Teach Your Kids That They Are Free To Keep Or Drop Any Family Traits

It is okay to teach your kids that they can keep or drop any family traits and practices that they want. There are family habits and values that lead to great life, and there are family habits and traits that may lead the kids away from the type of life they want to create.

We try to have frequent conversations with the kids about the types of life experiences they want to have both now and in the future and then have them check in with which traits, behaviors, and values lead them closer to those experiences and which lead them away.

We couple this with a message that anything and everything they see in the adults and parents around them is it open to critical thought. Not everything we do as parents will serve them as they move into adulthood. Not all of our examples will be good for them.

Ultimately, they are free to decide what they want to keep and what they want to add to. They are always free to decide what they want to drop and what they want to replace with practices of their own.

There are no sacred cows. There are no ways of being that they must keep simply because they saw it in a family member. Everything is open to scrutiny. When we give kids the tools and options to weigh the ways they want to be in life and the freedom to choose or reject any parental traits, they are strengthened in becoming their own unique people.

Transcript

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This is unapologetic parenting podcast dedicated to candidly and unapologetically discussing parenting, divorce and co parenting. We take on the topics most people don't want to talk about and offer support and solutions to help you be a better parent, co parent and human being. Now without further ado, let's get right to it. Welcome back to unapologetic parenting, I'm your host Carl Knickerbocker. And we are talking about it being okay for your kids to adopt any family traits that they want. And to reject any family trades that they want. They can carry into the future, anything that serves them, they can leave in their past anything that does not serve them. teach your kids that they are free, absolutely free to accept, reject, change, modify, replace, any family traits that they want, they can keep whatever serves them, and they can discard the rest no matter who they learned the traits from. So a lot of times we want our kids to just adopt what we do, we want them to look like we want them to be like the family lineage or carry on certain things carry on traits carry on beliefs carry on practices, but they are their own unique beings, they do not have to continue on the things that we show them in life, some of the things that we show them, we may think they're good, and they work well for us, but for our kids and moving forward into their own unique individual lives, they might not be so good, they might not fit with a vision of what they actually want to create. And so there are family habits, their family values that lead to great life, their family values and fab family habits and traits that lead the kids perhaps away from the type of life that they actually want to create or what would be supportive for them on their individual paths in their individual futures. Here at the house, we try to have frequent conversations with the kids about the types of life experiences that they want to have both now and in their futures. And then we bring them back to which traits, behaviors and values they think will lead them closer to what they want to experience what they want to create. And those experiences that they think will lead them away. When we flat out tell them that everything and anything that they see in us as the adults that they see in us as parents or any adults, teachers, whoever else, anyone around them, we teach them that whatever they observe is open to critical thought. Not everything that we do as parents is going to be right. Not everything that we do as parents is going to serve them as they move into adulthood. We encourage them to not look at us, other adults, anyone as being perfect and having the way to do things figured out. So anytime the kids say, Oh, I want to be like so and so or Dad, I want to be like you, the response is cool, I want you to be the best you which means there are things that you know, perhaps you see us doing around the house that you think would work for you and you want to carry forward great if there are things you think you don't want in your life or things that you disagree with or things that you think won't serve you. You're not going to hurt anyone's feelings here by dropping those. Because really, we don't have any sacred cows, there are no ways of being in this family. That must be kept simply because it's the way this family does things. Kids should learn that they are always free to keep or reject anything. And it doesn't matter if it comes from a family member or if it comes from mom or dad or grandparent or favorite uncle or whoever else. There is nothing that must be kept. Everything can be open to scrutiny. And when we give the kids the tools, the critical thinking tools and the frame to be able to say what experiences do I want to create and then what will serve me to align with what I want to create and carry me toward those outcomes and goals. When we equip them with those. Then they are able to weigh everything that's before them. They can weigh the ways that they want to be in life and they can have the freedom to choose or reject any parental traits that they want and they are strengthened in becoming their own Union. People