[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hi. My name is Katie Malone.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: And I'm Brendan, the husband.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: And you're listening to The Little Flock, the podcast that offers practical insights about living a counterculture of goodness, truth and beauty in a world of increasingly hostile secularism and indifference.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: So if you're looking to learn from two imperfect followers of Christ about how to live like the wheat amongst the darnell, this is definitely the podcast for you.
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Little Flock.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: It's great to be back.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: I had a little brain fade there, a little bit of a brain fog. And I was about to say the name of another podcast that you're not welcome back to.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Too many podcasts.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: So, yeah, it is good to be back. This is our final episode for the year. Katie yeah.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: I can't believe it's December already.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: I know. Crazy. It feels like that's a thing that the older you get, the more often you say, I can't believe it's this.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Time of the year every month.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's almost over. We're in the season of Advent and it's only a few days until we hit Christmas.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: So not long to go. Well, a few days. A couple of weeks really, isn't it?
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Until we get we don't like to talk about how few days they're out between now and Christmas.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: You can hear the dulcet tones, the warning siren song of Mariah Carey playing everywhere you go. The malls, the supermarkets. It's out there now. So we wish you a Mariah Carey.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Hands up if you've been whammed already. I got whammed by my children.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: It's evil, man.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: How dare you?
[00:01:38] Speaker B: It's evil. The devil works. He is amongst us. It is music. So, yeah, anyway, we're almost there. And today we've got a final end of year episode. That's the sound of the local fire siren you can hear in the background.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: As our children used to call it, the fire simon.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: The fire simon. The volley fire brigade. So this is the final episode for the year, and this one is another special one. We've got an interview with Nikki Lysart all the way from Australia, and we're going to be talking about how to have those difficult conversations with your kids. So this is definitely going to be something that is well worth tuning in for. If you have children or you are going to have children, or would like to have children, you're definitely going to.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Want to just have difficult conversations.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Even if you just have difficult conversations. Well worth tuning in for. Before we get into that, though, and before we introduce the conversation with Nikki, let's just get through a couple of quick business items, as per usual. If you want to send us your questions to answer on future episodes of The Little Flock, that's something we normally do on episodes. The last two, this one and the previous one, have been interviews. So breaking the mold a little bit but someone sent us an email about a week ago about a really good question that we're going to tackle next year when we're back after the Christmas break. And if you want to send us your questions, you can do that by going to Lifenet.org. NZ and you will see at the top of the page there's a little banner button that you can click on to send us your questions. Fill in the form, totally anonymous if you want it to be, and we will discuss your question or a topic if you'd like us to talk about a topic as well while you're there, if you want to support the work that we do, you can do that by becoming a supporter of LifeNet. Now, LifeNet is the ministry that we run, and if you want to do that and you're based in New Zealand, all of the details are
[email protected] NZ. And if you're in New Zealand and you do that, you will be able to claim back on your annual tax return your donations, because we are a registered charity. Last but not least, some exciting news. There's a brand new project that we are launching in 2024, and this brand new project is called The Forge. The Forge is a brand new website platform where lives will be shaped in the fires of goodness, truth and beauty. And it is going to be the new home of the little flock. That's where we're going to be from now on. And there's going to be a whole lot of other great content on there as well. We're not going to tell you anymore right now, but go to theforge.org NZ and there's a little space there for you to leave your email address and you'll be first to find out when the fires are lit. Yes. VIP. Become a VIP. So, yeah. Katie, do you have anything else to say before we introduce Nikki?
[00:04:27] Speaker A: No, just get straight into it.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: It's always the way, isn't it? I talk too much.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Ask me if there's anything else for me to say.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Katie always looks at me awkwardly and says, Get on with it. So, without any further ado, folks, let's have this conversation with Nikki Lysart about how to have difficult conversations with your kids.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Hopefully, it won't be a difficult conversation of its own.
All right, so, Nikki, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
[00:04:51] Speaker C: My name is Nikki. I am a mum and wife and an educator.
I've been teaching for well over 20 years now and have most recently been an assistant principal in religious education.
I also did a short stint working in the area of relationships and sexuality and mostly worked with primary school students on the area of puberty and also worked a lot with parents as well on, I guess how to navigate some of the tricky times that happen as our kids grow and they go from being our little kids to teenagers and into adulthood and how to manage that, I guess.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: We want to talk about today, this topic of having challenging conversations with your kid and kids. Sorry. And I want to talk specifically, you just highlighted something about puberty, which I hadn't even sort of really thought about when preparing for today's show. But that's a really important area that often gets forgotten about. So maybe we could start there because we tend to hear a lot today about sex ed and having the sexuality and relationships conversation, but we forget the puberty one. Right. And that's actually almost a soft sell, easy intro into a more challenging conversation, right?
[00:06:11] Speaker C: Absolutely.
I think, surprisingly, like, I have been a teacher for 20 years, have always been proactive in talking to my students about these topics. But interestingly, when it came to having these conversations with my own kids, I balked at it, actually. I was like, I'm happy to tell everybody else's kids about what's going on, but when it comes to having these conversations with my own so that was probably one of my big learnings as a parent when they started to transition and started to go through those changes about how to have those conversations. So, yeah, you might think that they're easy, it's a soft place to start, but it's not necessarily.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Do you have a recommended way to start that conversation in particular?
[00:07:00] Speaker C: Yeah. So I think I'm very much guided by the kids. So I think they will ask questions, they hear things at school, they see things on social media, they see things in TV shows, and they have questions. And I think I'm very much guided by the questions that the kids ask.
And that kind of gives me an understanding of where they're at emotionally, where they're at in their mental understanding, and kind of where to start the pitch, if that makes sense.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:37] Speaker C: And I always say that the way a prep student or a five year old might ask the question how a baby's made is a very different question to how a twelve year old or a 13 year old is asking those questions, or even a ten year old. So you've really got to gauge the maturity level and what exactly is it that kids are asking?
[00:07:58] Speaker A: What do you think it is that makes these conversations so challenging for us? I mean, we've all gone through it, but it's still hard to kind of talk about.
[00:08:06] Speaker C: I asked my kids this morning, I said, I'm going to do this podcast and what do you reckon?
What do you think is the best way? Or what's the advice I should be giving to parents? And they said, don't be awkward and don't be embarrassing.
Don't be weird, don't be closed off. Watch your body language, be open. Yeah, I think that's what it's all about. It's about not being awkward, being matter of fact, having a laugh, like I'm a big one about having a laugh and going, oh, it's a bit gross, isn't it? But that's just part of what it is. And when you're talking about further on down the track and you're talking about sex and things like that, again having a laugh about it. And when you start the puberty conversation, I think it's really important that you talk about the fact that our bodies have been created by God for a purpose.
We have been created by God to be in relationship with other people and one of those most important relationships that you're going to have is if you decide to get married and if you decide to have kids, then the way our bodies have been created is about allowing that relationship to bring about life. And for us to bring about life, we have to understand how our bodies work and how they meet, match together, because they match together perfectly according to God's design.
And so I think it's about having that language. I think sometimes as parents we go straight into the practicals but we don't explain the why. We don't explain how we've been created, why we've been created and why this is such a special and sacred thing, I guess, that we embark on not only sex, but also just those changes that our body goes through. Like why do our bodies change? Why aren't we born just being able to do that straight away? Well, it's because we're not designed to do that when we're kids. We're meant to be kids for a purpose. And as our bodies change and our brains develop, then yeah, that's when the maturity comes and we're able to make decisions around those kinds of things that we're going to do.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: What do you think classifies a conversation as a challenging conversation? Obviously, I mean, everyone's go to one probably is sexuality related stuff, but there are other challenging conversations. But what makes a conversation in the family home or that family dynamic a challenging conversation rather than just maybe one that takes a bit of work or effort, do you think?
[00:10:50] Speaker C: I think a challenging conversation are the ones that you avoid. So if you avoid talking to your kids about drugs and alcohol, then for you that's a challenging conversation. If you're avoiding talking to your kids about social media, then for you that's a challenging conversation. So I think challenging conversations come in lots of different ways, lots of different packages, talking to kids and talking to parents. Some of the most challenging conversations would be around things like social media, like gaming, like puberty relationships, mental health, pornography, scary real world events. So, like the war that's happening in the Middle East. For some people, that's a challenging conversation to have with their kids and they're not sure how to navigate that self harm, schooling, like, you name it. Drugs, alcohol. There are so many conversations as parents that we're having with our kids that either we might find challenging or they might find challenging. So I think that's the thing. It's such a broad topic, isn't it?
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Do you think there's a certain projection here as well that we can get into as parents where we don't ask challenging questions or have challenging conversations because maybe we haven't got ideas settled in our own head. Do you know what I mean? There's a sense of projecting onto our kids our own fears.
[00:12:22] Speaker C: Yes. I think parents don't have these conversations because, well, they're scared of what their kids are going to say. They're scared of the reaction or unsure of the not so much scared, maybe, but unsure of what reaction they're going to get from their kids.
I think there is this real mindset that teenagers and our tweens don't want to hear from us. But research shows us time and time again that our young people want to know what we as their parents think.
They might pretend that they don't and they might screw up and walk away and go, oh, you don't know what you're talking about. But they actually want to know and they care what we think about these things.
And when their kids are in primary school, we are the loudest voice in life. We are the people that they listen to more than anybody else. When they go off into high school, that peer voice gets a lot louder. Social media voice, the world voice, society gets louder. And if we haven't embedded in our kids a firm foundation of what we think on the important topics, then they're going to be hearing all these other ideas and theories and not really know where we stand. So as parents, we need to know where we stand. And if we don't be honest with our kids and say, well, I'm not actually really sure what I think about that, I'm learning, I'm listening to ideas from lots of people and what is it you think? So having that dialogue? I think it's important to communicate with our kids and to have dialogue, not just one way conversation where I'm going to talk and you're going to listen and what I say is right and you're going to learn from me because I'm the wise one. We can learn so much from our kids like I've learned so much from my kids as they've gotten older, about a whole range of hot topics that are facing them in society. So my answer is you don't have to have all the answers, be honest with the kids that you don't have all the answers, but do some research. Like I follow so many parenting pages on social media, I listen to podcasts, I have my ears and my eyes open to find out about what's going on in current culture and how I can talk to kids about that and not just following people who I agree with. It's not just about, yes, we share the same ideals and the same values and the same morals, but sometimes I follow people who I don't necessarily agree with because I want that perspective as well and I want to be able to think about what's my response to that.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: So can you talk about a time where you've had a really challenging conversation? Might be the most challenging one you've ever had, maybe not put you on.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: The spot or anything?
[00:15:31] Speaker C: My kids said, please don't talk about us.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: Brilliant. We'll pretend this is someone else's children.
[00:15:40] Speaker C: I think there's not just one big conversation because for me, the way we operate with our kids is that we have lots of small ongoing conversations with them consistently, so that there's not that big clanger that comes that nobody's expecting and everybody's left reeling and no one knows what to do with it.
So I think that's one of the keys too.
Don't try and think of it as having the talk. It's not about having the talk. It's about having lots of ongoing little conversations with your kids.
But I think sometimes as the kids are getting older, like our kids are 1416 and 18, there's conversations around work ethic, attitudes at school, relationships that they are starting to get into.
Sometimes the challenging conversations I find are about what their friends are doing because our kids are pretty good, we're pretty open with them about all things and they're pretty open with us as well. That's not to say they don't have things that they don't tell us, but I think a lot of things they do come to us. It may not be in the moment, it may be after the fact, but they do come to us and want to chat about those things.
But yeah, it is, it's about, oh, I'm 16 and all my mates are having a drink and smoking marijuana and I'm going to this party and I've got to make decisions about what I am and aren't going to do in that situation.
Or it's about I'm going to school and I'm really not liking it and I'm struggling with a teacher and I'm losing my cool and how do I manage that? Or one of the friends in my group is 14 and she's having sex with an 18 year old. Like, how do I manage that?
Even self harm is so prevalent for our kids, so many of our young people engaging in self harm and how do you manage that? How do you help them support their friends?
Their friends are going through a hard time. How do you help them help their friends?
So I feel like parenting is just a series of uncomfortable, challenging conversations. And I think you just got to get used to having the challenging conversations and being okay with that and asking the questions.
That's probably one of my big tips is ask questions, get them talking.
You want to hear what they are trying to express, making space for that, allowing time in your daily schedule for catch ups and quite often it's when you least have the time.
I'll be sitting, done all the housework, done all my schoolwork, just sitting down to relax and someone will pop on the couch next to you and you're like.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: What happens if you have a moment where you go, gosh, I should have had a conversation that was a bit challenging six months ago.
The longer that goes on, the worse things can get. How do you recover? What do you do in that situation?
[00:19:21] Speaker C: Do you think it's never too late to start having these conversations? You might, as a parent, have to work a little bit harder if you haven't kind of built into your family rituals and routines, conversation and relationship building and investing in your kids. If you haven't done that at an early age, it is a bit harder to try and establish that once they're in high school, once they're teenagers, but it's not impossible.
It is about just putting yourself in their space, I guess.
One of my good friends, Kim Keaty, talks about the art of lingering. So finding excuses to go into their bedrooms, which are usually their safe havens, where it's like I've closed my door, nobody come in but going in to say goodnight and then just lingering to see if the conversation comes, like maybe tidying up a few books or picking up some dirty clothes or just finding excuses to be in their space.
I also think car rides are a really captive audience. Great way to have these conversations.
You don't have to look at each other, they can't go anywhere, you can.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Just turn the music up loud when it gets awkward and then, yeah, really have a little think.
[00:20:41] Speaker C: So I think it's never too late and I think that just requires us then, as parents, to be brave, right, where we've got to just say, this is what I'm noticing, this is what I'm seeing, let's have a conversation about.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: That and don't leave it because the longer that it goes, the harder it gets, right?
[00:21:01] Speaker C: And you might not get a response the first time.
You might get faced with that brick wall and they are like, I don't want to talk about it.
They might come at you with a little bit of teenage angst, but just to gently, gently say, well, I am concerned about this and when you're ready to talk about it, I want to talk to you about this. So giving them a little bit of that pushback of, we are going to talk about it, you let me know when you're ready.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: So you've mentioned a few sort of hot topic issues there. What would be some of the main conversations? Like, if you had to prioritize, what would be some of the main things you'd keep an eye out for? And you've talked about waiting for kids to ask questions and stuff, but at the same time you don't want to wait until they ask questions. And then leave it too late. So what kind of stage would you be saying have these conversations?
[00:21:55] Speaker C: As a child protection officer, one of the big things that I'm really passionate about is using correct body name parts and talking to our kids about consent and body autonomy and how to protect themselves. So I started that stuff right from when my kids were toddlers. The right kinds of names, body part names, talking to them about no one's allowed to touch your private parts or make you touch theirs.
So just that really basic protection concepts, I suppose. So that's probably one of the first conversations I would go down the line of from when they're really little like our kids went to daycare. So I wanted to make sure that they knew that stuff very early on.
And obviously age appropriate language when they're little, you talk about use very different language to when they're older. But I think that whole protective behaviors and consent is just a huge topic that we talk to the kids about from when they're toddlers all the way through to when they're young adults and beyond and just the way the scenarios that you talk about change. So that's probably a big one. I find kids are pretty inquisitive. They will ask questions but if they don't, you can always ask them questions about so I heard on the radio or I saw on social media that somebody was talking about this. Have you heard about that? What do you think about that?
So some of those questions I think relationships is a huge one and starting with friendships so we talk to our kids, we coach our kids around how to have appropriate friendships and then that snowballs into any romantic relationships that they might want to have. I think it's about instilling in the kids the dignity of the human person that we all have a dignity. We are all born in the image and likeness of God and we may not agree with some people and the way they choose to live their life, but ultimately we are called to treat one another with respect and we're called to uphold their dignity in those interactions we have with them.
I think teaching the kids to be strong and brave, my eldest certainly has found this challenging. She is very outspoken in her beliefs, she's very articulate and she's had to learn how to have these conversations in a way that don't ostracize people. And I think for her, one of her big learnings as she went through high school was I think she'd always been labeled like the quirky Catholic girl who had these strong opinions.
But by the time she graduated there were so many of her peers that came up to her and said you know what, we actually respect you for your beliefs. We respect you for the way that you haven't wavered from what you believe and we respect the way that you've talked to us in a non judgmental way and explained why you believe what you believe even when we're screaming at you because we don't necessarily agree with you.
So I think that was a huge learning for her and really spoke to us about the kind of young woman that we have helped raise.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: That's an awesome testimony, isn't it? To have and what a testament to what you guys have been doing in her life.
One of the things, as you were speaking, I was thinking of was we don't tend to think of some of the faith questions as awkward or challenging conversations but they are like when a child asks, well, what about hell? What about heaven?
Will everyone be there? And we have some pretty clear beliefs about that as Christians and it's not just a sort of everyone's there, it's just a hippie fest and it's all nice and fluffy and they're all angels, there's some pretty important stuff that otherwise they get older right? And that becomes it just seems childish and I would imagine I would certainly abandon a faith like that that just feels childish and simplistic but it's also awkward to have some of those conversations, right?
[00:26:23] Speaker C: It is, yeah. And I think she was just this is who I am.
The other two not quite so much. I think their friends definitely know that. They go to youth group on Friday and they go to mass on a Sunday, and they know some of their core beliefs around their faith and around the way they choose to live their life.
And maybe as they get a little bit older, they'll get to speak into that a little bit more. So I think Kaya in particular has chosen a few of the hot topic conversations to have as part of her year eleven and twelve studies, particularly around abortion. You can imagine what a hot topic that is with 15 and 16 and 17 year old girls. Yeah, and she copped a lot of flak over that but it made her do her study and work out what exactly is the truth and what she believes.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: We found that because obviously that's an area of interest for us and in the Ministry work that I do. And it was one of the things we found really beneficial. And I remember seeing this some years ago as a piece of advice, but we were already doing it by then was they said, involve your kids in your activism or your apostle at work. Whatever it is, they shouldn't be just bystanders as you go off and do that. And so we go along to the March for Life each year. And the kids have been coming with us since they're young, and it's almost like a shaping cauldron that has really helped them and to formulate and to recognize as well that Mum and dad aren't kooks, that there's lots of people who share these ideas and they have developed a certain courage as well in doing that.
[00:28:01] Speaker C: I think it's important to if faith is something in your life that you are passionate about. And both my husband and I have worked in youth ministry and have been actively involved in youth ministry for many, many years.
Our kids have come along and have been part of that. So for them that's just what we do. They go to youth group on a Friday. They interact with people who have like opinions so that when they go back to school or go to their workplace or whatever it is and they're met with people who don't have those same opinions, they are reminded that they're not weird, that there are other people who believe the same thing that they do.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: You've talked a little bit about making these conversations not as awkward.
Is there any more advice you'd give on that, how to make these conversations go smoothly?
[00:29:02] Speaker C: I think it's about creating space, holding space and being okay in the silence.
Just because you're not talking or they're not talking, that's okay. Sometimes you need processing time, they need processing time. So being okay with the silence.
This one's a bit of a teacher, one that we use as well as a parenting one, but it's about connect before correct?
So if your kids, or if our kids know that when they come to us with a problem, they're going to be met with a reaction, they're going to be met with, I'm in trouble, they're going to be met with why did you do that? Or just negativity, they're less likely to come to us. So if we're about connecting with them before we head into the correction, then that sets us into a much deeper conversation and it allows that respectful dialogue to happen a little bit easier. One of my favorite parenting quotes is I don't want my kids to ever be in a situation where they're in trouble or they're hurt or they're scared and they think, I can't call mum because I'm going to be in trouble. I want their first thought to be, I am in this place where I shouldn't be. I've done something I shouldn't have done, I need my mum.
And so that really is one of my mantras. I don't want my kids to ever feel like they can't come to me. But that's a balancing right. It's not to say that, oh, that's fine, whatever you've done is all good, no worries. No, that's not what it's about. It's that balancing act of, okay, so tell me about why you've done that, tell me about what's happened there, how are you feeling about that?
And then being able to move into that correction around what they could have done better. And sometimes asking them because they know when they've stuffed up and they know what they should have done and they know what they're going to do the next time. So I think letting kids fail is also important. As a mum, it's hard to watch them fail. But letting them stuff up, letting them find themselves in a situation where they are like, probably shouldn't have done that, is also a great way for them to learn, I think. We're dealing with teenagers and kids, and their emotions is what regulates them. So if we think about the brain in its development, the brain isn't fully developed, the prefrontal cortex, until they're about 25. And up until then, they're really running on emotion. So helping the kids to name the emotion, this is right from toddlers, right from little ones all the way through, but acknowledging the emotion, naming the emotion, and letting them know that those emotions are normal, it's okay to feel those emotions because I think sometimes our boys in particular have these big emotions. They don't know what to do with them, and they just push them down and they don't talk about it. So helping them to talk about it, wait for those big emotions to pass before having a conversation.
It's like with the toddler, when a toddler is in a full meltdown and having a tantrum, you can't rationalize with that child. And it's the same with our teenagers, same with our young adults. Like, our son is 16. He's taller than I am. He looks like a man, but he's not a man. And so if he's having an emotional reaction, no point trying to rationalize with him. You got to wait for that to settle before you can have the conversation. Talk less, listen more.
Empathetic listening. Don't shut them down. Don't shame them. Don't overreact.
I think they're really big ones. And in our family, we have five very big personalities, and that's probably the one I struggle with the most, because I tend to go straight to an overreaction.
Ask open ended questions is another good one, I think, just to allow those conversations to flow. Love unconditionally. I think that goes back to that quote that I said about I always want my kids to feel like they can come to me, so if they know that I love them unconditionally, even when they've stuffed up, then that opens that line up for open communication.
And the other big one is to pray.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:33:50] Speaker C: To pray for your kids. Pray with your kids. Pray for your partner. Pray with your partner. Pray as a family.
I honestly believe the prayer of a mother is so powerful. There have been times when I have called out in prayer to God and just gone, hi, don't know what to do anymore. This is your child. I need you to come in and help me sort this out. And that prayer, I think, is so important.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: I love your point about silence, because one of my weaknesses, I think, is in those awkward conversation spaces with my own children, I tend to fill the space I just keep wanting. It's my nervous way of I just repeat myself often too, rather than just being okay with putting an idea out there, telling a truth, and then just letting the silence hang and seeing what comes off the back of it.
[00:34:49] Speaker C: Yes. And I think as parents, we need to be like another little analogy I have is like the duck on the pond. Like on the surface they look like they're just cool and calm and chill, but underneath their feet are going ten to the dozen. And I think sometimes it's like that, being a parent. It's like, try and be cool, try and become smiling, everything's fine, but inside you're kind of going, oh my goodness, how am I going to deal with this? How am I going to manage this? What is going on?
[00:35:18] Speaker B: It feels to me too, Nikki, like that there is a certain sense in which you need almost like a supervision or a follow up, a willingness to have follow up conversations. Because it's not just one conversation. Right. It's not like, oh, I had a conversation when you were 14 or 16 and now I'm done, because in a matter of six months or even less, you could very easily fall off the rails and you need your mum and dad there absolutely. To have another conversation. Right?
[00:35:43] Speaker C: Yeah, it is. It's all about the regular check ins on every topic.
And I said teenagers, they just grow so quickly and they go through so many different phases and it can be a little bit tricky to navigate. So those regular check ins, like, you could say, remember we were talking about this a couple of months ago? What are you thinking about that now?
[00:36:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:08] Speaker C: And I think with going back to the puberty conversation again, their bodies change so quickly that you do need to be checking in regularly. Because as a mom and as a sex educator, I was like, yes, here's the puberty talk, I've done it, here's all the information.
And then when they actually get their period, they're like, oh, so now what do I do?
So you think that you've given them the information, but quite often when you have those conversations, there's so much for them to take in. That it is that regular going back to check in and even around sex like. What you tell them when they're twelve and they're learning about puberty and they're learning about how babies are made and all that kind of stuff. What they know and understand then, compared to what they want to know and understand when they're 14 1618 we can't just assume that they know because what they know they've probably gotten from their friends, from pornography, from online websites. So it is that checking in to clarify, to fix, I guess, any misinformation that they might have, because teenagers think they know everything about a lot of really a bit hit and miss.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so true. I remember our daughter Lucy, she's 16 now, but when she was maybe ten, or eleven, like, we might have done one kind of intro session to kind of the whole puberty, just the beginning stuff. And she came home and she said to me, oh, this girl in year eight that she was sort of friends with, she asked me today, or do you know about this stuff? They must have been talking about it in their friendship group. And she said I said, well, what did you say to her? And she said, I just said, I know everything I need to know for now.
That was so wise at eleven. Like, oh, thank you, Jesus. So she's always been quite good, even though she doesn't actually really like those awkward conversations.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: No.
[00:38:04] Speaker A: She's always been quite good at sort of reaching out when she needed to know something. Whereas I think some kids won't ask at all.
[00:38:10] Speaker C: No. Yeah.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: It's finding that balance of it is finding a balance.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: I also, err away from giving kids a book. I think if you give them a book and walk away and leave them to work it out, then I have not yet found a book that gives this information in a way that I want it to give the information.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Yeah, true.
[00:38:35] Speaker C: And it also removes the sense that this is all about relationships, because ultimately, puberty and our sexuality is all about relationships. So if we're, like, here's a book yeah. I think it takes that away as well.
[00:38:51] Speaker B: Even the best of books. Right. It still feels like just a rerun of that pinnacle. Same tired old complaint, oh, my mum and dad sent me to the zoo come breeding season and told me to figure it out for myself. The book might be technically correct, but it still feels like we're opting out of our obligations and our love for our children as parents.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Right. How important do you think it is for us as parents, to be honest with our kids? Like, for example, speaking about our own past mistakes when we were growing up.
[00:39:19] Speaker C: Oh, man, this is so tricky.
This is such a tricky space to be in. I think, as someone who hasn't lived the life that I probably want my kids to live, wasn't overly a bad teenager, haven't done anything really scandalous, but I think it does almost feel like, oh, well, you did it, so I'm allowed to do it. But that's where the conversation, the backup conversation comes from, of, well, this is what I did and this is what I learned, and I don't want this for you, for these reasons.
And I think it's not just about telling our stories, because sometimes our kids hear our stories, but what it was that we learned from those stories and what it is we want for them that's different or better.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: I guess the tendency is you could overshare. Right. And that could be if the child's not ready for that, or there's no context, it just would seem like a big, shocking let down. Oh, my mum or my dad, they're no longer this great and glamorous person they look up to. And you can have this disastrous sort of effect in a relationship if they're not ready for it.
[00:40:35] Speaker C: Yeah. I think you've got to pick your timings, particularly around some of those hot topics, like around sex, drugs, alcohol, all those. I think picking your time is pretty important and I would suggest that when they're in the thick of trying to work out who they are as a person and what they believe may not be the time to give them all of that information. So I'm thinking your 1314 year olds, 15 year olds, probably don't need to know that you were going out every weekend drinking and hooking up.
Once they're a little bit older and settled down and got a bit more maturity, I think you can have some of those conversations again, maybe don't give them all the details.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:41:23] Speaker C: Talk to them about, well, this is what I did and it wasn't great.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: That's always been the testimony trap, too, hasn't it? Where you can end up glamorizing the very thing that you're trying to help them to avoid a particular evil and you just end up glamorizing it, rather than them getting the key point about you moving away from that.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:42] Speaker C: Which is, don't do what I did.
But also the flip side of that is, if they do do what you did, then you need to help them navigate. I think our kids aren't going to be perfect. Our kids are going to do things that we don't want them to do because they're teenagers and they're hardwired to take risks and they're hardwired to push the limits and they're hardwired to go and find fun.
So it's not about then crucifying them for the things that they've done, but about helping them navigate to get back on the right track and to set their vision for what they're going to do differently the next time.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: I've actually found that quite important and there's been some real breakthrough moments for me in my parenting where in those situations, you're actually able to say, look, I know exactly what you're going through, because I've been through that, or, I know exactly what you're up to, because I used to do that. And they're almost like, what? How do you know my secrets? And in that moment, you're right. When something's gone wrong for them, that's a really important thing, to be able to help them on that journey.
[00:42:50] Speaker C: Right, yeah. And I just don't think they need to be berated because they quite often know they're beating themselves up.
So it's our job to kind of support them through that and say, yes, that was not great, and what have we learned and how we're moving forward?
[00:43:10] Speaker B: Nikki, it has been awesome to be able to have this conversation with you. A real blessing and a privilege. And one of the things I'm reminded of, just to sort of, I guess to wrap things up, is that once again, and this came very strongly through at the very beginning of your conversation, what you were saying is parenting is not a technique or a series of techniques. It is a relationship. And it's a very different thing to a project with a set of techniques that you apply. And that relationship is absolutely essential to all of this. Right?
[00:43:36] Speaker C: And that relationship will continue until the day you die. Don't think just because your kids are growing up and gone out into the world that you stopped being a parent. Being a parent is the hardest thing that you'll ever do and it doesn't have an end. You're always going to be their parent. Always.
So I think, yeah, that's probably really important. And it is about relationship and it's about communication. They're probably my two big things, communication, relationship and remembering. I think this is the trap I get caught in sometimes is I look at other people and I go, wow, they're great parents, they've got everything sorted out, their kids are wonderful, their kids have got it sorted, but we just don't know what goes on behind closed doors. And I always say, no one is going to parent your kids the way that you are going to. You are the best parent for your child because you know them better than anyone else. You created them, you're in their space all the time.
And so not to get caught up in that comparison, don't compare yourself to other families and other kids because I think that can be a real trap. That's why I always say, do your research, take in lots of different people's opinions and then work it out for yourself. Go with your gut, go with what you know about yourself and your kids and that's probably the best way to go about it.
[00:45:07] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you so much, Nikki. It's been really great to chat with you about this today.
[00:45:12] Speaker C: My pleasure.
[00:45:13] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, Nikki, for taking the time. It's been an absolutely awesome conversation. And I know for our listeners, there'll be some really good meat for them to chew over and all that, so thank you.
[00:45:22] Speaker C: Yeah, no worries. My pleasure.
[00:45:24] Speaker B: All righty, folks, we really hope you enjoyed having that conversation as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. My wife Katie is laughing as we record this outro because she says, I've got all righty folks hands. It's true. I've got jazz hands that go flying up. Special jazz hands every time I say all righty folks.
So there you are, our Christmas gift to you that you cannot see the all righty folks spiritual.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: Put a photo up in the show notes of Brennan doing his all righty folks.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: So, yeah, Katie, that was a great conversation, eh?
[00:45:52] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Really, really important too. So don't forget, don't put off those important conversations. The controversial stuff, the challenging stuff, the things that really matter. That's probably why they are so challenging. But it's important to have those conversations. There's really not much left to say, is there? Apart from, don't forget. If you've got questions, leave
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[00:46:44] Speaker A: As Brendan's money go there right now.
[00:46:47] Speaker B: I command you. Doesn't work with my kids either. So, yeah. Katie, shall we say we're not going to end with a Christmas song? We're going to end with an Advent song.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: Never end with a Christmas song.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: It's quite a rule in our house. There will be no violation of the.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Christmas, unless it's Nippy's Christmas, the Christmas carol ordinance or fairy tale in New York City.
[00:47:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Other than that, we save our Christmas carols for Christmas Day, but we can say a Merry Christmas because we're not going to see you between now and.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: A Blessed Advent season.
[00:47:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Have a great advent. Happy and holy New Year. A merry Christmas. Don't forget the reason for the season. I know that's a bit of a trite thing to say, maybe, or it sounds trite, but it really is true. And don't forget to take the time to be with family and to actually celebrate and participate in this great festival. This is important. Christian festival. Other than that, yeah. We'll see you next year on the Little Flock.
[00:47:39] Speaker A: Looking forward to it.
The little flock is a joint production of the LifeNet Charitable Trust and Left Foot Media.
[00:47:53] Speaker B: If you enjoyed this show, then please help us to ensure that more of this great content keeps getting made by becoming a patron of the
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[00:48:05] Speaker A: Thanks for listening. See you next time on The Little Flock.
