How to Raise Resilient Kids in Today’s World | Ep. 92 with Tim Welch
In honor of Father’s Day this past weekend, we are joined by father, husband, and life coach, Tim Welch, on this episode of the No Grey Areas Podcast! Tim delves into the crucial topic of raising and building resilient kids in today’s modern society. He shares invaluable insights and practical strategies on how to parents can nurture resilience in today's generation of kids, who face unique challenges unlike any before.
From dealing with adversity to fostering a growth mindset, this conversation emphasizes the importance of equipping children with the tools they need to thrive in an ever-changing world. Welch draws upon his experience as both a father and a seasoned life coach to provide actionable advice while touching on the role of emotional intelligence, the power of positive reinforcement, and the significance of setting realistic expectations for children.
Listen now to gain practical insights that will reshape your parenting approach and empower your child to thrive in today's world!
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No Grey Areas is a motivational podcast with captivating guests centered around how our choices humanize, empower, and define who we become. This podcast is inspired by the cautionary tale, No Grey Areas, written by Joseph Gagliano. Learn more about the truth behind his story involved with sports' biggest scandal at nogreyareas.com
Transcript
Host
Welcome back to the No Gray Areas podcast. I'm your host, Patrick McCullough.
::Host
Well, in honor of Father's Day,
::Host
we have a dad of four, a mentor, a life coach, and a dear friend of mine, Tim Welch.
::Host
Tim is on for a second interview
::Host
covering how to raise resilient kids
::Host
modern society.
::Host
Let's jump in.
::Pat McCalla
so Tim Welch, welcome back to the No Gray Areas podcast. it's good to have you back here. today we want to talk about resiliency and how we parent our children toward resiliency and how we lead ourselves toward it.
::Pat McCalla
So
::Pat McCalla
before we get to, talking about how we parent and how we lead ourselves to it. Tell us, first of all, what is resiliency and
::Pat McCalla
why is it so important?
::Tim Welch
You know, if you if you go back and do some readings on resiliency, resiliency, another word for that is grit. and there have been plenty of studies out there that suggest that grit might be the number one thing that a young person possesses that brings them success and and the ability to overcome things in life.
::Pat McCalla
Angela Duckworth wrote a book
::Tim Welch
at grit,
::Pat McCalla
that was her whole point in the book, right? As they did a lot of studies with, Special forces and Division one athletes and professional athletes and people who do well in life. And they were trying to find out what is it about them. It's just their socio economic background. the parenting.
::Pat McCalla
What? And she goes, the one thing that was consistent
::Tim Welch
was what you're saying.
::Tim Welch
Absolutely is grit. And and like I said, another word for that would be resiliency.
::Tim Welch
it is it should be a building block. And every young person and I honestly feel like as we move through generations, it becomes less of a building block.
::Tim Welch
And sometimes I'm puzzled, working in education for 35 years, that's my litmus test. That's my research is is I watch it play out with families and kids and parents all the time.
::Tim Welch
the same people, these awesome parents who are 45, 50 years old, who grew up in a time where they probably had resiliency, built into them through their parents, are the same parents that are letting that get away from them. And missing opportunities to grow this grit in their children, and that will manifest itself in negative ways as they get older.
::Pat McCalla
Yeah. Especially your point about grit on why it's important is, is you're saying there's been a lot of studies done and it's not it's not how smart you are. It's not what socioeconomic background you come from. It's not what school you went to. How you do in life is going to come to a lot to resiliency and grit.
::Pat McCalla
And then if you are if we're not developing that in our young people, or I'm going to keep bringing it back to this in ourselves, because I'm 52 and I need to keep leading myself toward resiliency and grit. That's the no one likes to be uncomfortable. No one likes pain. No one's like suffering. And that's the only time that we really actually get to see grit, right?
::Pat McCalla
I don't need to have grit and resiliency when things are going well. I need it when it's difficult. But. So let me ask you this question. You brought up the point where you you've watched in your 35 years in education that it seems like as the generations of have gone on, you've seen a couple of generations go through then that
::Pat McCalla
we're teaching that in our children less and less.
::Pat McCalla
Is that what you're saying?
::Tim Welch
Yes.
::Tim Welch
I've been thinking about that question. and I think there's no, like, one stamp. Like, this is the reason, I think there are a lot of reasons. a first of all, I believe that we have redefined risk in the world and that we maybe not even intentionally, but we do things as parents today that we've been instructed to do that actually remove risk from our kids lives.
::Tim Welch
you and I growing up rode through some down the road, down hills, some some difficult places in our bicycle and never once had a helmet on. We're still here, right?
::Pat McCalla
do think I have some brain damage though.
::Tim Welch
Well, well, that might be true. how many times, how many times in your lifetime, when you were younger, did you ride in the back of a pickup truck?
::Tim Welch
Many, many.
::Tim Welch
Times. Right. Think about all those things that we have created. And I'm not saying we shouldn't have helmets for kids and we shouldn't, you know, we should be letting them joyride in the back. What I'm saying is, is that,
::Tim Welch
the places that will let our kids wander into or participate in is very structured today. when I was growing up, 4 or 5 years old, on the end of my block, turn the corner.
::Tim Welch
There was a swamp down there. My mom let us go down and me and my twin brother and play with the polio dogs and the frogs in the swamp all the time. rarely today will or parent let their kid go anywhere outside of 2 or 3 houses. They always want to keep an eye on them. Again, good parenting.
::Tim Welch
but things things are more challenging today. Things are more dangerous today. I myself, even though I grew up that way with a lot of freedom, you know, boundaries that I had to test. do you think I went down to that that, that swamp and made some poor choices? Sure, I probably did. you know, I, I waited too far into the water.
::Tim Welch
I did certain things that I look back now, my mom, probably she was standing there, would have strangled me. but those that boundary testing, that's that's a pretty healthy thing to do. How can we help our kids in. This is kind of the first leg of resiliency. How can we let them test boundaries and experience risk in a safe way that challenges them to possibly fail to, you know, go for the varsity team, but only make the JV?
::Pat McCalla
I want to come back to that because that's that's a key thing. when you and I were talking before we turned these mics on,
::Pat McCalla
we were talking about that idea of failure really goes hand in hand with resiliency. So I want to come back to that. But it's funny you bring that up about parenting because my mom was out visiting recently, and, my sister and I were sitting there.
::Pat McCalla
I have a sister in two and a brother, but it was just my sister and I sitting there that day talking to her, telling her stories about what we did as a kid, as kids. And she's like, what you did, what you did was right. We were out there pushing boundaries. There was a parent there. We wouldn't have done those things.
::Pat McCalla
and, you know, thankfully we survived. But you're saying it was there's an important part to that. You know, I think about when you watch a little kid who's learning to walk for the first time, that that's kind of to your point, isn't it? They're they're going to they are not going to learn to walk without falling, without failing over and over again.
::Pat McCalla
But at that age, they don't even second, they don't even take a second thought about it.
::Tim Welch
It's just it's
::Tim Welch
right.
::Tim Welch
And we do so many things as they grow up to eliminate failure. Or if there is failure to quickly sweep it away and move, jump over and do something different.
::Tim Welch
the school that I came from,: ::Tim Welch
how many kids that struggled with playing time over something, you know, a team, or or whatever, and the parent came in and have a conversation. I, I have yet to this day have a conversation with a coach for my kids. In fact, this year, my son, who in his last year of college golf, there was an issue.
::Tim Welch
And I honestly felt the coach should have come to bat for him a little bit more. And he didn't. But I didn't call the coach. I didn't I didn't call and, you know, say, hey, you really blew it here or whatnot. I talked to my son and said, what are you going to do about it? How are you?
::Tim Welch
How are you going to resolve this challenge?
::Tim Welch
So
::Pat McCalla
why did you do it that way?
::Tim Welch
Because because I'm a coach, first of all.
::Pat McCalla
You know what that's like as a coach?
::Tim Welch
And I've spent a lot of time with kids in sports knowing that, you know, hard moments develop great character. Right.
::Tim Welch
why would I steal this opportunity from him to be able to go in and address an adult type matter? even if it even it fails miserably, even if the outcome isn't what I want, at the end of the day, we we put guardrails around our kids and we structure and make decisions for them in such a way.
::Tim Welch
Some of them don't even take risks unless we tell them they can take risks. There's something not natural about that. And it also steals a child's ability for me to to dream about what could be. Many of our kids don't dream today. as of what could be. Hey, what what if I, you know, I'm shooting for the moon, hoping I hit the stars.
::Tim Welch
No. Shoot for the stars. You're going to get the moon on the way by. Yeah.
::Pat McCalla
and: ::Pat McCalla
Do you think overall, not everyone. But is it a soft generation?
::Tim Welch
You know, I first think that any generation after the previous one, the previous one thinks that you're soft. Right.
::Pat McCalla
I was going to go there. You went there. You're right. Every generate when we were young that's all we heard from the generation for us. Right. You guys are soft. You don't understand what we had to do, right? We we think that way. But.
::Pat McCalla
setting you up here. do you think they're soft?
::Tim Welch
Yes.
::Tim Welch
I do
::Pat McCalla
Let it be known that, Tim
::Tim Welch
And if you look at my parents generation, I think we were soft. I just think, you know, we
::Tim Welch
if you look in the United States, the level of comfort that exists from one year to the next, it just increases. And, you know.
::Pat McCalla
never been, a culture
::Tim Welch
backwards
::Tim Welch
Right? And we never go backwards once we hit these and this new territory of comfort that we never we never retreat, we never go back. We always keep advancing
::Pat McCalla
and advancing.
::Tim Welch
to comfort.
::Tim Welch
so there is that one piece of that they're comfortable. We we haven't really opened the door for them to take some really positive risks. We limit things.
::Tim Welch
but there's another another avenue. And that's accountability. Accountability for poor decisions for, what happens when you fail? What happens if you don't like that? What happens if that hurts? There's a level of accountability that, I wanted my I want my all my kids to learn because they're going to be out in the real world. I want them to be able to make decisions under pressure, when things don't go their way.
::Tim Welch
it's okay if you don't win the gold medal every time.
::Tim Welch
Yeah, yeah.
::Pat McCalla
You know, and again, let me pull this out because, some of our listeners, you know, that maybe they're not parents or they're past these days or but but this applies to how we lead ourselves to, you know, as you're talking here, I'm thinking to myself, Tim, all of this stuff applies to me. So, again, I'm 52 years old, and I still have to remind myself when I start getting through, going through a time that's difficult, that I'm suffering, I have to remind myself that this is good.
::Pat McCalla
This is where I grow. I don't grow in bad or easy times. I don't grow when things are going well. So I have to always remind myself, okay, what am I going to learn out of this? So we never I don't think we're ever, as human beings, going to arrive at the point where we have this, this grit, this tenacity, this resiliency down.
::Pat McCalla
So this is a great conversation for all of us. But I love where you're what you're also going to. How do we help the younger people get this? How do we help them understand that. And one of the things you're talking about is we got to let them fail.
::Pat McCalla
They're not always going to win the gold medal. So speaking of that, some.
::Tim Welch
Yeah,
::Tim Welch
you know, there's there's there's lots of ways to build building grit. and we don't have to program it. We don't have to sell them to a sport. What we can do is just do it kind of every day around our kids.
::Tim Welch
we we need to, I think, be really more,
::Tim Welch
dialed in on, what guardrails are best for your kids and and what? Where can you allow them to wander a little bit with some creativity, with, taking a risk?
::Tim Welch
trying. True. Trying new things.
::Tim Welch
but I want to I want to circle back and I'll come back because I want to circle back to how you started that.
::Tim Welch
And that is that applies to me. If you want your kid to take positive risk, to be out there on the edge, maybe running for, you know, student body president or, you know, whatever, trying for the first chair, you know, in the music musical. what is a parent are you doing? Are you challenging yourself? Are you, you know, are you going after that promotion at work?
::Tim Welch
Are you are you doing things that demonstrate or are you playing it safe?
::Tim Welch
let me let me also jump on to another place that we're I think resiliency comes from, you know, that I'm a follower of Christ. I've been doing kind of a deep dive study recently on the Beatitudes, and I look at the Beatitudes and I.
::Pat McCalla
Matthew, Matthew five, six and seven, but really the early part of Matthew five.
::Tim Welch
Yeah.
::Tim Welch
Right.
::Tim Welch
and I look at those and I think, I can't do those. The, you know, what Jesus's offering is this if if you'll embrace these, there will be a life that flourishes, that comes from that. Right. And we all want a life that flourishes as a believer, most of the things in there are so countercultural
::Tim Welch
that if I decide to step into them and to grow and to learn and to and to embody those for myself and my family,
::Tim Welch
it's going to come.
::Tim Welch
It's going to rub somebody the wrong way. So I'm going to I'm going to be taking risks. I might be having a conversation. I might be living something out that way, and somebody is going to push back on that, or I'm going to recognize that that's not I don't want to participate with that. That's out of alignment with some of the things that the values that I believe if I just, like, closed up the tent and said, you know, that's too hard, I've I'm not I'm gonna let those sit on the table and just kind of like, those are nice things.
::Tim Welch
But I'm not I'm not going to dabble with those.
::Pat McCalla
out on so
::Tim Welch
Oh, we would you and I could have another hour long discussion. All the things that we would miss out if we decided not to pursue those things. Right.
::Tim Welch
This
::Pat McCalla
hard, right? Like you go down that listen to beatitudes. Blessed are the peacemakers. It's it's hard to be a peacemaker. It takes grit and tenacity and and resilience to be a peacemaker. Right. Yeah. And everything in that list. And then when you get to the end of the list, right, it talks about blessed are those who
::Tim Welch
Right, right. And they'll back it up.
::Tim Welch
Let's say you're you're not that's not you know, you're not a believer. You're not a follower of Christ. I would I would just tell you that doing hard things, introducing hard things into your life would be really healthy for you. And your kids can watch what it's like to struggle through something.
::Tim Welch
but you're hopefully you're an adult and you can fail, reset the goal, get going again. Fail. Reset the goal. Keep going. How many times have you heard that the most successful people out there are the ones who have failed the most?
::Tim Welch
Okay, I guess I want my kid to have that. Yeah.
::Pat McCalla
but that's something that's. It's like a lot of leadership mantras. It's easy to say, but it's really hard to live out, you know, that the the most successful people are the ones who fail the most. That looks great on a poster on the wall. But if you're actually living, if you're living in that and it's like, oh man, I failed again, that's really uncomfortable.
::Pat McCalla
And I and I think going back to, you know, earlier when we were talking about why don't we, why don't we allow our kids to do that, or especially as generations have gone, it feels like there's more and more parents that are that are really protecting. Part of that is probably it's hard to I mean, you're a parent, I'm a parent.
::Pat McCalla
It's hard to watch your kids suffer, right? That's right. That to me, that's one of the that's one of the most difficult things in life is when I've watched my kids suffer when they were little, I can remember when one of my sons, tripped and fell and cut his lip open on a on a railroad tie, and he was like five years old or whatever.
::Pat McCalla
And then we take him to emergency room and we're in there, and the doctor's like, okay, to get to stitch this up, the lip line I got to get I have to stitch this perfectly to make that lip line match up. I need you to hold his head. So I'm holding his head and he's sobbing and he's going, daddy, why are you hurting me?
::Pat McCalla
And I remember tearing my heart out hearing him say that. But so so that's what it's when you when you watch your kids suffer and then when they become adults and they suffer, it's not easy. It's like watching a five year old look at you and saying, why? Why are you doing this to me?
::Pat McCalla
That's part of the reason why it's it's tempting as parents to step in all the time.
::Pat McCalla
Right?
::Tim Welch
Oh, absolutely. it takes a lot of self-control not to. Right? Because deep down in our hearts,
::Tim Welch
it's difficult for us to go pursue something hard. Or when we think, you know, the good chance there's failure there, I think I'm gonna jump over that and go this way. Or, so us ourselves are really adamant these days about jumping into
::Tim Welch
the possible chance of failing.
::Tim Welch
You think that we're gonna allow our kids to do that when we already struggle, not letting them not suffer? You know,
::Tim Welch
little practical. Let me tell you. A practical story. I was that parent, and some people probably look at me now and go, you're a horrible parent. But when my kids fell off the bike, when my kids cut themselves, when my, you know, we didn't make a big deal about it, we didn't call 911.
::Tim Welch
I can I can tell you 5 or 6 stories where I watch my kid wipe out and I just sit there and watch and and what do they do? They they get up, they look and see who's watching. It starts with us. And then they realize nobody's watching. And it's like, okay, rub them off and get back on the bike.
::Tim Welch
That was normal for for my kids. so let's let's move forward a couple of years. Kobe, is at a golf tournament and I won't go through all the details, but he gets hit with a golf ball in the lip, and it just just opens it right up. Blood everywhere. And I was standing on top of this, this porch looking down on the putting green with.
::Tim Welch
This was all happening. And I saw it happen. And I saw him do this. And he looks around, doesn't see me. I just and then eventually I called to him. I said, I bet that hurt didn't. It was one of the reasons I said, well, let's go get cleaned up, right? Meanwhile, every kid around him is screaming their head off.
::Tim Welch
Why? I tell a story? Because at that moment, my son was looking for a solution to a problem that he had. One he didn't create one that happened to him. He knew I could help him. We could work on together. So we went in the bathroom, eventually got it to stop and everything. And and it was, you know, pretty painful for him.
::Tim Welch
So we left immediately to, the urgent care and got it sewn up. And everybody at this golf tournament was assuming we would not be back tomorrow. But my son, I woke him up in the morning, said, are we going? Are we not going? You get to decide this. He well, we're going, we're going.
::Tim Welch
Setbacks like that have never been a challenge for my kids because the goal and working towards it was was a higher priority then.
::Tim Welch
This is a setback. I expect setbacks. Life will give me setbacks. Where did that come about? Because I was just really intentional about letting things play out, letting my kids stay in the moment of a difficult situation, whether it was a poor decision, whether it was failure and just let him sit there and problem solved.
::Pat McCalla
let's unpack that. Staying in the moment in the second. I think that though, I'm going to come back staying in the moment. But I want to just
::Pat McCalla
conclude what you're saying here in the sense that I think a lot of times as parents, we think our job is to protect our children.
::Tim Welch
And
::Pat McCalla
it is.
::Pat McCalla
But you're saying but don't miss the point that while you're protecting your children, you also have to take some of that protection off because your job also is to teach your kid resiliency.
::Pat McCalla
And if all you do is protect them, they're never going to learn. Resiliency.
::Pat McCalla
does that sum up? Really?
::Tim Welch
Absolutely. And that's a fine line. And every parent has to decide which side of that line.
::Pat McCalla
different for you. May have,
::Pat McCalla
you know, you got a couple of kids. And what you do with 1st May be slightly different than the other one just because of personality difference. So I think it's great that you're bringing that up. You got to really think through that.
::Tim Welch
Yeah you do. And you and you as a parent, you have to kind of measure it.
::Tim Welch
let me give you an example. I do, I do some, some mission trips with kids and, and sometimes parents won't let their kids go on a mission trip because you could get sick. there's government unrest in the country.
::Tim Welch
There's, you know, there's risk with anytime you leave the United States. and they just they decide that the risk outweighs the potential gain. And we're always going to do that. I have probably aired more on the side of. Let's go, let's go for this. I'm going to walk with you kind of I'm going to keep my eyes out.
::Tim Welch
And at any point, if I feel like this is not safe for you, we might have a different discussion. Not, no, you can't do it. We might have a different discussion because I want my kid part of this conversation. I want them to if if I kind of felt uneasy about it, but my kid was says dad, I get that that might be unsafe.
::Tim Welch
But here's the benefits for it. And he's all in. Yeah, I probably might let them go.
::Tim Welch
yeah. And and then who has to deal with that? I do my kids not worried about disease and things like that on a trip. He's having the time of his life right. He's growing I'm at home in her white knuckle and it just like super nervous.
::Tim Welch
Okay. I'm willing to take that burden on for you to have an opportunity to grow.
::Pat McCalla
Here's a silly example of what you're saying. I was just talking to, our kid because our kids now are parents of young kids, and so we just had our seventh grand kid born, week and a half ago. Two weeks ago. But I was telling them, I said, someday when your kids start driving, you're going to find out when you hear sirens is different now.
::Pat McCalla
Like you're sitting in your house and you remember this is a parent, right? You hear some sirens go off right now, you know, are police or an ambulance siren go. And right now it's just background noise when your kid starts driving and they're supposed to be home at around nine and it's 850 and you hear sirens, you're immediately going, oh, is that them?
::Pat McCalla
Could that be them? But
::Pat McCalla
you're not going to say, I'm never going to let you drive, because I don't want to deal with those feelings.
::Pat McCalla
You got it. That's what you're saying. As a parent, you have to deal with some of these fears and concerns that you have and let your kids go out and do some things that might be a little dangerous or they may fail that.
::Pat McCalla
So. So let's go back to what you said before, where you said let them stay in it for a little bit. That's an interesting concept. And again, I want our audience to take this to ourselves too. For me, as a 52 year old now, when I'm going through a difficult time, you're saying stay, don't try to get out.
::Pat McCalla
Just don't do everything you can to get out of it or with your kids as you're parenting them. Let them stay in it for a moment.
::Pat McCalla
Unpack that for us.
::Tim Welch
Yeah. What I would say is an adult don't quit. Don't quit.
::Tim Welch
take a step back. Survey, reengage. but
::Tim Welch
far as staying in the moment, let me let me give you two scenarios.
::Tim Welch
far as staying in the moment, let me let me give you two scenarios.
::Tim Welch
your kid's trying out for the varsity basketball team. Makes JV. He wants to quit, right? He probably gets teased a little bit by some of the kids who made varsity.
::Tim Welch
maybe he's there because puberty is just a little bit late for him. And some of their kids have grown bigger, stronger, taller. Right. There's there's circumstances maybe beyond his control. And he wants to quit because it's uncomfortable.
::Tim Welch
No, no, we're not going to quit because you and I both know whether he's on varsity or JV. There's an opportunity for him to grow his game.
::Tim Welch
And if he's going to pursue this dream of being on varsity the next year, he has to stay right there. I can't tell you how many kids I run across, and I'd never coach basketball, but who I've known at my school and they didn't make varsity, and I found out they quit that. What would you quit for? You know what?
::Tim Welch
I'm going to I'm going to go work in the weight room and get a strength and conditioning I'm going to do, and then I'm going to retry out. What? That doesn't say. That doesn't make sense to me. Who gave you that advice? That is very poor advice, right? You need to stay there in that moment. And yes, you're probably going to get teased 3 or 4 times throughout the year.
::Tim Welch
You're probably going to play your JV game and sit in the sit, you know, in the bleachers and watch all these buddies of yours play in the varsity. That is not fun. But guess what? It develops character
::Tim Welch
because I made him stay in the moment. Here's another example. So I was a dean of students, for the last eight years at the school I was at, dealt with kids who made poor decisions at times.
::Tim Welch
And, let's say a kid, gets caught, you know, drinking at a football game. So we have this parent meeting, and the parent wants to really quickly check the box like, oh, that was that was a bad mistake. but let's just suspend him for a day, and and then they'll be back and we'll forget this ever happened, right?
::Tim Welch
Well, that wasn't what our school did. We had a process where the kid would have to go through a what we call the green pastures meeting, and then, and then had to be mentored and do some education. I was this was a seven, eight, ten week process that we made the kids stay in this moment.
::Tim Welch
And it drove some parents crazy, like, let's just check the box and move on.
::Pat McCalla
move on. Yeah, yeah.
::Tim Welch
no. There's an opportunity to grow character. And is this kid uncomfortable that he got caught? Well, sure. Very uncomfortable. You know, I'm uncomfortable for him. It's like, well, you know, that wasn't a wise decision, but there was a reason why you came to that precipice of that decision and decided to go A instead of B, you know, to bring the alcohol in and drink it as opposed to not do that.
::Tim Welch
it's it took you a while to get to that place. Why do I want to steal the moment? If you kind of ruminating in that for a little while? Gosh, I don't like this. I feel uncomfortable now. You're making me be accountable. You're even making me talk to an adult and be mentored about the poor decision that I made.
::Tim Welch
Yeah.
::Tim Welch
Yeah.
::Tim Welch
Because I want you to think about how I got there.
::Pat McCalla
You know, this this ties together some, as, you know, as an educator, whatever it is, back in the 20s or 30s, when John Dewey and whoever else it was, they had that big debate, remember, about what's the purpose of education? Unfortunately, most of the educating world moved toward they were they were arguing about is it to prepare people for life or to prepare people for a job?
::Pat McCalla
Radically different philosophy and how you're going to do it and, and most schools followed the path over the last 70, 80, 90 years or whatever of we're going to prepare them for a job,
::Pat McCalla
but preparing them for life. You end up doing what you guys did as a as a dean of students. That wasn't just to get them back on the field or back on the basketball court when they made that mistake.
::Pat McCalla
You're holding them in that moment for a while because you're preparing them for life.
::Pat McCalla
and I think that's what sport the difference in a coach that thinks like, we're just trying to get our win loss, you know, we want to have more wins and losses. Well, there's nothing wrong with thinking that way. I've worked with some coaches who didn't seem to care much about losing, and I, I couldn't stand working with them.
::Pat McCalla
But to understand that there's a higher call, though, of preparing them for life. And again, as men of faith, we both believe that that that God set is number one goal for you and me is to make us more like Jesus. So when we go through difficult times and how we're going, why are you doing this to me?
::Pat McCalla
God, why won't you get me out of this? God? Well, it's kind of the same thing where he's going if you stay in that. I know it's uncomfortable for me. I know, I know, it's going to make you more
::Tim Welch
Yeah, yeah. Let me, let me paint a picture, on what you just said.
::Tim Welch
I run across lots of kids in the school I was at. Was a faith based school. So we had a lot of conversations about faith, and and ironically, I ran a lot, across a lot of kids who. Something tough happened. Grandpa died.
::Tim Welch
Mom and dad got divorced, whatever the life circumstances was. And 80% of them would say, that really hurt my faith. It made me pull back and. And as I dig a little deeper. Well, why is that? What what was it about? What about that are you blaming God for? And. Well, he could have done something. You got to intervene.
::Tim Welch
He could. He could have done xyz. and and then you talk him through, you know, how God can do things that we, we can't even think or imagine with every situation. And, and all I know is that my ways are not his ways, and I have yet to follow his ways and be disappointed.
::Tim Welch
So let's pull that back.
::Tim Welch
And now let's put this let's put this same argument in. There are also people in the, in the Bible that God allowed to fail to do something stupid, to make a mistake, to let their pride get in the way. He also didn't stop that. Not only did he not stop somebody from passing away, he didn't stop people from making a very poor decision.
::Tim Welch
And then he used that moment to grow them, to stretch them, to take them to the next level of what he had for them.
::Pat McCalla
that was, that was masterful how you tied that into the theme of this podcast, which is the power and complexity of human choice that we make. Our choices and our choices eventually make us because he, God, does allow us to make choices, good or bad. But then he walks with us through those choices. And that's exactly what's what you're saying.
::Pat McCalla
Then we should parent like God, parents us in a sense
::Tim Welch
Even when he knows we're going to fail, even when he knows the outcome is going to be painful for us.
::Tim Welch
Yeah,
::Pat McCalla
And painful sometimes for generations.
::Tim Welch
Yeah. That's
::Pat McCalla
Like we see plenty of stories in the Bible and then throughout history of of generational pain that our choices sometimes make.
::Pat McCalla
one of the other things that you brought up when we were talking other day is the danger of asking why the don't ask why? I think this is a really important one.
::Pat McCalla
Unpack now again for our own personal lives. I want our audience what Tim's going to explain here about why we shouldn't ask our kids why when they go through a difficult or something. take that to heart about even leading yourself, because I think it's natural. This is what you hear. Parents do it all the time, don't you?
::Pat McCalla
Something happened to go. Why did you do that and that? And you're saying that's a dangerous question?
::Pat McCalla
So tell us why.
::Tim Welch
So if I ask why,
::Tim Welch
I'm most of the time putting my kid on the defense, and I'm asking them to come up with an answer that maybe doesn't exist. How many times, have you watched your kid do something that was brainless? Anyways, it involved no thought whatsoever. They reacted on an emotion on spur the moment jump in the just you know, just jump in and see what happens.
::Tim Welch
I have a son that does that still to this day, and he's a little bit older than a teenager. and, and asking him why
::Tim Welch
he doesn't know the answer to that question. He just did it.
::Pat McCalla
Yeah. If he knew the answer, you probably wouldn't have done
::Tim Welch
right.
::Tim Welch
So asking why
::Tim Welch
often will require him or her to either fabricate the answer or get really defensive. Now, if they're in that mindset, they're not in any position to learn from the poor choices they just made or the on the mistake that they just jumped into. To me, it's better to say, to summarize Hmhm, from my perspective, it looks like you've done this xyzzy.
::Tim Welch
I got that right. What are you going to do about it? How are you going to fix that? It it automatically starts creating this,
::Tim Welch
you know, if you ever seen, you know, two kind of diets together, I may not be using the right term. And electricity is kind of jumping across it. Right. That's what you want to create in them and immediately mistake jump, jump across to a possible solution.
::Tim Welch
So now
::Tim Welch
I'm teaching my child hmhm not what excuse can I come up with? What would make this sound? Because every time a kid tells why they did something, it always minimizes the responsibility. So why even put that on the table? Let's just talk about how are you going to solve that? What what do you think you need to do?
::Tim Welch
How would how how would you how would you resolve that issue? and now you can begin in this dialog. Well, I don't know, what would you do
::Tim Welch
eventually you hope they say that. What would you do that now, by the way? I wouldn't given them the answer in any way, shape or form. Anytime my kid asks what I would do, I train myself to ask another question because ultimately I want them asking the questions in their head to solve this problem that they have created.
::Tim Welch
Or sometimes life just puked on them and said, there's your problem, there's your situation. Somebody you know is, you know, maybe driving under the influence in your car, not your fault. You didn't see it coming. You didn't plan on it wasn't in your schedule that day. But now you you have to problem solve. What to do? I want my kid jumping from problem to solution as quickly as they can.
::Pat McCalla
even if they came back and ask, well, what would you do? You're saying you wouldn't answer necessarily because you want them to to think through it?
::Tim Welch
I do want them to think through it. Now, I might have to throw them a couple of bones a little bit like,
::Tim Welch
well, you know, let me think. I know Jimmy is, you know, super sensitive about these things. What would you do if you were, like, really oversensitive about certain. What would you expect to have happen again?
::Tim Welch
You're just trying to get them. And you and you start this early. You know, when they're six, seven, eight, you know, I'm not going to ask them to solve complex physics problems here. but you know, whose toy is it and what would be the fair thing to do and those type of things. But you're setting the the door up for eventually you don't have to say, what would you do?
::Tim Welch
They are dad, I, I messed up with this this, this. You know, I made this stupid decision. They're already going to start giving you a little bit of tidbits like, but I think how we can fix this or I think what I need to do is go over and apologize or, or whatever that you're bridging to the solution.
::Tim Welch
What a great way to send your kids off into life.
::Pat McCalla
It's a it's a this is why I love this so much. Because that's
::Tim Welch
a crucial part of being a healthy adult. One of my favorite books
::Pat McCalla
about leadership is is Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. He was a former, Navy Seal. And his whole point of extreme ownership is you just go and listen. You have to own everything in your life.
::Pat McCalla
You own every choice you want, every decision that you've made. I mean, this is what a healthy person, healthy adult this is what a healthy leader does, is they own that. But that's what you're saying. You start teaching that when they're when they're younger, by having them. Because again, we know you know, I know adults isothum sometimes still do it make a mistake.
::Pat McCalla
And what do I do I go start making excuses. Well she said she made me mad or she didn't say what I needed to hear that day. And I start making excuses instead of going, okay, I said something. My wife shouldn't have said it. It wasn't good. What am I going to do about it?
::Pat McCalla
So that's what a healthy person does.
::Tim Welch
sure.
::Tim Welch
So you're talking about
::Tim Welch
Oh, yeah. I'll tell you what. I don't have very many talents and strengths, but one of them is, is I don't crumble when things go bad. I immediately start asking the question. Okay, well, that didn't work. how can we, you know, and I start processing possible solutions where everybody around me is, like, melting down. Oh, my gosh, this is a complete failure.
::Tim Welch
What are we going to do that that that that brings no clarity. No. You know.
::Tim Welch
That doesn't inspire anybody to go any direction. Right. somewhere along the line and I can't tell you who it was. Maybe it was a conglomeration of people, but but whatever my family did, and whoever I hung around with gave me that mindset that I'm working to solutions because it may look like it's a failure right now. That's not a failure.
::Tim Welch
That's just a little indication that I'm quite I haven't hit the mark and I need to kind of reset or recalibrate or introduce something new that I haven't thought of yet, that that's that you want your kid living life with that mindset.
::Tim Welch
Yes. Times 100,000.
::Pat McCalla
Absolutely,
::Pat McCalla
One of the other things you talked about, was, was, not talking in catastrophic terms that that's another thing that we can do, that that's unhealthy in training children or young people toward, resiliency. So unpack that a little bit. What do you mean when you talk about, talking catastrophic
::Tim Welch
well, approach it from two ways. Number one. if if, if you see a situation with your child happen and it's not good and you come in with this catastrophic perspective like, and I think with one of the examples that I shared with you is like, you know, you really need to know how to swim, because if you drowned, that's going to have a really negative impact on me and my family.
::Tim Welch
that's an example, right? Or you might, you know, I come in and kind of talks like, oh my gosh, you have completely blown it.
::Tim Welch
what an incredible mess you've made of this, right? What you're really doing is internalizing a bad situation that you don't need to internalize. Why did you take ownership of that? Why did you why did you make it about you so quickly?
::Tim Welch
So that's that's the first thing people who had these catastrophic perspectives on something that happen. the first thing you're telling your child is there's no coming back from this when you had that catastrophic perspective.
::Tim Welch
That's a great point, right?
::Pat McCalla
the last thing they need to hear in that moment
::Tim Welch
Right. There's no
::Tim Welch
True. Now if you're wrong.
::Tim Welch
Well let's say let's say that's what you believe. This is catastrophic. This is okay. What you're going to do is believe in your head. There is no solution. As a parent. And you're going to back them away from that, like, okay, let's back away from it. Let's try to minimize that. It really ever really happened.
::Tim Welch
Please don't do that again. Right. or the a solution will come its way and you will work through it, in which case you're now losing your credibility with your kid. And every single time that you want to be catastrophic, eventually they're going to tune you out. Now, would you want really? I, I just really think as a parent, when it comes to building resiliency and kids assume that there is a way to overcome whatever this mess is.
::Pat McCalla
And there almost always is in reality
::Tim Welch
There almost always is. That's right. Yeah.
::Pat McCalla
and again I that's why this is such a great conversation because again it goes our, our lives as we lead because we're talking today about resiliency. But how do you train that in the children. But how do you lead yourself into resiliency.
::Pat McCalla
And again that's so good for us to hear even as adults that don't that's what we do internally. That internal voice, again, the way we talk to ourselves most of the time, we would never think of talking to other people that way. And yet internally, we talk to ourselves and we do that often with ourselves where we do something, we're like, oh man, I'm never going to come back for this.
::Pat McCalla
Or there goes that job or, you know, we immediately go to that instead of going, okay,
::Pat McCalla
made a mistake. What am I going to do about it?
::Tim Welch
The other thing that I want to caution people, there's there's a go between, you know, so one level lower than catastrophic response is that you come in immediately and say, okay, here's what we're going to do. Here's the solution.
::Tim Welch
You just again robbed your child of an opportunity to what? Probably fully take responsibility and accountability for the mistake.
::Tim Welch
And two, resolve in their mind. You know what?
::Tim Welch
I'll own this. But there's a way out. There's there's a way to overcome this. There's a comeback that can be made in the midst of a situation that seems dire.
::Tim Welch
you know, your kid comes home from school and I'm being picked on. I'm being bullied. I'm being whatever. Okay?
::Tim Welch
If this is the seventh or eighth time, maybe it's time to have a conversation with the school. But for the in the beginning I want to say, well, okay, tell me the situation. How did it come about? Do you think you said anything you think you did anything? I mean, let's first look at ourselves. Okay. Well, how might you avoid that situation in the future or how might you resolve it?
::Tim Welch
it this dialog should be happening at home next day they come home. And by the way, this is it. This is something a parent. I'm kind of sliding in the back door here. After you have resolved the conflict in a situation, you should revisit it down the road because it tells your child that. I think that's as important as you thought it was, is important.
::Tim Welch
So it could be. and I come home my, my, my my good friend, we had a blow up today. We're not friends anymore. Blah blah blah blah, blah blah. Let's go through the whole gamut, okay? Oh, they weren't a good friend anyways. You know, cast them off. You don't want to certainly go. That's that catastrophic. What you want to say is, well, how do you get that way?
::Tim Welch
Okay. And you keep asking questions and you're helping them process. How many times have you had a conversation when you're trying to solve a, a church issue or a family issue and you're all just kind of bouncing back and forth, right? And through talking and listening and processing and even maybe half the things you say don't make sense, but it just allows you to get it out there on the table.
::Tim Welch
You say anything in your thinking on on. That's not a good solution. Okay? Right.
::Tim Welch
help your kid find the solution to a kid problem. Don't give them an adult solution to a kid problem. You know, you think you're going to teach your kid. And this is kind of a a funny, you know, way out of bounds. You're going to help them to,
::Tim Welch
form a PowerPoint that they can go back to school with and, and show Billy why bullying isn't safe and everything.
::Tim Welch
Probably not. But sometimes our solutions are like that, right?
::Tim Welch
Right.
::Pat McCalla
Yeah. How's that going to help a six year old?
::Tim Welch
No, it's it's not.
::Tim Welch
And if you help walk them through, you're giving your kid an opportunity to develop courage. Yeah. Which is a component of grit.
::Pat McCalla
Yes.
::Pat McCalla
logians, by the way, for over: ::Pat McCalla
You think of, even the fruit of spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, you live any of those out, it will take courage,
::Pat McCalla
grit, resiliency. So, this is why this is such an important conversation. You talked about another thing when we were when we were visiting about this managing emotions,
::Pat McCalla
which, again, helping children learn this.
::Pat McCalla
But as adults, continuing to lead ourselves and managing emotions. Unpack that a little bit. What do you mean by that?
::Tim Welch
You know, anytime there's pain inflicted or a difficult situation, it's super easy for us to, there are emotions bubble up and you have met all kinds of different people who when when something either strikes them in a negative way, they escalate real quick. And then some people who just kind of, I didn't particularly like that. Right.
::Tim Welch
So, are our kids two, four years old, full of emotions. Most of Jimmy takes the toy away from them when you know they cry. It's an emotional response. you're raising them to be less in emotion and more on problem solving.
::Tim Welch
I think you should validate their feelings. Okay. Susie comes home. She's had a bad fight with her best friend, and,
::Tim Welch
she's super sad.
::Tim Welch
She's upset. She's angry. it's okay to validate those, like. Yeah, I can see why you're angry. Yeah, you know that possibly that happened to me. I might be angry as well, but we're always circling back to. What do you want to do about that? In other words, feel the emotion. And sometimes we can't help. It is so egregious to us.
::Tim Welch
We feel that emotion. But let's get in the habit of practicing ourselves as well as helping our children practice that, deal with the emotion, and then move to a solution. And by the way, if your want your child to do this and you're not doing this, and you tend to escalate things and become emotion right away,
::Tim Welch
again, you lose your credibility as a parent.
::Pat McCalla
More as court than taught.
::Tim Welch
you.
::Tim Welch
Can say all you want about
::Pat McCalla
managing your emotions, but if you're not as a parent, they're going to catch that. And and live that out far more than your words that you're speaking to them. Man, this is such a great point again, Tim, because, emotions are real. And and again, we've all been around people that whose lives are driven by their emotions and they're, they're oftentimes not very fun people to be around, especially when things aren't going well.
::Pat McCalla
so training ourselves that and I like what you said, the emotions real though. I mean, I've gotten better in just the last few years of asking myself and like, staying in that moment a little longer, going, okay, why did I get so angry about that? Like, what's going on? Why did I get that? But always moving and this is what you're saying, right?
::Pat McCalla
Always moving it though toward validate it, but then move it toward what are we going to do about it.
::Pat McCalla
That's what I this goes so well with that. Again, the our whole core of this is about the power and complexity of human choice that God has given us. The choice. I can't blame my decision on my emotion or how I grew up, or what so-and-so did or said to me that eventually it's going to be, what am I going to do about it?
::Pat McCalla
My choice.
::Tim Welch
Yeah. If you had, let's say you had a bowl of water,
::Tim Welch
And the problem was inside the water and you, you know, take something in you, you know, you know, you shake it up a little bit almost quickly because it's clear water. You're going to be able to see the problem again. Right. So agitating it in that setting.
::Tim Welch
But if you were to pour a few drops in those drops, are emotions and you agitated a little bit now, now you can't see the problem clearly anymore.
::Tim Welch
Right.
::Tim Welch
Yeah. It just it's like this dust you're putting this explosion in the middle of,
::Tim Welch
hard situation. and and I'm not saying that every single problem has a solution. Sometimes it is such a mess that it's best to just back away and reevaluate. Like, is this really a road that I need to go down?
::Tim Welch
And again.
::Pat McCalla
we could argue that's still a solution.
::Tim Welch
Oh, absolutely. You're right.
::Tim Welch
You're
::Tim Welch
I just we all are emotional. And there there's certain things that could happen here today that would just pick you emotionally. And I'm just going, oh, what's the big deal? And vice versa. Right.
::Tim Welch
what is true at that very moment, I'm in a better situation to handle or deal with that problem than you are, because you have to let that emotion kind of drain off a little bit.
::Tim Welch
And emotions, good motion is really good. If if it's, you know, think about some of the really exciting times in your life. If you've ever had, you know,
::Tim Welch
my son Koby winning a college golf tournament, man, I am like on cloud nine. I am super excited. If that didn't mean anything to me. Wouldn't life
::Tim Welch
feel blah?
::Tim Welch
Yeah.
::Tim Welch
Yeah, motion is good. but when it comes to how we channel it, how we use it, let's validate it. But then let's use that emotion
::Tim Welch
to move on. Yeah,
::Pat McCalla
Anything else you would say about this subject, Tim? Is there anything we missed? You know, I know we could we could probably spend hours talking about this. And I think it's such a critical, topic, but is there anything that you want to add that, that that again, as we train up young people and as we lead ourselves toward resiliency,
::Pat McCalla
what are things that we may be missing or that we need to do?
::Tim Welch
So, you know, you and I chatted real quick last couple of days about, you know, why is it that parents are.
::Tim Welch
Not maybe doing this very well today. And these are the same parents who life and circumstances and the way they were raised back when they were younger, built in resiliency and grit. And now we're we're quick to run and to save and to protect in a way that loses those opportunities.
::Tim Welch
I thought about 12 or 13 things that that I would dive deep into. on why I think that's the case. But one of them, to me rises to the top and not every parent does this. But we live in a very upward mobile society. We're very busy. There are more two parents working than one than ever before.
::Tim Welch
Right.
::Tim Welch
part of the reason we struggle with keeping, just letting our kids stay in the moment is because we really don't have time for them
::Host
As we're wrapping up this episode. Be sure to leave us a five star review. And if you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment on something you'll take away. All right, let's hop back into the remainder of the episode.
::Tim Welch
part of the reason we struggle with keeping, just letting our kids stay in the moment is because we really don't have time for them
::Tim Welch
if we're really honest with ourselves. Your job, your responsibilities, you know, it used to be back in the day, and I'm not I'm not advocating that this is exactly how everybody should do it.
::Tim Welch
But there is usually one parent working, one parent at home, one parent always had their eye kind of on on the circumstances, always when when you when you spend time in proximity around your little ones, you know them versus when you, you know, you have maybe just two hours with them versus eight.
::Tim Welch
Hours.
::Tim Welch
your ability to engage. If there are two working parents, it just isn't. You don't have the time in the day. Right? And I think at the end of the day, that probably really hurts us
::Tim Welch
we like this rhythm of life to happen in our family, everybody's happy, everybody's thriving, everybody's doing great.
::Tim Welch
And then one person in the family, you know, makes a mistake or a poor choice or, you know, gets sick or whatever. Something that causes now this forward motion of our family to go, oh, wait a minute, we have an anchor now. Our kid got caught drinking at school. Our our kid, you know, x, y, z, whatever it is.
::Tim Welch
and instead of just like, okay, is it that we're going to stop for a minute, let's check this out. Let's do all the things that we've been talking about in our minds. We're thinking, we don't have time to do this. You know, I have a presentation at work tomorrow. I have this, I'm I your dad's traveling tomorrow.
::Tim Welch
You know, all these things that that these responsibilities that we have put on us to bring value into our life. at the end of the day, my experience with the kids that I dealt with that made poor choices is their parents. Really, for the most part, not every parent, but I could tell when the parent, we don't have time for this, we don't have time for this or you know how this is going to look on on me.
::Tim Welch
I'm the city council member. I'm the, president of my company. I'm the whatever. I'm the elder at the church.
::Tim Welch
I just talked about emotion and time impacting negatively. Your kids response to a challenging situation. We don't have time. We just keep one. We want the truck to keep moving. We can't. We can't. I think that's another component that need that some parents need to ask themselves, we have two jobs because we need two jobs. Yeah. Okay.
::Tim Welch
What are you doing with all the other time? You know, are you, you know.
::Pat McCalla
Because if this is, in fact, one of the most important character qualities we can instill in our kids, and I and I believe it is. And again, theologian and philosophers would agree with that for thousands of years.
::Pat McCalla
The answer to that question is we have to we have to figure out how to make time. That's the answer to the question you have, because you're not going.
::Pat McCalla
That's your point. You're not going to be able to teach resiliency and grit and courage without taking some time, especially when they failed, and helping them walk through it. And again, I take that back to how we lead ourselves now that we live in a world that's so fast, we have so little margin in our life that when, when, when, when, when we're going through a difficult time or when we've had an emotion and we've we've blown up and we've we've handled it in the wrong way or we failed in some way.
::Pat McCalla
We don't take time so often, even in leading ourselves to walk ourselves through that and go, okay, why did I get so angry about that? What's going on? What's really underneath the surface here? okay. How do I lead myself out of this? As you keep saying? that takes some time. And I think
::Pat McCalla
you're right.
::Pat McCalla
I, I, I think we're in danger of being in a society, in a culture right now where parents don't have time to do that, and nor do we have we take time to do that with ourselves.
::Pat McCalla
So great point. But my my response is you better make time. You better make time, or you're going to end up with kids who lack resiliency or in our own lives will be lacking resiliency because we won't lead ourselves through it.
::Pat McCalla
Anything else? Man? Tim, this has been so good, by the way.
::Tim Welch
I'll say one more thing. and I say this, I'm not the richest person in the world, but I'm pretty affluent. I mean, I have really nice life for my kids and for me and my family. A fluency sometimes can be a disease when it comes to building, this into your children. It really can. Because, you know, you you you can afford vacations and new cars and big houses and swimming pools and all of these things.
::Tim Welch
You can afford all these things. And it's fun to have a pool in your backyard for your kids to be able to play. It's fun to be able to give them a car. Range Rover, when they're 16. Those are fun things.
::Tim Welch
You indirectly are doing things to your child. I think that that make things really easy for them. And when and you're asking them to, to search for some hard things in life that would maybe develop some of this resiliency. You're building a bubble around them that makes it really, really hard to find any hard things. Everybody wants to run towards comfort.
::Pat McCalla
so so let me I'm going to rephrase what you just said. Tell me if I'm incorrect. A fluency works against resiliency.
::Tim Welch
Unless you're intentional.
::Tim Welch
You're intentional.
::Pat McCalla
intentional. No, I want to pause for our audience because some of them to go, I'm not I'm not that influenced. So maybe there's some that aren't. But just because you live in this country, you most likely are one of the most affluent people that have ever lived on this planet.
::Tim Welch
True,
::Pat McCalla
Most likely you are. You are in and in the top 1% of people that have ever walked foot on this planet, just simply because you live in this country.
::Pat McCalla
So that's that's important for us to catch that a fluency.
::Pat McCalla
So how did you say because I said the fluency will work against resiliency. And you said unless
::Tim Welch
you're intentional.
::Tim Welch
I can give you a quick example.
::Tim Welch
like I said, I worked at an affluent school, where kids, you know, under 16 for they were driving these gorgeous cars around and, you know, for a weekend, they would go to Hawaii or whatever. I'm not saying that you don't don't hear me that don't ever do those things.
::Tim Welch
What I'm saying is, there are things that you can intentionally do that will help your child build in resiliency, even though you they have this really blessed life. I'll give you an example. There was a young man that I mentored through high school. he is now a sophomore in college. his parents retired at the age of 45, never to work again, meaning they had all the money that they needed to live the lifestyle that they wanted, and they had a gorgeous house and all those things.
::Tim Welch
They made their son do two things that I thought was brilliant. Number one, they made him have a job that he needed to have a job. No, he wanted to go on a mission trip, you know, $2,000 to do that.
::Tim Welch
So the parents just writing a check.
::Pat McCalla
They said go earn
::Tim Welch
Yeah, go earn it. A little thing like that goes a long way. The other thing they made him do is pay his cell phone bill.
::Tim Welch
And you might think, well, why would you do that? You could easily pay it. Yeah, you could, but there's, little life lessons that they decided to teach, and they did a few other things like that. They needed to make sure that they're so much grounded. Yeah, yeah. And that he was developing some grit. And as I would work with him and he made a ton of mistakes, he was messing up all the time.
::Tim Welch
He never once came in my office and looked for a way of getting out or had an excuse. He owned it every single time.
::Tim Welch
A
::Pat McCalla
of life. Big part of life. Yeah. You have any idea where he is now?
::Tim Welch
Please don't tell me he's in prison.
::Tim Welch
No, no, he's in college. He's a sophomore in college. He's. He's doing great. He's, And guess what? He's still making a few mistakes. I still hear from his parents. Right? But every time I talk to him. Hey, I heard things didn't go so well. Yeah, I messed up again, Mr. Wells.
::Tim Welch
You know,
::Pat McCalla
and he's. And he's then figure out what to do with it, man. You're right. You know, one of the things that happened with our kids, and I don't think I did this intentionally based on what you're talking about, more of it was, well, I'll tell the story and I'll explain why. So it was just briefly, we decided when our kids were young, we were going to spend money on experiences more than things we wanted to do that.
::Pat McCalla
So we did. We as much as we possibly could, we would travel with them and do things like that. So we were on one trip and, the kids were, and it was a trip that most a lot of people would never get a chance to take, and they were acting like spoiled little brats. And it man had ticked me off.
::Pat McCalla
And that's part of the reason I did this. I didn't necessarily do it for the right motives. Go on. We're going to teach them grit. but I did tell them I'm like, you know what? We're never doing a trip like this again without you guys earning your way. And after that, when we did family trips, they had to get side jobs and earn part of it.
::Pat McCalla
They didn't have to earn. They couldn't have earned the whole thing. But every trip we went on that as a family after that, they had part ownership in it. They had they had some sweat equity in it. If you will, and I look back on them like, oh, thank God, because that was a way that they were they were learning grit.
::Pat McCalla
They were learning tenacity. so and in, in, in fluent culture and in a fluent home or in at which most of us are simply because we live here. Be very intentional to find ways, then, that you can develop that in your
::Tim Welch
Yeah, yeah. And, to what my parents did,
::Tim Welch
when I went to college, my parents patron, my college, and I appreciated that they wanted to make sure when I graduated I didn't have any debt. And we did that for our four children. But anything you wanted to do, you wanted to go out for the weekend. You wanted to go with some friends on a road trip.
::Tim Welch
You wanted to, you know, go out to a restaurant. You wanted to date a girl that was on you. All the extra cash. I'm going to pay for the essentials. You're going to pay for the rest. And it's exactly what you just said. They could. I couldn't pay for all of that.
::Tim Welch
they helped me, but they made me accountable to.
::Tim Welch
To be responsible.
::Tim Welch
it was no different than who takes care of their car. Better. The kid who just received a brand new free car that's $50,000, or the kid that had to earn, you know, and buy a $20,000 car. Who's going to who's going to take care of that car better? We all know the answer to that question.
::Tim Welch
Those same principles that we would admit are obvious. We should, as parents, be instilling in the way that we raise our kids. And by the way, you a fluency are not a fluency. if you aren't intentional.
::Tim Welch
Yeah.
::Tim Welch
Yeah, you're you're going to miss some great opportunities for 18 years of teaching your kids resiliency because after they graduate, move on to the world, your influences diminished a little bit.
::Tim Welch
Yeah,
::Pat McCalla
very much so. Tim. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Critical. Important conversation. Both. And how we, lead our children toward this important thing called resiliency and how we lead ourselves towards so very, very important conversation. I have no doubt that everyone listening, including myself, sitting here, we learned some things are probably some things that we're going, oh, I gotta work on a few things.
::Pat McCalla
So hopefully some parents going like, oh, I got to change some things. I want to do some things a little bit differently. It's never too late. Remember, it's never too late for any of us. Well, we're at, one of my favorite parts of our podcast, two Truths and a lie. You've been a guest here before, and I hate to admit it, you stumped me before you got me last time, so I get a second chance.
::Pat McCalla
Here. Give us two truths to lie. two truths and a lie. And I got to guess which one is the lie.
::Tim Welch
Okay.
::Tim Welch
so here, here they are. I didn't actually put as much effort into this one, but, we'll see if I still can stump you. I would say that my greatest achievement as a coach was that I was able to coach two of my sons to individual state championships, wrestling championships. A second thing I would say that, as a coach, my last four years of coaching, I won consecutive conference of the year, coach, conference of the year, coach four years in a row, right before I retired.
::Tim Welch
and the last one is, I will be leading my 28th short term mission trip this summer with high school kids.
::Pat McCalla
Okay, last one's got to be true. That one's true. Am I right?
::Tim Welch
Yes.
::Tim Welch
It's true. Good, good.
::Tim Welch
It is my 28th.
::Tim Welch
I knew
::Pat McCalla
the very first conversation I ever had with you was about missions trips and how impactful those can be and how it changes the lens of people forever and why, I wish every single person could go visit a third world country at some point in their lives, so I figured that one was true.
::Pat McCalla
So I got a: ::Tim Welch
I did not.
::Tim Welch
Oh, and two with you.
::Tim Welch
You know, my kids, teased me all the time that I'm. I'm the father that creates runner ups. Yeah. So I had two sons actually make the finals, but lost in the finals in wrestling. And I had one son that was also second place at the state golf championships. So they teased me like, dad. Yeah, dad can only produce runner ups.
::Tim Welch
Well, second place, developed. You said
::Pat McCalla
that third place on the podium, you know, first place of course is glad because it's first place. Third place feels a little bit like, wow, I barely made it onto this podium, right? Because I usually give medals to the first three places. Second place is just like, first place loser,
::Tim Welch
Yeah,
::Tim Welch
again. Oh, and two, now I need to have you back, and I'm competitive. I may have you back until you win one of these. All right. Thanks, Tim.
::Tim Welch
Appreciate it. You bet. Thanks for having me.
::Host
Wow. That episode was packed with so many nuggets of truth. Regardless
::Host
if you are a parent or plan on being a parent in the future,
::Host
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::Host
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::Host
Have a great week!
