Are you the problem?
===
[00:00:00] Today we have Alicia Bennett on to talk about another very interesting topic. Sometimes as parents, when our children are having a tough time, it's caused by us. And this is in no means to cause mom guilt or cause stress or add something else to your plate.
It's more so to empower and give you an awareness that lets you adjust the way that you show up in your family to have such a significant, . And such a powerful, beautiful impact on your family through you. So stick around to hear more about what this looks like and how you can. tailor your approach to really influence the people that you love the most.
Do you want to create peace in your home and be the best parent you possibly can be? Are you ready to feel confident and clear in your decisions? Do you wish you could navigate conflicts and challenges calmly and effectively? Well, there's a way to overcome the roadblocks that are standing between [00:01:00] you and the family life you've prayed for, so that you can create consistent routines, find fulfillment and balance, and thrive in your life and family.
Hi friends, I'm Katy Bordeaux, host of Raising Faithful Families, founder of Covenant Collections Christian Parenting Company, and a certified parenting and family coach. In this podcast, I'll guide you on how to find balance and fulfillment without adding stress or sacrificing precious time, create peace in your home, become the parent God has called you to be, strengthen your connection with God and with your family, navigate life using biblical wisdom and Christian values.
And experience growth spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and practically as a parent and as an individual. I'm here to help your family be its best for each other so that you can be your best for the kingdom of God. It's time to create a home filled with love, faith, and true joy. Let's thrive together with God at the center [00:02:00] every step of the way.
I pray this blesses you. Let's get started.
Thanks for having me on again, Katy. Um, my name is Alicia Bennett on social media and stuff. I'm known as mobilizer mom. I have my own blog at mobilizer mom. com. , But I am passionate about helping moms raise the next generation. God gave me a phrase a couple of years ago, raising a Daniel and Esther generation.
So a generation that is stands firm on God's word, , and is bold and courageous in our current cultural climate. And I just have seen in my own life and my own heart and in so many moms around me, how that starts in the home and that starts Most of the time with mom, moms are the heart of the home.
They S they set the culture of the home. And so when mom is struggling, family struggle. And so, so I am a coach that works specifically with Christian moms who want to change their motherhood journey, who want to change their family culture, ultimately for the goal of raising the next generation to know and love [00:03:00] Jesus, and spread the gospel.
So. Kind of all. Thank you. We're happy to have you. So let's just jump into this topic of how do we sometimes cause the issues that we're seeing in our children? Can you share what you've learned when it comes to this? Yeah, it is. It's a hard topic and it's so true. I think so many of us see it in little ways in our daily life.
Like an example would be like when, when we go to the, when we were taking our kids to the dentist for maybe the first time, and maybe we don't love the dentist. And so we give off, I mean, whether they're little kids or older kids, like we give off this emotional response to what's happening next and our kids.
Pick up on that, right? There are little mirrors in our home. And so if we have any nerves about what we're about to do, maybe it's going to the dentist or going on an airplane for the first time, or whatever it is, if we have those nerves, our kids pick up on those nerves, [00:04:00] right? And they reflect those back to us.
But, , I mean, that happens on a daily basis. Whether it's school or like I said, an activity or going to the dentist or, or, or anything like kids are looking to us for how do I respond? How do I react in tons of situations every day? But I know for me, this really, really hit home when one of my sons was three.
Um, he was. , He was a challenging three year old and he just knew how to push my buttons and drive me crazy. It was one of those seasons where I would have said, and I did say, I love my son, but I do not like him. We've all had those seasons. So after months and months of struggling with him and ultimate, like really spiraling each other constantly, I simply realized one day that, It didn't matter who like, [00:05:00] quote unquote, started it.
I was the parent and I was the adult. And ultimately it was up to me to show him and teach him differently. And that just really struck me. The fact that like, maybe, you know, maybe he would trigger me, but then I would feed it right back to him and we would just keep going. It wasn't that, that I was always creating the situation, but I was always, the way I was responding to him was creating.
More conflict and more conflict. And we just, and I say like, we kind of created this like downward spiral together as we fought and. continue to effectively like trigger each other. And it just, it just took a realization one day where I was like, I'm the adult. He doesn't know any better. He is only mimicking what I am showing him.
It's kind of like, uh, When, um, when, when you're, you've got a newborn baby and they put that newborn baby on your chest. [00:06:00] Do you know why they do that? Mom's your body temperature physically bought your body temperature regulates that bought that little baby, that newborn baby's body temperature. They need that physical touch contact in order to learn.
Physiologically, how to regulate their own temperature. Well, the same is true when it comes to emotional regulation, when it comes to our thoughts, our behaviors, our attitudes. When I say our kids are little mirrors, like they are mirroring us. So I'm going to challenge each and every one of us that the behaviors that we are seeing in our kids that we don't like.
We need to take a really good look at the mirror and see where we are actually showing them those behaviors and attitudes that we don't like. Um, and when we can get really real and raw with ourselves and recognize that like we are part of the problem. We are also part of the solution. And so, um, this is a really challenging [00:07:00] conversation today.
I, like you said, Katie, I don't want anyone to walk away overwhelmed or even triggered, or I want the Holy Spirit to be able to reveal truth to us so that we can make changes. With God, with Jesus. So, it took a lot of hard work with my son to get to that place. But today I will say today he was one of my most emotionally mature sons.
I have four boys. So, yeah, he's probably one of my most emotionally mature because we did the hard work and. I have built a lot of trust with him. We have a really deep relationship because I think because we did that hard work in those early years, , we were very close. Those are really great points.
And I've actually, I've seen that in my own home as well. And it's hard to admit when you notice that, like the toughest season I ever went through with my son, he just, he was three also, but [00:08:00] I had lost a family member. It was my grandfather. He raised me. So it felt more like losing a parent. And I also had just like 8, 000 things on my plate.
And so I, was still going through all the motions. I was doing everything normal. If anyone was watching externally, it would look like, you know, everything was going on just as it always had. And I was still being the exact same mom, but I was a little bit disconnected or like disassociated honestly, to cope with things.
And he started acting out and he was like physically hitting and he was physically hitting me and I was super confused about it. It's been one of the few times that I've admitted to others. Like, I don't know what is going on with him. Nothing's changed. And the advice you get from others a lot of times makes you regret asking for their advice because it was a lot of like, oh, well, it's because you don't spank him like you need to, you need to really lay down the law.
And then so what I did instead was [00:09:00] just pray a lot and I was like, what is going on with him? And the Lord revealed to me that it was me. He was, he was acting out because he was missing that connection with me that no one else even noticed was different, but because he is the closest person to me, he felt it and he was acting out to get back.
And as soon as I shifted that, his behavior completely went back to normal. So that's just a good example of exactly what you're saying. Yeah, so sweet of the Lord. That's such a great reminder that like God knows our kids more than we, like better than we do. And so when we turn, sometimes we turn to our friends, our family.
We don't get always the best advice, but when we turn to the Lord and ask him, like he wants to show us, that was so sweet of him to show you that. Yeah. So now that's the first thing I do. That's the first place I look is what am I doing? That's triggering this. So [00:10:00] maybe it's not always us, but a lot of times it can be.
So for anybody who's going through this with something in their own home right now, what are some steps that they can take to evaluate and adjust the ways that they're showing up? Yeah. Like I said earlier, it's such, it's just such a hard question because honestly I don't, I don't, I think it's really hard for us parents to admit that we're doing, we're causing or we're contributing at the minimum to the situation.
It's really hard. And very uncomfortable to take that look inward. It's really convicting when you see it in your own attitudes, your own behavior, or, or even your own sin is creating that culture of your home. Yeah. So first, First and foremost, I just want to remind, remind everyone to give grace, to extend grace to yourself, and just remind you that Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to save it.
Remember what the, what the [00:11:00] New Testament, what Paul writes in the New Testament, there's no condemnation in Christ, so it is not Jesus. keeping guilt on you. If you're going, if you're tempted right now to pause this podcast, because you feel that mom guilt just heavy, that is not from Jesus. Okay. If Christ says you are forgiven, then gosh, darn it.
Who are you not to forgive yourself? Okay. So nobody, nobody is perfect. We all have sinned. We all need Jesus's restoration daily. But if you feel that mom guilt heavy on you right now, maybe you need to pause the podcast. and renounce it because that is a lie from Satan. Mom guilt is from Satan. Conviction is from the Holy Spirit and you need to know the difference.
Okay. So I just want to start with that conversation or that quote. I'm going to write that one down. Yeah. The whole, yes. Conviction is from the Holy Spirit and you need to know the [00:12:00] difference. Okay. So secondly, when you're ready, when you are ready and you feel the conviction, um, you need to be in a place where you can honestly take a look and, you know, not guilt trip yourself, um, pray and ask, like we were talking about earlier, pray and ask God to reveal to you your own sinful thoughts, your attitudes, their beliefs about yourself.
your motherhood, your family, your children, anything so that you can then repent, right? You can't heal from something that is hidden. So we're going to write it down. I really, really, encourage people to journal, to write it down, to record it again, getting it out of your head, putting it on paper. I had someone told me this once, right?
We talk about. Often like even in kids ministries, we talk about bringing our sins before the cross and leaving them there. How is, is not journaling the [00:13:00] same thing because what is paper made out of? Wood. What was the cross made out of? Would. And so when we put our thoughts, when we journal our thoughts on paper and get them out of ourself, it, it can be the same processes as leaving our sins at the foot of the cross, like getting them out of us.
And ultimately, when we get them out of us, we can. Look at them objectively. We can repent, we can confess, we can ask for forgiveness and accept his forgiveness and then, and this is, this piece was so transformational for me many years ago. , and not even, it wasn't, it didn't even have anything specifically to do with parenting, but it was so helpful for me to get those thoughts and those attitudes, those beliefs out on paper.
And then to allow God to show me the truth, because a lot of what I realized I was thinking and believing about myself were lies from the pit of hell. [00:14:00] And I got to choose like the new Testament says over and over and over again, we get to choose to put on truth, to put on the armor of God, to put on the mind of Christ, we get to intentionally choose those thoughts.
So when we get those thoughts. Thoughts and beliefs out on paper. We get to objectively look at them and ask the Lord, what is actually true here? So I have this activity I do with my clients where, where we will journal out on like the left side of the paper and put the things that, that we're wrestling with.
The beliefs that we have, the thoughts that we're having about our kids, the, the challenges and, , and beliefs that we have about our, our motherhood, our family, our relationships, like all this stuff, like vomit, okay, page vomit on the left side of the sheet. And then when, after we have repented and confessed and asked for forgiveness for those things, we then come to God with the right side of the sheet.
And we say, God, what is the truth? You want me to believe in this instead of this? I have know that this is a lie. [00:15:00] What do I need to believe instead? And he is so sweet to show you scripture and to show you the truth that he wants you to put on, to put on instead. And so those are the thoughts that we're now going to meditate.
Those are the truths we're going to. Put into our minds so that they become our beliefs, um, and we can start reacting. All our behavior comes out of our thoughts and our feelings. Um, this is going deep into the brain science, uh, work that I do with my clients, but it, but, uh, yeah, so we get to renew our minds daily in those truths.
And it's a beautiful activity. Um, that was. life altering for me when I did it years ago. Um, and so, and then thirdly, of course, you need to ask for forgiveness for any of those things on the left side. From your family or friends or whoever you need to impact, go to them, ask for forgiveness, call a family meeting.
If you need to, if you're just if you're just seeing how how these thoughts have impacted your family culture or a way that [00:16:00] you've interacted with a child. Or your spouse that go to them and ask forgiveness for them as well. And then, like I said. Lastly, meditate on those new truths that God gives you on the right side.
Our thoughts and our beliefs are stronger the more we think them. So like, like I said, we, we, a lot of this is what I go through with my, when I go through my one on one clients to, to replace those lies with biblical truth in God, rooted in God's word so that we can replace them, help moms truly renew their mind and their identity and their motherhood.
It overflows like our, what we are thinking in here overflows into every action that we take every single day. So when we renew our mind, change those thoughts to be truly founded on God's truth, and God is doing this with me. And my clients like regularly, this isn't something that's like a one and done activity.
God will reveal new lies as you grow deeper in [00:17:00] him. As he shows you more things as you go through life, he'll reveal more. And it's a, it's a regular activity that I do for myself. And then I get to teach my clients how to take their thoughts, captive, renew their mind. And meditate on those truths so that their actions are now reflecting the person that they truly believe that they are, Jesus.
did for them and what God says about who they are. It's, it's really a transformational work, um, that I get to do. That is so true. Every time you think there's like, there's one more thing I need to work on and then God helps you get through it and then you see something else. It's just because he knows we can't handle it all at one time.
Yeah, right. He takes us through it in a process. Yeah. Is there anything that you feel like we as parents should be doing to kind of prepare and tailor and shape the way that our children respond to our behavior? So that they can grow into self managed individuals in their adulthood who [00:18:00] aren't very easily triggered or influenced by others around them.
I think it all comes down to helping our kids find their identity in Christ. I, that at the very foundational basic, level, like that is. That is it right as, as God is, our creator is the only one that gets to speak truth over us and who we are. yeah, I mean, that, that's foundational. That is, we get so caught up as parents and all the other aspects of life, the good grades, the sports or activities or the things that our kids are doing.
And we, we see the, because our culture emphasizes all these outward things, even for us as moms. And yet, we have to keep coming back to the truth of our identity in Christ. And who does our Creator say we are? I challenge my kids all the time. Alright, if the dishwasher is broken, we would not pull out the manual [00:19:00] for the furnace.
Right? If we need to build a, A bunk bed, we're not going to pull out the instruction manual for the, the, you know, the pool table, the pool table, I don't know, whatever, like, you know, right. What are we going to look to, to say who we are, ultimately, as far as like, so that, that is, that's like, number 1, all, that is so important.
Um, in that, A lot of it will depend on the age of your kids. Um, I talked a lot, um, in my, I've got a one hour, um, intentional parenting module on emotional intelligence. And that looks different to helping your kids determine what their emotions are at a little age to helping them regulate their emotions at kind of a mid age to then I'm working with my older kids on seeing how their emotions are actually determining their [00:20:00] actions.
I have a worksheet that I walk people through. It's called, I call it feelings or flashlights. I help, I walk moms through it so that then they can turn around and walk their kids through it so that their kids can see it. It becomes this really, God just gave this like down, like spiritual download to me one night.
And I went and did it with some of my, with my older kids. And to see now the conversations that we get to have Empowered conversations where I get to now tell them, Hey, do you see how you entered into this situation with this attitude, this thought, this ultimately, this belief about your sibling or about the circumstance, see how that turned out?
Like, do you see how the outcome of that, because you entered into the circumstance with this belief in this attitude and these feelings. This is the outcome you had. What if you had come in with this thought? What if you would enter in the [00:21:00] exact same circumstance with this thought? How would that have changed the outcome?
And they, the older kids, they can see it. And now I get to have conversations with them when we're on vacation and they had a bad attitude about going to this certain museum. And so they're snapping at everyone and no one wants to hang out with them. And now they're upset that no one wants to hang out with them.
And they're being just nasty. And I hang back with them because they don't even want to walk with the family. I hang back with them. I'm like, Hey buddy. So I want you to see what happened here in the steps that happened. So, and this is like, right, like a quick summary of the conversation we had, but you get to choose now as we head to our next destination, how are you going to enter that destination?
Are you going to decide that it's going to be fun? Are you going to decide to enjoy this? Are you going to stay stuck in this negative thought pattern and you're going to have the same result as you had with that museum we just finished? And it was the most fascinating conversation because then I [00:22:00] just kind of left him in his thoughts.
Because he was not willing to talk to me about it at that point, right? He was still very stuck in his angry about having to be forced to go to this museum. And so I went back up with the rest and everyone, he's kind of trailing. By the time we got to the zoo, he had decided that he was going to have fun and he was Awesome.
All because I have put in the effort to talk to him about his emotions as a little kid so he can name them, grow in skills of teaching him emotional regulation as kind of a middle aged kid. And now as a middle schooler, we're having conversations about how our feelings, ultimately our thoughts and our feelings are actually impacting what we, the circumstances.
And this is the same thing that we see as adults. At each and every day, just whether or not we decide to intentionally change our thoughts is up to us, right? Energy is definitely contagious. And I have always been highly influenced by other people's emotions, but [00:23:00] I thought for a long time that that was just empathy.
That's just what empathy felt like. Until I finally realized that I actually was taking on responsibility for other people's feelings. And a lot of that came from if somebody is in a bad mood around me, like taking on some self responsibility for how can I fix that? What did I do? Are they upset with me?
And so I've just now, like later in adulthood figured out how to separate someone else's state of mind from my responsibility. And I definitely want to be able to teach my child that before he waits till he's 30 to figure that out, carries that burden for too many years. Yeah. Yeah. I think, again, it's all comes down to like knowing your identity in Christ and being super secure that you are loved, you are worthy and you are safe.
Those are the kind of the three core, human needs and Jesus is the answer to all [00:24:00] three. And when we allow him to truly be the answer to all three, and we speak those truths over us daily, we, we, we enter into all the circumstances with a different, like, like you called it energy, a different attitude, a confidence, my coach and mentor calls it God, God, the dense, cause it's confidence in God, so God, the dense, because it's not all up to us anymore to change the circumstance or to change the people around us, or to even show up a certain way.
It's really up to God and God made me the way that I am. He spoke life. He, like when he's, when I remind myself and it is a daily practice, it's not something a one and done. It's a daily reminder of who I am in Christ. And I can tell when I get off of that base, when I get off of that foundation, I'm much more impacted by people around me and circumstances around me.[00:25:00]
and my own emotions. And so, yeah, it does, I think it all comes back to really knowing our foundation of who we are in Christ. That's great. So I know you shared a bit about a conversation you had with your son. So I know you do this, but I'm curious if you've had conversations with your children about your parenting approach that kind of where that open communication has influenced the way that you show up for them.
Sure, I would definitely say I've had some really great conversations, particularly with my older 2 boys are both in middle school. One is full blown teenager, and I've told him pretty early on when he kind of entered into the teen years that, Hey, buddy, like, I've never been a mom of a teenage boy before.
You've never been a teenage boy before. So here's, like, I want you to know that I'm going to make mistakes. Like I'm going to, I'm human. I'm going to respond [00:26:00] or react emotionally at times or without knowing all the information. And I, you know, and I just, I kind of pre apologize, like, Hey, I'm going to make mistakes.
And I just told him, I want us to have a relationship where we can communicate and you can come to me when something upsets you, or you think something wasn't fair. I just want to make sure that, like, we have this open place of communication for a respectful communication. In fact, I really one of our core values as a family is respect.
And so we keep coming back to it. But, I said, it has to stay respectful conversation. So I want to respect you as you're growing into an adulthood as you're making mistakes as you're learning and growing. I want to respect you. But I also. Expect the same respect back. So if I make, if I make a mistake or if, you don't think something is fair, like I want to be open to hear that.
Just make sure you come with a respectful attitude and kind of back to that conversation about how our [00:27:00] feelings produce our feelings or flashlights they produce and they produce certain outcomes. There have been times. When he has been really upset or emotional about something, maybe I said, no, he couldn't go do something he wanted to do with his friends.
And he was really upset and emotional. And, and there've been times when he's lashed out at me and I've said, Whoa, we can have a conversation about this, but let's have a conversation when you're ready to be respectful. And then there's been times when he's calmed down, gotten control of his emotions, and then very, I'll say, you know, timid, not quite timidly, but like kind of shakily, like he's still trying to get ahold of his emotions.
You, you, you've seen that, right? Where they're like, okay, mom, it really like bothered me when you. Said, you know, he's trying to stay respectful and we've had conversations where like, okay, so buddy, if you had asked me that this way, and I gave him an example, like that was a respectful request or respectful conversation, [00:28:00] then my response would have been different.
But because you came, there was one time a couple of weeks ago where he came home, just kind of, shooting on all cylinders. It wasn't that he was. angry or upset. It was just like, I need this and I need this. And I got to go do this. And it was kind of demanding. And it kind of caused me to like, emotionally just go to like, Whoa, like, um, no, no, no, no, no.
You can't just come in and like, tell me how to do all this stuff. But we recognize that we came back and was like, Hey buddy, if you had just said, Hey mom, I have a lot to do tonight. What would be really helpful if I, you know, I just kind of spell out the conversation for him. And I was like, if you had said it like this, How do you think I would have responded?
But I responded with no, no, no, no, no. You can't just come in like telling me how life is going to be this afternoon. Then how do you think I would have responded? And he was like, yeah, okay. I see. I see what you're saying. Like, that makes sense. Like, okay. You want to try that? Shall we push rewind and just try that out?[00:29:00]
Because it's totally fine, totally fine to change your mind when they change, right? When he came back and was like ready to ask in a respectful manner and I had a different response for him because Because we had had that conversation beforehand. And then there's times when I've asked my kids when they're in a tough season, like I said, this is mostly with my older kids.
But when they've been in a tough season where I've asked questions about like, you know, what, what do you like? Or what, what feelings, especially so when, with my son that I've done the hard work with, and we've talked a lot about feelings. He's a very emotional kid. I've really had to push him to explain to me what he's feeling and his emotions.
Um, so, okay, buddy, well, how does, how does that make you feel when this happened? How, how do you think you would have felt if I had done it this way? And so just trying to help him [00:30:00] narrow down a name, um, especially for boys, everything in culture tells them not to be emotional. And so trying to teach them that they not like the, like the Dallas Willard quote, emotions are, are wonderful servants, but terrible masters.
If you let the emotions drive. Like, you don't know where you're going, but if they are like the indicator lights on your dashboard, that's where like feelings are like flashlights. They actually reveal what's going on underneath. So, excuse me. Those are a couple of examples of some ways that I've had conversations, particularly with my older boys.
Yeah, I hope that kind of answers your question. It does. That's super helpful. And that sets him up for success in the future when he's trying to respectfully communicate with others in his life. It'll help him have really healthy relationships. For sure. Yeah. I've even had to coach him through like having a challenging conversation with a boss or teacher or even his dad at times.
Like, Hey, [00:31:00] maybe you should calm down before you try to have that conversation with your dad. Don't you think? Well, thank you. This has been wonderful to have you on for this topic. I know it's going to be really helpful to a lot of people. So if they want to work with you more or follow you, where can they find you?
Yeah. So, I'm on Instagram at mobilizermom. You can find lots of parenting tips and coaching ideas and get in touch with me there if you would like. And then I also have a blog, mobilizermom. com, where I just go into more details about things like, right. Like I like to write and so, I'll share more on there than I can on, on the short posts on Instagram.
Awesome. Thank you. And have a great day.
I hope this episode was valuable for you, and I pray you're walking away with a new insight, perspective, or idea to implement as you move forward. Remember that God makes everything we truly need available to us. And the life you've prayed for is just waiting for you to take the next [00:32:00] step If you enjoy this podcast Please subscribe and leave us a review so that we can continue showing up and reaching families who need this message Until next time take care and stay blessed.
Thanks for listening
