Bringing it Home: Raising Cain

let's hear it for the boy let's give the boy a hand so mother's day it's approaching and so we are both raising boys we are and so today let's just have a little fun before we get started here on bringing it home with sarah and today let's have a little fun here okay sarah let's complete these phrases okay boys are what was seven-year-old sarah said stinky boys are stinky all those things what would mother sarah say today about my boy oh my boy my boy's my heart boys are different than girls they are they're not the same okay try this one things i love about boys i love how there's like not much drama if white thinks something or feels something about something he just says it and we deal with it and we move on yeah you know having a conversation with a girl they can kind of go all over the world before they kind of land and boys tend to be more to the point like i love watching him and his friends and listen to their conversations in the back of the car when they think i'm not really listening just just boys they're a lot of fun yeah they are a lot of fun now last one i wish boys would you can't say people like girls no no i wouldn't because i want they're not girls you know um i do wish that he would talk to me more you know i think sharing those feelings sometimes he does but other times i can tell he's mulling something over and he's not ready to talk about it yeah it's hard to get boys to open up sometimes so the things that we're going to discuss today are from a curriculum called raising cane and it's all about how boys and men are different than girls right and as females we don't know how they think and why they think that or why they do these things right there's science behind these things and so since mother's day is coming up and there are a lot of mothers out there in podcast land that are raising boys we want to talk about what do boys need from us as parents what do boys need now my boy's older than your boy we're teenage we're right on the verge of crossing over into adulthood right i mean you've got a little bit longer before adulthood but there are needs at every age that boys have from their parents so one of those is about feelings yeah i did because that is one thing that i wish that my own child would share a little bit more i guess more often but boys need to recognize their own feelings and then they need to be able to recognize the feelings of other people that they're coming in contact with that they may live with they're in class with and you know some feelings are scary i mean you know they go to a lot of emotions especially if they approach puberty and they go through the teenage years when the hormones are just all over the place their bodies are changing so they may have multiple feelings over the course of the day right and it's confusing right you know when they're little when they're toddlers or kids they're going to tell you everything but as they start to age and hit that puberty age and all that it changes they put a filter on everything doesn't get talked about or you know but we want them to know that it's okay to talk about it and that we're here as their parents or uh you know somebody else they trust they can talk about those feelings now it's encouraged that we spend some alone time with sons so that you know that would be the time that they would be most likely to connect with you open up about anything that's easy in my house he's the only son there you're raising a daughter right now as well right so how hard is it for you to spend one-on-one time with Wyatt when Bailey Ann is there too you know in the day-to-day it is difficult because you know we get home from school and work and we got homework and we got this like everybody's there right so i try like um Bailey Ann goes to bed a little bit earlier than Wyatt so Wyatt and I try we have a favorite tv show that we like to watch together so we'll get he'll get a shower get cleaned up and i'll get her in the bed and then we try to at least two or three nights a week get caught up on our favorite show we dvr and we sit there and watch it together we're history nerds it's history channel show that we love to watch together oh that's deep and that sounds like fun though it's just two of y'all do that you know sometimes um josh joins us but that's something that Wyatt and I have in common that we really like to do you know that's good because you know boys are more likely to open up to you during something and what i mean by that is a girl will say mom i need to talk to you she will sit down in the chair across from you at the kitchen table and y'all can have an hour-long conversation probably not gonna happen that way with a boy normally he'll bring something up over the course of something else while you're watching the movie while you're doing anything at all that's right and he will bring up something that's been on his mind for two weeks and he'll choose the point of the movie when you're really about to find out who the killer is and he'll say oh by the way i mean to tell you and just it's very familiar so it's one of those things that we need to uh really do i agree if they are silent we need to as parents respect that because there are times we don't feel like talking as well so we need to respect that in our children but i also think as a parent we usually kind of have an intuition that something's going on you know so even in those moments of silence just put out there hey you know if you ever want to talk to me i'm here you know put constantly put that out there hey okay just checking on you you know and sometimes they're interesting things that we're just not interested in oh my son was into wrestling for years and he wanted to talk about every wrestler uh you know that may not have been where our minds were at the time even though i used to be a big wrestling fan and so my husband but we've got to connect where they are right you know then basketball became his thing he wants to talk about basketball so we listen to what's important to them when the big life things happen they're gonna be more likely to come to us because they know we'll listen that's such a good point i also want to share that i have a friend that did this with her son he's now grown up but to get them to talking she started a journal it was just between the two of them and she wrote a note on the first page just kind of saying what this is and i love you and i'm always here to talk and we don't have to do this every day but if you just want to share something that you want to talk about face to face or if you got something you want to write me or you just want to leave a little note you know write it on this pad this journal put it under my pillow and i'll see it and then i'll write you back at some point and then i'll put it under your pillow that is so sweet so it was a back and forth thing but often she told me they did lead to face-to-face conversations i was gonna say my son would never write back because that sounds like homework it's for work he would never write back yeah but you know i thought that was a great idea because there are some things i mean you think back to when we were teenagers we didn't want to like tell mom this or no no but if i had the opportunity to write it down and maybe not sit with you face to face i may be more likely to share right and then we can't overreact by whatever they say even though on the inside we want to go omg you have to remain very calm right don't act surprised by anything even though you may be just horrified by some of the things um that's how you get them to keep talking because if you blow up that's it you just shut the door so we need our boys to learn how to express themselves in ways other than anger and aggression we see a lot of aggression on tv you know boys and men video games yeah we see a lot of aggression so we need to teach them how to express themselves in other ways but we don't want them to be pushovers we want them to know it's okay to speak up for themselves and also to defend other people if they see bullying happening or if there's somebody that needs help at home and maybe they haven't talked to anybody that they need to tell somebody about a situation they need to be able to do that you know you can fight a big fight with your words that's right you know so i do encourage my kids to talk and to stand up for other people and stand up for yourself nobody else is going to you know so you're exactly right we need to figure out a way to when we have those feelings of anger and aggression tell them that's normal that's natural those feelings are okay it's what we do with them that can become the problem or help with the solution right sometimes we got to walk away oh that's hard part of growing from a voice of man is knowing when to walk away from a conflict that's right you don't have to engage every negative vibe that tries to come to you that's that's a puppy that's someone for adults don't engage everybody that's negative that comes right you know you're wasting all your own energy and time so i think that's great another thing that we need to talk to them about is empathy we need help them learn empathy for them to teach we need to teach them empathy you know and that's not the same as sympathy okay you know empathy means like i know what you're going through you know i understand your feelings when you have sympathy for somebody you know i'm you're sorry for what they're going through and you can have them at the same time right but empathy is thinking a step farther you know if that was me how would i feel how i want someone to treat me putting yourself in their shoes and where they learn how to do that from us from home they learn the positive and the negative so if they see us helping people they're less fortunate than we are they see us befriending people that are different than we are they look different that hope different that worship differently all of those things right and the same can happen though on the reverse right so we want to teach them empathy and to look at things from other people's point of view yeah no that's truly important because when it comes down to it they're going to want people to understand where they're coming from too so we can learn to agree to disagree in this world but we have to be taught to do that right and you can do that too by giving them some responsibility at home you know if you've got a pet or they want a pet you may have some guidelines okay well we'll get this dog okay just give me an example okay that would involve going outside yeah but that's just an example you know sure okay we can get this pet but these are going to be your responsibilities you know you're going to have to feed the pet once a day you're going to have to take it out you're going to have to do this and this you know or if it's a sibling that is old enough to maybe babysit a younger sibling it's no longer so far for over two okay well let me finish this thought i got one for y'all um you know they can help maybe uh giving them the responsibility of keeping them a couple days during the summer if you know if they're truly ready for that because then they can see the responsibility that comes along with that now for older children um you know maybe taking him and assisting with a grandparent or a great-grandparent or someone in your church who is a widow or widower and having them help them mow their yard um going to help with their groceries you know there's always an opportunity for service yeah yeah you know just to say that the world does not revolve around you at 17 years old we have to be taught that yes all that has to be taught right that's very good you know the thing that i really think about are emotions you know emotions belong in the life of a man and that starts in boyhood and you know the main thing we can do is to put men in boys paths that know how to show emotion that show them how to treat other people for example my husband is a great example to charleston of how to love his wife how to treat his wife and be respectful um and that's you know he may not say anything about it at this age but it's teaching him for the future right when it's time for him to choose a mate right you know he's gonna look for a woman that would compliment him as you and charles compliment each other well thank you but he'll know how to treat her right you know he'll know you know how to respect but he also sees how you treat his dad right you know so he's being modeled a very healthy marital relationship they do they do and if you're a single dad out there you know don't feel like you're not a good role model there's a lot of great wonderful single dads out there but you are active in their they're active in their children's lives right they're in i see single dads at my kids school events church events i mean they are their hands-on they come to extension programs you know our parenting events they want to learn how to be a better father right so so there's a lot of ways to be that that man and if you are a mom listening and your child doesn't have that in their life well you know you can find that in an uncle a grandfather a pastor you know a friend a neighbor you know you can not to substitute and be a dad but to just be that strong male role model definitely you know i think another thing we've got to teach our boys is to help them develop their internal controls you know wow the way we discipline them the way that we respond to their behavior what we allow them to do and not do you know they have to learn learn that from someone right you know there's a way to respond to them instead of saying you didn't clean your room so we're not going to the park you know try to rephrase that into something like hey look let's get finished cleaning up so we can get to the park sooner you said the same thing really the bottom line is clean up right but i didn't say you you you you need to do this hey let's get moving you know compliment them help them realize you know these are my boundaries these are the guidelines i just think kids need structure you know there's some three-range parents do what you need to do but i feel like the kids that are going to thrive the best have some type of structure that's true it keeps them safe it does keep them safe and you know boys tend to explore boys can you know kind of check the boundaries it's part of the boy makeup i understand that so one thing we definitely need to do is to compliment them when they solve problems on their own obviously these are age-appropriate problems there are some problems they don't need to solve on their own but when they can work out those little situations on their own that feels confidence that's how you go from a boy to a man is learning how to handle things that are appropriate to handle and as you grow and gain more knowledge and more understanding of the world you continue to solve bigger problems right because at that childhood you were it was reinforced that you were doing the right thing you did a good job yes well then then i'm going to step out a little farther and take on bigger you know harder issues on my own yeah i think that's really important that is and another need a boy and we know is most boys are just pin up energy they got to get it out so we need to make sure that they are physically active and that doesn't mean your kid has to play sports because my son he does not like organized sports you know but we're outside all the time he's active in other activities he likes to fish he likes to hunt he rides his bike you know there's a lot of ways to keep them active because they don't have an outlet it tends to show up in undesired ways because that pin up energy is going to get out that's right and that's the behavior is not going to be what the parent or caregiver would like for it to be about the wrong place at the wrong time and you don't you know make sure there's a chance for to get out well you know raising boys is a lot of fun i love i love my girl i love my boy it's fun to see it from both sides um but being a mom or can you be in a mom you know boys are different they're not us you know have different thoughts and feelings but it's it's pure joy to raise the boys it is so raising cane is a simple task it's a challenging task but it's something that we wouldn't trade for anything in the world so thank you all for joining us on this edition of bringing it home with sarah and teniel and one of our favorite boys who went on to become a man mr bob marley he would say to live the life you love and love the life you live bye