"The Trap Every Working Dad Falls Into When His Son Disrespects Me in Public"

SPEAKER_01 0:00

For ten years I thought well my son was disrespectful in public, it was my job to control him.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

You never listened to me. Hey, watch your tone. You don't disrespect your mother and me like that. Understand? Yes, dad.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

To crush his behavior, to make sure anybody watching knew I ran my house. That's the way every man I looked up to modeled. Then one day everything shifted. I realized I was reading the whole situation wrong. My son wasn't disrespecting me. He was showing me he was carrying something that he didn't have the words for. Today I'm giving you the shift that changed in how I see my son forever. And after you hear it, you won't be able to unsee it either. Be honest for a second. The last time your son got loud with you, rolled his eyes, or was disrespectful to you or his mom in front of people, what did you see? Did you see a kid being disrespectful to you? Or did you see a kid trying to say something to you that he couldn't say directly? If you say disrespect, this video is for you. Because there's a whole nother story beneath that you've been missing. Every dad is trained to see disrespect one way. So when your son gets loud with you or with his mother or fighting with one of his siblings, the hairs on your neck might raise up or you just your blood starts boiling. Because one, you're probably tired of it. You worked all day, now you come home to fighting and arguing, and your wife's on your back because he's not acting right. So we we feel we take it personal. We let our ego take over. So we just want it to stop. We don't care what's going on. We just shut the situation down. But when you do that, you're missing the signals. You're missing the number one signal. Yes, disrespect, being disrespectful shouldn't be tolerated. I'm not saying being some gentle parent or something like that, but I'm saying underneath that, there's a signal. He's trying to tell you something that he most likely doesn't have the words to say. Or he might feel by saying it he's being disrespectful. Could you imagine being him? That's one thing that us as fathers we need to do, us as parents, we need to do. We need to put ourselves in our kids' shoes sometimes. And you want to see, you want, you want to just imagine how your kids see you. So are you are you this person that's just driven by ego that no one can say anything over you? You can't be wrong. When you say something, that's it. You don't listen, you just give orders, and that's it. That's the problem. That's the mistake that we're making. Because his acting out might be because there's something else that's going on with him, or just period, and he doesn't know how to say it. So he just acts out. Don't act like you don't know. You've never heard of that or you you've done it yourself. We've done it ourselves. We've probably done it as grown men. Now, this, you know, seven, eight-year-old, four, five-year-old, nine, ten-year-old boy is doing it too. And we have to recognize those signals. My son Carter's a good kid. You see him on the videos, everybody says, you know, how smart he is, how great he answers questions, how wise he is, you know, beyond his years. And that's the good side that you see. But he's 10. So you if your dad, you know, there's another side. The messy room, the not picking up after himself, always asking for stuff, you know, watching YouTube all day, shorts, things he might not shouldn't be watching. He's the 10-year-old boy. That's gonna happen. And if you think that it isn't, well, I, you know, I'm here for the working dads and for guys that live in the real world that no kid is perfect. No one is perfect. So he has a real issue with if you, you know, if you can relate to this, when something happens, it's never him. It's never him. He's all, you know, he he thinks that he needs to explain himself, tell his side of the story. He doesn't want to get blamed for everything. So a lot of times him and his mom are going back and forth arguing about things. She thinks, and also I think it's a sign of disrespect. You know, not being quiet, not just taking your punishment, not talking so much, just okay, I'm sorry I did wrong. No, he wants to explain and he wants to point the finger at his sister. Both of them do that. It's never, never, okay, I did it. No, it's always the other one. They did it. But for him, it's a lot worse. It's a lot worse. And for a long time, I would just come in, just come in and think, okay, I'm shut the situation down. You be quiet, you know, get on him. Because that's honestly, that's what she wanted. Because, and I understand it, like somebody, the kids, you know, your son's being disrespectful, they're talking back. You feel like as a dad, you need to come in and shut him down. Make him be quiet, make him listen. He listens to you, not to me. That type of stuff. You know what I mean? If you're going through this at home, hey, that's why I'm here for you. But right before doing this video, it kind of clicked. Imagine how that must feel. Every time something happens, you you're being the one blamed for it. And you got your little sister saying that you did it. And a lot of times you might have done it, but you can feel like your parents are taking sides. That you always do something wrong, and she doesn't. And I think, and I know that's how he felt. So that's where a lot of the disrespect was coming from. It's like, man, I'm trying to tell my side of the story. You coming in here yelling at me, you, you, you getting on me. I look, okay, I did some of this, but she did some stuff too. And, you know, my six-year-old Riley, she's no dummy. She can see, like, hey, I can just say he did it, and I can just walk out of the room and be cool, go back to doing what I was doing. So how do you, what do you do in that situation? What what what do you do in that situation? One thing that I started to do was telling him, look, let's, let's, let's step over here. Let's let's go, you know, in your room, on the porch, upstairs, whatever. And you ask him, what's going on? Not what's going on. You don't talk to your mother like that, you don't talk to your sister like that. No, what's going on? Find out what's really going on. Find out what's underneath the disrespect. Find out what he's trying to say with his actions, with the, you know, the loud talking or talking out of turn that and feeling like no one's listening. Find out in that moment what's going on. Now, I'm not saying to excuse being disrespectful. I'm not saying to excuse that. But I'm saying we've got to find out what's bothering your son. Because when you're 10, 11, 12, he might, they might not have the words to say it. They might not have the words to say it. And I'm gonna ask you a question, Daz. Do you feel like sometimes you're your son's lawyer with your wife, with the rest of your family, to the principals, to the teachers? Well, you know what you are. So find out what's going on with your client.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Your son was being disrespectful. Allegedly. Now, what happened before that?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Find out what's going on with your client. The old lens of things is you seeing stuff as my son's being disrespectful. I need to stop that behavior, I need to crush that behavior. This doesn't happen in my house. The new shift, the new lens you gotta see through is something's going on with my son. I need to find out what's going on with me. I need to find out what's bothering him. The second shift that you need to make is going from loud to leadership. So some, you know, just getting loud. You shut your mouth, you do this, you don't disrespect your mom, all this, to being calm, being assertive, but listening, trying to figure out what's going on, going from loud to leadership. A loud reaction is just a response. It's not the way to handle. It's not the way to handle it. You know, being loud really doesn't get anyone's respect. People think if you're the loudest person, you're talking over. No, it's not gonna get any adults' respect, and it's definitely not going to get you what you want as a parent when you're trying to figure out what's really going on with your kid. Because they're just gonna shut down. The third shift is going from immediate discipline to making them wait. A lot of times in the past, I would just immediately go into discipline, and then you think, because if you don't, you're gonna lose control. No. Tell them, look, are you being disrespectful in public? You talking like this, you know, around other people, or you wait. You wait till we get home, you wait till I'm done doing what I need, you know, you wait till I calm down, go in your room, and you wait. Because the weight is much more powerful and significant than you raising your voice in the moment. You go, you go wait. You go wait. I'm gonna figure out the way to handle this. You worry about what I'm gonna do. That's your problem, not mine. But when I come in there, come in into that room, or when we get home, we're gonna deal with this situation. The weight discipline. That's the third, that's the third shift. Instead of just exploding in the moment, no, make them wait. Make them wait. You have to have patience in life. And sometimes you have to wait for things that are good for you. They might not be good to you, but they good for you. So you go in that room, you or you wait till we get home, and then I'm gonna deal with you. The fourth shift, correct the behavior to find out what's underneath. Before I would just go in and be like, man, don't talk to your mother like that. When you disrespect her, you disrespecting me. I say that all the time. But that really don't work. You really want to find out, hey, you really want to find out what's going on. That's what you need to ask. What's going on? Correct the behavior by finding out what's underneath the disrespect. What's underneath the behavior? Some people are like, this sounds like some gentle parenting, this and that. Well, let me tell you something. A lot of your kids are out of control and very disrespectful because you didn't do none of this. You didn't do none of this. You didn't do none of this in the beginning. You didn't so now, yeah, now it's on another level. Who you gonna blame that on? So no, don't get it twisted. I'm not for everybody. I'm not for somebody with this accelerated kid that's, you know, beating them up because they took their uh PlayStation from them or punching them in the head because they couldn't eat enough food. No, I'm I'm I'm I'm this isn't for you. Your situation is a little bit more fucked up. I'm talking about a boy or a girl who's just being disrespectful, who's mouthing off. I'm not talking about somebody who's assaulting you. The fifth shift is my ego was bruised. My pride was hurt, to my son is showing me something. Every father thinks, oh, their son's being stressed disrespectful, their daughter's being disrespectful, you take it personal. Your mom takes it takes it personal. So now she's on you because she feels like she's being disrespected. You feel like you're being disrespected because she's being disrespected. So you let your, you know, you let your feelings get in your chest about it. You let your feelings take over. No, your kid is trying to show you something. And the sooner you see that and the sooner you realize that, the better off the situation can be. But I'm not telling you to just absolve your kids from any wrongdoing. No, they have to take their own part in what they're doing. But I'm trying to help you get to the solution. You gotta work together. They gotta do their part, you gotta do your part. The sixth shift is the consequences as anger to the consequences as standard. The old way I used to think is you're punishing him because you're angry, you know, your ego's hurt, your ego's bruised, you got you in your feelings. So now you're punishing because you're angry. But the way, the new way you need to look at things is you're punishing him or you're holding him. You're not punishing him, you're holding him or her to a standard because you don't want them to be that type of young man or young lady who does this thing as an adolescent, as an adult. You don't want this to carry over. That's your job as a father. To make this young man or young lady be able to take care of themselves, be successful when you're not here anymore. That you're raising somebody who at some point will not need you anymore. I know that's hard for a lot of people to digest, but that's what you're doing. That's what you're doing. So you're going from the consequences as anger when you're punishing them to no, I'm holding you to a standard. I'm holding you to a standard that that same standard you can carry on into your adulthood. A lot of men feel like they're invisible, like nobody sees them and their feelings are legitimate. And maybe sometimes you feel that way. As a father, as a man, in a you know, married or in, you know, in a relationship, you don't want your son to inherit that same feeling. So that's why you need to, instead of getting angry, you need to see what's going on. See the signals. Ask him what's going on. Find out what's beneath that behavior. Don't let him inherit the same feelings that a lot of men feel. Be that person that he can come to, that he can talk to about his problems. Or feel like it's okay to talk to about problems. A lot of men don't feel like it's okay to talk to about their problems. You know, you want to be, they want to be sarcastic about things or they think that they can just, you know, man up and go through, you know, man. No, it's okay to say that something's wrong. But it's even better to have somebody you can say that to, and that's going to listen. And that's you. Like I said before, see what's bothering your client. Carter isn't disrespectful because he doesn't respect us. Your son or daughter isn't disrespectful because he doesn't respect you or she doesn't respect you. They're disrespectful because they feel like they're not being seen. And that's the truth I would have killed to know 20 years ago. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you can't unsee it, you become a whole different father. Not because you learn some technique. It's because you learn to see your son differently. Your son is asking to be seen right now, so don't miss it. This channel, this podcast is for working dads to have the conversations that nobody had with us. If you know a working dad, a dad who needed this, share it with them. That's how we break the cycle. One conversation at a time. Every Sunday. If this shifted something in you, drop a comment. Tell me what you're gonna do directly the next time your son disrespects you. Not the technique, but what are you gonna do? How are you gonna look at things? Be honest. We all need to learn from each other. I need to learn from you. You can learn from me. Subscribe. Every Sunday I'm dropping something new for working dads that are tired of running their dad's old broken playbook that didn't work for them. I got you.