Had an awesome conversation with Dennis from the Street Cop Training Podcast last week. One of the many powerful things we spoke about was how I taught my kids values from a young age. Here's a clip, in case you missed it...
"So I figured out this idea of identity and values for me, and there were certain values that I wanted to teach them as a father. Rules and values are two very different things, they're both important, but they're different. Rules are like a reserve parachute, we need them, but I didn't... We're talking about kids here... I didn't want 50 rules on the fridge written out. So they had to run back and memorize a list of rules. I had some rules, but what I wanted to do was to teach them to be critical thinkers. I wanted to teach them what values were and then demonstrate them.
So I started with kind, gentle, and generous. That's the first three things I started teaching them. So the rule wasn't don't hit your sister, that wasn't the rule. The rule was, was what you just did, kind, gentle or generous in any kind of a way? No. Well, what are you doing it for? Done. Not a lot of rules.
But the other thing that I started trying to do was I started to look at each of them as individuals and pay attention to what their talents were, what their abilities were or what I now call identity, and began to groom that in their life. And they were very different people, although they were sisters. I tried to eliminate my problems. So for example, the divorce, I didn't want that to be a problem for them. That's my problem. That's their mom's problem. I need to cut that off. I need to not have the negative emotion from that be something that they have to deal with. They're already going to have to deal with the fallout of their parents being separated. That's already going to happen. But I don't want all that emotion to be in their world.
So I worked hard to do that. I picked these introductory values to begin to teach them. And then I started to look at each one of them as individuals. Brit was one of the most selfish people I'd ever run into. It made her outstanding on the soccer field because she'd keep the ball, she'd turn and she'd go to goal and shoot. And she played soccer all the way through college because she was willing to do that. Interpersonally, it made her kind of a bitch sometimes because she's just innately selfish. So I started teaching her the value of sacrifice. "Hey, you got to sacrifice. I know what you feel, but you have to sacrifice. You have to sacrifice for everybody, but you're going to sacrifice for your sister." That's where that started. “So whatever your sister needs, you're going to drop it and you're going to be there for her."
Now Taylor was a very gracious person. I mean, it was her nature. Brit's nature was to be selfish and she was athletic. So that's the kind of way it worked for her. It was Taylor's nature to be very gracious and she'd give everything away. As she got older, that hurt her in some interpersonal relationships when she got dating age because she was a kind of a door mat all the time, and she wouldn't stand up for herself. So we had to teach Taylor the value of being aggressive and standing up for herself. Very different in each one of those kids' lives.
So once again, I tried to separate my ego and what I thought they were born to be and what I wanted in their world, and started looking at each one of their hearts, each one of their talents, their abilities, and then teach them this idea of values.
And then most importantly, sending them out into the world, understanding the value of who they were as a girl or as a woman, and especially as it related to dudes. "Hey man, don't ever let anybody touch you unless you tell them they can." And in instilling this value in their body and their mind, and then in their heart, so that they would make great choices and great decisions. And that ended up paying off. They're both super successful. So that's the long answer to, yeah, once I figured this out for me, I went immediately to the most important people, those two in my life and tried to do that for them."
Listen to the whole podcast HERE.
Keep Coming Forward
Jimmy Hensel
