Growing Up With Kids :: A Funny Parenting Podcast

This week we share a little tool we use for keeping our family organized. It's simple, stress free, and flexible. It's nothing flashy, but if you're looking for something easy to organize your week with key buckets for the family--meals, parents' to do's, and daily activities--in a short amount of time this might be a helpful resource for you. We also discuss how helpful it is to provide limits on what is expected to get done each day--an added bonus in the search for peace of mind.
Note: A copy of the weekly planning chart we use is available on our Growing Up With Kids Facebook Group (as is our contribution chart from episode #002).
Some key themes from our discussion:

• Weekly planning is a source of communication between wives and husbands. Don't do this alone!
• Weekly planning offers peace of mind, helps us find time to be together, and reduces our food spending.
• Don't be ruled by the chart. It doesn't have to be too rigid. Make it work for you, not the other way around.
• Limit how many things you can put in each box. When you are done with what is on the chart, then you have done enough. "Enough is enough."

The Stat of the Week is a follow up from last week's discussion on time spent doing childcare duties. Thanks to The Economist's Daily Chart we discuss how that has changed in various North American and European countries since 1965. Plus a bonus article about "The Psychology Behind Being Perpetually Late" from the Guardian.
We truly appreciate you listening! If you are encouraged by this episode, be sure to share it with a friend who might benefit from this conversation or who just needs a good laugh at our expense.
Please join our Growing Up with Kids Facebook group and join in on the encouraging conversation about the heart of marriage and parenting.
Or connect with us on our website: www.GrowingUpWithKidsPodcast.com

We are working on the rhythms of our family life that have been displaced by the challenges of COVID living--home schooling, working from home, lack of structure, etc.
At first this season of shelter-in-place was novel and a bit of a relief: more time at home, fewer activities. However, now that we are seven weeks in it has proven to be difficult. Over the past week we have begun to mourn that this is hard and that life isn't necessarily going back to the way it was anytime soon.
Many families are in the middle of embracing the new normal (which isn't that normal) and finding ways to move forward in this unique time. We've realized many of our normal rhythms were disrupted, so we are trying to reinstate a little quality structure to ground our family and offer our family connection and hope.
Plus, this episode includes a laundry list of idiotic things about David: he can't pronounce "colloquialism," he doesn't know how to say "hello" when walking past someone, and he just realized something about Will Smith's kids' names. Oh, and Rachael sings two songs.
The Stat of the Week is about how long-winded, wordy, garrulous and turgid (thank you, Thesaurus!) some food bloggers can be. How many words can you fit into a cookie recipe before you actually get to the ingredient measurements and baking steps? Apparently, the answer is somewhere between 829 and 1,023 words (unless you are Betty Crocker -- she can do it only 50).
Thank you for listening! We hope you enjoyed this episode. If so, please take a minute to share the podcast with a friend who might be encouraged by this conversation or who just needs a good laugh at our expense.

The coming together of a husband and wife is a challenging experience that requires compromise, courage, and humility. This week we talk about what true humility is, why it is so important, and then we discuss five specific ways you can further develop humility in yourself and your marriage:

1. Take responsibility for your side of the equation.
2. Look for your spouse's strengths. And, verbalize them.
3. Seek to understand your spouse's point of view. And, listen well.
4. Be willing to admit when you are wrong and ask for forgiveness.
5. Give your spouse permission to provide you with feedback.
   • Corollary: Be extremely gentle, kind, and encouraging when providing your spouse with feedback.

A few resources that we reference during the conversation include:

• Measuring Humility and Its Positive Effects by Don Emerson Davis, Jr. and Joshua N. Hook in Association for Psychological Science
• Religious Involvement, Humility, and Change in Self-Rated Health Over Time by Neal Krause in Journal of Psychology and Theology
• Do These Six Things to Be More Humble by Patty Onderko in Success Magazine
• Quote: "One good question is worth 100 good answers..." by Paul Shoemaker, author of Can't Not Do: The Compelling Social Drive that Changes Our World
• Quote: "True humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less." (attributed to various authors)

The Stat of the Week is all about Leap Day (February 29th) and somehow includes Ja Rule (NSFW).
We truly appreciate you listening! Please take a minute to share this episode with a friend who might be encouraged by this conversation or who just needs a good laugh at our expense.
Also, please join our Growing Up with Kids Facebook group and engage in the encouraging conversation about the heart of marriage and parenting.

"You are over the line!"
We all remember agitating our siblings when we were kids (and maybe even now that we are adults). And, all us parents see our kids needling and agitating their sister(s) and brother(s). Our natural inclination is to shut down whatever behavior is creating the strife (and annoying or embarrassing us). However, the best way forward is to help our kids explore what's going in their hearts both when they are being agitated and when they are the agitator.
In this episode we touch on:

• Power dynamics between siblings: Be aware of them and address them directly.
• Helping our kids to have grit and to understand that life isn't fair (without being dismissive of their feelings).
• 80's mom perms (for some reason).
• The difference between our kids being a peacemaker and being a peacekeeper. Proverbs 12:20: Deceit is in the hearts of those who plot evil, but those who promote peace have joy.
• Seeking the good of those around us.
• Also, David butcher's the quote from Dr. Wayne Dyer, "When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind."

The Stat of the Week is about washing machines... Portable ones, dual wash ones and extremely expensive ones...

As always, thank you for listening! We hope you enjoy this episode, and if you do please take a moment to share the podcast with a friend who might be encouraged by this conversation or who just needs a good laugh at our expense.

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This Week's Episode:
"Forgiveness is not being weak—it takes strength and courage to forgive." - How To Teach Kids Forgiveness Skills
The benefits of practicing and giving forgiveness:

• "The forgiveness group showed improved psychological and behavioral adjustment. The forgiveness group showed improved academic performance. Participants in the forgiveness group reported significant decreases in anger, hostile attribution, aggression, and delinquency at post-test and follow-up; they also reported significant increases in empathy at post-test and follow-up and grades at post-test." - Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
• Forgiveness As an Educational Goal With At-Risk Adolescents
• Forgiveness Education for Fourth Grade Students in Turkey

How do we teach forgiveness skills to our kids?

• Model it: We practice forgiving our spouses, our friends, and them.
• Ask for it: Teach how to ask for forgiveness.
• Have patience: Don’t rush your child to forgive.
• Seek justice: Forgiving someone is not the same as saying what happened was ok or didn’t matter or just forgetting abou it.
• Teach empathy: Seeing the other side and understanding another person. Recognizing everyone’s sense of worth and inherent value.
• Give freedom: Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. You can forgive, but also not want to be friends. There are natural consequences to hurting someone.
• Share examples: Call out examples of forgiveness in books and movies.
• Teach self-forgiveness: We need to help them avoid shame and blame and guilt.

The Stat of the Week covers the negative impact of the pandemic on people's sleep.