exactly accurate.

yeah, so I don't know if it's the best parenting or not, but sometimes I just kind of give them that nod, like, okay, go, because they've been trying to push your buttons for a long time because they know that mom and dad will hold you back or restrain you a little bit. And so every now and again, he gets that nod that, okay, go, go do something.

And, you know, within reason, obviously, I

how does that,

we've never drawn blood to my knowledge.

okay, so no blood, but we've,

yeah, no blood.

my kids, um, there's a lot of like, uh, Rachel and Monica fight, like, from friends where there's just like a lot of slapping and rolling around, um, and sometimes we let it go, you know, we can hear it downstairs, we We kind of heard it ramping up, and there's a little bit of like, the instigators getting it, so we're gonna let him maybe learn a lesson.

Um, but then sometimes I'm like, okay, we need to get up there. Like, it just, just, you know, someone's crying. There's just, it's gotten, I don't know when to, I don't know. Like, I feel

There's no easy answer. I don't, I don't feel like, and it's sometimes you just, you take it on a case by case basis, I think, and it depends on who the kid is and kind of what their track record is for instigating and those kinds of things. And knowing you just kind of know those brother sets and who can do.

More with a certain brother than, you know, like our nine and 10 year old, they're just, they'll go right at it quick if you don't step in. And so it's just knowing your kids.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely, our kids kind of play in, there's very rarely all three play at the same time. They, they like to play, um, four square and I would say 50% of the time they have a good time and 50% of the time someone, someone, sometimes two someones, storm into the house, slamming doors. Because of how unjust whatever is happening with Foursquare is going.

Um, and I mean sometimes it doesn't take very long. Like Casey and I are still finishing our dinner. And they're like, You want to play Foursquare? You want to play Foursquare? Okay! And then it's like five seconds later, I can't even play Foursquare with these people! And I'm like, good grief, that didn't go very long.

What just happened? Um, but they kind of have their little factions. So I feel like it's... You know, the younger two, because they're only, they're less than two years apart, are often together, but they also make each other really crazy.

they love each other till they don't kind of thing.

Oh my God, they do. And I'm like, guys, that's a big couch. You don't need to be touching, watching TV, irritating each other.

Like you can, you can separate. Um, or you don't even have to be in the same room. Like we have a TV room, a living room, and we have a game room. There is no reason. I'm like, you're so lucky to have separate spaces, but it's like a. Moth to a flame. It's like they want to be around each other, but they're also Ticking each other off and the physical stuff.

I don't know. I have a heckler in the house. So there's a lot of just like a Person observing everything and then feeling the need to comment on everything So hmm

Yeah, absolutely. We, um, the phrase I like to use a lot of stay in your own lane because we have a lot of people that like to parent the other brothers, you know, and so mom and dad will be physically addressing a situation. We'll be talking about it. And all of a sudden the brothers are throwing in their own commentary. so we just turned to him and stay in your own lane, man. I mean, we've got this, let us, I know you're eager to be a parent. Yeah, stay in your own lane and let us handle it. Because a lot of times, I mean, the situation would be diffused, but then they'd jump in and they'd just exacerbate it all over again.

Well, right, because they're pointing out whatever grievance they have or whatever, you know, my kids all know the rules if they're discussing them when they apply to other people. Um, they'll break them and then they're sitting here going, he has food on the couch or whatever. Um, and oh my gosh, it happens all the time.

And I'm like, I'm the parent. I'm right here. I am addressing this like you be the brother. And we've tried to explain to each of them separately. We've tried to say, first of all. You're not involved. Usually this has nothing to do with you, and then you jump in and now you're in trouble because you're stirring everything up like just like Live with the weight taken off of you

Yes.

to solve this.

You don't have to solve this. You can literally just go upstairs or go outside and let mom and,

I relieve you of the responsibility of having to deal with this problem.

And we've even said, like, we can't shirk the responsibility. Like, we have to keep doing this, but you can walk away. Your brother was being really crappy to you and We're gonna handle it and you can just go I hate you or whatever and walk away, but they I can't Help it it's

I'm hoping as they get older, that they'll kind of grow out of that a little bit. Maybe that's a pipe dream. I'm sure there's parents listening right now that are just laughing at the naive guy on

Well, my brothers are in there my brothers are in their 50s and I haven't seen anyone tackle each other lately so Somewhere between 16 and 50 it kind of slows down

I'm hoping it's closer to the 16 side.

Well, I was reading the other day something about like when boys especially are going through puberty, that the like, signals in their brain, the hormone, uh, emotional reaction travels faster than the logic part does, which is why they're just like, man, and then if you just give them a second, they can, Maybe back it up a little bit.

Um, we do a lot of... Okay, do you want to try that again? Like, let's, let's pretend that didn't happen. Like, you walk in the room, I'm doing dishes, and go. Like, we're just gonna...

we're going to, we call it time machine where we just back up in time and then we're going to, we're going to try it again. And this is how it's supposed to look so that next time it will look better.

Exactly, so this is the part where I say I'm ordering Mexican and for dinner, which is a treat. And then you say, Oh, I really don't like that restaurant. Could we do this restaurant instead of saying everything at that restaurant tastes like chalk. And then I'm like, when was the last time you ate chalk, dude?

Um, but the reactions are. Um, very quick and fast

the, over the top.

and my, you know, my family growing up, there wasn't a ton of cooking, like almost no cooking happening at our house. And we would go out to dinner almost every night, which I know that's crazy guys. And you can have whatever feelings about my parents and how they spent their money on that.

Um, But, there were so many times where we couldn't, as a family, agree on where to go. I remember so many times where my parents would just be like, Forget it! Just find something in the kitchen! We are not doing this! And me being like, What? Okay, okay, okay, okay, no, that's fine. I'll go there, I'll go there.

But they're all, I am, and I remember being like, Get grief, mom! Why are you so mad that they listened to us for 30 minutes?

Oh, yeah,

It's me and where we wanted to go and being mean to each other. Because it was like, I try to tell my kids, I'm like, what you're having for dinner right now isn't the only meal you're ever going to have the rest of your life.

Like you can just dislike what's

stuck it up for one meal.

Exactly. And we also are really big and everybody's different, right? Um, but with our kids, um, whoever makes dinner, if it's me or Casey. We make what we're going to make. And if you have a huge objection, which we have one kid who thinks everything we make tastes like chalk, that's his new saying right now.

Um,

to.

Uh huh. We, you're totally welcome to make your own meal. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to make you a hot dog or mac and cheese or whatever. I have made dinner and it is available right here. Um, this particular, actually all three of them, if they, this isn't, this is my self preservation. If they don't eat, So, you It's, it's terrible for me.

So I'm not going to sit here and battle over, this is what I made and you need to eat it. Like it's, we need to get some food in you. But also like, this is what I made. Or sometimes I'm like, you know what, tomorrow you're in charge of dinner. Make the whole thing. Tell me what we need. You're going to make it.

And then they go, no, no, no, but, but, and then it's hilarious. One time we did that and, uh, they chose to make chicken nuggets and fries, right? So that's what we're going to have for dinner. And another brother was complaining. And the one in charge of the meal went, I am not making two things. I, this is what I made.

I will turn on this and you will eat it. And I was like, dude, did you hear what you're saying? Like

exactly.

how quickly did that come around? Um, okay. So one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today was you have a driver in the

We do.

How long has he been driving?

He got his license at the end of May. So we're a little over a month now, it feels like. And he doesn't drive as much. As I thought he would. Um, he kind of just hangs out at the house. He's gone out a few times. Um, the first night he got his license, he came down to our room at like 11 o'clock and said, Hey, I'm going over to somebody's house to swim.

And we just kind of looked at him and we're like, no, no, you're not like, we're not your first day with your license. You're not going out at 11 o'clock and coming back at one. That's not how this works.

Well, and then

from that point.

I would have so many questions. Like, who's lifeguarding? What are we doing? Like, somebody needs to make sure you don't hit your head on the bottom of the pool, because anything's possible with boys.

Yes. And so, um, but he's been pretty good. Um, he's actually a really good driver. And so, you know, we wrote to them for six months and, um, for the most part, he's been really good. So it's, it's helped us because we don't have that fear of, oh my gosh, he's a terrible driver. What's going to, what's going to go wrong.

Um, so it's just, you know, um, the one thing we've kind of struggled with a little bit is how much do we let him drive his brothers around just knowing that dynamic of. Um, easily irritated, a brother that likes to easily irritate. And so, you know, how much do we allow?

It's a safety thing. I've been driving and I'm like, you're gonna, I'm going to get in a wreck. Like everybody, you need to chill out. There are so many things that I'm focusing on right now. And there's so much activity happening behind me. And that would be a lot for, and especially if they're intentionally trying to irritate the 16 year old.

yeah. So we had lots of, we had lots of talks about that with the brothers. Um, and so it's gone well so far. Um, we have started using him as an Uber, which has been awesome. Um, you know, brother's got a football workout at nine 30 in the morning. All right, go take them to the high school and drop them off.

And then you need to pick them up at 11.

Oh, that's a fantasy. That sounds amazing.

The best so far was the diet. We sent him to Brahms to go get us ice cream. I

Mm hmm.

our order. Go get it.

Oh my

been, it, it's been great. Um, I don't think we've used them for a Walmart run yet, but I'm sure that's coming. 

So here's what I'm wondering, teaching him to drive, how did that go?

What was

oh yeah, we ha we hired that out. For

okay.

Yeah. Um, we, I had done some beginning stuff with them, you know, take them to the parking lot and on campus and let them drive around. And so they had. He knew the basics, but as far as actually getting into the driver's head and making sure that, you know, he understood the traffic laws and all that we, we sent him to a driving academy and they did a great job.

It was over a weekend. He had 1 day of like, 8 hours of classroom instruction. And the next day it was, um, some more like practical driving, going around and driving and those kinds of things. And so then right before he took his test, they do one practice run with them and then they actually set up the driver's test for them.

So they do their practice drive for an hour and then they knew the driver instructor comes and gets in the car and they actually do the license. And so

that's nice.

expensive, but it was, I think it was probably well worth it just because it takes mom and dad out of the equation. Obviously they're, um, more apt to listen and take instruction from a third party than they are from mom and dad.

Well, it's so true. I mean, we took the boys skiing for the first time this year and we were going to do one day of ski school and one day of skiing with us. And we very quickly realized that it was in everyone's best interest for them to go to ski school and not be with us because there was a lot of too much confidence, a lot of, you know, like, Dangerous arrogance, um, talking back, we're going to, we were going to lose them.

Um, we put air tags in all of their, um, ski coats, but, um, but I literally was like, I looked at Casey and I was like, uh, it will be miserable for all of us if we ski tomorrow with them. And I called the ski school and was like, can they please come back tomorrow? And one of them was learning snowboarding, which is.

looks so much harder than skiing. So he needed an extra day anyway. Um, and it was funny because when we picked them up from ski school, the instructor that was with our trickiest one went, well, that was interesting. He had six hours with him and I was like, better you than me, sir. And here's a tip. Thank you.

And, and everyone had fun. Each of the kids had fun. Casey and I had fun. And I think there would have been so much like, And I was like yelling and screaming and we just

It wouldn't have been fun for anybody.

no, it wouldn't have it. I don't like being that way. So that's what I worry about with driving is even with the driver's ed, I mean, the kids got to practice and I just remember like my mom, especially the whole time is like grabbing every handle in the car and lots of like bracing herself, um, which is.

Um, it was, it was not helpful and I'm sure I was being less than patient with her as well. Um, but it's, and the challenge also is just the freedom. And I know now you can track them anywhere if you wanted to, do you guys have any of those apps?

Oh yeah. We use life 360, uh, quite a bit. And so it tells us when he leaves the house, tells us when he gets home, we've got different, you know, tells us when he goes to school and leaves and all that gives me a report on how fast he was going and all kinds of information that. I would have been in trouble had my parents had all that kind of knowledge on me, I'm

Well, right. Well, and there's so much of me that, you know, I'm the eighties parent. So part of me is like, I'm. I want them to make some mistakes while they still live at my house, but they're also driving,  like it's really heavy vehicle around there. It comes with a level of responsibility.

They could get hurt. The person. That they, if they hit someone that person could get hurt. Um, and then, you know, I don't really want them to go missing either but Yeah, I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how I decide to use that kind of technology with my kids I mean like one of you know one of my kids he takes his phone and he likes to go on adventures around all of the neighborhoods that connect to ours and He has his location shared with me because I just know he's going to get lost.

He's going to be on some street, on his bicycle, or his bike chain's going to come off. I don't know what the deal is with my kids bike chains, but

Oh, it's ours too, for

What is that?! It

I don't know, I, I don't feel like they make bikes like they used to.

No! I never one time in my life had a bike chain fall off.

And I can't keep the bike chains on to save my life,

Oh my God, that makes me feel so much better because it is a constant headache and my kids have found various, um, men in the neighborhood whose kids are grown, who think it's charming when they ask for bike chain help. So they just push their bike over to their house and, um, one of them, they don't even know the.

Um, banning, um, women's names. They know the names of the dogs that live there. So they're like, I'm going to take my bike over to Maverick's dad's house and, um, see, uh, if he can help me with my, with my bike. And I'm like, have fun at Maverick's house. He's a

you than me, buddy.

miniature golden doodle. Well, and the guy is so patient, I think, because it's novel.

He's not helping. I a kid all day long with stuff. His kids are grown now so it's kind of charming. But yeah, the bike chains, um. But I didn't have a cell phone. Uh, I don't know why my parents didn't get me. I had a cell phone because I shared a car with my mom and it was installed in the car. So she and I shared a car, um, but when I went to college I didn't have one until I got a flat tire after a, uh, Bush Goo Goo Dolls concert and was like in a parking lot with a sea of people and couldn't do anything because I didn't have a way to contact anybody.

So we had to walk to a payphone, and luckily I went to school at OSU, but the concert was actually in Tulsa, which that's a whole thing. Like it's a whole thing when you're away at school and there's an activity that's within an hour and a half of your how, I mean, of where you are at school, like the level of like how much you even alert anybody that you're in town because you're not home.

You're not in. Right.

You're going to a Google, Google dolls concert, but anyway, luckily we were in Tulsa, so we found a pay phone and called and got assistance. And I was given a cell phone promptly after that. So I don't know. I said that technology, it's like, I want to be able to monitor them and I want them to be safe, but I also want them to know, like in themselves to make, like, I don't want them to make good choices only because they know I can track them.

Does that make

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Because at some point you're not going to be able to track him and you don't want him to go nuts

Well, and be like, no one will know now if I drive 90 down the highway, um, because they, they uninstalled my life 360,

We just we just needed to keep track of where our kids are because we've got one that I mean, he usually tells us where he's going, but that may have been four hours ago. And we've kind of forgotten and it's, we'll look at each other and be like, is he here? Do we know where he is? And we'll have

my gosh. We do the same thing. I'm literally like, hang on, where is so and so? Where is

Uh huh. I haven't seen him for a few hours.

And, you know, you're not sure if he's in his bedroom. You're not sure where he is, which is good because they're probably having adventures. And then I also lose track of, I mean, it'll even be like, mom, you said he could ride his bike over to whoever's.

I'm like, Oh yeah,

Yeah. I remember that now. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you for helping me keep that straight. So yeah, knowing where they are and obviously if there's an emergency, you want to be able to get a hold of them and all of those things. Um, how do you handle, how did you handle like, Him getting a car and the car insurance and paying for gas like a friend of mine the other day was like, you know Our oldest is 13 almost 14.

She's like you need to start thinking about are you gonna make him pay for the car? Are you gonna make him pay for his car insurance, you know, and I'm going oh I don't have a plan at all for that at all. I don't even know what the right plan would be

And so when I shared a car with my parents for a long time, um, and then I, they bought me a car when I went to college. Um, and that was kind of the deal with, um, with my parents. And so with Brayden, um, my parents had a car that they weren't using anymore. And so they sold it to us for a heavily discounted price.

And so it's not a, yeah, it's a, it's a car that it's great for him for a first car. Um, and we, you know, did some things to fix it up a little bit for him. And, um, so he did not have to pay for his car yet. Um, but I think. For sure, if there's a second car, then we need to figure out a way for him to pitch in and contribute on that purchase.

Um, right now he kind of does chores in exchange for gas money. So, um, and honestly, the, when he's driving the most is when he's doing stuff for us. And so when he's hauling brothers around town and those kind of things, so. The other day I put money in his account and said, okay, here's your gas money, but I need you to mow the backyard before we leave.

And so that's what that is. His job today is to mow the backyard. And so,

That's beautiful. That's an incentive. Do you want me to put gas in your car? Go mow the lawn. Oh, that's beautiful. I love that. Does it help, um, does it help that, um, Stillwater is just smaller in size so he's using less gas?

I think probably. And he just, like I said, he's, he's at home quite a bit. He just doesn't get out much. He goes to baseball workouts sometimes. And so he just, he hasn't driven a ton. 

  📍  📍  📍  📍 So I did see on Facebook that you, uh, your car insurance is, has gone up quite a bit and your umbrella policy. Is that what you're saying? And I know everybody knows that happens, but like, how bad is it?

it, um, I don't think it completely doubled, but it got pretty close,

Hmm. you think it'll double when you have two drivers?

uh, probably, um, I, I, I got four years till we get to that point, so maybe Braden will be on his own by that and he can, you know, be covering his own car insurance, we'll see. But, um, it was the umbrella policy jumping that I hadn't thought about, but the insurance company reached out and just asked for a copy of Braden's driver's license for the umbrella policy.

And so I sent it to her. And then five minutes later, I get a bill that, um, your umbrella insurance is now this amount of money, um, because of the new driver. And so that one kind of threw me for a loop a little bit.

That's interesting. A lot of people don't even have umbrella policies. We got one recently because we have a

We decided we definitely needed one. Um,

Yeah. The umbrella policy thing we decided and we, we are very, very careful when Pool owners, but just having a pool as an of danger to having a home.

So we added one that's really smart that you have one, uh, because the car insurance only covers so much. And I'm sure that's why the umbrella policy increased,

that and let's not forget that pretty soon pretty recently We had our yard set on fire by one of our children and that could have easily gone

Do know that you

other way,

didn't tell the insurance company that you?

hopefully they don't look at my Facebook. But um, yeah.

You know what? You guys put it out so quickly, it was

Oh, yeah, I mean we're talking less than a minute and We still had another two or three feet before it got to our house. We were good.

Uh, yeah, we haven't had fire issues yet, but I, I just bought new fire extinguishers because I wasn't sure how old ours were and I didn't want to find out when we were trying to use it that it didn't work. And then, yeah, and then I have a big old, uh, Anxiety driven, like fire phobia. So many years ago I used to sell like flame retarded clothing.

That was one of my sales jobs. And so in training, they showed us all of these videos of like how fast your house burns down. So, I, out of paranoia, bought fire blankets, and then, um, I didn't know, I mean, I basically bought N95s, I didn't know what they were at the time, like, in my mind, I was like, I need to be able to go through this house with.

Blanket around me and save my children, but recently I was like, you know, what's more realistic is there's a kitchen fire and the fire blankets are in my nightstand. So maybe I should, uh, move the fire blanket into the kitchen and explain to everyone what it is and how to use it because they do cook.

It's mostly like grilled cheeses and, uh, you know, mac and cheese, but sometimes they put the EasyMac in the microwave without the water and we're very close to a fire, uh, when that happens.

got one that likes to get creative in the kitchen And so I could easily see him setting something on fire on accident and that fire blanket would come in handy

well, I will happily share the link with you,

Yeah, 

but you know.

add one.

Well, the thing that makes me nervous is there's different kinds of fires. So there's, you know, the grease fire, I guess you're not supposed use the fire extinguisher on. I just don't know if in the moment I would be able to go, What kind of fire is this and how should I respond?

So the fire blanket, you just throw it over all the pots or whatever and it helps. So we're, we're ready for that. Um, but we haven't had a, we haven't had a fire yet. So that's good. Um.

Knock on wood.

Well, it sounds like the car driving is going well, so that

It is.

hopeful. How do you handle all the high school stuff like schoolwork and girlfriends and all that stuff?

So, schoolwork is interesting. Um, I don't... Well, Stillwater's on a block schedule. And so, they have quite a bit of time in class to get their schoolwork done. So, the level of homework that he has versus the level of homework that Becky and I had is quite a... It feels different to me.

Well, I think that's a good thing, frankly. I don't love

That's something that we've struggled with though, because we feel like, are you doing everything you need to be doing? Are you, you know, are you sure there's not some project you should be working ahead on? And he gets sick of telling us, no, I'm caught up. Everything's turned in. I'm sure most districts at this point have that, an app for the parents where they can go in and see every assignment, every grade.

Um, and so I'm so thankful that my parents did not have access to that. That would have been. That would have me in trouble quite a bit. I would

yeah, my mom just taught at my school,

Right. Yeah. You had the same

track to somebody tattling on me. But, um, I, we have the app. But what I learned was there, I was reacting to, uh, situations that weren't real because, you know, depending on, they would maybe put the assignment in and have a due date, but maybe that was the date they started whatever activity or project it was.

So I, I've stopped looking at it because I would go to my kids and go, this is missing and this was supposed to be do this and you don't have a grade and then. You know, the next week, boom, they got an A on it. And I was like, okay, I feel like I'm, we're all just chasing our tails here. So,

we've had a little bit of that too, for sure. Um, and kind of the, you know, the, all of a sudden the teachers just put it in the system and it's not even due yet, but it's showing up as missing. And like you said, it's just, um, you know, the kids are sick of us looking at it. That's for sure, but it's handy to know.

And, um, there's times where we've put parameters on what activities you can do based on what your grades are. And you know, um, having up to date information is, is pretty handy in that respect.

well, it's so hard because I have two kids that have executive function struggles. So sometimes they did all of the work. And it's in their locker. So we have a lot of just, and that has gotten significantly better, but there, we've had to problem solve and strategize with the kids and with the adults involved, because I'm not.

It's not good for them for me to micromanage the workflow and getting stuff turned in, because one day they're not going to live here anymore, and they won't have me to be their calendar. So, that has been an issue, and then working with the teachers on, You know, my son going back to them and saying, I know you saw me doing this in class and I completed it.

It's just still in my binder. Here you go. Um, so that has improved. But that was our main issue was wasn't that people weren't doing. The work, it was just that, I mean, one weekend we, me and my son spent some time just looking in his room because he was sure that his book log where he's supposed to log his reading was in there somewhere and he was not, he didn't have a good grade in book club, which is like just read and he reads all the time.

But you need to not lose the book log. Uh, he came up with a strategy for that though. He, when he, for class, he reads a physical book and he keeps, it's a tiny log, keeps the log in the book. And so it's his bookmark and it, the book log does not go far so that he can log his stuff and not lose it. But at one point he had like a C and I was like, dude, for my reader, like this is.

unacceptable. We got to come up with a system and I offered him all kinds of systems. I, you know, we talked about alarms on his phones, post it notes. I bought him a planner and I was kind of like shotgun approach, like which of these works and he didn't do any of them, but he came up with his own system, which is great and did that.

But that it's interesting to try to, to watch them and want to be involved. But not take over for them, because if they're going to get a zero, I'd prefer them to do it now before I'm paying for college classes. Uh,

absolutely.

um, and when it's the stakes are so much higher, but it is challenging. And it's also challenging because I'll say, uh, you were supposed to write a paper on that.

And it's clearly a paragraph. So we discuss that? Um, but they're like, no, no, no, she said it's just a summary and it can be a paragraph. And you know, I have to go, okay, I, you know, I hope that was the case. And sometimes there's a note in the grade book that says, I have given them the opportunity to redo this because their paper was one paragraph.

And I'm like,

I told you!

yes, tell 

not a whole lot of dating. Um, you have to actually go out of the house to, you know, do the dating thing. Um, and so, um, we haven't, we had a girlfriend for a while. Um, and, um, she came over to our house and they would hang out. And so. You know, that was kind of a, it was a new territory for us for sure. Um, but the whole, you know, leave the doors open and, um, in those kinds of things, but, um, we haven't, we haven't really had to cross that bridge a whole lot just yet,

Yeah, we haven't either. I, you know, I think that the COVID time period really slowed down some of that social growth. And I think all of my kids are a little bit behind in certain things. I mean, they, I feel like they just now have like. A best friend, like a closest friend. Uh, it helps that they're at a smaller school.

Their previous school was so big. They might have a great friend and then the next year never see them again. So that has been helpful, but they have been behind on just like. How to interact with somebody on the playground and how you're not always going to get your way on the activity you want because my kids were home for a year and a half and so trying to, you know, jump back in and, you know, my son missed the end of fourth and fifth and then it was like, here's middle school.

You haven't even been around other kids in a year and a half. Good luck! Um, so I feel like some of that, I feel like they're catching up, for sure. But in the beginning, I realized, gosh, they don't even know how to ask somebody to come over. And they also are very used to being at home. And so much of their socializing is like, while they play a game online.

They're FaceTiming, or whatever. So that's different too. I don't

So my, my oldest that for sure, that's his, that's how he interacts with his friends is, is while they're playing video games together and, you know, they'll hang out for hours.

Mm hmm.

now that they can drive every now and again, they'll get together in real life as the kids like to call it. Um, but, um, they just, it's, I mean, when you and I were 16, you know, we were going over to people's houses and hanging out.

Browers and all those kinds of things, just because we didn't have that online option, obviously. And like you said, COVID did kind of drive a lot of communication and interaction in that direction. And it's just kind of stuck, um, stuck with us. And so, um, I would love to see a little more social socializing with friends outside of the virtual world, but, um, you know, it's not, not a huge battle that we're going to fight.

Well, yeah, it's so, it's so challenging too because, you know, every generation of parents that whatever they're raising is so different from what they grew up with. And I don't want to be the parents that don't allow what literally every other little boy is doing all day. I don't. But also, I just know how good it is for them to actually socialize with people in person.

that's, you know, I mean in all of like the YouTube videos and things like that, and I'm sitting here going, yeah, when they get older, there's gonna be so much complaining about how limited their access to YouTube was, at least at a certain point. And that is another thing that I'm going through. Okay, so we've had, we've got it all locked down.

And like, except for when it doesn't work, right. Except for when the safety features don't work. But now that you're, you have somebody in the 16, who's, you know, just a couple of years away from, you know, being on campus where you can't have, I don't know, software parental controls on his computer. Like, when do we like start to take the training wheels off of what they have access to?

Cause the. The stuff they have access to can get pretty scary.

really

I feel like, and I feel like we're almost there. I mean, he's going to be an eighth grade. And he, uh, all internet usage is, takes place on the ground floor of our home. Um, so, I don't know, but eventually he needs to be able to like, I mean, it's a skill to be able to search for things online and find the information you need and research for things.

And they do that at school, of course. But at some point, there needs to be some unfettered access to the internet, and I feel like it's terrifying and I don't know how to handle it. Because this is kind of a new thing.

Yeah. And I don't know that we've done the best job, um, in this space. Cause it's, I mean, you know, you've shared some of your struggles with trying to get all the permal controls set up and we've gone through it where we've set it up and it's basically made the phone unfunctional and

Mm hmm.

can't get access to anything at all, even innocuous stuff.

And so we've gone back and forth and we've really just decided, you know, we've tried to do a good job of explaining why it is. want to keep you away from these things kind of leave it a little bit up to him. And now we do phone checks and all those kind of things on occasion. But just kind of why we're guarding our heart a little bit and why

Mm hmm.

why it's not a good thing to, you know, everything that pops up on the internet you don't need to search after.

And so hopefully that strategy pays off in the long run. I guess we'll see, but you're right. It is, it can get so scary so fast. And even completely unintentional, um, you don't even have to be trying to end up somewhere you don't want to be and it's pretty easy to get there.

Yeah, those websites are working really hard to get in front of everybody and because they know it's highly addictive, just like if, you know, if they can get you to download Candy Crush, you're going to be, you're, you're going to be playing. We got to get it in front of you. And what I realized, and there's kind of always something, but I remember when the kids first had iPads, I had Safari turned off so that they couldn't access the internet, but I didn't know that I needed to have Surrey off.

I, it just overrid it. So they would be like, sorry, show me, but they literally did this. And so then it pulled up Safari, even though they weren't supposed to have access to search and it was like. Not pornographic, but it was, it just was butts, a lot of, just for a variety of butts and a lot of like, uh, prosthetic butt products and, um, randomness.

But I was going, well, that took 30 seconds

right. That's just a gateway to

mm hmm, mm hmm.

know,

And then go, what

Siri, show me

Yeah, exactly. Show me this private part. Show me whatever. Um, so yeah, we talk a lot about. Uh, internet safety and, you know, not believe, you know, all the catfishing stuff that can happen and how heavily, uh, heavily edited any of that stuff is, you know, no, no one really looks like that.

And, know, trying to protect our kids, as a matter of fact, Kevin and I, our last episode was all about inner internet safety and raising teenagers because, and it'll air soon, or maybe it's already aired now that this is. Now that we're talking, um, we're talking in the future, but I have tried a number of different softwares and things and you're right, it makes everything like not functioning.

So. Then you're sitting there and trying to do like a school assignment and it me a, it takes me a half an hour to figure out how to turn the stuff off so we can work on the thing so we can turn it back on and it's just a nightmare and I was looking at Bark and if anyone has a great experience with Bark let me know because I signed up and was gonna do it and then their connectivity to Apple products isn't super great because Apple wants you to use their Parental control stuff and it was like, and it even said like, and I appreciated their transparency, but it was like, this step will take 45 minutes.

And I was like, per device,

oh, ouch.

I was like, Oh my God, this is not plug and play. And the way they worked was. The device had to be, uh, on your home wifi in order for it to be monitoring. And you know, the phone is portable

Yeah.

and they can, I don't think it's occurred to him yet, but he could just turn the wifi off and just be on data.

And it would be much harder for us to track doing. So I was like, well, forget this. I can't do this. We're just going to have to continually educate them. And. You know, hope for the best and just have tons of internet safety, you know, questions. I mean, cause you know, one of them was playing words with friends at one point and he made his profile pic that had the name of the school.

The name of his school was across the front of his jersey and I was like, it will take somebody 30 minutes to find you and kidnap you. Like you can't, and you need to use a fake name. Um, and we showed him, we Googled his name and broken arrow and we were able to pull up my dad's obituary. So then they got, so I showed him how, Oh look, now this is your parents names.

Oh, I'm going to search that. Oh, here's your address. You're dead. Like, I just basically went, I was like, and now you're dead, okay?

Yeah.

I don't want to overly scare you, but there's a guy on TikTok that you can, he like wants you to do this. Like you take a selfie video literally anywhere and you send it to him and within minutes he can find out where you, he can figure out where you are based on.

landmarks that are behind you, you know, what type of clothing you're wearing. Like the one I watched, the person was wearing a tank top and shorts and they were near a highway and they could see a Wendy's and a Chipotle in the background. And the guy literally pulled up maps in the South and looked for Wendy's and Chipotle's near each other.

And he found what parking lot this woman was in. So if someone wants to find you, they will. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm just trying to keep my kids from, I don't want to end up on Dateline if I can help it. I'm always I don't want

Yeah.

to be like, we're gonna be on the news. Stop what you're doing. Oh my gosh. So, do they have like computers in their rooms or when they're,

No, um, we, there's a, let's see, Brayden has a laptop, but it. It's pretty much lived in our room for quite a while. Um, and you know, every now and again, he'll use it for assignments. Um, you know, the rule is we prefer you be downstairs or we're supposed to be downstairs. I can't say that that happens all the time.

Um,

they're sneaky or they're

this upstairs for a little bit? And then I don't remember

Yeah, for forget

that. And yeah, it's a lot of work for us.

yeah, it's, it's a pain being a parent's a full time job. I mean, it's,

It is! It never stops. My kids have Chromebooks because we did homeschool for a year, like online school for a year, and I've hidden two of the kids Chromebooks so well, I don't know where they are. And they're wanting to use them for legitimate purposes and I'm like, it's probably in my closet somewhere, but I have, it's not in any, because what happens is they eventually like get enough clues, watching you go get the device that like, now they're onto me and now they know, know it's on my side, you know, so they're, so I have to keep changing the hiding place, which now I, I don't know, I don't know where they are, I have looked for them. Um, I hope I find them before school starts again, because access to them would be helpful. But that was the kind of thing, like, we take the, um, we're lim we're trying so hard to limit the kids to two hours of screen time a day, unless, uh, mommy has a podcast recording. So, um, so when we go to bed at night, we take the TV remote with us.

And that way they, you know, use your iPad or use your Switch, whatever. But man, those sneaky little boogers, they can come in silently. So we have to hide the remote every night because if I just like put it on my bathroom counter, I'll wake up in the morning and they have like army crawled, I guess, my room to get the remote.

It's just their, their drive.

bedside safe, maybe?

Well, we, we actually do have a safe and my. So, you know, they can have two hours to, like, they can have two hours however they want to slice it. So part of the time on the switch, part of the time on the iPad, whatever. I prefer it on the switch or the iPad because it's way easier to track.

You can set a timer. It shuts off automatically. TV is a little harder. There's no way to put like a timer on that. So yesterday, he's like, I want to use my last hour on The TV. And I was like, okay, give me your switch. And just to make my life easier, I just went, instead of changing how much time he could have that day, and going into the parental controls, I just stuck it in our safe.

Yeah.

I was just like, yeah. The safe isn't big enough for the Chromebooks though, so that is a problem. But iPads and phones and switches do sometimes find themselves in the safe.

There's just so many different ways our kids can access screens and information and

Mm hmm. Um,

it's hard to keep it all monitored.

and their drive to access it is unstoppable. And I mean, it, you, and you have to stay ahead of them because, you know, we're still of the generation where this didn't, we remember when this stuff didn't exist. And I mean, I feel like I'm pretty tech savvy, but nothing like someone who's had access to the internet or an iPad since they were a baby.

They're just. Really good at it.

Yeah.

And like one thing we figured out on the, um, iPads was I had to turn off their access to the app store because. They have to ask permission if they want to download a game, but if Casey or I already own it, they don't have to ask permission, so they can download it. So, um, they downloaded the Google app. So now we got Google! I mean, like, ahhhh!

Access to the, access to the world.

Luckily, one of my kids came to me and said, Mom, I want to show you that what we have access to and you need to shut it down. And that was, I'm sure like self preservation for him because the lack of self control is there. So that was him.

that he's willing to do that.

It just depends on the moment.

It really depends on the moment, um, because he's not supposed to have his, um, iPad and phone currently upstairs. And my husband walked in his room the other day and you would have thought he was hiding like illicit drugs under his bed in case he's like, what, what's happening? And he's like, I have my phone and iPad upstairs.

And then I was like, Oh, well, I guess I need to spend some time seeing if he mission impossible does way into this. And he hadn't, he just. He was, had been FaceTiming his friends and playing on a switch. That is totally fine, but we try to keep the phone downstairs so that we can just have, you know, but it's not this unfettered access to everything.

And,

safer.

and he had just. Forgotten to bring it back down and then got caught. So, and the consequences, and trying to figure out what consequences are appropriate. It sounds like your kids, you do a lot of physical, like they have to physically do something to make it right. Whether it's a chore, or mowing the lawn, or vacuuming the cars, or Mm hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Um. Yeah, we, I mean, I think like both parents, we struggle with, you know, what are the appropriate consequences and we want to make things that make sense, you know, logical consequences. I think, um, and sometimes we're great at that. And other times we're just reactionary and vindictive. It feels like.

Oh yeah,

of us,

the number of times I've been like, you will never see your iPad again. I mean, not quite that bad because I know you should never say that. So it's like, you're not going to have your iPad for a whole week. And then later I'm like, does that make sense? Because it, the iPad had nothing to do with the event.

Where's the logical, you know, connection between the two though? We have, we had one child, but I don't even remember what he did at this point, but he, he lost access to electronics for a very long time. I think like two months.

Was that a nightmare for you? Because when my kids lose electronics, they complain about it so much. And I'm like, this is, you're supposed to be suffering right now. Like that's the point. You're supposed to be suffering because you don't have it.

I now remember what he did. He actually destroyed an iPad in a fit rage. He destroyed an iPad.

we've had

And so the logical consequence was, okay, now you don't have access to this. And then he had to do chores enough to pay it off, um, before he was allowed to get back on electronic devices. So obviously that took a while for him to do the chores, um, in order to be able to, you know, pay off the.

Pay off the expense, but what we have found with our kids is when we take electronics away Usually for the first couple days It's nightmare for us But then they just kind of adapt and they figure out other things to do and it's not quite as big a deal So it's just getting past that initial couple day period And then everything seems to you know, they find other things to do

Well, and the reason that we have a limit is because, you know, I have a couple kids where everything is black and white. And when Casey and I try to be flexible, it's very hard for them. I mean, we've just had to decide, no, this is when you go to bed because if there's Ever a night where we're like, Oh, everybody's swimming and they're having so much fun and we're letting them stay up.

And then two days later, we can't, you can't do that every day. Right? You can't stay, you know, especially cause my kids don't know how to sleep in. So I was like, Casey, I think it's killing them when we're flexible on bedtime. I think we just need to remove it from the equation unless it's a holiday. So like July 4th, they will get to stay up late.

Otherwise we are aiming for the accurate bedtime. At least. From their perception, you know, we may not push quite as hard in the summer, but the two hour limit has been so great because it, when it runs out, there is almost never anyone asking for more time or if they do, they say, Hey, can I have more time on my switch?

And I just say no. And they're actually go, okay. And I'm like, this is new, but they do like to complain about how bored they are. So I'm not saying they're like off. I'm not inventing anything, certainly, but it has taken away, it's one less, it's one less argument. I don't have to argue.

you, anytime you can remove arguments, that's Because I feel like there's just so many of them.

Well, and we're having an issue with iPad 2 because we had one that got cracked, which wasn't that big of a deal, but this kid, you know, and I'm the same way, man, like, if you give me a pen, by the end of the day, I'll have broken some little piece off of the pen. Like I, I fidget with things, but I don't know what he did with it.

And I don't know if he was angry or not, but like now it's shattered across the front and we have Apple care. And I can't tell if it's a 30 copay or a 100 copay to get the glass fixed, but he's going to pay for that. And he has money in a savings account that he keeps spending on other crap. So I don't, he may never get it back because I'm just like, are you sure you want to buy a new Nerf gun?

Because you have 30 and that's your inching your way to fixing your iPad. So he's choosing other things and I'm not here to like speed up his access to one more device. I have

Right.

kind of decided because He really takes advantage of the call map with like the sleep stories and stuff, and obviously doesn't have access to that right now.

So I'm kind of thinking maybe I will fix it, but everything on it will be off except for the call map until... He pays off. Because I'm like, he's, you know, you're having trouble falling asleep. Sorry I took your iPad away. Oh, actually, I'm sorry you destroyed your iPad, but that's the device the app lives on that tells you the sleep story that helps you sleep.

But I don't want him to think he can destroy iPads and It's not a big deal. And he kept going, I just think somebody stepped on it. I'm like, there's no way that is what happened.

Well, that's exactly what our son said was I stepped on it and you took one look at it and you're like, no, you didn't step on it. Like,

and also, why is it on the floor? I mean, like, let's back up another step. You know, a car ran over it. Well, why was it in the middle of the street? But yes, the damage of like a 70 pound kid stepping on it doesn't seem to reflect. It doesn't seem to be to me.

The glass and 238 pieces.

Oh my gosh. I know. It's so hard. And it's, you're just looking at it. I don't know. I didn't ever do any of these things. That's another thing. I wasn't the kid doing these things.  I was blessed with the fact that my brain has impulse control built in. And there is a lack with these people, but we're working on it. I mean, even with Texas Hold'em, we're trying to have them look even just like one step or two steps into the future.

But in the moment that they're destroying their own iPad, nobody's thinking about. That, which is crazy, but they're just, just, they're just destroying their own and it's hurting themselves. That's what I don't get. I'm like, that's yours, man. What are you doing?

Yeah, the executive function's just not there in a lot of cases. As my wife has to remind me all the time, you know, it's... I think for boys it's, what, 25 before everything. Fully functioning frontal cortex there, and

I saw the other day, they've changed the age to 32. I feel

Oh,

what it was. And I was like, uh, Casey had been married for nine years. By then.

Might explain a lot.

Yeah, he'd been, he was 23 and I was 26 when we got married, but yeah, I mean the, and yeah, kids with, um, or people with ADHD, some people do grow out of it. Like they age out of it, their brain, the chemicals change and, but you won't know until I think the age of like 27.

So there's a lot, and there's a ton of adults walking around with that. I mean, really, it should be called Executive Dysfunction Disorder. I mean, that's really, uh, what it is and like, I just read the other day, 20% of adults that have ADHD don't know they do. They're undiagnosed. So they're just wandering around, uh, you know, late to everything or forgetting work or whatever.

So the more we can help our kids gain some executive function, 

more we know, for sure.

Their future spouse, for sure, will appreciate it.

Yes. I've been praying for my future spouses for quite a while now for my children. So,

Yeah,

they're what they're in for.

That is so hard for me to imagine right now, so we'll see. Currently young, yeah, currently my youngest is like, I don't ever want to get married and I'm going to buy the house next door. And I was like, that sounds great. No problem. So, oh, this parenting. Well, is there, do you have any other ridiculous, um, craziness happening at your house that you want to share?

Oh, man. I'm trying to rack my brain and

Has anyone broken anything lately? No broken bones.

we've, no, we haven't had any broken bones. Um, it's been a while since we've had stitches. Um, yeah, we're kind of on a little good streak. I mean, the, the fire in the backyard was the last major

Mm hmm.

incident. I feel like we've had, I'm sure that there's probably something I'm missing, but I mean, the threshold now for like what.

hmm.

you know, what gets recognized as something that's major is it's, it just keeps inching up and up So feel like for the summer, we're, we're in pretty good shape.

Yeah, I was saying that to Casey yesterday, and he's like, You shut your mouth. You your mouth. The vigs are going well and nothing's been broken lately. You're gonna jeeks us.

was sitting here thinking, I hope I'm not jinxing

Mm hmm. Well, um, there's still time in the summer, but hopefully they surprise us and, uh, yeah, you're right. I mean, the, the things, the things that get broken most of the time belong to them anyway.

So that takes some of the pain out of it for me, but I really would like to repaint the downstairs because of all of the dents in all the drywall. And I just,

and nicks and yeah.

I don't think we're there yet. I would love to be and it's because it's because it's scuffed up I mean like listen I'm the we're the parents that let them like we got a box and we let them go down the stairs in it like we let Them go down on their sleeping bags or tubs or whatever other dangerous thing They can come up with we let them do that and it's to be expected that the stairs are beaten up Right and I have That's part of the deal.

So I guess the second I pay somebody to come and paint my stairwell, I'm going to turn into evil person about the stairs. So maybe I need to give it a couple more years. Um, cause I yeah, ahead.

we're, you know, we're a couple of years away from doing the things that we want to do, just because there's no point to do it now. Cause we're just gonna have to redo it.

Yes. Well, Andy, it. You put yourself in a position where, I mean I was talking the other day about, I read an article about a mom who has, had like a three year old with no impulse control, which really no three year old has impulse control. And she bought brand new white furniture and she left markers out.

I mean just like,

You're asking for

Yeah, and you want to be so frustrated that you can't have white furniture and you can't leave markers out, but also it's like, I mean, can we set up a situation where we're not just creating our own nightmare, uh, which is why I've just decided whatever happens in the game room, I don't care.

If there's a big hole, I will make them fix it. But if you want to flip that furniture upside down, whatever, it's a 25 year old couch. Like I'm going to decide not to care, but the couch downstairs. Cheers. I do care about the couch downstairs is for sitting and they respect that for the most part. I'm amazed that there hasn't been like it got, you know, stabbing a couch.

Stabbing seems like I'm, I'm really surprised we haven't had one. Um, but yeah, I would like to go through and paint all of the drywall that's been chipped from about like, you know, like a three year old driving a shopping cart around

Yeah.

And I have the, the remote control cars around about like my hip down, I would like to fix.

And I forget about it and then we have people over and I'm suddenly looking at my house going, Oh my God.

It's scary. Like you see it through a whole different lens when people come into your house and things that, you know, you've just kind of learned to live with all of a sudden you're like, Oh, wow, maybe I do need to address that.

I say, I just, Oh, we know we need to patch that drywall. Just, just ignore it. Come inside. Oh my gosh, maybe one day, maybe in a few years. We'll see.

going to be able to do a podcast like 15 years from now and just kind of look back and chuckle and laugh and say, Hey, we survived. . 



So, do your kids throw silverware away? We have run out of spoons on so many occasions, and the only thing we can figure out is that our kids throw the spoons away.

Well, I don't think they have, you know, now it kind of makes me want to count my silverware.  But, um, more like it just disappears into the house. And so then we kind of have to go on a sweep. We have to do bowls and forks and spoons.

And they're not supposed to be eating that kind of stuff in their rooms anyway.

yes, that's a whole issue.

Um, I mean, in your case, it's really nice that they're throwing anything away.

Yeah,

They threw something

way to look at it. Um, I just get sick of buying new sets of spoons all the time.

Yeah, they're probably eating a lot of, uh, a lot of cereal and yeah.

ton of cereal. That's a food group at our house.

what kind of cereal do you provide? I struggle with that.

So... Um, I am a great value Walmart cereal enthusiast. Um, I buy the, I buy the cheap stuff, but I would say it's not uncommon for us to have 10 boxes of cereal at any given time.

so you get fun cereal? I don't

well we get, I mean, it's all across the board from, you know, I'm going to use brand names, but know I buy the generic, um,

checks, golden grams, frosted flakes, um, I mean, you, cinnamon coast crunch, you name it.

We've got it all across the board. So some healthy, some not. Um, I, I love cereal. It's kind of my nightly snack. So we, we keep a lot of cereal in stock at most times.

Yeah,

that's what we use ton of.

kids the other day were needing a snack and they were like, there is nothing good to eat here. There is no sugar and there's no snacks. And here's the thing I would happily have. ice cream and popsicles and chips and fun cereal. They don't have a way to take their foot off the gas when they're eating it.

It'll be the whole tub of ice cream is gone in one day. There's, there's no moderation involved. So then I just have to go or just, and it's so many arguments. How many popsicles have you had? You've already had three today. You want another

He's had two. I've only had one.

Oh my god, the keeping track of the popsicles. So I just don't buy it. I would love to have fun cereal, but I think they would eat a whole box in an afternoon. So that's the struggle.

We have a lady in our neighborhood and she's known as the popsicle lady and Our boys know that if they go to her house and ring her doorbell, she will answer the door with a popsicle

That's adorable.

have no idea how often they take advantage of this. I'm scared to even ask, but, um, it's great. I mean, the kids love her, she loves it.

And, um, I am sure that they have had quite a few popsicles at her house.

Well, the funny thing about my children is, you know, I used to always have, like, especially during COVID I, I'm the person who like, when you're sick, I give you Gatorade. That's my deal. I know every parent's different. That's what my mom gave me. So you're going to get lemon lime Gatorade anyway.

our house too.

Yeah, so I had some Gatorade on hand and then it just became a battle because I want to be like, if you come down with COVID or the flu or something, today I want to have it.

I want to have it on hand. Well, they couldn't handle it. So, I mean, our house literally, there's no ice cream, no popsicles, no Gatorade, like we have water and milk because they just pedal to the metal with all of those things. They can find Gatorade? Anywhere. They will leave my house and go out in the neighborhood and each come home with a 32 ounce bottle of Glacier Freeze Gatorade.

And I'm like, where'd that Oh, Jackson's mom, she had it. They can do it on a daily basis. They will ring people's doorbell and say, do you have any candy? And of course the people are like, you're Here's some candy. So I,

my latest parenting snack or one of those, you know, you think you've got a good idea and you think it's, here's a good thing. And then it turns out to backfire on you. I worked in event, um, a golf event for the big 12 a couple months ago. And so I was in charge of snacks and all that kind of stuff. And so we had Gatorade powder.

And so Gatorade sent a bunch of product for us. And so I brought packages of Gatorade powder home thinking this will be great. Kids can make their own Gatorade. We have Gatorade powder in places we're never going to get rid of. And so I'm about to just throw it all out because was, I thought it was going to be a great idea.

And now there's just Gatorade powder everywhere and all over the counters, the floor, everywhere.

And then the second a drop of water gets on it, it's sticky as can be. And we did that too. I tried the Gatorade powder strategy for a little while. And they also, I will say, if you're making your own Gatorade or your own lemonade with the powder, it's fun because you can put way too much and it tastes. I always say tastes like church lemonade.

It's so good. We put lemonade in these to serve at when we were kids. But, yeah, my kids would go through the whole container. There would be Gatorade everywhere, the powder everywhere. It just looked like an explosion. That's why I had to rid of powdered sugar. I actually introduced them to the delight that is sprinkling powdered sugar on, like, your pancakes or whatever.

But then it was just like a powdered sugar, it's, there was no,

Yeah.

I just, I can't get my arms around it, and, and I don't want to be the one that's like freaking out about powdered sugar or popsicles, so we just don't have them, and then I'll buy some, like I'll probably have some for 4th of July, and they'll burn through them in a weekend, and I get the sugar free kind, which is helpful, but they just, They would eat the whole box in an afternoon, which is just not good.

So,

No. We're, we're with ya.

well, I appreciate your time today. Thanks for coming back and chatting with us.

I've enjoyed it. It's always good to commiserate with somebody that you know is going through the same struggles and um, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that get to laugh at us and um, probably have some of the same, same experiences that we do. So it's good to talk about it.

Well, I, I think it's important. You know, I listen to a lot of podcasts. And anytime the host is, and they have nothing to do with parenting, like armchair expert, like anytime Dax Shepard talks about a little morsel about parenting and how he had a really hard day with his kids, it's so gratifying to me.

They Usually

feel validated.

yeah, I'm like, Oh, because he talks, he talks a lot about how much he loves his kids and it's, everyone should have kids and it's the best thing that ever happened to him. And he, his life is complete with his kids. So sometimes I'm like, I struggle. Um, to just like be all rainbows and butterflies all the time about the kids, but then he'll tell like a quick story about how normally they take vacations with all of their friends and their friends, kids, and they decided they weren't spending meaningful time with their Children during those trips.

The kids were having fun, but they weren't, you know, bonding with their Children. So Like their recent trip, um, I guess it was around Christmas. They went to the mountains with their kids and had a horrible time because the kids were bored. They were surrounded by snow. There was nothing, like nothing to do.

And they were, you know, he and Kristen were like, yeah, maybe back to that. But it just made me feel better because if all you see... Um, and then C is people going, Oh my gosh, we did this with our kids and we did this with our kids. And sometimes you think, I wouldn't, I don't think I would do that.

Like, I'm a little scared for you and your crews, but maybe it's going to go great. Maybe it's going to be

Oh, yeah. Fingers crossed. If you don't hear from me in a week, you may just, you know, check on me.

The mindset going in is, I think, the huge part. Like, I went into skiing knowing this is so they can learn to ski. This is going to be very active. I am going to get no rest. And I, I was less irritated with the whole thing, so,

Realistic expectations.

Mm hmm. And they didn't lose anything. You know, if it's freezing cold all day, you don't lose your gloves.

If you're, you know, if you're in Oklahoma and you take your gloves off and on, you're going to lose them all. But they didn't lose anything. They got themselves dressed every day. That was a huge thing. I didn't have to carry as much stuff as I thought I was going to have to carry. I was just imagining, like, all of the long underwear and mittens and...

neck gaiters and all of the things I was worried about, but it honestly, it's probably the best vacation we've  📍 ever had. So we will be doing that. We will be doing it again. anyway, well, good luck on your cruise.

Thank you. Looking forward to it. And, um, hope you guys have a good 4th of July.

Thanks. You too. Bye.

Bye.





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