Sincerely,

@0:01 – Dr. Greg Moody

Okay, there we are. Should have Mr. Flees here. He says he was joining. There he is. Can you guys hear me okay?

@0:18 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yes, sir.

@0:20 – Dr. Greg Moody

Okay, let me share the slide and review it a little bit here. Side. Okay, so what I’ve got here, oops, is it doing that?

Oh, so I’m start with the usual here and then we’ll talk about These stages. I don’t know if you got to see that article, Master Sanborn.

@1:04 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

I am most of the way through.

@1:06 – Dr. Greg Moody

Okay. This all came up because when I was at the martial arts wealth event, there was one of the instructors who had their daughter working for him.

And it was really interesting observing this, so it’ll give you the background for it. The issue was she’s a crappy employee, not doing a very good job as an employee, shows up late, kind of as bitchy about stuff.

It’s hard to manage her. And the mom and dad, both of them were there, they were like, well, what can we do to get her to be a good employee?

What can we do to fix her? And everybody’s given ideas. Like they’re saying, well, you know, when my kid was young, they went off and did this and then they figured out that we were really better and they came back and they started working.

Or, you know, when I was, when my kid did this, and it was all this stuff That people could do, that they did, that ended up working out for them.

And, you know, I said, none of this means anything. What the truth is, is you can’t predict what’s going to happen.

And when they’re adults, you can’t control their behavior. So, all you can do is set boundaries of what your behavior is going to be, and then be able to tolerate the consequences, without any expectation that their behavior is going to change.

So, you know, I said, you know, why don’t you guys have some boundaries? What do you want? Well, if she’s an employee, I want her to do this and this.

Okay. If she’s living at home, she’s 24, do you want her to pay rent? Well, I don’t really care if she pays rent.

Okay. She can live at home then, and kind of live at home forever. What if she doesn’t have a job?

Can she live at home then? Well, no. Okay. Well, what are the boundaries? So, we kind of walked through that.

And then as soon as I stopped doing that, everybody. And there was a bunch of people, theoretically smart people, said, okay, so if you do that, then maybe she’ll change and do whatever, whatever.

And I said, you guys got to shut up. There’s no expectation that she’s going to change. You’re going to do what you do, and then that’s it.

That’s the end of it. Well, yeah, but what if she doesn’t change? I’m like, you don’t know if she’s going to change.

It’s like, I don’t know. That may happen, that may not happen. And then as soon as I stopped talking, the next person would say, well, you know, when my kid was this, we did this, and then this happened and this happened.

In other words, what they’re doing is trying to come up with a way to manipulate the kid into changing.

And it doesn’t make sense when they’re adults, and it really doesn’t work well when they’re young adults or teenagers either.

You know, it’s setting the boundary, then they’re going to do it however they do it. Hopefully it works out okay.

Hopefully is what they got to get rid of. So that’s kind of the idea. It sounds tricky.

@4:12 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

I mean, even to just discuss it and not have fall into the, and this is what I would do, or that is what I would do.

@4:26 – Dr. Greg Moody

See what happened to you and your kid turned out, however it did, and that could be good or bad.

Right. But it’s not even that what you do might matter to the 24-year-old. It’s that it’s irrelevant. What you do is going to be whatever you do, and then the 24-year-old is going to do whatever they do.

And I’m not going to do what I’m doing so that they change. So that’s the… That’s the challenge.

@5:02 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah.

@5:02 – Dr. Greg Moody

I have a lot of therapy clients that are kind of this way where their adult kids are really bad off and they go, well, what can we do to change them?

I don’t know. probably can’t do anything to change them. What do you need to do to survive or yourself?

What do you need to do for your own boundaries? What do you need to do for your own management of yourself?

And then, well, okay, well, I need this. Okay, cool. But so if I do that, will they change?

@5:33 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Maybe not. Okay. Right.

@5:37 – Dr. Greg Moody

Right. My video is like putting me right in the middle of the screen somehow. Oh, here. Maybe that’s better.

Okay. Okay, cool. Any comments or anything, guys?

@5:59 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

All right. I was reading through them, and Mrs. Flees and I, we’re on three and four, one teenager and one young adult.

@6:13 – Dr. Greg Moody

Well, you got your other daughter that’s an adult too, right?

@6:16 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Oh, yes. But she is definitely past the five stages.

@6:22 – Dr. Greg Moody

Well, so there’s the stage they’re at, and then there’s our reaction to it. If we react as if they’re, you know, and maybe I ought to put that chart in here.

Maybe that would be helpful. Let me stop this. Maybe that chart would be, what? Yeah, this is giving me trouble.

I don’t know if we need the graph. Let me see if that comes out okay. Are you guys able to see the screen?

@7:58 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

No.

@8:00 – Dr. Greg Moody

Oh, okay. Sorry. It said, or should I keep sharing? And I said, yes. And I thought you were seeing it.

Okay. Here we go. Slideshow.

@8:30 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Oh, there it goes. Yeah.

@8:33 – Dr. Greg Moody

So maybe we start with this and then explain it. And that might be the end of the whole thing.

We may just be staying here. Well, we can do the boundaries one because people don’t understand boundaries. And then, yeah, and then this one.

So that’s all okay. Okay. Yeah. The rest of this is okay. You guys are kind of looking at this going, letting me try to figure it out, right?

@9:06 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yes.

@9:07 – Dr. Greg Moody

Do you guys have any examples of kids who are adults, even that kids that aren’t, the reason that this to me is relevant is, you know, you’re setting things up now for, you know, future success, but at the same time, you’re, let me fix this.

Okay. Slide. You’re setting up for future success, but at the same time, you’re, so you understand the life cycle of what we do as parents.

And so even if you have a younger kid, this is the life cycle. It, because it’s important when the kid’s younger, I was arguing with a psychotherapist yesterday about this because they said, well, it’s the same when they’re young.

I said, well, it’s not the same when they’re young, when they’re young, you You to impart values and morals and skills and teach them things.

I mean, if you don’t do that, then they’re not going to learn stuff. So you have to be an active participant.

@10:09 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

And you also need them to comply with your rules. Yes. You know?

@10:14 – Dr. Greg Moody

Now, when they’re an adult, yeah, you need them to comply with your rules if they’re living at home or whatever your boundaries are for your own personal space.

If they’re abusive or if they’re, you know, wanting money all the time and you don’t want to get money, whatever that is.

But there’s, so there’s a big difference between an infant who is completely dependent on you and you have a responsibility to do everything for them to a teenager.

But the problem is we get those mixed up. And when they’re older, we think we still have to do those things.

And it would be great if we could. It’d be great if, you know, you could get your 30-year-old to do things the way you wanted.

The thing is you probably can’t. And it’s about more about if they’re interfering with your life, which Master Samworth’s kids and my kids have been pretty good about that.

Yours, I don’t know. You know, maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. But I mean, you know, my kid doesn’t interfere with my life.

He just adds on. So, it’s no big deal. But if in this case with that parent, they’re trying to have a working relationship with them at the same time, too, and there’s a mix.

And so you can’t treat it the same way because you don’t have that. It’s understandable that you would want to, I’m the parent, so I should have control, but that’s not the case.

@11:25 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Right. So let me add my iPad.

@11:29 – Dr. Greg Moody

I know we want to try to go quick. I think weirdly enough, I got Claude to do this PowerPoint, which was pretty exciting.

I wrote 90% of the article, and then I got Claude to kind of update it and make it clean it up so it’s on the website.

And on my website, it’s not on the success.mastermoody.com or business.mastermoody.com, whichever one you want to go with. Both of those work.

Okie doke. All right, you guys ready? Sure.

@12:02 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Let me see, three, two, one, and let me move this over here so I’m not looking off to the side.

@12:24 – Dr. Greg Moody

Thanks, everybody, for being here today. This is our success training. It’s Chief Master Dr. Greg Moody, Senior Master Laura Sanborn, and Mr.

Dwayne Flees, and we’re really excited about being here today. We’re going to talk about parenting kids as an adult.

I mean, when they’re adults. And the idea about this, and even if you have a younger kid, we’re going to talk about how the transition between our responsibilities as parents, what’s effective as parents over their lifespan is going to be because we’re all going to get our kids to turn into adults after a while.

And maybe some of yours already are. So thanks a lot for being here.

@13:02 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Thank you, sir.

@13:04 – Dr. Greg Moody

All right. So, you guys know about us. That’s who’s here today. Everything we do is related to the Karate Built Charter.

In this case, it’s really the whole charter. It’s about discipline, it’s about growth, and that we take responsibility to lead with integrity.

And that changes and those roles change the way discipline works, the way growth works, and the way we lead our kids changes over time.

Let’s look at that. And this is the life cycle of parental authority. Hopefully you can read that. It’s not too small.

First of all, when a kid is young, they are going to be, this is like infant toddler. We have almost an ultimate responsibility when they’re an infant to take care of everything, take care of all their needs, take care of their pooping, take care of their food, take care of their mood, take care of comforting them, take care of everything.

And we do that for them. And that’s a very much a big discrepancy in roles. That’s okay, because that’s the way it is.

They need that to survive. When they’re a child, it’s a little bit different. I still need to teach them things, help them with skills, hopefully help them develop some morals and values, get them into karate so they can have all those things.

You know, do things that are… You guys, if you want to chip in here and give me some other things.

As a kid, before they’re like, let’s say, 12 years old, we have a lot of things we have to impart on them.

Anything else I missed on that list of what we have to impart?

@14:46 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

A safe environment?

@14:48 – Dr. Greg Moody

We have to provide a safe environment, right. We have to provide for their needs, their food. Still, we don’t have to clean them after their poop, hopefully, but we have to take care of their needs.

. . . . . Yeah, and build a work ethic. They kind of learn their own responsibilities. And we’ve talked about this before, that at this stage, often parents do, we’ve talked about helicopter parents who hover over the kids or lawnmower parents who mow down all the obstacles in front of their kids.

And this is kind of, to me, the first stage of what we’re going to talk about later, which is when they turn into adults and then we don’t have we don’t have good boundaries.

Now, at this stage, our job is, I would say we’d have two things, provide for their needs and try to get them to start doing things on their own.

We have to initiate at this stage, them doing things on their own. If we don’t, then they would be back in this early stage where, where we, where they just want to

And we’ve seen kids like this where their parents are even carrying their bag into the school. We tell them the kid needs to do that.

The parent is grabbing their tracking card for them. We want the kid to do that. Trying to encourage the kid to do as much as they possibly can on their own so that they can move down stages to adolescence, adult, and adulthood.

Any other examples I’m missing there, guys?

@16:29 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Oh, just being on top of them for every little thing. Oh, go take your shoes off. Go do this.

Go do that. Never having the expectation that their child knows what to do and can go do it. Very much.

@16:42 – Dr. Greg Moody

And the other thing that I think needs to be established at this age is also what the rules of your house are.

Yeah, it’s okay as a parent. Your whole job isn’t to build your kids. That’s an important job. It might even be the most important job, but you’ve all

You’ve got rules in your house. They’re not supposed to break things. They’re not supposed to grab dessert before their dinner and steal stuff from their family.

Some things are rules just because you’re establishing them, and that’s supposed to be okay. It’s okay that there’s rules in your house, and that’s also going to help them in the future.

But regardless of if it helps them in the future, it’s okay to have rules in your house. When we’re going to come back to that, it’s important to think about boundaries when we come back to that, so kind of remember that.

At adolescence, and you guys chip in any time here, at adolescence, this is 12 to puberty age and a little bit older, there’s still some things that they need you to help them with.

I mean, you have to drive them places probably. You have to pay for most everything. They don’t have a job yet for the most part.

There are things you have to provide for them, and the expectations of what you can do are lower. So, you can see this curve.

This curve has to do with how much authority we have as parents. At the early ages, we have ultimate authority.

And when they’re adolescents, ideally, we’re starting to give them more responsibility. But the other side that we don’t like as much sometimes is that we don’t have as much authority to change their mind.

We don’t have as much authority. If I, you know, I wanted my kid to take physics in high school, and he was not into science, so he didn’t take physics.

I’m like still mad about that. I think physics is super important. But that’s one thing I couldn’t get him to do.

You know, when he was in elementary school, if he was going to go take a class, I’d just get him in the car and he’d take the class.

There’s there’s no there’s a big difference there. Any comparisons you guys want to add there?

@18:51 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Just as an adolescent, they start choosing for themselves whether it agrees with you or not. A lot of times, that’s where there’s so many more arguments all the time, is they’re testing those boundaries as well.

@19:10 – Dr. Greg Moody

Oh, sorry. Go ahead. That’s all right.

@19:11 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

No, that was where I was going with it.

@19:13 – Dr. Greg Moody

Yeah, I think the difference is the two lines here are we have how much authority we have when they’re little.

When they’re an infant, I just stick them in the car. I mean, I’m not going to ask a question about whether they want to go somewhere.

If they’re 12 years old, you may not be able to get them to do stuff. There are certain things you may or may not be able to do.

There are certain things you have to get them to do when they’re 12 years old or 13 years old.

I mean, you have to get them to go to the doctor. You have to get them to do things.

So there’s a difference between responsibility of what we have to do and our authority ability to control the situation.

And this one’s a real gray area. You probably should have made this graph in gray. This is the big gray area where I think this is where we have trouble with this.

What is how much we let them do, how much we do for them, how much we force them to do, you know, or teach them to push themselves to do, which is more of the way we like to think about it, and how much if they don’t do it, we leave alone.

There’s a lot of things in this gray area that I think can, as you can see, this slope is really, really steep in this area, that our responsibilities change and our ability to affect what they do changes.

And then young adult, like, you know, 18 years old, and they’re adults, we might say they’re adults, they think they’re adults, but they’re not quite adults yet, that we have sometimes some responsibility, if they’re 18 and they’re staying at home because they’re going to college, that’s, you know, we’re paying for their stuff, we have some ability to control certain things, if they’re going to have a car, they’re not going to have a car, if they’re going to, you know, what they’re going to do.

But our ability… We’d like to control, for example, probably a lot of parents would like to control who they date.

That usually doesn’t work that much. We have some, we don’t really have any authority about who they date. We honestly, we start thinking we have responsibility about who they date, and that’s typically when we get into trouble.

Anything to add kind of on there, guys?

@21:23 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah, if you’ve spent all of your time trying to build an independent child and then they become independent before you’re ready for it, that seems like it’s just bound to be a problem.

@21:35 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Yeah, it’s your own fault.

@21:36 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

It’s going to be a problem. You want them to be independent. You want them to be grown up. You want them to be thinking of moving out and doing things on their own, but, because that’s what you were working towards, but when it hits, you’re just not prepared.

@21:51 – Dr. Greg Moody

It especially goes bad, right? Well, I just was watching a TV show, and the kid was supposed to go to Princeton.

And the whole family wanted to go, or the kid to go to Princeton. All the people went to Princeton.

It was a big deal that they went to Princeton. She applied to Princeton. And then when she got accepted, she turned it down.

And the parents are like, well, what do you want to do now? What’s your plan? Kid goes, I don’t know.

That’s the way it may be sometimes.

@22:21 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah. And it’s hard for parents to face that.

@22:25 – Dr. Greg Moody

You know, I was really fortunate. My kid already had planned to go to college. I didn’t do anything. He just was going to go to college.

But it would have been a challenge for me if he said, well, I don’t know what I want to do.

And he just kept staying at home, eating ice cream and playing video games. And I think that’s where parents get into challenges at this stage.

Now, hopefully we’ve, what we believe is if you handle it better at the early stages over here, then it’s, you’re going to have a better, better luck with it here.

But that doesn’t mean, that doesn’t. What you we even have control over that? What were you going to say, Mr. Flees?

@23:05 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Yeah, I was going to say, even between the mom and the dad, they can have different levels of expectations or control.

I know Mrs. Flees and I do. She’s more the one to be the nurturer and go get your stuff and be nice to them.

And she calls it loving, which it is. But at same time, I’m like, oh, I think you’re stealing some growth.

@23:35 – Dr. Greg Moody

Yeah. How much are we? It’s a difficult balance to figure out when especially we start out at this age where everything, loving means taking care of everything for them and controlling their environment.

And then at adult stages, you don’t have any control over their environment. I mean, you have control over their environment if they’re living at home, but you don’t have any control over their choices or their actions.

@24:00 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Right.

@24:01 – Dr. Greg Moody

And what parents, the disconnect is parents feel like they have responsibility here, especially if it goes wrong. The kid that didn’t go to Princeton, you get to Princeton, the parents think, oh, pat yourself on the back.

I did a good job. I got my kid in school and they went to the school I wanted and they’re doing the thing I wanted and everything was fine.

The kid that, you know, decides to go to, you know, they’re not going to Princeton, they’re staying at home or they’re going to work at McDonald’s for a while until they figure out what they want to do.

The parent feels like they did a bad job. They may, there may have been some challenges in the, in the middle stages that could have been better, but at this point when you’re here, it doesn’t matter.

At this point when you’re here, it doesn’t matter. What else were you guys going to add? I feel like I interrupted you.

@24:52 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

I was just thinking it wasn’t even school. It’s the, so in my family, the expectation was at 18. You’re already leaning towards independence, whether it’s going to school, whether it was for my daughter joining the military, going off to be independent.

The expectation was you were not living at home at 18. You had someplace already planned to go. And which made my daughter say at 16, well, then can I just go get an apartment now?

Just like not happening. But that was my expectation. I thought it was a family expectation. Until my husband’s like, what do you mean you’ve been telling them they need to leave at 18?

I started when they were three telling them they need to leave at 18. And he was thinking, no, they’re not leaving at 18.

Part of that is a lack of communication over an important subject. But I expected him to be independent.

I expected what we did for them on the way up to 18 was help them build those things. Do you know how to make a doctor’s appointment?

Do you know how to go to the dry cleaners? Do you know how to put gas in a car?

Do you know how to cook at least something so you don’t starve to death? All of the little things that I was doing along the way to me meant, okay, you can move out at 18 because you’re not going to die.

And his idea was, oh, well, at 18, we’re going to drive him to college every day. I’m like, no, that’s not happening.

So, yeah, there’s the building of the independence for me meant that I could release them into the world. Not necessarily keep an eye on them, not make sure that they were doing okay, but that I could release independent adults on the world that had an idea how to take care of themselves.

And his idea was that at 18, well, yeah, we’re paying for college and we’re taking care of all that stuff for them.

And I’m like, uh, nope.

@27:08 – Dr. Greg Moody

Yeah, I think the example you gave of 16-year-old, and she says, okay, fine, I want to get an apartment.

Okay, well, then you have a responsibility and you have the authority to say, no, you can’t get an apartment.

You know, what if they were 12? Of course not. But at 16, it’s a little fuzzier. At 18, some parents would say no.

Maybe that’s a good decision. I’m not telling you it’s right or wrong, but it becomes a little less that way as you get older.

I think what you gave is just like such a perfect example of authority and responsibility. You absolutely had authority to do both of those things.

If she was 24, I mean, you know, you don’t have the authority to do anything like that. I mean, when we say authority, we mean the capacity, kind of the capacity to control what that behavior is.

If they decide they’re going to leave and go out and do it legally, they can do all these things.

Legally, you know, there’s all kinds of things they could do. And I think, again, the challenge is this came up in my mind because I was working with a martial arts school and their daughter was working for them.

They were 24 and working for them and not doing a very good job. So now there’s this conflict of responsibility.

Some of us have this where they’re Kids are living at home, and there’s the very little ability to control their behavior.

We just can’t. They’re adults. But also, you also have some boundaries that you need to set so that they behave properly.

In this case, it was in their business and they needed them to behave properly. But it could even be that they live at home and they’re going to college, but they’re throwing parties or staying out all night or doing things and setting some boundaries about what we’re willing to accept.

And then the other piece would be, what if they’re even out of the house, but they’re asking for money all the time and they can’t live on their own.

You’re having to support them and you’re in a pickle where, gee, they need to learn on their own.

They need to survive on their own and, you know, but I want to help them. And that can be kind of a kind of a problem that we get stuck in the middle of wanting to help them.

And realizing and trying to realize they’re not in this stage anymore. They’re in this stage. And how do we manage that and still be caring parents?

@30:10 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Yeah, I think that’s increased if you did all the stuff for them while they were younger. And the kids use manipulation to get you to do stuff for them when they were younger.

Now they’re adults. And they can guilt trip you into, oh, I guess I’ll just have to starve then because I need gas in my car.

@30:31 – Dr. Greg Moody

Yeah, and I’ve even had clients that I’ll use a example that’s terrible. I even had clients that worked with me in my therapy work, where they needed their kid was having struggles in high school.

They kept doing stuff for them and doing stuff for them and doing stuff for them. And they were irritated with themselves.

They bought them a car. And they paid for their gas and they paid for all their stuff. And then they the kid wrecked the car.

And they paid for the car to get fixed. They’re not like, okay, so like, what’s the consequence of just, you know, them not having a car because it’s broken?

They go, well, if they don’t have a car, then they’re not going to be able to, you know, see their friends.

If they don’t see their friends, they’re going to be depressed. If they’re depressed, then, and it went downwards. And I will tell you, almost every time with a parent that’s struggling with their kid’s behavior at that age, it degenerates into, oh, no, they’re going to commit suicide.

That’s a tough subject for us to say, you know, in, on our call here, but that’s happens all the time.

I think as parents, we understand that because at this stage, you are literally in charge of their survival.

If you don’t do the things you’re supposed to do, they’re, they’re not going to survive. It’s like, that’s not, that’s not a minor thing at this stage, they might not survive.

They might not survive. That’s not like, Okay to hear. And because now you guys can probably, those of you listening on the call too, can think about, well, that’s ridiculous what that person said.

You know, if they just don’t have them have a car. But if we think about it, what’s our biggest fear is that something really terrible happens to our kid.

That’s a huge fear. I worry about that now with my son who’s 24. And, you know, it’s a fear.

So even though that chance is really, really small, if we, they get into a place where they’re not willing to tolerate that small chance.

And if I can’t tolerate that little tiny itsy bitsy chance that something really, really bad would happen, then they have complete, then you end up changing your behavior and not setting good boundaries because, well, but if I don’t do that, this bad thing could happen.

And if I don’t give them money, then this bad thing could happen. They’re going to be homeless. And if they’re homeless, they’re going to be, they’re not going to start, they’re going to starve and all this happens.

And I don’t think for most of us that happens like a logical thing we’ve written out and think that it’s all going to be true.

But in our mind, we can be that way and we can fool ourselves into that. That little tiny chance that bad thing could happen makes it very hard to tolerate setting boundaries.

So we’re going to talk about setting boundaries now. Anything to add, guys?

@33:20 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah, it’s the something bad could happen and it’s my fault.

@33:25 – Dr. Greg Moody

Well, yeah. And I think that’s even the tighter thing. Right, and it’s my fault and it’s also my responsibility to do something because I’m a parent.

@33:36 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah. Even though you’re here in terms of responsibility. Yeah. You know, but it’s my kid, but it’s my kid.

Yeah. I was responsible for making my kid so good that nothing can happen to him, but I didn’t do that.

Now, if something happens, it’s my fault from… Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Either way back or even, you know, like right now, I’m just not giving him enough money.

I’m not giving him enough time. I’m not giving him enough support. And I think it’s very easy for us as parents of kids.

@34:12 – Dr. Greg Moody

Like my kid went to college and, you know, he’s got a job. He’s doing fine. It’s really, and your kids are, you know, spectacular.

But it’s really easy for us to go, well, you know, you guys messed this up and they must have been bad parents and they must have, you know, given up whatever.

But here’s the secret people don’t want to talk about. The identical twin studies where they’ve taken two twins, so taken twin and twin and separated them at birth, not separated them on purpose, but because for whatever reason they were adopted.

They were adopted and this parent went with this family and this parent, or this kid went with one family, one kid went with the other.

They had exactly the same genetics. They were identical genetically, but they were completely different. And what they found was these kids ended up behaving about 80% of their personality was the same.

It’s startling. And we want to think that we have a lot more control than we really do. The older they get, the less control we have over their personality we have as well.

So, tip, we don’t have data on twins separated at adolescent stage. We don’t relate because there’s not that many of them.

But twins separated at birth in different environments prove that at least what we think is, I guess is a better way to say it more than prove, is that most of their personality is beyond your control.

It’s genetic. Or it’s within your control because you gave them the genetics. I guess you gave them the genetics, but you didn’t do something that messed them up.

I’m not trying to forgive us as parents. I think we should work really hard to be really good parents and do the thing.

But here’s what I want us to consider for the moment. What if they’re already here and you’re already having challenges with them?

They’re 28 and they’re living at home and they’ve never worked and they don’t. We know some people, Master Sanborn, won’t mention, we know some people where the kid’s still at home and they have so much anxiety that they don’t feel like they can get a job and it’s a real challenge.

It’s so easy for us that aren’t in that situation as parents to look at those parents and go, well, you guys just need to kick them out or you guys screwed this up or you guys need to just do this or you guys need to do that.

I’m going to help us right now with what to do and setting boundaries in a way that will hopefully work for people.

But hopefully that helps people understand the position that they may be in. Any thoughts on that as we move to the next part?

No, I’m actually looking forward to this part.

@36:56 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

A lot.

@36:56 – Dr. Greg Moody

Let’s talk about boundaries. What people think boundaries are is there’s me and you, and I’m going to tell you what to do.

I’m going to say, well, here’s my boundary. I don’t like it when you do this. Here’s my boundary.

I can’t accept that you don’t take the trash out every day. See, people think that’s a boundary. I’m going to define the behavior that I want you to do because I don’t like what you’re doing, or I want you to do something different.

And we do this. I see this with couples all the time. They come in and say, well, I don’t like what they’re doing.

I don’t like what they’re doing. And then when it comes to boundaries, they say, OK, well, my boundary is I need them to do this.

I need them to hug me every every day. So it’s defining somebody else’s behavior. See, that’s not really a boundary.

That’s telling somebody else what to do and hoping you can control their behavior. And most of the time. And by the way, when couples come into my office when I do that work and they say I want the other person to do something and they think that therapy is going to help them get what they want, really what I have to tell them is the tough news that, well, you’ve been telling them that for 15 years that you want them to do that and they haven’t done it, so probably that’s never, ever going to happen.

And then the conversation is then what? And one of those things that can be the then what is boundaries.

And the boundary is a boundary, healthy boundary is defining your availability, nothing to do with their behavior. It might look like this.

Maybe it’s maybe it’s somebody who is your best friend, but they always spend most of the time talking about themselves.

Your availability might not be to have lunch with them or be in environments with them where they’re going to do that.

Or maybe somebody who likes to drink a lot and, you know, you don’t like like being around them. Not a boundary is telling them they drink too much and they need to change their behavior.

If anybody’s been in that situation, that usually doesn’t work. What can work is how much availability I have. I’m only going to be available for them when it’s the time of day that they’re typically not drinking or when they’re not in that kind of environment or even let them know.

It’s okay to let somebody know I’m not available for you if that’s going to be the way you behave.

The boundary with the interesting conversation I had in this example I’m using is the kid lived at home. They’re working for the business and the parents were upset that they weren’t performing well.

The boundary could be, okay, I will accept you being an employee under these conditions that are our normal employee conditions.

under these If If want to do that, that’s great. If you don’t do that, that’s okay, but you’re not going to be an employee here.

They can do whatever they want. The difference between this is I’m not telling that person what to do. What I’m doing is I’m setting a boundary.

Here’s what’s okay with me and what’s not, and then you do what you like. Now, if you don’t want to comply with those rules, then that’s your choice.

You’re just not an employee in that case. Or it could be something where somebody’s, I guess, if the adult child’s living at home and they make a complete mess and they wreck their car, okay, well, here’s how much I’m going to pay for your car.

Here’s how much I’m going to, well, in the case of wrecking their car, I wouldn’t recommend paying for anything, but the boundary would be, well, yeah.

I’m not going to pay for any repairs on your car. Well, yeah, but then I can’t get to work and then I can’t, you know, I won’t have any money.

Okay. That’s the end of it. That’s what I’m willing to do, what my availability is. They get to choose what they’re going to do with that.

Does that sound different? Let me back up. When I say that to people, usually, here’s what parents do, okay, well, what I’m going to do is I’m going to set that boundary and then they’ll probably do this and they’ll probably do that and they’ll figure it out.

And the real truth is, the truth is that you don’t know what they’re going to do. You don’t know if they’re going to choose to comply with your rules.

You don’t know if they’re going to choose to be better employees. You don’t know if they’re going to choose to be responsible with their car.

You don’t know if they’re going to choose to Do those things. And most parents will then cycle back to, yeah, but what do I do then so that they change?

By the way, couples do, but this is a different conversation. You know, what do I do so they change?

If I do this, then they’ll change. That’s not what we, that’s not what boundaries are. Boundaries are, here’s what I’m going to do and here’s what’s okay.

They may, whatever they’re going to do is whatever they’re going to do. And if what they’re going to do is this, I might make a different choice.

If they’re going to, maybe your kid is, you know, likes to, likes to drink a lot and they’re 25 and they get drunk all the time.

Well, maybe that’s not okay for them to live in your house. Well, yeah, but then I’m going to be on the street.

That would suck. I understand that would suck. But you know, if you’re going to live in the house, you can’t operate that way.

Well, where am I supposed to go? That. Yeah, that’s a challenge. Do you need some help finding a place? I mean, you need some help with getting to rehab? I can help. Some examples of that or thoughts on that so far as I’m trying to define boundaries a little bit differently than what most people think boundaries are.

@43:20 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah, it’s just different from actually what I thought they were, too. So, the challenge of, how do I word it so you understand this is it, but I’m not telling you what to do.

I’m just saying, this is it as far as I can go. And that’s it. You do what you’re going to do.

Yeah, that’s a different, yeah, for sure, a different thought process on what a boundary was and how they work.

So, yeah. they have to figure it out themselves.

@43:57 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Yes.

@43:58 – Dr. Greg Moody

Yeah, I’m not telling them what to They do. And even how it’s presented needs to be clear. They’re an independent entity, even an adolescent, independent entity.

I mean, your 10-year-old could run out of the house and run down the street and beat somebody up. I mean, they could do that.

Hopefully they don’t, but they could do that. Your 20-year-old could get in a lot of bad behaviors. They could do that.

And there’s a very limited amount of control we have or authority we have to do anything about that. Also, with our spouses or also with other people, also adults.

And so then the switch is what we spend so much time and brain damage on is trying to get the other person to change.

@44:54 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yes.

@44:55 – Dr. Greg Moody

Instead of defining the boundary. Then they can make a choice. The challenge is tolerating the consequences of the choice, if they don’t make the choice we want, and or enforcing it, what those choices are, what that boundary is, and making sure we’re clear about it and stay true to it.

That’s very difficult. And that’s why when people talk about boundaries, it’s very much, it’s mostly when people talking about trying to tell the other people what to do, or trying to manipulate what their behavior is.

I’m going to do this, so hopefully they’ll do that. That’s not it. That’s losing the expectation that you will get what you want.

And that might change how you define a boundary. It might change how I’m available at this time and not this time, you know, for this thing that you want to be able to do, and…

You know, that’s it. That’s all I’m available for. Well, yeah, but I want to do this. Or you pick your own example.

Do you guys have some examples you want to walk through?

@46:10 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

I’m putting you on the side.

@46:12 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Simple ones with home and, you know, laundry, just getting stuck doing the laundry. Okay. My boundary is I’m going to do my laundry.

I’ve heard somebody say it like this.

@46:25 – Dr. Greg Moody

I’m going to do laundry on Wednesday. If whatever’s there is there, if it’s not there, it’s not there. I’m going to do the laundry.

If yours is there, I’ll do it. It’s fine. But if it’s not, it’s not. And then Wednesday comes. Now, here’s the trick.

And by the way, this is very similar to the one, two, three magic that we teach as we teach.

Here’s the trick. Not complaining to them about it. So in other words, Wednesday comes and you tell the whole family, hey, don’t forget.

Don’t forget. Don’t forget. You better have a laundry here. Get the laundry here. Get the laundry here. See, now I’m trying to control their behavior.

Whereas if you say, I’m doing the laundry on Wednesday. Whoever’s is here gets done. If not, then, you know, you’re on your own.

We’re dirty clothes. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but you guys take care of it. And less talking about it.

@47:17 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yes, there’s something.

@47:20 – Dr. Greg Moody

And the magic of this to me is, I can control my own behavior. I can’t control anybody else’s behavior.

So, I’m controlling my behavior by defining the boundary. And that’s then, then the other people are going to do what they are going to do.

And if, if it works out, that’s great and not judge yourself for them, not changing their behavior. I think for kids that often happens.

So, let’s talk about some more stuff. Yeah. I think this stuff is pretty valuable. And so again, if it’s not, it’s not, if X happens, they will do Y.

think it’s, it’s, it’s. If I will do something, like if it went around and your laundry’s not there, I’m going to do the laundry, okay?

Not telling them that, you know, I’m not going to, don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget, you’re not going to get the laundry done.

So this is, it says the kid, but it’s really either adult too. They still have autonomy to do what they want.

Now often, if you’re setting boundaries with younger kids, they don’t get what they want if they don’t follow the rules around your boundary.

They won’t get dessert. Maybe in some cases they don’t even get food. What if a kid always is late to dinner and you say dinner’s at 6 o’clock?

I’m going to give one notice that dinner’s ready and you’ve got to be down here. But instead, the kid, I’ll use an extreme case, doesn’t show up at all and then they show up around 8 o’clock and say they want their food.

Now some parents will warm their food up. And give them their food and say, well, you know, they’re going to starve if I don’t give them their food.

They could. They could. Is that likely? It’s probably very unlikely. But, you know, they could. So if your boundary is, I’m going to give one announcement.

I’m going to have food ready at six. Love to have you eat it. Or a lot of parents will talk about the kid doesn’t want to eat the food.

Okay. Master. Sanborn, I think your family, a million kids. She had six kids in her family, Mr. Flees. And, you know, right. The food was the food.

@49:37 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah, exactly. There was never any other option. Right. The food was the food.

@49:42 – Dr. Greg Moody

If you don’t want chicken nuggets, that’s okay. I mean, if you don’t want, well, they would have wanted chicken nuggets.

If you don’t want the broccoli, it’s okay. That’s the end of the boundary. So that’s what boundaries would look like.

But the kid has autonomy. They can do whatever they want. So Brene Brown’s a really good example for anybody listening.

Brene Brown’s a great person. Especially her two big TED Talks are excellent to listen to. But she has some talks about boundaries.

And it’s about what’s okay and what is not for me. The one setting the boundary. Not what is okay or not for you.

By the way, anybody that has businesses on here, for all of us with businesses, boundaries are the systems and rules we have.

The better you apply the systems and rules, then it’s not about, you know, they’re either going to comply or they won’t.

We train them. Teaching and training is one thing but having set rules like a dress code. It’s a dress code.

If they don’t show up in the right dress code, they don’t get to participate. And like we were mentioning, most boundaries people, people set, not just parents or behavior demands, don’t have an expectation that their behavior changes.

There are three kind of ways to deal with this. One is setting the boundary, so that’s what your availability is, or what you’re willing to do, what’s okay and what’s not, holding it so that when that happens, when a boundary happens, or a boundary violation happens, or a boundary gets, whatever happens, you’re going to stay true to what your boundary is.

Then the last is, and the hardest, is the consequence of what it is. The consequences, including really bad stuff.

You know, the 24-year-old daughter in the family, you know, if they, maybe the consequence, if she doesn’t want to work and do the work that they ask, then maybe she doesn’t get to, she can’t stay in the house unless you, nobody can stay in the house unless they’re working and paying rent.

Well, don’t have money for rent. Okay. That’s, if that’s, but I’m going to be homeless. I don’t want that, you know.

Do you need some help so you can, you know, find some job? Maybe you can provide help. That’s not violating your boundary, but the boundary is the boundary.

And the hard part is tolerating the consequence. And I think even worse, and the secret thing, is tolerating the idea of the consequence.

Tolerating the idea that if I don’t help them now, don’t give them what they want now, then this will happen, this will happen, this will happen, this will happen.

And if it’s a couple, it might be, you know, well, I’ll get divorced. If it’s a kid, they’ll be homeless, you know, whatever.

So usually parents might do number one, but they won’t do two or three. Okay, so here’s what’s going to happen.

@52:50 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Anything to add on that, guys? No, that’s interesting. Out on it, some people on the call may not know what that is.

@53:00 – Dr. Greg Moody

Al-Anon is the organization that works with parents or family members of people that have addiction, know, very serious addiction.

They might be in, somebody might be in rehab and it’s very common for parents, of course, to want to help their kid if they’re having problems like this.

And what ends up happening is a lot of times helping them perpetuates the addiction because now there’s no consequence for the behavior that they’re making and the difficulty in them saving themselves from addiction, which is very difficult.

And so the Al-Anon principle is you can’t save them, but you can stay available. can be available if they need some help, but you’re not trying to save them from what their situation is.

I think that’s relevant. So healthy adult parenting. What is it like and what it’s going to give you?

It should produce less anxiety once you get through that stage of tolerating the consequences and a close and real relationship from a real adult.

You’re helping them be real adults because you’re genuinely true. We were them like real adults, like real human beings that have their own autonomy, and it’s not, you’re not promising anything, you’re not promising any of these things, and we’re not expecting an outcome, you know, just like if it’s your buddy, and he’s doing something you don’t like, you might be there to help them, and you might be sad for sure that they’re doing something that’s going to cause them problems, but you know, your job isn’t to fix them, as parents we think that’s still our job a lot.

And the last part is what’s really important. We’re doing this so that we stop suffering. It still may hurt.

It still may be tough if our kids are not successful. It may be tough if they’re not doing as well as we’d like them to do, but we’re still keeping our own autonomy about ourselves.

And lastly, it’s about you, not about the kid, not about the adult kid, not about the other person. So, wrapping up, anything kind of to wrap up with, guys?

This was a darker topic, a more in-depth topic than we usually talk about on this, on our success training, but I thought it was important.

I thought it was something that was significant.

@55:24 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

It just seems like something that has applications to all of your relationships, not just with your kids, but with your spouse, with the people you work with, with people you meet.

If you have boundaries for yourself and you keep them pretty firm, it’s an integrity issue for yourself. Do I have integrity with myself in that when I say, I won’t accept this behavior, I don’t accept this behavior, no matter who the other person is?

@55:59 – Dr. Greg Moody

I’m going to do, this behavior is this way, that means I do this. I’m going to make a choice about what to do if this behavior happens. Accept it or not, they can do it. Yeah, they can do it. I accept your bad behavior. You’re a person. We love you. We care about you.

That doesn’t mean I’m participating. It’s a little tricky because it’s not how we normally operate. Usually, we spend a lot of time trying to think about, I don’t like this, so I want to tell them I don’t like it.

And sometimes they’ll change. Sometimes people will, you know, do what you want. But we, the ones that give us stress are the ones that that doesn’t work, and we keep trying to do it.

Any other thoughts, Mr. Flees?

@56:52 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Yeah, I think, I don’t know, as martial arts instructors, that might be tougher because we’re used. It’s to tell people what to do, expecting them to do it without question, but they also know the consequence.

If you do not do what you do, there’s a definite consequence. You can’t really do that at home with your spouse.

@57:19 – Dr. Greg Moody

Work as well.

@57:21 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Sure. Or maybe your neighbor, you can’t tell them what to do or what you’re going to do, the way we do a martial arts class.

@57:35 – Dr. Greg Moody

Yeah, I think that it’s a good example, though, of there’s an accepted authority. We have an accepted authority as a teacher, as a martial arts instructor, as a boss.

There’s this built-in authority that we have. So the curve that we talked about before, the authority is high, our authority to do something, and that’s accepted and agreed on, and we’re…

It’s a different balance of power. It’s okay to have an imbalance of power. That’s what you have when the kid is an infant.

That’s what you have if you’re a boss. That’s what you have if you’re a martial arts instructor. But that changes, that imbalance of power isn’t the same when the kid’s an adult or with your spouse or with other people.

In the situation that came up where they’re an employee and they’re an adult child, now it becomes complicated because you do have authority.

But if you treat them like the adult child, you lose your authority, your ability to manage the situation like you would if you were a boss.

So yes, that makes a lot of sense. And that again illustrates the difference. Where am I at right now?

One way to think about it is, do I actually have authority in this situation? If it’s your spouse, it’s no, that would be an abusive relationship if you grabbed authority.

Okay. Let’s Without, you know, without, I don’t know, that usually wouldn’t, you would think of that as an abusive situation.

In an infant’s case, we have tons of authority and tons of responsibility. With your spouse, you have no real authority at all, but you have a lot of responsibility to what the agreements are that you posted.

And that’s how you build the relationship with adults is agreements on responsibility. Well, what does that sound like? It sounds like there’s an agreement on the boundaries between the interactions of the relationship, and then you decide what to do.

Great, great feedback, guys. I mean, this is awesome. I’m going to add this to the report. We’ll post this and have it out for everybody.

We’ll be wrapping up here. All right. Thank you very much for being here today. Thanks for everybody listening, and we appreciate you.

@59:52 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Thank you, sir.

@59:54 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

This is very different and informative.

@59:57 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

What are your thoughts?

@59:59 – Dr. Greg Moody

We’re off the recording.

@1:00:01 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah, when I first read it, I’m like, why the hell are we covering this? Honestly, I was just like, I don’t see what it has to do with.

But as we go through it, it makes a lot more sense. So yeah, I was just yeah, when I read it, I’m like, I just I’m looking at the title and stuff.

I’m like, what? Where does this fit into what we do? And how we do it? But as you as we went through it, I got a lot more out of How does it feel like it applies to dealing with other people?

Oh, totally. Like I said, the integrity of setting my own boundaries on, I won’t, you know, just not, not so much not putting up with something as in not.

Not letting their behavior be what’s controlling what I’m doing. Right.

@1:01:06 – Dr. Greg Moody

You can own who you are and what you do. They can do what they do. And then you may have to make different decisions based on that, about what you do, not about what they are.

@1:01:17 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Right. In a sense, this strategy respects them, I think. I’m respecting the other person.

@1:01:27 – Dr. Greg Moody

They can do what they want. They may not like their choices that I give them in terms of mobility, but I’m respecting them that they can make a choice there and then living with, you know, what happens out of it.

@1:01:42 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Well, and I have the permission to not like it.

@1:01:45 – Dr. Greg Moody

Yeah.

@1:01:46 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

The permission to not want to be around that and not take that part of whoever they are for whatever reason, because it’s upsetting for me to be around this particular behavior.

Okay, as long as you’re going to behave like that, I’m not going to be there for that.

@1:02:06 – Dr. Greg Moody

Yeah. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. It doesn’t mean I’m not telling you you’re a bad person.

It doesn’t mean you might not think somebody’s a bad person, but that’s kind of a separate topic.

@1:02:17 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Right.

@1:02:17 – Dr. Greg Moody

How did you Anna Jones?

@1:02:20 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Oh, that’s a long conversation.

@1:02:22 – Dr. Greg Moody

Please, Anna Jones is the one we were implying. She knew exactly who I meant. Hunter, who’s lived at home. Essentially, an agoraphobic, stays at home, doesn’t leave the house. He’s 20, must be 28 now.

@1:02:42 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah, I guess he is.

@1:02:43 – Dr. Greg Moody

He’s same age as Chase. And 28, and he’s never had a job, never had a girlfriend, I don’t think.

@1:02:52 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

He did, but you don’t want to go into that long distance.

@1:03:00 – Dr. Greg Moody

It’s the worst possible kid in the basement eating, drinking, drinking at Mountain Dews and playing video games. I mean, just no future.

@1:03:15 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah. So what do do?

@1:03:16 – Dr. Greg Moody

He’s living at home. He’s 28. Living at home. What do you do? The problem for parents in that situation, too, is if they haven’t said these all along, now it’s a big, it’s an abrupt upheaval.

@1:03:30 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Yeah. Yes.

@1:03:33 – Dr. Greg Moody

And the secret probably is it’s not going to be any better having a slow boundary setting. Right.

@1:03:43 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

No.

@1:03:44 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

It’s no better.

@1:03:45 – Dr. Greg Moody

Now, maybe I give that kid six months to move out instead of one month to move out, you know, or next week or put his furniture outside.

But, you know, how you set that up, what the boundary is has to, has, it doesn’t do.

It any good to do that slow.

@1:04:01 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Yeah.

@1:04:03 – Dr. Greg Moody

I tell you what, when I tell parents this and stuff, whatever, I’m glad I’m conceptualizing this a little bit better because maybe I can explain it better, but holy crap.

In this meeting, all those people, they still, even all the other people that were part of it, oh, we’ll do this to them and do this to them and do this to them.

None of that’s going to work. That’s your strategy. It’s not your strategy. Even if it worked, it’s not your strategy.

Anyway, I should let you guys go, but I appreciate you being here for this. Feel like this was useful then?

@1:05:03 – Mr. Dwayne L. Flees

Yes, this was very useful, very informative. Thank you.

@1:05:05 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Thank you sir.

@1:05:06 – Dr. Greg Moody

All right.

@1:05:07 – Sr. Master Laura Sanborn

Bye, everybody.

 

 

 

Dr. Moody is also a licensed psychotherapist and maintains a practice at Integrated Mental Health Associates (IntegratedMHA.com) where he specializes in couples therapy and men’s issues.