The Whole Parent Podcast

Why Kids Lie (Part 2 of 2) #019

March 21, 2024 Jon Fogel - WholeParent
Why Kids Lie (Part 2 of 2) #019
The Whole Parent Podcast
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The Whole Parent Podcast
Why Kids Lie (Part 2 of 2) #019
Mar 21, 2024
Jon Fogel - WholeParent

Click Here to listen to Why Kids Lie: Part 1

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As a parent, confronting the uncomfortable truth of a child's lie can be a heart-wrenching moment. On today's Whole Parent Podcast, we delve into the delicate balance of handling such revelations with empathy and understanding. Our conversation is grounded in personal experiences and the gentle wisdom of Fred Rogers, offering a guiding light to navigate through these parenting waters. From a tale of suspected stealing to the crucial steps of addressing mistakes, this episode is a heartfelt exploration of fostering honesty and growth in our little ones.

Parenting is an art form, and just like any artist, we must learn from each brushstroke, each mistake. This episode provides a three-step process for responding to children's slip-ups in a way that builds trust and encourages learning. We tackle the intricate dance of communication, where curiosity leads and judgment takes a backseat, allowing our children to feel empowered rather than shamed. Role reversal becomes a tool, not just for understanding our kids but also for teaching them the value of empathy in their own interactions.

Lastly, we broach the complex issue of theft, emphasizing the need for ethical conversations from the sandbox to the courtroom. By engaging our children in discussions about morality, we prepare them for the larger stage of life where right and wrong are often shades of gray. It's here, through non-judgmental dialogue and positive assumptions, that we lay the foundations for a future of ethical decision-makers. Join us on this journey of parenting with purpose, and don't forget to subscribe for more insights that strengthen our resolve and confidence as the sculptors of tomorrow's adults.

Send us a Text Message.

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Click Here to listen to Why Kids Lie: Part 1

Join the whole parent email list:
HERE

As a parent, confronting the uncomfortable truth of a child's lie can be a heart-wrenching moment. On today's Whole Parent Podcast, we delve into the delicate balance of handling such revelations with empathy and understanding. Our conversation is grounded in personal experiences and the gentle wisdom of Fred Rogers, offering a guiding light to navigate through these parenting waters. From a tale of suspected stealing to the crucial steps of addressing mistakes, this episode is a heartfelt exploration of fostering honesty and growth in our little ones.

Parenting is an art form, and just like any artist, we must learn from each brushstroke, each mistake. This episode provides a three-step process for responding to children's slip-ups in a way that builds trust and encourages learning. We tackle the intricate dance of communication, where curiosity leads and judgment takes a backseat, allowing our children to feel empowered rather than shamed. Role reversal becomes a tool, not just for understanding our kids but also for teaching them the value of empathy in their own interactions.

Lastly, we broach the complex issue of theft, emphasizing the need for ethical conversations from the sandbox to the courtroom. By engaging our children in discussions about morality, we prepare them for the larger stage of life where right and wrong are often shades of gray. It's here, through non-judgmental dialogue and positive assumptions, that we lay the foundations for a future of ethical decision-makers. Join us on this journey of parenting with purpose, and don't forget to subscribe for more insights that strengthen our resolve and confidence as the sculptors of tomorrow's adults.

Send us a Text Message.

Speaker 1:

A lot of parents really want to start from the place of corrective action and not empathy and connection and understanding and curiosity. What that leads to ultimately is our kid really really not wanting to bring things to us in the future. Because if we lead with correction and punishment whether that be physical punishment or even just shame then we close our kid off to the idea that we're a safe person to bring things to. It's a brand new day. Hey, wake up every morning and say it's a brand new day. Hey, take a good day. Make it great. Hello and welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast.

Speaker 1:

I'm John at Whole Parent on all the social medias and you are listening to part two of our episode All About Lying. If you didn't listen to the last episode yet, I really really encourage you to go back and listen to that episode first. Why? Because this episode was originally recorded as a really really long, too long to post on my podcast episode about lying. So the things that you're going to hear in this are going to refer back to that as if you've already heard it. I highly recommend, if you haven't done it yet, just go back, listen to the very last episode that I published Kids Lying, part One or whatever. I wind up titling it by then. I'm kind of tipping my hand here that I don't always know the titles until the night before and I have a eureka moment and then publish a title. But go back and listen to the last episode, whatever it's titled Part One about Kids Lying so that you can hear all of the good things in that episode about younger kids. Even if you have an older kid and you're like, no, I really want to listen to this episode because my kid is older they're 10, they're 11, they're 9, whatever. I still recommend you go back and you listen to the episode on three-year-olds and six-year-olds, because I may say something in there that really, really helps you understand how you've gotten to the point that you're at right now with your kid, and then come back and listen to this episode because we have an absolute gem for you today.

Speaker 1:

I really, really enjoyed making this episode. I really enjoyed talking about this because this combines so many aspects of what I think becoming a whole parent to whole children is. We talk about older kids, so much of my platform talks about toddlers, which I think is really important when you need to treat toddlers with respect and dignity and love and belonging and give them rights and treat them as full humans and all of that. But really I don't often get to talk about older kids and it's really, really exciting for me to do that, and I mentioned a bunch of places in this episode about my book and I'm not going to do a mid-roll in this episode. You're just going to hear from me at the very end of the episode and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about getting on the email list at that point. If you haven't already done that yet, you can do that at the link in the description. But if you are excited for the book, if you are listening, if you wind up listening to this episode and you go, wow, I really enjoy this approach to parenting and I want to know more and I want to. You know, I want the whole book. The best place that you can go is my email list, because my email list will be the first people who have any access to the book at all. There are going to be the ones that get the link on the very first day to pre-order that when it becomes available, and they'll probably get some bonuses as well, maybe some special chapters or conversations about it. So if you are interested in that book, make sure that you are on that whole parent email list again in the description in the link right above.

Speaker 1:

But without further ado, let's get into part two about lying and kids. Our third question comes from Jessica, a name that I'm partial to because I married a Jessica who says I'm in a tough spot with my nine-year-old son. I recently found a toy in his pocket that I'm almost certain he stole from the store. When I asked him about it he denied taking it and insists that he quote found it somewhere. I'm totally at a loss for what to do. Jessica, I am with you. I have been there with my own kids. I have been there with so many parents for whom they struggle with this. This has been a topic that we've covered. On group coaching and the membership. This has been a topic that I've covered in DMs with parents who are in the membership Emails, parents that I know personally in my own life. This is super, super common. This happens.

Speaker 1:

Kids do stuff like this and how we respond matters a whole lot. Do we wish that this type of stuff didn't happen? Of course. Do we wish that kids never did anything problematic. Maybe it would make parenting a heck of a lot easier sometimes, but there are some things and I'm going to walk you through a three-step process that I have walked parents through when they encounter this type of thing that I think can really really help in situations like this. And before I even get into the first three steps, usually my step one is give yourself so much grace and give yourself so much like Affirmation that you're doing a good job as a parent. This is not a signal or a sign that you're not doing a good job as a parent. This is just a thing that kids do and and how we address it. That's how our parenting is measured, not based on. Hey, these are the behaviors that our kids do, you know, when they're exploring the world and trying to figure out where they, where they reside in the world. That's not why or how we should ought to be judged as parents. The way that we are judged as parents is how we parent, how we Respond to these things, and I'll remind everyone on this call that, like you know, one of the greatest parenting educators of all time, my favorite parenting educator, who I've mentioned probably too many times in the recent Episodes because I just finished his biography, maybe a month ago, fred Rogers.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that's highlighted in the in the biography with his own kids is how they had. He had this Really well-behaved good you know kids typical good kids that you think about all through their early childhood and then they felt the freedom to explore the world when they were in teenagers and some of the stuff they did is like crazy out there. You know, they got arrested. I think one of them got a DUI or or I don't remember if he got a DUI or he wrecked the car while he was drunk and you know Fred like screamed at him about it. They were the. His wife found an entire like Marijuana factory in their in their basement and like the 19 whatever this was in 70s, 60s I don't even know when he was raising kids, but like when his kids are in high school, they were like growing pot in the basement. There's so many things that his kids did like if if we're judging people on their parenting like, this guy was like the great parenting wise guru, like Literally hung out with all of the parenting experts that you think about.

Speaker 1:

He was friends with dr Spock. He was friends with Eric Erickson. He was friends with Margaret I'm forgetting her last name, which is so bad because she's like the key person, but I just I don't have her name pulled up in front of me right now the person who he worked on mr Rogers neighborhood with, who was like the psychologist from Pittsburgh. He knew everything there was to know about parenting that was available to him at the time and probably Intuited a lot of the stuff that we know now through fMRI scans and Just brain development stuff that he couldn't have possibly known back then. But he had just kind of intuitively interpreted the world in the same way. So much of the stuff that he says is like crazy that he was saying in the 50s and 60s and 70s that we think about it today and we're like, oh my gosh, like he was so right. Even he had struggles where his kids did stuff that was just kind of out of bounds and and not in line with his values. I mean, the guy was a freaking pastor like an M Diff Right. He had a masters of divinity. That degree is a very difficult degree to get.

Speaker 1:

I can tell you from personal experience there's a lot of morality driven in there. It doesn't matter, right, our kids will do stuff like this, and so do not feel bad as a parent if you have a kid who's done this or or any other problematic thing. Right, kids do this stuff. Sometimes it's a cry for help, sometimes it's exploring the world, sometimes it's trying to figure things out. That's okay, we will get through it. It's not the things that your kids do, it's how you respond, right. And so how are we going to respond to this? Number one, two and three? So, number one we're going to open a dialogue that's based first in empathy and not in retribution and not in punishment.

Speaker 1:

So a lot of parents really want to start from the place of corrective action and not empathy and connection and understanding and curiosity. And so what? What that leads to ultimately, is our kid Really really not wanting to bring things to us in the future? Because if we lead with correction and punishment whether that be, you know, physical punishment or even just shame or, you know, belittling our kids, telling them that we're disappointed in them, any of these kind of attempts at Making our kid feel bad or or feel remorse or feel regret for what they've done Then we close our kid off to the idea that we're a safe person to bring things to, and I think a lot of people don't really Understand this. They're like, no, I got to be, you know, the iron fist for my kid and I got to hold them accountable. That, to an extent that that's true. You have to hold boundaries. Yes, there may be times that we leverage consequences, but those should always be actions that are taken later. Right, those are things that we, that we can do, especially with a nine-year-old, collaboratively later on and we're gonna talk exactly how to do that in part two. But we have to start with a kind of hey, you're not gonna be in trouble, no matter what you did with me. And there may be consequences. We may have to take some restorative actions We'll talk about that too, but you're not going to be in trouble for it.

Speaker 1:

And One of the things that my wife says all the time that really just reminds me that she's an Incredible parent a lot of times, without even thinking about it just intuitively such an amazing parent is that she told me really, really early in our Relationship when I was like, oh man, he's gonna be in trouble for that about my oldest when he was maybe two or one and a half or something. About he's gonna be in trouble if he does that. Again, my wife said no, he's not, because there's no trouble in our house. If you need to just take that away from this episode there's no trouble in our house, you can steal that, you can use that in any way you want with your own kids. She said there's no trouble in our house because we always want our kids to bring anything that they're struggling with to us. And I was like man, that's so profound.

Speaker 1:

If there's no trouble in your house, then even if there's a consequence or something like that, if your kid parents are gonna be disappointed you and mad at you and and punish you for it, like that's so life-affirming and that's so empathetic and intimate and allows for freedom. And so, yeah, maybe your nine-year-old stole the toy from the, stole the toy from the store probably did right. We're not. We don't have to cue the lie and like we were talking about with the three-year-old, but they probably did, there's probably. That's. That's obviously the simplest explanation. You may even know for a fact that they did right, but if you lead with how you're going to try and correct that or make them feel bad about that or make them feel, you know, ashamed of themselves. For that I promise you you're not gonna set yourself up for For hearing the next time when something is potentially problematic and this is an example that I use in the book, but it's also an example that I've used with parents countless times. You want your kid to be the kid. You know I say this about all. You know I'm using this example but but you could use this with any any example of this alcohol related driving deaths or Driving deaths with alcohol as the as the cause Was when I was in high school, like the second leading cause of death among teenagers and young adults.

Speaker 1:

I think now, unfortunately, it's like the third leading cause, and I say unfortunately because I don't think that the numbers have decreased all that much, but it's just that mental health and overdose have skyrocketed. So suicide and overdose are so high that it's now dropped down in the rankings, which is problematic and traumatic in its own way and a lot of what I talk about in this platform. But one of the fundamental pieces of the reasons I should say that kids will Be willing to drive under the influence or get in a car with a person who they know to be drunk is Is because they're terrified of picking up their phone and calling their parents. Because what is my parents? What are they gonna do? Am I gonna be grounded for the next six months? They don't even know I'm here, right? They don't know that I'm drinking at this party. They don't know that my friend is drinking. Are they gonna tell my friends? Parents, like, what's gonna happen if they come here and pick me up from this party? And the answer is Probably a lot for most kids.

Speaker 1:

They, probably being raised in an authoritarian household where punishment was the primary way of correcting behavior, would have been punished quite severely for that. Now Maybe their parents would have made an exception because they wanted to encourage them to not engage in those high-risk behaviors. But the kid doesn't know that in the moment, most six year old, 16 year olds, do not possess the cognitive capacity To do those mental gymnastics. Oh, my parents would much rather me call them than not. No, they just would rather avoid trouble at all cost, and by at all cost I mean up to an, including Going into a car with a person who's clearly drunk in order to get home. They would much rather do that, and it's partially because the part of their brain that is able to assess risk reward benefit is Still very underdeveloped as a teenager. They don't have a real way. This is why teenagers can engage in such high-risk activities. It's why teenagers tend to be worse drivers than than people who are older, just as a demographic, their risk reward center has not caught up to the rest of their development. It also is why, unfortunately, so many Militaries around the world tend to really want to recruit really young people is because their risk reward centers are still developing and they are More than willing to do Extremely high-risk things if they are in some way rewarded for it, and so, because of this, kids are willing to do these things.

Speaker 1:

If your kid grows up with the fundamental understanding that, no matter what happens, you are going to approach them with empathy and understanding first, totally non Judgmentally if you stole it, if you didn't steal it, I'm not going to think of you any differently if they understand at the deepest core level that that is how you are going to approach it with them, that you are, in other words, always on their team, always seeking for their flourishing, always on their team, then they will be much more likely to tell you the truth. Kids feel that they will get in trouble, that they will receive punishments, that they will receive harm as the result, whether that's social harm, psychological harm, emotional harm or physical pain as a result of Misbehavior or or bad decisions. Those kids do not reveal those things they will. They will literally go to the grave, hiding from their parents, and I know and talk about this at length in the book, but I know so many cases of kids who just engaged in horribly dangerous things.

Speaker 1:

I probably Engaged in some stuff that I shouldn't have, and my parents, by and large, did have a pretty good and open communication system with me. But even so, you know, we're never going to be able to completely eliminate this in our kids, but we want to do our absolute best and so engaging this topic, not with judgment, not with you're bad for doing this, but literally non-judgmentally, just with curiosity, hey, I just I want to know what's going on. I want to know, like, did you see it? And you thought like it was a good idea to take it? Like I've been there, how would you engage it that way? Right, like, put yourself in their shoes? I remember when I was a kid and I did this and you know this. This happened as a result, or nothing happened. You know, nobody ever caught me. I just kept it. I still have it to this day.

Speaker 1:

Whatever the thing is right, be honest and be open. Understand that you have to be the person for whom they can bring it, to whom they feel they can bring anything. So that's number one. Number two, equally important, is to, when you engage this with curiosity, to put them in a place where they feel like they have some agency and power, because one of the things that kids do really really well is that they hide and manipulate things when they feel that they have no power. We talked about that in the first example, but this is even more true with older kids, kids who feel like they are. They are going to be at the mercy of their parents, which might be, again, punishments, severe correction. Those, those kids are going to be more likely to hide those behaviors than if they feel like my kid. My parents are going to give me an opportunity to explain myself and do the right thing. As a result, or to do something restorative. As a result, which we'll talk about here in a second, those kids are going to be way, way more likely to actually engage you right, and so one of the ways that I like to do this is what's called role reversal, and basically you draw up a hypothetical situation where you allow your child to be in the role of a parent and this does not work.

Speaker 1:

If you like, try and pivot to this in the moment you find out your kid stole something, and then, 10 seconds later, you pivot to this idea. Well, what would you do? Separate that out, give them some time, give them some. You know you don't have to correct any of this stuff unless they, like, stole a bar, bar, a gold from St Knox, from St Knox, from Fort Knox, and so you know the government's trying to come and get them or something, or they stole something from someone who you know, whatever like. If it's a store, they can, they can go three days before you figure out a corrective action for this, in all likelihood right. And so because of that, let's approach this subtly and with some grace and with some patience, and not just go all in right, it's not going to. We're going to be emotional, we're probably going to be drawing on our own childhood experiences of being caught and feeling ashamed of ourselves, and so, because of that, we want to engage this very intentionally.

Speaker 1:

So come back to your kid at a different time and say, hey, so I've been thinking about this, or, you know, I just came up with another parent that I was talking to and they told me this story. I'm just wondering what he would do. I'm interested in the perspective of you as a nine year old. So their kid, you could say they're nine or 10, or even six or seven, whatever doesn't matter. So you know, say that there's a kid who's seven and they take something from a store, or they take something. You can vary it a little bit. You don't have to give them exactly their situation, but they took something from a friend or whatever.

Speaker 1:

What do you think in the parent found out? What do you think that the parent should do in this case? Like, what do you, what would you do if you were their parent? I kid you not, in these moments, if you are able to do this in any sort of way, your kid will give you everything in that moment and not they'll give you everything and they'll like, break down and cry and tell you and confess to everything. They will tell you exactly how to approach them. They will. They will tell you exactly what they need to hear Because ultimately they, whether they know what they did is problematic or whether they're trying to figure out whether it was right or wrong.

Speaker 1:

When you put them in a place where they're not at risk anymore, then they all of a sudden can come up with amazing yeah, you know what? I think that my you know, if this is this a kid that you know in your life, I think that the parent should just go to them and say I'm not mad at you, but we need to give this back and you need to have one week restriction from your Nintendo switch or whatever. And you might think like my kid would never do that, my kid would never engage in that way. Give them the autonomy. Then, at that point, say and if you ever did that, what do you think we should do with you? So now that they've had an opportunity to speak outside of themselves, now you can give them the opportunity to, then I don't want to say confess, but to give you what, how they think that they would be best corrected in this situation or connected with. Well, I'd want you to ask me why I did it. Okay, well, have you ever stolen anything? I know that we were talking about that toy, that that kind of seemed to mysteriously go missing. Do you want to tell me about that?

Speaker 1:

This may feel like a bait and switch, and if you're doing it to be a bait and switch type thing, then it is. It also may feel incredibly empowering to your child. If you're doing it to empower your child, they can read you super well. In some ways Kids can read intention often not always, but often and really offering them this role where they get to have say and collaboration in the process, that is, is going to give them so much agency that they feel like you know what I can do this, and oftentimes kids will come up with things that feel kind of beyond what you might think. My cat just walked in behind me and you guys see that she just pushed open the door and she does whatever she wants. Cats are so bold, they're like toddlers, except for in some ways way smarter and in some ways really not as smart. I'm kind of frustrated at my cat right now because she's been peeing on my basement carpet Anyway, had to install a door. It's a whole thing All right.

Speaker 1:

So how do we end this segment with this nine year old let's? Let's kind of wrap it up here, because I know we're already over time as far as how long I like for my episodes to be versus how long they actually wind up being how we. How I want to end here is to say, once we've gotten through this collaborative process, as it relates to discipline, there may be consequences involved, whatever, always, always, always. With lying, with stealing, which in this case we're talking about, both right With harming someone else, with cheating. Our goal is to figure out a restorative solution, and if you are like I don't know how to do restorative I've never had restorative modeled for me that means that you're going to have to be that much more intentional about really doing yourself work and looking for what restoration looks like.

Speaker 1:

And so what does restoration, when you steal something from a store, look like? Maybe it means we're going to go to that store and we're going to give it back. Maybe it means we're going to go and we're going to pay for it. Maybe it means, in addition to paying for it, we're going to just walk around the store and we're going to see if there's a couple things that we can put back into place where they were out of place, and just trying. You know, we know that sometimes stuff at stores can get hectic or you know, hey, we're going to be really really kind to you know the workers at the store, because we know that probably this is going to cause somebody an issue related to this.

Speaker 1:

Whatever it is, the goal is find a way that this becomes a positive scenario for your kid where they can look back and they can go yeah, maybe I did something that could cause harm. Maybe your kid doesn't know that it can cause harm. Maybe, after you get to that discipline stage where you're talking to them collaboratively and you're giving them agency and autonomy, your kid says oh, I don't think parents should do anything, there's no problem with stealing. Okay, you get curious, ask questions. Wow, so like, is it okay to steal from people or just stores? Like what if somebody stole something from you, would that be okay? Like you think that this is obvious to kids? It's not.

Speaker 1:

You have to understand that even the concept of theft in our Western mindset this seems like a very cut and dry thing. Like there are cultures out in the world that you may not know about, that you may not have a historical understanding of where, if you leave something outside unprotected, that's not theft, that's just finding Right, like I don't want to put too fine a point on this, but like, basically the entire museum system in the Western world is theft, right, like, go to the British Museum, like everything there did not belong to them and nobody paid for. I don't want to say everything, but the majority of things like this is really important to you know, the people of X, y and Z. You know country. This is like an artifact from wherever in the world. Yeah, and we stole it, right?

Speaker 1:

So, like there's, the concept of theft is like it's not as clear as you think that it is, and kids need to actually bear this out and have these conversations. If you just think that, just saying, well, it's wrong, and I'll tell you why it's wrong, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, yeah, maybe that's a helpful tool. Often it's way more helpful for kids to come to that on their own and to process through. You know, okay, well, what if you know if everybody stole the store would have to go to business? Then we wouldn't be able to buy groceries, whatever. Right, like, I don't know exactly how it's going to go.

Speaker 1:

You're a smart adult. You can figure it out and process it through with your kid, as long as you, that there's nothing expected of you in this as a parent. You're just processing through this with a kid. It who knows how this conversation is going to go. Have the confidence to have it anyway. I promise you are more than able and more than ready to have this conversation with your nine year old. You've been a parent for at least nine years. You've figured it out this far. You're going to figure this out too, and when you do this and when you engage in this way and this collaborative teaching way with your child, that may, yes, include some form of consequence, probably, that your kid is going to offer up to you. I hope that your kid will offer up to you. Hey, maybe this is something that we should do, but it's ultimately seeking restoration. Then, at 16, at 18, when we have the big ethical problems come up, the real big ethical problems, the real big ethical dilemmas, not the.

Speaker 1:

I took this $5 thing and probably the store is going to write it off and it's not going to even be known. Right, there's like loss metrics built into most stores. It's probably going into some corporate slash fund. Anyway, I'm not trying to like be some sort of crazy person here, but, like you, understand what I'm saying. I don't think that stealing things from stores is right. I don't want my kids to do it and I don't do it myself. But what are the real stakes here? Probably not very significant. There will be real stakes for your kids later with so many things that they do.

Speaker 1:

What does it look like when your kid is considering, you know, buying a performance enhancing substance or something like that, whether that's at all, or or maybe it's, you know, some sort of steroids or something like that, because they're in, you know, the high level athlete or whatever. Those things can have massive, massive impact on their future. You want them to think through these things that are small so that they can learn to think through things that are big, and you can be a great partner in that, as long as you approach it non-judgmentally, as long as you give them the agency in that process, as long as you assume the best of them. Ultimately, that's what all of this is about. If we assume that a three-year-old is trying to manipulate us and coerce us by not brushing their teeth, if we think that a six-year-old or a three-year-old trying to do that, if you think that a six-year-old is just trying to manipulate you and make you think a certain thing and you just you know they're just being naughty. If you assume that about them, then they're going to live up to that expectation that you level onto them.

Speaker 1:

If you instead approach your three-year-old, six-year-old, nine-year-old with the perspective of, hey, I'm assuming the best of you and I just want to understand and I want to help you learn and I'm always on your team and let's figure this out together, then actually these moments become the best moments of parenting. These are the moments that your kids will remember and these are the moments that they'll reflect back on and go. I had great parents. That's the truth, right, like all the fun stuff that you do. I hope that your kids remember that they probably will not remember most of it. All the enjoyable experiences that your kids have, I hope that they remember them. They may not, but the way in which you showed up huge in these moments and you just gave them the respect and autonomy and you walk through it with them and you challenge and you were on a day. I don't know how to have this conversation either. Let's just figure it out together. That's where your kids are going to go. Wow, my mom, my dad, they did their work and it mattered a lot to me.

Speaker 1:

So, with that being the case, I hope that each and every one of you has learned something in this episode about how to handle lying, whether that's a three year old or a six year old or a nine year old, that you might understand why kids lie a little bit more. Some of it's developmental, some of it's totally subconscious and not even anything. Some of it's to avoid punishment. And how do we do that? How do we navigate that with your kid? I hope that you've learned something about that, and if you want to know more about all things, whole parent, like I said, that email list is one of the best places to do it All right, here we are at the end of the episode and actually the end of two episodes that we have finally made up to the very end of our two part series online. I really enjoyed doing these episodes and I love talking about this stuff. If you feel like you're connecting with whole parent I cannot emphasize enough Go to that link in the description below join the email list. It's the place where you're going to find out all of the upcoming events and things that I'm doing and to find out how you can be more connected with the whole parent platform, how you can join the whole parent nation, as we say, and raise resilient kids.

Speaker 1:

One other little plug that I'm going to give here is that if you haven't rated or reviewed this podcast yet, please, please, be willing to do that. You know, the more that you can share this on your social medias, the more that you can provide a rating and a review to whatever podcast platform you're listening to. You Spotify people, you're trying to catch up. You guys heard me a couple episodes ago where I said that Spotify was behind Apple podcasts on the ratings. You guys got to get, got to get, got to catch up. So we'll gamify this a little bit. Spotify, you'll get a special call out on Spotify. If you are one of the people who helps push the Spotify ratings up above the Apple podcast ratings and Apple podcast people, you know that means you guys have to catch up as well. If you, if you let it let up at all, you guys are going to get passed up by those spot those Spotify folks, because they are rating it like crazy right now after I called them out a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 1:

So if you want to help us at whole parent. If you want to make sure that this episode and all of the episodes reaches many parents as possible so that they can raise resilient kids and and do so with confidence, make sure that you go and on whatever podcast platform you're listening to, and rate and review this episode. I'm so excited about next week. We have so many new things to talk about. I have kind of a new format for one of the episodes next week, so get excited about that already. I'm planning that. I'm already starting to map that out to record it, but until then this has been the whole parent podcast. Thanks for listening.

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