Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Ken John Payne. This is a special series of audios arising from the television program Live from San Quarantine that Jewel kindly invited me to speak at. And so many questions were posted into us after that show that we're now grouping them together and I'm doing my very best to answer them as deeply and as truly as I can, but without, you know, this being hours and hours and hours of having to sort of watch more or listen to more.
One question that came up repeatedly was around what I think of as loving limits or creative discipline during these very intense times when our family are with us, for many of us, 24-7. Kids are with us more than they've ever been before. The dynamic is intense.
And what is it that we can do in these times that is meaningful, gives boundaries, but still is loving and appropriate? Now, for this, I'm going to lean heavily into the information in my book, The Soul of Discipline, and I'm going to try and encapsulate it very briefly. But I hope, I hope well enough to give an indication of what we can do. When our children are little, they are, in a sense, very unprotected.
Right up from the age of, you know, when they're tiny, right through to seven, eight, even nine years of age, they can't easily fend for themselves. They couldn't feed themselves, you know, provide for themselves. And everything basically is up to us to be their provider and protector.
And it's just kids are wired that way when they're little. And they need to know who's in charge. They need to know who is that provider, who is that protector.
And I think of that as this principle of governorship, that we are the governor of the family state in those first eight or nine years. So in this time that we have of intensity right now, it's super important that our young children know who's in charge. They know what the limits and boundaries are.
And we don't start to think, well, because we're all at home, and because maybe I just let things go, and maybe I get a little looser. And I get it that we want to be gentle and loving with the boundaries we set, but they still need to be there. Because if they're not, our kids start to feel insecure.
And if they feel insecure, and they get disoriented, because there aren't the boundaries there, then the behavior starts up, because the adrenaline starts flowing, the cortisol starts flowing, and then we've got behavioral problems on our hands. The second phase, around 9, 10, 11, through into 12 and 13, is what I call the gardener phase. A good gardener listens.
A good gardener watches. A good gardener doesn't force the garden. Watches, listens, sees when it's time to plant.
When exactly? When is it time to harvest? When is the frost going to come? Listens, watches, tunes in, and then, crucially, makes a decision. Makes a decision. With our kids this age, when they hit 9, they need to know that we're seeing them differently.
They need to know that we're interested in the way they see the world, because they are seeing the world now. They're waking up to it, and they're very aware of what's going on around them. So we can ask them, what's your plan? How do you see things? Tell me what you think.
How is it going with all the schoolwork you're having to do? What's your plan at getting through that? Okay, so you want to have more free time. How can we do that? And provided they say it in a way that is what I think of as time, team, and tone appropriate, we're good to listen, and then we make a decision. Time means tell me at the right time.
Don't tell me at a very inappropriate time. And if you do try and tell me your plans or what you want at inappropriate time, I'll let you know. And for particularly a nine-, ten-year-old, you've got to coach them up and say, you know what, that would be a really good question to bring up at snack time, which is just in a few minutes.
That's when that's the right time for that question. And be able to place their questions, comments, demands, whatever they are, so that it's not just now. If my kids ever want a now answer, N-O-W, they may have it.
N-O-W minus the W. Right? No. If you want a now answer, you may have it. Do you want a now answer? Because we have to model our own impulse control and not always feel we need to give the answer now.
So kids this age, nine-, ten-, eleven-, need to be coached up in timing of their questions, comments, demands, whatever they are. The next one is tone. Be able to say it respectfully.
Don't say something totally disrespectful and then expect me to say yes. I told my kids for years, and I've coached other parents to do this, to look right at a child and say, look, hey, I can't say yes to you asking me like that, demanding like that, because you know what, sweetheart, it's not me being weird. It's not the way the world works.
You're going to be out in the world soon, sweetheart, and if you demand something like that, your boss is just going to fire you. You know, it's not the way to get, it's not okay. My job is to get you ready for the world now, and I can't be giving way to you.
Your tone has to be more respectful, and I think what you're trying to say and the way you're saying it is like this, and then you can say it. You can model it. Don't just give them a big lecture.
You say, what I think you were trying to say was, you want to have more free time and not always have to be inside because it's a really nice day outside. I think that's what you were trying to say, because they didn't say it like that in the first place, that's for sure. But then crucially, you know, when they say it in the right way, the right time, but also team, that they understand that they must show consideration for you, for their brothers and sisters if they have them, that they've got to be able, it's not just about them anymore, it's totally not.
A 12-year-old, in my opinion, has to be really coached up to take other family members, other people into consideration, that they are a part of the family team. Time, tone, team. And then when they've got that more or less okay with a little bit of coaching, then the parent makes the decision that they're relieved of that pressure.
They can make their case. They can speak about it. We are listening.
We're not treating them like little babies anymore. But the adult makes the decision, just like a gardener does when it's time to harvest. And then finally, after the governor, after the gardener, when a child is 14, 15, 16, 17, that's the time for the guide.
When kids at that age can be spectacularly disinterested in an adult's opinions. But they are very interested in, you know what they're interested in? It's their direction in life. They're starting to move away in some ways.
And a good guide will come alongside and say, you know what, how can we make that happen for you? But if their behavior is disruptive, then to be able to say to them, you know what, was that a distraction or a direction? That was a disruption, not a direction. Look, speaking like that, treating me like that, treating your siblings like that, that's a disruption. It's a distraction.
It's like the New York City metaphor. That's a crosstown bus when you're trying to go downtown. Let's just get this back in order and figure out where you want to go.
Because that other behavior, sweetheart, it's a distraction. And it's not getting you where you want to go. It doesn't matter so much about my opinion.
We've got to figure out the direction you want to go in. So governor, gardener, guide. Now, just finally, if your teenager is not getting the guide principle, then maybe you've got to be a gardener and dial them back one step.
And if they don't want to be telling you their plans and accepting your opinions, maybe you've got to dial them right back and it's hello, governor. But that model of governor, gardener, guide has come to the aid of so many people over the years. It's been just beautiful to hear how helpful that's been.
But, you know, it's probably more important now than it's been in a long time because it's so intense with our kids. And what we need as parents is a very, very simple model that we can bring more to the fore so that we've got that sort of roadmap and framework of how to deal with the intensity of family contact right now. That's it in a nutshell.
If you want to go further into that, it's in the book Soul of Discipline. But, you know, maybe that's enough. Okay.
Bye-bye for now.
