Welcome to the Present Fathers podcast.
This is the show that focuses on climbing the mountain of fatherhood
together.
We believe that dads matter.
That's why this show is for you.
So gear up, dads. Get ready.
It's time to start climbing.
Welcome to another episode of the Present Fathers podcast.
Our guest is Brandon Jones.
He is the founder of B Deadly and the B Deadly podcast.
He's also a certified parent, educator and positive discipline.
After struggling to correct his own son's
misbehavior and feeling frustrated with inherited parenting techniques.
Brandon dedicated the last decade to learning
and implementing the most effective parenting techniques available.
Today, he helps fathers overcome anger and impatience while learning how to get
a better behavior from their children without having to yell, spank or bribe.
Brandon, welcome to the show.
And George, I mean, thank you, guys.
Yeah, this is going to be great.
I really love your bio.
Just straight to the point, and this is probably a topic
most of us probably needed earlier now that we all have our kids.
Of So if you could start with your background and kind of let us know
you know it's teased there in the bio but let us know a little bit about,
you know, how this became your life's mission.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I really
I became a father when I was 19 years old.
It was one of those situations where I kind of joke
that I could have gone to high schools and and given, like,
motivational talks for Trojan or for any other condom company.
And then, like, you know,
all those warnings that they talk about, well,
it does happen and it happened to me.
So what ultimately have me as me and my first son's mother.
We were high school crushes and ended up
hooking up before marriage in high school.
And then shortly after high school
found ourselves kind of hanging out again for a couple of weeks.
And next thing you know, a few months later, I find out that she's pregnant.
So it was a surprise.
I actually had moved out of state.
And so I was kind of going back to Oklahoma to be with him when he was born.
And over the next five years, she had full custody of him.
And I would just visit him on occasion or have him come down and visit me.
And then at five years old, I got a call from her
just out of the blue, and she said, You got to come get your son.
He's out of control.
He's just been expelled from school. And,
you know, you got to come pick him up. I can't.
I don't know what to do with him anymore.
And so I really wasn't even aware that it had gotten that bad.
She kind of kept that hidden from me.
But apparently his behavior had really been a challenge for the school system.
And they decided that they were ultimately going to expel him.
They lived in a small town in Oklahoma, and she had like nowhere to go.
And essentially what would end up happening
is because she had nowhere to go, she said, you know,
the only person that he can go to is his dad.
So I rushed out there.
I was actually excited about the opportunity
because I had been wanting to have a deeper relationship with him.
And I always had these very short visits and never really had a long
bit of time with them.
And so I was extremely excited about the opportunity.
I was also convinced at the time that I knew what he needed.
You know, I was like, This kid just needs some structure,
some good old fashioned discipline, and, you know, to let him know
that if he does the right thing, there's going to be
rewards, is going to be opportunities for them.
As long as he's doing what's right, he's going to have a good life.
And so I went out there, got him, brought him back to Texas,
and I started deploying what I believed was the best parenting strategies.
Many of these strategies I inherited from my parents
and they inherited from their parents. And
after a few years of using theirs,
I was a much better communicator, I would say with the school of real quick
on, I kind of say that he wasn't expelled again.
So on one hand, it was like we were able to keep him in school.
But I think mainly because I was very active with the school,
I they were calling me almost every day to every other day.
I was speaking with the principals, the teachers weekly.
We tried a number of different plans.
We tried sticker charts and pulling him out for periods of time
where he could cool off and and then try to come back in.
And we tried all of these
different tactics and techniques to ultimately keep him in the school.
And the school had a motivation to try to keep him there.
I found this out through
kind of a later on in the school system, but they make around $80,000 a year
per student,
and so they wanted to keep him ultimately in that school system
because the tax dollars are basically per head and per attendance.
And so they really want to keep him in there and so on.
So I had I was able to keep him in school, but I looked up at about two
and a half years of having custody of him,
and we were still having very similar issues.
And I thought to myself, you know, if these parenting tactics
that I am using worked, then we would have a different experience.
And it all came to a head one day when my son was in trouble.
And I want to kind of set the stage
for what this look like, just how far we had gotten.
He had lost all of his privileges, so I had nothing else to take from them.
He wasn't able to play games.
I wasn't able to go see friends, was able to go outside that day
in particular, he was going to be grounded to his room for his behavior.
He had
no door on his wall because when he would be grounded,
he would ride on the walls and and do damage to the room.
So we removed his door so we could keep an eye on him.
He wasn't going to have any treats.
He wasn't going to have anything special that evening for dinner or anything.
And he's crying and he says, and this gets me emotional because this is one
every time I tell this story, it's one of the darkest moments of my life.
And it was out of me trying to help him, you know,
really trying to do what I thought was right.
But he cries at me and he says, Dad, I'm sorry.
I don't mean to make you or my teachers angry.
I'm just a bad kid.
And I
remember just like, feeling like it just penetrated my heart so deeply.
And I was like, Dude, you are not a bad kid.
Because I could tell he was taking on as a personality.
I said, You have some bad habits, but you are.
You're a good person.
You just struggle to maintain your behavior.
You struggle to not distract others.
You struggle with these things. But these are habits.
We all have habits. You know, I have bad habits.
Everybody you'll ever meet will have bad habits.
So you're not a bad kid, but you have some bad habits.
And I remember going that evening and thinking,
this isn't working, Like I'm not getting anywhere here.
So I kind of humbled myself. And I went to
a the
Barnes and Noble and I bought some parenting books.
The first parenting book I started reading was Parenting with Love and Logic.
I had read good things about about it online.
And so I started working some of the love and logic techniques,
and I saw a difference.
And that actually started my hunger for what else is out there.
How many parenting techniques can I use?
Instead of yelling, How many parenting techniques can I use instead of spanking?
How many techniques are more effective than grounding?
What can I do to get him to hold a boundary
without ever having to become this big, angry giant?
And ultimately, I read all kinds of parenting books
positive discipline, no drama, discipline, parent
parenting from the inside out of read.
Hold on to your kids.
I've read all these different books.
They just come from a lot of different places and angles.
And ultimately I learned a lot
about even his connection to me and how important that was. And,
you know, without getting into too many details,
I would just say that what I learned is that I didn't need to spank.
I didn't need to yell and I didn't need to bribe.
There were other ways to influence his behavior that were far more effective,
that helped build his self-esteem and helped
get him to want to please and
and so after about a decade of doing that,
I had the second child as well.
My son, Cohen, is now seven years old.
And just our experience is so different today.
And so I felt the need to share this with other dads who might be feeling
the way I felt frustrated like I felt, or have children who were diagnosed
with the conduct disorder, like my son was diagnosed with ADHD
and give them ways to
support their child and also ways to focus confident in their parenting.
And so today I have the Daddy podcast and I have an online
platform called Be Daddy.
And I absolutely love to surf fathers and and parents in general
to help them get out of that hopeless feeling of I don't know if I will be able
to help my kid change his ways.
Yeah, I can only imagine how stuck you must have felt.
And yeah, I can empathize too, with that moment where your son,
you know, kind of said, I'm just a bad kid and how crushing that must have been.
Um, but I also love how you decided to take action.
And instead of just being like, Oh,
you know, throw my hands up, you went and read and learned
everything you could possibly learn and started trying new things.
So with those new things you tried, what are some of the,
the high points that maybe most people don't realize are effective ways of,
you know, correcting behavior or kind of parenting
in the way that is productive versus, you know, counterproductive
like you were trying initially.
Yeah.
So I use now a lot of positive discipline techniques.
I'm a certified parent educator in positive discipline.
I found that to be one of the most powerful philosophies for for parenting.
And the techniques are essentially ways of holding boundaries with respect.
So you are going to be firm, but you're also going to remain kind.
So you're going to avoid blame, shame, pain, You're going to avoid
language that is inflammatory to them, or it's like that,
but you're going to be able to hold boundaries.
And one of the best ways to do that is to also let them know expectations.
So you do you can train on expectations.
Some expectations are a little easier to just set.
For example, you might say to a child, hey, we're going to go into a restaurant,
and when we're in a restaurant, I expect you to stay seated at the table,
use an inside voice and follow mom and dad's instructions.
Now, what you can expect from me.
So that's what I expect from you.
What you can expect from me is that if we're
not able to meet those expectations, we will be taking a break outside
until you believe you are ready to come back in and do that.
And then when the child isn't following those instructions, you simply say,
I can see you chose to come outside.
And at that point you take them outside.
They're not going to be very happy about that.
But you walk them outside and you let them know you're not in trouble.
We're just going to hold the expectations and we're going to hold this boundary.
And when you're ready to come back inside, even if you say, right
now, I'm ready, dad, we'll go back inside and you're welcome to try again.
And it only takes a handful of times if you've really holding that line.
And and I always tell parents, don't fall into the mistake
of repeating or reminding, because that's the pitfall here.
I tell a lot of parents to do this.
And what ends up happening
is because they don't want to get up or they,
you know, they don't feel like getting up off the table.
They'll say, What did I tell you is going to happen?
Hey, do you remember what we talked about just before we came in here?
Hey, what's going to happen if you keep doing this?
So if we do that, we're effectively saying, like, we keep moving our line.
And so what I tell parents is immediately just say I see you chose and just get up
and take action is a lot more effective than the repeating reminding game.
Another thing and I should say this
and I think this is extremely important, is
I learned and this was a little while after my studying,
I went to a workshop, a parenting workshop,
and it was held by a man who works in the special Education
Department for the state of Texas, but he works for
he doesn't work in the kind of special ed
that I think maybe we kind of think about when we grew up.
There's now a whole new department for children in high schools
and middle schools and elementary schools today
that is specifically designed for kids who are emotionally disregulated.
And so when they are way out of line,
they have it's almost like a counselor, teacher, person.
They can help them.
They even escort them sometimes from class to class.
They do a number of different things.
And in the state of Texas, this man is one of the best.
He trains the other special education teachers on his techniques.
And I went to one of his classes and what he shared with me
really had a profound difference on my life.
He said that we needed a ratio and it was a connection
to correction ratio, and that if you are correcting your child
more often, you are connecting to that child,
then you're going to have a recipe for a disaster there.
It would be the same if it was your spouse
or if it was a coworker or a colleague or even a subordinate.
If you're correcting them more often than you're connecting with them,
you're going to rub the relationship the wrong way.
And children are just the same.
And so when he when he shared that with me, I thought to myself, wow, I,
I spend way more time correcting him than really connecting with him.
And so what I do is I aim for getting 3
to 1 on the connection to correction ratio.
And what I try to do is they don't have to be big things.
They can be small, simple things.
For example,
a wink across the room, a pat on the back, a warm hug when you see them.
A Hey, can I get you something?
Hey, how are you doing it?
You know, it's just a small connection, but those can really add up.
And it's funny how easily it is to get on the other side of that ratio.
So I encourage parents to
to consider that because they had a really big difference on us.
And I've seen that's had a big difference on others as well,
mainly because the child wants to be appreciated.
They want to feel a sense
of belonging and significance in the home and this helps achieve that.
So I help parents kind of become a bit more conscious
of how we're interacting with our children in that way.
That's great brand and it's so nice to hear that instead of
reacting with anger, I know a lot of dads would have said, Yeah, you are a bad kid.
Go to your room, you're bad, you know,
and maybe the parent thinks the child is bad.
They don't realize that maybe it's them.
As a parent who's creating an environment where their children, it's harder
for them to to be nurtured.
So when it comes to anger, it sounds like that's a major factor
for a lot of dads, especially, Right.
Your kid comes home and he makes a mess.
You're angry, right?
So how do you talk to dads about their own anger and how to handle that
so that they're able to be more calm and appropriate with their children?
Yeah, no, Dustin, this is a big part of in fact, it's a it's funny, I remember
I read the books and I was practicing some of these techniques,
and one day I was like, I know what to do and I still can't do it.
And I realized that it was because I had this part of my brain
that was so triggered I couldn't think rationally.
I wasn't able to get clear in those moments.
And I, I actually entered myself in anger management.
I remember the first day I went to it was a 12 week program.
I paid like 1500 dollars or something here
in Austin to do it and was in Westlake.
And I go in and I'm sitting in this room with these guys.
I remember thinking in my head, I mean, I was judging hardcore.
I mean, I'm looking around the room
and these guys are a bunch of degenerates or whatever.
I had all of these opinions. I thought,
I'm being completely honest do.
And I felt bad if any guy that was in my class was thinking that.
But I had judgments and I remember thinking, I don't belong here.
I don't think I belong here.
And then they handed me this clipboard
and he said, Check off everything you've done in anger.
And this was like stonewalling, yelling, throwing things.
And I went, I go down the list and I'm like, Oh, no.
Oh. And boy, I mean, I think it was such a good process
that he had me do that in the beginning because I immediately self evaluate.
I was like, I absolutely belong here.
So I did this 12 week class and it taught us a lot about anger management.
I think one of the great things that he mentioned in this class,
he said, you know, anger management is not called anger resolution.
And there's a really important distinction
there because you will never resolve your anger.
You will only manage it.
And I thought, wow, because everybody is trying to get to this place
where you just completely peaceful.
And I'm not going to say that no one's ever been able to resolve it, but
I'm just going to say that for most of us it's more about how do we manage it?
And so I started to notice, for example, that tension in my body a lot sooner
and how to say I'm how I used to go, I'm out.
And what that meant is I got to
I got to check out, like I got to move away.
And I literally would have to say it audibly because one of the things that we
learned was, you know, if you try to hide that emotion
and you try to grunt your way through it, you're more likely to snap
and fly off the hinges.
It's far better to just the moment you see it, call it out and you move away.
And getting yourself out of there is super important.
And sometimes you can't do that. For example, you're driving in a car.
Those are a really tough place to be emotionally charged, right?
Because you're trapped and there's nowhere else you can go.
And it's driving at a high rate of speed.
You're adrenaline pumping. Yeah.
So yeah, So so, you know, there are times where you have to use other things.
And one of the best things that I found for managing your anger and of course,
we all know we remember the old
they would show you breathing in a bag.
You remember the paper bag, and it's like you're breathing,
hyperventilating, basically in this bag, which is actually not a good idea,
but but the idea of controlling your breath is a good idea.
And this technique actually, I did it.
I did a optimize coach program.
I've been a certified coach since I was in my early twenties,
so I've been certified in a number of different things.
I've always tried to bring my clients more support and more areas of their life
and so one of the things I did was this optimize coach program module
zero before we could even start the program was breathing.
And I remember our coach said, he said, you can go weeks without food,
you can go days without water, but you can only go moments without breath.
And if you think being hydrated or are hungry affects the way that you
feel, Breathing has almost just as you know, has just a profound effect on it.
And one of the things that he taught us was that we're breathing raw.
Most of us are breathing through our mouths, not most of us.
I won't say most.
A lot of us are breathing out of our mouths.
And because we are breathing in and out of our mouths
so much, we're actually triggering
the sympathetic nervous system, which is that tension inside of our body.
So just controlling the nose, just controlling the breath
in and out the nose actually triggers the parasympathetic nervous system.
And I have a lot of my clients do this.
We we take a breath in our nose,
we hold at the top,
we take a breath out of our nose,
and you can literally feel
a wave of calm come over your body just doing that.
And so what I do is I teach people, you know, we're going to
we're going to practice that breath every time we think about the fact
that I said that I want you to practice that during your day.
Practice one breath, just one in the nose, out
the nose with the exhale being slight longer than the inhale.
Now, what you do is once you've gotten that down,
you actually connect it to a trigger.
So that is the cue.
The cue becomes, I feel, tension in my body.
The kids are yelling, the traffic isn't moving.
I'm going to be late.
Whatever those things are, those are all the cues.
The action is the breath.
So we hear the cue action and then the reward.
The reward is the calm we feel of our body.
And so we can create a habit of taking a proper breath
if we will recognize the cue, put in the action and get the reward.
And so I really encourage parents to practice that and you practice it again
when you're driving in the car and the kids
start to become a little rambunctious,
which there's a great tool for that, by the way, holding a boundary there.
But if there's something happening that makes that tension happen
in your body, you're going to go to the breath first.
I can assure you that if you do the breath first, the prefrontal cortex will open.
You will have way more logic and reason at your fingertips.
You're more likely to respond in a way that you can be proud of.
And so it's extremely important.
Breathing is a must, but it needs to happen.
It needs to happen out the nose and breathing experts.
I'm going to give you a tag. This will help you remember it.
The breathing experts say we should breathe in our mouths
as often as we eat through our nose.
That's good.
It's funny you mentioned or you emphasize the importance
of breathing actually pre-deployment.
We got classes and training on if you're feeling
depressed too, like hyper breathe like
to like literally like.
So if you're in a you know
and it literally works because it
triggers the body to to bring you out of a depressed state.
But then the converse of that was if you're feeling like
overly stressed from, you know, the combat scenario or whatever
it was to, like you said, take extremely slow, deep breaths,
you count how long you're exhaling it and literally just do that.
And so, you know, the exhale longer
of good.
Everyone has a little bit
of a different measurement here, but six up seven out is a great way to do it.
The exhale being longer than the inhale is a key
to triggering
the parasympathetic nervous system,
because when your sympathetic nervous system is triggered, you do the opposite.
You're taking your inhale faster than you exhale.
You will actually gasp.
And so if we were interesting thing here is if you look at animals,
birds, cats, dogs, every animal, they are breathing in and out their nose.
The only time they breathe through their mouths is when they're stressed.
If you see a dog with anxiety, he will actually start
breathing out of his mouth when he's stressed or he's exhausted.
So that's the only time they're going to be other than maybe a yawn here and there.
But otherwise they are going to be breathing in and out their nose.
And so, you know, this is just something that we need.
We need to do. I recognize it.
So funny.
I did that coach program and I remember as a holiday and I went saw my dad
and I was like,
I can just hear him breathing all over the house, like in the kitchen.
And his breath was and I was like, Wow, this is where I get this breath from.
And I could hear my dad. I was like, Hey, dad,
breathe through your nose.
But like you to do this with me.
And he is like, Yeah. And it was so funny.
His wife said, She's like, I tell him this all the time, and I'm like,
You know, she notices that he's breathing heavily, too.
And so it and I know there are people, you know,
some people will have sinus issue.
So I recognize that.
But if you can get it taken care of because you're going to have a much better
life, you'll also sleep much better if you if I even use mouth tape.
This sounds crazy, but I sleep with mouth tape on to remind my but it
I get such a better sleep like this.
It's so much more deep because I don't mouth breathe When I sleep
I feel like I would just like central sleep apnea.
Just it is just, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
Especially with my sinus. With your thighs.
Yeah. I recognize there are some people. It's.
It's much harder because of the sinus issues.
Yeah. Yeah.
But breathing is definitely something that, like,
I've struggled with being a high functioning anxiety person.
Right.
And so when when I'm when I'm pent up and the first thing I teach my kid,
when he's all emotional because he gets disregulated as well,
is, hey, look, you got to take some deep breaths.
You need to calm down.
And then if if that doesn't work, I have to remove him from the situation, Right?
Yeah.
So that's that's one of the big things.
Now, I met you through a story like you've told us, and it immediately clicked.
Like, I just felt like we were connected.
And I appreciated so much seeing that somebody else
had the same same issues, but the same resolve.
Like instead of giving up and throwing their hands up, you,
you dove deeper into the book saying, What can I do?
What's wrong with me?
How can I fix me?
And then how can I help fix my kid?
Right.
And a lot of people, well, something wrong with them
and they're egotistical and they're selfish and narcissistic
and so, yeah, I love that.
And, you know, when I hear you talk
about positive discipline, there's there's a lot of misconceptions.
Yeah. With any kind of parenting style.
So if you don't mind, could you go through like some of the common misconceptions
about like positive discipline and how you would address them?
Absolutely. Yeah.
So I think one of the major myths or beliefs out there immediately
is that positive discipline means that you could never be firm with your kids.
And if you actually read Nelson's work, she's she's at action.
She's the act. Don't talk.
She teaches parents.
You would be far better acting than talking, right?
She is firm and kind at the same time is is one of her key principles.
There's a number of things that she teaches about boundaries
she does not believe in repeating or reminding.
She is much more authoritative than people might think
and the connotation of positive, despised, just
discipline.
So if you look at the root of discipline, it was discipline.
You know, disciple is in the word.
It is about teaching.
And part of positive discipline is that it's making
sure our children understand and have been properly trained
on the expectations that we have and taking time for training,
taking the time to really show them what is happening
and what we what we expect, even using when they're really little.
We used to use stuffed
animals and I would give examples of animals doing different things
and acting and behaving in certain ways and then asking him what would you do?
You know, and just playing with them, but engaging them in the process of how
we how we effectively work together can be super powerful.
And so so yeah, going back to some of the mess, she's
her work is is
it is not a permissive parenting paradigm that I think many people
initially think that that's what people are talking about.
While it doesn't include pain, shame and blame and we and there is the belief
that you don't necessarily have to spank a child to get them to learn a lesson.
It doesn't mean that you are a pushover and it doesn't mean that you allow
behaviors that are that are unacceptable.
And in fact,
I would argue, like a lot of parents
are being more pushovers until they snap.
You know, the spanking is happening after it's built up.
And and with her stuff, you would be able to catch it a lot sooner.
And so so yeah.
So I thought the same thing My fear when I first got into the parenting books
was my fear is I'm not going to become my child's best friend.
I'm not going to be some pushover.
This is you know,
my kids aren't going to walk all over me and all these these thoughts around
around these things.
And and what I come to find is that a lot of the fears that I had, were
they were not true.
So ultimately, there are better ways to do it without having to
to ultimately become, you know, a big angry giant, like I mentioned.
And one thing I'll say, too, is,
you know, there's it's not good to be permissive as a parent.
It's certainly not good to be neglectful as a parent.
And it's also not good to be so cold that your children never feel warmth
or that they feel that they must perform to have your love.
And so positive discipline is existing in this space
where we're warm and supportive, but we're also demanding.
We also have expectations of our children and whenever I say consequences,
you know,
there are a number of consequences that you can set.
But whenever I set them, I always use language like I see
you chose, you know, making sure that they're aware, like, hey,
I don't want this for you at all, but I always give it back.
The responsibility is theirs and I always make sure that they understand, like,
you know, you have you have the opportunities here,
but they don't include shame or pain and they don't include blame.
They just have the opportunity for them to accept what they've chosen.
So that I quick question, real world example for you
and like to get your input on it.
You know, my daughter, she's she has big emotions.
A lot of times, you know,
something very small will happen and you know, everyone else is hunky dory.
They're kind of moving on or they don't really, like worry about it.
And and she's just like on the loop, you know, and she'll be bawling
and crying or whatever.
And I'll kind of sometimes say, like, Honey,
the only one making you upset right now is you.
Is that unfair to say, or is that a good technique to kind of
so okay.
Well, I mean, I help her like I try
and get her to breathe to like, hey, breathe with me.
You know, you do that too.
But I also try and help her realize, like,
nothing bad is currently she's making it bigger than her.
She's the one in control of how big or how small it will be.
Well, and she's she's continuing to, like, be sad or angry or whatever it is.
You know, I was sitting in a barber's actually, it was it was as a woman,
but she was cutting my hair and we were talking about her daughter.
And she said she has a very emotional daughter.
I said, Really?
And she says, Yeah, she's she's a teenager, but she's extremely emotional.
She'll make a stubbed toe last all day.
And I remember I'm going to remember that stubbed toe last all day.
You know,
if you can stub your toe and just like it last, that's all she'll talk about.
Why stub my toe this morning?
And I stopped it and that's why I'm mad.
And yeah, I was like, wow, makes us stop to laugh all day.
And so I understand exactly what you mean.
So let me ask you this question first. How old is she?
She's seven.
She'll be eight in a couple weeks. So yeah.
So one thing that would be important.
So kids, the emotional centers of the brain,
do you know when the prefrontal cortex fully develops?
It's like a lot later, right?
Like 30, 25.
MAN Right.
20, 25, mid twenties, mid twenties.
I mean, I remember hearing that that was shocking to me.
Your prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed into your mid twenties,
which probably answers why I had a kid in 19. So
I only had enough blood for one, had it at the time.
So that's, you know, I
but what I'll say this is what I'll say.
So here's a couple of things to help with the emotions of a of a of a young child.
You mentioned, for example, Brandon, that
helping them get
out of that area, One thing is to remove in the audience,
if a child is using emotions for power, would be very important
to get the audience removed
because they will calm down a lot faster than if if they are using it
in a way that gets them a ton of attention and a ton of power
removing them from the area.
And I would say I wouldn't isolate them, I would remove them.
And so doing a time out, I would do a time in and I would sit with them.
The other thing is that we can say to them, you know, this is
this is going on so long that, you know, it's you that's getting this upset.
But we're trying to talk to the prefrontal cortex.
Unfortunately, it's not there, so we're not able to reach it
because it isn't there.
So what I would actually encourage you to do is
and what happens is imagine you push your child away.
Well, they're going to scream louder.
So what would happen if I did the opposite?
What if I pull her close?
What if I got her so close that she was on my chest
and instead of asking her to calm down, I calmed me down.
And when I control my breath, because we have more neurons,
she has no choice but to control hers.
So the mirror neurons in the body
and the biochemistry of her body will actually turn to yours.
And she's used to doing that.
In fact, if a mother is, you know, excited, that baby will be excited.
If the mother is calm, the baby will be calm.
The same thing could be there for you. She's upset.
You want to push her away?
I know,
because it's like the shriek in that it's so much you want to push her away.
I would encourage you to pull her close
and simply say, Well, you're reinforcing the behavior.
I don't think so.
Because what you do is once you have her regulated,
then she's way more open.
And and it goes back to even
the Stephen Covey seek first to understand and then to be understood.
If you allow her to feel that feeling.
And what you can do is I tell people aim for three emotions.
It's the goal of three.
If you say honey and this is only want she's regulated enough
to have a conversation,
you would say you seemed really disappointed in what happened.
We're going to go for three emotions under that surface emotion.
The surface might say sadness.
That might be what we see, but we know that that sadness
came from disappointment.
Fear of not having it happen again,
and a bitterness maybe towards the person that she felt caused that thing.
Right.
So we can actually say, even if she doesn't understand
these words yet, it seemed that you were disappointed.
You had a fear that it wasn't going to be happened for you
and you were a little bit better towards mommy and daddy.
Does that sound right now?
I'm going to tell you, she may correct you or she may say what's bitter, You know,
but I can tell you the situation is going to turn out better
because she's going to feel heard, Understood.
You're going to have her regulated, her body and you'll be teaching her
literally through osmosis.
How do we regulate our emotions when we're upset by you doing that?
And that's what I would encourage you to do.
Yeah, it normally it's like when she's tired, right?
You've been at the pool all day and so everything is just amplifying
writing, right? Hey, a Snickers type of thing.
The they give them
a hug and you regulate is so that also just happened.
I think actually, if I'm remembering correctly, it's the same event.
It started in the garage when we got home and then she stormed upstairs
and I just went up and and come here.
You know, she tried to do the whole like, I don't want to be hugged type of thing.
I was like, Come here.
And I was like, take some deep breaths.
And then it was in like 15 seconds.
Tears are gone.
And so, yeah, I mean, I'm a believer.
I see it happen.
I was just curious and you answered to.
For me, it's it's not really helpful
to try and logic through it because you always you know,
they don't they're missing that that area of the Yeah.
You know it's that I'll come back in 20 years I'll do that with her.
Yeah.
Girls girls are better at this by the way like light years
better like my daughter will calm down wife Ashley, my son.
In fact, tonight I actually had to bring my son home
because he was just scream crying in front of his friends.
I'm like, Buddy, So if you can't get this under control, we're going to leave.
And, you know, he thought I was punishing this like, No, I'm protecting you.
Because, one, if you're that unregulated
constantly, your friends aren't going to want to be your friends, man.
Right. Right.
That's just that's the tough truth.
And to you, I don't want you upset.
I want you calm,
and I want you to be in a good environment where you feel comfortable
and you don't have to do that.
Yeah, So I had to explain that to him.
But yeah, I had to calm him, and it took me 25 minutes to calm him down.
Yeah,
I saw a really funny meme the other day, and here's some levity here with all this.
There is it had a picture of a
of a mother and
now it was that father seeing the daughter and daughter had like a scuffed knee.
And actually let me go back.
I missed the first image.
The mother is saying that the child and it's a boy and he's got a scuffed knee.
And she says to the boy, Oh, my baby, my baby.
And the dad comes over and saying, get up and walk it off.
Right?
And then the mother is kind of looking at and then it shows the daughter
and she's got like a scout knee.
And the dad, the dad's going over his all my little baby.
And the mother says, Get up and walk it off, you know?
And it's like it's also the cross dynamics do,
because we see and I know it's a lot of family dynamics.
So child birth order, is it a daughter?
Is she the firstborn daughter? Is she the baby daughter?
Is it a firstborn son? Is this the only sign?
Know, there's a lot of different complexities here
that play into the psychology of our children.
Enough how we see that my firstborn is getting it way
harder than my second one, which she sees all the time.
You know, he was.
I call him my sandpaper.
He's polished me up quite a bit.
I'm much more refined as a parent than when I started with him.
I was a little rough around the edges. So,
yeah, that's that's a true phenomenon.
And I'm the oldest and the rules were
ten times more strict for me than for both of my siblings.
So, yeah, you kind of touched on,
you know, three emotions, but I would even say that.
So something that my wife and I have been practicing
our son is six months old and he's starting to get,
you know, some emotions and things are starting to click upstairs, you know,
And we acknowledge, you know,
if he has an accident or anything like that, we acknowledge how he feels.
And I think that is one of the strongest things
that a lot of parents don't realize that they need to do.
And in fact, to give any advice on this one episode,
it's please acknowledge that your child has feelings
and like acknowledge those things that they can,
you know, like, oh daddy knows you hurt your head.
Your head hurt, you know, like let him know.
And he's like, have come up to me now and he hits,
he hurts himself and he pats his head and he's suffering.
And I'm just like, You hurt your head, buddy.
And he's like, And then he comes in, hugged me and pats me.
It's like, say thank you, you know?
And I think I think parents need that.
You know, parents need to acknowledge with the kids.
These kids definitely
you know, they they like to know that you you're there to support them.
You know, acknowledgment is a huge, huge thing.
And I think that's one of the things like when a kid is is
having a meltdown, you know, it's like, okay, you're feeling this way.
I get it.
I get it. Yeah.
Daddy gets upset, too, you know, And I think that's you know, that's
pretty strong.
So the three emotions is definitely a little step further.
So, yeah, well, you could even see you know, you could even see how you lit up
about his response and how he's been how he's been taking that on.
And it's great to be emotionally connected with our kids.
And I certainly grew up in a house
where it was hard for my dad to be emotional with us for sure.
And one thing that we do know is studies have proven that
if you increase a child's vocabulary, you actually raise their IQ.
If you and increase a child's emotional
vocabulary, you will raise their IQ.
So giving emotions, words, a lot of times we go through emotions
that we children need us to label them, to help them.
It's not telling them what they feel or sometimes it's
asking and explaining what it is, but especially when they're
that age, at least putting some words to that feeling, you know?
So we know what that feels like.
I actually got I actually got like a little color wheel
that has all the emotions.
And so it starts with like the big broad ones, you know, anger, sadness, whatever.
And then it's got like the father in you get the more specified it gets, right?
But it's like if my daughter's really struggling to articulate
what she's feeling, I can limit the book.
So is it are you sad?
And she like, Yeah, And like, so are you sad because you're like
you were saying earlier and, you know, is it disappointment?
Is it whatever?
But I'll try and like find a link to it and put it in the description.
But it's, it's like five bucks.
It's surprisingly helpful.
It's like a little magnet that just has the thing.
So you can kind of Yeah, I mean, you'll always want to do it
because then it's like a negative association of like,
Oh, I'm pissed off and now I get to go grab the wheel.
But every now and then it's a good tool
to like help them articulate it and it's pretty valuable.
I tell my clients, you know, mostly our fathers.
And I tell them a little secret here is that this works with your wife
to have you do three emotions with your wife.
You don't even get to say, you just lay it out.
Honey, you look a little frazzled right now.
It seems like you're overwhelmed
with the amount of work we have to do this evening.
And you're tired.
Is that how you're feeling?
Thank you.
You know, you're like, All right, Sweets.
I mean, they will just.
They'll just eat that up. So.
Yeah.
So you said you said something funny.
You're talking about increasing vocabulary.
Can we get one of those for Dustin?
So he'll start saying Yeah, and absolutely, yeah.
Justin I am feeling
triggered, angry and sad, but
it's developing a sense of ennui and nihilism, so it's very good.
Throw
So dreaded
when it comes to behavior change in emotions.
My son, he's three and a half is a big thumbsucker,
you know throughout the day he's fine.
He's playing no big deal.
And then something stresses him out and he immediately goes to the top, right?
So I've looked at a couple
of different behavior change options for him and haven't had much success.
You know, I talk to him about it.
It's definitely a compulsion and not something he wants to do.
I'll say, oh, you know, that's not good.
It'll make you sick more often. It'll it'll hurt your teeth.
And he says, I don't want to suck my thumb, Dad, but then he does it anyways.
It's a compulsion.
So do you work with behavior change at all?
With with kids if you don't?
Yeah, that is a really fantastic question.
To be honest, I don't have a whole lot of experience in those.
Those kind of like the nail biting or or those kind of things sucking in thumbs.
I actually don't have a lot of experience there.
I wish I did. I would love to be able to help you out there.
The only thing
that I know is when it comes to habit, you know, habit stuff
is that if you can replace the action and there is a reward
on the other side, you can you can ultimately change the behavior.
So you can swap a habit.
If if you had something, obviously that was easy for him
to replace it with or something, then he may be able to do it.
But another thing too, and and this is this is just
I'm not saying this is a blanket statement,
but I would say that this is sometimes the case, which is that
a lot of these behaviors kids will grow out of.
And we hyperfocus on them when they're phase.
I remember my oldest saying could not stand that my little guy called it scary
and I was like, I thought it was adorable
and I knew he will not say Fischetti for his whole life.
He's going to ultimately, one day there will be a day where he's not doing
that and I'm going to kind of soak it up a little bit on the time that he says.
Fischetti And you know, in a way, how old is your son?
He's three three.
So you might soak it up a little bit because by four
he might not be doing that.
And also I do know that,
yes, they get more sick,
especially when they're around the other children,
but mostly in nature, when they're putting their thumbs,
their mouths is good for their immune system.
That's not always the case, but it could be the case in some instances.
But that's just some perspective.
I'm not trying to discount how you feel about it, but you know,
there might be something there. I like that. Yeah.
And my son calls cucumbers cumber q's and that's one that I intentionally.
I love that. Yeah. Back over to you, Daddy.
You got it.
Yeah.
I was about to say I could not get it for four parents
out there right now who, like your kid isn't talking yet.
Never stop that.
You're going to be so you'll miss it so much when they start saying it correctly.
It's like remember when they used to say it like this? Yes.
Oh, yeah.
At it's flown by. Yeah.
My my daughter says everything right now and it's like,
oh man, we really, we're really past that point now.
I'm never going back.
So not saying going to do. Yeah.
The words he was working with them today and she goes, what does it count?
It is very hard to do.
And like all these noise that I walked in, I was like, Oh,
this is the cutest thing I've ever seen.
Yeah. So yeah, I agree. Soak it up man.
Because might be able that is what you might do
to even reframe it for yourself
as every time you see him putting his thumb in his mouth,
get over there and snap a selfie with them and then you'll be able to show him
when he's older. You used to suck your thumb and you just,
like, have a
photo plant at the wedding slide show, you know, the rehearsal dinner.
So you have this great thing of his thumb sucking.
And you know, what might happen is if you get that attention, he might.
If he doesn't like it, he might not sucking my thumb anymore.
His dad takes pictures when I do it.
I like.
So if it's right, you'll have some fun with that.
Go reverse psychology.
Never heard of. Exactly.
No, I think I think the kids saying,
my daughter does throw this in the hat since everybody did my daughter.
So through the COVID era, every time I would walk in the door,
hand sanitizer and she calls it Hannity's the
greatest thing because my daughter the same thing.
Hannah Tyler Yeah, yeah.
We're going to make it more efficient.
That's what it should be called, way more if we're taking a syllable out.
Baby. I was like, I like that.
Sanitize itself from sanitizer.
Yeah, Yeah.
It's a little bit cuter when a little girl say, you know, can I have her?
But, well, I wanted to get it.
Get us back on track a little.
How do you address situations where fathers face criticism
or pushback from either family
members or society regarding their choice to use positive discipline?
Yeah, well, that's a great question.
I faced a lot with my parents.
I remember there was a point where my dad, you know, basically said
is needed up his ass and I'm sorry for cussing on your channel,
but you get that was literally what he said.
So he,
he would say that.
And I said, Yeah, Dad, we did a lot.
So what you do when that's done,
what do you do
if you're, if the grounding is not work, what do you do if the spanking story,
then what do you do? Like how far where are we going to go?
You know, and, and at one point
I said to my dad, I actually pulled him aside.
Remember, we had a pretty powerful talk.
I pulled me aside and I asked the question, Do you trust me?
And he was like, Yes, I trust you.
I said, Well, I appreciate that, Dad.
And I really do.
I said, I need you to trust me with this
because I have to look back and know how I did it.
Just like you had to look back and know how you did it.
I need you to trust me with this.
I may have results that are not good.
You might be right.
At the end of the day, but I have to know that I did what I could.
And I need you to trust me.
And my dad didn't really say a word after that.
You know, there were times where he even said,
I remember
him saying things like, you know, my son, he's
he's trying to do things different, which we all do.
We all try, you know, it's analysis that he's backing me.
So I would encourage them.
You know,
remember, it's easy to comment from the stands.
It's easy to be a critic.
I'm Kobe Bryant. Right.
But Kobe said it best.
Boos don't block dunks.
So, you know,
you can move from the stands, but you can't block this dunk on that.
So I would say, like my results have have proven useful.
My dad's very proud of how things have gone and he's an advocate
for what I do now.
And he was my worst critic.
That's such a beautiful way to set a healthy boundary.
I love that.
That is so great, man. I'm writing that one down.
You're a little bit more elegant than frustrate to the shock.
To the shock of everyone on the podcast.
I literally just said, I'm the father, not you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now you got to you got to set expectations, right?
It's it's a boundary and
but like to be clear,
I'm not like, completely arrogant enough to think that I have all the answers also.
So like, there will be moments where my dad is like, hey, you know, George,
maybe try this. Like, yeah, that's a good point.
I should try that.
So and you know, I think tyrant, but yeah, absolutely.
Well, I think one thing I could add here that I think is important.
So positive discipline.
We talked about how positive discipline is not permissive discipline.
That's not what it's called. It's not what it is.
It's what people might assume, but it's not what it is.
So if your father if I'm if I'm at my dad's farm
and my children are acting crazy and I don't know how to hold a boundary
and I'm not holding his rules of his home for him,
I think
there's a place where he might say, Hey, these are my expectations in my house
and you got to get this figured out or you guys are going to have, you know,
he might have to hold a banner of me.
Fortunately enough, even though it wasn't spanking or whipping his tail
or whatever, even though I wasn't doing that, I was holding boundaries,
you know, in positive discipline when when parents
are critiquing you,
maybe they should stay out of the conversation about the tactic.
But I think it's okay if a person says, hey, the rules of our house is we just
we don't allow our children to run on our furniture, for example.
We don't allow these things.
So I think it's important that you're you're upholding
or that you have a system that allows you to hold a boundary and hold respect
for people's roles in their homes and what you expected.
Then I think the critique will come from you
whenever your child or your children are running wild
and you're choosing not to do anything about it.
Certainly that's not a strategy.
That is not a parenting tool.
And so, you know, yes, you do have to
you do have to be able to set a boundary with them in terms
of, you know, how you choosing to raise your children.
But I also think you've got to recognize when your kids are crossing
over boundaries in their home and you're allowing it.
So you got to take on some personal responsibility there as well.
Certainly, I think a lot a lot of where like the peanut gallery,
if you will, chips in is like in the moment.
And it's like everyone's like piling on and everything.
And that's that's where you got to kind of hold
our line like, guys, I'm going to discipline my my kid
or I'm, you know, we're going to crack this.
Thanks.
But, you know,
we can talk after whatever it's like in the moment is like the worst timing.
That's when people kind of want to, you know, the aunts and uncles and everything.
Want to throw in little things, too.
But I think also like,
what's what's your take on, like, setting expectations for like,
hey, we don't want them eating this or we don't want them watching that movie.
And then that's honestly that's a bigger one nowadays is the filth
that gets thrown out on even Netflix and whatever else out there is.
Just so I mean, we specifically ask our,
you know, in-laws or whatever else, like, hey, don't let them watch this
or that because it's got stuff we don't want them seeing.
I mean, what's what's your strategy around kind of holding those boundaries?
Well, real quick, I got tell you on the on them
piling on, I've summed it up to two words, not helpful.
This is not helpful right now,
but with the holding boundaries and setting it with,
for example, grandparents, babysitters and things like that.
I think just really having really clear
this is what we allow, this is what we don't allow.
And it's, you know, like we kind of have an okay list and not okay list.
But I think also making sure that they have plenty of alternatives,
you know, colored by numbers, play know, like
whatever it is that your your family does
when you are asking people to take care of your kids,
it's like you've got to give them all the creative resources.
Because I think part of the trouble happens when they're like,
okay, well, they're really bored
and I don't really know what to do with them right now,
and they don't have enough things with them, right?
They don't have a backpack of things.
They don't have the activities with them and, you know, grandpa
or grandma or aunt or whoever is trying to come up with stuff.
And the best thing their brain comes up with as well.
YouTube seems to keep them quiet, you know, or whatever it is.
So I think definitely arming them, giving them a lot more resources and then
being very clear.
One thing that you can say is, you know, with us
that this is a very important thing to us.
So for us, the boundary is going to be,
if you would like to have the opportunity to watch them or be with them,
then we will need like an F
then sequence, then we will need you to do this.
These are our expectations and what we expect of you.
And you can expect from us that if this isn't met,
this will probably be the last visit for a while, or this will probably be
that you may not work with us if it's a babysitter, for example,
because if this boundaries crossed
and then we will have to seek out another option here.
I mean, I think it's important to let people know what
they can expect from you and hold that boundary with them.
So speaking of challenges with bound boundaries, Brandon,
let's say you have a client who's a single dad
and he doesn't have buy in from the other parent.
How were you able to?
It's hard.
Yeah, but have you been in that situation?
Have you have dealt with it? Absolutely.
So yes, I've had success
when both dwellings are both parents are willing.
That's not always been the case.
What I truly believe is that
I so I see parents come at things from this is one angle
where let's say that dad is hardcore and mom is hard, permissive, right?
She's just not hardcore.
What I see happening is they will often make up for each other's lack.
So if dad is hard core, he'll say it's
because you're so permissive that I have to be this way.
And mom will say it's because you're so hard on them
that I have to be this way.
And ironically, they literally are fighting each other
and creating this separateness, this experience for their children.
So what I really encourage parents to do is to try to find a philosophy,
a number of parenting tools and tactics that you both agree on
and work from the same playbook.
Recognize that you're not on two sides of the field with opposite teams.
You're on the same team with the same players trying to win the same game.
You are not playing against one another, you're playing for one another.
And in order to do that with that other parent,
putting the focus on the outcome of what we are hoping to achieve.
Right. You know, what?
Can we agree that we hope our child will grow up responsibly?
Can we agree that we hope our child will have empathy for others?
Can we agree on these virtues and these values and these characteristics?
If we can agree on those, we might not agree on everything else.
But if we can agree that these are characteristics
and things that we're trying to achieve, and maybe we'll just pick a handful,
can we also
find a place in which we agree on some parenting strategy,
some philosophy to help achieve these virtues and characteristics,
some bridge that you and I can both agree on.
And I personally think it's extremely helpful to work with a person
like myself to achieve this, come in with a neutral party.
It's very difficult to say, Hey, listen, I've got all these tools over here.
I know all this stuff and you're really doing it wrong.
And if you would listen to me, we'd have a much better kid.
That's probably not going to work out very well.
It's probably better to say, Hey,
we both want our child to live the best life he can.
He or she can live.
And I've been giving it some thought.
What I really think would be helpful is for us to hire a parenting coach.
And I think if we could best both learn a thing or two, you know,
I want to humble myself.
I don't know this whole game.
And, you know, I just want what's best for him.
Would you be willing to join me on a parenting session
so we can try to find a common ground that we can both believe in?
And granted, I'll listen to you if you say I don't like this person,
I don't want this person as our parenting coach,
we'll find another one till it works.
What's what's important to me right now
is that you and I get in the same playbook, run
in the same place with our children, so we win the game together.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Not to put you on the spot, but in like, a more difficult scenario
where one parent is just clearly not willing to play ball.
Yeah, I think then the temptation is clear.
Like, Oh well, your mother or whatever, right?
And or your father doesn't let you do this or,
you know, I mean, like it would be very easy
to revert to throwing the other spouse or that the ex or whatever under the bus.
Absolutely.
Yeah. It's very well so it's the best way forward in that.
From your point of view, obviously one day or I would say obviously
maybe it's not obvious, but one thing we cannot throw shade on the other parent
when we look at what the damaging effects of badmouthing
another parent in front of our child, the emotional facts are so profound.
And if you think about it, it's like this.
You know, you're partly made of both.
And when someone is hating on your mother or your father,
what they're also saying is part of you is is wrong.
Part of you is broke and part of you is not good.
Right.
And so, you know, my son's mother, my oldest son's mother,
we've had a lover from a distance.
She's actually struggled massively with a number of different problems
and addictions and things.
And we have not been able to be
even in contact with her for quite some time.
We've really had love from distance, but I have always tried to come
from the place that she has a mental illness
and this is a disease that gets people, even the best people.
Your mother is an angel who's struggling massively.
And my heart breaks for her and it breaks for you.
But your mother loves you.
She's just not able to love you right now because of her.
Her not being well.
And we I've really been as diligent as I can to be speaking good off of his mother.
And yes, she needs that.
She has some responsibility in all of this.
But what I don't want is him to take on the belief
that something is wrong with him because because of her.
And I think that's I think that's really important.
Now, I have I have seen some cases where some parents
where, boy, that mother does not make it easy.
I mean, she is just not making it easy to just be
a good human being on the other side of the fence.
And I'm like, she's really been a challenge
with all kinds of things, bringing other men around, talking badly.
I've seen some guys go through the wringer here.
I do believe that if if you're of sound judgment
and you could hold healthy boundaries
for your children, you could teach them,
you know, these good things without hating on their mother or things like that.
You might want to fight for custody.
They might be in an unhealthy environment if they're in an environment
speaking badly about you on that all the time, that they're in an environment
that is trying to damage their child from the inside out,
you might need to fight for your child because if you know you would do better
and you know that that child is in a safer environment under your under
your care, you might need to fight for them.
And I mean, that's a hard decision to make.
But I've seen some instances where I'm pretty convinced
that the father should, if he can speak with clear mind
and sound logic and he has a good heart for this child,
he should fight hard, too, to make sure that he's in the primary care position.
Yeah, it's it's a really tough
thing to have to broach, but I appreciate you tackling that one because it's
probably one of the most under discussed topics, unfortunately.
And, you know, I wonder how many
dads are out there who, you know, are divorced and can barely see
their kids in similar scenarios like that,
so that you give some really good sound tactics There that I think
and calling it out for all parents
out there may hear this or watch this.
If you're in that situation of badmouthing
the other spouse is bad mouthing half of your child, that right.
That makes it pretty personal.
That should be a wake up call.
And if it doesn't, then, man, you've got some
you've got some issues.
I would say if you're if you're if your counterpart
is not willing to allow you to hire the
the parenting coach or that that
that neutral party, then you let her choose
and you humble yourself and say, as long as I can get on board with why you
if you choose a person, I'll give it to you to choose this person.
And I can get on board with what they're saying.
I can accept, you know,
some of the philosophies or strategies that they will do.
I'm willing to do that.
You can give them that power as long as you know,
because it might be the case that they think
that you're trying to hire someone to take your side.
You might find if you have a good side and you really feel good
about your finding strategies,
you might find that if she picks the right, if she picks someone,
they could back you up and they she picked them.
It's not you that picked them.
Right now she's saying things you've been saying.
So you're right.
And she chose them.
So at some point she might come around, but she's more likely to hear them
than she is to hear you.
And most importantly, just trying to get on the same page,
I think is really important. I do a process with parents.
One of the first things I do when I have a mother and father with me
is we work to plot ourselves.
And so what we do is, is a graph
that says supporting and demanding or I'm sorry, not demanding and demanding.
So not supportive and supportive and I will have them plot themselves.
Then I'll have them plot
where they're kids, where they think their kids would put them,
and then I'll have them plot where they plot each other.
And it's a very interesting process to see those those positions.
And then we ultimately have a goal.
So the goal is to get us into that place that quadrant that says
we are both supportive and demanding.
We have we have real expectations of our children
will also help them meet those expectations through training support.
And we're relentless in our pursuit of helping them do that.
That's a
cool idea of doing the the little chart there.
I just want to give one kind of anecdotal,
you know, use case for people to take with a little bit of hope.
You know, I know of a situation where
the father didn't really deserve to be the father.
You know, he earned the fact that they got divorced pretty pretty well on his own.
And the mother, you know,
never badmouthed the father to the kids
and told the kids, you know, when they became adults, that,
you know, I didn't need to
to tell you bad things about your dad because you were going
to figure it out on your own.
And, you know, and that was going to be helpful.
So and the, you know, now adult children, it's very obvious to them, Right?
So, you know, they have great relationships with their mother.
And to your point, Brandon, in your own personal example,
you know, you're you're not adding to the damage.
You know, you're still to the best of your ability keeping it about health and,
you know, love and reconnection.
So I think that's probably the wisest advice you've given tonight
because it's it's a really difficult
and messy situation in your own personal feelings.
Get involved and, you know, that really helps.
You have to really, in that moment, offset your own desires and personal feelings
and fully invest yourself in the future of your child.
And it will pay off in the long run.
It may be a very long time till you see that return, but it will pay off.
Absolutely.
Frankly,
I so my last final question.
Here are three books that you'd recommend to dads
that would help with their their parenting journey.
Yeah, definitely a positive discipline.
I'm obviously a very big advocate of that.
I think every parent should should take a look at that
Hold on to your
kids I think is a is a good one right now
and that and then another great book is
if I have to tell you One More Time by Amy McCready, which is a great one,
and she's got a lot of really good stuff there.
She's a student of Jane Nelson, but she has a way of putting in her own words.
And she has some very powerful tools and concepts, I think,
that are that are great.
So yeah, those would be my three K.
And then
what would be
your your best advice for for a dad if you could give him just one thing?
Yeah.
So my best advice for a father is
stay the stay
steady in your pursuit of your children's
best interest and never give up hope.
It can get hopeless sometimes.
And I think a lot of times that the next thing you need,
it may not be a Y, it might be a who.
Don't be afraid to look for people
that you can find that either emulate what you want
or have advice that they can help and
and and just keep going.
This is a marathon.
It is not a sprint.
You will not get through it by sprinting.
You're only you're only going to do this
by getting enough perspective to see this long term.
And most of all know that that connection with your child,
that emotional connection, is everything for them.
And they need it more today than they've ever needed before.
And there's a lot of things trying to rob them of that.
So be vigilant in your pursuit
to know their heart and and you are in their mind.
And I've got a fun one for you.
So favorite memory story
or something that you just to in your head
if you think about something happy since you've become a father.
Oh gosh. Okay.
So I've got I've got some fun ones
my well I'll give you I'll give you one.
And this is a this is a story about when my son first fell in love.
And this is one of my favorite memories of my oldest son.
So it is also speak to you about how bright he really was, you know,
even though he was struggling in school.
This kid is so smart.
So he comes to me, I'm in a hot tub.
This was 4th of July and we are on the coast of Texas
in a rental house and we're in the hot tub.
It might have even just been the pool and we're kind of sitting there
and he comes down with this older girl.
She's like 22 years old and she's been running around with him.
He's probably seven, I think maybe seven or eight.
And he comes down in the hot tub and he said, Dad, I said, What's up, buddy?
He says, I'm in love.
And I said, You're in love.
And he goes, I'm in love with Hilary.
And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
That's her double digits body.
Like, you got to keep it single digits right now.
Like, we're not this is way too far.
And because he gets angry and he's like, No, you don't understand.
I love her.
And one of the guys that was sitting next to me said,
Well, Sheldon, if you love Hilary, he said,
Why don't you see if you could get her to go on a date with you to to somewhere?
And he's kind of poking him.
So my son says, okay.
He said, If you her to say yes, I'll give you a limo to Uchi now,
which is the finest sushi restaurant in Austin, Texas, one of them.
And he is like, whoa! Oh.
So he goes running back up the stairs at this at this rental bet?
Yeah, exactly. Race his back.
So he goes Bryant stairs, he comes back down now, holding her by her hand.
He brings her back down to the edge of the pool.
And we're like, What did she say? What did he say?
We're like, all excited.
And because they're kind of egging him on and he said, I haven't asked her yet.
And so we're like, Oh, whoa, this is brave.
He's about to ask he's about to ask Hillary in front of all of us.
And So he turns to her and he says, Hey, Hillary, want to go to Uchi in a limo?
And I love it.
She goes, Yeah, yeah.
Sheldon And he is like, got her to say yes.
And the guy was like, Whoa, You use your resources on that one.
And he's like, So Sheldon, now, now he's trying to back out.
The guy is trying to backpedal. He says, Oh, hold on a second.
You go, What color is that limo?
And selling kind of freezes and looks at him like, What color is it?
He goes, If you can't see that limo on your mind, it's not perfectly clear.
It may not happen. It may not be a reality.
And he's like looking at him like, this is the dumbest question ever.
So he looks back at Hillary and goes, Hillary, what's your favorite color?
And so everybody just roars laughing.
And I remember one thing he told me, and I'll never forget this,
he said, Dad, I would love Hillary to the last number.
And I was like, I'm literally writing that line down.
That is a good line.
Anyway, I'm watching him be a brain
and watching him use every every angle and watching his his creativity
in that moment was one of the I was like, I literally remember thinking to myself,
You have one of the most brilliant minds I have ever seen.
Like everything he did there was flawless and the things that he said, like,
I would love her to the last number and just just the way that he
that he had his personality and all of that.
I remember actually being proud of him.
I was also like, Dude, we're not dating.
But at the same time
I am pretty impressed with the way that you ran that that thing.
So it was just a proud dad moment.
It was like one of those, you know,
proud moments that, yeah, let's get more gay, man.
Yeah, I want to go over there.
I know.
Is like everybody still like the entire group that went on that trip.
They still remember that day because it was so well-played.
I mean, it was like he just laid it out.
And yeah, that was a proud dad moment.
It was it was actually a super funny and cute moment to watch my little boy.
He was just like all googly eyed over this college girl
that that was running around, giving him a lot of extra attention.
So it was it was pretty cute.
It's funny.
It reminds me of, like, that South Park episode where they're like, nice.
You know?
We also know
he told me one time in an elevator, this is when he was about,
oh, gosh, he might have been four years old.
He told me that he was anxious and I said, You're in I was shocked.
Even the people on the elevator were like this young man.
Like, he was like, Dad, I'm anxious.
And I was like, You're anxious.
I said, And what does anxious mean? Sign?
And he goes, It means spicy.
It's hot anyway.
It's just cute moments, just little cute, stuff like that.
There are these prices for moments that, you know,
they'll stick with you for memories or memories.
They're just tiny little things.
But I remember even the fact
that he was for trying to use the word anxious was cute to me.
Yeah, that's very funny.
Got to love those little ones.
Brandon, where can people find you?
Just that deadline.com or. Yeah.
Dot com.
Abby Dad, the official is my Instagram
handle and my email is Brandon at Bradley Dcoms.
Pretty easy. Awesome.
All right, well, if you are curious about what Brandon can do for you,
check out his website, Check him out on Instagram.
Actually, on Instagram, you've got tons of really great reels
where some of these nuggets that we've been talking about,
you've got all teed up ready to go.
So if you're looking for a place to start with,
you know, discipline in some of these positive ways of
reinforcing good behavior with your kids, give Brandon a check.
He's got a lot of resources for you.
And Brandon. This was the speak for everyone here.
This is a ton of fun tonight.
Really appreciate you coming on and just sharing my at things heavy,
heavy conversation. We got so much stuff.
Make sure you like and subscribe to the channel for more great content like this
and enough talk dads.
Let's get KLEIMAN Thank you, guys.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for tuning
into this episode of the Present Fathers podcast.
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