As we navigate these very confusing and unfamiliar times, how do we parent and lead our kids well? We are all faced with so many things that feel uncertain. We all thought this pandemic would be over by now. We have a LOT of emotions about ALL THE THINGS. It’s uncharted territory. We have to show leadership to our kids. They soak up our example. Our kids are watching us. What are they going to see? Julie has 5 ways to help you lead your kids well.
Listen to “#143 – Leading Our Kids Well with Julie Lyles Carr” on Spreaker.
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Transcription:
You’re listening to the allmomdoes Podcast from allmomdoes. And part of the Christian Parenting Podcast Network Family I’m Julie Lyles, Carr. Your host. I am a mom of 8 and a bestselling author. I have been married to my husband, Michael for quite awhile now. And I am so glad that you are here. The allmomdoes podcast is just for you.
It is to speak directly into your life where you are raising those kids. You know, we try to foster that great romantic relationship building up that career and the faith journey you’re on. This is a place where you’re going to find inspiration, information, resources, and community here at the allmomdoes podcast.
Part of the Christian Parenting Podcast Network.
We were overnight camping and the high quality Meadows, which is part of Yosemite national park. I was probably around her now, maybe 11 years old. My brother Rob, that would have made him nine and our youngest brother, Dave would have been about five we’d spent the last week.
Camping with my parents in the Yosemite Valley and then had extended the camping trip to include a night or two at 12 new Meadows. Now don’t let the name Matt for you. It is a meadow, but it is at 8,600 hundred feet above sea level, which is part of what makes it so unique because it’s one of the largest high altitude Meadows in the Sierra Nevada range.
Now I grew up camping. Some of my very earliest moments are of waking up in the harvest gold and rustic tan tent that my mom and dad set up at camp sites across the nation throughout my childhood and early teens. And Yosemite was the highlight yeah. Of our camping calendar. During the years we lived in California.
We would head there every summer for an extended week of camping, hiking, floating the Merseyside river and surreptitiously feeding the chipmunks, which we weren’t supposed to do. But you guys so cute. We often add a couple of days on the way home of camping for another day or two in the surrounding mountains at one of the adjacent parks or part of an extension of the Yosemite national park.
Hence this side trip. We set up camp and we played in the river adjacent to the campsite, and we’d had our dinner heated on the army green Coleman, propane camp stove. And then it was time to bed down for them. Right now. My dad always insisted on sleeping next to the zipper door of the tent.
He said it was for safety purposes, which I thought was hilarious because as far as I could tell if a bear or a human troublemaker had wanted their way into the tent, all it would’ve taken was a good swipe of a bear claw or a buoy knife to tear through the canvas. But no matter, my dad was the protector of the tent and that meant he slept by the zipper doorway.
Now our tent just barely fit my mom and my dad and my two brothers and me, my dad ever the engineer and my mom ever the accountant had a whole Tetris style schematic for the way each of us and our camping cots fit into this very small square footage. And it involved as loading into the tent in a specific order to make us all fit. So my baby brother, Dave, he always went in first since he was the smallest and his cot was tucked back into a back corner. And then it was my mom and then me and then my brother, Rob, and finally my dad position strategically at the zipper door, which frustrated me for this reason.
Sister. I am dang claustrophobic. I’m talking big time claustrophobic. One of my childhood memories is getting completely freaked out at Disneyland at the Tom Sawyer cave. I stopped in sheer terror at having come halfway through the cave. I was panicked to go forward. I was frozen at trying to go back. I went into a sobbing frenzy at the bridge, which supposedly was the route over a bottomless pit, which was another childhood fear of mine. And my parents had to come homie out much to their embarrassing, terrifying rollercoaster. Sign me up, Tom. Sawyer’s cave. Nope, that’s it. That’s a hard, hard, no. So to be sandwiched between my mom and my brother and our Tetris tent, put my cost or phobic tendencies on high alert.
Now, a lot of times during our Yosemite camping, we slept out doors. As long as we were in the Yosemite Valley, we slept under the stars. The campgrounds on the Valley floor were relatively safe when it came to the bear population. But here in the back country, up in 12 new Meadows, it was much more remote.
And my parents wanted some kind of obstacle in the way of us and any predators, even if that obstacle was just a harvest gold and rustic Brown canvas tent. So we climbed in the tent that night and our designated order, and I was feeling off, but. I always was when it came to stacking ourselves in the 10th this way.
And I begged as usual to sleep by the door, but my dad was resolute. So I huffed myself down into my sleeping bag. I was a little dizzy. I was tired and I finally drifted off to sleep for a little while. But sometime in the middle of the night, I awoke with a complete start. You know, that middle of the night realization, when you can feel your salivary glands go silvery and metallic, and you know that a, um, stomach hurling session is eminent.
Yeah, that was me marooned in the middle of the tent, the zipper door, two family members away. The nausea slammed into me so fast and hard. I tried to stand up in my cot. I was desperately trying to make an exit from the tent before chunks flew, but in standing up on my cot, my weight shifted the balance and it flipped up and it knocked me into my mom.
And then I tried to get back up again and I fell across my brother, Rob and my dad. Now my dad wasthe kind of sleeper who would come up fighting. You know what I’m talking about. I mean, when one of us, the kids would be assigned to go wake him up for a family event or to drive us somewhere, to have him drive us somewhere, we would play rock paper scissors, and the loser would have to be the one to wake him up.
The loser would carefully go to the door of my mom and dad’s bedroom and quietly declare his presence, talking soothingly the whole time, approach the bed, and then reaching out one shaking finger, the loser of the rock paper scissors tournament with gently prod my dad’s shoulder while simultaneously attempting to jump backwards and out of range.
Because once my dad was touched, he would lurch I’m talking lurch awake, swinging and lay on his feet. Ready for a fight. So when I landed on my brother and my dad and my feudal attempt to reach the zipper door of the tent that night, and then I proceeded to lose my campfire dinner all over the two of them, my dad came roaring out of his sleeping bag.
I’ve never seen a person moves so fast since he emerged. Wild-eyed in his tidy whities, which was his usual sleeping attire. He somehow landed in this tiny little sliver of space between his cot and the tent door. He ripped his way out of the tent. And I followed in fast measure. I was crying and snuffly and, and hurling some more.
And by this point, my mom and my brother, Rob, had awakened to this unholy mess and we’re trying to delicately pick their way out of the splash zone. See, as it turned out, the high altitude of our campsite had rendered me into a state of altitude sickness. I still love to this day, challenging hikes in the back country and the higher, the better, but I’ve had other episodes of altitude sickness as an adult, and I’ve had to become really strategic and acclimating myself. It’s a lesson you don’t soon. Forget once you’ve been sick a few times at altitude. So I’ve gotten a lot better in the following years about pacing myself and doing the things that I can do to try to avoid getting sick. But for a while, and this Twomey Meadows experience was the first one that this had ever happened.
Yeah. Uh, altitude sickness would definitely get the better of me and, you know, here’s the other lesson. The other thing that I don’t want to forget when it comes to that night at 12 the Meadows, my dad hopping around in his underwear, outside the tent and the cold night air furious. I remember feeling so guilty and so worried that I had made my parents mad as my mom and dad’s scrambled in the dark cold trying to mop up the mess. And they questioned me as to why I hadn’t said something earlier. They made numerous trips, numerous trips in and out of the tent. As they rinsed off the sleeping bags and hung them to dry into the chili stars. And my youngest brother, Dave managed to sleep through it all.
Now that was my childhood experience. Right? Here’s what I can look out now as an adult, in my childhood experience, I thought my parents were so angry with me, me for this, but once I became a parent, there were some things that I began to understand in a new way, in a fresh way. See my dad, he wasn’t mad.
He was scared. I mean, sure. There’s the natural frustration of apparent when you’re awakened in the middle of the night to a big mess. But my dad who felt his duty was to be the courageous leader got deeply and sincerely spooked that night. There were bears in the area and we were camping and a remote area.
My parents were in no way being risky or unsafe. We were in the March campground of the park and had taken all the precautions, but it is a vulnerable feeling to have your kids and your spouse in unfamiliar surroundings with notifications about all the things you should be looking out for. And there was this little fact that I didn’t know until much later in my life.
See, as it turns out. My dad was also extremely claustrophobic. And when he began to experience significant health issues, when I was in high school, my strong troubleshooting MacGyver of a dad, literally a rocket scientist would practically panic. And having to be in an MRI machine for the diagnostic test, he was on undergoing and he was a big man.
He was six foot five with broad shoulders. He would barely fit in that magnet tube. And he had been claustrophobic during those years of tent camping as well. I mean, sure. Yeah, he did feel a responsibility to be the person monitoring anyone trying to get into, or in my case, out of the tent during the night, but it also had to do with his own fear of tight places.
So why do I tell you this story? Because when I think about that night and it feels an awful lot to me, Mike, what we are trying to navigate as parents for our kids right now, and the things that we want to be thoughtful about as we navigate these very confusing and unfamiliar times, it’s a picture of us and we’re trying to figure it out.
You know, we are faced with so many things right now that feel so uncertain. I mean, first of all, I think a lot of us thought that this pandemic was going to be a few weeks and here we are, it is still ongoing. Some of us have been able to have our kids go back to school, but some of us have not, depending on what the civic rules have been surrounding our communities, some of us haven’t wanted to put our kids back in school.
We’re not really sure how we feel about that. Others of us we’re ready. Months ago, and we’re trying to get them to go. And the school systems are having to shut down. This for us is unchartered territory and that’s not all that’s going on. We’ve got environmental situations. We have had some really big hurricanes and storms in the Gulf.
We have fires burning on the West coast in a seemingly endless round of everything that’s going on out there. And let’s not forget. We have a whole political environment. One that at the time of this recording, we are looking toward the election and it’s very unclear how all of that’s going to be turning out.
And just a few short weeks, we are in a little canvas tent with our family, and we know there’s lots of things outside of that little canvas tent, that could be a threat. And so we are trying to hunker down and Paul, our people ourselves, and be protected. But here is the risk. We have to show leadership in this moment to our kids.
Are you just amazed at times when you hear yourself saying something, just like your mom says it, or you find yourself doing something in a manner, just like your dad would do it. And you have to take that pause and go, Whoa, wait a minute. I am definitely showing that I paid a whole lot more attention to my parents and I picked up on a whole lot more stuff than I thought I did, even when we sometimes think I will never say that when I’m a mom or I’ll never do that when I’m a dad.
And then we do, I mean, that’s just. Part of how we as kids soak up the example that our parents are as we watch them navigate through life. Well, that’s the moment now, our kids are watching us. They are zoned in on how we are handling all the changes, all the things that are going on, how we are in the moment, troubleshooting and dealing with what can feel often like the middle of a night, stumbled to the zipper door chunks, flying kind of an experience.
We still have to be engaged in leadership in these moments, not reactivity. You know, I think that some people think that leadership is about business or it’s about a ministry where someone is the leader of the ministry, but the reality is all of us lead someone. And all of us are led by someone. That’s just the way it works.
So even if you feel like you don’t have a real gift for leadership, uh, hit the pause button. You do, you do have a gift for leadership. And when you are a parent, you absolutely are leading because your children are watching how you’re responding and they are going to then take on the things that they see you doing.
And they’re going to assume that’s the way that it needs to be done. So I wanted us to focus on about five things today on the podcast, five things that we need to be aware of and things that we can do when it comes to leading our kids. Well, in the midst of what can really feel like a threatening, uncertain, unending time.
First of all, they interpret your stress or your concern or your worry, or your fear as are you ready for it? They may interpret it as anger. So what that means is that we’ve got to give voice to our emotions and inform them about what we are feeling. Like I was telling you in that story about trying to get out of the tent and my dad ripping out a tent and all the things, things I now can look back and see that he, frankly, he was just startled and he was frustrated and it was inconvenient to have to clean up all that mess in the dark and everything else.
But at the end of the day, I think he and my mom were just scared. I mean, I’d gotten sick out of nowhere and I had woken them both up in a state of panic. I was so upset. And so while they were responding, I was interpreting it as a child as anger. So let’s take a pause when your kids see you frustrated because the school calendar has changed again, or they see you upset because things at work and trying to manage things at home are really, really tricky when they see those moments, take a moment and turn to them and say, I realized that you’re seeing me be very emotional right now.
And I want to explain for you what that emotion is. I would love you to run to my Pinterest board. I’ll have Rebecca put this in the show notes for us. I have a Pinterest board that is a work from home school, from home Pinterest board. And on that board, I have penned, I think about three lists of word lists that give you words, give you vocabulary for the emotions that you are feeling.
Because one thing that kids will often do is when they see their parents stressed were upset, they interpreted as anger. And that it’s really easy for kids to think that that anger has something to do with them. So during these uncertain times, when we naturally feel the strong emotions that we’re going to feel, we want to hit that pause and make sure that we are identifying for our kids, how we are feeling.
It’s powerful on two points. First of all, it clears up for our kids. Exactly. What’s going on in our own. Heads and our own hearts. And it does it for us too, when you have to stop and really analyze, what am I actually feeling in this moment? You know, for a lot of us, part of what we’re feeling when school gets changed again, or the homecoming dance gets canceled, or when the sports season is on endless hiatus.
A lot of times what we’re feeling is almost a grieving process for our kids, because what we thought was going to be their school experience this year, simply isn’t. And we’re sad, but how it may come out, his frustration at the school board or frustration at the principal or frustration at the city in general and what our kids don’t often understand in the midst of that is that we’re not angry at them.
And we’re really not angry at an individual. We’re just sad about the situation. So educate yourself on words that are beyond just I’m mad or I’m angry, educate yourself and be willing to do the deep dive into understanding what’s really going on in your own heart when those emotions well up and when they well up, identify them for your kids.
Secondly, don’t try to hide the environment from your kids. You know, I think sometimes as parents, when we want to protect our kids, we’re not always completely honest about everything that’s going on now. I’m not talking about overwhelming your children. I’m not talking about singing a tune of doom and gloom to them because that’s a whole lot for them to try to process.
But I do think that it’s powerful to respect your kids enough and to show them that you do know that they are capable and they can handle things. To let them know what the real state of things going on is now, again, this doesn’t have to be some kind of deep dive into everything that’s happening, but I think it can be a really beautiful moment to say with your, to your kids.
You know, we’re living in a time that’s really uncertain. And these are the things that are on my heart. These are things that I’m a little concerned about, and I know we’re going to be okay. And I know God’s going to see us through it, but these are the things that are going on, who is going to be our leader.
It’s it’s a big question right now. And people have a lot of big feelings about it, how things are going with our environment. And a lot of the storms we’re seeing are the fires. Yeah. That’s a big deal. And we definitely want to be praying for the people who are experiencing that. Yes, our friends who might be of a different race are going through a really hard time with a lot of the racial unrest in this country.
And we want to stand strong with them. You know, our kids can handle so much more. And here’s the thing when we are honest about what’s going on in the environment around us, our kids get there message that we believe that they are also strong. Now, again, You’ve got to be wise about this, adjust it to where your kids are at, but steel is, they’re going to find out more and more about these things are going to overhear things.
They’re going to have something happen in their virtual classroom, where somebody brings something like this up, and you want to be the one who has shown on them first that you entrusted with the ability to manage and navigate the reality of the world that we live in. You know, as I look back to that Tomi Meadows experience, I can see now that some of the things that my parents were grappling with, that my brothers and I really weren’t as aware of even at the age as we were, it was for real, there really were bears in the area.
There really is some risk in camping out, you know, in those higher altitudes. And I think had I known that at the time, I think I actually could have handled that. Okay. I think it would have helped me to understand some of the response I was seeing from my parents. Well, how much more so in an environment in which our kids are much more able to understand and see that things are off at the environment’s different right now.
So don’t try to hide it from your kids. Be careful in how you talk about it be wise, but don’t try to hide all the things that are going on. Thirdly, it’s really critical in this moment where we’re going to lead our kids to let them know that life is about things not going as planned when life goes, it was planned.
That’s awesome. But if I’m going to lead my kids, well, if I’m going to show them what it means to be a grownup, then I’m going to have to show them that when things go sideways, I can handle it because I’m a grownup, that’s what grownups do. And I need to also show them that when things go sideways, there’s going to be an expectation as they get older.
And as they mature that they’re going to have to deal as well. We don’t get circumstantial assurances as much as we would love to have them, what we do need to know and what our kids need to know is that God is in control, help our kids. I, this is something that I keep finding throughout. This situation with the pandemic and all the other stuff going on.
There’s some really beautiful opportunities that are coming up. Some connections that are being reignited because we are living more zoom age and people that I didn’t even with before. All of a sudden it’s becoming much more normal to sit down and have a coffee zoom with them. There. Are some silver linings to the things that are going on.
And that’s what I want to lead my kids to understand is that yeah. In any situation where things are not the way we hoped they would be when things are not the way that we wanted them to play out, there are still blessings. There are still things to be grateful for, for willing to look for it, but it takes leadership of our kids to show them that if all they are hearing is our long, long list of.
All the things that have gone wrong have been canceled, has been put off. If that’s all they’re hearing from us, then they’re not watching and they’re not able to model someone leading out in a way that says, yeah, life doesn’t always go as planned. So. Here’s how we’re going to navigate forward. Part of leading our kids is giving them an example that they can live by because you and I both know as much as we would love it for our kids to have this, you know, just Disney experience of everything working out and everything coming up, roses, we know.
For all of us, there are situations and circumstances that are not anything that we could have predicted, not anything we could have planned for and what really separates those who know how to thrive and live fully and joyously and the life that Jesus has given us from those who get wrapped in just a downward spiral is our ability to embrace it.
When things don’t go as planned and to show others, Hey, this is how you navigate across unchartered terrain. I want to lead my kids that way, the best that I can for thing, be honest with your kids, but don’t process in front of them. Now that may sound counterintuitive to the other things that I’ve said about, be sure that you’re identifying what your emotion is and don’t hide the environment from your kids and be sure and let them know that life doesn’t always go as planned.
But what I mean by that is this, there is a line between being honest with our kids, telling them what our emotion is and letting them know what the situation is, and in completely breaking down and dragging them into it with us as we process. I feel like a lot of times I do a lot of private parent coaching and I seem to see two things come up.
One of two extremes, not all the time, but when I see an extreme, it’s usually one of these two things. A parent who never lets their kids in on the internal dialogue, a parent who thinks they always have to seem like they have all the answers and they’re always in control or a parent who has confused the relationship with their kids.
And they think their kids are fully their sounding board. They’re placed to find sympathy and empathy, their place to completely talk through an issue, even in places like their marriage or a major financial difficulty. Listen moms. And if we’ve got dads listening, please hear me. Well. Don’t do that to your kids.
It’s too much of a burden for them. And I’m talking particularly kids in their mid teens on down. Those kids end up feeling responsible. They end up somehow getting the message that they’re responsible for your feelings, and somehow they need to be able to fix it. So there is a level to which you can be honest, be honest in identifying the emotion you’re feeling.
You know, right now I’m sad because I’d really hoped that we would be able to have the family reunion this year, but we can’t because that’s not our circumstances. And you know what, we’re going to figure out another way, a cool way, maybe on zoom to do the family reunion in a fresh way. Okay. Now that’s been honest and that is talking to our kids through our emotion that is not hiding the environment from them.
And it is owning that life doesn’t go as planned, but it’s not. I’m so sad. I’m so worried that I’m never going to see some of these relatives again, and they’re going to die before we can have the next, the next reunion. And, and I’m also so worried because I don’t even know how we would be able to afford to go with the way that things are going with our businesses because of COVID and okay.
That’s way too much honesty that’s processing in front of your kid. It’s not dishonest to process. Yes. Privately. And then with your children to own. Your true feelings and your true troubleshooting and the true nature of the come stance. So use wisdom. Don’t well, your kids in that position of either having to AE always guess what’s going on because that breaks down trust or B feeling like they’re the ones who need to be managing your emotions and troubleshooting for you because you’re such a mess in front of them all the time.
And then fifth, is this be brave for yourself? I get it, but I want to challenge you and I want to challenge myself, be brave for your kids. You know, sometimes if it’s just me, there are things that are hard to do for just me. There are times it’s hard for me to adult for just me. I mean, to be really honest, I never want to clean up the kitchen after dinner.
I really don’t. I don’t want to put away the piles of laundry. There’s part of me that just thinks, Oh, just leave it. I mean, it’s all going to get trashed again tomorrow. But there are things I am willing to do for my kids and to model for them because they’re skills that I want them to have. So, no, I haven’t felt always terribly brave through all this situation and all the circumstances that are roiling right now in our world, but I know how to be brave for my kids.
And you do too. This is not something that I just got, you know, how to do it too. You know, that’s one of the things, it was so interesting and that taught me Meadows experience because my dad was always very brave for us. And so even though I misinterpreted at times when his emotions, when he’s out frustrated in the middle of the night, in the campsite, trying to drag all this stuff out of the tent with chunks all over it, even though I can misunderstand it and everything else, what I always knew was that my dad could be brave for me.
I always knew my mom could be brave for me. So I want to encourage you. You can be brave for your kids. You can do it, you navigate things all the time that you’re courageous for them. And I know that this season feels like a lot. I know it feels very weighty, but that just means that your brave muscle can be even stronger.
And when you are brave for your kids, guess what? It makes you brave. Brave is a practice, not just something that’s bestowed. The more we practice being brave than where we practice being brave in our honesty than where we practice being brave in naming what our emotions are. The more we are brave when it comes to being realistic about what the environment is and how things don’t always go as planned.
The more we are brave, the braver we get and the braver we get. The more, our kids are going to feel confident and safe with us, even in the midst of really, really crazy times. You know, my mother in law, who I just adored Linda Carr, she always said, when things are going sideways, we’re making memories. And there were times that I got real tired of her saying that because something would really, really go down in a way that was not what I had wanted, but she was right.
Those are some of the things I think about that are some of the biggest memories we made as a family, as an extended family. And even look at my camping experience and Tony Meadows. I mean, definitely we made, it was a story that my brothers and my parents and I talked about so often replaying it over and over.
My dad ripping his way out of that tent in his underwear, in the frigid air outside, we did. Make a memory and that’s the case with what’s happening right now. There are serious circumstances. Obviously there are serious threats. There are things that we need to be very aware of things that we really want to talk through.
And at the end of the day, this is a year. This is an experience in which we will carry many, many memories with our children. And I want to encourage you that one of the memories you want your kids to carry forward is that you lead them well in this, the time that you showed them, how to be honest with feelings, how to be thoughtful and wise in the processing of those that we embrace.
Well, what is, and we engineer and Visionaire, what can be and what can be good, because at the end of it, You are making memories with your kids and you want to lead out those memories in ways that are staining to them as they continue to grow. And then in later years when they launch from your home into their own lives.
All right, you can do it moms. I know you can. I want to encourage you to go to the show notes. Our content coordinator, Rebecca puts those together each and every week. A big shout out to Donna Totey. She’s our producer, and she works tirelessly to make sure that all this gets together in the way that it is supposed to each and every week so that she can listen and join and be sure and check out allmomdoes.com and allmomdoes on the socials. You’ll find an amazing community there. A network of moms walking through life, just like you navigating the same kinds of things. So be sure and check out allmomdoes. And I would love to connect with you too on all the socials. I am Julie Lyles Carr in the places and hey, would you do me a favor?
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I’ll see you next time on the allmomdoes Podcast.
