Ch. Master Greg Moody, Ph.D.

P.S. Transcript: Transcript for Teens and Boundaries Podcast

With Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. and Senior Master Laura Sanborn

Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 02:20
Hey, everybody, this is our success training. Now I’m really excited about this because we’re working on our parent authority series, and this is relating to working with teens and setting boundaries.

We already reviewed zero through one and zero through two and three to eleven, which is what we call stage one and stage two of setting boundaries and setting rules and parental authority. Now we’re going to talk about how to do that at me people would think is a difficult age to do this at, which is teens. I’m really happy to have Senior Master Sanborn here. Thanks for being here, ma’am.

Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 03:22
Thank you for having me, sir.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 03:24
Mr. Flees gave some input in, so we’re going to credit him here today for our podcast for the Teens. Everything we do is part of the KarateBuilt Charter. One of the things that I think that we talked about just recently was the second line, which is we measure results based not on who we exclude, but on students’ constant growth.
That’s something that’s really important to us, that a lot of times kids will come in or parents will see their kids maybe not perform well, maybe see their teenager not perform well, and they go and they get embarrassed because their kids not doing what the other kids do.
What we have to realize is that kids and everybody adults to start wherever they start. We’re not going to exclude people, we’re going to work with them. We’re experts at working with people in lots of different age groups, lots of different ability levels, lots of different, sometimes special needs levels that we have to work with.
We’re trying to push everybody as hard as they can, whether they’re API performance athlete or whether they’ve got other challenges in her life. The constant growth part is really important, and the not who we exclude part is really important.
So I just wanted to mention that as we go on here, Master Sanborn so that we can put things in the right framework.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 04:45
Yes. Sir.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 04:46
What we’re talking about right now is actually stage three. It’s the adolescent stage. This is twelve to seventeen years old, and we’ve already covered stage one and stage two. Again, now we’re talking about teens. The important thing about this graph is understanding that as parents, our responsibility is very high when they’re infants, and our authority is really high. We can move them around, we can pack or put them in a certain place. We can physically move them, we can tell them what to do, and we literally have control of everything, and we have a responsibility for everything, because if it’s an infant, they’re going to die if we don’t take care of them.
We’ve talked about it at the child age where they’re three to four to eleven. Then it changes, it gets a little lower. Our responsibility and our authority, our ability to do stuff, is still really high.
It’s not 100%, though. At the third stage, this teen stage we’re talking about today is when it changes a lot. It changes a lot from… We really don’t have a lot of control, which means we don’t have a lot of authority to make changes.
But we still have a lot of responsibility to make sure they survive and put up with our structure and everything else. So how rules and boundaries fit together. Here is what we’re going to cover today. Any thoughts on that, ma’am? You’ve had two teenagers.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 06:18
Yes, sir, it’s the most frightening stage, really. It’s the scariest one. As soon as you say teenager, people just are freaking out, and they’re scared when their kid hits twelve, going, “No, next year I have a teenager.” Next year I have a teenager.
Because right in the middle of this stage is when they start really pursuing independence. And if you haven’t taught them how to be independent safely, then, yeah, there’s nothing good about this.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 06:50
Yeah, a lot of risks.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 06:51
Because driving happens.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 06:52
Yeah, a lot of risks and a lot of dangers.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 06:55
Yeah, exactly. They’re not in your sight all the time. They’re going to be driving, and when they’re driving, they can be anywhere. You could say you can only go so far, but even tracking the car, they can still go there. You can track it, but they’ve gone.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 07:09
[Laughter] Well, I you know, it’s funny.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 07:11
If you haven’t taught them independence in a safe way, in a way that makes them feel safe as well as be safe, it’s just tough.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 07:23
Yeah, and I think it’s funny, it’s interesting you say that. I almost feel like we ought to overlay on the graph anxiety and anxiety.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 07:28
[Laughter].
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 07:32
You know, you have a lot of anxiety in the kids in these ages, but it goes way up, right? In this stage, it starts to increase as things change. Your anxiety levels are a lot higher because you don’t have as much control, you don’t have as much authority.
This shift is hard for parents. We’re going to try to help you out today on how to manage this and how to deal with it. Obviously, we’ve got a few things. What the hardware is what’s inside of them.
Their teenage brain is a little bit different than their child brain. It’s one person that there’s a guy named Steinberg, Lawrence Steinberg, developmental psychologist at Temple University, talks about how there are two systems that work behind with teenagers. One is a gas pedal.
You know that they want to do stuff, they want to do stuff. They want to do more stuff. They want to do more stuff. Or they want to stay at home. They want to stay home. They want to whatever. They want to take whatever actions they want to take.
And then the problem is the brakes don’t work. They don’t have the judgment control and the impulse control that they might have at an older age. And it’s obvious that’s not, you know, that’s not surprising. They can do more stuff and they want to do more stuff, but they have difficulty making. Or at least the anxiety that we have is whether or not they have good judgment and impulse control.
Kids are wired differently at this age. And that’s again understandable because we want them to be we want them to be exploring new things, but we’re you know, worried about what those explorations will be.
You know. Other things happen. You know, it’s biology. Their puberty happens. They literally their physical body changes in a way that they’ve never experienced before. And for some of us as new parents, we’ve never experienced it before. We don’t, you know, what do we do with our.
If we’re a man, we didn’t experience what our young daughters go through. If we’re a woman, we didn’t experience what our young sons went through. It’s very different. And it’s complicated and control and confusing. Any thoughts on that, ma’am?
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 09:40
Yeah, kids hit this age and suddenly they feel like they know everything already. They know what’s going to happen, they know what they’re doing, they know why they’re doing it, and they react adversely to being told that they don’t.
I do know what I’m talking about. I do know what I’m doing. We’re trying to give them our experiences from when we were that age, which, by the way, we forget all the bad things as we survive it, we forget a lot of the things that every fight we had with our parents over the exact same thing.
Yeah, they react adversely to being told they don’t know everything, and navigating that is really difficult because you get mad.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 10:23
And that’s one reason we’re right. Yeah, and that’s critical of why boundaries are different from rules. Rules are things that you’re establishing. When they’re younger, they’re going to follow them, and if they don’t follow them, you can pretty much force the issue to have them follow the rules.
I mean that if dinner’s at a certain time, dinner’s at a certain time, the teenagers could just raid the fridge. Not that a younger kid couldn’t do that, but they’re maybe less likely to. You don’t have as much capacity to establish rules.
I mean that if nothing else, when they’re sixteen, they can drive, potentially if you let them, but they can drive. My gosh, what does that change? It changes a whole bunch of things where now you don’t have the authority that you thought you had anymore because now they’re out of your control.
Boundaries are even more important now. In our prior session stages, they were really important too. And often one of the challenges at this stage is we didn’t set good boundaries when they were in their four to eleven stage. We took care of too much for them. We did too many things for them. We didn’t teach them the skill to push themselves.
So now when they’re at this stage, they haven’t learned the skill to push themselves. They haven’t learned the skills to be working within the boundaries that we set. If you’re listening to this and your kids are already fifteen, it’s not too late. We’re going to help you with it.
But if you’re listening to this, your kids are younger, we want to give you some motivation to really do a good job of setting boundaries in the things that we’re going to talk about that are appropriate.
Okay. Anything else to add there, ma’am?
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 11:59
A lot of it is if you set the right boundaries, then they feel safer and they are safer because they know they can rely on you because you’ve already shown that with the boundary.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 12:13
That’s really well said. Okay, but let’s move on to the next section. When rules become boundaries. This is where if they’re an infant, you. It’s an union spoken rule because you’re just carrying them around and taking care of stuff.
And they might cry and then you’re going to take care of their they’re feeding them or going to take care of their diaper. I mean, that’s completely different. You can see how that’s there’s no decision park there.
It’s 100% rules and 100% responsibility of taking care of them. But as they grow, it changes a lot. Now they have some capacity. There’s some things that obviously are going to be rules that you need to enforce, like these that are listed here, things that are going to be related to their safety and some things that maybe some guidelines in your household, maybe in your household, you know, it’s not it is allowed, something is allowed or isn’t allowed, those can be rules.
I mean, some people might have rules about some people probably appropriately have rules about whether they drink and drink alcohol in their house. Some people don’t have those rules. I’m not judging which one’s right or wrong, but for me, that was a rule. For my son, that wasn’t something he tried to do, but it wasn’t going to be.
You know, it wasn’t legal, so he wasn’t AI didn’t allow him to do that. Master Sandour, did you have some rules for your kids when they were teenagers?
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 13:39
You participation in the family is… You had to do some of the cleaning in the house. Everybody had specific things that they were expected to do from an early age. That was a benefit to the family, not just for their safety.
Somebody’s got to put their laundry where it belongs. Somebody’s got to do the dishes, somebody has to do those things, clean the bathroom after yourself. Those boundaries were non-negotiable in our house. This is the expectation. I don’t care how old you are.
If you were three years old, you had to put your dishes off the table and in the sink. If you were seven years old, they had to go in the dishwasher if they had to. Do you know? By nine, you were cleaning the bathroom after yourself for sure.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 14:27
Yeah. Those are interesting ones because those I would define as things that you’re going to make sure happen as a parent, you’re going to enforce this. So this has to be something you’re able to enforce.
If you’re not able to enforce it, whether that’s by consequence or by motivating them to do it or whatever, you have to be able to enforce that.
The difference with boundaries is most other things are going to be boundaries.
I was just talking to Mr. Flees about a really good example. He said when his daughter would drop off, sometimes if he dropped his daughter off to school, he had a couple of times where they forgot their instrument, their musical instrument.
So then what? One boundary would be… Some parents would… I’m really sorry. I’ll go home and get it, and they’d go and get it and maybe that happens again, and maybe that happens again and maybe it happens again.
Maybe it doesn’t. Another end of the spectrum would be, “You forgot your instrument. Okay, that does… That’s a pain that sucks. What are you going to do now?” Now they can’t drive back if they’re 14 years old.
Maybe you have to go to work.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 15:41
Yes.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 15:41
What happens. We have to be able to with boundaries, we have to be able to tolerate that. We have to be able to tolerate the consequences that they’re going to have. For example, their grades.
Maybe. Maybe they forgot their homework or they didn’t do their homework. Some parents would help them with their homework and make sure that they got their homework in. Make sure it was in their backpack, make sure it was together. Setting a boundary might be…
If this is something you want, I recommend it is… They’re responsible for their homework, they’re responsible for getting in their backpack, they’re responsible for it, and we have to be able to tolerate the consequences that they have now. Might they get worse grades?
Yeah, you might. You have to tolerate that as a parent. That they would get worse grades because… Or they wouldn’t have a good day at their music class. You’d have to be able to live with that. Then they’ll have to decide. Then they’re going to have to do something. Now, some kids, maybe they do nothing. They just forget their stuff all the time and they get a really bad grade, they fail the class.
Okay? You have to be able to tolerate that. Maybe you can’t, maybe you can, but the boundaries are going to be based on what you can tolerate and what you think is good behavior for them. We’re not setting the boundary up to manipulate them. We’re not setting a boundary up with a prior expectation. The key is we’re setting a boundary up to evaluate our availability and what we’re willing to do. We could use that example with food.
Maybe you want them to… The food in the house is going to be this kind of food. Maybe you have a vegan household and the kids don’t want to have vegan, they want to have hamburgers. But if you made a decision this is a boundary would be this is the type of household we have. I’m not recommending any kind of food. I’m just saying that’s a little bit more severe example.
If somebody’s vegan, that’s… We’re a vegan household, that’s the food we have. Well, I don’t want that. I want chicken nuggets. Yeah, I get it that you want chicken nuggets anyway. That’s the kind of food we have available.
To be willing to tolerate them throwing a tantrum or a fit or whatever could even be a kid. That’s maybe your vegan household and your neighbor’s kid comes over and is spending the night with your kid, and you say the same thing.
Yeah, we’re a vegan household. Well, they can go home, you know that. Again, you’d have to tolerate that that’s going to be the boundary that you set. It’s all about having them be able to fend for themselves and create some independence. Our rules are about safety. The independence is about guidelines. Master Sandour, what are your thoughts on this?
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 18:34
Absolutely like some articles I’ve been reading lately are about safety words within the family. You let your kid go to an event that you don’t really… It’s not like the most safe thing in the world.
But they’re going with a bunch of friends. But if they let them know that, they can call you at any point with no big discussion about it. I told you not to go. I told you it wasn’t going to be great.
But if they call you and have a safety word that they use in the conversation, you go pick them up automatically. No fuss, no bother. That means for some reason even they don’t feel safe. There you go, do it.
It’s not a discussion. They have the independence to try it with you as a fallback for safety, knowing that… Okay, I put myself out there, but behind me because I’ve got boundaries, because I trust my parents, and they’ve been behind me all along. Not that they saved me from everything. This is a big choice you’re making to go to this.
But know that if it’s unsafe, call me. I’ll be right there.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 19:48
Well, yeah. I think you… The example I would think in my head is if your kid wants to go to a concert. You know, like a concert. They want to go with their friends to a concert.
And you don’t have control over what happens at the concert. You know, people can be, you know, doing drugs or they can do stuff at a concert. It doesn’t have to be like a wild, you know, situation. It could be like a regular concert. You have some anxiety about that.
It’s tolerating the anxiety that your child wants to go.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 20:14
Yes.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 20:15
Okay, maybe the rule in your house is they can’t go to them, but if it’s a boundary, be like, “Okay, that’s fine. Maybe I’m available to drive you.”
Maybe I’m not. If you do want to go to that one, you’re going to have to be back by this time. That’s a safety rule, but a boundary would be you’re in charge of that, you’re controlling that. You can go. Here’s what I’m available to do. What I’m available to do is pick you up.
If you call and say you need to get picked up, that’s it. That’s the boundary. I’m not going to bail you out of jail or whatever, or we would…
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 20:55
Right.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 20:56
I don’t know if that’s a good example of one, but, you know, I’m available if you are unsafe, but that’s it. I’m not available to get money for it. I’m not going to buy your tickets. You’re gonna have to save for that yourself.
Yeah. So if you want to go, it’s okay. Here’s the guideline and here’s the boundary that I have about it. I’m not going to pay for it. I’m gonna, you know, I’ll be available if you are an emergency. Need an emergency safe, and you’ve got to.
If you forget your phone or forget my phone number, then you may be unsafe, and maybe and you have to be willing to tolerate the consequences of that. Your kid might not call. You know, they could get in trouble. What I find a lot of parents doing is though, when we’re talking about boundaries, is something like what you just said, a concert. They… Their thought process goes, “Okay, you can go, but you have to do BCD EFG.”
And their anxieties about… Well, if they go there, they might get stepped on, they might get hurt at the concert, somebody might steal them, they might find somebody. I mean, they go through all these permutations.
Yeah, you have to be willing to live with that. The C there may be things that happen. You can choose not to let them do those things. That’s a choice because you do have some authority still, but you are trying to build it that they’re independent and they can make decisions later.
That’s your choice in this kind of scenario. Okay? You want to go? My availability is this. It’s not this. Then what are you going to do?
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 22:40
Yeah, I’m not going to sit five rows behind you and stare at you.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 22:45
Yeah, but they don’t want that. That’s not the…
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 22:47
They don’t want it anyway, but yeah, but yes.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 22:48
Yeah, my boundary is what I’m available to do and what I’m okay with, what I’m going to do, not what you’re demanding they do. If you demand it, then you better be able to enforce it. There needs to be a rule.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 23:02
Yeah, call me as soon as you get there.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 23:02
But most of the… Yeah, you can’t.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 23:04
Let me know when you get to your seat. Let me know when it’s over. Call me at this point.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 23:07
And those are things you can’t enforce.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 23:07
Yeah, exactly.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 23:09
You have to figure out what you’re willing to do. But beware. The real danger here at this age is if you don’t give them some boundaries and let them operate, then when they get to the next stage when they’re 18 and up, they wouldn’t have learned how to manage inside those boundaries.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 23:33
Anything, right?
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 23:33
That’s the problem right now, and so that’s why this is really important. Okay, you can go… How are you going to pay for it? I thought you’d pay for it. No. Well, I’m not.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 23:44
Nothing. No.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 23:45
I’m not available to pay for it.
If you want to go, then you’re going to have to make sure it works out so you can go. How are you going to get there? I thought you’d drive me… I’m not available to drive. You’ll have to arrange your own transportation. Then they have to figure it out. Maybe that means they can’t go.
That’s okay. I’m not making that choice to manipulate them. I’m making that choice of what I’m available for, and that’s it. Then they’re going to make the decision, and I have to be able to tolerate my anxiety about what might happen.
But again, the danger is if you don’t do things like this and you don’t have major situations that they have some autonomy in within your boundaries, that they’re never going to learn it when they’re older, and you’re going to end up with problems at the next stages.
One thing you might think about is maybe a year at a time at twelve. These are the things they’re in charge of. You mentioned chores and things. Chores as a rule is different from chores as a boundary. Here’s the things that are available, for example, clothes, washing their clothes.
If you have availability for your… If you want clean clothes, the washing machines are over there. I’ve taught you how to use it.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 25:03
Yes.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 25:03
Maybe you got some slob, and you can visualize this. That never cleans their clothes.
Okay, I mean… Eventually they might get made fun out of school. Maybe they’ll never get made fun out of school, but that’s up to them. If you can’t tolerate it, then they’re never going to learn to clean their clothes. You’ve got to make a decision. Which is more important? Is it more important for them to learn how to clean their clothes? Or is it more important for them to have clean clothes all the time?
That’s a tricky decision. There are a lot of parents who wouldn’t allow them to not have clean clothes. Maybe they get embarrassed by their kid, but they have smelly clothes.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 25:41
As… Yeah.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 25:44
But then what would you do? For example, for younger kids in the martial arts schools, they need to carry their bag. They’re
just so small. I can’t carry it. There are some three or four-year-olds that maybe… But they pretty much can’t, right? So our rule is “carry their bag.” We actually are setting a boundary with the parents.
We’re not helping them with their bag. They get to carry their bag. Well, yeah, but they’re really small. Cool, pick it up. My example with younger kids too was I used this example in the prior section with four to eleven-year-olds. My son was walking along, and I was at Disneyland with two of my friends and their kids.
My friends and I were walking along. One of the kids said, “Hey, carry me.” The dad picked the kid up and started carrying him. Then the next kid said, “Hey, carry me, Mom.” The mom picked the kid up and started carrying him.
My kid just looked at me. He thought this was weird because I wouldn’t normally just carry him around because he asked for it. But he said, “Hey, Dad, carry me.” I said, “You got feet.” That was the end of the conversation. They all looked at me like I was evil and cruel and mean.
But my kid was walking. He was fine, and I knew that. Then he learned some independence. Now, that’s a small example. But figure out what your teenage example of that is. But then we have to think about consequences.
There are some things that you might have. Boundaries, the consequence to what the actions happen have to be considered. There may be some things that you’re available for. If they want more, there might be a consequence to it.
It needs to be clear. I think the problem that parents have is that they’re not clear. What if the consequence, if they didn’t bring their homework or they didn’t bring their instrument to music classes, they got a C instead of an A? That’d be pretty severe.
But let’s say they got a C instead of an A. Are you willing to be able to tolerate that? Not drive home, not go get their homework or their instrument or anything. Are you willing to tolerate that they’re going to make those kinds of mistakes and get worse grades?
Maybe the answer for you is no. Okay. If you go home and pick up their instrument and get their homework and make sure their homework is done and make sure their homework is the thing, and you may feel in your mind like, “Wow, I’m being a really attentive parent.” Cool. That was for zero through 33,456 years old.
That’s not for this age. This age is where we’re supposed to teach them the independence so they take care of themselves. Can you tolerate that? The answer is no. It’s okay. But just to understand the consequences of it.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 28:34
A question about that. If your family as a family, it’s always been the rule you get A’s and B’s, they come home with a C because something stupid I didn’t… I forgot my instrument three times in the semester. You wouldn’t bring it to me, so I got a C. How do you discuss that with them without it being just, “Hey, tough shit” or even “I told you so”?
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 29:02
[Laughter] Okay, we’ll edit. I’ll beep. We’ll beep seeing we’re going to beep.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 29:07
I told you so. I told you so.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 29:11
Senior Master Sanborn in our video, but that’s okay. I think we’ll leave it in, but you’re right.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 29:14
Yes, sir.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 29:17
Or not saying anything you…
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 29:21
But then where does that fall on the lines of “We told you all along you weren’t allowed to get a C”? We set that boundary back when you were twelve going into junior high that you couldn’t have a CSO. Do we have to have the…
Do the consequences change, or do we have to go back and remember I said, “If you ever got to see… Bam.”
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 29:44
Yeah, I think…
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 29:45
The world crashes down on your head.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 29:46
Yeah, again, you have to decide that as a family and as parents. I think that it’s very difficult to set ultimatums.
If you say, “We only get A’s and B’s, that’s all we get.”
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 29:55
Okay?
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 30:01
Then they forget their musical instrument a bunch of times, and they’re just really bad at remembering stuff. What’s more important to you? Is it more important that they are learning to be responsible? Which you may make the argument,
“Well, it didn’t work because they kept forgetting it.” Okay, then they had a consequence of an AC. Is that severe enough for you in the family? Is the consequence…? Okay. Well, see, then there may be some things that they don’t get because there are privileges that they get by getting A’s and B’s. Or is it something where maybe the B&A wasn’t something that they could manage? Now, this doesn’t mean that if the kids are forgetful about their stuff all the time, we might realize there’s a problem.
We may coach them on stuff. But maybe that doesn’t… Does it or doesn’t it work if you find out? I have some clients who found out their son was diagnosed with autism when… But they didn’t find this out till the age of 30. All these behaviors earlier than that were confusing to them.
Now it makes sense. But now they would… If they knew that earlier… That’s nobody’s fault. I’m not blaming them, but if they knew it earlier, then their strategies would have been different.
Sometimes we have some different strategies. This doesn’t mean we can’t be active. parents. Setting boundaries doesn’t mean we blow them off. Then just do whatever we want. Then they get to meet the consequences.
In fact, it’s the opposite. One thing in our charter is constant growth. Our job at this point is to teach them to push themselves. Not to push them, but to teach them to push themselves. That’s very different.
Because if we teach them to push themselves, then how do we teach them to make sure they remember their homework? Do we do it for them? Do we set an alarm that… Have a big TV screen that pops up? Don’t forget your homework.
Maybe that’ll work, but is that teaching them to remember their homework, or is it teaching them to rely on us?
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 32:13
If it’s a conversation with them, though, what do you think will help you remember to do your homework? Here are some ideas I have. Do you have any ideas that would work? Which of these would you like to try first?
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 32:27
Well, let me. Let me. Maybe. Maybe another alternative might be something like this. I know you’re forget your homework and you know you were concerned about getting a C do you? Is there anything you need for help to anything that I can do to help?
Well, yeah, you can put my home, your homework and. Well, okay, I’m not going to do that since it’s your job to do your homework and put it in your bag and make sure it’s there.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 32:47
Okay.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 32:52
That’s not something I’m available for anything else. Can I give you some feedback, or are you interested in some feedback or ideas or if you got this figured out?
Yeah. Then if they want some ideas, you can give them some ideas. That’s going to be a lot more… They’re going to be a lot more receptive to that than they would be if you just started, “Hey, I noticed you didn’t do your homework. We don’t get season this family. What are we going to do to fix that? Let’s sit down and figure out what we’re going to do to fix that.”
That’s trying to exercise authority when you may not actually have any. At this stage, even if you have some, it’s the cost of exercising that authority more than it would be to let them manage the consequences themselves.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 33:41
Wow. That’s a very fine line there.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 33:43
Yeah, that’s why it’s so critical.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 33:44
Mean?
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 33:47
We can see everybody that’s listed here knows somebody that’s got a kid in their 18 to 25 year old range, which is our other one we did a little while ago.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 33:47
Yeah.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 33:58
18 to 25 year old range or even older. A 30 year old that’s living at home, doesn’t have a job, and now they don’t know what to do.
This is the stage. We… Well, actually, earlier is the stage, but this is a stage where it becomes really critical that you’ve got to make a decision about whether I can tolerate the consequences. It’s the consequences for me.
It’s my understanding that it’s not their consequences. Can I tolerate that? I’m embarrassed that my kid got a C. You just said something. We only get B, A, and Bs, okay? You made that rule up. Can you tolerate that not being the case that your kid gets a C?
That’s the question. If no, then do something about it. Again, it doesn’t mean we can’t coach and help and train and suggest things and do things with our kids. Where this becomes problematic is when we do stuff for them that doesn’t need to get done. Then we steal their independence, and we can’t tolerate the consequences of what might happen.
Therefore, we get involved where we really don’t need to get involved. They don’t learn the consequences. Imagine a kid whose parent helped them all the time. You can all imagine this. We call them helicopter parrots. They help them with everything.
They do this at teenage age. They help with everything, help and everything. Take care of all the food. They say, “Well, I want to do really good in school. I don’t want to worry about anything else.”
Okay, then it might work out, but it might not. Learning independence, everybody would agree is important. This is the crucial time of how important it is. Okay, so again, here are a couple of other things here. We’ve got to move forward here. We’re running out of time nagging and rescuing. You can nag. You can tell them to do their homework. You can go get the homework form. You can do it all. It helps at the moment, but it’s not a long-term solution.
It’s like taking them to the gym and moving their arms so they exercise. Then, when you’re not around, what are they going to do? It becomes a trap. It works, but you’re going to keep nagging and rescuing.
If you find yourself nagging and rescuing all the time, then maybe it’s time to set a boundary and be willing to live with the consequences and tolerate the consequences. But one thing…
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 36:23
That one reminds me of the earlier one for little kids. For infants, not infants, but the two, three, and four-year-olds.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 36:30
Yeah. Three four to Al.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 36:32
I’m going to cry because I want the toy. How much can the parent handle of that? It gets louder and louder. I’m going to nag you until you get your homework done. You’re going to ignore me? I’m going to get louder and louder. It worked that time, so now I know it works, but only if I get louder and louder.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 36:48
Yeah, and, you know, you think this is not to suggest that your kids are calculating, although they could be there, that they’re going. Well, the last time I cried, so I’m going to start crying.
It’s just a natural reaction. I cried and I got what I want. I, you know, didn’t I didn’t manage my own time, so I’m late to school, you know, they heard me up and they brought me out there.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 37:08
Yeah.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 37:09
Well. Nobody likes it.
I mean. The kid doesn’t like it, you don’ like it, but yet it all kind of ends up being okay.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 37:17
Merlin?
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 37:18
Yeah, it becomes an equilibrium that we end up living with, and that’s not… If you want to change it, the equilibrium, change the boundary so that you’re clear on what you’re available for. I’m not available in that.
If they’re getting up late, I’m not available to wake you up. If you want to get up, whatever. If it’s time to go to school and it’s 08:00 and I need to leave for school to take you to school, if you’re not ready, then I’m going to work without you. What do you mean? I miss school.
Yeah. That sucks. And I don’t want you to miss school. But that’s not what I’m going to do. When you’re fourteen years old, when they’re four, maybe you do that a little bit, so it’s different now. This means the leadership rule applies. This is really important to that last part of this was common, consistent, beats loud and harsh. This is very well researched. The American Academy of Pediatrics did studies on this, and in terms of discipline, calm, consistent, beats loud and harsh.
This nagging, rescuing, if you ever feel yourself getting upset, here’s the rule. It’s what we call the leadership rule of emotion. It’s something that we teach our instructors and something that we want parents to follow. It’s the emotions you show or the emotions they need, not what you feel.
We’re never… When we say this, we’re not talking about you shouldn’t express your emotions to your spouse, partner, therapist, or other buddies. That’s not what we’re talking about. But if I’m in a leadership position, which is apparent, I have to show the emotions, that is going to have the right effect for them.
If you get all mad and upset because you’re emotional about whether or not they’re late for school, that may work, but that may end up giving you not the consequence or not the result that you want.
So if you’re like … Hey, I told you to get your homework, I told you every time and whatever. Is that actually working? Is the emotion working there, or would it be more effective to be okay, “I didn’t get my homework.”
I mean, that does suck. I understand now, boy, that’s a gift to them that then they have to decide what to do, they have to make decisions about it. It’s not… Adding on that, they’re terrible and they’re not a good person because they did it.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 39:41
Yes.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 39:41
It actually isn’t getting you the results you want. They’re going to… They’re deciding based on their consequences.
If there’s one thing you can remember from this, the emotions that you show, or the emotions they need, not what you feel inside. Sometimes they do something that’s actually hilarious. They maybe forgot the musical instrument thing, and they’re throwing a fit because they really want to do it.
The way they’re acting is actually funny, and if you laugh, that’s probably not the right emotion for that situation, even though you may be feeling like this is hilarious and hopeful. That example probably wouldn’t be that hilarious, but there are lots of them you could probably think of.
Let’s talk about work a little bit for teenagers. One thing we talk about is working. We have a lot of teenagers working at our school when they become instructors. I worked when I was starting it when I was twelve years old. I don’t know if that’s legal in our state at this time, but
it was at that time that shows you how old I am. Work is a gift you give them. I hear parents sometimes talking about… Well, I want to make sure they focus on school. If they do that by themselves and they don’t learn to work, you think about school. School is about five, six hours a day. They get the whole summer off. They get a couple of weeks off in holidays. A lot of times you get a couple of weeks off in some districts in the winter, in the spring, they have some time to do some work.
If they learn to work and they… Then they’re going to learn to build a connection with what I do is what generates money. They’re going to understand. They’re going to have a better understanding of what it means to actually work when they become an adult, which is what our ultimate outcome is that they become successful and capable adults.
This is something that maybe they… We’ve had some people that started had their teenagers start a job and then they didn’t show up and guess what, they got fired. And what happens when that happens?
Well, that’s embarrassing. I don’t want to have that happen anymore. Maybe they’ll learn to set their alarm clock. Maybe they won’t. But you’re giving them the opportunity to learn those things so you don’t end up like… Again, I mentioned the client that I have where people are 25, 30, 40 years old. Sometimes even 40 years old. They don’t have a job, and they may have never had a job because their parents took care of them. Their parents provided money. Again, nothing wrong with that.
But we have to figure out the balance. As you said, Master Sanborn, it becomes complicated.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 42:16
Well, and then they… This particular example, then they have to explain it to the next employer.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 42:24
Yeah.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 42:25
I got fired because I didn’t show up on time. What makes you say that for us? You’re going to show up on time when you’re supposed to.
Well, I will, yeah. Okay. It’s something that is on your record in a way. Somebody is going to ask you about that, and you either have to leave it off, lie about it, or you have to look somebody in the face that you’re trying to impress and say, “Yeah, I just didn’t take it seriously.”
Yeah, okay. What are you doing differently now? It’s a growth thing for them to have to take responsibility for their own actions in a way that they’re not expecting at this point, but it’ll show up at some point.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 43:08
One other thing.
I was going to mention that when we’ve had over the… Thirty more than thirty years, we’ve been doing this over the years, we’ve had some teenagers that did some work for us, and we started out originally not thinking about these things.
Then what would happen is they’d work and they’d make some money and they would pay them better than minimum wage, and they’d be really happy about it. And then a couple of times we had the experience where the parents would call us right around night line and say, “They can’t come into work today because of finals.”
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 43:46
Yeah.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 43:52
So is that what you get to do when you’re working a regular job? Is to go? “Well, I can’t come in because I didn’t manage my time well enough to do stuff in my personal life.” Now, finals are important. Schools are really important. Nobody says anything about that.
After that, we had a conversation with the parents and said to them to try to help. Again, you can model this for your own kid. We said, “The parents, this is great. We love having them here. This is the opportunity for him. This is how much they’re going to work and what the scope of the work is.”
But saying, “Now, here’s an important piece. We are never ever going to hear from you about their work schedule. We want them to learn about their work schedule. We want them to let us know if they’re on vacation, if something’s happening, whatever.”
If they don’t organize their time well enough, let’s say at the end of the school year, that’s on them. That’s not on you. That’s not on us. They still need to be here for when they’re scheduled for, and we have a conversation with them to benefit those kids. We don’t really…
I mean, it’s not the end of the world if somebody doesn’t come in at that age group. We’ve got other people that can do work, but then we have to rearrange our schedule. We’re doing it because that’s the boundary we set, that’s the rule, that’s what we’re set up.
If they don’t want to follow that, that’s okay. That’s why it’s a boundary. If they don’t want to follow it, that means the parents and the kid, if they want to follow the teenager, we… If they want to follow it again, that’s okay.
But then that they can’t work with us. And most parents, when they understand this, think that’s the best thing they’ve ever heard up until the point where their kid cries about their need to study.
Then they go, “Well, then the parent has the ability to say, ‘Well, that’s something you should have figured out before. You could have figured it out before. I guess you’re going to have to work hard on the weekend or stamp later.'” Not. I don’t know what you’re going to do to make that work.
Well, yeah, but I want… Can’t you call in and say, “I’m sick?” And we hope that the parents never, ever do that. In fact, if the parent did that, we’d say, “Well, we can’t take your call. It has to be your child, and in this case, again, a teenager.”
So Mr. Jones has to call us and let us know we can’t get that information from you, remember, because that’s the rule. That’s our rules that for being part of it.
They’re learning that they’re responsible for it. Imagine what that does. We’ve honestly never had a pair of teenagers that worked for us. Number one, pretty much. They don’t even deal with us anymore. The teenager learns to deal with us.
Number two, they’re thrilled with what we’ve done for their kids, for their future life. When they go to college and when they work in the field, in fact, we have more examples than we can count about these kinds of situations. Anything to add? Master Sanborn, yes.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 46:52
No. It’s such an easy thing to teach the parents that we have boundaries. The boundaries the kid has to do to work.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 47:00
I think sometimes that makes it easier for parents. Not all of you are going to be able to get a job with us. But it makes it easier for parents because a third party is setting up this boundary, which they never thought of. They never thought of…
In the early days, when I didn’t know what to do, then these parents were calling. I’m like, “Well, I guess I got to do what the parent says.” Then I’m going, “Man, their kid is not learning anything. They’re just taking care of everything for them. They’re actually… You’re lawn mower parents.”
Lawn mower parents are ones that mow the obstacles down in front of their kids.
The kids don’t have any obstacles, and without obstacles, they don’t grow. Just some things to think about. This is why we suggest work doesn’t have to be at our school, but that when kids work, if their first job is at fourteen, then they won’t be shocked when they graduate college.
They’ve had the whole summer off and they’ve had two weeks off for a Christmas tragedy, and then, gee, they get one week off a year or two weeks off a year and they have to work the rest of the time.
If they call in sick a whole bunch, gee, maybe they won’t get promoted, maybe they won’t keep the job. Give your kids the gift of this when they’re young. We’ve got another podcast on this, and this is going to teach them things again that school just doesn’t.
We teach amazing things in martial arts. School is fundamentally critical for them for their future life. Work is one of those things that’s fundamentally critical just like martial arts, just like school.
Here’s the bottom line in boundaries. Setting boundaries, it’s what you will do. It’s not about what their outcome is supposed to be. I’m willing to take you to school at 8:00 if you’re ready.
That’s the end of it. Not without any thought of whether this is going to work, whether you’re going to manipulate them into setting their own alarm clock and being ready and having all their stuff ready. You’ve got to be able to hold that boundary at 8:00.
If they’re not ready, maybe you go… They may tell you all kinds of terrible things. Well, you may be late for school. You made me… I let you know what I was going to do. 8:00 time we leave, that’s when we’re going to go.
If you’re not ready, it’s okay. Well, you may be late, really. Okay, I’m sorry that is how you feel about it, but I’m going to be leaving at 8, so now you know you’re reminded of what’s going to happen. How would that be?
If that’s how you held the boundary, they can be not okay, and then you’ve got to be able to tolerate… This is the hardest part, tolerate the outcome. Your whole job is to hold the boundary. While they may accuse you of wrecking the relationship, being terrible, parent being whatever, that’s going to be part of the tolerating, you may have to tolerate getting a call from school saying they didn’t go to school. Now, look, we’re not talking about for hope. Most of you, hopefully, you’re not going to… Your kids are going to miss a bunch of school, and they’re not going to miss their homework, and they’re not… All these things are going to happen.
But it’s smaller examples. We’re giving you more extreme examples, Master Sanborn. Anything to add there?
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 50:14
No, it just sounds a lot like dealing with little bitty kids too. I got to tolerate embarrassment, I’ve got to be able to stand when somebody is like, “How can you even drive your kids to school? They need to be at school.”
Yeah. I know.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 50:31
Yeah.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 50:32
It sucks that you weren’t there.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 50:34
The difference with littler kids is like the example, the driving them to school example. They may not have a capacity to get their stuff organized, tie their shoes, depending on their age and whatever.
We want to start weaning them off of us doing stuff. The more we can wean them off of us doing stuff, the better. At some point, they’re able to do when they’re fourteen, fifteen years old.
I mean, in the olden days, they used to have their own house, be married, and have kids. That’s not what we want them to do at all. But they’re capable of a lot. What our goal is as parents and what we want to encourage you to do is again, teach them to push themselves, teach them to use all their capacity that they have.
If they have the capacity, then at this age, they’re able to do a lot. Probably more than you’d like. They can drive. That’s more than a lot of you would like your kids to be able to do.
But they can do it. So, our job is to let them do it within the boundaries that we’re going to set up. What this is going to produce, it’s either going to produce kids that are for you, a calmer, parent-less emotion. When it’s not needed, the emotion you express is what they need, not what you feel.
A teenager who learns from the real consequences. Hopefully, when the stakes are small, it’s not going to give you perfect outcomes. If you want perfect outcomes, you better take care of everything for them and then you have the consequence of that later.
Your restraint is what’s going to be important here. Again, tolerate is the biggest word I could use. Be able to tolerate the consequences of what happens. That’s going to get them ready to be successful in their future.
This is what we talk about a lot. A black belt isn’t a kid who never fell. It’s a kid who never quit. It’s not a kid who never fell. So that’s something to think about.
I’ll finish up with this. And Master Sanborn, I know we try to get finished here. Rules and boundaries across time frame, and this is actually new. I haven’t shown you this one yet, but if you can see here, the… Up at the… It’s not… Let me draw. Here we go.
Okay, so up at the early stage here, there are lots of rules, and you can’t really set too many boundaries because they don’t have much autonomy themselves. As they get older, the rules are going to go down. When they get into this age, the dotted line means hopefully you don’t have to set any rules, and they’re taking care of themselves. Very few rules.
Then hopefully at this age, it’s very little dotted. Hopefully there’s no… You’re not about setting rules when your kids are 25 and up. I hope if you are, then we’ve got to come back to how the boundaries work. Boundaries peak up at the adolescent age, and then they can flatten out and maybe even go away. As they’re adults, they’re fully autonomous. You’re going to have whatever relationship you have with them, and you’re…
But you’re trading rules for boundaries as they grow. I thought this was important to think about and hopefully give you a framework for. Am I being a good parent? My kids are mad at me, they’re all upset. Everything but I’m being a good parent. Now you’ve got some framework to make the choice of what you’re willing to deal with, what you’re willing to tolerate, and what’s going to be the best decision for your kid, Master Sanborn.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 54:11
Yeah. The funny thing is, when I see this, I’m thinking when they get to late young adult and adult stage, they should be setting boundaries on what they’ll tolerate from you.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 54:23
Yeah, that’s right. My son has to let me know how much it’s okay for me to call him now that he lives in California.
I mean, if I know that if I called him every day, he’d be like, “Dad, I’m not available every day.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 54:31
Exactly. Right? They’ve got to set their own boundaries at that point to have a healthy relationship with you.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 54:38
[Laughter] Yeah.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 54:45
So yeah, it’s an interesting flip at that point.
Have you taught them how to set those boundaries and tolerate the consequences of setting those boundaries with you?
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 54:59
Well, we’ll save that for a little bit more of that. Hang on to that. We’re going to save a little bit more of that when we get to this section. We’re going to be talking about how to be a good parent when your kids are fully grown adults.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 55:05
Yeah.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 55:10
And yeah, I know that.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 55:11
Man.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 55:13
Well, we’re both in that state now, right?
This is going to be really fun for us and hopefully really useful for us as we, you know, as we develop this for you.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 55:17
Yes.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 55:26
Hopefully this is helpful for everybody. We really appreciate you guys and thank you. Senior Master Samborn for everything.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 55:33
Thank you, sir. I get a lot out of these. They’re super useful.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 55:36
All right, we’ll see you later, ma’am. Thank you.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn | 55:38
Bye, sir.
Chief Master Greg Moody, Ph.D. | 55:39
Bye.

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“Since joining this program, my son Herman is more disciplined, motivated, and unstoppable in every challenge he faces!” – Emily Green