Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Uncommon Freedom Show. Our purpose is to equip and inspire you to reach your potential, maximize your impact and live a great life while you make the world a better place. I'm Kevin.

Speaker 2: 0:13

And I'm Becca We're your hosts. Today we are talking about spending individual time with each of your kids and how important it is to make that a non-negotiable part of your schedule. Stay tuned until the end for a valuable resource for your one-on-one time. Such shows that it is vital to schedule recurring family time with your children Has busy parents. you spend plenty of time with your children. however, is it truly quality time? Quality time is time with your children and giving them your undivided attention, doing tasks that they like to do.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Showing your children that you love and care for them helps to keep them mentally and emotionally strong. As a parent, the best way to do this is to spend quality time with them on a regular basis. Children who spend more quality time with their families are more likely to be physically healthy, according to a recent study in the Journal of Marriage and Family. People have always said that spending time with your kids is important, but making it a priority in your life can be difficult, especially with multiple children. Boy, is that true? Here's how and why we have made it a non-negotiable part of our lives, bec.

Speaker 2: 1:19

Wow, how are you back in true.

Speaker 1: 1:21

Exactly. yes, We're back for those listening to the edited version and only took us about 12 tries. We are wrapping up our series on parenting and we kind of had a parenting lesson packed full start to our morning.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Yes, we did. We're functioning with less than a full brain, full of cells, because we woke up and started the day already having to have some crucial conversations and do some digging around and trying to make what we feel are the best decisions for this individual child.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Yes yes. What would you say, bec? why did we start having monthly one-on-one time with our children?

Speaker 2: 2:04

I can't remember I would love for you to share. Did you hear that on a podcast? Did you get that idea from someone, or did we just decide that we realized, as we were adding kids to our family, our individual children just weren't getting a lot of time with us one-on-one because we had Carson. 15 months later we had Austin. Really, carson doesn't remember ever being an only child. The two of them grew up very close together and then two years later, dylan came. We had three boys in four years.

Speaker 1: 2:28

Less than four years.

Speaker 2: 2:29

We started this dating before we ever even met Evelyn or had her in our life. It's been such a powerful part because what I was thinking is we heard a few years ago that being present is not the same as being in proximity. That's something that we've really noticed, I think, in our parenting journey is that we're often in proximity as family members, but being present is very different, especially with technology and cell phones these days and just even working from home.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Yes, i remember early on Carson was probably about four or five years old and I took him out for a donut, i think, at that. I don't remember the name of that grocery store, but it was in Hillsborough. There was also this kind of diner type restaurant that I took him to once or twice. I think it almost happened just by accident, like, oh, we're going to go out. After it happened we realized, wow, this was really good quality time. Back then a donut, i think, was 50 cents.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Obviously we've shifted our health habits a little bit since then, but we also know that enjoying some fun food with kids is part of the experience. We're definitely not real strict on what we eat or what they eat. When we do a date. We want that to be part of the fun, although we're still trying to instill healthy habits into our kids. But we just realized that very quickly the dynamic with the one child who we're spending time with changed. But then, as we formalized it and you started to also take one of the children out, what we also noticed is that the dynamic with the other children at the house changed.

Speaker 1: 4:10

So it was really almost like a double date, like we were both getting a date. One of us would get a date with one child and then the parent who was at home with the other two kids, or even three kids, got to do something fun. Maybe not the same as a date, but the dynamic was so drastically different. You get to see your kids show up in a different way when you take one of the kids out of that environment. It was really incredible. And so it was when we still lived in Oregon a long time ago. Gosh, it's been probably. I don't even know that we were coaching with OptaVIA yet at the time, but I think I was still a police officer.

Speaker 2: 4:52

I was going to say part of this was because you were a police officer and so your time with the kids was very limited. I think Yes. So nowadays we see our children more frequently. Even if we're not having quality time, we're still in proximity. A lot more working from home and having this be our full-time job, And I think it was very different when you left the house and you were gone for at least eight hours, sometimes much more than that, And then many times when you were home, they were in bed, And so we had to be very intentional about quality time.

Speaker 1: 5:21

So the…. So, and we've also heard that love is spelled T-I-M-E, and sometimes people will talk about quality time over quantity time, and I think that there's some validity to that, where, if you can be very present and focused and engaged, especially for boys doing an activity for, but in just engaging in conversation. But what we've learned is, especially with boys, the conversation ideally happens side by side, not face to face, like that's just kind of an intimidating posture for most boys. And so you find that if you're, if you're active with the boys and just side by side, whether it's driving or doing something active, we get a lot more conversation out of it. And especially as they've turned into teenagers, some days the conversation is vibrant and many times that we go out Very dry. It's very tough, but it's a discipline.

Speaker 2: 6:19

It's about showing up for them and letting them know that they're valuable to us and that we want to get to know them.

Speaker 2: 6:26

What I remember about the younger days is we just did fun, silly things And they were very inexpensive because we didn't have a lot of money to spend on it. A lot of times the boys and I would grab something to eat and then, like, literally go to a store And we would just be goofy in the store, like some of our pictures from the early days are just trying on different hats and rolling around on the bicycles in one of the stores And just being goofy at that age throwing the football around in a side yard of the school or something like that, when we were done having something to eat or doing that first and then grabbing a snack. So I think it was just showing them that they're important and we want to spend time and get to know them. Nowadays they are less interested. The older ones are less interested, i think, in family time, just wanting more time with friends. But they still ask, probably just because they want to eat food.

Speaker 1: 7:11

Oh, bribery works.

Speaker 2: 7:12

But I think they just realized that it's a set aside time and they expect it every month. They say when am I going to get my what used to be called a date? So when they were little, we dated them. I think the other purpose too was for you to teach them. You know what it looks like to take someone out and pay for them, and for me it was like Hey, boys, you know, initially, i think many times I gave them the money, i let them pay for the date, i let them hold the door for me. When they were younger, all of this came like as a fun adventure, and as they're older it's less. It just takes more time and intention to kind of encourage that behavior, because they're just apathetic about a lot of things. But we are training them for how to train women, how to train women, how to treat women, and we hope that they show up well when they start dating and you know, obviously, get married and have a family.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Absolutely, and, as we brought a girl into the family, it's definitely teaching Evie how her future boyfriend and husband should treat her.

Speaker 2: 8:06

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 8:07

So the other thing is just creating a schedule to make sure that the one on one time happens, and we kind of figured this out early on and we kind of formalize it with the three kids. It was actually, it was easy and ultimately, you know, originally it was us just rotating through one of us with the kids, but then we realized that it was also fun for us to do a double date with one of the kids because once again it's a drastically different dynamic and it's good for our kids as an individual to have time with mom and dad because, like you said, i mean, carson was the only one who was an only child and that was for a very short period of time. So it's drastically different spending time with mom and dad together but not without your or not with your siblings.

Speaker 2: 8:51

I don't think I spent like one on one time with both of my parents ever growing up. I mean I probably did. I don't have a lot of memories And it's not because they weren't great parents, it's because they didn't have the time, the capacity, the childcare. My dad worked, you know a lot, we all played sports And so I don't think if you're not intentional, i think it's very, very hard to make something like this happen.

Speaker 1: 9:10

Absolutely. So what we ultimately did is we decided we're actually going to do. each of the kids gets a date every single month And I think if you really, if you reflect on you know how many hours are in a month, like if you can't carve out enough time to spend you know one date with each kid once per month, then you need to adjust.

Speaker 2: 9:32

We were talking 90 minutes, two hours at the most. most of these I mean occasionally it's a special activity.

Speaker 1: 9:37

And sometimes it's 60 minutes because life is busy And there's sometimes where we do it just to get done. It's a discipline, yeah, but yeah. So for us it really switched to basically each quarter one of our kids gets a double date with mom and dad And then we rotate through. So basically once a month there's a double date. Once a month one of the boys gets a date with mom and the other one gets a date with dad, and then we rotate that through each quarter.

Speaker 1: 10:05

And then, as we've added Evie. You know she's just getting ready to start full time kindergarten, so we've had half days and it's. We haven't had to formalize it with Evie yet, but we're probably getting to the point now where we need to work her into the rotation so that she's getting a double date and getting that individualized time as well. But the the other thing that we've done is, i mean we literally have it calendared. Yes, you know, we have a placeholder where the first Friday of every month is a double date, the second Friday is a date with one of the other boys, the third Friday is a date with one of the other boys And it doesn't always happen on Friday.

Speaker 1: 10:40

You know, sometimes we'll adjust it, we look at our schedule, but we put that in there as a placeholder right to ensure that it always gets done. I put it on my like, i check it off on my checklist, my monthly basically go tracker, and we make sure that it happens. And if we need to slide it to a Saturday morning or whatever day of the week we need to, we do it. But putting that placeholder in our schedule has been key to make sure that it always happens. I mean we literally it feels like a debt until, like, as in a financial debt, time debt, until we make it good on that debt each month.

Speaker 2: 11:13

And so transitioning. you know we keep calling it a date. But as our kids got older which was actually many years ago they were like That's weird, i don't want to go on a date with you. And I don't know how quickly we came up with this. But so almost immediately we just changed what we called it and we started calling it a debt. So DEBT, deep emotional bonding time. So it's kind of an inside you know joke for all of us. but calling it a debt is a little less weird than a date for these. you know, now teenage, but even when they were preteen boys. And then the other key is really asking them what they want to do And varying it from.

Speaker 2: 11:46

sometimes it's as simple as we're grabbing a meal, that's all we have time for, and you know. but you get to choose where we go. We try to do at least a sit down, nicer restaurant for the double debt, just so we have a little more quality time together, and especially because both of us are there and neither one of us likes to eat fast food. And then when it comes to like special things, like maybe one of them wanted to go to the racetrack, or one time when kid wanted to go skydiving. you know, we save some of those experiences for their either double debt or if it's something that involves you especially, like going to a racetrack, that might be something that you do with one of the boys on one of their single debt double debts. So sometimes we have to plan in advance and we spend more time and more money on it, but many times it's just very simple We bring a card game, sit at a table, have a conversation.

Speaker 1: 12:31

Yeah, so one of the um the keys is really putting the focus on what your child wants to do Right Within reason. Um, I mean, there's one thing we want to be cautious about is there's no need for this to be expensive, like literally, um, i think the quality of our time together was as good as when when we were spending 50 cents on a donut. Um, as now when, i mean it's crazy how much the cost of uh dining out has gone up since we started this practice And I think, gosh, a double debt. um, probably, i don't know if we can do one at a sit down restaurant for less than $100 today. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 1: 13:07

But, uh, the key is just, uh, you know, really to give them choice over where we go and then also what we do And, like you said, finding out what do you want to do, what's an activity, what's a life experience that you want to, and to just give them that chance because, you know, with six people in the family, um, there's a lot of times where we're not doing what one specific person wants to do.

Speaker 2: 13:30

We are training them that the world does not revolve around them. But this is one of those moments where you want to say you know, your interests are important to us, your time is important to us and we want to invest in you. Um, i had another thought, and now I can't think of what it was.

Speaker 1: 13:43

So some other ideas is just going to a park throwing a football around or a frisbee or baseball or whatever it might be, uh top golf or, you know, bowling, uh driving ranges and things like that, things that are active we like to do activities rides, definitely, uh, and really the sky is the limit, you know.

Speaker 1: 14:03

So it a lot of it's just going to depend on your personality and the personality of your children. But but also, like you said, having and we actually just started this with our older two boys is we're trying to do more things, that kind of um, feed that desire for adventure in their lives. Is we actually have a guy stuff to do list, um, of things that I'll either do with them individually or especially with the older two, uh, but to just have a list of, hey, what are some things you'd like to do? and create that list and work through it on your debts, and the cool thing is, uh, with both of us, like, i'm not a big movie guy And so sometimes if you're going to see a movie, that's something that they tend to do with you, um, and obviously there's some things that I gravitate towards or I'm better at, or they just want to do with me and we do those.

Speaker 1: 14:51

So, um, it is real blessing And I would say, obviously we're blessed because, um, or our kids are blessed because they have married mom and dad, and we know that there's uh, some single parents out there that you know either single dads or single moms, and especially for, i would say, single moms who have boys, it's really important uh to to have that male influence in your kids lives. So I would just encourage you uh to find someone whether it's an uncle or a friend, uh you know, someone you trust from church or something like that that can just spend some manly time with your boys especially. But, um, you know, it's it's important for both boys and girls to have that opposite sex uh interaction as well.

Speaker 2: 15:37

And I was going to say I remember, um, especially early on in this experience, when I was working on my health journey and I would take the boys out that there were many times I either brought food with me you know, i had a little container of a salad or something that I had prepared for myself, even though they went to eat somewhere, or I just got a cup of coffee, you know, while they were eating. So, uh, for you, if you have some personal goals, maybe they're financial and so you're being cautious with your budget. Maybe you have some personal health goals and so you're careful about where you're eating, we would encourage you to not let that become a stumbling block for yourself or a reason not to do the debt. Just make those, uh, make those selections along the way, because we've done it both ways. We've done it inexpensively, i've done it where I've been very cautious and conscientious of my health goals and I've been able to stay on my personal plan because my goal was to spend time with my child and it helped me very present because I wasn't really there to experience the food side of it.

Speaker 2: 16:28

And then the other thing I was thinking is so we have talked about goals in the past podcasts and on our blog about goal setting with our kids. That's something we do once a year, towards the end of a year, at the beginning of the next year, and our goal one of the things that we sometimes forget to do is to actually take their goal worksheets with them when we do the double debts on once a quarter. That way, we're saying hey, dylan, you know, it's second quarter and these were some of the experiences you wanted to have. These were some of the things that you were working on personally in your life. How is it going? We're halfway through the year and you have six months left. You know, where do you want to be by the end of third quarter when we want another double debt?

Speaker 2: 17:05

So that's our goal for some accountability and just to remind them that goal setting isn't just writing something down for the first time, but it's revisiting, it's asking yourself questions, it's setting intentions for those or it's saying like this isn't important to me and maybe it doesn't need to be a part of my goals anymore. So sometimes we nail that, sometimes we leave the house without the paper, but I would encourage you, if you goal set with your kids, make this time intentional, also to visit on some of those things and to really help your child move the dial forward. And some of it again is just an experience. It might be like trying a new food and that would influence, maybe, where you go to eat. It might be something they're working on with their behavior and you're doing a check-in to just say like, how is it going? and you know, what can we do to support you or even to say, wow, we've really noticed that you've been working hard on something.

Speaker 1: 17:48

That's great, and then one of the last things that we want to touch on is just what we found is the one of the best ways to be truly present in our date time with our kids is to ask them questions Right As we have learned and developed through our business, which is very much asking questions very relationship-based very relationship basis. We've also observed that asking questions of other people is a skill set that many people either don't have or they just don't practice.

Speaker 2: 18:16

Yeah, blink, if you've ever just you know been at a party with someone ridden in a car and, literally, like you've asked all the questions, they've done all the talking, and I don't know about you, but many times I've left exhausted. I remember going to a women's retreat one time and riding in the car for at least an hour and a half with someone. They never asked me one single question, they didn't know anything about me. I asked all the questions and I mean I was there for that experience with them, but you know, by the time I was done, it was like man, i'm heading into the retreat now, where I'm going to be around a lot more people, and I was really drained because all I did was listen. And so it really has taught us to be conscious of how we show up with people and making sure that people feel seen and heard. And it is. It takes practice. I think we're pretty good at asking questions and being good listeners, but I think we developed that through our coaching business.

Speaker 1: 19:01

So some major categories and you'll be able to find a complete list of this on our blog, which will be posted in our show notes for this episode. But one major category is to just learn about their likes and dislikes. Another one is to ask them what's going on in their life, so you know what's the funniest thing you've seen or heard since our last date? Learn about their hopes and dreams. This is really good, especially as our kids are aging to kind of figure out, you know, from a sports and activity standpoint, what do they enjoy. from a career standpoint, what are they leaning towards or what types of you know, what kind of high school job do they think they want to have And to be able to guide them and direct them and, you know, maybe connect them with people who work in those different career fields.

Speaker 1: 19:50

You know, one of the things that we love to do and this is part of our kids goal worksheet at the end of the year is you know where are some places you'd like to go. Now, this is not a free ticket to go everywhere that they want to, but we try to be aware of that And, if we can factor in some of their desires on our annual travel planning. we do that, but obviously with four kids. you know. if they picked Abu Dhabi, yeah, as I say, dubai, france, you know, australia. we're not going to those four different places, but it is fun to learn where they like to go.

Speaker 2: 20:25

And why. Sometimes it's, you know, just something they saw on TV, or sometimes they have a specific reason. So then we also like to just learn about character development and encourage that, so we can ask some creative questions like you know, how do you feel about your chores? or, you know, tell me about someone you felt happy or sad for, and why. And I can imagine that some of our teens won't answer this as actively as maybe someone who's a little bit more outgoing. So you really have to vary the questions, i think, based on the personality. But also in these one-on-one settings, sometimes you get a lot more information than you would if you were asking them in a group, and then I think the final category that we had is, yeah, fun questions to encourage creativity and humor. So, you know, what title would you give a book that was all about you? Or if you were invisible for a day, what would you do? So we'd encourage you to take these questions and print them out, keep them handy.

Speaker 2: 21:12

A lot of these things that we're talking about we actually practice through those conversation cards that I was mentioning. I think last time we did a podcast, a friend sent us the first set of those that we've ever gotten And now we've gotten a few more sets through different organizations and stuff. But they're awesome because it really takes the pressure off of like I need to think of something to talk about with my family. I don't want to spend time talking about pointless things or even the arguing that can happen sometimes just being around family for long periods. So having some good questions just brings about good discussion and helps you get to know what someone's thinking on the inside.

Speaker 1: 21:45

Yeah, and the simplest version of that is just highs and lows, which sounds incredibly easy, but it's something that we've been doing Our daughter, Evie, loves to initiate highs and lows.

Speaker 2: 21:54

Evie loves to initiate highs and lows. Let's do highs and lows Every dinner, every family dinner.

Speaker 1: 21:57

So when you're at a loss for conversation, that's a great question to put out. There is hey, what's your high and low for today? What's your high and low for the week or the month, or anything like that, or the experience you just had? What's your high and low for the school year, or whatever it might be?

Speaker 2: 22:11

It's interesting because, even though a lot of the boys will roll their eyes and say, oh, I don't want to do highs and lows today as we go around the table, many times they do it anyway.

Speaker 1: 22:19

They do engage with it.

Speaker 2: 22:21

And now it's become a little bit of a habit And so it is something kind of expected, especially from Evie, and it does give us insight like, oh, what went well today, what isn't going well today? And it allows a point for empathy, as we're saying, like you don't need to criticize each other's highs and lows for the day, you don't need to give each other advice if they're not asking for it, but it does help us have better insight into our individual family members.

Speaker 1: 22:43

Awesome. So we just want to encourage all of you to number one just make sure that you schedule time with each of your children on what we recommend as a monthly bulletin, and what we recommend is a monthly basis. I think that's sufficient. Doing it more frequently than that probably isn't necessary. It's certainly beneficial, but at least once a month, to have that dedicated time And to just create that schedule to figure out how is each child going to get individualized attention from each parent or both parents separately as well as together.

Speaker 1: 23:19

And then the last thing is just to you know, brainstorm some ideas on how to spend time with kids. This is a great thing for you to do is to just ask your kids hey, what would you like to do this month? or make a list of things you would like to do, and then you can also make a note of would you like to do that with mom or dad or both of us together? And then the last thing is just a reminder to be truly present with your kids. We really encourage you and this is very challenging for all of us in the modern world that we live in but to put your phone away, be present, turn the ringer off and just be focused on your child for the 30 to 90 or more minutes you spend with your child.

Speaker 2: 24:02

And we would just encourage you do it now, guys, do it right away, start, start implementing it. And I don't feel like you have to get overly organized, like we organized ourselves once we got going and we've iterated to make it a little bit more complicated, so to speak, by adding in a double debt. but just start somewhere. And it doesn't matter how old your kids are, because we had the you know privilege of starting when our kids were young, because it was just an idea that came to us And so we've done it for a long time. But the truth is, i feel like every time we go out is a new experience with the child at the age that they're at right now. And don't worry about it being too late to get started or, you know, starting with different ages at different kids. just get started.

Speaker 1: 24:39

Yeah, and as you talk about just getting started now instead of trying to have it figured out, right?

Speaker 2: 24:44

Don't miss another six months or four months or three months or a year.

Speaker 1: 24:48

A lot of times we talk about this analogy that it's a lot easier to steer a car, that, like, if you've ever had a car that's stalled out, it's very difficult to turn the wheels when it's stationary Right, and when you start to push the car it's easy to turn it. And so that's just a great kind of metaphor for how it is in life. Like, just start to do the date and then you can figure out the schedule and the rotation as you get going. But, like Becca said, you know we encourage you you're hearing this either at the end of June or the very beginning of July. You know, at a minimum, make sure you get a date in with one of your kids in the month of July.

Speaker 2: 25:30

Thanks for listening to the Uncommon Freedom Show. We believe freedom isn't man's invention. It was created by God. Connect with us at beckonkevcom for more resources to learn biblical principles, essential disciplines and winning habits that help, once average people lead the life they want instead of accepting the life they were given.