Week 2 - Conscious Fatherhood - When Do We Push?

All right, let's do this. Cadre sphere. Boop. Kind of moving the camera. Get that. Get that shot. Yeah. So here we are, another Saturday kind of crazy. And it's the second Saturday, so that means we are talking about conscious fatherhood. And I was thinking about it, and I. I don't think I've really talked specifically about this topic, but the title, which I forgot to put in my little description of my live stream, so I got to fix that. But the title was gonna be when do you push Now? What's that about?

If you've seen any of my conscious fatherhood streams, you'll know that my daughter is a competitive volleyball player, and it's like, the most popular sport for young women in the country right now. It's just on fire, right? It's just crazy. And she wants to play competitive. She's playing competitive. And, you know, the question is, how do you support your child in doing the best they can and being the best they can while not having it? Be controlling, aggressive, overbearing. When do you push?

Do you ever push? And how do you know when to do that? Well, the first clue that I have personally is when it's about me. If it's about me, it's definitely not time. One of the best ways I know it's about me is by checking in with other people. So the other is by asking. Asking for permission. My daughter's 15, you know, she's not 8. So do I think she's doing enough? Honestly? No. Is it. Is it my place? That's the question, right? That's the big question. Is it my place to say something if I don't think she's doing enough?

And that's what we are. My wife and I are figuring out. But one of the ways that we're learning to do it is to say, how do you think things are going? What do you need? And the other thing is trying to provide resources to her to take advantage of without forcing her to do that. Would I like my daughter to play college? Sure. Do I care if my daughter plays college? I don't. Are we making a lot of our own sacrifices financially and time wise to support her? Yes, we are. We get to do that, right? That's a privilege that we get to have as parents.

What's her part like? What's her role to make those sacrifices valuable? Again, that's what we're trying to figure out. And that's why the title of this live stream is when do you push? How do you know when to push? And Is it a gentle nudge? Is it a little bit more direct? I don't think there's a clear answer, frankly. But again, the first part is if it's about me, then it's definitely not time. The other is we lead. I've learned, right. We lead with empathy. So first we really try to understand what's her experience, how she doing.

I know she's frustrated right now. Like right this minute, she is frustrated with how she's playing and how she's doing on the team. Then I say, well, you know what, that sounds tough. I know what that's like a little bit. And what would you like to do about that? And then that's where it gets a little stiff sticky, right? That's where it gets a little sticky because hi, speak wonder. It gets a little sticky because she might say, well, I don't know. And then you maybe, well, are you open to some ideas?

Or it might be like, I don't want to. I don't want to talk about it. I don't do anything. Okay, then we got to respect that. And then. But the other is like, oh, okay, I want to support you. I want to support you in doing your best, and I would like permission to challenge you a little bit. And the cool thing is, is I've got people in my life who love Grace, my daughter, who want to support her, and they're much better volleyball players than I am. And we met with one of them today, and I don't really know what they talked about.

I might check in a little bit later, but, you know, that's between them. The stories of parents living vicariously through their kids around sports are legendary. The out of control parents, the controlling parents, the critical parents, the shaming parents, like, I will not be that guy. And the people that do that are not conscious, right? They're not aware of all the stuff that's driving that behavior. It's definitely not about the kid. It's much more about them and their stuff. So as long as I can get my stuff out of the way, I can be the best support for my daughter.

So I think the conclusion for me is for the most part, there's no need to push my daughter. She's gonna find her way. But I can be a, like in the, in the bowling alleys, I can be a bumper on the, on the rails to just kind of help her go toward the pins. And, and that's the, that's the best I can do. And that's the most I need to do to really support her. And to me, like, that's conscious fatherhood, ego out of the way, seeing her for who she is, seeing her challenges, seeing her frustration, hearing her supporting her.

And like all of us, when our teenagers or our kids in general, feel heard, they're much more likely to hear us. And maybe that's the final kind of period at the end of this sentence today, is that when our kids feel heard, they're more likely to hear us. So wishing everybody a wonderful afternoon.