Who says creating memorable experiences with your kids requires a hefty bank balance? Not us! On this latest episode of the Uncommon Freedom Show, we, pull back the curtain on our parenting approach, so you too can relish the simple yet impactful ways of bonding with your kids. We're talking family vacations, unplugging from devices, and cherishing the priceless moments that become lifelong memories.
We hope this enlightening episode leaves you enriched with a host of bonding ideas. Let's explore the value of taking trips together, the versatility of conversation cards in stimulating active listening and engaging discussions, and the importance of playing games and the life lessons that can be learned in the process!
Lastly, don't forget to check out the first chapter of Kevin's new book - The Seven Disciplines of Uncommon Freedom!
Subscribe and tell a friend!
Get my new book "The Seven Disciplines of Uncommon Freedom" on Amazon!
Visit bekandkev.com today to sign up for our email newsletter.
Access our Free health assessment HERE
Who says creating memorable experiences with your kids requires a hefty bank balance? Not us! On this latest episode of the Uncommon Freedom Show, we, pull back the curtain on our parenting approach, so you too can relish the simple yet impactful ways of bonding with your kids. We're talking family vacations, unplugging from devices, and cherishing the priceless moments that become lifelong memories.
We hope this enlightening episode leaves you enriched with a host of bonding ideas. Let's explore the value of taking trips together, the versatility of conversation cards in stimulating active listening and engaging discussions, and the importance of playing games and the life lessons that can be learned in the process!
Lastly, don't forget to check out the first chapter of Kevin's new book - The Seven Disciplines of Uncommon Freedom!
Subscribe and tell a friend!
Get my new book "The Seven Disciplines of Uncommon Freedom" on Amazon!
Visit bekandkev.com today to sign up for our email newsletter.
Access our Free health assessment HERE
Hey friends, welcome to the Uncommon Freedom Show. I'm Kevin.
Speaker 2:And I'm Becca, and we're your hosts, here to help you reach your potential and maximize your impact in every area that matters. Let's get started.
Speaker 1:Alright, friends, welcome to the Uncommon Freedom Show. Today is going to be episode 54. We are less than one week out from my book launch. On Tuesday, november 7th, the seven disciplines of Uncommon Freedom by Kevin Tinter will be available for sale on Amazon and Audible. If you want to listen to the book instead of reading it, you excited.
Speaker 2:Yes, so very excited.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and we are commenting that we didn't plan this out, but we're both wearing similar colored shirts here.
Speaker 2:Similar but not the same.
Speaker 1:Similar but not the same.
Speaker 2:It happened to us one time when we were talking on stage together. We both wore red, but it was a little bit off. It has to be yeah, and it looked really bad on stage.
Speaker 1:I don't think these clash, though, so let us know in the comments, you know, if you think our blues clash.
Speaker 2:I asked Kevin to check the camera to see if he could tell if we if it looked good or not. But that would mean he'd get up from the chair and going from out from behind the camera.
Speaker 1:Exactly Now I could have stopped recording and rewound and looked at the recording.
Speaker 2:We're not going to waste a lot of time on stupid stuff like that. Yeah, so no, I mean with a little bit of need for sleep.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're a little bit tired, so, okay, well, and folks, you're actually catching us, as you can tell by the glare through the shades. We're actually recording during the daytime. It is before noon. We rarely record this early in the day, but we're making it happen, so, being super productive, and we are excited. So we're going to talk about one of the chapters in the book is parent with purpose, and so today, as a break between some of the interviews we've had with some awesome guests, we're going to talk about three simple steps to bonding with your kids. We recently came back from a great trip with our kids. I had our in Arizona. We have this amazing phenomenon called fall break.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Please do not adopt it if you live outside of Arizona, because we love having the world as our playground, selfishly, selfishly, but it is an absolute wonderful thing.
Speaker 2:Two weeks of fall break. Yes, it's two weeks of spring break. Oh, it's wonderful, it's a Christmas break.
Speaker 1:And fall break is probably our favorite because we've survived the hot summer. Yes, the weather is good, although it was a hotter October this year than normal, but the weather is great in Arizona. So if you want to do things in Arizona, it's the perfect time to do it. If you want to travel to other parts of the country or the world, most American kids are in school and therefore there's just not as many people, so it's awesome. But step one is to take trips as a family.
Speaker 2:So this is something that we actually kind of solidified several years ago and we decided well, I mean, we really started taking trips more than when the kids were a little, we did camping, which was great, because you asked on Facebook the other day you know what are some trips, are you know? I don't remember how you asked the question.
Speaker 1:The question was is the quality of the trip enhanced by the cost of the trip? That's essentially what I was asking, and the Got some varied responses. Yeah, it was, and I think one of the common themes was what matters most is who you're with right. I mean, you could go on a really expensive trip with some miserable people that you don't like and that could definitely ruin a trip. I would say our families, in the scope of our parenting, our families' favorite trips have probably been, without doubt, our most expensive, but it's not to say we didn't have incredible trips when we were basically living paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 2:A lot of families said that they loved camping and that was a common one and that was actually how we started. So we did a lot of tent trailer camping.
Speaker 1:Yes, lamping. For me, I think the reason that we've learned that taking trips is important is that there's something that happens when you get out of your house you get away from your routine. I mean, we're blessed. The house we live in now is absolutely our dream home. Many people come and they say the backyard looks like a resort. And we've even learned that, even though we have this amazing house with a swimming pool, a hot tub, pick, a ball court, everything you know, we could do everything that we would do at a resort, or almost everything we could do at our house. But we've even found that if we want to fully unplug with our kids, we need to go to a local resort.
Speaker 2:No one cooks for us at this house.
Speaker 1:That is what you do, but well, what I mean is no one cooks for me at this house.
Speaker 2:That is correct. I like going out, yeah.
Speaker 1:And not cooking. And so just there's something special, like we can see the difference in our kids, especially one of them, like just really thrives, like, becomes, like probably his true self in many ways.
Speaker 2:The vacation version of the vacation version, which is not how you can live everyday life.
Speaker 1:Correct. But it doesn't have to be expensive is the bottom line. But there's so much value when you get away and unplug. You know one of the things we frequently do when we take a trip. As we say, turn in your phones. We greatly reduce the amount of time they have on electronics when we travel. And you know there's there's adventure that happens. You know frustrations, things that in the moment are, you know, cause you to pull your hair out, are the things that you laugh about. You know, a day later or a week later, or sometimes years later.
Speaker 2:So do you have a story for that. I can't think of any of those recently.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, I'm thinking back to when I was a kid. My parents I can't remember if they were borrowing or if they purchased they actually had us older small motorhome for a season of time and my parents live on 30, some acres out in the country and the motorhome was parked in their front yard or driveway and they decided we're going to camp as a family in our yard. Now we I don't think ever once went camping as a family when I was growing up and of course I would have loved a motorhome, but by this time I think I was probably 15 years old and had zero. So I can totally see, you know, my kids or our kids being this way. But my parents decided we were going to spend the night as a family in the motorhome and I think there was just so much noise I couldn't get to sleep.
Speaker 2:I was angry and that doesn't sound like actually that much fun to just go outside at that age, like maybe when you were little kids sleeping outside.
Speaker 1:But now you're like I'm really so my brothers probably from my actual bed, yeah exactly, so I think I was very angry, but it's just one of those things that we we now laugh about, so I gave it a shot.
Speaker 2:Actually, when we first got our tent trailer in Oregon, I think we practiced sleeping in it the first time and we put it in our driveway, which had a slight slant to it which we had to equalize it, or what's the right word for balance.
Speaker 1:Level it.
Speaker 2:Level it that's the proper term and we were actually asleep in the middle of the night when one of our kids fell out the back of the tent trailer, which basically wasn't secured properly because some of the straps had broken and Austin fell straight out of the bed onto the concrete driveway and somehow survived.
Speaker 1:That was very traumatic.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Kids bounce when they're young.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't remember it quite that well, but yes, and then we had our skiing fiasco many years ago, but we don't need to go into that today.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we won't talk about that. Bottom line is but anyway, take trips, take trips.
Speaker 2:And if you do take trips, we highly, highly encourage you to have your teenagers and all of your kids put electronics away and just unplug, which is what's going to lead us to the second two things.
Speaker 1:Yes, having conversations.
Speaker 2:Yes, as Eve used to call it conversations, conversations whenever the boys would get in trouble and she was a really little toddler. She said Austin.
Speaker 1:What did? How did she say no, it was, it was Carson, and it was Carson. I need to have a conversation with you.
Speaker 2:Yep, she was very intense and it was absolutely hilarious.
Speaker 2:I'm guessing she picked that up from us yes probably We've had a lot of conversations with a lot of our children, but especially if you have gotten multiple conversations, so this is easier.
Speaker 2:When your kids are younger, as most people can imagine Well, the chaos at the table can be a lot like, even nowadays, with all the age groups that we have the personality styles, most family dinners where we're like, hey, we're all sitting down together at the same time, which happens only a couple of times a week right now because of all the sports and the ages of our children.
Speaker 2:But we do try to have family dinner a couple of times a week and there's always a goal to like have some actual conversation and to do highs and lows. That's a great way to just create a simple pattern of sharing how your day went without a lot of pressure, and Eve loves to initiate that, so she'll start the highs and lows. But as your kids get to be teenagers, it is harder, much harder, to have authentic conversation. In situations like family time, I think Like they wanna have one-on-one conversation with you when there's nothing else going on, usually way past my bedtime, when they're laying on a couch and I'm rubbing their feet or something. But normally they're hard to communicate with on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 1:And what I like about the conversations is utilizing something like conversation cards. There's lots of tools out there to help with. Sometimes they're deeper topics and sometimes they're not as deep, but I think it's good to vary it. That is something that, or simply highs and lows. Eve loves to initiate those.
Speaker 1:That's something you can do at home and just take advantage of the opportunity, and it's not gonna be perfect. The kids are gonna bicker and argue or they're gonna correct, and one of the things we share is that there is no wrong answer here. Every person gets a chance to answer and we're not gonna critique it. Let them share whatever their opinion or their feeling is, but this is something you can do at home. And then, when we travel and go on a vacation, this is something we love to do. Now, you and I love to do this. The kids might not like to, but they're actually very cooperative with this. We like to do it at the table, and so it's something that you can do when you're on a trip, but definitely don't need to wait until you are on a trip. But it's just a great way to learn more about each other and talk about something other than whatever video games, sports or something like that.
Speaker 2:Hey friends, here's a quick reminder that if you're finding value in this show, would you do us a favor and subscribe, share with someone you think would benefit and give us a five star rating. We make nothing from this show and invest a lot of time and money producing it. All we ask is that you help us get our message to more people and so get your hands on some conversation cards. Maybe at some point in one of our blogs related to this podcast, we can list out a couple of the companies that we've gone through. Some people have sent them to us as gifts, which is awesome. They're also great for couples when you want to go on a date night and you're looking for, just like you know, to spice up the conversation. Sometimes we have, you know, conversations about the same things, or we only talk about the kids or only talk about work, and so I think the conversation cards are really good prompts.
Speaker 2:The other thing you can do, obviously, is make conversation cards as a family. So grab a mason jar and some pieces of paper and everybody writes down a couple questions and you throw them in there and you use them throughout the month. But there are great ones out there and they come in. You know nice little carrying cases, and what I do whenever we travel is I get a Ziploc bag and I go in there and I pull out a stack of ones that we haven't done before and then, before you know, dinners usually is when I would bring them out.
Speaker 2:I'll just sift through some of them. You know maybe aren't appropriate, some of them don't make sense, some of them aren't that interesting, some of them I feel like could be a little contentious. So, you know, I just pick a variety of ones that I think will bring about conversation and it's just a nice way to also teach your kids how to have conversation, because I think in the day and age we live in now, kids are literally texting each other and snapping each other and doing all of this quick, short communication that doesn't really have any meaning. It has very little meaning and it's not teaching them how to be a good, active listener and then to have a response to something, and so conversations being lost and we need to train our kids how to do that for life skills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been interesting. One of our boys has been having actually more telephone conversations recently, which I've almost never seen. I mean kids today, they really they don't have phone conversations, they very rarely do, you know, they kind of do everything by text and they set things up where you and I grew up calling your friends.
Speaker 2:Attach to the phone on the wall.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly, yeah, but there's something lost when you're just, you know, communicating by texting back and forth, yep.
Speaker 2:And I actually love it. Like he was doing the dishes last night with, you know, his headphones in while talking to a friend and it was just like they're talking about their day or work or something and he's kind of laughing at the same time and like having this really good conversation, a very normal teenage conversation with someone, and it just gives us a glimpse into their life. Like we're not listening in intently but you realize, with all the texting and things that can happen in bedrooms and stuff, like we just have lost the art of understanding kind of what is going on in our kids brains and so remember, this is about bonding. So that's why those conversations are important, because how do we connect?
Speaker 2:We have to be very intentional with the current culture we live in, the age that we're raising our children in, to be intentional about conversation and we encourage you as parents whether your kids are young, they're young adults or anywhere in between to make sure that you're prioritizing conversation and you're teaching it and you're creating kind of a culture of conversation. So step one is to take trips as a family. Two is to have actual conversation using things like the highs and lows and conversation cards, and step three is to play games together. We just have grown up. I think both of our families have played games together. We play games with each other's families when we were first dating and it's just a way to kind of enhance the quality of the relationship. Usually it leads to a lot of laughter. Sometimes occasionally rarely often it leads to arguing and disputes.
Speaker 1:But you know we spend a lot of time playing games, especially with Evie, who's six years old and the other thing is playing games really is a great opportunity for character development.
Speaker 2:Tell us about that.
Speaker 1:So we'll start by recommending some games for younger kids, and I just made a note about the ladybug game. I totally forgot about, or is that the one with the aphids and yeah, okay, so that is a great game for really young kids. A couple other games that our younger kids have enjoyed is Candyland.
Speaker 2:Shoot some letters. I absolutely hate that game. Oh, poke my eyeballs out.
Speaker 1:We both made it Zingo. That's the other tile game, right that?
Speaker 2:Evie loved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somebody gave us Zingo, it is never heard of it before, but, zingo, it is an awesome game.
Speaker 2:Bingo for toddlers. Basically yeah, yeah, it's preschoolers. I should say it's a great game, Yep.
Speaker 1:And Trouble. I recently Evie was really enjoying. Sorry, yes, Sorry, but I like Trouble better. It's just kind of easier to play and set up.
Speaker 2:Oh, she don't mind the incessant popping noise.
Speaker 1:Once I introduced her to Trouble about two months ago, she is going nuts with it Like we play just about every single day. It's really fun to see her strategy develop. Oh yeah, Over which I don't understand statistically how she could beat me literally 80% of the time she beats me about it.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make sense when I shouldn't care because she's six, but honestly, the three in me is pissing me off. She, I start to win and then she comes back out of nowhere and I just like, honestly, have to have worked so hard on my sportsman.
Speaker 1:And the other thing is with her is we found that when, if I was in a position where, maybe, like I, was one person away from winning or one pawn and she had two or three still stuck in home or start where it looked like you know there's no way she was going to win, she would like I'm not playing. I'm like I'm not playing.
Speaker 1:There's no way I can win and it became a teaching opportunity to say hold on a second. Number one we don't quit. And number two even if you lose, you're going to be a good loser, and so that's where the character development is really beneficial.
Speaker 2:There's a couple days off of Trouble which was really hard for her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but in the other thing is we like to take games We've talked about our debts or deep emotional bonding time or dates with their kids we frequently take, you know we have a trouble game or we'll take cribbage. So taking games when you do those, those dates with your kids, is a great way to just do something other than just sit there and stare. The other thing is so many restaurants, even fast food restaurants these days, have TVs, which drives me nuts, like one of the reasons to go to restaurant with family is to connect and TVs. I mean, we have one kid actually two that literally just gets sucked in like a tractor beam if there's a TV, and so we have to strategically ask for, you know, booths in the corner and put those kids facing away from the TV so that we can actually look at each other while we're having a meal. And then, do you want to talk about some of our favorite games with the older kids?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I also. There was something else about Trouble I wanted to say oh, I think you talked about Evie's strategy changing, but again, she's six years old, you guys, and watching her, the way she plays now versus the way she played just a couple of weeks ago is incredible, and I forgot what else I was going to say, so we'll move on yeah there was something else, just the visual.
Speaker 1:like she's not having to count it out all the way. Yeah, I can't remember.
Speaker 2:Oh, I think I was telling you like when I played with her initially, I just kind of played like I didn't think really carefully about my strategy because I was playing with a six year old and it only took a couple of weeks of that before, all of a sudden I'm like I'm going to be very strategic about how I play Trouble and the. Again the competitor inside of me was like I'm not letting this girl win, and that's the other thing. We don't let our kids win. We're not cruel or mean or anything, but we just like no, I'm here, I'm going to be kind to you, but I'm here to play to win. We're teaching how to play actual games, follow actual rules. Not everyone gets a trophy. So again, lots of character development in games.
Speaker 1:And we also have a rule in our house that the loser always cleans up, Loser always cleans up. And it's kind of a good lesson because kids don't naturally have a good attitude when they lose and enforcing them to just having this rule and they understand it Loser cleans up. That's how we do it in our family. It gives them the opportunity to really check their attitude, because you know, if we don't coach them, they're going to be like you know, they're not going to want to clean up or they're going to have a bad attitude.
Speaker 2:I have to coach myself after I lose to Evie to clean up.
Speaker 1:It's understandable. All right Games for older kids.
Speaker 2:Games for older kids. So again, and we don't always take these all the restaurants with like older teens, they don't necessarily want to play games, but when we're on our boat trip or we're just doing something fun as a family. So banana grams is a way to play a scrabble, like a speed scrabble I'm going to go really fun. Boggle Cribbage is a great game to teach your kids Also great at math. So you know, teaching your kids to calculate mentally. And then a game called left right center, which is actually incredibly simplistic, but we actually just make it more fun by putting some money to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's kind of a basic gambling game and it was fun. When we were on our trip a year ago it was the first time our kids had gambled to our knowledge and it was funny seeing the different personalities of our kids come out. And you know, I realized for some people gambling is a major problem and we're not trying to create that. But I think also, once again, we are. We want our kids to make mistakes as kids instead of mistakes as adults. So giving them the opportunity to just put in I think it's two dollars or three dollars, for whatever, I think it's two or three dollars of their own money and see what happens when you gamble. It was a good lesson for them.
Speaker 2:Like one kid won the first round and he's like I'm out. He was like George Costanza going out on a high note. He was like I'm not playing anymore, I won all my money.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know where somebody else might be like OK, let's go again, let's go again so yeah, and then one of our kids, when they put their money in and then they saw someone take it, they're like what are we doing? I'm not doing this and it was yeah, so anyways, but it was also just a fun game. So Krippage great game. We were on a adults trip to Hawaii, I don't know five years ago and I don't remember, but it was like nonstop Krippage tournaments and things like that Great fun.
Speaker 2:I remember our recent trip where you just kept beating me over and over again. Also, you almost came back. It was very painful, but I did a few lives about.
Speaker 1:Krippage Awesome game for math for kids that struggle because they have to do a lot of computation. I mean it's, it's simple mental math. But it is, it is good. So the word games like banana grams and boggle awesome games they're, you know, they're fun, you know.
Speaker 2:But it really stretches the kids and as far as Teresa introduced us to banana grams, so thank you, teresa.
Speaker 1:So ton of fun so.
Speaker 2:I would say also, just like when it comes to more social gatherings, or even on the boat, we did this like playing more interactive games too. So, whether it's taboo or guestures, or we played celebrity. Thank you, chris and Jihei and our small group from Sun Valley for first introducing us to celebrity like I don't know six, seven years ago. Yeah, so that's always been a fun one that we'll play around the holidays and things like that. So, because that one will just create a lot of laughter and you know, shenanigans, which is, you know, my favorite thing, is when we can play a game and have a lot of shenanigans.
Speaker 1:So and celebrity is a game that you can play Like. We played it last year at Thanksgiving and we had, I think, my aunt and uncle who were in their sixties, all the way down to Dylan at 12.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 11 or 12 years old. Yeah, you are definitely an asset to that one, absolutely, um, okay, and then I thought of I keep having these things. This is what happens when I'm tired. Um, and one more game in mind that I can't remember what it was Twister. No, I hate twister, probably because I'm not very flexible. All right, okay, we'll move on. I'm sorry, we'll say that for the next time we talk about ways to bond with kids.
Speaker 1:So, friends, thanks for listening. We hope you find this helpful. Our goal was to just give you a couple of ideas on how you can bond with your kids. Take trips, they don't have to be expensive. Have conversations, highs and lows. You don't even need cards to do it. But if you go, look there's lots of different conversation cards out there and then playing games with your kids, turn the TV off, play some games and bond. And again, thanks for listening. Remember, my book is out next week.
Speaker 2:So excited for you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I'm really excited.
Speaker 2:Chapter one is out right now for a free listen on Audible Absolutely.
Speaker 1:We'll put the link for chapter one in the notes, and this way you can wet your appetite and be ready to purchase.
Speaker 2:It will leave you wanting more.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. All right, have a great week, friends, and we appreciate your support. The life they want, instead of accepting the life they were given.