Robert Trout (00:01.451)
Hello and welcome to the Parenting Problems Today podcast. Today you are hosted by myself, Robert Trout, and Mary Zahnbrecher from the Parent Trainers Team and Community. We are coming to you to step into a topic that comes up a lot around looking at building kind of the bank of relationship and rapport that parents need to invest in.
to have kind of the motivating factors necessary for change for tweens, teens, and young adults. And this really does start, especially in those tween years, I feel, because what we’re talking about today is looking at the importance of building personal rapport with your child. And this is kind of an abstract topic, but it gets very specific to the idea that your kid, why would they listen to you?
That’s really what we’re looking at in this and we often have to really lay it out for parents to realize that if you’re not investing your personal time with your children, you’re running the risk of them not caring about who you are or what role you have in their life because it translates very often into statements that we hear all the time from the kid of, don’t care about me.
I’m just forgotten. You know, they ignore me. You know, things like that come up a lot and the parent goes, I don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m the parent. I’m always there. You know, I buy them groceries and, you know, get them to school on time and all of these very logistical statements. But today we’re going to turn and look at the importance of kind of the family activities, personal relationship and development around those things.
so that you can actually have something that the child cares about and recognize. And I think a lot of parents take this for granted because they think, oh, I’m with them all the time. But when you add in the time and hours that the kids are usually gone and they’re at school or after school activities or with friends, it’s actually a very limited amount of time during the week for most families in most situations. Not always, but it kind of is this like, okay, let’s add up how much time you’re with them.
Robert Trout (02:21.739)
where you’re awake and invested in one-on-one relationship building. And very often when we really lay that out, it’s not a huge number per week, it really isn’t. So Mary, I’m gonna pass it to you. Like what comes up when we start thinking about all the families where we have to really lay it out around building relationship with their kids?
Mary (02:42.368)
Yeah, yeah. The first thing that comes up for me and I know I sound like a broken record on a lot of these podcasts, but it’s so important. It’s spending quality time where you’re not focused on a task or the next problem or the issue that’s been bothering you as the parent. It’s spending time with your child and just allowing them to be with you and building a relationship around, hey, what’s new?
What are our common interests? What are you interested in lately? Help me understand this new thing that I see you do. It’s just time for you to really get to know your children in a way that’s different than you being the taxi driver, hauling them from point A to point B. Then you shouting at them for like, it’s time to take a bath or it’s time to do this, right? It’s really looking at
what’s the quality of the time that I can spend with my child when we’re doing this thing that we’re both engaged in or where we’re a little more relaxed or where things are just different, right? And I think a lot of times that’s, yeah, looking at one-on-one time with each child at some point. And sometimes that’s just, you know, going out and having fun together as a family and making it about anything but, you know, the day-to-day.
Robert Trout (04:11.763)
Absolutely, and I want to make sure we step on that word because we have lots of parents that they hear this idea of quality time and in their mind that Translates to time I spent on this kid. That is not what we’re talking about here it literally is taking and kind of creating this graph of When you do an activity how much I’m gonna say How much do you learn about?
being with this other person. And there’s a lot of metaphors for this. I know a lot of families, especially when they start really young, they come up with us, like they go on like a mama daughter date or a daddy daughter date or you know, father son time, like whatever it might be. But it’s this idea of like when we as adults think of dating, we’re getting to know someone else. And that’s not just like what they do for a living. It’s what they think.
how they’re reacting to their environment or the, you know, for lack of a better word, politics of the life around them. What’s going on at school for your kid is a part of that because it’s the same as talking to your partner that you’re dating and saying, well, how was work today? How was school today? And dropping in in such a fashion that you’re getting information, retaining information, reflecting information back to this person.
And that’s really where relationship develops is the person tells you about their life, shares something with you. You reflect it back to them so they know they were heard and seen. And neurologically, that’s where we start to see connections start to form. Is this person cares enough about me to hear me out on my problems, on my victories, on all the different aspects of my life?
And I know that they really got me because they told it back to me in such a fashion that it really made sense. made me feel heard and feel seen all of these really deep emotional contexts within it. So one metaphor is like, you know, going on dates with your kids. It’s the same as taking the construction, just moving it over and saying, I want to get to know you as a person.
Robert Trout (06:33.353)
not as, you know, the kid that leaves, you know, the kitchen a mess every time they make something, right? It’s moving outside the construct of the conflicts and the living together and the logistics of life and really stepping into that relationship with this person that, you know, they’re, you know, theoretically gonna be with you for at least 18 years. And that’s where it’s like, okay, you should probably invest
equally in this relationship that is going to be at times challenging and at times possibly very fulfilling, but it takes significant work and time for any relationship to thrive. So, there’s so much to look at in this, but the underlying message I think that we want to get to every parent that’s listening is like, hey, when’s the last time you went on a date with your kid? When’s the last time you
got to the depth oriented conversation with them where they’re sharing something more than, I did my homework. Thoughts on all that?
Mary (07:43.18)
Yeah, a lot of times, you know, parents do try to make depth mean something to them, right? It’s usually the topic is usually like, well, let’s get in depth about how you’ve been feeling or how, you know, how how school is going for you or, you know, parents try to kind of get into that mode of let me get some info on something that, you know, I’m trying to problem solve in my head for my kid.
just a big invitation to parents to really look at what is my child showing interest in or what has my child really been spending a lot of time on. And I don’t care if you don’t give a hoot about this thing that your child is interested in. If you can show them that I’m interested because you are interested and I care because you care.
Robert Trout (08:22.177)
you
Mary (08:41.454)
and go there instead of really thinking that you’re gonna get to some depth of like, you your child spilling their guts about how they don’t feel accepted at school, right? It’s more of like, when I think about friendships and just kind of the day to day of meeting up with a friend, you know, and talking about, hey, what’s new? What’s going on in your life? You know, what’s life like? And letting the child kind of direct that.
the more leverage you’re going to have for the harder conversations, right? These moments that you can spend with your child, just letting them be and letting them talk about what’s important for them are really about building a solid foundation for the harder conversations, right? And for the really meaningful conversations and showing them that in conversation with you, they can trust.
that you’re not just going to track them on a topic that they don’t want to talk about, or that you can give them space when they need space from certain things, or right? So you’re really kind of going on this journey with them of helping them understand that your role isn’t always, you know, the logistical leader or the enforcer or right, the person doling out the consequences or the, you know, the expectations, but that
they can truly have that relationship with you where they are part of a conversation, A, that isn’t always about the tough stuff, and B, where you’re engaging in a conversation that they can then generalize to these other moments that maybe the conversation is
Robert Trout (10:13.153)
Thank
Robert Trout (10:26.495)
Yep, absolutely. And there’s so many spin offs to this. The first for me is really making sure that when you think about connecting with someone else and, you know, taking it back to the dating metaphor, when you plan a date for someone, you usually don’t plan it around yourself. Plan it around them because you want them to like you. You want them to feel comfortable, confident and
and in a place that they want to share time with you. So if we take that metaphor and put it onto this conversation, it’s the same thing where some kids, they connect through conversation and there’s an emotional depth conversation to it. Other kids, they just want to go play laser tag with you and they love spending that time with you, chasing around and playing this game.
Other people are into the board games. Some people are foodies and they just love to share a meal with you and they kind of open up while they’re eating because they’re not thinking about not opening up to you, right? There’s all these different ways to recognize that when you, as a parent, have a goal of a depth-oriented relationship where you like each other. I mean, that’s kind of the goal, I think, for most parents is…
They’d like to be liked by their kid and they’d like to like their kid and build something that they both care about and have a relationship anchored in something they both relate to. It really is a choice there. Now, from that though, we have to then open the conversations. Like, what’s some of the biggest roadblocks that we find to this? So, I’m going to throw out the number one thing that happens for parents.
in a family system or structure and that’s the siblings. Where they have more than one kid in the family system and what happens is is the parents attention gets divided and divided and divided by the number of kids present and in this if you’re a parent listening to this and you have four kids the conversation doesn’t change about
Robert Trout (12:41.653)
building relationship with each of the children, it’s just a recognizable, I’m going to say arithmetic problem about the child needing your entire focus. And that can be for short bursts or long bursts. But we want to make sure we talk about this as a roadblock because of the number of times the parents say like, I just don’t have time. I’m so overwhelmed trying to get all of life done and take care of your brother or your sister.
et cetera. And in our work, we often find that, I know we’ve talked about it in past conversations about one kid who’s struggling the most, getting most of the attention. Well, this conversation really tailors us back to saying, hey, these three other kids, this is their conversation we want to bring to the parents’ focus is they still need to go on this date with you or have this relationship time with you or have your attention for a period of time.
each day, each week, each month, every kid’s a little different with what they need. I know that I’ve seen a lot of experts talk about neurologically that a 15 minute drop in where you’re entirely focused on someone relieves a significant amount of anxiety off that person because they’ve been recognized and seen. It also sets up the process of relationship where they know that you took an adequate enough
piece of time to give them your presence that it leaves an emotional impact. So 15 minutes a day isn’t, you know, this huge target. But I know, you know, for a lot of parents, that feels overwhelming, especially if there’s three kids, four kids, and it’s like, that’s an hour. It’s like, yeah, that’s an hour. But if you can figure out a way to drop in in your life, and that could be like this kid, you sit down and play a video game and ask them about their day.
This kid you cook dinner with this kid you help them with their homework and then go for a walk, you know, whatever it might be like you figure out your flow, but it’s a dedicated practice that you’re developing to show each kid whatever amount of time that you have to give, but we’re really shooting for the minimum and up for the understanding of like, okay, why won’t my kid talk to me? Well, when’s the last time you went, you know, on a kid date with them.
Robert Trout (15:09.141)
gave them from your reserves something that mattered. So if they’re not, you know, showing up to be present with you, this is a very easy conversation or starting point for, they’re not coming to me. When’s the last time I went to them? it’s been a while. And I see so many families, and Mary, you can step in on this, so many parents that have that like, actually, when is the last time I just spent time?
Mary (15:40.172)
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, getting caught up in the daily hustle and bustle, you know, you forget that there’s this ever changing relationship and this ever changing child in front of you, right. And really, it’s, you know, the simplicity of things like you’re talking about, like just inviting them on your daily walk, you know, every now and then or.
inviting them to run the errand with you if that’s something that they enjoy, right? Or yeah, inviting them to cook with you if that’s something they enjoy. Yeah, just being able to show them that you’re thinking about them and that you do want to spend time with them. Just that gesture. And, you know, I have a lot of parents who say like, they didn’t take me up on it. OK, you’re showing them that you’re thinking about it. And maybe there’s something else going on that we need to talk about that.
Maybe you can start practicing doing something a little different to where they are more receptive to being with you in that one-on-one time. And maybe it’s just they’re exhausted from their day, right? And it doesn’t mean that one no is a no forever. Try again.
Robert Trout (16:53.131)
Yes, absolutely. And I mean, what you were just saying reminded me about love languages, like just recognizing like you might offer something and recognize that the no might be because they’re overwhelmed or they’re tired or et cetera, but it might also just not speak to them. You know, if you want to go for a walk with them and that’s not their love language, then a no is pretty appropriate for them to say like, no, I’m not going to get anything out of that. And that again brings up the like, make sure you get to know
Mary (16:58.424)
Mm-hmm.
Mary (17:02.594)
Yes.
Robert Trout (17:22.825)
what your kids value as a person when it comes to connection. And it’s different for every person in the world. Like it’s not this like, you know, it’s going to be unreachable. It’s like, what do you like? How can I meet you in that? Even if I don’t like it as much as you as the parent, I’m going to do this thing that might be uncomfortable for me, or I might even hate it, but I like spending time with you.
Mary (17:38.211)
Yeah.
Robert Trout (17:52.117)
So there’s the crossover when it comes to really breaking this down.
Mary (17:57.07)
Yeah, I had one dad who was like, you know, I’ve got three boys and this one kid, just, I don’t know him. I don’t really, I don’t know a lot about him. I kind of don’t understand him. He said, well, how are you spending time with him? You know, and he said, well, you know, like I’ll take him to work with me. And right away, you know, I had met all three of the kids and like, oh yeah, your kid likes video games and he likes football.
Robert Trout (18:01.067)
Thank you.
Mary (18:27.814)
And what we actually came up with is dad didn’t like going to local football games because he was, the community was too small and everyone knew him. So it actually wasn’t good time spent with his son because too many people would come up to him and create, you know, small talk and all of this. So we problem solved. Yeah. And maybe you don’t like big crowds, but you’re going to take them to a football game, you know.
an NFL game or, you know, somewhere outside of the community, you’re going to show him that even though it’s not your interest, that you want to spend time with him doing something that he loves. And from that, relationship really did grow. I mean, it was, it was actually really amazing to see, right. But it was like, the dad just kind of was missing the mark. And with just a little bit of problem solving, you know, and tweaking, we got it.
Robert Trout (19:24.353)
So I’m gonna head towards I think my final thought and see Mary kind of where you go for families that are listening to this There is also this other Avenue that I’m gonna say starts with little kids and then goes right into our arena of tweens and teens Etc where we start looking at like kids when they especially teens, right? They start to pull away. This is very natural They’re looking to individuate and find their own space and their own kind of time and
life. But before that is the time that is so appropriate to build in structure for relationship to thrive. And this can look a lot of different ways, but very often is attained by just creating a rhythm in your weekly life with your kid or kids where it’s like family game night is every Friday and everyone will be there. Right.
We’ve just always done family game night on Fridays where we play a board game, have dinner together, whatever it might be. And it’s sharing that time and space. And then everyone just becomes normal within that framework. And I say that because then we get to the teenagers where they try to pull away. I know in our work, we see far less resistance when they just know we always do this.
Now they might also use that to try to fight like, I don’t want to be there. you know, basically try to punish you or use the relationship in some ways, but that’s also normal. However, having that in place where Friday night is something that hopefully everyone’s looking forward to or Saturday. I’m just using that as example, but game nights, dinner and movie nights, a book reading time. I see a lot of success with that, where it’s just a normal thing that
You know, we all sit and we have someone read a book out loud or we read in sections as a family for an hour. And then we talk and have dinner, know, whatever it might be. The point is, I don’t, it doesn’t matter what it is. The point is, is that it’s just normal for your family system to have this time carved out to build relationship and share space in a healthy way. And this is outside of what
Robert Trout (21:47.933)
others might have heard on other podcasts that we’ve done outside of like family meetings. Like this isn’t about conflict. This isn’t about resolution. This isn’t about changing anything. We’re just talking about investing time together. That’s it. This isn’t a time to be like, okay, instead of watching a movie, we’re going to talk about what you did at school this week. It’s like, no, in spite of
Mary (21:53.784)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (22:16.565)
the struggles that you’re having in your life and you’re having in your life and I’m having in my life, we’re gonna be a family and spend this dedicated, positive time together. Such an important tool. So important for families to realize that if you start early and have that in place, you can use that all the way through the developmental years to stay connected.
and have that reciprocity of them being present, you being present, so that when you’re going into conflict, it’s different. Conflict resolution is different than relationship development time. Such an important thing.
Mary (23:03.34)
Yeah, absolutely. As you were talking, it just kind of brought up this moment for me where I was working with a smaller family, two children. And the mom said, you know, like, we’re not doing movie night anymore. Like, they just don’t want to do this movie night with us anymore. And you know, kids were developmentally at the age where they’d rather be hanging out with their friends. But we talked about, yeah, can you move?
movie night to a night that’s maybe more conducive to everyone in the times that you all actually have available. And then as we kind of started picking it apart as well, we kind of discovered that movie night became kind of intervention night, so to speak, parents were trying to intervene with all of these problem solving ideas, or let’s talk about the problems that have been happening. And so yeah, it was really about looking at
Robert Trout (23:48.481)
Yeah.
Mary (24:00.696)
How do we keep this space and this time kind of sacred, right? In terms of just being with one another and enjoying one another’s company. And yeah, looking at as our kids are developing and growing and changing and their needs are different and the time they spend with us is different, right? If there’s a big age gap, you know, that.
things can be flexible, that you can show flexibility, that it can be a great time for them to have a hard conversation with you and advocate for themselves, right? But yeah, I think it’s just, it can be a beautiful thing if you think ahead, right, in terms of how do I get this going and how do we make it a time that everyone truly wants to invest in and come to and show up for, because they know that it’s not, you know.
mom and dad, know, logistic masters, it’s it’s mom and dad, you know, being goofy and funny, and everybody’s little quirks coming out, you know, playing a board game. Or, yeah, it’s just time where we get to sit next to each other and not talk and watch a movie.
Robert Trout (25:17.793)
Absolutely. So important. Well, thank you for listening. We hope this has been a helpful, of thought-provoking idea of like, okay, what am I doing? Because the spillover of conflict into this relational time is one of the main points that we find that families kind of fall into because they just stop investing in being in relationship with each other.
So thanks for listening. Come find us at parenttrainers.com. Join one of our trainings and our online community and support. We hope to see you there.
