Recognizing Your Son’s Need for Respect (Part 2 of 2)

I like to see her eyes light up and have her read some of the things to me.

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Learn more at focusonthefamily.com slash club radio. Ask the question, is that which I'm about to say or do going to feel or sound respectful to my son? He may not deserve it.

We're not talking about him deserving it. We're talking about the fact that he needs something from you that only you can give him. That's Emerson Egrich and you'll hear more from him today on Focus on the Family. He'll be offering help with the mother-son relationship. Your host is Focus president and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. We're coming back to a great discussion for moms in particular. If you missed last time, I want to encourage you to listen to part one of the Broadcaster.

Get the entire conversation on CD. The discussion is based on Emerson's book Mother and Son the Respect Effect and I learned a lot on this topic from Emerson and I think you will too as we continue. And Dr. Egrich has helped transform countless marriages through his love and respect conferences and he sure has helped a lot of parents through his speaking and writing as well including that book Mother and Son the Respect Effect. Stop by the show notes to get your copy. Let's go ahead now and hear day two of the conversation with Dr. Emerson Egrich. Emerson, welcome back. Oh thank you. Okay I am like you know a kid at a smorgasbord now. I mean this is such good material.

I was thinking about it all night about applying these things in different ways and I'm sure many of our listeners who were able to listen last time have done the same thing. Let's kind of restate some of the things from last time and then we'll get into the new concepts that you're talking about in your book Mother and Son the Respect Effect. That innate ability of a woman to look at herself first. I mean it is something I see in Jean all the time where she's loading up guilt because something didn't go right. You were very strong yesterday saying moms don't do that. We know you're going to look to your own heart first to say look how I've blown it.

Look how I've shamed. Reiterate that important point for moms not to go down that alley which could be really destructive. Right well and the point applies because we're saying that boys need a mother's respect and at first that seems counter-intuitive. It's counter-cultural. Wait a minute I need my son's respect. I can't believe you're saying I got to respect my boy because he's doing things that are not respectable. He's not being obedient to me and so but it was Sarah my wife as well as hundreds of mothers that began to put me onto this when they began to apply this teaching that we've had in marriage that when a wife puts on a respectful demeanor toward her husband that man softens moves toward her and connects which is the longing of every woman's heart and she began to apply it to her boy and they began to write me and so when I wrote this book though I realized I know that many mothers oh I have been so disrespectful oh and then she starts replaying her mind all these scenes where she's blown it and now she's thinking I've ruined him I've ruined the family I've ruined everything ruined the cosmos and she moves into the self-deprecation so one of the things I want to encourage her to do is we need to work together here this is not for the purpose of you going into that we're just talking about adding a few vocabulary words to your love and to keep doing what you're doing but make some adjustments and meet a need here that we think has been removed from the parenting radar screen with regard to a boy's need to feel respected for who he is apart from his performance and that doesn't seem logical or right and so this is a niche that we're bringing into this but mothers can move into this oh I've blown it and I'm saying let's backtrack on that let's just see it as a slight little adjustment and watch the big results Emerson in fact you help us by understanding this in a couple of concepts in your book one is the guides principle and chairs we don't want to get locked into all of the description because it is meaty you know Paul talks about not being on the milk of the word but the meat of the word I think for parenting you're into the meat of what it means to be a mom and I would want to point people if you want to get more of that description go to the website and we'll post that there but briefly talk about what the guides principle is and what chairs is guides and chairs are two acronyms and I had the privilege as I mentioned before to study the bible 30 hours a week for nearly 20 years and I looked at everything in the bible on parenting not just principles that would apply to parenting but what has god said to a father to a mother and I worked really hard in putting it together in an acronym guides g-u-i-d-e-s that parents would be giving understanding instructing disciplining encouraging and supplicating we won't go into that but that's god's call on a mom that's god's call on a dad and he wants us to do that and we do that unto him but then I looked at another acronym chairs c-h-a-i-r-s which I looked in scripture what does god say to us about male and female for instance act strong be like men well what does it mean to be strong like man there's no statement be strong and act like a woman what is god saying to us and I worked very hard than taking those salient scriptures that deal with masculinity as well as femininity but in this one masculinity and came up with chairs c-h-a-i-r-s and there are things about a boy that are very masculine and when you understand what god is saying you can then speak into that with what I call respect talk and that boy's spirit will soften he will look at mom and move toward you to connect which is the longing of your heart as a mother cover the chairs though it's conquest hierarchy authority insight a relationship and sexuality and these are the things that you know a boy is thinking about behaving like or toward and correct it's important for a mom particularly to understand how their boy is thinking yeah for instance conquest that doesn't sound you know like that's very inviting but adam was created in garden of eden and before eve was designed before the fall and he was to cultivate and maintain the garden and he was designed by god to work in the field and he's cursed in the field she's cursed in the family but i always say what's the first question every man asked another man wanted me for the first time what do you do this is inherent within us and it doesn't mean that women aren't going to ask that question but they'll tend to look at the ring they'll go relationally are you married do you have children even a ceo of a corporation will still look around and she will talk relationally it's the way she wants to do it it's not a matter she can't do the other and we are more focused here well what does it mean for your boy than to grow up to work in a field well how is he processing conquest when he's making the legos said what what's he trying to achieve what's he doing and the book unpacks each of those concepts and coaches the mother what she can say when she notices something and use the word like i really am proud of you here or i appreciate that or i value you or i respect you or let's just take on insight which is the eye of chairs here's a mother who applied this and she wrote me and she said this and it's very very powerful when my son gives me his insight i say i really respect what you have to say or i say i respect the way you handle that situation or i really respect how you're taking initiative to get things done and follow through with she said these things have made my son smile like i have never seen i talk more about respect with regard to sporting events and showing respect for other opponents my son knows without a doubt that i love him now i feel he knows that i value him and his ideas which i may not have done so well in the past thank you for sharing god's message what are some of those desires that boys have in that relationship with their mom well they have several they have as we talked about in terms of that chairs and i've written this several times in the book but she needs to know that he needs to know that she respects his desire to work and achieve that's the c respect his desire to provide protect and even die i mean a five-year-old little boy said his mommy i'll protect you mommy and some others laugh at that but no there's something going on there and need to honor that why does he put on the superman outfit what's going on you can speak to that you're a strong man feel his muscles let him flex you're a strong man you protect women and the innocent why do boys build the forts why do they pick up sticks to fight we think oh they're going to become violent you ask every little boy who's building a fort and he's got these swords out there he's protecting the innocent from the evil invaders he is doing a righteous deed but we're labeling that in a way that is though somehow we need to indict him you know well that's that effeminate culture aspect of the male making him soft uh respecting his desire to be strong and to lead and make decisions that's that authority respecting his desire to analyze solve and counsel respect his desire for a shoulder to shoulder friendship and i've coached mothers on this mom want to talk is sarah my wife talks about the hundred questions she would ask her at least 20 questions every day when the boys would come home and finally david after several days mom it's the same at school every day if anything changes i'll let you know and so they're asking questions asking questions and i say to mom when the two boys are out playing catch just go out there take a chair out not iphone have nothing going on no recipe book no nothing to sit there just watch and play catch for 15 minutes don't say a word just watch them and then i want you to just watch them they'll be making eye contact at you throwing and you know running get the they'll whatever they're going to do now you get up go into the house evening meal whatever now call them in tell them to go upstairs make their bed that they didn't make wash their hands and face and clean up the room and come down to dinner it'll all be done see what you've done is you've energized them you've made a deposit in their spirits just by what we call the shoulder to shoulder activity see mothers feel that we're only connected if we're talking face to face and he's sharing with me what his day was all about well daughters will do that but boys are a little bit different so what you want to do is meet his need not just be reassured that everything's okay between you do it the shoulder to shoulder and i coach mothers on this and women are writing this is unbelievable why hasn't anybody told us this well or they're thinking that's really hard to do well i got i've got to do i've got my task well that's exactly right it's not hard to do it just seems yeah it just it seems like this is not producing any quality in our relationship this is not quality time it's a waste of time exactly but that's if we filter through the feminine grit again if we and that's what you're pointing out and it's not to indict the feminine we need to honor that exalt all of that but what we're reminding us jesus said have you not read he who made them from the beginning made them male and female and though we're equal we're not the same and we need to understand then what is different about our boy and does he have a need that we're maybe not paying attention to and i've written this book to say it's a huge need and when you meet it he softens and connects with you and he gets affectionate with you generally speaking emerson in the last portion of the program i want to get to some real practical respect talk at every level of development toddler teen and everything in between before i do though you mentioned the right outcome and for that mom who has tried different things maybe she's even innately tried some of the things that you're talking about but it hasn't worked she hasn't received the response from her son maybe it's just years of antagonism between them do you have examples where it's taken much more than what you're describing to heal that relationship because of the wounds between them both describe that environment where it's much harder than just a simple phrase right right the challenge for all of us is to step back for a moment and say look whether or not my son responds to this or let's put it by way of analogy a father is to be loving toward his daughter whether or not she rebels and gets into drugs or whatever that he can be a very loving father apart from the outcome in her so two moms your son may not respond immediately there could be any number of things that are going on he could be addicted he could be lying i mean there we all know i went to a military school for five years from eighth grade to 12th grade five years of my life and it had nothing to do with my mom it had everything to do with me and so one of the things that i want to say you stay the course on this this is about meeting your son's need whether he appreciates it or not this is about you being a respectful woman of god whether your son is responsive or not don't give in to contempt and disrespect and communicating that way with the hope that somehow he's going to repent that would be using unholy means to achieve a very worthy end so my challenge stay the course do this unto christ and just trust that what we're saying here is correct because mothers love to meet a need and you're meeting your son's need to be believed in that you honor his heart and you believe in him more than he probably believes in himself right now and i believe if anything's going to cause him to turn the corner it's that i do not believe boys will return home to a mother who has nothing but contempt and feeling that she despises him because he's humiliated her and shamed her and made her feel that she's a failure as a mother and as a woman emerson that is so powerful you're right on the money again because i think of the many stories i've heard where you've had a prodigal child and what brings that child back over the long term usually when they're an adult will be that consistency of love that they felt from mom and dad and if it's not there the chances are it may not happen and so i love that keeping that tether of love tight because that's the testimony that we receive in the end that i came back to my mom because it just was so obvious how much she cared about me yes and it took me time to figure that out and i would add a tether of respect and honor because we again we default to the love component mothers are loving we've got a good friend right now her son is in prison and she's continued to apply this and this is a man in prison will be there for many years but his attitude toward his mother he got addicted and it wasn't anything to do with her he got himself in a mess and he's an addict but because she's honored his spirit even though she's been humiliated by what has happened the family has the sorrow that they're experiencing his own regret his own guilt she has given voice to these principles and this son is connected from behind the walls the prison bars but she has a relationship with her son yeah because of this that's powerful that's so good hey we do want to get practical so let's talk for the remaining minutes about how to deal with um i guess you'd say the phases of childhood so that toddler to try to get these points across maybe that toddler just hit his little sister or something how does mom engage that little boy to say johnny that's not what we're going to do yes you're an honorable young man and honorable men do not do this your daddy doesn't do this you're honorable now let me insert mothers think well a three-year-old four-year-old isn't going to understand that concept this is what's blown away does a little girl understand when daddy says i love you absolutely surely does and mothers were testing this out i don't think that my boy would respect me and this mother had a two-year-old and a four-year-old and she was put in the bed and she decided to apply this and she has a psychological background she's a psychologist or she said brendan i really respect you and she thought that he would say what do you mean she said he sat up and he said thank you mommy and he would always echo she said i love you and he would say i love you she said i respect you he sat up and said thank you and she said he understood what i was saying now it's still an abstract concept so i'm not going to debate that always but if she uses the language with that toddler it's not honorable it's not honorable to hit your sister just keep on that message that is good let's move it to grade school maybe it's getting a little more serious now than chores aren't being done you haven't experienced this never in my life we've never experienced this for the 1000th time can you take that trash out and put it in the garage big can right i mean that's my mantra oh yeah dad will do it in an hour later why is the trash still here yes talk to that mom who's struggling with chores yes well first of all there will be no perfect children there was only one perfect child and so you know you didn't uh have that perfect child so there we've got to allow for uh some degree of independence jesus said a boy is going to leave father and mother and so as i say you control during the toddler years but then you have to move into council from you know those teen years because you can't control them 24 7 and then there's the casting off and you want to develop this boy to finally leave home okay and so there's got to be some allowance for him to you know wiggle a little bit but on that point you ask the question you know i've asked you multiple times to take the garbage out i understand it's a hassle and i know they're more exciting things to do but you said you would do it and i see you as an honorable man of integrity and help me understand this because i believe in you and i believe you're becoming this man of honor i i need you to be honorable and follow through on your word here even though it's a hassle but you tell me how can we solve this problem because you're putting it on their honor to do it i like that yeah as long as we don't use this as a club right we have to figure out that's why i'm saying what battle do you want to fight here is it the garbage battle or is it another one you know but there has to come that moment when we ask that question we put the the problem back on the shoulder you coach me here if you were dad what would you say to you because i see you as an honorable man and yet it's almost like you're not honoring me you're not respecting me have i done something that has caused you not to want to respond to me help me understand where am i failing as a parent help me with my feelings so you've kind of covered that tween message as well in terms of respecting each other and then that teen message when maybe they're coming home late blowing curfew more often than they should dig into that a little bit a little more intellectual discussion what i'm finding is the teens get older is their rationales become a little more difficult to debate you know there's reasons why these things aren't happening and you began to get into these lengthy debates rather than your instructions being followed speak to that issue of the debate season of teenhood right well and that's where the debate cannot get down into the gutter where you are showing disrespect toward the spirit of the individual there has to be an appeal jonathan and david you know as they went through those teen years that i tried to remind myself okay this is going to be a discussion here of man to man we're going to talk honorably with each other respectfully with each other i said to david there were times he was pushing the limits and i i have a circle that i drew you have authority of father you have the freedom of the son and you have the responsibility so i had authority freedom and responsibility i said son i know you want more freedom and you really don't want my authority and yet you want me to be responsible for you i will tell you you can have total freedom and come out totally from underneath my authority but you have to be 100 responsible for yourself and you don't want that because you want things that i'm responsible for you i get that but you want more freedom all i can say is we're going to have some tension here and this tension is healthy but in a few years you're going to be outside the home so now let's talk how can we honor each other you know we have a curfew i know that feels limiting to you but we live in fear when you're not here so how can you serve us how can you honor us even though you feel this is unfair talk to me i know you feel this is unjust i know you feel this is unfair i know you feel i'm dishonoring you but i feel it is fair it is reasonable it guards your mom and my heart from feeling fear and i feel you're honoring us so now how can we create win-win help me i like that it's rational and it's calm uh you flipping to the dad conversation there but let me ask this question um when can mom say and when should she say honey i need your help here because he's typically you know oblivious to some of this i know one of the funniest things that goes on in our house will be one of my boys standing five feet from me and gene will direct the instructions through me to him and i'll say you know he's standing right here you know so she'll say can you just make yeah can you have trent do the dishes okay trent would you do the dishes and he's going i can hear you mom what is that dynamic yeah well she's perhaps feeling that her authority is not being used with trent he's not responding to her so she's going to use your authority to make sure this gets done i'm not quite sure of all the dynamics there but i think to your point about what can a mother do i think again if a mother is afraid let's say that curfew issue again she can appeal you're 17 and you know i need your strength son because when you don't get in on time i begin to worry i begin to be afraid and i think you're gonna that you're done and i know that you're gonna tell me mom you shouldn't feel that way i know i shouldn't feel that way but i need your strength here i need your leadership i need you to help me okay i need you home by xyz time see there comes a point when we shouldn't be afraid of being vulnerable with our children as they move into that young adulthood thing appealing to them but appealing to them based on our need if mom really is afraid then why not give voice to that rather than saying young man you're being disrespectful and you're not honoring and you're and moving into that condemnation again and shaming him because he's not responding to your authority leadership is that really the root here is that really what you want no i'm afraid that he might die on the road and he's not home okay then let's go there with that and then appeal to him to serve you and watch what happens now will every boy do it now if he's addicted if he's into sex he's doing things we we live in a very real world where there are a lot of temptations and he's going to give into those temptations and it's going to override his mind that says i ought to obey mom and dad and you're going to have to deal with that situation and i deal with that in the book on discipline and consequences but begin with what we're saying right now appeal to his strength appeal to that sense of honor that's good that is so good emerson before we go i mean one of the culture's greatest questions right now are the kind of the late blooming of boys to men i mean the 20-something that is living in his mom and dad's basement perhaps doesn't seem motivated playing video games way too much is arriving at adulthood maybe five to ten years later than men used to speak to that mom who's got that son in that phase of life where they're just not sure what to do um what would you say to her well i think again this is one of my concerns that i think this we talk about the soft male or we talk about this boy and is he lazy is he slawful is this something that's evidence of a poor character quality or does this reinforce my message he's afraid because all the messages out there are opposite of chairs that he doesn't have it in him to conquer he really doesn't have that strength to provide and protect he doesn't have strength of leadership he really doesn't have a lot of insight he's really not a person you want to have a good friendship and relationship with and he may not you know have a right perspective on human sexuality and he's beginning to produce a christ follower beginning to feel like is he really a man does he really have what it takes can i really enter that adventure and make a difference in the field that perhaps god wants me in and men will pull back out of fear and so the real question is can a mom begin to speak into that and say honey i do believe in you i believe that god has a call on you i believe there's something that he has for you i've been praying for you for 20 years on that and i'm fully confident that he's going to reveal that and here's what i see in you here are the desires i see in you the opportunities aren't there but i just need to go on record to say here's what i believe about you and if i've been remiss in saying that or if i've been on you to get out there and get a job and somehow you feel that i think you're a failure that is not the case here's what i really believe about you and let me state several things yeah that is so good emerson i'm leaping out of my chair here and i hope moms are excited about what they're hearing because it gives them a pathway to improving the relationship with their sons because it will feel like you don't speak the same language and you don't understand each other and i'm excited to be able to deliver some hope and help to that mom who is so frustrated maybe dads too or you know moms are turning to their husbands going to help me and we don't understand what to say or do this is a resource for you particularly that mom of the boy and i'm excited that you've written this i'm grateful that you have i can't wait to share it with gene at home just to help her in her relationship with our kids this is what you enable us to do here at focus on the family i know that hundreds if not thousands of moms are going to contact us and we want you to because we're in your corner we want to put this resource in your hand so that you can do the best possible job of parenting that young boy as you can what a great conversation with dr emerson egretch he's been our guest the past couple of broadcasts here on focus on the family and i'll encourage you to donate to the ministry and request your book from us the book is called mother and son the respect effect and let's do this john for a gift of any amount we'll say thank you by sending you emerson's book and you can also stand in the gap for those who may not be able to order this resource your generous gift will enable us to send this along to others in need donate today get that book or ask for the cd of this two-part conversation our number 800 the letter a in the word family 800-232-6459 or you can donate and get the book and other resources we'll have the link in the episode notes and as we close one last word from dr egretch for the mom who's struggling ask the question is that which i'm about to say or do going to feel or sound respectful to my son he may not deserve it we're not talking about him deserving we're talking about the fact that he needs something from you that only you can give him some great parting advice from emerson egretch and once more it's been a privilege to have him here on focus on behalf of jim daley and the entire team i'm john fuller hoping you have a great weekend and inviting you back on monday we'll hear from allison batke she'll help you establish boundaries with your adult child as we once again help you and your family thrive in christ yes did you know nearly 60 of american adults don't have a will in place that's a big number and not having a will can leave a heavy burden for family left behind if you need a will but don't know where to begin let focus on the family help download our resource 15 questions to ask when preparing a will it's our gift to you at focus on the family dot com slash prepare my will that's focus on the family dot com slash prepare my will you