The Full Life Crew: Gentle Parenting vs. Authoritative 2.0 - What Really Works?

The real question is this, are we living a full life? Are we making the right decisions when it comes to children, marriage, work, faith, and so many more issues we deal with daily? How can we know with confidence we are living a full life? Welcome to the Full Life Crew Podcast. We are your host and life coaches, Jareth and Debra Navarro. We will help you find the confidence in those critical areas of your life. Our goal is to help you bring to your family the support, structure, and providence we all desire so we can live the life we want to live, a complete life, a joyful life. We are so glad you're here. Now let's get started. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Jareth. And I'm Debra. And we are the Full Life Crew. Today we're talking about... Parenting. Either gentle parenting or boundary parenting. Which one is it? Is it both? Well, it's both. Okay. So recently people have said, oh, you need to gentle parent. You know, let the kids decide, learn their mistakes or whatever. And now a lot of research, I haven't looked up the research, but if you watch the TV, which TV is always right, right? But they're saying that may not be working anymore. The gentle parenting? Yes. Okay. So they're saying they may not be working anymore. Maybe parents need to set some boundaries now. What do they mean by boundaries? Boundaries as far as, say you got in trouble at school, you come home. Now I'm going to say, look, this was wrong. This is why it was wrong. And now because you did this, this is going to happen. And there's going to be a consequence either whether the school's done the consequence or it can be school and at home, but it has to be something that the kid does not like. So that's authoritative parenting? Authoritative parenting. That's not normal parenting? Most people I'm hoping still do that. Okay. So let me ask you a question because I raise my kids a certain way. Yes, you do. And the Bible says you will know them by their fruit. Correct. And our children are our fruit and our children are very successful at what they do. But they also know when they mess up, there's going to be a consequence. So what kind of parent am I? You're a very authoritative, like this is... Okay. Okay. So what is a gentle parent? Okay. Look, you messed up the paper at school that wasn't yours. It was hers. Okay. Don't do that again, honey. Kid comes home next week, does the exact same thing. Okay. We talked about this last week, but there's no consequences to him. He may get a mark at school, but that's it. So he comes home and mom's just like, don't do it again. Or dad's like, don't do that again. So there's no consequence at the house. Okay. So what gentle parenting is, from what you're telling me, is trying to rationalize with an irrational being. Yes. Because kids are irrational. Yes. Kids don't have the ability to reason that well yet. Right. And you're trying to reason with someone that doesn't know how to reason yet. They haven't had enough experience. Okay. Right. I just wanted to understand what gentle parenting was. So you got to get down on their level and explain it to them. I get down on their level if I'm authoritative. I get down on their level. Well, yeah. You got to explain it to them and say, okay, you did this again. This is what's going to happen. So it's discussion with no consequences. Yeah. Gentle parenting is discussion with no consequences. Authoritative, you're going to discuss it and you're going to have a consequence. Yeah. You did it again. Now you have a consequence. You do it again, it's going to be even worse. Okay. So what are we discussing? And don't talk to them like this. You have to use a stern voice. You got to use your man voice. Is that the voice you use? I don't think I do that. But yes, I'm not happy and... Okay. So we're talking today about how to be more authoritative, more like me. Yes. Are you authoritative? Not as much as you. Why not? I don't have a man voice. Why am I better yet? Why do I have to be more authoritative than you? Because you're scarier than me. I'm scary? Yes. Oh, wow. You're not scary, but you're the dad. But you said I'm scary. You're not. Okay. You're not scary. You're the dad. What does that mean? Well, dads are, you know, they lay down the law. Okay. You don't lay down the law? I do. But you lay down the law better. Okay. So yeah, it's just, let's see, I had taken some notes here. Oh, yeah. Let's talk about these notes because I'm so curious. So, okay. So if you're a five-year-old, you're not going to give them an explanation or a rule like you're going to give our high schooler. There's a difference between them. So you'll have to tell our five-year-old in a way where she understands it to her age. Okay. Which would be? I don't know. You don't know? Well, I mean, you're not going to be like, well, I'm trying to think, well, they probably wouldn't do the same thing. So my thought is, if you have a five-year-old, you can't ration with a five-year-old. No, you just got to tell them, don't do this because if you do it, this is happening. Okay. Well, let's take a case in point. Let's use a real life scenario. Okay. So has any of our kids been in trouble? Yes. Who? AJ got in trouble. Oh, the P incident? The P incident. Oh, okay. So how did we handle the P incident? I let you handle the P incident because, yeah. That's not fair because a lot of people out there are single moms. You're correct. And for you just to defer to me, that's not fair to the audience. You're right. Okay. Rewind. Okay. But let's talk about the actual incident, you know? So here's what happened. AJ was at lunch with some boys and then on the other table were some girls and apparently they had the little green peas. Sweet. And the word is the girls threw the peas first. They didn't get caught though. They didn't get caught. So the girls were kind of flirting with the boys. So the boys at some point turned it into a pea war. Now, AJ said it was only one pea, but I seriously doubt that. It was only one pea. So anyway, so they got in trouble and AJ got in school suspension. Is he the first kid in our family? Yes, he is the first ISI. He's our first kid after all these children. He's the first one to get in school suspension. Yeah. Overthrowing a pea too. What's the world coming to? There were several of them. It wasn't the only one. Well, I'm an authoritative parent, right? Yes. But I would never put a kid in detention overthrowing a pea. Well, it's a rule in the school. So they got in trouble in school. If you throw a pea, you go to detention. Yes. It's called a food fight. How about make them come back to the cafeteria and wash the dishes? Well, that wasn't the consequence because apparently washing dishes doesn't work. They had to use a more stern, okay, you just send them straight to ISI. Oh, so they've tried the washing dishes? They've probably tried something like that before and it didn't work. So they moved on from that. Well, I'd make them clean toilets. Yeah. I don't know if they could do that. Yeah, that's probably a health hazard. Health hazard. Washing dishes may be a health hazard. So anyway, so he got in trouble. Yeah. And did they call me or they call you? I think they tried to call me but got through to you. Yeah. And I was like, my AJ? Throwing peas? And I just thought the whole thing was retarded. Like you're getting in trouble for throwing peas. Food fight. I mean, come on. It's a food fight at school. You can't do that. I'm thinking of food fight, the whole cafeteria. It's just mashed potatoes. Well, it could have ended up like that if they hadn't stopped the peas. Yeah. Anyway, so they called me and I don't remember what happened. He got in trouble when he got home. What did we do? You took away most of his fun. Yeah. Like AJ, when he gets home, he runs outside straight to his friends. Yeah. He took friends away. He took any form of electronics away, his TV away. He did chores for like two weeks. Lots and lots of chores and he was miserable. And that's not, that's authoritative? That's not gentle? That's not gentle. To me, a gentle parent would have said, look, hey, don't throw peas tomorrow. Okay. So maybe I just don't understand what a gentle parent is. See, I would think that would be gentle. Because if that was me and my dad, he would have beat me bloody. Yeah. That's, that's not even, that's, that's beyond gentle authority. That's, yeah, that's. So I need to, I don't understand the definitions. So I'm a gentle parent then? No, you're not a gentle. Well, you just, I mean, in my perspective, if AJ got in detention and he came home and I whipped him with the belt, that would be authoritative. They would consider that abuse now. Oh. So I'm a, I'm a gentle parent. You're not a gentle parent because you didn't, you didn't just blow him off and be like, uh, okay, don't do it again. Well, what kind of parent were you in that situation? I was upset with him too. I'm like, AJ, you can't do that. Like, and I made, I made sure he did all these chores. Oh, so I sat him down. You, you made him get them done. And we talked to him and we didn't like, we, we, we, yeah, well, no, we sat him down. We talked to him, gave him stern rules and like, but we didn't get out of hand with him. We didn't scream at him. We didn't like, but we made our point very clear. So I'm a gentle parent. Oh my goodness. Sure. You're a gentle parent, honey. If that's what you want to believe, you're a gentle parent, but I don't think you are. So I'm a bad parent? You're not a bad parent either. I'm an authoritative parent. You're an authoritative parent. You're a gentle parent. I'm a gentle parent. So, so that is a good example of not doing something that knowing thing was this, he knew he wasn't supposed to do it. But I don't think if he had the consequences that he had, he would have went back and did it again. And we've never had an issue with him again. Or he's never got caught doing it again. He was very sneaky if he did. I think, I think gentle parenting is teaches them how to not, how to, how to connive better. Okay. Well, yeah. Maybe so. Yeah. I just got to throw the pea more secretive next time. Or just don't eat peas that day. You won't be tempted. If AJ would have come home and got a whipping with a belt, AJ would have looked at the peas the next time and, or he would have went through the lunch line and say, no peas for me, please. There would be no peas. So when everything went down, I said, look, I didn't even have any peas. I told the lunch lady, no peas for me. Hang on. He didn't have peas the first time. He brought his lunchbox. Oh. He borrowed a pea from his neighbor. Well, if the kid, if the kid that is the pea instigator, AJ would be like, after getting a whipping, being an authoritative parent, AJ would have been like, uh, I'm going to go sit over here. He wouldn't sit by the kid anymore. Because that kid's a bad influence on me. Gets me punished. That's true. It causes me pain. Yeah. Cause they, they couldn't even sit by their friends for like the rest of the year. They had to sit somewhere else, but I don't know. Well, I think there's a lot of discussion between gentle parenting, authoritative parenting and how people parent. But right now I think the being nice is on its way out because of the behavior. Some kids are having now as they get older and as adults. So I think more parents are becoming stricter and laying down the law. I think, okay, so here's the basic rule to parenting. You need to be, you need to put in perspective that the kid's going to make mistakes. You need to understand the kid is learning, but then you need to, you need to put consequences with it, AKA pain. Okay. Now I think this is where people go wrong. They think pain is just beat the kid, which is dangerous. There's other ways to enforce pain. The reason I say pain, because I coach a lot of kids. And so like, give you an example, we're doing a drill and say, okay, every time we catch the ball, it's a point, right? And, or no, every time you drop the ball, it's a burpee. Okay. So we'll get to practice and they're like being lazy and they'll drop the ball 10 times. Right. But the moment I say, okay, guys, here's what we're doing. Every time we drop the ball, it's a burpee. Guess what happens the next round? They all catch it. They all catch it because they associate dropping the ball with pain. I don't want to do burpees, so I'm going to catch the ball. Same thing happens. We're out there on the field doing something. I said, Hey, look, if you don't, if we fail at this, we're running a pot, we're running a triangle. And all of a sudden the performance goes way up. So you need to learn how to associate pain. For instance, nobody likes weeding flower beds or doing yard work, especially little kids. So one of the best things we do is when we are disciplining our kids, it's here's a bucket. Take them outside, especially down here in Louisiana. It's a hundred degrees. This is a weed. This is a plant. Pull the weed, go all the way through. You have all this, all that, all that. Do all the beds. Once you've done that, we're going to pressure wash the back patio. And they don't want to do none of that stuff. No, it's hot outside. No. I mean, I, I remember we had one kid tell us something. He, I remember if he got in trouble or he didn't want to go to school that day. So that's fine. You don't have to, you know, or you don't, you know, you, you know, and then we gave him the bucket and he went outside and, and he came in like what, 30 minutes later. And he's like, Oh no, I remember that kid. And I had to stay out there for two hours, supervising him. And finally Jace. No, no, no, no. AJ did it before. Oh, he did it for it. Well, Jace, it took him two hours to finally decide to go to school. It was because you was outside with him. I can't. Well, I just said as a distance. And as he, if I was, if I was around, I would have just said, Hey, the door's locked. Once the bucket's full, I unlocked the door. Well, it took him forever. I remember it was, I'm pretty sure it was AJ. AJ didn't want to go to school or something or whatever. And so I said, that's fine. Like there was multiple days he didn't want to go or something. And then, and he had missed a couple of days. Like, I don't remember what happened, but all I remember is I said, here's a bucket. Here's the weeds. Get it done. And he was, it was 30 minutes and he was like, I want to go to school. Let's go. Yeah. He was presented with a little bit of pain and suffering versus go sit in the AC, read, write, hang out with buddies, throw peas. Or work like manual physical labor in the heat. And he's a rational person. He's a little older. You know what? This is kind of silly. I'm going to go to school. Go to school. Yeah. So I don't know. How do you parent? I feel there should be consequences and yes, some pain in the whole thing. Because if you don't, they're just going to keep running right over you and everybody else. So while you're out there trying to figure out the best way to parent your kid, whether you're a soft parent or whether you're the authoritative parent, just remember life's a journey. Enjoy the ride. Did you enjoy the podcast? Would you like to sponsor a podcast? If you're looking to advertise your brand product or message, our platforms are the best place to do it. 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