As the world continues to face hardship and chaos amidst a crisis of mass shootings, Wendy and Terry come together with a unifying and empowering message on how individual action can make major community, national, and even global change.
In a time of such great violence and fear, there is a need – now more than ever – to stand up, speak boldly and guide our children with examples of love and courage.
In this Episode, Wendy and Terry will cover:
- 7 ways to make a difference in a hurting world
- How to empower your kids with knowledge and purpose
- Standing up for what you believe and teaching your children to do the same
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*How to work WITH your kids instead of forcing them to comply or trying to MAKE them change
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Episode Highlights:
- The state of the nation
- Crisis of violence and mass shootings
- Building a foundation of values for your family
- Empowering kids through knowledge, resources, & purpose
- Now is the time to stand up!
- Be bold & be loving
- The Fresh Start Family stance on gun violence
- Remaining in courage and faith
Resources Mentioned:
www.freshstartfamilyonline.com
Fresh Start Wellness Collective
Not able to listen or want to read along with us?
Here is the episode transcript!
This episode is brought to you by the free Fresh Start Family learning guide, how to raise strong-willed kids with integrity, so you don’t lose your bind. We understand what it’s like, families, to raise kids who pushed back a lot, maybe push buttons often and say no more than they say yes, and we’re here to help. You can download our free learning guide at freshstartfamilyonline.com/strongwilledkids.
Stella:
Well, Hey there, I’m Stella. Welcome to my mom and dads podcast the fresh start family show. We’re so happy you’re here. We’re inspired by the ocean Jesus and rock and roll and believe deeply in the true power of loving kindness together. We hope to inspire you to expand your heart, learn new tools and strengthen your family. Enjoy the show.
Wendy:
Well, hello there families. And welcome back to a new episode of the fresh start family show. I’m your host, Wendy Snyder, positive parenting educator and family life coach. And I’ve got Terry with me today.
Terry:
I’m Terry Snyder and I’m the sidekick.
Wendy:
So happy that you’re here T, it’s my birthday. It is my birthday, and I’ve already had such a good morning, but one of the things that I wanted to do today is record this podcast episode. And I’m just, I’m so thankful that you’re here with me. So thanks for taking, I know we could be at the beach or surfing right now, but this is really important to me. So thank you for being here.
Terry:
Well, and listeners, let’s just acknowledge right now, who cares so much about the world and you guys that she would choose to spend her birthday sitting here recording this so she could put out more light and more positivity out into the world. So let’s just give her a round of applause.
Wendy:
Happy birthday to me. No, I lie. I love this. I am so thankful that I get to have a job and build an organization and a business that I care so deeply about, but really one of my favorite things in the world is to serve and support the families that listen to the show and that are students of ours. And so this was just something that’s been on my heart that I really wanted to make sure we recorded on. I was going to record last week. And then I told Terry, I don’t want to record this one alone. I want you to be there with me. So we talked to the podcast agency and see, can we get for, can you guys give us a deadline? We just need a few more days. So we can sit down and do this together. And I will say this has been a busy, busy few weeks for us here at, fresh start family.
And Terry’s a VP of creative by day. I mean, you double, double jobber, but it’s been a busy season for us, but we will be on the beaches of the north shore of Oahu and one week, and we are going to tap out and relax. And this weekend we’re going to a concert with the kids and we’ll be downtown living it up vacationing. So for now we are serving and supporting and couldn’t be happier about it.
Terry:
Right?
Wendy:
Cool. All right, families. Well, today we are going to be talking about seven ways to make a difference in a hurting world. And the reason why we wanted to chat about this today is so we’re, we’re just about to take a little bit of a production break for the first shirt, family show. We’re gonna probably take about a month and a half off from actually producing episodes, just as a way to, to rest a little bit and kind of do some visioning and planning for the fall and make sure that we are just pouring into really making sure that we’re, we’re I think spending time with God to get guidance and hear from you guys and talk to you guys and just spend some time figuring out what we want to produce for the next season of the shell.
So we’re going to take a little production break. So after this one, you won’t hear from us on the podcast till early September. So we kind of wanted to go out with a bang for the summer and release this episode because it has been a heavy season, especially here in America with, gosh, what are we at now? Like three mass tragedy shootings. And I mean, in the matter of what, what was it three weeks? I mean,
Terry:
Yeah. And I mean, those are just the ones that like have grabbed the headlines too. I mean, when you really uncover it all, I mean, it’s like hundreds to this year, so it’s like, you know, it’s and yes, while we say mass shootings, it’s like, yeah, those are the ones that really have grabbed the headlines. And it’s been heartbreaking, especially when kids are involved or when there’s some sort of hate crime involved or people getting singled out. I think it, you know, it just adds to that, that, that, that hurt and that just, ah, just puts a big spotlight on it. So yeah. So here we are to talk about it.
Wendy:
Yeah. And you know, this show is about positive parenting and relationships and creating a family legacy of your dreams. But it’s also about having the courage to stand tall and talk about things and do something. And that’s what we really do believe so deeply here in, at frustra family. So what you’re going to hear us talk about today, you guys is seven ideas that we have for you to really be a change maker in the world. And you’re going to hear, you know, this is from our heart. This is stuff that we’re sharing that we believe, remember that everybody has opinions, right?
And so Terry and I are no different. We have opinions about things. Yes. You’re going to hear us talk about a lot of emotional social literacy stuff today and how important it is to be raising your kids with what we teach and practice here at Fisher families, the fresher family. But yeah, you’re gonna hear us talk about guns today. You’re going to hear us talk about certain things that you may have a different opinion about. And that’s okay. As our pastor Miles MacPherson at the rock church always says, you know, he’ll say my opinion. This is my opinion. And my opinion means nothing. It’s, it’s God’s opinion that we really care about, but we also, we do have an opinion and we want to encourage and inspire and motivate you to take action, to do something, to help in a hurting world.
I have my favorite t-shirt on this morning. One of my favorite t-shirts and it just is a plain white t-shirt. I swear my uniform could be like, good, nice denim and a good hat. You guys know I’m addicted to hats, Tariq, Terry, I’m sorry about that.
Wendy:
It’s a problem because I spend a lot of money on hats.
Terry:
Oh, well, we look back at the end of our life and say what went wrong too many hats.
Wendy:
But it’s like, like a strong hat, a good white t-shirt maybe a black leather jacket and like a denim. But anyways, this is one of my favorite white t-shirts that just says on my color, give a down that’s it give a frickin damn. And I know those of you who listened to the show. You do give a damn those of you who are students of ours and our loyal listeners, and really show up on a consistent basis to, to stand up for what you believe in to treat children and to raise children in a way that is respectful of respectful and of high dignity. I know that you all give a damn. So these are ideas today that we believe that when you practice on a consistent basis in your home, in your heart, in your circles, with the actions that you take on a daily basis, that you will make a difference in a hurting world.
So thank you for listening. And remember it is okay. If you have different opinions, human beings are designed to be different. You guys, I, I it’s it’s okay. Right? You don’t, we don’t need to, we don’t need to freak out if we have different opinions and we just want you to do something to contribute to positive change. Okay.
Terry:
Yeah. No, and I think that’s a good thing to point out because, you know, we’re, we’re not using this platform just to have like a, a bigger, you know, voice for the sake of an argument, because I think that’s what people are, you know, in these situations tend to do. It’s like people watch there’s shock. There’s sometimes. I mean, some people might just kind of brush it under the rug, but a lot of people who are shocked, then go straight into like, well, what let’s, let’s put our opinion out there, engage with somebody else. There ends up being an argument. There ends up being division. And, and then there ends up not necessarily being a, a huge, a way to like actually implement anything within your own day or your life, because you’re just engaged in arguing.
So this isn’t, this is not a forum for an argument. This is a forum for if you’re interested in taking any or all of these seven things, the, you know, steps of like, Hey, what can I do? We’ve just compiled things that this is a, what could you do? So we’re excited to get going.
Wendy:
Yes. I love that you bring up the idea of unification because it is so true. We really are so unified here at Fisher family. If you’re listening to this show, we are on the same page, right? About I usually 99% of the things in the world. Right? And I think what I always try to encourage my students and my kids and remind myself to do, when you’re talking about something you care deeply about or passionate about or something that you’re noticing in the world, you feel like is jacked up. When you come from a place of sharing, how you feel versus venting about all the things that are messed up in the world and how crazy things are and how things make no sense and how it’s ludicrous.
And it’s, f-ing insane. And all these types of things. That’s what I refer to as venting and venting never helps. It doesn’t help you feel better. It doesn’t create positive change in the world. It like leaves. You feeling like crap. You’re usually talking shit about other people and it just is not effective at creating positive change. And it’s not, it’s not effective at uniting people. It’s not effective at influencing people. But when you come from an angle of, Hey, I’m going to share with you. We are going to share with you today, how we feel, how we feel there has been so many emotions this last few weeks, especially, I mean, all, all, any mass shooting.
I mean, it’s insane. We’re at like 240 something in the United States since I don’t know the stats. We’re not hearing experts in the stats, but I think since like 2013 or 11 or something, but it’s a significant difference than other countries. Right. But it’s, it’s, it’s just wild. Right? And so there’s been all these emotions that are like scared and scared as hell for my kids. I mean, we’re going to a concert this weekend and the open air theater or open air, massive stadium and all be all, spend a significant amount of my nights. Scared. Do you feel like that anymore? Like nowadays, do you feel like when you’re in a public place, do you have that feeling or
Terry:
I’m more aware of it, but it’s mainly because you you’ve talked about it, but no, I’m not scared.
Wendy:
Okay, good. Okay. Well, it’s not bad to be scared. You guys, that’s just a human, healthy emotion, but scared. I mean, the sadness, like for the families you hear about and hear, you know, you know, are coming home to a toddler bed that never got made that morning and, you know, cinnamon toast that’s left on the table, half eaten, you know, like sadness is insane. Like the anger is fricking insane, right? Like how much anger you have after seeing what our nation does and doesn’t do to create positive change and these types of things. And then there’s even joy. There’s even joy when you like, look at the people who are helping, right?
Like there’s just a massive array of emotions. We’ll talk about that in a little bit, but it’s just, it’s important to know that emotions are like the first and foremost thing that you have to address in order to actually be an agent of change in the world. I’m learning a significant amount of how much we, you know, when it comes to like trauma, which all of us have in one way or another, whether it’s like traditional type of trauma that you think about where you’ve been in a car accident, or it’s a soldier that comes home from war and he has PTSD, or there’s this secondary type of trauma or complex trauma that, you know, some therapists refer to as, as like the things you didn’t get when you were young or the lack of safety you might’ve had in your home or things like that.
But I’ve learned, especially through the work that I’ve been lucky enough and honored to be able to do with my life coaching organization, your infinite life, but we’re studying a book called my grandmother’s hands together. And it’s all about how we as a society and especially, I mean, we are studying it as a group of white body leaders, but like all of us, but looking at how we end white supremacy, how we dismantle white supremacy and the, and heal from the horrendous effects of it on our nation, especially here in America. But so much of the book, the author, his name was Fresno that wrote it is just incredibly trauma informed therapist.
And it’s just, I’m in love with his work and, and the way he counsels on this, on this subject, but it’s all related to the body. So if you are watching, you know, a news report that comes out that shows that 20 children have been murdered, right? Like mowed down and you don’t have any emotion about it. And you’re able to just move on with your day. There’s a good chance. You’re skipping over an emotion and that is going to keep trauma stuck in your body. And then that is not going to help heal the world. So it’s very, very important that you, you don’t avoid it. So if you feel sad, if you feel angry, if you feel scared, like it’s a really significant thing for every human being to learn how to feel those emotions and let them go through your body and stop and actually process them instead of what most people do, which has a tendency to like, keep things, going, keep the bad things in the world happening, whether it’s white supremacy or mass tragedies, or lack of social, emotional literacy or war or whatever it may be.
But it’s our tendency. A lot of times just to skip over things and ignore it. We can’t deal with that. You know, like there’s a bit, there’ll be a lot of people who can’t listen to this episode, they’ll turn it off. Cause they can’t. They say they can’t deal with it, but really they can, it’s just uncomfortable to get through it.
Terry:
Or some aspect of it will trigger something and then they’ll come up with a reason why they, they want to turn it off. But let me qualify my answer to when you asked me, am I scared to go to concerts and like public places, not so much on that, but when in the days after the Texas shooting, when I dropped Taron off at elementary school, him leaving me and looking at staring at the school and saying, there, there was no like, like sound way that I could say not this school. Like there’s no way it could be a school. So I looked at that and I was like, no, it could be the school. And that, that scared me.
And that made me sad and watching him walk away and maybe me being in a public place or a concert, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m with you guys that there’s not that physical separation or, or maybe it’s just, I dunno, it’s just a different vibe for me, but that’s kind of weird that I would be more scared of an elementary school setting than a, a concert. I don’t know. Yeah.
Wendy:
Well, yeah, moral, the story is there’s there’s emotions that all of us have, and it’s really important to just I’ll make sure I put a video, a video link in here, but I did. I think I did. It was a live stream about just how important it is to like, feel your emotions through this. And I did it over on Instagram, so I’ll make sure I link to that just in case you want to explore that further. All right. You guys, well, let’s just kind of start pinging through some of the things that we had listed out here. So number one, a lot of people ask, you know how, because this is what fricking sucks. This is not like this episode. I really wanted to make sure we record and put it in the vault.
And, and what sucks is, it’s not, it’s, it’s, there’s going to be a situation as soon down the road where we’re going to refer back to this and it, and we’re going to be like, here we are again, because when I went to film this as more, this, you know, as I was building the notes around this episode, I was like, oh, I’ll, I’ll just go back and refer to the, I did a Facebook live for my community about, I think it was like four years ago. I forget after it was after like a, a thousand Oaks mass shooting. And it was like the same shit we’re saying the same shit changed. Right? So that’s going to change because more and more people are going to start to do something and more and more people are going to speak up and not sit by and just let something happen.
Right. Not just not do their part. But the reason I say that is because we need to talk, how do you talk to your children about this? A lot of people ask like, okay, well, my kids are too young. I want to shelter them. And here at frustrated family, we’re going to always advocate for a root of honesty with our kids. And here’s what I mean, I’m not talking about like having the news on, in the background with your six-year-old and letting them see about the carnage and the stories of a nine year old girl covering herself in blood to save herself with her best friend’s blood. Right? Like that is a true story from Texas. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about sharing with your children that yes, something really awful happened.
And this is the way I always phrase it for children is that someone who was really, really hurting and possibly experiencing mental illness, who knows, but we know that they were hurting. They hurt, they made a big mistake and they hurt some people and they lost their lives. And, and that’s how I always tee it up for children. But it’s someone who was hurting, who was never taught a different way to feel hurt, scared, angry, and probably felt very, very alone, chose to take revenge action in order to make themselves feel better.
Yes. Like putting yourself in a like police suicide, or, you know, like that type of situation is a way to end pain. It is a way to make yourself feel better in air quotes. And they made a big mistake. Like that is the way I like to explain it to people. Some people got hurt. Some people lost their lives, but you’re teeing it up to a child that this isn’t some monster running around. Just like, oh my gosh, this is like, yes. Do I believe there was evil involved? Absolutely. Yes. The enemy gets into people’s hearts and minds. We know that, but this was a hurting individual who most likely did not have the tools to know what the F to do with extreme amounts of fear, pain, anger, sadness, aloneness, all the things, and probably had no idea how to reach out for help.
Would you agree?
Terry:
Yeah. I mean, when you get to the root of it, because, and you know, I think that’s one of the, I think that should be a key takeaway because I think we maybe assume that people get to that point where they can even look into the eyes or empathize even with the shooter, because you know, there is so much anger and disgust and disconnection between all of us observing what happened and somebody who would, who would make that mistake.
Wendy:
18 year old, like that is so close to being a child it’s nuts.
Terry:
But I think it is important. What you’re saying is when connecting to and communicating what happened to young kids, you got to look at what happened and what happened was started with the decision or set of decisions. A lot of things before that day. And, and it, it started with, like you said, somebody who was ill-equipped with what to do with their emotions, like before you even get into, you know, laws and where did they get guns from and what were they like? It’s like they had emotions. They didn’t have a healthy way to deal with them.
Terry:
So they chose to deal with those emotions in a very awful way. Boom, right there, like,
Wendy:
Yeah. And it’s a revenge behave. It’s revenge misbehavior, right? Like, so if you’re a student of ours, if you’re in the foundations course, if you’re in the bond for a support program, you will understand that hurt people, hurt people like any human beings, children, but especially is any human being who does revenge. This behavior has a mistaken belief that in order to take care of myself, when I feel hurt, I must hurt back often because that’s, what’s been fricking modeled to me, whether it’s through parenting upbringing, traditional punishment, pain, shame, humiliation, you mess up, you hurt me, I’ll hurt you back. Or it’s just cultural standards, right? Like you step on my toe, I’ll punch you in the face.
There’s just so much of it. It there’s just so much of it. So it’s just clearly revenge was behavior in all of these. And so it just, I think it, it just gets to the root of the problem with children. And it also, we’re going to talk about this, but it also just opens up the conversation for empowerment with our kids. So, number two, when you talk to your kids, you guys just remember what, talk to them about what you stand for instead of blaming, or going to a tone of disgust or retribution or retaliation or revenge, or, or rage. Just talk about what you stand for. So if you care deeply about keeping our children safe in schools, if you care deeply about expanding mental health, wellness, you know, helping our country, then tell your kids that tell you the people around you, what you stand tall for.
If you stand tall for having healthy, you know, gun reform and, you know, just like very common sense, gun laws then stand tall for that. We recently Terry Terry and I have an experienced in our neighborhood. We had someone who has been on our block for years and years and who we adored mother of very young children, who was a very significant part of our neighborhood. We have a very tight knit community neighborhood with probably 15 families of young kids who we know well, and we became very close over COVID with, we had some parties out in outside. Of course we were outside, but we had some really good parties anyways, this wonderful person.
Anyway, she basically succumbed to mental illness for pretty sure that she had been suffering with bipolar and multiple personality disorder, probably since her early twenties. And then during COVID, we were 99% sure it made the decision to go off of her medication and spiraled downward. So fast in the matter of about five weeks, lost her children, lost her dog, lost her home, lost our car. But we, as a community came together to try to get her the help that she needed to get checked into a mental health facility to try to get her back on her medicine, get her the help we full-blown had to work in as a community over the course of like four weeks. We finally got a 51 50 on her one night, it was fricking nuts.
Y’all and it’s still wasn’t enough to get this woman help. Like if there is a significant problem with mental health assistance in our country,
Terry:
And she’s still here for listeners, you know, she’s still here, the battle is still on. And you know, in her mind, I, we don’t know what, what happens with this story next, but we do know that getting mental health help for her has been an uphill struggle. And, and I mean, just side note, and I have no idea if this is where you were going with any of this Wendy, but like one of the first questions that’s asked, does she have any weapons nearby? Does she have any weapons in the home? So this, you know, mental health access to weapons to, you know, potentially make a mistake.
You know, it’s just a, it’s a, it’s a really hard thing to, to stare at, especially when it’s someone that, that you care about and you love, so, yeah, it’s, we’ve learned through that. That it’s, it’s not as, as easy as it seems. So if it’s something that you feel strongly about any back to our point, it’s like, you know, if now through this situation and other situations that we’ve had in our past through is your people experiencing mental illness, it’s like, well, make that, make that part of your, your family’s mission is like, if you, if you feel strongly about changing, how, how hard it is to get somebody with mental illness and the help that they need, we’ll make that part of your family’s mission.
Wendy:
Well, what happens is most people will fall into a rut of just talking shit about the system, right? So talking shit about the system is not going to do anything. Yeah. You know, like, but what, what you’ve got to do in front of your kids, cause remember you guys, your kids are listening and watching every single thing that you say, you just want to make sure you’re focusing on like, Hey, we, we have got to get system. Let’s just speak to America. We have listeners all over the world, but let’s just speak to America. Like we’ve got to get our system. What can we do? Like we’ve got to stand for getting mental health into the hands of more and more people that is actually going to create change.
So just remember if you catch yourself, like talking about revenge, like venting, talking shit about the system, people what’s so AFT up about the world than just, I want you to challenge yourself to spin it into what do you stand for? Especially when you’re talking to your kids. Another point when you’re talking to your kids is make sure that you are really empowering your children. There is nothing that feels crappier in the world, in my opinion, than feeling like you’re a sitting duck. Like, you’re just like, there’s these evil people out in the world. There’s these monsters that like, who knows what’s going to happen. Right. Like I’m definitely looking over my shoulders now more than ever with like paranoia.
But I also am empowered. Like I sit down at my desk every day and contribute and do something to create positive change. And you can tell your kids that they can do the same thing. They can have a high awareness of if there is odd behaviors or alarming things people say or do, whether you have teenagers on social media or you have little kids who, you know, might be playing on the block. And someone is like, you know, like displaying odd behavior with like, who knows dead animals or the things that they say or jokes about weapons or like things like that. We’re going to get into what our opinion is about playing with pretend murder play.
And we’ll talk about that in a little bit, but educate and empower your children, that how they treat people on a consistent basis and what they see in the world. And if they bring attention to it, they can help make a difference. They can help prevent people from getting hurt and we need them. They are equally as important to preventing future tragedies and things happening in the world as we are as adults. And then lastly, for that point, when it comes to talking to our kids, just make sure you’re practicing, listening, intently you guys. So when you ask your kids things like, did you hear what happened in Texas this week? Just be willing to, to listen.
So, you know, it’s like, we, we talk about this in our foundations course, but I I remember there was a beautiful, you know, thing shared about the artist, Marilyn Manson after Columbine. And that was like, I feel like when this whole crazy chain of like mass tragedy started to become the fricking norm in America, what was that? Like? Must’ve been like 25 years ago or something. Right. But he remember like, he, he was an as a music artist still probably does make music to this day, but he had this like style. It was like black trench coats, black, long hair. And the media just like, ate him up because these kids that did this mass tragedy high school, they, they were like part of the trench coat mafia.
Right. And everyone assumed, oh, they listened to this dark musics. That must be the cause of why they did this awful thing. So they were kind of, the media was like, what do you have to say about this Marilyn Manson? And, and he was like, well, what, what would you say to these kids? You know, what do you, what would you say if, if you were here sitting with them and they would have survived or whatever. And he said, he said to the media, he goes, I wouldn’t say anything. I would listen. And like, you’ve got to remember that kids have a lot to say, if you don’t stop them. So it’s really important that you have a mission to listen intently.
And if they say things like, I feel scared, or this is dumb, or I don’t want to talk about it, don’t try and fix it instead. Just say, okay, well, I’m here. Like, if, if you can help me understand how you’re feeling, I’d be so grateful or use feeling encouragers instead of discouragers with, which is those of you who are foundations core students, you know how important it is to like, keep the conversation going, feeling encouragers are really important. And then just listen and hold space. You guys, we have a whole episode on that. You can Google fresh families, show holding space. That’s a really good one to just understand how to, to listen instead of interrupt and fix. But it’s really empowering for kids to be able to share what they’re actually feeling.
All right. Number two, be committed to practicing positive parenting in your home, especially around revenge with behavior and discipline, but the whole shebang. Yeah. I mean, you guys know this is our whole fricking life mission to get the work, this work into every single family across the world. But, but what you’re doing, you guys matters. We did an episode with a woman named Scarlet Lewis. Really? If like, if this, if you’re loving this episode and you’re like, yes, Wendy, count me in. I want to be someone who does something. I don’t want to just sit by and let this go by. Make sure you listened to that episode.
We did with Scarlet Lewis, from the choose love movement. She lost her son, Jesse Lewis, who was six years old, I believe in the Sandy hook tragedy, whatever that was a decade ago. And we just had the most incredible interview with her, but she has used that tragedy to go on, to create a nonprofit organization that has, that has just done incredible work in the world. And the story of that, the message that Jesse Love about Jesse left about choosing healing, nurturing love, and she’s created an entire social, emotional literacy literacy program where she goes into schools. It’s just phenomenal, but essentially here’s a mother who, who survived this right, who lost her son and all that, of all the things she can advocate for.
She’s advocating for social emotional literacy. And it just, it just goes to show you the power of teaching your kids, how to frickin operate in the world with dignity and integrity and understand how to feel their emotions, how to feel angry, pur scared, sad, alone. How to ask for support, how to forgive, how to have empathy for other people around you, how to see other people’s viewpoints. Like all the things that Scarlet teaches is the same things we teach here. But by doing that, you have to understand how much you are contributing to the world. Even though it feels like nothing, right? Like you’re like, okay, well, my kids still argued with me at bedtime tonight.
My little one’s still slept his brother when he wouldn’t get his way, like, trust me, you cannot see everything that you are doing, but a decade from now two decades from now three decades from now, when you are dedicated to being someone who stands for this work in your home and in your family legacy, we will all benefit from your efforts.
Terry:
Absolutely. And it’s like, you know, it’s like anything else worth learning. It is a, you know, it’s a long practice. It’s like learning a language, but by the time, you know, your kids get to a position where, you know, they’re in high school or beyond something rocks their world. And they’re filled with some, you know, an emotion they’ll know what to do with it in a way that’s not going to, can help create some, some massive gap between, you know, whatever it is. And you know, we’re not saying that it’s necessarily even shootings or mass shootings, but it’s like, you know, keeping relationships in your, in your children’s lives and their emotional literacy, treating that with high regard, as a, as a parent investing the time and effort it takes to bless your kids with that, I think is like at the top of our list.
But for whatever reason, our culture has it very low. It’s very, it’s, it’s very, it’s not something that’s high on the list. So we just were, you know, here at fresh start family, we’re just trying to flip the script. And we can tell you that if you spend the time, invest in your family through programs like the foundations course with fresh start family or choose love movement or whatever you gravitate towards, you’ll never regret it. It is the thing that will just give the next generation, your kids a better shot at having healthy relationships. And that’s really what it comes down to is dealing with emotions, having healthy relationships, you do that you are a huge leap closer to making the world a better place
Wendy:
And like, and, and giving your kids the tools to just create a little space between their actions and their thought patterns, right? Like the stimulus and the response. We again teach so much about this inside of our programs, but, you know, I I’ve seen some incredible work and, and stories of people who have survived, like, you know, attempted suicides or moments, these lapses, where someone goes to make this like really rash decision and then somebody, or somehow that is delayed, whether it’s through someone who cares or someone who reaches out or a tool that they’re able to call on or use or something that they were taught, that they were able to remember.
But just a tiny lapse is, is such tremendous value and often saves lives. And when you equip your kids with these tools, they still might have this time in life where they experience the rage like comes over them, right. Or the sadness and hopelessness comes over them. But they’re going to have the ability to extend that space between the stimulus and their response. Just by a little bit, at least, even if you, even, if you feel like you’re trying to do positive parenting in your home, and by the time your kids graduate from high school, you’re like, well, crap. I maybe did it 30% of the time that 30% matters that 30% matters just last week at church, our campus pastor was sharing how six people in our church community have died by suicide over the last, what, four to six weeks or something.
It’s insane. Like, yes, we’re talking about mass tragedy prevention. We’re also talking about suicide prevention. Like these are big, heavy things that happen in the world and what you’re doing in your home on a daily basis, frickin matters. You guys. So this work prevents raid. Like it, it prevents, like, I can’t even tell you how many families I’ve worked with where they are like getting through moments where their children have significant bouts of rage at the tender age of 9, 10, 11 years old. And instead of just moving along, putting the band-aid spank in that kid, threatening the shadow of them, like they are stopping the generational cycle.
They are learning to handle this explosive anger and rage in a new way. They are learning to look at where they have rage and end it. So they stop modeling the same behavior that teaching their kids to not do. Right. And I’ve thought to myself over and over again, holy smokes, this right here is the prevention of a future mass tragedy, because so much of these, these situations are rage. Or with like, when someone loses their life to suicide, it’s also often like hopelessness, right. But it’s, it’s, it’s amazing to watch, especially with the rage thing, when families are able to like end that painful generational cycle of that being a norm and their family legacy.
Oh my God. It lights me up. It lights me up. So, all right. And on that point, you guys remember, you know what Mr. Rogers always says, if you’ve never seen that documentary guys, I don’t, there’s two, there’s two films about Mr. Rogers. There’s one that’s like with Tom Hanks. I don’t think I ever saw that one. I think you did. It’s beautiful. But the documentary actually about Mr. Roger’s life, he’s a, bad-ass like, I didn’t realize, I feel like you turned me on to be like, when do you have to watch this? Mr. Rogers was cool. We all knew he was cool, but he’s kind of an odd duck. Right? And then you watch this documentary about what he stood for. And I never realized he was a pastor. And like just was a total bad-ass in his, like his ability to be an outcast in the world and stand for things that a lot of people didn’t have the courage to stand for.
But he always said, all it takes is one person to change the direction of a child’s life. And he was that kid, right? I mean, I think he shares how he was bullied and had, you know, just a lot of, of sadness in his life when he was young. And he had one person that came beside him and lifted him up and really changed the future trajectory of his life. So it matters what you’re doing in the world. And it matters also what you’re doing to spread this work. Right? If you’re someone who’s experienced, amazing positive growth in your home or relationship with your kids, or you’ve been able to change and switch out of traditional punishment and you now implementing and practicing compassionate discipline in your home, remember share that with your friends and family, you guys, all it takes is one person to make a difference in another child’s life.
And you could make that difference just by sharing with other people, friends, family, all the things. Okay, you guys, we talked a little bit about empowering your children with knowledge and a purpose, but make them aware of their value. Remember that it matters how they treat people. It matters. It matters. Like we talked about them, be having the courage to talk to a teacher, or, you know, we get emails, you know, all the time from our daughters middle school, that there was a threat. And so it was like, I don’t forget a few weeks ago, I pulled up to middle school to drop her off. And there’s, you know, there’s just cops everywhere. And sure enough, there was another threat, but a kid called it to the attention of teachers or their parents or whatever.
Right. That’s one example that kids can be valuable, but so much of empowering kids is helping them remember, like when you are kind to the kid, that’s a total jerk or like the biggest nerd at the school, right? Like when you are kind to him, trust me, you are helping to prevent future tragedies. Every single person that has ever done something horrible. Like this has stories of how unkindly they were treated. Hey, families. I want to take a few minutes out of this great conversation to think uplift kids for their support of the fresh start family show.
We recently learned about the incredible work of uplift through our friends at Tony’s another brand we love here at fresher family. And since they were a personal recommendation, we knew we had to check out what they were up to, what Terry and I found is an organization doing wonderful work to help parents curate a family environment of spirituality, wonder resilience and compassion. So if you’re a parent who wants to create a culture of meaning, acceptance, and reflection at home, head on over to uplift kids.org, to learn more and try 32 week free trial, yes, they have a totally free two week trial. So you can learn more about the lessons and resources they have inside of their lesson library, where they curate engaging videos, stories, questions, prompts, activities, art, poetry, and so much more.
Here’s the kind of lessons that await you, which by the way, are designed for kids of all ages, kindness, gratitude, compassion, humility, forgiveness, mindfulness, grit, honesty, self compassion, curiosity, fairness, courage, practice, respect, giving emotions, anxiety, depression, anger, grief, shame, friendships, role models, consent habits. The list really goes on and on. You guys were just wonderful resources and lessons to make it easy for you as parents to have conversations with your kids about the topics that matter most, once again, you can find them and learn [email protected].
All right, let’s get back to the show. So when you choose to be kind and not let your friends like mess with that kid, you’re helping, you’re helping make your, your school a safer place. And yeah, it’s going to take courage. It’s gonna take courage to stand up or, or ask that kid if he wants to sit at your table or let ask him how his day was or whatever it is, but, but it matters so empowering your children’s important advocate round number, number five now, advocate for social emotional, literally literacy programs in your school.
Sorry for Terry. Thank you. We are now lucky enough in Southern California to have two full-time essentially social, emotional literacy teachers. We’ve interviewed them both for our show. Mrs. Wood was really early in the first year. Families show Google frustrated family show. Sarah would find her episode listening to it. And then we also have Mrs. Grizzly who both of our kids were lucky enough to have, who also is committed to teaching our kids growth mindset and another whole side of social, emotional teacher, big year this year.
Terry:
Oh my Gosh.
Wendy:
But we’re so lucky, but we know that schools across the nation and across the world, this is not the norm. So you have to advocate for this. That’s why you got to go listen to those episodes. I’m going to interview someone soon. That’s like a PTO or PTA, like specialist expert. And she’s going to really teach us how can we walk into schools and advocate for this? And a lot of it comes from you being willing to volunteer. So in those two episodes, we talk about that. So make, it’s like so important. You guys, I know everyone is up in arms about the defunding, like in our, our, our district, we got, what is it? Science, music and art defunded. Right? So we have to, we have to fundraise And everyone’s like, Robert, Robert, Robert, Robert, this sucks. Well, you know what? I’d rather have social, emotional literacy to be paid for. Then I don’t know. I want it all of course, but this, you guys is so important. It’s
Terry:
But again, it’s stand up for what you want to do. Not like complain about what’s not happening. It’s like, I think case in point at our schools, we’re able to, then there was a way for science, art, yoga, and social, emotional literacy literacy is in the classroom. So yeah, we can sit there and complain, but it took people to actually do something to get all those things in there. So there are there.
Wendy:
Yes. Yes, Matt. I mean, yeah. Massive advocacy. And we need your voice to make sure you listen to those episodes and then tune in when we have that PTO expert. Okay. So let’s move into a little bit of doing something in the form of healthy gun reform. It is so important. You guys, that you actually write the letters, you actually send the emails to your statesman. It’s a very simple Google search. You, you basically research Google who are my state assembly people in my state, you will get their emails very easily. I’m going to make sure that I have something in on my Instagram.
That’s a highlight that that’s, you know, I’ll call it like advocacy. I’m going to call it advocacy and I’ll make sure I have it saved there, but I’ll give you specific directions on how you take action to ask for specifically what you want here at frustra family, we advocate for healthy gun reform, especially with massive weapons of assault. Like the, like we are just, again, this is an area that you’re like, you may have a different opinion. That’s cool. But we here are advocating everyone to stand tall to the fact that we do not need automatic weapons of assault to be legal in our nation, that we are, you know, there’s might be some people live listening who big like conspiracy theorist.
And they’re like, we really, we really want to have an armed militia to be even with the military. That’s not the way we feel. We have massive respect for our military and our police. And we believe that is where mass weapons of this type are to be put in the hands of people who are trained. Yes, I, I trust our military. Yes. The police has a lot of work to do. Thank God for the people who are standing up and willing to support the police departments and police men and women who are willing to look at and how we need to change those departments. And we have massive respect for police.
Those are the hands that these weapons should be in. There is absolutely no reason that an an 18 year old just turned 18 year old child should be able to walk in and legally buy a, an automatic weapon of assault. Would you agree Taryn?
Terry:
Yeah. It, it just, I dunno, it seems kind of obvious to me, but you know, I know the second amendment is like a polarizing subject, but like, when you’re talking about like, why a normal citizen would want or need a gun, it seems like it falls into a couple of categories. You’re like one I hunt. Okay, cool. You hunt. None of these weapons that we’re talking about, have anything to do with hunting a
Wendy:
Really bad hunter and you have no skills.
Terry:
Yeah. Yeah. Had a few bizarre hunting trips. Number two would be, if you feel like you need to defend your home in some way, even still that, that, that’s a pretty extreme home defense.
Wendy:
Yeah. You gotta be. Okay.
Terry:
Yeah. And, and I think there’s a whole other subject too, that goes on with that is like, okay, if that’s what you’re doing, I think you got to look yourself in the face and say, ask yourself a lot of questions before you just check that box and say, this is what I’m doing for my home. And that’s the type of weapon I’m going to use to mitigate my fear against some unknown Thing. Three is, is, yeah, you have some sort of fear of the government, the police, or what have you, that you’re going to make your own small army that comes out of your house, which if you’re preparing for that, I would just encourage you to, and I’m not saying you got to believe everything that the government says.
I know there’s a lot of weird wicked things that go on and this country, every other country. So I’m not saying blindly believe don’t question authority. But if you’re preparing for Armageddon, basically doing this, I is a very hard way to live. And I would encourage you to just ask yourself some, some questions about that. Seek some counseling. Just, just try to work that out. Because to, to make that the whole reason why this is available to most, anybody in our country, that’s above a certain age, just seems like we can do a lot better. And I, it just, it just feels, it just feels really, really sideways.
If you’re dying to shoot guns like that, go into the military, get trained how to use it. The military would love you. Absolutely go become a police officer, go play, come up, police officer, that’s got, you know, a good head on your shoulders that can make great sound decisions. And then you’re like, oh, I’ve always. It’s like, if, if I always wanted to be a pilot, I would go and learn how to fly a plane. And I would either go into being a commercial error, you know, a pilot, or go into the military, same thing. You love guns, find your path that way, get trained up, go do that thing. But just to be able to walk into a store and, and do that, I just, I don’t think that’s what the second amendment was created for.
Wendy:
So yeah, we always, we, we take the angle of taking, teaching our children. So this will kind of get into a little bit of our next point, but we always teach our children. Like we, we don’t do guns in this home. We’re just not a gun family. I grew up in a house. I grew up in the country. I grew up with rifles and shotguns and all the things and hunting and, and we are not anti-gun at all. We get it. And we, we take a hard stance in this house that we’ve never been okay with guns. We’ve never purchased guns for our kids. We’ve like we have some very, very strong boundaries around tech for our kids around guns, around murder, play around violent video games. But we’ve always taught our children that the military and the police is who we respect and where we’re going to go.
If you want to experience that. So anytime Taryn wants, has ever wanted to play paintball. For example, I’m like, you know what? I’m not going to buy you. We don’t, again, we don’t even do Nerf guns or even water guns guys were, were pretty gnarly, but I will absolutely take him to the local military base. And we’ve played paint. A lot of people together. It was fricking terrifying. I hated it. It was awful, but we did it and he loved it. And I taught him, look, look around these soldiers at the gates. These are soldiers who have dedicated their entire life to learning how to safely use that weapon and have been entrusted with that weapon that they hold on their hip. Like this is, this is our, we thank our military. We honor our military.
We have a program called fresh start family gives, where we literally give out positive parenting curriculum to active duty military families. We have high respect for military and police here. So teach your children that, that is where guns go, right? Like that is especially these type of guns. But we really, we, that’s what we really advocate for, which is our next point, which is we encourage you to take a break from purchasing guns and advocating that pretend murder play, whether it’s through Nerf guns, whether it’s through airsoft, whether it’s through violent video games, like even Fortnite that is exposed, like, you know, they do funny dances and then they blow each other’s heads off.
Even star wars is, is we won’t buy star wars. We finally let our little guy get a, a video game console at age 10 and a half. I think it was. But we just like a hard stance on the violent video games, because in our opinion, remember our opinion means nothing. This is just our opinion. It normalizes murder.
Terry:
Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s part of the, the culture issue here is, is, you know, anytime that we’re like, you know, fueling this entertainment, that’s filled with violence and we’re not perfect. You know, we watch a fair amount of movies and I’ll be halfway, I’ll be halfway through a movie. And I’m like, oh my gosh. Like, we’re just like, you’re S you’re somehow like compartmentalizing, like all this stuff and normalizing it and just in the, for the form of entertainment. So we’re not perfect by any means. But as far as like, like Wendy saying, like actually putting a simulated gun in our kids’ hands and saying, okay, cool. Now go outside and play good guys and bad guys.
And, and, you know, try to snipe each other’s heads off and stuff like that. It’s just, it’s just not, it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right. And so we haven’t done that and you know, what the kids find other things to do.
Wendy:
Oh my gosh.
Terry:
So many other things to do. And after time, like they get it, it’s like, just like, you know, the other things that we’ve talked about, whether it be, you know, the phones or things like that, it’s like at first they’re like, what the heck? And then a little bit of time goes by and they’re like, oh yeah, I see it. You know, it’s like, it just, it just takes some discipline and we just are here to encourage you. So if that doesn’t feel right to you, like it doesn’t feel right to us. We’re just here to encourage you to say like, you know, keep, keep it going, keep it going. And if you’re not there yet, but this is striking some sort of accord with you.
Try it. It’s never too late.
Wendy:
You know, we did do bows and arrows. Yeah. We did slingshots. We had target practice. Like we were like, dude, if you want to do like target practice and have like, that’s, that’s cool. Like we’ll we always were able, we were always okay with those types of things, but the guns is just where we took a hard stance. And we said, no, so, and it takes courage. It takes persistence. It takes bravery to be different than the Jones is because everyone, every little boy on your block probably has an arsenal of nurse gun, Nerf gun. So if you choose to be different, just remember, it’s cool to be fricking different. Doesn’t make you dumb or weak or permissive.
It makes you cool in my opinion. All right, you guys, last one we have for you is support the work of organizations like choose love movement and Sandy hook promise. So instead of arguing about what could help, but this is what I see happen a lot. It’s like, you know, you saw all put a message out on social or I’ll share my opinion, or I’m sure we’ll get emails from this podcast episode. And we’ll get responses where people want to argue that what we’re advocating for won’t help. So for example, but the gun reform is a great example of that is where I get most of the pushback people. They know I’m a positive parenting educator and family life coach.
And they really lash on when I share like healthy gun reform. I’m about like eradicating the legalism of these assault weapons. They will want to engage that it will not help. It will not help. So if that’s what you believe, then find something that will help and freaking do it. But don’t argue with people who are doing something to help. Like, there’s just, there’s just no purpose. There’s just not gonna do anything. So if you don’t think that’ll help, then go support someone who is doing something that will help, or you walk in to the mental health centers or you walk in and you start volunteering more at church to mentor young men who you feel like are at risk in high areas of, of, you know, whatever.
Like, but if you are not doing anything, then don’t fricking argue with people who are right. Like, does that make sense? I love Bernay. Brown’s quote about this. She says, if you’re not in the frickin arena, getting your ass kicked, then I don’t want to hear from you like your critique of what I’m doing. So I want to hear from you what you are doing to help. And these organizations like choose love movement and Sandy hook promise. They have dedicated their lives to research based work, to prevent future tragedies and save lives. Sandy hook now has Sandy hook promise has a tally of how many lives they saved.
And they’re like, they’ve proven that they’ve saved like 340 lives. So it’s so easy to get on like a monthly $5 donation, right? They will teach you here’s the template to send to your state senators every single month, like your, your voice matters. And instead of arguing, just support the people who are in the arena, who are doing the work to help, because you can’t prove that what they’re doing is not going to help. You can have your opinions, but you’re not doing anything. You’ve got to make sure you’re doing something. I’m just gonna say one last thing. I know Terry has to get to a meeting, but in my opinion, we are, we’re just like when it comes to healthy gun reform, you guys, in my opinion, we’re just trying to make it a little bit harder to get your hands on it.
And I’m gonna give you an example. We, technology has been something we stood very firm on with our children. So our children were not allowed to have iPhones out in the world till they graduated from eighth grade. Stella just graduated. She is on cloud nine, that she’s got this new iPhone. We’re so happy for her, but we feel so thankful that we prolonged how easy it was for her to be on all of these apps, Snapchat, Tik TOK group, text thread, like out in the world, not being able to stand in line for a burrito without your mind being like checking social apps. And like, there’s just a million things. If you’ve never listened to our episode with bill Brady from true me, make sure you Google that. We talk all about our firm limits on technology.
But if we see the fruits of that firm limit and how making it just a little bit harder for her has benefited her tremendously and she could have gone and snuck these types of apps. She could have gone and snuck a phone. Like she has plenty of friends who have these phones and they’re not allowed to, but they sneak it. She could have, but she didn’t because we just made it a little bit harder. So it’s like, I always make the analogy of like, yes, cocaine is illegal. And there are people who are still going to get cocaine and do it. There are still children who are going to get cocaine and still do it, but it’s Mo many of them are going to give up and they’re going to be like, it’s too hard.
It’s too expensive. I don’t want to go in the back alley. So again, you’re just creating a bigger space between that knee-jerk reaction of like, man, I just want to go party tonight and get high right now, like in middle school, vape and smoking pot is just like a standard with so many kids. And it’s like, when you make it, I imagine it feels just legal. Yeah, sure. But it just, for many of them making it a little bit harder, the fact that they have to like find, like, in my opinion, remember my opinion means nothing. You may have a different opinion, but in my opinion, making it a little bit harder is going to save lives. It’s going to keep the weapons out of these people’s hands.
It’s going to give us one just one more day to reach their hearts and their minds and get them the support in their hands that they need to take a different direction in their lives.
Terry:
Yeah. I it’s, I, and we’ve talked about, you know, we’ve talked about just some of these like steps to, I mean, you know, you talk about background checks, talk about all those types of things, but it’s like, gosh, just, just give, just give a little bit of space and see what happens. It’s not necessarily about like making everything illegal overnight, but just listen to the people have had their lives, like radically like changed because they’ve lost a life, like listen to them. Yeah. And, and, and really look them in the eyes. I mean, especially if you’re, you’re feeling like you’re on the other side of this, you know, opinion, look, these people in the eyes, give them a second, listen to what they’re asking for.
]And then ask yourself if I had to wait or get an extra background check for this weapon. I’m okay. Right.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Terry:
Is that okay? Is that reasonable?
Are you going to be okay? And I think you’ll find yourself, you know, connecting more to this issue, but yeah, in the end, we, we just want you just to, just to feel supported from, from us to really just know that there are things that you can do starting in your own home. And you know, if you find yourself in, in a place where you just find yourself arguing with people on the other side, you know, just give a reset, give a reset, take a new, look at this. Think through some of the points that we’ve, we’ve put on there. Even if it’s not all of them, even if you can connect to one of these, I guarantee you’re planting a seed to make a better world.
Wendy:
Yep. And you guys watch out for the tone of discussed and let your anger be a spotlight emotion. Like the tone of disgust will get you in trouble. You guys, if you, if you are thinking inside of your head, like what the, what you’ve got is so stupid. Why, why like that is a signal that you are in judgment mode. Judgment does not help the world. Curiosity helps the world. Creativity helps the world. I’ll give you a quick example. We were at a volleyball tournament and a girl on the other team. This was like, now that masks are all done. And we were fine with masks. We wore masks all throughout COVID. But I was the one that was like a little bit more likely to be like, whew, masking the trash.
As soon as we didn’t have to wear them anymore. So there was a girl in the other team of Stella’s opposition team and she was playing in this mask cause she had it pulled down. So it was just over her mouth. So she was still breathing in the air while she was playing this extensive. And I had just taught about this. So it was fresh in my mind, but I found myself engaging in my mind, like, it’s so stupid. Why would she be wearing a mask? If it’s not going to be even over her nose? Like, it literally has no purpose. Like if it’s not going to work, it’s not going to do anything. You you’ve heard me comment about like basketball coaches, right? Like the warriors, or if they’re playing the Celtics, I’m like, I don’t get it. Why? But I caught myself and I was like, Ooh, I’m frigging in a tone of disgust or judgment. No, that is not the way I want to live.
Especially as a Christian. Not cool. Not cool. Jesus. Sorry. Let me, let me try that again. I wonder why she chooses to wear that mask. I wonder what happened in her family. I wonder what is going on with her mom and her dad and her grandma. I wonder if she lives in a multi-generation home. I wonder if she’s scared today that she’s going to get sick. I wonder if she’s lost somebody. It’s a tone of curiosity. That is what you want to have right now when people are different than you. If you’re a judging, if you’re in a tone of disgust, reset yourself because it’s not helpful, it’s not changing the world. And then if you feel angry about stuff, you remember anger is a good, healthy human emotion.
Jesus flipped over a fricking table. There’s a painting I want or a picture. I wanted that. But anyways, you guys use your anger as a spotlight emotion. It’s good. We need your anger to create healthy change in the world, but thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. And this was an important topic for us. Thank you for holding space for our opinions and our ideas. And thank you for giving a damn and for advocating for positive change in the world, through what you were doing on a daily basis with your family, for a star family. We love you
Stella:
For more information, go to freshstartfamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening families. Have a great day.
Hey families, before we say goodbye for the day. Quick question, do you follow me yet? On Instagram? If you don’t, will you come find me? I am at fresh start, Wendy and I like to hang out there a lot and it’s a great place to interact with me. Send me a DM after you push follow, say hello. I do lots of lives. I post lots of IGTVs and I would love to connect with you over there. So come find me.
