Date Your Wife Parenting Challenges & Victories | Date Your Wife | Ep 104
- Cell phones have changed the game for kids, forcing kids today to grow up much faster, and at the same time, they’re NOT growing up. They’ve gotten really good at being able to communicate via text, but they haven’t learned how to commutate face-to-face.
- Danielle recalls waiting for boys to call her when she was in Junior High. She was nervous and sweating, hoping she wouldn’t sound like a dork or stutter. Today, it’s a matter of text, erase, edit, and send.
How has communication changed since you were a teen?
Point #2: Bed Time Shenanigans
- The bed-time routine at the White household can sometimes look more like a shit show, with their seventh-grader going into psycho mode while Garrett takes away her cell phone.
- Unbeknownst to Garrett, who is in the middle of a yelling match in one room, Danielle is in another room consoling their seven-year-old who has a pillow over her ears saying, “I hate this part!”
What does your bedtime routine look like?
Point #3: Old School Discipline
- When their oldest daughter back-talks Danielle, Garrett wonders if her mother would have tolerated that behavior. As a seventh-grader, Danielle remembers being backhanded by her mother while they were driving.
- As an eighth-grader, Garrett found himself wandering the streets of their new city for four hours after his mom kicked him out of the van for fighting with his siblings. That was before cell phones.
How do your disciplining methods differ from those of your parents?
Point #4: Jump Through the Windows- Danielle: When kids are little, they operate on your agenda; when they turn into teenagers, you operate on their agenda – that’s your window “in.” In order to gain that connection, I’m constantly looking for my windows.
- Garrett: We have some traction in her world. The key is being present with what her issues are and what’s going on in her world. Perhaps we actually do know what we’re doing.
What can you do to be more aware of those little windows of opportunity to connect with your children?
Point #5: Navigating the Parental Waters of Divorce
- It was only a couple years ago that Garrett’s nineteen-year-old son wouldn’t talk to him. Today, he is an integral part of the Warrior landscape as he and Garrett forge a new relationship that has recently included bringing Garrett’s ex-wife and her family into the picture.
- A family intervention during the Warrior Woman event in the summer of 2018 proved not only healing but life-transforming. Garrett and his ex-wife were able to take radical responsibility, let go of stories, and come to a peaceful place, demonstrating that anything is possible.
How are you navigating the waters of parental divorce?
Communication Challenge:Discuss the challenges cell phones have brought into your family.
Date Night Topic:How can you better support each other in how you parent? Brainstorm different ideas and strategies and choose one or two to begin implementing.
Quote of the Week:“The emotional fortitude of children isn’t what it used to be. Kids today are growing up intellectually very quickly, with great articulation and communication, but emotionally they’re going backward.”
—Garrett J White
“Because you are so mad and so bitter, and are not dealing with your own shit and your own stories, it is ultimately holding you back.”
—Danielle K White