Which Parenting Style are You? Sissy Goff

I say to parents a lot of times, I want you to let the bottom 20% go. And it came from a conversation with an anxious mom who just was spinning with her mind in her words.

And so at the end, I literally chased her out of my office saying, let the bottom 20% go because I just thought you got to let go of something. You cannot keep stressing and focusing with your kids, making a huge issue out of everything because it's impacting your relationship. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. So we have a guest back in the studio today that our daughter-in-law said I would listen to her every single day. And she's not saying that about us.

Trust me. And she picked up Sissy Goff as we were talking about her new book called The Worry-Free Parent. And she mentioned to me just the other day, she said, oh, I'm reading it every day.

I just cry reading it because it's so helpful. And so Sissy... Kendall is her name. Kendall, you're doing great. She is an amazing mom. And Austin is an incredible dad.

They're incredible. But Sissy, welcome back to Family Life Today. Thank you.

I'm so delighted to be with y'all. Yeah. And we've been talking about anxiety, obviously, the worry-free parent. I don't know a parent that doesn't worry. I mean, I'm guessing there are some. Are there? Sissy, is there anybody out there that doesn't worry?

No, I don't think so. In the same time, I read in the research a definition of anxiety that said anxiety is a response to cumulative stress over time. And isn't that our world? I mean, that is what we're living in, cumulative stress over time. I'm thinking of parents now worrying for their kids going to school because of what could happen at school. They probably feel like, well, there's a lot to worry about these days. There's a lot to worry about. We talked yesterday, and if you didn't listen yesterday, please go back and listen to that episode.

But we're going to get into some really interesting things. But as we close the segment, you had mentioned a favorite bedtime ritual for people with anxiety. So before we get into the day, give us this little tip. So it's what I tell kids to do all the time, but I think it works for grownups.

I do it myself too. It's called the three doors technique or the three doors game if you're talking to kids. You picture three doors literally in your mind, and it's three places you love and feel safe. So it could be a grandparents' house growing up. It could be a place you've been a bunch of times on vacation. It could be Disney World.

I mean, just any three locations that you feel safe and know well. When we're anxious and spinning out, anything sensory related is helpful, which is why, side note, I love the game five, four, three, two, one with kids where we say, tell me five things you see, four things you hear, three things you feel tactile, two things you smell, one thing you taste. Because when we're thinking in the sensory realm, we have to be present to the moment. And when we're anxious, we're in the past or the future.

We're not in the present moment. And so with three doors, what we would do is say you picked a grandparents' house. You would walk in the front door, think about, picture everything you see from the right all the way around you to the left.

What does it look like? What do you hear? What do you smell? And then you make your way slowly through the whole house doing the same thing. Everything you see, hear, smell, come out of that door, go in the second. Same thing through the whole location.

If you picked Disney World, it would take quite some time. Third door, do the same thing. And most kids say to me, I never make it to the third door, I fall asleep before I ever get there because it's a place we feel safe. And so our body relaxes. And again, when we're thinking about, okay, what did my grandmother's house smell like when I first walked in?

You're focused on that, not am I going to fail the quiz or is my child going to have anyone to sit with at the lunch table tomorrow? So you can do that as an adult too, you're saying. Yes, I do it all the time. You do. What are your three doors? Can you tell us? Sure.

Yes. I kind of bounce around. I pick Disney World sometimes. I love Disney World. I pick my grandparents' house.

My grandparents lived in an old, really neat house in Hot Springs, Arkansas and my summer camp. Oh, yeah. So you just see all of that, smell it. Like I'm walking through.

Yeah. What do I see? What do I hear?

What do I smell? So that's a good tip to get yourself asleep and your kids. Yes. I like that. Can get us out of the loop. I mean, you write in your book and we all know we're living in a very anxious time. Yes. I'm not saying, but our parents didn't worry.

And I know they did. Even coming out of the Great Depression at different times, but man, the world is swirling in such a way. And one of the things you write about is how anxiety affects us as parents.

Yes. Talk to us about that. I'm going to talk about five ways it impacts us. And then I'm talking about five types of parents.

I see the most in our office. So the first is that anxiety distracts us because like we're talking about, we're not in the present, we're in the past or the future and kids long for us to be in the present. They want us to be there with them. And again, it can even be that we're trying to problem solve or think of something helpful, but still we're not with them in the moment. So you're saying, let's say a husband or wife comes home from work, but they're not present because they're still back at the job. She's talking about her husband. I think this happens a lot where wives will tell me my husband's home, but he's not home. Could that be a sign of anxiety? Absolutely. If he's rehearsing what happened in the board meeting when he felt like it didn't go the way he wanted it to, or he didn't give the right presentation, that's exactly what's causing it.

Wow. So how do you stop that? Well, that's where we go back to breathing and using breath prayer if we can, grounding, which is the five, four, three, two, one, or there are a lot of different ways we can do that. And then trying to flip the thought, stop, drop and flip like we talked about in the last episode. So go back and listen to that one, but we've got to really fight it. If we're not proactively doing something different, that worry is just going to take over until we're eventually distracted because we have to be. The alarm goes off and we have to get up out of bed or whatever it is. I'm sure some listeners are old enough to remember when we didn't have these cell phones that I'm holding in my hand, but I remember when they first came out, my thought was, and I'm sure I wasn't alone, I think it was even promoted that way. Now my life will be so much simpler because I'll be able to get everything done on my drive home. I can call people, finish the day and go home. I literally thought it would help me be not distracted, it would separate this from this.

How wrong was that? It brings everything right in front of us at all times. So you can get so nervous and worried and anxious filled and distracted like 90% of the time, right? I mean, I feel like my parents were distracted by any plethora of things growing up, but they didn't have the phone that they were checking as they were bathing me or putting me to bed or any of those things. And I think it's, I mean, y'all know with grandkids, my little nephews that I'm with a lot.

I have to think, put the phone down, flip it over. I mean, I get so mad at myself sometimes because I'll be sitting there and playing with whatever or watching or looking. And I remember thinking one time when I was with my oldest nephew thinking, I wonder if when Henry is watching a show, has asked his mom and dad and I to watch a show with him and we are on our phones. If he thinks I can't wait till I'm old enough and I can hold a phone and watch TV at the same time, that just, it breaks my heart that I do that and I just want to put the darn thing away. Dave and I get mad at each other when we're watching a show together and we're on the phone. I'm like, you're not even watching. And I think it's become so normal for kids as they're watching their show, the parents are scrolling. I'm guilty of that as a grandparent too. So they're watching. It's a new thing that kids, we're totally off track, but kids are saying to us in our offices for the first time, I think they've been saying it for probably eight years.

I feel like I have to compete with technology for my parents' attention. Okay. Let's go back to number one. It's making us anxious. It's making them anxious too. Yes.

Number one. Okay. Anxiety distracts us, which is exactly what we're talking about.

We're not present to the moment. Anxiety also makes us attach future meaning to present problems. This is number two.

Number two. Say that again. Anxiety makes us attach future meanings to present problems. So because he is struggling in math, he will never be able to do high school math. He'll never get to college.

He'll never have a job where he can provide for his family because he can't do third grade math. This is so mean. This is so convicted right now when our kids were young. I had a mom one time who came in and she said, I've gotten really concerned about my daughter. And I said, tell me what's going on. And she said, we were on a trip recently and we were staying in a hotel room and she had some trash and she went to throw it away and she missed the trash can and she left it on the floor. And she sat there in this pregnant pause and I said, and?

And she said, how will she ever be a functional human being when she doesn't throw the trash away? Wow. The leap. The leaps we take and we all do it. We have a son when he was diagnosed with ADHD. That was our conversation when we were going to bed, like, how's he going to get through school? Will he ever go to college? Will he ever get married?

Like, why do we do that? Well, and what a great picture. He's probably doing great right now. He's doing great. Yes.

Phenomenal. And has had to work harder for things than other kids might have. So probably is more resilient and has a better work ethic. We do this so big time with the idol of sports. You know, if your third grader or your seven or eight year old can't make a free throw or a layup, they'll never be able to play sports at any level the rest of their life. They're seven years old. They could be in the NFL someday, but we do it. And we think if they can't, I was told this by a coach when my youngest was playing different sports.

They wanted him to play soccer. And I said, how many games you play? 80? I'm like, can't do it.

Don't have time. I can't play college sports in his life if he doesn't join my third grade soccer team. That's what he told me. Wow. I hung up thinking he's probably right. Wow.

Should we do it? We didn't do it. And he played college sports. But it was just the worry, the anxiety, whether it's sports or academics or anything, it is. You're right. We project it. Ask the parents. Okay parents, that's a good question.

These are good questions to ask yourself. Are you, say it again, how did you say it? Attaching future meaning to present problems. Oh boy. I think a lot of us are guilty of that one.

It's easy to be. Instead of doing that, we should just do what? This is a present problem. Be in the moment. Yeah.

Yes. And we could go back to the truth of suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character hope. And in this parenting class we're teaching on this, I say to parents, I want you to think about what caused you to grow the most when you were growing up. What did you learn from?

What are you most proud of? Because probably the answer to every one of those questions involve hard things that you went through and that your parents didn't rescue you from. Yeah, I've always, I've said this so many times, I'm going to write a parenting book called the five gifts or 10 gifts every parent should give their children. And the first one is adversity. Like it's all these gifts you never think of.

Yes. Because we think, no, we want to make it easier and better. And it's like, no, the best character comes from hardest times. Again, you don't force your kid to go through something difficult, but when they do, you don't bail them. And you walk beside them and you let them grow through. It's hard to do.

It's hard to do. We just hate to see them in pain, but you're right. We grow the most sometimes when we're in adversity and hard things. And we cling to Jesus more than ever when we're in those spots. Amen. Exactly. Our faith grows so much. Okay.

That's two. Three would be anxiety makes us angry, which we've talked about a little bit already, but that we're wanting good things for them. And we feel like they're not happening. And so I think it gets bigger and bigger and bigger inside of us. And we end up getting angry when it's the last thing we would ever want to do. I always want parents to hear that because you're angry doesn't mean you're a bad parent. And in fact, I think it means the opposite. I think it means you're anxious and are not stopping to process it. And so it's showing up that way. I mean, when you are able to identify my anxiety, my worry is having me react in a way that I shouldn't be, whether I'm yelling or getting angry.

That's a revelation in itself to be able to connect those dots. What do you do? Do you stop? Do you pause? Do you take a breath? I think you pause. You try to, with your spouse or with your family, have a code word that you can say that helps you as you're moving towards getting more angry. And then I think you can do two things. I think if you're just angry in the moment, I think you could think about who do I want to be in this moment and what do I want my kids to hear from me? So good. I feel like a lot of times the anger right now is at ourselves.

Me too. And I think the way we talk to ourselves spills over onto the people that are closest to us. Well, how do you think parents can generally talk to themselves when it's in a negative way? What do they say to themselves? I'm going to go back to all the things I botched today, or because he or she is struggling with this, it must be my fault.

I'm the one who started this. And I would say, this is a very overgeneralization, so hang in there with me, but I read years ago that when something goes wrong in a boy's world, he blames someone else. And when something goes wrong in a girl's world, she blames herself. And I don't think that's always true. I think there are definitely men who blame themselves. But I think moms right now are angrier at themselves than I've ever seen. And I think that's part of the anger with kids that's coming up.

It's this, I'm a failure as a parent, not getting it right. And I'm going to try harder. It's like, do y'all snow ski?

Yes. I love to snow ski. And I'm not a great, I'm a very easy blue snow skier, and I don't fall much. But if I fall once, I fall five times because I get tighter and more mad at myself. I think, put your skis down the hill. You're not, you're turning too wide. You know, I just start talking to myself that way.

Yes. And I mean, literally my body is getting stiffer and tighter and then end up falling again. And I think we do the same things emotionally to ourselves. We get angrier at ourselves and angrier, and then the anger is going to spill out.

So you need to go into the lodge and have a hot chocolate, take a breath, start over. I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with John Gottman, you know, who writes about marriage. I remember hearing him say that, you know, they'd wire up these couples and let them have a conflict. And he's observing and making comments, but he said, you know, one of his famous quotes is, you know, they're literally tracing their heart rate. And he said, they discovered that when a man's heart rate goes above 95, the next thing out of his mouth is going to be really stupid.

And so I found that fascinating, you know, when you're in conflict or whatever, but here's one of the things I thought was so insightful. He says, so bad things happen when you're escalating. It's not going to go well. He says, so here's what they do. They're filming this. They've got the man and woman wired up.

He said they would send in one of their guys say, hey, we have technical problems. We have to take a break for a second and then we'll regroup. And they're like, okay. So they take off their stuff. They literally take a break for 10. It's all made up.

There's no technical problems. They just wanted to show what happens when you settle down or take a breath, put them back together and it's a whole different conversation with a five or 10 minute break. That's what you're saying. It's like, take a breath. You're going to stop this, this cycle you're on and say, for me often it's like, take a breath and go, what's true? The Lord says, the scripture says, why am I worried? I'm like, wait a minute. And I will spin until I stop and do that. It's like the word of God brings me back to center and says, okay, there's some things that maybe I need to do about this.

But the worry that I'm feeling that I'm carrying, that's making me yell or get anxious. The Lord's got it. Yeah. So that's a big one. Yeah. All right. We get three.

What's number four? Anxiety makes us micromanage. Oh boy. This is so convicting.

Me too. It's not convicting. It's just, it's like putting a light on things. Yeah. Well, and I hope, because back to when, when do we finally do the work? I think it's courage.

I don't know that I ever said the second word. I think it's courage and conviction that take us there. So micromanage. So I think in the absence of being able to control the big things, we lock into the little things and try to control all of those and we don't see detail. Everything has the same level of importance and it's huge. And so we end up micromanaging kids and I think that makes them feel anxious themselves. I think it makes them feel incapable.

Yeah. You know, we're stepping in and trying to fix all the things I say to parents a lot of times, I want you to let the bottom 20% go. And it came from a conversation with an anxious mom who just was putting the same level and I'm doing that up and down with my hands because that's what she felt like in my office. I didn't even get a word in in 50 minutes because I think she was so anxious. She was just spinning with her mind in her words. And so at the end I literally chased her out of my office saying, let the bottom 20% go, let the bottom 20% go because I just thought you got to let go of something.

You cannot keep stressing and focusing with your kids, making a huge issue out of everything because it's impacting your relationship. So the bottom 20%, things like they didn't put the trash in the trash can. There you go.

Yes. Things that really don't matter. Things that don't matter.

But what about the parent that's thinking, but that does matter? Well that's where I really say to parents in my office, I want you to write down the top 10 things that you're getting stirred up about and maybe even having power struggles over them with. In order. With your kids. Yeah. With your kids. Stop talking about the bottom two.

Just stop. Give us a few examples of what some of those power struggles may be. Well I think it could be their room, the cleanliness of their room. If they're an adolescent, stop talking about their room because you have much bigger fish to fry.

If they're younger, I mean obviously I think dressing appropriately is important and we're in a hard stage for that right now, but I think letting go of their style choices can be the bottom two. Sometimes if it feels like they're wearing a Spider-Man t-shirt to school on a dress up day, let the teacher deal with it. One of our grandkids, I remember saying to my daughter-in-law because this little granddaughter started wearing her pajamas all day.

Every day. And whenever she would start feeling anxious, she'd want to put on her pajamas. She goes, I just need my pajamas and she'd go upstairs and put on her pajamas. And so she started planning to wear her pajamas all day and I said to our daughter-in-law, someday you're going to look back on this phase and you're going to be proud of yourself for just letting her wear her pajamas all day.

That is a great example. She's at the grocery store and she's at the park in her pajamas and some pajama counter there. Who cares?

Who cares? Sometimes we would like to wear our pajamas. Yes, we do.

That's what sweats are. Exactly. All right. What's our number five? The five is that anxiety causes us to lose our warmth and our joy. Yes, it steals it. Yes. And I read in the research that anxiety in kids is often, not always, please hear me say not always, but anxiety in kids is often linked to a lack of parental warmth.

Wow. And I don't believe that is because the parent is not warm as a person. I believe it's because when we have spun out to that place where we're not present, we can't access our warmth. And so it's so hard to connect with them. And again, kids are longing for that from us. And it's interesting as we're talking about all this, one of the trends that we see with kids today is the lack of self-regulation.

And one of the best ways kids learn that to control my own emotions is to be with a grown-up who's in control of theirs and listening to me and with me in whatever I'm feeling, attunement is what that's called. Sissy, how practically can you do that? Let's see, you're trying to get out the door to go to school and one of your kids is having an absolute meltdown because they don't want to wear a pair of shoes or they don't want to wear a coat today.

Yes. You're going to be late and they're just on the floor, screaming, crying, hitting their sibling. How do you put that into action right then?

A couple of different things. Maybe if you have a friend who could drive the sibling to school, you have somebody else take the older sibling who's mad that they're not going to be on time or a spouse if your spouse is there, absolutely. And then I think part of your bottom 20% that day is you let go of getting to school on time and you sit down on the floor with them and you say, I know it's hard sometimes to get dressed for me too and I want to do the same thing and you know what, let's take three deep breaths together right now. And what is something you've learned about God lately that helps?

Let's say a scripture together. And then it may take, it may mean you're 15 minutes later, but the school will be okay. Especially at the age your child would throw themselves on the floor, the school's going to be okay.

And the tardy really doesn't matter. I definitely have gotten angry with my nephews before because they weren't moving fast enough. One time my oldest took my face in his hands, he calls me Diddy and he said, Diddy, it's okay. I was like, just get so convicted so quickly. I remember reading a book by Jean Lush once and she said her child was wanting to tell her all about these things going on. And Jean, the author of the book, the mom said, I was so anxious because all these things were going on. And so she was rushing her child through the story like, okay, okay, okay. And her daughter said, mom, I need you to lie down in your soul first.

Wow. And she said it was like so convicting that she said, I'm so sorry, tell me everything. And a teacher had made fun of her that day. And she said, I almost missed it because I was so distracted with something else that was going on. That last one got me.

I mean, they all did. I've done them all, but I know that I'm not a warm person. None of us are. When we're carrying something and usually that carry is private, it's secret.

Nobody knows what it is. It's sort of you alone. And when you're able to share that with somebody, if you're married with your spouse, maybe even as a parent with your child, like you just said, I'm anxious too, I'm feeling this. Something happens to your soul when you confess, you know, when you share it out loud and then maybe the other or yourself goes vertical and says, okay, I need to take a breath. Because when you said earlier, you know, we're going to be tardy today. I know there's so many parents like never. That's a never.

And you're saying, you know what? It isn't the most important thing in the world, but for some of us, I'm not wired that way, but there's some that would say, no, that, that is too important. You don't ever do a tardy. You don't ever get a C. Right. You always get A's and there's part of you that has to go, what really, really matters?

Because you want to be known and you want your children to feel love and warmth, not rigidity and coldness. That's all tied to anxiety. That's great wisdom. We'll hear more from Anne about what the fruit of the spirit has to do with battling worry as we raise our kids here in just a moment. But you know, as someone who has personally wrestled with anxiousness for nearly my, my entire life, I really resonated with Dave's description of rigidity and coldness.

Those are two elements that are often connected with anxiety. And doesn't God want a life for us that's different than that? Doesn't he want so much more for us?

John 10, 10 talks about Jesus giving us the abundant life and rigidity and coldness are not connected to abundance. I loved that and I love this conversation today. I'm Shelby Abbott and you've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Sissy Goff on Family Life Today. Sissy Goff has written a book called The Worry-Free Parent, living in confidence so your kids can too. And I think that in a world of anxiety, that seems to infiltrate much of not only our hearts, but our family's hearts as well. This is a really needed and helpful book to address the elements of worry and anxiety that seems so prevalent amongst many families and particularly parents today. So this book is going to be our gift to you when you partner with us today. You can get your copy right now with any donation that you make to Family Life. Simply go online to familylifetoday.com and click on the donate now button at the top of the page. Or you can give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Or you can feel free to drop us a donation in the mail if you'd like.

Our address is Family Life, 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida, 32832. All right, let's hear more from Anne about the fruit of the spirit and battling worry and anxiety as we raise our kids. I think too, as we talk about that last one, the thing that came into my head was the fruit of the spirit. I think about the first ones, love, joy, and peace.

Wow. I don't know about all of you, but I have to have Jesus to bring that fruit of the spirit into my life. It comes from the vine. It does come when I'm connected to Jesus, talking to him throughout the day, giving him my burdens, my cares, my worries.

Then he can carry it so that I can experience love, joy, and peace. Can our kids pick up on that? Now coming up tomorrow, what are some practical tools and strategies to help parents manage anxiety and build a positive legacy with our children?

Well, Sissy Goff is back again to help us understand those strategies and flesh them out for us. That's coming up tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David and Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.