#171 Force Your Kids to Finish? Or Let Them Quit? Our Surprising Answer

Rachel Denning (00:11.214)
Hey you guys, are you ready for this? Today we are discussing something that is crucially important to raising healthy, well -adjusted kids. As parents, we want to teach our children to not be quitters, to follow through, to have grit, to have perseverance. But in this episode, we lay out some arguments which show that the way many parents are trying to accomplish these goals is actually having the opposite effect.

When we make a six -year -old take a dance class even though she hates it, but we don't want her to be a quitter, what we're actually doing is engendering resentment. And she's not learning the lesson we're trying to teach. But don't worry, we have got some specific strategies for getting those outcomes that you want. But you might be surprised that they're not what you expected. Listen now to learn what they are. If you haven't already, make sure you get our must -read book recommendation list for creating an extraordinary family life.

We have books on parenting, marriage, health, finances, and lifestyle design. Plus, get a free ebook that will change your life, The Majesty of Calmness. Go to ExtraordinaryFamilyLife .com to get yours. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Today we're gonna dive into a really solid question about whether you should, what, force or even encourage your kids to finish.

something they start or allow them to quit or allow them to quit, right? And so it, it, it's an interesting question and an important one because we're talking about, well, ideally, and ultimately we're talking about the outcome of a child's life, how they become as youth and then young adults and then adults. And so there's a lot at stake here and it's a significant question. And if you have a full range of kids and every kid's different, then you get

You know, kids into sports, kids into music, kids into projects, whatever it is. And the question is, do you let them quit? Do you let them dabble? Do you let them try? Do you insist that they finish thing? And if you do, when and how? And I think along with that, we're also gonna touch on another question I received, which has to do with, how do you have a life?

Rachel Denning (02:34.765)
if your kids are doing all of these things, you know, a mom messaged me saying, my daughter wants to do gymnastics. She's only six, but as she gets older, it's like a 20 to 30 hour a week commitment. And she's heard from other moms, they can't even plan a vacation, they can't go anywhere. And I have heard this before from other moms who have messaged us, like, we can't go on a trip, we can't travel anywhere because my daughter's gymnastics or whatever it is, fill in the blank, owns our life.

So, and that, oh man, that you really got to start thinking there. And that's very true. And in fact, we have close friends that are like that. We have clients that are like that. We, many, many families are like their, their whole life schedule and lifestyle revolves around certain things like their kids, sports, school, whatever. And I mean, right out the gates, you guys, I want to invite you in fact, even here, be so bold as to challenge you.

question all of that like fundamentally question all of that because if you for example let's say you have three or four kids and one or two your kids gets into something that's pretty serious ultimately for years your lifestyle will revolve around that thing and so that will be your family life and lifestyle the bulk of it there'll be so much that you do and do not do perhaps cannot do because of those things.

And so you have to honestly ask yourself, and this is tough. This is, this is a hard one to go through. You have to really know, is this worth it? Right. Is it worth the exchange rate? Right. And for us, for our individual family, we looked at like, again, this whole thing is about having an extraordinary family life. And there were many times like, yeah, we could do that, but the exchange rate on that, the cost.

to family life would be too great. I can see an exception maybe if a child like really truly is a prodigy and a master, whether it's chess or championship sports. And this brings up another interesting topic related to this and that.

Rachel Denning (05:02.445)
Like you were saying, ultimately you're trying to create an extraordinary family life and if the entire family life revolves around the activities of one person in the family, then that's not really a balanced family life. And I would like to argue this point too, in a lot of cases, even if there's this prodigy type child or talent or whatever,

It takes so much to develop that, so much time, so much energy, so much emotion. And very often in the end when it's all said and done, it's not worth it. I'm thinking specifically of like Tiger Woods. I listened to, if you have not listened to or read the book Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday, he lays out Tiger Woods' story. And his dad from the time he was four,

invested all this time and energy into teaching him golf. He was good at it. He played it very well and he became like one of the best in the world at golf but what he had to pay for that mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually was not worth it in my mind. I mean it essentially ruined his life, ruined his marriage, ruined his psychology. He was messed in the head and

Not that that's always going to happen, but I feel like very often in those extreme cases of extreme success, there's been a huge price to pay to get there. Well, and at what point, again, the evaluation here is, are you trading your life for that thing? And it seemed from, again, I don't know, Tiger, so, but from the outside and things that have been kind of come out.

he traded so much of his life and lifestyle for that. And yeah, he was super famous. He was one of the best in the world and he made hundreds of millions of dollars, but at what cost? And I think that's an excellent point. We have friends and family and who, you know, they thought they just loved this thing and they just, they literally sacrificed years and parents do this. Parents handle with their lives. They're no longer individuals. They have no identity.

Rachel Denning (07:24.173)
They have no life. They have nothing because what they do is they just sacrifice everything to run around their kids to all their activities. Like that's not a life. It's definitely not a family life. And there may be a case where you're like, okay, yeah, I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to hand over my life for a few years or several years for this child to pursue this thing. Man, you better know 100 % that it's worth it. Which in so many cases,

after time. There's no way of knowing. Well there's no way of knowing but in the majority of cases I can think of like after a few years you get to the end and like yeah it wasn't wasn't what we thought it was gonna be. Or it didn't go where we wanted it to go. We thought it was so important just because it's the law of proximity right when you're in it it feels so significant once you step out of it you're like oh yeah that was interesting. So there's a lot to balance there. Right. The other thing I was gonna point out here that you touched on was

parents end up sacrificing their life in order for their children to help their children pursue this dream or this ideal that they're chasing which may or may not turn out as they hoped. The child could get tired of this thing after so many years and yet you've invested all this energy and time and money and you don't want them to give up. Give it up. But the other side of that is and this is the approach we've always taken I feel is that this is our life.

We're living our life, like you and me. We're the adults. We're creating our dream life. And our children are along for the ride. Now that doesn't mean we totally neglect or ignore their interests, passions, desires. But for the most part, and we explain this to them in a kind way, a diplomatic way, that this is our dream life. You get to create whatever life you dream of doing, but we're not going to give up our dream.

in order to pursue yours. Does that make sense? Yeah, but it sounds selfish. Yeah. And it sounds short -sighted. It sounds like we care about us more than we care about our kids. And so that brings up this argument. I hope those of you listening are sensing that and feeling that, and I hope you're thinking through it. And my invitation here is don't just do a knee -jerk reaction to it. Really think through it. Where's that balance?

Rachel Denning (09:53.517)
Because I guess we've introduced two extremes now. Although I don't know that ours is an extreme to the far side. I guess on one far extreme, parents and the rest of the family have no life because they're pursuing something for one child or two or whatever. The other far extreme is the parents only care about themselves and they have no interest. So where do you... Which is, yeah, not where we're at. Yeah, we're not there. But where do you land?

Where do you want to be? How do you want your extraordinary family life to look? Rachel and I have been extremely thoughtful and deliberate intentional about this. We talked about it. Man, we talked about when we were dating. Before we engaged, we were having conversations like this. And as we've studied voraciously, met.

Thousands of families across our travels who are doing life differently. We've learned from from all of them and we've been Considerate and like okay. Well What do we want this to look like where is that balance where you and I still have a life you have a life as an individual I have a life as an individual. We have a life as a couple and we have a life as a family and We all feel like we're living now, of course Parenting is sacrifice. Yeah, right?

And of course, being a sibling in a family also includes sacrifice. Each kid has to sacrifice for the others. And we've done tons of that. We're like, hey, we're gonna go to this place or have this experience because one of the kids wanted and needed that. And so we tell the others, hey, are you willing to join in for this child to have this experience? And they've almost always been on board, even if they didn't like it as much, because we do it back for them as well. But I don't think at any point we're like,

Okay, put family life on hold for years. Yeah, definitely not for years. We've rarely done anything for years. Right. No, that's not entirely true. And some may be critical of us for that. Like, well, if you guys had stayed with something specifically for years, there may have been different outcomes. Absolutely. We can't argue with that. And we realize there would have been different outcomes. But part of the reason that one, we've chosen to...

Rachel Denning (12:17.133)
approach it the way we have, meaning that we say, hey kids, this is our dream life and not yours, is that we're modeling for them how to live and create their own dreams. And they're gonna do that primarily in their adult life. Like, we personally don't feel there's a rush for them to have achieved their entire dream life by the time they're 18. Like, that's not a necessity. We're looking for long -term...

lasting happiness and fulfillment. So we're preparing them, we're setting them up for that long -term success by one, teaching them and showing them and allowing them to dabble in their passions, which we're gonna talk about more, be introduced to a lot of things, a lot of potential passions, talents, pursuits. But two, instead of,

putting all of our energy and effort into them fulfilling that thing, we're putting our energy and effort into us fulfilling our thing, us doing our passions, talents, interests, because that's how we model it for them to do it when they are ready to do it. Absolutely. Now, to not be misunderstood, if there's new listeners here that don't know our family well, or people are like, what, you guys are selfish buggers. The way we do our family life is, and again, I want to ...

We spend tens of thousands of dollars probably per kid, ultimately, so that they can try and pursue all kinds of things from sports to music to adventures, anything from stunts, equipment, whatever it is. We're hiring tutors to come to the house often wherever we are in the world. We land somewhere and we hire tutors. We get coaches and teachers and...

We're doing all those things, so when we talk about living our dream life, that actually is our dream life, too. You have this extraordinary family life where the whole family is thriving and growing and really living deliberately, and each child is doing that as part of our dream life. And so it's happening all together. I just, I wanna make that evident. But it is in contrast to, you know,

Rachel Denning (14:37.965)
we don't choose to live in just one place for an extended period of years because a certain child wants to play a sport or do this or that. In fact, there's certain things we haven't done because that's not an option. You know, we've had a son asked to play rugby and we're like, well, that involves committing to a team and being there for a whole season. And like, it just hasn't worked out logistically with our life. Well, although our daughter is playing volleyball right now, it's worked out for her to play on a volleyball team.

But that hasn't always been an option because it doesn't fit into our lifestyle. And we talk through that with all the kids. Oh yeah, totally. We're having those conversations all the time because whatever lifestyle you choose, there's going to be pros and cons. Yeah, and we say, you know, that could be an option, but we'd have to stay here for a period of time and we'd not be able to go here or do this. So there's always a trade -off and we're making them aware of what that trade -off is. Now,

to kind of get into some of the, I don't know, logistics of how we do approach this, one of the things I would say is that going back to this idea of we're not trying to make sure our children become the ultimate, achieve the ultimate success by the time they're 18 or whatever, what we're trying to do is introduce them to as many different interests as possible.

So if they have an interest in something, if they express an interest in something, great, we're gonna invest in that. We're gonna say, yeah, here you go, try it out, do it. And then this gets into what we also wanna touch on is like, well then, what about quitting it or making them stick with it and forcing them to complete it? And I would say our approach is - Can I jump in? Yeah, go ahead. Oh, I'm jumping right there. I've talked to many parents who are like, why don't -

I have this particular kid doesn't wanna do anything, doesn't do anything, and they're not interested in anything, but they don't wanna do anything, or they're only interested in things that we don't think are very valuable. What's been my experience with so many youth and Soi families is that kids do have interests, and they do express interest, but we as parents, it's almost like we have to turn up our listening volume. We have to be really attentive.

Rachel Denning (16:58.445)
to the things they express interest in and you have to be looking for it. So you're talking about kids who don't seem to be interested in anything? Yeah, that comes up a lot and it's happening more and more. Especially more sedentary lifestyles where we have more screen time, more games, more TV. There's more entertainment available now than ever before. Sometimes it requires just turning that off. Right, and leaving off. Just turning off the screens, turning off the TV and allowing them to get bored. So then they start...

wanting to look for something they might be interested in because they're so bored out of their mind. Yes, and that's where you want to use boredom to your advantage. So I'm reading, I try to read every night to our kids and we just finished with the little ones reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and he has the Oompa Loompas sing this little song and it's a poem that he wrote about turning off the television and how they kick and scream and fight when you turn it off and just get rid of that blasted thing and

and they'll freak out and the parents say, well, there's nothing for them to do. What will they do without the TV? And he says, just wait a few days. They'll come back to normal and want to do wonderful things like play outside and go have adventures and read books. And he's spot on. So that's where you use boredom. So if there's a video game or TV or entertainment or screens that are kind of overwhelmingly.

drawing the kid away from activities and other things you want to be involved in and that they would actually want to be involved in. Yeah, there's going to be a time where you really have to cut that back or cut it out completely. Let the boredom sit in and then life comes back after a little bit. It's almost like a detox and it does come back. But I want to invite all of you to start listening very, very carefully.

the things your children say and they might say it in passing. If you were to sit them down and say what are you interested in? I don't know, I don't know nothing. They might not come up with it but if you're paying attention, if you're looking for it, if you're listening for it, they'll say things like can I just go do that? Can we go do this thing? Let's do that and you're like no no we can't do that. And what they're doing is they're without

Rachel Denning (19:07.853)
like explicitly telling you and without you really hearing it, they're telling you what they're interested in. I'm interested in this. In fact, that is something we have been very deliberate about. My kids can just mention the slightest thing in passing and I'll be like, oh, do you want to take a class on that? Do you want to sign up for that? Do you want to? Or I'll, you know, I don't know if it's available. I look it up. I do a bunch of research on it. And I'm like, hey, I found this class that does this. So we jump all over that when they mention anything.

But that, gosh, I don't know how to emphasize this enough. I think that's been the huge secret ingredient in our life philosophy and our kids like exploring all kinds of opportunities and interests and developing all kinds of talents is they would say something in passing or watch a video and be like, oh, that's interesting. Oh, look at this. Cool. And I'm like, Hey, you could do that. Yeah. What? Take a class. Yeah. Let's, let's find somebody. Let's, let's, let's go find a place, a club, a teacher, a group. Let's go try that. Right.

But the other side of that is our kids know that they're free to go take a class or even a few classes without feeling that they're locked in for life. And I think sometimes that's what happens. Parents are so afraid of their kids being quote quitters that they, well first of all, they're hesitant to spend the money on things. That's where I was gonna go. That's the other big thing. That's a big problem. They're hesitant to spend the money on that, which we'll talk about in a minute.

And then if they feel like they're gonna spend the money on it, then their kid is gonna do it and they're not gonna quit. And that's a big mistake. Well, but let's kinda articulate it here. It makes sense. Nobody wants to raise quitters. And there's this legitimate fear of like, I don't want my kid to be that kid that just quits everything, starts all kinds of stuff, never finishes. And there's validity to that argument, right? Nobody wants...

to be or raise children that just don't finish things, that you can't follow through. We all want kids that follow through and kids that don't quit. And there's validity in that concern, argument, but there's a real danger there. Well, there's a problem because what we really want is we want our kids to be able to commit to something and follow through. But the reality is you can't commit to everything.

Rachel Denning (21:31.757)
And if your only option is to commit to the very first thing you pick, like that's a lot of pressure. How are you going to pick something that you're ready to commit to for the rest of your life? Like, okay. Even longer term thing. See, when you really back out, asking anyone under the age of 25 to deeply commit to something, it's kind of silly. Yeah. Because if, when you understand brain development and cause you might be like, look,

You're eight now, son. It's time you start following through with things. You're like, what are you talking about? You may not even say that to an 18 year old. Because, and again, we get the whole failure to launch thing. We get the whole teenage thing and that, you know, youth used to go around 12 or 13 from right from that childhood into adulthood and take on responsibility. We get all that. What I'm saying is brain development and real cognitive understanding and perspective about life.

Like your brain's not even fully developed until 25. So asking a youth or a teen or a child to commit and follow through is unrealistic. Yeah, it's unrealistic and actually kind of foolish. And I think ultimately it is damaging because back to this approach that we've taken, our kids have the freedom first of all to express interest and for us to...

to follow up with those interests and offer opportunities, but secondly, to know that there's no pressure. If they do it and they decide that they really don't like it, okay, fine, not a problem. Now, something else we did talk about, which it's hard to mention here. Can you hold that thought and I'll lose it? I can just sense some of you, well, I want my kid to be able to handle pressure. Yeah, me too. And in fact,

My kids are phenomenal at handling pressure, but it's because they choose it. Yes. And it comes at the right time for the right reason. They don't resent it. And the right maturity level, which is different for each child. Exactly. And if you try to force pressure early on because you want your kids to handle pressure, you actually create the opposite effect. Which is exactly. You raise kids who can't handle pressure. Yeah. And this exactly ties into the story from Stillness is the Key about Tiger Woods.

Rachel Denning (23:54.413)
His dad wanted him to be able to handle pressure so that when he was playing golf, he could be able to hit it no matter what. All it did was psychologically mess with him. He was literally psychologically damaged because of the way his dad tried to teach him to handle, force him to handle pressure. Back to what I was gonna say. Crap.

I literally just had it and now it's gone. It'll come up.

for it. Okay, it'll come back. So as you're introducing them to new things and you're allowing them to try things, there's no pressure is where you're going with that, that we, our kids know they can jump into something, we will pay for it and we're not gonna guilt trip and be like, we paid money for that. That's one of those big concerns I wanna emphasize is parents, they think man, if I'm paying for this class, you are gonna.

finish. You better be good at it. Yeah, we're not wasting any money. Are you kidding me? Like raising kids is like just tossing money to the wind. That's what it is. First is diapers and then it's food. It's gone. Right. And it's just that's just raising kids. So I didn't remember. I didn't want to interrupt you though. But what I was I wanted to say was that I do want to point out that there comes a time when

they've been doing an activity or something and naturally it's going to become challenging. Like anything you do, it doesn't matter what it is, you're gonna get to a point where it becomes a challenge. At first it might be fun, but eventually you're gonna face the challenges. And so we're not saying that when you face the challenges that if they wanna quit, great, yeah, go ahead, quit. That is when we have the conversation with them. Like, okay, you enjoyed this thing, now it's hard.

Rachel Denning (25:54.573)
Are you wanting to give it up because it's hard? Because guess what? Anything you choose to do in life is gonna be hard. Or are you giving it up because you don't really love it as much as you thought you did and it's not worth it to you to put in all the effort to do this thing because you don't love it as much as you thought. And that happens with everyone. Adults have to do that every single day. We have to decide.

Because everything we want is going to require our effort. But there's some things that just aren't worth it to us in order for us to put that effort in. That's just normal. So every one of us are going to face that and sometimes we are going to decide that, yeah, you know what, this thing is great. To me, it's not worth the effort required to achieve that outcome. It's just not worth it to me. Ooh, so good. I got two thoughts on you. Yeah.

One, if you take the word passion, the etymology of the word passion means to sacrifice for. So if you're passionate about something, it's you're willing to sacrifice for it. You have to be willing to pay that price, right? I love that though, because you're saying you're willing to do it. It goes back to that you opt in. You choose to sacrifice for it because you're passionate about it. Yep. And the second piece, I want to come back to that, but the second piece so I don't forget it is that...

Some people, particularly parents, they commit, stick to it, follow through, we're gonna see this to the end arbitrarily, even way beyond like, I don't really enjoy it anymore, I don't like it anymore, I don't see the value to it anymore, but doggone it, we started this and we're gonna finish it. And like, whoa, there's more waste of life, there's more resentment, even self resentment, right? You self...

Detest I guess self -detest yourself self -detest yourself

Rachel Denning (27:58.189)
Inside because you're like well finishing this thing because I'm a finisher and you're like really there's there's genuinely like you don't find value in this anymore Just stop which in some ways is the form of self -sabotage. Honestly, you're you're making your life more miserable because you have some sort of Warped idea finisher about finishing things even I meet with great men successful men who persist in a job they

hate in a career that is miserable. And why? Because I started it. I'm gonna finish. And I'm like, okay, there's, yeah, there's, there's a virtue in being a finisher. But at some point that becomes a vice and it's, it's no longer a virtue. In fact, it becomes like an anti -virtue when you are trying to finish things that aren't worth finishing. Yeah.

Right. So circling back to the passion thing, we want our children to discover true passions that they are willing to sacrifice for. They're willing. And this is how we love to describe it. We've always looked at this. They're willing to push past the uncomfortable parts. Now, where this conversation gets really important and really interesting is at what age and what maturity level. And it's different for each child. I've noticed it's different, very different between boys and girls.

But it's different in the thing they're willing to follow. And so you have to allow them to choose and think through it and work through it. But trying to get small children, I mean six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 even, and trying to push hard at those ages, like for me and our philosophy, I mean, each family has to decide. But for us, like that's crazy.

Let them dabble, let them have fun, let them discover, let them try a hundred different things. Life is this big experiment and just try and try and try and try and try and go all over the place and get exposure and interest and do all this consistent. You're not just letting them off a hook and you're not just saying, oh, it's hard, okay, quit. You're talking through it. Like, is this worth pushing past the pain? Is it worth pushing past the discomfort? Is it worth the inconveniences?

Rachel Denning (30:24.269)
worth getting up early? Is it worth working hard? Is it worth putting up with those people? And you talk them through it and if they say, yeah, I sure love it, it's just hard. Okay, we got this, I'll help you, we can work through it. But there's no way I'm pushing a kid because it fosters and feeds long -term resentment and bitterness and just this.

bitter taste in the mouth aftertaste of like ugh. Well right and you were saying something like you know this is what works for us and everyone has to decide for themselves which is true but honestly from what I have seen in not just our own family life but research we've done and what we've studied honestly I think it just is extremely rare that that ever pays off in a way that's beneficial all around for everyone involved. The child, the parent, the family.

Like it's just extremely rare that that pushing and that drive is going to be worth it.

I might be crazy you guys, but I think I have a sense. Roll with me here. I think I have a sense of what listeners might be thinking sometimes when we say stuff. Sometimes I just get this sense, I'm like, okay, what they're saying is like, no, but we did it. We pushed our kids and our daughter became the champion this and our son, he did this and that and oh great. And they're arguing like, but we pushed him and we made him do it. And here's where I wanna come in with.

with my experience. I get to work, I've worked with youth and adults for well over two decades. I get to sit down and hear from their own lips the inner workings of their psychology and their emotions and their spirit and their soul. And yes, they may have won. And yes, they may have achieved. And yes, they may have stuck it out to the end. But so many of them...

Rachel Denning (32:22.989)
are wound up so tight and they crack and they snap and it often doesn't show up until late teens early 20s or into their career they literally just snap they break in half they're wound so tight everything comes loose and then they come to meet with me and I'm like happen they're like well I've been pushing hard and my parents been pushing me hard since I was little and I just reached a breaking point.

And so me as a, you know, working in, in this as a coach, as a mentor and seeing the psychology of it all, I'm like, Ooh, okay. That sheds different light on when to push and how to push. And really any pushing from a parent should be gentle encouragement and getting the child to choose the challenge.

but ultimately sincerely knowing that if they opt out, you're okay with that. And they need to know that. They need to know that. It can't be this like, you know, it's up to you son, but you know, if you, if you will disown you, if you don't quit or you'll be a, a, an embarrassment to our family. And here's what's interesting. If your child knows sincerely that it's okay, they'll often stick it out. Absolutely.

And I want to point out here too, this approach changes as they mature. As they get older, say they're 18, 19, 20, yeah, there's a time when you just say, you know what, dude, just finish it because it sucks, but you got to do it anyways. And don't quit. There comes a time for that. Absolutely. And by then you've mentored them, you've led by example, you've shown them the way you've...

You've strategically created experiences that have built those, we'll call them finishing muscles. Yeah. And it's often like we, we love to use nature to do that, where we'll go out and we'll do something fun. We'll snowboarding, hiking, mountain biking, big adventures. And they are so excited about the adventure. They're willing to endure any suffering that comes to get there or back.

Rachel Denning (34:46.317)
And this has happened countless times. We have so many stories of this where we're like, you guys, we're gonna go do something really truly epic. And they're like, we're in. I'm like, hey, it's gonna be crazy hard. We got these 30 hour flights. We're stuck in this random place somewhere, no sleep. Then we have to walk here and then we have to ride. I'm just thinking of our trip to Mongolia. Like.

the flight there and the time zones that laying on, we all passed out cold on the tile floor in the airport in Seoul. After walking around the whole city, it was pretty epic. And we get there in exhaustion, airplane lands at 2 .30 in the morning. We go to these places, we're stuck at this Circle K in - They have Circle Ks in Mongolia. In Ulaanbaatar. Like, oh, it was unreal. And then we drove on the bumpiest roads I've ever been on, like over volcanic -

volcano fields, right? And then we get on these horses and they have wooden saddles and we ride for days. We were all sitting sideways, letting our butts hang in the air off the saddle because we were all so sore and everybody was smiling and laughing like this is the best ever. And none of us could sit, right? And this just utter exhaustion. And then on the way back, hey guys, we have a chance to see the Forbidden City. We have a chance to run on the Great Wall of China.

but we land at like 2 .30 a .m. in Beijing. Are you guys up for this? Yeah, of course we are. And we just, we suffer together and think of Iceland and I think of taking them up to the base camp of Everest and whatever. I mean, we can go on and on and on. We've set up situations where they were willing to push themselves for the rewarding experience and they all learned grit and they still talk about it and they come away like, oh man, that was so hard but it was worth every bit of it.

That's how you know you're winning in forging character inside your youth and children that will come out as adults. So now if you guys were to meet our teens, like they can dig deep and they can do hard, hard things. And it's never been because we've made them do it. We made them finish their dance class when they were six. No way. We never did it. And it was by choice.

Rachel Denning (37:09.933)
But it wasn't that we just never did it and said, well, hope you figure that out. Hope you learn how to finish things later in life. It was never that. We were strategic about how we did it and what we led them into. And again, I want to emphasize this, making it optional. They've always been able to opt in or to opt out. And I think that plays a huge, that's a major factor there. Because when it becomes this,

We've said it a couple times now, but I'm going to say it again. When it becomes this thing you force them to do because you're afraid they're going to be a quitter, well, they're not making that choice then. You're making the choice. Yeah. And that makes a huge difference. When you're making the choice, it's not them deciding to not be a quitter. It's you forcing them to not quit. That is so significant. It's hugely significant.

distinction there. You think, so if you force your kid to finish, you think they're learning to finish. They're not. What's happened is you have, you decided and you made them finish. And honestly, they probably resent you for it. Most likely. That's human psychology. They haven't gone like, yeah, I'm a finisher. No. They're like, ooh. I did, it made me finish. It made me do this. And so you don't get...

result you want. So if we get them to choose in, opt in. I think the perfect example of this, I love to share this example because it just clicked for me one time, we loved going out like paintballing or you know adventures that are hard or even painful. So paintballing is a perfect example. It's like it's so fun but man it stinks. You know it's gonna hurt. And so we kept offering to our my fourth son, hey you want to come with us? No way that hurts. And he's kept no way, no way, no way and then one day he's like

I want to, and we'd come back, oh, it was amazing, and stories, and you could just see the envy on his face, and he's just, he's wrestling, and this is perfect, this is why you want to happen. You have the child wrestling, they want so desperately to play with the big dogs, but they know if they step off the porch, there's gonna be some hurt, right? And at some point, you could see him just working through his mind. I want it, but I don't want it. I want it, but I don't know, it's not worth the pain. I want to be there so bad, but man, that's gonna sting. And then one point,

Rachel Denning (39:33.133)
You know, as he got older, he's like, okay, I'm in. I'm like, Hey, it's going to hurt. He's like, okay, it's worth it to me. And it just clicked for me. Like, I was like, that's it. Yes. That's it. When the child says, yes, the experience, the memory, the funny adventure is worth the pain or the risk of pain. I'm in. Then you know, you've reached this level in their development where they're like, yeah, I'm opting in here. And you guys, he loved it. In fact, he probably loves it more than the rest now.

And he just can't get enough of it. Well, and you say as he got older, I mean, he's only 11 now, so he's not that old. And the other thing too is that that then gave him the courage to take on other adventures. So then he, of his own free will and choice, decided to go bungee jumping and to go skydiving. It's worth sharing that story briefly because he did not sign up to either bungee jump or skydive. He was there with us watching.

His older siblings were like, hey, this is what we're going to do for our birthday. It was Kimball's birthday. They're like, we want to go bungee jumping and skydiving. And so they signed up. I paid for them. And he stood there watching. And they all went. And he looked at me and he's like, I want to do it. And it was another perfect example. He was terrifying. It's worth the fear to just leap off of that platform into the abyss and bungee jump. And he did it. He was terrified. He got so much confidence.

Then the next day we went skydiving and he had no intentions of skydiving. He had no intention of getting in an airplane. But he watched his siblings and his mom jump and he and I were on the ground watching and they were coming down like, that was the best thing ever. And he just looks up at me and he's like, dad, I want to jump. I'm like, done buddy, let's go. So he and I signed up and he went and he jumped out of an airplane at 10 years old at the time. Whoa, because.

We're out leading the way. And this is where this might backfire and fail. If you as a parent aren't living, playing boldly, and really pursuing. Like we were saying before, pursuing your dream, living your dream life, going back to the approach we've always taken, we're living our dream life. If you want to come along, this is what it requires. And they do. Right. And because...

Rachel Denning (41:47.885)
We're living, they're seeing us struggle and work through it and go through the whole thing. And face our fears. They see the excitement and the wonder of it because we really are living our dream life. And it shows. We're not putting on this facade. Rachel and I aren't wearing masks around the house of like, this is our happy life. Yay. It's like, it's evident that we love our life and we are actively living life and pursuing our dreams.

And our kids are like, I want a piece of that. And so we're offering them their journey, right? So they're having their own epic adventures and they're all participating in their own little extraordinary life inside of our whole family extraordinary life. And so it just works. And then each kid opts in when they're ready. When they're ready, exactly. Well, I wanted to touch on something else though that has to do with the money. There was a key point here because...

You know, we mentioned it before, but there's also this idea that you have to be willing to invest in them when they're ready. Because if our son said to us, oh, I'm ready, I want to skydive, and we're like, yeah, sorry, son, you know, it wasn't in the budget, we're not going to pay for that right now, then you've missed a chance. You've missed an opportunity to spark that flame right there. In that instance, a life.

literally life -altering experience. Absolutely. That you know it costs us an extra maybe 350 bucks or something like that. Jump all over that. You have to be ready and willing to throw down the cash when they express an interest. And we're so afraid to do that because we feel it's gonna be a waste or not worth it but time and time again. Sometimes it will be. Sometimes it is.

But more often than not, I think it's been worth it. It's been worth the investment. And the reason why we need to emphasize this, because I know we've talked about it before, but I just want to emphasize it again, you're going to pay for it one way or the other. You're going to pay for your children when they fail, or you're going to prevent their failure by investing in them now, investing in ways like that. And which of those two is more risky? And more costly. And more costly?

Rachel Denning (44:13.165)
I guarantee the riskier, more expensive is trying to get recovery, trying to help them after an epic fail when their lives have fallen apart because those recovery programs don't always work. And then you and they have been drug through hell. So, and we've seen it time and time again. So the time and money to help develop and cultivate and build your children in their extraordinary lives.

And don't just cross your fingers and hope it works out and don't... All the while saying, no, we can't afford that. No, we're not going to pay for that. No, we're not going to do that. And, you know, adding on to the story with the son, you know, because he had those experiences, you then came to him and it's like, hey, we have this opportunity to participate in this father -son activity. Okay, this is like a big deal father -son activity. Like a retreat. Hardcore. Hardcore. They're going to do... And I told him, I said, hey, son, we're going to suffer.

together. I'm like, here are some of the things that are likely to happen. You're going to be sitting in ice baths. We will literally get in tubs of ice and see how long we can stay. And he looked up at me and like almost trembled. Well, no, at first he was like, no. Nah, man, I'm out. Yeah. And I was like, okay, it's okay. Like, and I made it okay. It's totally, if you're not ready for it, totally okay. And then he came to me and he's like, okay, dad, I'll do it. Yes. Oh yes. He's ready. He's ready to push those limits. Now,

My older son is also coming and he just couldn't get enough of it. He's like, Oh, suffering. Where do I sign? Because we raised them to think like that. Right. And, and, and just those hard, tough things. So I don't think anyone would accuse my older kids of, of being intimidated by a challenge. And yet we've never forced them to finish their little things. We always were teaching and leading and showing by example.

So I guess big takeaway is lead by example. Live, which means live your dream life. Chase your challenges and your passions and make passion, meaning you're willing to sacrifice and they see you sacrifice and they see you sacrifice well. Yeah. If you are constantly throwing a whiny pity party,

Rachel Denning (46:36.973)
and you're just miserable and mopey and like, do you think your kids are going to want to chase any passions? Why would I do that? And if they look, go ahead. That doesn't mean that you don't let them see that it's hard. Right. It doesn't mean you put on this fake face of like, this is the best suffering. I love it. Like you're exactly right. See us go through the drudgery. There is drudgery of the dream life too. And they see us go through that. And we are modeling.

to get through that exactly I guess here's here's what I want to invite you to consider when your kids see you sacrifice and struggle do they think I want to do that it's worth and I'm dead serious like when they watch you do hard things and chase your dreams do they look at you and say I want to follow that example and which I

they generally are going to do when they see you get the results. The results that ultimately make it worth it. And how you handle struggle and challenge and sacrifice.

There's something else I want to add to this approach and formula, kind of. And that's that when the time is ready, when your kid is ready to get excited about something.

you can dive deep into the learning process. It's not like you have to have them go to gymnastics every week for, you know, 10 years for them to be good. If they're ready to do gymnastics, they can sign up and go take classes every day for, you know, a week or a month or whatever. Someone in this question, they asked, they were like, I noticed your daughter was, you know, good at silks. And one of the ways that she got good was,

Rachel Denning (48:31.565)
we had an opportunity where we were living for her to go and she went like three times a week. So we invested heavily. Yes. So then when we had the opportunity available and we've seen this so many times where, you know, kids will go once or twice or three times a week and they do it for years. Or what we've seen others do and we do is like if there's an opportunity and they're, they're excited, they're into it, they're passionate about it. There's an option. Okay.

Let's go four or five times a week. Let's go for longer practices. Let's pay for private lessons. Let's advance this all the way. In fact, even in our house, we have a house in Central America, we put up our own aerial silks stand and bought the aerial silks. So like it's there and the kids were playing on it and the little ones were learning about it. Like they're being modeled, you know, getting the model from their older sister and older brother doing it. But that's an excellent point. Like when they're ready and they're like, yeah, I'm go.

Give them the green light. Just open the flood gates. Get them to advance as quickly as they want to advance when they are ready to advance. And then they have the skill. They build confidence. And we will often will move on. We'll go to a new location and maybe that's not available again. But they have that as a skill and that builds this, I guess, self -esteem to think, you know what, I can dive in, I can learn something, I can gain the competency.

That's more powerful than even that skill itself. It's not like they need to be great at gymnastics. What they really need is to be great at learning and great at progressing and great at building skills and confidence and ability. Another good example of this is with our son who's going to be 18. He decided he was wanting to do stunts like stunt acting. Now he's taken parkour before, which actually has been helpful, but

same approach. And gymnastics and Krav Maga. And Ariel Silkes, he's done all of them. He's done all of it still. Yeah. But he decided he wanted to do this same approach. We have him just dive in and he's already, he had people telling him, he's like, wow, it took me so long to progress as far as you have. Cause he's already been able to do some stunt acting on a set for a show and get approved into, it's called SAG, the Stunt Act... Wait, Screen Actors Guild. He's already been able to progress.

Rachel Denning (50:51.885)
quickly in just a few months because when he was ready to do it, he just went all in. Which I was actually interested in thinking on the same line. I was thinking of examples of times where we moved to different locations, we dove in as a family, well, the older kids and I, into specific things. And within a few weeks or a few months, they were all at the top of the class. And they had surpassed kids who'd been going for years even.

because we've cultivated this ability of like, hey, when it's go time, we go all in. And they just progress so rapidly to become the best in that field very quickly. Which brings up another very important point because if you start your child when they're six doing something and then you make them go because you don't want them to be a quitter, they have a very different mentality than a child who is interested and chooses to go.

and is all in. And you see this all the time. Like you're currently coaching our daughter's volleyball team. And there is a huge difference between the girls who want to be there and the girls who are being forced to be there. Huge difference. Massive. And the progress, the skill development, the attitude, everything, the whole experience is vastly different. And so because we've always allowed our kids to choose what they're going to participate in when they do choose,

They're all in, 100%. And we can't stop them. They are begging us like all the time, Dad, come practice, come with me, take me here, take me to this, this. I mean, they're all over. You can't stop them instead of, it's usually the opposite way. It's the parent nagging, nagging, nagging, come on, come on, come on, come do it. Practice. Yeah, practice, do your thing. Whether it's piano or sports or whatever, but you want it to be the other way around where the kid is just can't get enough. They're begging you for more practice.

That is absolutely how it has been with this approach we've taken. It's always the other way around. They're the ones begging us to practice, to take them to the classes, to like, they're the instigator because they actually want to do it. And when they're there, their approach to learning is completely different because they're focused and engaged in the class instead of just disconnected. And they genuinely want to be good at it. Exactly.

Rachel Denning (53:16.653)
Oh, I love this. And that's where we want our kids, that's where we want to be. And that's where we want our kids to be. Where we live lives doing valuable, meaningful, fulfilling things because we want to, and we genuinely want to be good at it. And it fills us. Life is good. And that, my friends, is another key element to living extraordinary family life. We're tougher.