#231 Stop Lying to Your Kids — Speak ONLY Truth to Gain More Influence

Rachel Denning (00:11.278)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We are your host, Greg and Rachel Denning. We just got back from the magical...

land of Scotland. Specifically the Scottish Highlands. Yeah, it's been a couple of weeks since we've done an episode. Not just because we went to Scotland, but before that we did a youth retreat here in Portugal. Youth retreat, yeah. And you guys, it was awesome. So we had two weeks. So we hosted a retreat here at our house.

everyone paddle boarding, it was on the beach discussions. It was really powerful too. I mean, at least the feedback that we received was that it was pretty well light changing. In fact, I just got a message this morning from one of the dads. He's like, dude, let me know whenever you're doing anything else for youth. Not only am I sending my daughter to the WIMP, but I'm going to send my son to like we're sending them back. They're coming. Let me know. Which I am planning a couple more. Yep. Got some in the works. And then yeah, got other ones. We had some new people.

came and joined us and they were like what this is the best. At first they were like okay this is a little bit... what is this? You guys are crazy. I thought I was coming on like a vacation. My parents didn't really tell me what was happening but by the end yeah they... They're like we're in man this is awesome it's such a transformative experience so cool and so then then we led a trip for families to Scotland to the Scottish Highlands and it was legit. I keep using the word magical and and I think we were all

surprised how much we love it. It's one of our new favorite countries. The highlands, the beauty, the wonder, the waterfalls, the mountains, and the forests, and the... Castles. The heather all across the moor. And the... I guess you'd call them fjords up there, and then islands. The lochs is what they are. Yeah, well... They're like fjords. It was awesome. So, so fun. Again, and transformative as well. We have these great discussions. So, we don't... So, those of you guys who...

Rachel Denning (02:16.623)
might be new to us, we go out, we're not just going in like checking the boxes, doing a little tourist thing, like, oh that was cute, that was fun, whatever. Like we're intentional about having transformation, like how an experience can change us for the better. And we're facilitating these conversations and experiences that expose us.

to inspiration and challenge. So we challenge ourselves physically and mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, all of it, so that it just creates this openness and these adventures and these memories. And then we go home better people. I love it. Man.

It was so cool one morning, one evening, we all ran down and got in this river in Scotland, a little cold plunge. And there was a fisherman there looking at us like, you guys are out of your minds. And we all just bombed in this river. And then the next morning we went and got in the ocean. It was just perfectly still, like this picturesque bay.

with actually white sand beaches. I never would have thought that would happen in Scotland, but these white sand beaches, calm, glassy water. It was really cold, but we just went in there and that's how we started the day with a nice cold plunge in the ocean. Magic, man. Just magic. It was so, so fun. So anyways, super excited. Our trips are almost full for Kilimanjaro in February and Mongolia in July. So there's a couple of things.

spots and each of those if you guys are interested in bucket list life -changing experiences and adventures man come along come along for the adventure it's awesome but while we were there while we were traveling around there was our little six -year -old and then another little six -year -old from the wonderful family came with us and they got in this little debate awkward yeah it was really awkward because they got him to be about Santa Claus.

Rachel Denning (04:21.709)
and

So what it does like, we love this, Rachel and I love this because we have experiences, whether we're out with our kids or out just having an adventure experience, whatever, and it sparks an idea and it reminds us of things that we decided long ago or things we've tried or experimented with or changed. And then what it does is it sparks the conversation like, oh yeah. And so then it makes us want to share thoughts about it. And so their little conversation about Santa Claus, like it's like, oh, we should talk about that in a podcast. So that's why we're doing it.

Well, I think it's always interesting and this happens with traveling. It definitely happens when you travel with other people and this is one of the benefits although sometimes it can be like I said awkward or uncomfortable or whatever else is that you get exposed to new ideas, new places, new things, new concepts, new ways that people do things differently. That's true for us, that's true for the

other people coming, we're being exposed to each other. And I think a lot of times in life we try to avoid that. We try to avoid people that think differently than us or have different ideas or do things differently. But in traveling, you know, that's one of the benefits and it is really...

powerful when we can come in contact with those differing ideas or viewpoints and then use it to evaluate like where how did we come to those conclusions? Why do we think that way? And we do this all the time. We I mean we do it constantly. This was just another reminder of something we have done in the past and reminding us why we came to that viewpoint and you know how it's working and what benefit if any.

Rachel Denning (06:14.319)
it has and so we kind of just wanted to talk through it because it's again sparked a conversation for us and we want to that's what we like to do is have the conversations here on the podcast so we can share you know what we're thinking or learning and we've always always tried to be extremely respectful to other people's beliefs and traditions and ideas and and not contradict and we try to keep our kids Rachel was driving

the little ones were in the back so she couldn't intervene and mediate from debate. So I'm driving and this conversation comes up about Santa Claus now. If any of you know us, I think you know we've never taught our children to believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or anything like that. We'll come back to that. We're going to come back to this about why. We've always been very straightforward with our kids about what's real and what's not. Like what's true and what's just make believe. And you know we've taught our children to be respectful.

about that, but they also have not had a lot of exposure with people who, I guess, have differing beliefs in that way because, you know, we've been traveling in foreign countries, Muslims and other...

backgrounds and they haven't been to public school where you come in contact with people who believe in you know like believe in Santa Claus and you don't so I guess the point is like especially our youngest which this is who it happened with she hasn't talked to a lot of people that actually believe in Santa Claus and so but she's also a very strong personality like she came out of the womb that way she was she came out born knowing exactly what she wanted exactly how to get it and she's you know

She's always just had this very strong personality which we love and facilitate and encourage right and so she's very she's starting to get a little heated in this debate of no you're You're wrong Santa Claus is not real like it's your parents poor Rachel's driving on the left hand side in Scotland like trying to really focus left side left hand side of the road, you know, I'm trying to drive and

Rachel Denning (08:31.887)
And she's back here trying to, again, she's trying to stand up for what she knows is true. And I don't want to discourage that either, but at the same time, I don't want her to break this poor kid's little heart. And really, that's his parents' job to reveal that there's not a Santa Claus, right?

So, and I guess I bring that up because had we been next to him, we could have just intervened and diverted it and gone away and left it alone. But because nobody was back there to intervene, they just went after it. So anyways, it was awkward for Rachel to see him. She was like, oh, they're back there debating in the back about Cycle. I'm like, oh man, because I was driving the other van. But anyways, what it did is it sparked the idea that we want to talk through that really you and I started talking about, gosh, probably when we were even engaged, we were having these kinds of conversations, really thinking through the.

And I was extremely thoughtful about the kind of parent I wanted to be because of the situation I grew up in with with my parents getting divorced and stepdads coming and going and then I ended up living with other families and living in bad neighborhoods and Seeing all kinds of domestic disasters domestic dumpster fires And so I was very very thoughtful and then we're reading like crazy both of us were reading like crazy and so we started to shape our ideas and it really was this foundational piece of like

The most important work that you and I will ever do in our lives is in the walls of our own homes. It's our marriage and our parenting. And I genuinely believe that. There's just nothing more important than that. It is so profound, so powerful, it goes for generations. It's what shapes the earth. It's just these families. It's a man and a woman getting married, loving each other, serving each other, caring for each other, taking care of each other, and then raising the next generation, these children, to be thoughtful and considerate.

and have that influence. Now, parenting only works. I want to do an entire new course on this whole concept that parenting is a very specific skill set. It's an extremely specific skill set. And...

Rachel Denning (10:43.309)
It doesn't carry over. This has always been a conundrum for me. And for years I was just so confused. I'm like, why? Like I would know somebody well. I'm like, there's such a great businessman or she's such a great leader or teacher or man, he is so good with, with the people in his congregation or the people in the community, like whatever, whatever it is, like they were so good at it. And then,

I would observe like, oh man, they are not good at parenting. But first I didn't realize, I'm like, wait, why? How can you be a really good person and like credit parenting? Or how can you be a really good leader and not very good with your kids or a great speaker or teacher? And I realized, oh, it's a very, very specific skillset. Oh, and please don't misunderstand here. So we're not talking about the parenting of the family that's with us. We're like, don't confuse that. If any of you are thinking like, oh, this is a parenting criticism, it's not, I just brought up the topic.

So I get thinking through this and I mean we might compare it to a very specific skill. Maybe you are a phenomenal pianist. And you're like, oh my goodness, you have so much musical talent and ability. Here, play this cello. And he's like, like what's going on? Like you can read music, you're phenomenal on the piano, like just play this cello.

and it doesn't carry over or you might just be a phenomenal athlete, just tons of athleticism, a phenomenal basketball player or a runner. Like you're so great and we're like, hey, put on these rollerblades and you're falling all over the place or pick up this tennis racket and you hit the tennis ball out of the court. You're like, what's going on? Like you're such a great athlete. Why aren't you good at this? And it's because it's so specific. Right. And there's definitely crossover, like having athleticism or different

different, you know, being able to read music that definitely can cross over into these other areas, but there are still a specific set of skills you need to gain in order to become good at that specific thing. And so that's kind of the comparison you're trying to make here is you can be a great person, you can do great things, but to be great at parenting, there are specific skills you need to gain that are specifically related to parenting, which is why we can sometimes see these seeming incongruences of like, this is an amazing

Rachel Denning (13:10.863)
person, they're an amazing leader in their church or whatever, and yet their parenting sucks. Or their kids just don't seem to be quote -unquote turning out, right? And you're like, why? Well, often, more often than not, the reason is they haven't picked up those very specific skills of parenting. And strategies. So skills and strategies. So all of that was just a lead into today's topic. To one of the strategies that we picked up and have used.

you're ever going to succeed with parenting, you have to learn the skill of influence. And a major part of that, so we're like, we're zooming in here. So now it's a sub topic of influence and then a sub topic of getting your kids to believe and listen to, well, let me reverse that, to listen to and believe what you say. And to trust what you say. And trust what you say. So that's where we're going today. And the Santa Claus conversation,

was spark this like, oh yeah, we should talk about this. Like we should do a podcast on this, this one specific topic in parenting of getting to a place where your kids listen to you and believe you and trust you. Right. And we started on this early on, I think with, I, at least I did, I know you did too because of things, the way you grew up as well.

But man, I had extremely intense...

feelings about this, perspectives, opinions about this idea of being truthful in all ways and honest, no facades, no faking, because so much of what I saw, like I would see people were fake and phony. They would say one thing to one person and then I'd be standing there and then they'd say the exact opposite thing to someone else. And as a kid, I'm standing there like, are you kidding me? The doorbell rings, they open it up and they put,

Rachel Denning (15:11.599)
Hey, hi, oh yeah, whoa!

you know this big show close the door I'm like those what a total lie it was so bogus and and so I constantly saw these examples of the facade the mask the two -faced and then of course we've all seen it the gossiping the backbiting you treat someone to their face one way and then behind their back just say wretched things we've all observed that and man I just came to absolutely abhor that so I made a commitment

going into our marriage. Now, so Rachel, I'm like, okay, never, never ever, ever, ever am I going to like pull the wool over on my own kids or anyone else while my kids are observing. Like I'm just going to be me in public and private. What you see is what you get. I'm going to be across the board. This is what I'm going to be. I'm never going to lie to them. I'm never going to deceive them. I'm never going to water down things. I'm never going to like sugar coat stuff. I'm an

And we do this with kids all the time because we think they can't handle it or whatever. We make up these bogus stories like somebody, you know, something terrible happens in your neighborhood or in your church congregation or in your own family. And instead of telling your kids the truth about this individual's behaviors that led to those consequences, you make some story up about, oh, well, they're having this thing. There was this little stuff and you make up the story. That's not true. And so ultimately it leads to.

Well, okay, so basically we came into marriage with you had this idea this belief of being what we now call congruent. We wanted our outward public behavior to match up with our private behavior. Now,

Rachel Denning (17:04.013)
I would just as a disclaimer like I would say there's definitely things that's private behavior that is going to remain private behavior like it's just going to be that way. I'm never going to use the bathroom in public. Right. That's just something I would never do if I you know I wouldn't use the bathroom in public. We wouldn't make love in public. Those types of things like there's always going to be private behavior. So there are things that are always going to be private behavior and that's okay. You don't have you know some people think in the name of being authentic you have to like put everything out there like go take a dump.

in a public place. Right, or like for me, crying is something I do to my husband. I cry to him because he's someone who can help me with my problems. I'm not going to just cry on Instagram because these people can't help me. And to me, that's not being authentic. Being authentic isn't putting everything out there. It's putting out what's appropriate and what is true and honest, but also appropriate for public behavior type thing. So in that...

in that framework, we seek to be congruent as much as possible, right? We're going to have our private behavior be equal to our public behavior, except for when it's not appropriate. Yeah, this is maybe a different podcast. It's a little side tangent. Tangent, but sometimes we get confused. There are things that are private and should be private. Right.

But that's not an excuse to hide terrible vices and addictions. Like, well, it's my private, it's me personal. It's like, no, you're hiding something horrendous, especially any dishonesty for malicious behavior. People hide it all the time. And then their public persona is, oh, this, that, and the other thing's great. And you're like, no, man, you're a cesspool of problems. And then you're hiding all of that and saying, well, it's just my private life. Maybe that's a different topic. It can get.

be totally misused and misaligned. But there are some very few private things, but we wanted to be just congruent and completely honest because I wanted to have a massive... Appropriately honest. Appropriately honest. I wanted to have massive influence with my children and everyone. So I have to speak the truth because any instance, and this is where I think we're going, any instance of dishonesty...

Rachel Denning (19:33.485)
Deceit.

Rachel Denning (19:37.741)
incongruence.

watering down, it gets fuzzy, you feel like, anytime your children feel like any of that has happened, whether they cognitively process it or not, it's gonna create some neural connections that say, hey, they weren't straight with me. They weren't straight with me.

And even if that's subconscious, later on, if you do it when they're toddlers, when they're teens, there's just gonna be this warning in their brain saying, eh, not so sure.

I'm not sure if I can believe them because they've been dishonest or they've withheld the truth from me or they've done it to others in my presence. So if you, maybe you don't do it straight to your kids, but you do it with others and they see that, they're like, Hey, wait a minute. You said this about so -and -so. And then when they came over, you said something totally different. Like they could see that and they record it. It's recorded in them. Right. And they can't.

or put their finger on it, but it does become a part of this subconscious programming that then...

Rachel Denning (20:55.949)
plays out in the teenage rebellion that we see or the other issues that parents come to all the time with things and part of it, again, it's a very complicated thing but we know and we've seen through experience and through working with tons of people that a part of that is this underlying sense of distrust or unbelievably that your kids have picked up by...

realizing that you're not always playing straight with them. And that, you know, kids, people ask us all the time about our kids because we really have really great teenagers. We do. I mean, they're amazing. And one of the positive, the most amazing parts about it is that they still look to us as leaders for advice, guidance, like they want that. It's not...

We're in many teenage relationships.

They don't want to turn to their parents or young adults or adults. Yeah, as young adults. They start going away. They just discredit their parents, what they're saying, and they really pull away where our kids have not pulled away at all. They have actually done the opposite. In fact, our two oldest, especially as they've gone out on their own in the world and started working and doing other things and interacting, they come back to us saying, wow, like you guys really have it together. You really know what you're talking about. I, I,

I need and want your advice. We just barely met up on the Scotland trip we went on. Our oldest son came and visited with us for two days on the trip and I walked with him and had a conversation where he was basically like, I need more of you guys in my life. I haven't had enough the past six months. I need more of your advice. I want to make sure that I have your guidance because I want to make sure my life turns out as good as possible. And I know that you

Rachel Denning (22:55.631)
at least have some of those answers meaning that we've been straight with them about what we've learned, what works, what doesn't work, and he's able to see it play out in our own life. Not that we have all the answers, not that we know everything, not that we're perfect, none of that is true, but we've been working hard to figure out what works and what doesn't work, and we've always been straight with our kids about it. Now that started, and this is where we make the connection here in a way,

with us not telling them things that weren't true, which for us included something like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. Like, yeah, we got it that people...

like to do it and it's fun and all of that. I get the side of that. Well, my guess is that the vast majority of you listening probably did the whole Santa Claus thing with your kids. Right. And it's cool. We're not here to condemn. But what we decided like, wait a minute, that's for us, our unique perspective on this was like, that's a straight up lie. I'm sitting here convincing my innocent, believing children. Who believes everything I say. They're hanging on every word that we are their parents. I'm sitting here

here doing this whole charade to convince them to believe in something that's totally untrue. And then when they find out, and we might think, oh, it's harmless. Everybody did it. It's for generations. What a no big deal. But there's a neuro connection that's imprinted, that's recorded in their heads of like, wait a minute, they put on this huge act for years to convince me of something that's totally untrue. Right. Wow.

And perhaps maybe for me as well, it was something that I could easily see was not...

Rachel Denning (24:45.869)
beneficial for our children because I vividly remember my own time when I found out that Santa Claus wasn't real. Like, you know, I was in kindergarten. That's when I found out because I went to school and talked to other kids. And I came home one day after a kid had told me at school that Santa Claus wasn't real and I went to my mom and I said, Mom, is Santa Claus real? And she said, Go talk to your dad. And I went to my dad and he sat me down and he said, Well, what do you think? Do you think Santa Claus could really fly, you know, fly around the world and one night blah, blah, blah.

I was like, well, no. And part of me was saying, well, no, I never thought that that was real. Like, I always thought that didn't make any sense. But you had told me, this is the conversation I had in the back of my head, you had told me that it was true. The people I trust the most in my life keep telling me that something that doesn't make any sense is true. Right. And so obviously, as a six -year -old, I couldn't articulate that. But I still remember that. I remember that feeling and that sense of like, no, I didn't think that that was true. I didn't think that that was possible. But everyone around me

had gone to such a great, you know, had made all this effort to make me believe that that was true. And so it's something that's interestingly always stuck with me. So when we started raising our own kids, I just thought, well, no, I'm not, like, it's fun. We can pretend. We can play. And my oldest daughter, ironically enough, she wanted to pretend and she knew he wasn't real, but loved to pretend that he was. And I was like, okay, yeah, we can play.

pretend that this is from Santa Claus or whatever. And the rest of my kids have never really cared at all. They just thought, I don't care if I get presents, I don't care who it comes from, right? Well, but it's kind of ironic too, is like so many Christians especially, they want Christmas to be about Christ, but they put on this huge performance about Santa. And then they're like, well, I want to be more about Jesus. Like, well, we'll stop putting so much emphasis on Santa. So there's another incongruence there. You want it to be about Jesus.

Jesus and yet the excitement, the hype, the big story, all the to do for a whole month is about Santa Claus. Which, and I know that there are people that go to the effort to not do that, but my six, no my nine year old, she might have been younger when she said this, but she said something to me. She's like, well how do I know, you know, that Jesus is real?

Rachel Denning (27:11.789)
And for me, that was one of the reasons I never wanted to pretend that Santa Claus was real because I never wanted them to say, oh, well, if you're lying to me about Santa Claus, how do I know you're not lying about Jesus? Right. And so that was one of the reasons why I always wanted to be straight about it. Like this, as far as I know, is make believe. This is far as I know is real. So if I believe in Jesus and that he was a real person, I'm going to be honest about that. And I'm not going to like have the same energy, effort, excitement, passion.

about something that I know is not real, right? I'm not going to do that about Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. We can read the stories and we can, you know, have fun with it knowing that it's make -believe, knowing that it's a story. In fact, I have a book about the history of how Santa Claus came to be and I read it every year because I find it interesting about all the different Saint Nick's and this and that and the other. I find that all very fascinating and I share that with the kids and it's okay that that's a story thing but we

We need to know that that's a story and our kids need to know that that's a story and not that that's real. And while...

that may seem insignificant in some ways, I truly believe that it's that type of attitude that we've had and approach that we've had to our kids that has laid the foundation for them as young adults to say, you know what, I believe everything you say. I know you don't know everything, but I know that you're gonna tell me what you believe is true. And tell it to me straight. You will be straight with me, yep. There's not gonna be any deception or, the next level of this is exaggeration. Yeah. Or, you know, we're kind of,

What's the word? What's the term where you just kind of you take something's true and you? Embellish it and bell yeah, there's no embellishment. It's like just be straight with us Yeah, and then they're gonna come and say look I'm gonna ask your opinion because I know you'd be straight with me exactly. That's that's that's gigantic Trust I think it's huge now along with the lines of no embellishment because yeah, that's another thing we do is we we're not embellishing on the truth. We're not Exaggerating things more than they are like we're just we just say

Rachel Denning (29:20.943)
this is where it's at and this is what it is and this is real and this is not. This is make believe. But part of that too is we're all we're always following through on what we do say and I know we've talked about this before but I think it's an important connection so that if we say something like hey if you do this I'm going to do that well we follow through with that. We do it. And so it kind of goes along with this entire idea of being truthful and honest with your kids that includes keeping your work.

So when you say something, you do it. You actually follow through. So that they learn to know, first, you're going to tell me the complete truth. And second, if you tell me something that you're going to do something, you are going to do it. Yeah. Well, we could hit. I kind of want to have a little straightforward list here. But number number one fundamental, don't lie. Just don't lie to your kids.

And if they ask something that's tough or awkward, or might even be like, they're not ready for it, they may be too young or mature, just give them a straight answer and tell them, you'll tell them, it's like, you know, I'll tell you later or tell them, look, I'll explain it in a simple way. I'll give you more details later on when you're older, but I'll answer that question. Don't avoid it. Don't make crap up. Don't...

Don't tell your kids. Don't tell them about the stork when there's not a stork. That's what I was thinking. I was like, there's no stork. Don't lie about that crap. Now, one way that I approach things like that is I tell them as much as they want to hear. And I start by giving a very simplified version. And then if they keep asking questions, I add a little bit more. And then if they keep asking more questions, I add more information. But once they stop asking questions, their question has been answered. Yeah.

ask again later when they need more information. But as long as they keep asking, I'll keep giving more. And once they stop asking, then I stop giving. I'm not going to now go into the full detailed, like here's the whole talk. So when you're a five -year -old, it's like, where do babies come from? Don't give a doctoral dissertation about reproductive organs. Right. Exactly. It's way too much. I start with the basics. They come, they grow in my belly, and then I give birth to them. And then if that's enough, great. They're done. They're done for now.

Rachel Denning (31:47.791)
That's one way of approaching that, but you're being honest, but you're not being overly...

You're not sharing more than you need. Yeah, you can overshare. So now...

That's not the same when your kids are tweens and teens and you're still under sharing. Like, oh, we'll get back to that later, kids. And you got a 17 -year -old that knows nothing about it because you're like, yeah, you're not ready. And I'm, well, I, really one day is like, I'm not ready to tell you. Like, you got to be straight with them. And that is kind of the hard and uncomfortable part. I mean, again, on this trip, it happened a couple times. My daughter overheard someone using the word puberty. She's nine. And so while we're hiking,

with the group in the forests of Scotland, she says, randomly, she was saying something else and then she said, what's puberty? And I just gave her a straight answer. I just said, you know, that's when your body starts changing. That's when women, girls start growing breasts. And that was enough for her at the time. She's like, oh, okay. And she kept going. But I gave a straight answer and I didn't just downplay it and be like, oh, don't talk about that. We'll have to come up with that later.

Yeah, I didn't want to answer the question in front of everyone, but I did because I didn't want her to think it's not something she can ask. Right, and yeah, don't avoid answering questions. Give them answers. Again, you're creating these neural connections that's going to... They're subconsciously making all these neural connections that are connected to you. So your behavior, your interaction with them, what you say, what you don't say. And people may crap up all...

Rachel Denning (33:26.701)
the time like, oh, if you don't say this specific prayer before you get on an airplane, it's going to crash. Like, no, it's not. Like, don't say things like that. And don't teach your kids things like that. Or the other one's like, you cannot eat food until you've blessed it. If you don't bless it, you probably get sick. That is not true. And yet with good intention, you keep teaching these things that just aren't true. So then, or like, the only good people are Christian people.

or whatever. I mean, this is something I've heard. And then when people get out and they have experiences, they're outside of what you've been saying. They're like, those people are full of crap. And you never, ever, ever want your own children to think you're full of crap. Exactly. Because then that creates other problems. It creates faith crises. It creates rebellion, of course. That was another interesting conversation we had too in the car. My nine -year -old again was sitting up front with us. And I don't know how it came up or what we were talking about. But

somehow we got on the topic of Muslims and one of our friends said something about...

Muslims being, you know, that I don't even remember, something about Muslims, some Muslims being kind and loving and patient. And she's like, but all Muslims are like that, right? This was after we had spent three months living in Turkey and then in Egypt and her interaction with all the Muslims there was that they're very kind and loving people. And I thought, well, yeah, she doesn't have that view that a lot of people do of Muslims being violent and, you know, like ISIS or whatever that many people do have. And I thought,

thought, yeah, that's her viewpoint. She, from her own experience, has seen, you know, this is what most Muslims are like, kind and loving and generous and family -oriented. That's her worldview. That's just kind of a side viewpoint there. Literally, since she was tiny. Yeah. When she was tiny, I'd put her in a backpack. We were living in Morocco and she and I, she'd get fussy and so I'd go walk for miles through the Medina in the suits. And people would stop and give her the little

Rachel Denning (35:37.935)
little kiss on the cheek and give her gifts. They would like, whenever I walked past they'd stop, stop, oh, she's so beautiful. And then kiss her cheek and then reach over and grab a grape or an orange or an apple, pomegranate, anything, a date and give it to her, right? From some random shopkeeper and the shopkeeper is like, oh, blessings, blessings. I mean, so from very, very little, she has had this neural connection, this recording in her being of these wonderful Muslim people.

Right. And so her immediate response to whatever was said was, well, that's what all Muslims are like, right? And I did have to say, well, there are some that aren't like that. Right. Because it would be dishonest for us to say all of them are cut. Yes. But it's also dishonest if we're like, oh, Muslims are terrorists. Exactly. That's an outright lie. Right. Or all Mexicans are this way. Or I mean, whatever. Any kind of racism, any kind of prejudice like that, it's actually a dishonesty. Right. So you get some kind of little fixed mindset about it, and you tell your kids that,

You're lying to them. You don't think you're lying to them. But you are. You're not trying to lie to them. Yes, but I guess that's where I'm going to be frank here. You are. You're lying. So if you embellish something, you make something up, you say some little cute tried thing, and you think it's just being cute or whatever, you're lying. If you try to convince your kids, you take them snipe hunting, that there really are snipes, you're lying. Or jackalopes. Yeah. Or let's go find a jackal. I have no problem being imaginative and playful.

Like I'll tell them like hey unicorns aren't real. Let's go look for unicorns and we're wandering through the woods jumping over things chasing We're looking for unicorns that they know full well don't exist But so we have no problem with play and imagination, but I'm not lying to them. Well. Yeah, we're always straightforward We will tease our kids and we'll be playful with our kids, but we tell them like oh, no We're just because they'll say wait is that real is that true and we're like no, we're just teasing but let's pretend You know, I remember something when I was young my grandpa used to

always tell me like, oh don't swallow a watermelon seed because it's going to grow into a watermelon in your belly, you know. And I remember the adults around me full heartedly trying to convince me that that was true. It would really happen. Oh no, now it's going to grow. And I remember being worried about it. Yeah, exactly. And so it's those types of things that we think are fun and playful and harmless. But unless the kids, especially young kids, the younger they are, the more they just believe whatever you say. They have a hard time distinguishing.

Rachel Denning (38:07.535)
between truth and reality already. And so if you tell them, they just believe it. And so we have to be very honest with them. And that doesn't mean we can't be playful. We can't say that. But then when they say, really? You say, no, I'm just teasing. That won't really happen. So you can use your imagination and we can create things. We can make believe that that would happen. And I go all in with that. But they know full well this is just a game. Exactly. We're playing. Right. And...

Let's just go on with other harder truths. Adultery. Somebody in your family commits adultery. Somebody in your family commits suicide. Somebody in your family makes really bad decisions. Alcoholism, abuse, drugs.

Be straight. Now, the littler ones may not need all the details, but be straight with them. When there's been things like that in our extended families, we've just told them like, yeah, this is what happened. Now, that doesn't mean we're being condemnatory or that we're being judgmental, per se, but because of all the research we have done in human psychology and behavior and peak performance and what actually works and what actually doesn't work,

We're being honest about, yeah, if you do these types of things, this is generally what happens. And this isn't judging so and so. This is simply saying, oh, well, I've noticed this with them, and I've noticed it in these other people, too. When you do these things, it leads to these outcomes. When you do drugs, it leads to this. When you do this, it leads to that. We're very straightforward with that without condemning the person. We're not saying they're a bad person. We're not saying...

that they have no worth or value, we're not saying anything about them, we're just simply saying that these behaviors, these actions produce these types of results. And that I think also is very important. It's hard for us to do that as people and parents sometimes because we can feel that it's gossiping and we're always clear with our kids. In fact, they kind of laugh sometimes because we're like, we're not gossiping. We are talking about this behavior leading to these outcomes.

Rachel Denning (40:24.719)
We love this person. You know, they have all these admirable qualities, but we want you to be clear that these types of actions often lead to these types of outcomes. And when our kids were younger, we had some great family friends and the kids adored them and then they got divorced and he's like, why aren't they together anymore? Why aren't they married anymore? And it was because of a pornography problem. So it's just a straight answer. Like, oh, he looks at pornography and that ruined their marriage. So it wasn't like,

Oh, they don't get along anymore. Oh, they just decided not to be together anymore. Like bull. Be straight up. There are causes to the things that happen. And we want them to know. It's like they made some choices that have consequences. So our kids get it. And we're real about what's happening in the world too. And I talked to them about human trafficking problem and that kind of stuff. And I'm not scaring them. I'm not. Okay, here's another thing. Parents love to use scare tactics because they think that's the way to convince my kids.

kids not to do bad things or be careful is by using these massive scare tactics and again at the end of the day it's dishonesty it's a lie you're exaggerating something or no if you do that you'll die if you do that this will happen it's like no it's not that's not true. Right. But...

in that framework there or with that in mind, it is okay to say that there's a chance you could die. It's not high. If there is something that is actually dangerous, then yeah, be honest with it. But if it's something that...

there's little to no chance of death, well don't use death as the threat or the scare tactic like you were saying. You have to be straight and being straight means not being overly, over exaggerating the risks nor under exaggerating them. And that's another thing too. Another thing people have asked is like how do you allow your kids to do all these risky and dangerous things? Because they've seen our boys doing flips and jumps and jumping off roots.

Rachel Denning (42:28.367)
and disengables and cliffs and all of this. And they're like, how do you do that and how do you stay safe? Well, one of the reasons is we don't over or under exaggerate the risks. And we teach them to appropriately gauge the risks so that they learn for themselves to look at a situation as it is and determine how risky it may or may not be and whether or not they have the skills to be able to handle that. I thought of a perfect example. When our oldest daughter turned 18, she wanted to go skydiving.

really wanted to go skydiving. I think it was like the week before she turned 18. We were going to go to a skydiving company in Georgia and an 18 year old girl, her parachute didn't open. On her birthday. And they died. And she died. And so that was just a few miles from our house with the skydiving company we were going to go to. We were going to use. And so we had a choice. Do we not say anything? Do we exaggerate it? Like what do we do? And we were just straight with them. Like, hey, we were going to go to skydiving.

On your birthday, which is in a week a girl just went for her 18th birthday and her parachute didn't open We don't know what happened, but they died and so my daughter was like yeah, let's not go right and yet our whole family Has since gone skydiving and we love skydiving. She didn't go because she wasn't with us. Yeah, and so she's like the only one who hasn't gone. Even our younger kids have gone right and But again, you're just gonna be straight. You're gonna be honest. You're not gonna exaggerate. You're not gonna

under. Right, you're not going to hide the realities of things, but you're just going to tell them as they are. Another example was our son does parkour, our oldest son, and we went to a castle in Lafayette, Lithuania, and he wanted to do a trick where you run up the wall and you do a backflip. And we were standing there, I was going to record it, and he just kept testing it, and I could just tell he just felt like it wasn't right, the angle, everything wasn't right, and he, you know, he just decided not to.

do it and we've you know we fully supported that we weren't gonna say oh what's wrong like oh you can do it. Are you scared of being a chicken? It's like no you get to gauge whether or not you have the skills or feel that you are comfortable taking this risk and I think that that's... Oh you're a wimp if you don't do this you're a baby that's not true. Right. Like we've got to be more responsible with our language. Right. If you want to try to teach your children to see the world around them and to gauge it.

Rachel Denning (44:57.967)
appropriately and if they feel like they can't or shouldn't do something then that's up to them to decide and I think that we've we have encouraged that from a young age we encourage them to take risks quote -unquote whether that's climbing a tree or jumping off something or whatever but if they've honestly felt like they weren't ready or they weren't capable then we supported that now we may have realized or if we saw they weren't ready or capable we would say that or the opposite hey no you're ready you can do this yeah exactly

so that they know we're there too, we're there supporting them, we're also looking out for them, and we're not going to encourage them to do something that they're not ready or able to do, and we're going to tell them whether they are or not, you know, based on our own... Ooh, I thought of another example that I've seen so many times. If you come up and say, how do I look in this? Or my kids are like, hey, how does this look? I'm going to be honest, right? And I've seen again and again and again with good intentions,

moms or friends are like oh no oh this oh you are that oh wow

And they don't want to speak the truth. And they'll even right behind their back be like, oh, that looks terrible. Or, oh, they look, oh, wow, that's bad. But they won't. You could walk up with a huge booger, and you're like, do I look good? Oh, my goodness, you look fantastic. It's amazing. Oh, everything's great. And then later you find out you had a huge booger, and nobody said anything. My fly was down. Like, why didn't you tell me my fly was down? I was awkward. I didn't want you to feel bad. You're like, oh, so you lied to my face. Because you didn't want to be.

awkward or whatever and I get that it is awkward but we will be straight with them not rude not mean just straight and I think all of us are fully aware of that because we have we all do it in our family we go around say how do I look does this look good on me and we're all straight with each other we'll say yeah no that looks great and sometimes we have different opinions you know some of us might think it looks great and the other doesn't but which is great we're being honest yeah we're being honest we're being straightforward of like no this is great this you look

Rachel Denning (47:04.815)
good or you don't look good in that outfit or whatever and even my nine -year -old she's like so good at this already that I can go to her and I know like I trust her advice I'll be like Sage how's this outfit look and she'll be like nah I'm not

I'm not so sure about that. She just knows and tells it to me straight. It's awesome. We haven't encouraged dishonesty in her or in any of them. Which can become uncomfortable, back to this conversation, in certain situations. It's difficult because...

There is a fine line between being nice and being dishonest, right? And there's a fine line between being mean and being honest. And sometimes being honest feels like we're being mean sometimes, and so we avoid it. I think even with our own kids. We want to avoid it because we don't want to be mean. Well, we avoid it with ourselves. Right. Like if we're fat, we won't even use the word fat. It's offensive. Well, we want to use it with ourselves. Right.

You don't say, no, I'm fat. Like this is fat. This chunk right here, like this is fat and I'm fat. I'm overweight. We'll even use overweight soft. Like no, like I've got to burn this. If what Greg is saying now even bothers you, well go listen to our podcast episode about body shaming and you'll understand why fat is actually just a signal from your body that something's off and needs to be addressed that's leading to disease. Right. And so we need to have that honesty. That honesty.

Like yeah, you got too much fat on your body. You can go measure it. It's a percentage You should be in a healthy range and if you're over that range, you're fat which means that you are facing future long -term consequence and again this comes back to our honesty with our kids and I actually wanted to touch on this because Because you mentioned sometimes that you know people scare tactics trying to scare kids and different things I have found that this approach that we take of being straightforward and

Rachel Denning (49:14.767)
honest with our kids, I think it actually helps them feel that the world is more in their control than they realize. Because when you start to make connections for people, when you start to make connections for your kids, that there is cause and effect.

somebody didn't just commit suicide because they were unlucky or they had a bad day. There was a long sequence of choices and thoughts and actions and behaviors that led to that outcome. It wasn't just random. Same with disease. Same with like so many things. When you start to make connections for your kids,

I know this is true for me and I know it's true for them, like you begin to see that there's patterns in the world. There are patterns. There are...

certain actions that lead to certain results. And when you understand that, you actually feel like you have a lot more control over your life, over your actions, of course, over the outcomes and results you achieve. And so I think it feels a lot safer. Now that doesn't mean that there's not tragedy sometimes and there's not things that happen to you out of your control. But overall... Stupid mistakes you make that you should be honest with. Right. Stupid mistakes that you'll make. That's still going to happen. And tell your kids.

Don't be like, oh yeah, I'm having a bad day. Like, no, I made a really bad decision and it's, there are major consequences of this. Exactly. But when they have that framework, again, it comes back to this trust. You feel like you have a lot more trust for yourself, for the people around you, for God, for the universe. Like, there's a lot more trust when you feel like there's more in your power than you realized. Yep. Man, we've just, so the invitation today for all of us is,

Rachel Denning (51:14.765)
Just really examine how responsible you're being with your language and your words in every aspect. We've tried to share a lot of examples here, but just examine and say, where aren't we being completely honest or transparent or truthful? Where do we put on charades and a big act and a facade, or where am I wearing a mask? And if...

I guess the mask thing's a big one, because they can often see past the mask. And you're putting on this mask and they're like, that's bogus. Like you're pretending that everything's great in your marriage when they can clearly see it's not. And they're like, hey, what's up? Oh no, everything's fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine. No, you're now not only are things not fine, you're lying right to my face. That gets recorded. And then later on, when you need some influence with them, that influence bank account is over.

drawn. So be honest. And that doesn't mean that you need to share everything with your children because they're not meant to carry the full burden of adult responsibility. But you can share enough kind of back to the previous thing of talking about sex or whatever other topic. Share enough that it's real and it's true but it's not over sharing. It's not more than they need or want at this time. So you know if my kids see me crying or something I'll tell them like oh it's this

thing, which is a part of it, but you know it's also true. And so that they know I'm being honest with them and I also can be sad or upset about things and that's okay and we work through it and we resolve it and whatnot. But I'm not just like, oh everything's fine. Because they're watching, they're observing way more than they even can say or articulate. They're picking up on everything and parents sometimes are more clueless than their kids believing that the kids aren't picking up. They aren't noticing. You're out of your mind if you think your kids don't

know that something's up. And so work with them and as they're as they're mature and talk through it and help them see help them see your results and tie your your your results to your actions for them help them make those connections. And again if you're a big talker they can see your results and they can hear your words and they know well enough to like this doesn't match up.

Rachel Denning (53:41.135)
match up. So any incongruence in your life, they're gonna see that. So if you just talk and talk and talk endlessly about being healthy and you're an unhealthy person and you're out of shape, they're gonna be like hmm okay something there. And if you're like oh you know this and that abundant or whatever money money money money and they're like yeah but you're broke. Or the opposite. This one's interesting. It wasn't until one of my coaching clients like he was I can't remember he was

I think he was like married and like having kids before he ever realized his parents were loaded. But this whole childhood, they had millions of dollars and they acted like they were broke. They put on this big thing. They wanted their children to believe. And again, it was with good intentions like we don't want our kids to love money or that riches are evil. So it's like this wrong fixed mindset. So we want our children to think we're poor. And so they put on this huge traits. They had millions of dollars in the bank account, but they always acted poor. Oh, we can't afford that. We can't do that.

you gotta work for things and it was with good intentions to teach kids to work but you were lying the whole time so then when you grow up you're like they lied to me. Right. For decades. You feel betrayed and I mean betrayal is one of the worst things that can happen to you and so you never want your kids to grow up and feel that they were betrayed by their parents for whatever reason. That's just not a good situation to be in if you ever want to have a long -term relationship with your kids and

and to have long -term influence with them. So be honest about your health, be honest about your finances, be honest about your relationships, be honest about the work you do and why it works or why it doesn't. Be honest about mistakes you've made in the past or mistakes you're making. Be honest about like what's working, what's not working and who you're becoming. Just be honest and it's so powerful.

I think that one thing I always do is whenever I'm going to say something to my spouse or my kids especially, it's almost, it's automatic now but it's this little internal check like is this true? Is this truth? Am I speaking truth? And I would like to say never although...

Rachel Denning (56:05.389)
trying to be responsible with our language, you know, I'm sure, once in a while. I never speak falsehood.

So I don't care what that is. If my kids come to me, they ask for something, they ask me a question, I'm going to speak what I believe is true. Now sometimes I have to get creative with that. So I can speak truth without revealing too much. For example, say we're making love and my kids knock on the door. I don't tell them that's exactly what we're doing, but I might say something like, I'm naked right now, right? Which is true. But it's all they need to know. So I'm speaking truth, I'm being truthful, I am saying what is true, but I'm giving them what they need.

they need, not everything that they don't need, right? But if you can make that a part of your way of being, I think that that just builds this healthy foundation for having this relationship of trust. That you just have this very strong, healthy relationship of trust with your spouse, with each of your children, where they just know.

You're honest with me. You tell me exactly how it is and you're not gonna lie to me.

And then you have influence. And then you have power. And then you have influence and power with your children. And then they listen to you. Exactly. And they want to do what you ask because they know that you're only asking or you're only asking what's best for them. Yep. And you wouldn't lie to them or deceive them or manipulate them with some kind of story. To try to get them to do what you want them to do. Yeah, you're like, hey, if I ask my kids to do something, they're like, OK, there's a reason here. He's not trying to manipulate me. There's no motive here. They're not trying to guess. What does mom really want?

Rachel Denning (57:44.943)
What's going on? She's like no she wants this done like okay. She wants this done. There's no shady, weird. She's not trying to play a game with you. Yeah, you're not playing these weird mental games or emotional things. Right. To try to get me to do the thing you want me to do. You're just telling me how it is and and this is the other part of it too. I know we've explained it in our other coaching like if our kids ask us well why are you asking me to do this? We give them an answer. We have a real answer. One that makes sense. Like this is why and then they say oh okay that makes sense and then they change.

do it because it does make sense. Or, which also happens, they say, well, that doesn't make sense and here's why. And they sometimes talk me out of it where I'm like, OK, yeah, you're right. Doesn't make sense. I guess you don't have to do that one. And like you alluded to earlier, maybe one of the most important things is just keeping your word. If you say you're going to do something, do it. If you commit to something, keep the commitment.

Stop talking so much and let your results through the talking. Like, prove your honesty with your actions. Just be straight. I think you'll find, and again, we're not condemning you as evil, malicious people, but I think you'll find there's probably lots of instances of dishonesty.

It's not intentional, but you're like, ugh. And sometimes it's subconscious. Yeah, man, I've been saying that for a long time. I've been doing that. It's not true. I've been painting this picture that's inaccurate. Right. And so bring it back. You don't have to be rude. You don't have to be overly blunt. Just be honest. And honesty will lead to trust. Trust leads to influence. And you will be a much more effective parent and leader.

Okay, bye guys. Thanks for listening. See you next time.