Insights Into Teens: Episode 180 ”Perspectives on Parenting – Nurturing Them”

[INTRO THEME]
[INTRODUCTIONS]
Insights Into Teens: Episode 180 “Perspectives on Parenting: Getting Them Ready”
My co-host Joseph Whalen
And our special guest today, host of our Insights Into Entertainment Podcast and resident Disney expert Michelle Whalen

Summary
We mostly address issues teens deal with on this podcast. But there are challenges to parenting that are worth taking a look at as well. Our Perspectives On Parenting topics are aimed at looking at these issues to help teens understand some of the difficulties parents face to hopefully put things on a more even playing field. Today’s Perspective on Parenting will look at some of the top challenges of parenting today

[SHOW PLUGS]

But first I’d like to invite the listening and viewing audience to subscribe to the podcast.
You can find audio versions listed under Insights Into Teens, you can also find video and audio versions listed under Insights Into Things.

I’d also like to invite you to give us your feedback on what we’re talking about or give us your suggestions for show topics.
You can:
Email us at:
Comments@insightsintothings.com
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[TRANSITION]

[SEGMENT 1]

Getting them Ready

Teaching Them to Socialize

Is it the job of a parent to teach their kids how to socialize?

Why do you feel that kids knowing how to socialize is important? Do you think it isn’t?

Can kids gain enough social skills on their own through things like school and interacting with others with little parental influence?

What methods do you feel are best in getting kids to socialize?

Should certain social activities be limited to different age groups? If so, which ones?

How do you feel that you’ve had an impact on my social life?

Could a parent cause a child to be less social?

Are there right and wrong ways of teaching your kid to be social? What are they?

[AD1: SSE]

[SEGMENT 2]

Instilling Good Behavior in Them

What forms of good behavior should a parent try to instill in their child?

How do you feel the actions of the parent can affect how good natured or well behaved their child is?

Is this something that can be trusted to be handled by outside forces like school or peers to be taught to kids?

In what ways can a parent instill both good and bad behaviors in children?

Is teaching nothing about good or bad behaviors to children something to be considered about?

What have you done to instill good behaviors in me?

What good behaviors do you feel are necessary for a child to learn?

Do you feel this can be a more difficult task for certain parents?

[AD2: ENTERTAINMENT]

[SEGMENT 3]

Looking after Their Educational Needs

What do you feel are some of the most important educational needs of a child?

Should there be a line between what parents have to teach their kids and what they should learn in school?

Due to more neglectful parenting, should schools be required to teach a bit about more sensitive topics?

Do teens’ educational needs include more than just academics?

What topics do you feel schools need to teach more of to get kids ready for the real world?

Should parents be the ones fully responsible for sending their kid to college?

Is college inherently necessary for someone to live a successful life?

How do you help to provide me with my educational needs?

[TRANSITION]

[CLOSE]

Closing thoughts shoutouts

[OUTRO AND CREDITS]

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Speaker Name Start Time End Time Text

Michelle 00:00:06:16 00:00:56:12 Insightful podcasts by informative host insights into Things, a podcast network. Welcome to Insights into Teens, a podcast series exploring the issues and challenges of today’s youth. Your hosts are Joseph and Madison, as well as a father and daughter team making their way through the challenges of the teenage years.

Madison 00:00:56:14 00:01:07:06 Welcome to Insights into Teens. This is Episode 180 Perspectives on Parenting and Top Challenges of Parenting. That’s not at all.

Joseph 00:01:07:09 00:01:13:15 Not it, actually. It’s perspectives on parenting. Getting them ready.

Madison 00:01:13:17 00:01:15:13 Okay, whatever.

Joseph 00:01:15:16 00:01:17:16 Hopefully you got the same script as me.

Madison 00:01:17:20 00:01:24:07 I have the questions. All right. This is just from a couple of however long ago it was.

Joseph 00:01:24:09 00:01:27:20 All right, Owen. And it’ll be interesting, if nothing else.

Madison 00:01:27:22 00:01:37:29 Anyway, I’m your host, Madison. Well, and given a great intro so far and my co-host today, Joseph Whalen.

Joseph 00:01:38:02 00:01:38:24 Hi.

Madison 00:01:38:27 00:01:41:15 This is why I don’t do this stuff anymore.

Joseph 00:01:41:21 00:01:45:16 You’re a little out of practice. You only do this like, you know, every ten episodes.

Madison 00:01:45:18 00:01:54:25 And also, our special guest for today, Michelle Whalen from Inside is an entertainment.

Joseph 00:01:54:27 00:01:56:24 Hi, Michelle.

Michelle 00:01:56:26 00:01:58:04 Hi, everyone.

Madison 00:01:58:06 00:02:00:17 How are you doing?

Michelle 00:02:00:20 00:02:11:03 It’s like, you know, special guest. It’s mom. We just had dinner. It wasn’t like, you know, I haven’t seen you in a while or anything.

Joseph 00:02:11:05 00:02:13:21 That’s, you know, it’s been a while since we’ve been on the air.

Michelle 00:02:13:24 00:02:16:00 Well, yes, that is true.

Madison 00:02:16:03 00:02:18:03 All right, So how’s everybody doing?

Joseph 00:02:18:05 00:02:19:13 Fantastic.

Michelle 00:02:19:15 00:02:22:09 Wonderful. And you?

Madison 00:02:22:11 00:02:25:27 A good. Not not used to this, but we’re working on it.

Michelle 00:02:25:27 00:02:27:21 And another year older.

Madison 00:02:27:24 00:02:28:23 Yeah, that’s.

Joseph 00:02:28:27 00:02:30:12 Yeah, look at that.

Madison 00:02:30:14 00:02:32:04 Ain’t that nifty, am I right?

Joseph 00:02:32:05 00:02:35:18 Pretty soon we’re not going to be able to do insights into teens anymore.

Madison 00:02:35:21 00:02:37:28 I still got a couple of years, technically.

Joseph 00:02:38:01 00:02:40:03 Well, that’s good. So the show will continue for a little.

Madison 00:02:40:03 00:02:44:03 While till I’m 20. Technically, Like, I’m still a teenager at 19.

Joseph 00:02:44:03 00:02:54:22 Technically, so. That’s true. True. And then we’ll have to grow up and go out and dig up another teenager that can be on the show. Or we’ll be like, Well, technically, you started the show at 12.

Madison 00:02:54:22 00:02:58:02 So yeah, technically we were lying from the beginning. Yeah.

Michelle 00:02:58:05 00:02:59:07 That’s all a.

Joseph 00:02:59:12 00:03:03:11 Bunch of liars and.

Madison 00:03:03:13 00:03:28:28 Anyway, so today we’re going to be doing another one of our perspectives on parenting. This is the third episode of this we’ve done. It’s kind of our like big episode ten episode margin top taper off or like, you know, segway into the next era of what our insights into teens podcasts are going to be about.

Joseph 00:03:29:00 00:03:31:23 Kind of like a season arc, you know?

Madison 00:03:31:25 00:03:59:08 Pretty much. Yeah. And like you said earlier today, we are going to be talking about a section from that we’ve been pulling from so far for the other episodes, which is getting them ready. So we’re going to be going through various different questions relating to things of teaching kids to socialize, instilling good behavior in them and looking after their educational needs.

Madison 00:03:59:11 00:04:07:13 Since I do not have the right thing up, I do not have a good summary. So that is my best interpretation of what we’ve got so far.

Joseph 00:04:07:16 00:04:08:18 That’s good enough.

Madison 00:04:08:21 00:04:32:13 All right. But before we get started on the podcast, I’d like to invite the listening and viewing audience to subscribe to the podcast. You can find audio versions listed under insights in the teens. You can also find video and audio virgins listed under Insights in the Things. I’d also like to invite you to give us your feedback on what we’re talking about or give us suggestions for show topics.

Madison 00:04:32:15 00:04:42:12 You can email us a comment and insights into things dot com and links to all these and more on our website at WW. That insights into things dot com. Are we ready.

Joseph 00:04:42:14 00:04:43:12 We are ready.

Madison 00:04:43:15 00:04:51:09 All righty so start.

Joseph 00:04:51:11 00:04:52:24 Sorry wrong button.

Madison 00:04:52:26 00:04:54:00 Oh we’re just full.

Joseph 00:04:54:00 00:04:57:03 And I was almost ready.

Madison 00:04:57:05 00:04:59:13 We’re just full of mistakes today. Only a little bit.

Joseph 00:04:59:13 00:05:00:07 A lot of practice.

Madison 00:05:00:10 00:05:18:18 Well, I’ll practice. It’s been a while, but starting us off, we’re going to be talking. I’m going to be asking both of you questions about teaching kids how to socialize. So I’m going to ask this to you. Father.

Joseph 00:05:18:20 00:05:19:26 Look.

Madison 00:05:19:28 00:05:24:22 So is it the job of a parent to teach their kids how to socialize?

Joseph 00:05:24:24 00:05:59:29 I don’t know if it’s the job of the parent. I think kids, for the most part, will socialize where they’re comfortable. I think parents have the responsibility of kind of setting the example and teaching kids the probably the cautious way to socialize, you know, the dangers of it, how to do it right and and encouraging. And I think that’s probably a better term is it’s the parent’s job doing carries you to socialize but within your comfort zone I think.

Madison 00:06:00:01 00:06:04:06 All right. That’s fair, Mommy, you want to add anything on that? No, I would.

Michelle 00:06:04:06 00:06:51:04 Probably agree for the most part with that. I think, you know, nowadays you have a lot of kids that do home schooling, so there’s not as much socializing for for some people. But a lot of the home schoolers actually have their own school system in some respects so that they can have the kids socialize. So back in the day, whenever you heard that somebody, you know, was home schooled, it kind of meant that they didn’t know how to act in public or didn’t know how to act, you know, with other people because they were never around.

Michelle 00:06:51:04 00:07:15:21 Other people were now home schooled. Kids actually probably get more interaction because not only are they’re in a different type of environment, so they are being able to socialize more. So I think it is important to, you know, for the parents to make sure that their child is in some sort of in environment to to be able to socialize.

Madison 00:07:15:24 00:07:26:03 All right. Fair enough. I’ll leave the next question to you, Mommy, do or do you not feel kids knowing how to socialize is important? And why or why not?

Michelle 00:07:26:07 00:08:16:24 Oh, absolutely. It’s very important because it’s how you function, you know, day to day in in the world. Fortunately, nowadays, so much can kind of be done in isolation. Unfortunately, we we found that out during the pandemic that people didn’t need to necessarily go to work. Now, having all of the technology that you have where you could video call with somebody, face time or zoom or whatever, you don’t need to necessarily physically socialize, but you still have some sort of skill set that you need to be able to to communicate and socialize even virtually.

Michelle 00:08:16:26 00:08:58:29 So I think it’s it’s just important in general to be able to, you know, not have anxiety when you want to go get something to eat and you need to go order from a restaurant or pick something up at the store, there’s all that social interaction. But there are times, you know, again, because of the pandemic and everything, there’s so much that became virtual or curbside where you don’t have to where there are people that have the anxiety of having the social interaction where it kind of helped them to still be kind of part of things without having it.

Michelle 00:08:58:29 00:09:03:07 But I think it’s a skill set that everybody, you know, should have.

Madison 00:09:03:09 00:09:23:01 Okay. I do not at all feel called out by that. Anyway. I’ll turn the next question over to you, Father. Can kids gain enough social skills on their own through things like school and interacting with others with little parental influence?

Joseph 00:09:23:03 00:09:52:27 You know, if I’m going back to when I was a kid, I would say absolutely. My parents had very little influence on my social upbringing. I’d say we, you know, did it all of ourselves. You know, my parents, like my parents weren’t the helicopter parents. They weren’t hovering over me. They weren’t part of the PTA, they weren’t the soccer moms.

Joseph 00:09:52:27 00:10:13:27 None of that stuff existed at the time. So as a kid, we did everything ourselves from a social standpoint. We got home from school. You know, if you had to work, you finish your homework and then you were out playing until it was dark and you had to come in. At that point in time, you did it through school because you made friends with everyone at school.

Joseph 00:10:13:29 00:10:46:18 And there was a very different environment at the time. Like, you know, unfortunately nowadays there there are too many things out there now that are a danger to kids. So parents tend to be overly protective these days. And as a result, you get the creation of playdates. You know, we didn’t have playdates as a kid. If I wanted to hang out with my friends or get on the phone, call and see if they were there, I’d go over to their house, you know, the neighborhood that I lived in.

Joseph 00:10:46:20 00:11:11:18 It was a it was a not a gated community, but it was a close community. And in that it wasn’t on any major roads. So the whole how the whole community itself was about one square mile. So if I wanted to hang out with my friends, I got to go to my best friend who was on the next street over or and walk across town for 5 minutes to go to see the kids that were over there.

Joseph 00:11:11:21 00:11:32:16 So there was nothing that kept you in the house? We didn’t have technology. We weren’t glued to our phones or anything like that. So you had to go out and play with people and make friends because there was no substitute. You know, you had three channels on on show me each year, but you had three channels on on TV.

Joseph 00:11:32:16 00:11:55:15 Unless you were rich enough to have cable and then you had like 15 channels. So there wasn’t anything at home to do. You didn’t have video games, you didn’t have computers. When I was a kid, you had toys and you played with your friends with toys, or you’d go out and play sports or something like that. So my parents had almost nothing to do with my socializing.

Joseph 00:11:55:15 00:12:17:17 So the fact that if it was up to my mom, I probably wouldn’t have had any friends because she didn’t let anybody over the house. She hated having people all over the house because she didn’t want people making a mess of the house. So. Today, it’s very different, though, and I think today there are so many things that at home that keep kids from being social.

Joseph 00:12:17:20 00:12:43:00 Ironically, social media is one of them. You know, people think social media is a social activity and it’s not. It’s it’s the exact opposite. So as a result, parents today are organizing kids in, you know, playgroups or whatever to try and get them to socialize more because we have to get you ready to interact with society as an adult.

Joseph 00:12:43:02 00:12:50:11 And then if if you’re not going to do it yourself, then the parents have to at least put some effort into that.

Madison 00:12:50:13 00:13:00:28 That’s fair enough. The next question goes to you, Mommy. What methods do you feel are best in getting kids to socialize?

Michelle 00:13:01:00 00:13:31:15 Well, I think it helps if there some sort of common interest. So, you know, for kids to either join a sport or do dance or some sort of club, some sort of activity, I think that always helps because then you have that that common bond versus, hey, I’m into video games and I’m into baseball, but I don’t like video games and I don’t like baseball.

Michelle 00:13:31:18 00:14:10:29 You’ll you might have a conflict and then it might make you actually not even want to to socialize. So I think that’s probably a good start. You know, besides school, I think going to school or being, you know, with kids your own age is a great way to kind of start the socializing. And then if you see that there’s some sort of, you know, issue where, you know, maybe they’re not socializing enough, maybe they’re not getting along with people, maybe trying to find a group where, you know, they would kind of feel that that they belong.

Madison 00:14:11:02 00:14:13:18 That makes sense. Do you want to weigh in on this, Daddy?

Joseph 00:14:13:20 00:14:16:25 No. I think mommy covered that topic pretty well.

Madison 00:14:16:27 00:14:27:27 All righty. Next question goes to you then. Should certain social activities be limited to different age groups? If so, which ones?

Joseph 00:14:27:29 00:14:55:11 None come to mind immediately, but I’m sure there are certain ones that are age appropriate. Certain things require certain resources. You know, if you want to go to the mall, the malls aren’t going to allow a certain age group to be there unsupervised. If you want to go to the movies, you need transportation, you need money. So there’s logistics around that, right?

Joseph 00:14:55:14 00:15:19:15 Mm hmm. If you just want to hang out with your friends now, that shouldn’t be any any age group. You’re to watch TV or play video games or play board games. So anything that’s there probably would be age specific to the actual activity itself, and it would be less dependent on the socialize aspect of it than it would be with the actual activity.

Joseph 00:15:19:15 00:15:21:01 I think would be.

Madison 00:15:21:03 00:15:24:14 That makes sense. Anything to say on that?

Michelle 00:15:24:17 00:15:27:27 No, I think that was that was okay.

Madison 00:15:27:29 00:15:40:03 All right, Mommy, the next question is for you. What kind of impact do you feel that you’ve had on my social life?

Joseph 00:15:40:05 00:15:42:12 Hmm.

Michelle 00:15:42:15 00:16:15:13 Well, you know, I hope a positive, positive one. While you were in in any sort of clubs or anything up until high school, you know, you did do the before and after care, which that was kind of, you know, not that it was necessarily a club. It was something that was needed because of, you know, going and working, you know, in the office and the hours of school and things like that.

Michelle 00:16:15:18 00:16:41:28 But that kind of became a way for you to socialize with a vast array of of kids that weren’t necessarily all within your age group. You know, when you started, you were one of the younger kids and then you became, you know, the older kids. So you got to kind of see the transition of being the kid that, Oh, I don’t have that much homework.

Michelle 00:16:41:29 00:17:11:02 I want to go play. I want to go play to being the older kid that had more homework and you got annoyed at the younger kids who just wanted to play because you still had homework that you that you needed to do. But I think you also kind of found your niche of, okay, I kind of like being the older kid and hanging with the the younger kids and kind of being the mom of the group in a way.

Michelle 00:17:11:08 00:17:30:17 I think that kind of became your your your niche in a lot of cases because even with, you know, the kids in the neighborhood, you’re one of the older ones. When you would get together and do stuff and you kind of organize and you’re kind of like the kid wrangler, c’mon, let’s do this. Let’s go here, you know, let’s do that.

Michelle 00:17:30:17 00:17:59:12 Or, you know, even when you were in marching band, you know, if somebody needed a band aid, well, I got one new fan. You’re hot. Here’s that. You were the one that, you know, was taking care of everybody. So I think that kind of helped to to put you in that. I know I kind of look back and I kind of have regrets that we didn’t get you more involved with things when you were younger.

Michelle 00:17:59:12 00:18:18:11 And unfortunately, it was time constraints where, you know, there were activities that started at you know, 4:00 in the afternoon. But because of our working schedules, we couldn’t do that. So you weren’t able to do dancer brownies or Girl Scouts or or things like that?

Joseph 00:18:18:13 00:18:20:25 I like brownies.

Michelle 00:18:20:28 00:18:40:04 Who doesn’t? So I kind of regret that. And I wonder how things would have changed if you had been able to do those things. Would you be, you know, different socially than you are now?

Madison 00:18:40:06 00:18:41:03 That’s fair.

Michelle 00:18:41:06 00:18:49:07 Yeah, But, you know, I don’t think you have any regrets for it. I don’t think you ever go, You know, I really wish. Yeah.

Madison 00:18:49:08 00:18:51:18 Yeah, not really. No.

Michelle 00:18:51:20 00:19:21:06 You’re gonna, you know, you’re kind of happy, like being where you are. And again, I think part of it is also because we went through COVID, you know, and that was a when you were in middle school. So that was another like informative year time frame that kind of got compressed where that should have been more getting out, hanging out with friends, doing things, but nobody was doing any of that.

Michelle 00:19:21:09 00:19:47:08 But you have this nice little core group you know, of friends, which is important I think, to that. Everybody have that. So you might not always be able to get together with everybody, but it’s like, All right, well, do you want to do something? All right, we’ll do something this week, you know, and it’s maybe not everybody all at once, but okay, so this day you hang out with this person and this day you get to hang out with that one.

Michelle 00:19:47:08 00:20:08:19 And, you know, so I feel, you know, that I kind of. All right. We we did a good job. You know, she’s not the person that’s, you know, sitting at home, not talking to anybody, not communicating with anybody, not hanging out with anybody. So, yeah. So we we I think we did we did good so far.

Madison 00:20:08:21 00:20:09:09 Though enough.

Michelle 00:20:09:09 00:20:13:18 Just need to learn how to, you know, order food on your own, that’s all.

Madison 00:20:13:21 00:20:34:05 Yeah. We’re not going to talk about that. All right. So the next question is going to go out to you. So you mentioned before how a parent can kind of how a parent can kind of influence a kid and the terms of them being social. So do you believe that a parent could cause a child to be less social?

Joseph 00:20:34:07 00:21:04:22 Yes, There are certainly a number of different ways that a parent can have that impact on a child. And sometimes it’s not a negative impact. Sometimes if you’re someone who is more interested in going out and socializing than you are in doing the things that you need to be responsible about doing schoolwork or chores or whatever, having a parent make you less social is a positive.

Joseph 00:21:04:24 00:21:38:25 The negatives tend to come in with parents who live vicariously through their kids. And you see this a lot with sports. You know, you have parents who are want to relive their youth through their kids. And so they get them in every sports event they’re doing traveling teams are doing tournaments, you know, and their entire life is consumed with going out and doing these sports, not because the kid really wants to do it, but because the parent wants to do it.

Joseph 00:21:38:28 00:21:45:18 And that’s where it gets dangerous, you know, And that’s where you kind of have to be careful.

Madison 00:21:45:21 00:21:54:03 Yeah. You also mentioned the idea of helicopter parents. And do you think a helicopter parent could also cause a child to be less social in a more negative light?

Joseph 00:21:54:06 00:22:22:00 I think a helicopter parent who’s overly cautious. And unfortunately, in today’s society, it’s not unjustified to be overly cautious of your children. But a helicopter parent could really put too much fear in their kids and transfer their own fear to their kids and have them make that be make them be less social as a result. So, yes, there’s definitely that negative effect.

Madison 00:22:22:03 00:22:38:24 So really, like depending on what type of parent you can be, either you live vicariously through your kids, you’re a helicopter parent, or there’s some other combination of it. A parent can always cause a child to be less social in a positive light, but also in a more negative light.

Joseph 00:22:38:26 00:23:04:05 Absolutely. There’s a lot of different examples of bad parents out there that can cause this type of problem to happen. You know, you have parents that aren’t involved at all with their kids, and as a result, their kids are overly social. They wind up getting into groups that are a bad influence on them. They wind up getting into substance abuse issues and parents should be doing something about their kids, but they’re not.

Joseph 00:23:04:07 00:23:13:29 And and they allow their kids to basically run free with with no constraints on them at all. And that’s not a good thing either.

Madison 00:23:14:02 00:23:24:21 Right. Final question. This one goes to your mommy. Are there right and wrong ways of teaching a kid how to be social And what would you say they are?

Michelle 00:23:24:24 00:23:59:24 Well, yeah, there’s you know, I think you need to, you know, have your your child interact, you know, out in the real world, you know, and not keep them, you know, at home all the time. And, you know, children should be, you know, seen and not heard, you know, because you see it time and time again where, you know, a parent has their child out, you know, shopping or at a restaurant or what’s so funny?

Madison 00:23:59:24 00:24:00:19 Nothing.

Michelle 00:24:00:21 00:24:28:21 Okay. And they are totally misbehaving because they don’t know how to act because, you know, the parent never took the child out in public. So the child has no idea how to act socially like what’s the right way, you know, to act where, you know, Daddy and I, when you were a baby, you went out, you did things if you cried.

Michelle 00:24:28:22 00:24:50:14 You know, we took care of it. Or, you know, there was really only one time ever that we actually left someplace because you we couldn’t get you to stop crying. It was just you were upset about something. You either didn’t feel well or whatever. And unfortunately, you were a baby, so you couldn’t tell us what was wrong. You know, we did all the things.

Michelle 00:24:50:14 00:24:53:19 We changed you, We fed you, we burped you, we did this. The you know.

Joseph 00:24:53:26 00:24:55:23 We beat you.

Michelle 00:24:55:25 00:24:57:13 No, we didn’t do that. You put the.

Joseph 00:24:57:13 00:24:58:10 Pillow over your head.

Madison 00:24:58:14 00:25:00:06 No, we didn’t do that either.

Michelle 00:25:00:09 00:25:34:06 But, you know, we went through all the things and it just got to the point. So we didn’t want to be that parent where we were ruining everybody else’s time. But then there were multiple times where we would go places and people would compliment us on how well-behaved you were and how polite you were. And that was a testament to us raising you to be, you know, socially aware and a polite, well-behaved child.

Michelle 00:25:34:06 00:26:00:15 So there’s there’s right ways to do it. And there’s there’s wrong way. And, you know, but then the parent themselves also have to be, you know, a well behaved person because some parents themselves aren’t, you know, well-behaved. So it’s kind of hard to teach your child how to be. Well behaved if you don’t know how to behave.

Joseph 00:26:00:15 00:26:24:10 Yeah, I think I think one of the keys is that the parents have to be socially competent. If the parents aren’t socially competent and the child’s being raised by parents who have no social skills, the child’s not going to get any social skills because one, there’s no one to set the example. And two, there’s no perceived need to have them in the first place.

Madison 00:26:24:10 00:26:25:08 That makes sense.

Joseph 00:26:25:15 00:26:29:28 So that’s one of the one of the, I think, overriding factors of that.

Madison 00:26:30:00 00:26:32:24 All right. I think this segment went well.

Joseph 00:26:32:26 00:26:34:02 I think it did as well.

Madison 00:26:34:06 00:26:38:08 All right. We’ll take a quick break and then we’ll move on to the next segment.

Joseph 00:26:38:12 00:26:57:06 Okay.

Michelle 00:26:57:09 00:27:29:07 Insights into entertainment, a podcast series taking a deeper look into entertainment and media. Our husband and wife team of pop culture fanatics are exploring all things from music and movies to television and fandom. We’ll look at the interesting and obscure entertainment news of the week. We’ll talk about theme park and pop culture news. We’ll give you the latest and greatest on pop culture conventions.

Michelle 00:27:29:10 00:27:59:16 We’ll give you a deep dive into Disney, Star Wars and much more. Check out our video episodes at YouTube.com backslash. Insights into things are audio episodes at Podcast Insights into entertainment dot com or check us out on the web at insights into things icon.

Madison 00:27:59:19 00:28:21:18 Welcome back to Insights into Teens. Today. We’re on our perspectives on parenting. We’re talking about getting them ready. And now I’m going to ask some questions about instilling good behavior in them, then being children, by the way. All right. Our to start us off with the first question, we’ll go to you, Dad.

Joseph 00:28:21:20 00:28:27:19 So what form I’ve been demoted from farming, huh?

Madison 00:28:27:21 00:28:33:03 So what forms of good behavior should a parent try to instill on their child?

Joseph 00:28:33:05 00:29:00:00 I guess we’re not getting overly verbose. I think the basics. You want your kids to be honest. You want your kids to be hard working and you want your kids to treat other people decent. I think if you can get those three, you know, qualities instilled in your kids, everything else kind of falls in line at that point in time and keep your expectations realistic.

Joseph 00:29:00:02 00:29:24:28 You know, you’re not going to you’re not going to turn your kid into a philanthropic genius overnight, but you have to demonstrate to them these these skills and these qualities. You have to be honest. You have to treat them with respect and make sure that you’re kind to them and kind to others. You know, one of the one of the things that my mother always instilled in me was her compassion.

Joseph 00:29:24:28 00:29:45:27 She had this overwhelming compassion for everyone. There wasn’t anyone my mother ever turned away who needed help. We might not have had enough food on the table for the family, but if somebody needed help and she could take somebody in and give them a roof over their head and a warm meal and get them back on their feet, she would do it in an instant.

Joseph 00:29:46:01 00:29:54:09 And that leaves a lasting impression on kids. When you see your parents act in noble ways like that, I think.

Madison 00:29:54:11 00:29:59:11 That makes sense. And the other traits you’d like to add or you think you kind of know.

Michelle 00:29:59:12 00:30:06:18 I would say just raise your kids to be decent human beings. That’s I think, you know, if you if.

Joseph 00:30:06:18 00:30:11:27 They’re human beings. Well, you know, for the aliens out there, we don’t we don’t want to discriminate.

Madison 00:30:12:01 00:30:12:16 Yeah.

Michelle 00:30:12:17 00:30:25:07 But I think that’s that’s the the top level. You know, if you raise them to be a decent human being, everything else kind of just falls into place.

Madison 00:30:25:09 00:30:35:14 All right, that’s fair. Turning it over to you, Mommy. Okay. How do you feel the actions of the parent can affect how good natured or well-behaved their child is?

Michelle 00:30:35:18 00:31:19:05 Well, I think that that comes into play where you’re setting that example. If daddy and I are, you see that we’re we are, you know, walking down the street and we see somebody that’s homeless and we’re like, ask through them. And, you know, and we, you know, kick over their cup or something and we’re all jerky or whatever what you’re going to be like, All right, well, I have to be a jerk to everybody or in some cases, maybe that would even make you not want to be like that because you realize that’s the bad example.

Michelle 00:31:19:05 00:31:50:02 But I think when you see, you know, hopefully the the good example that the parents are setting, that that makes the child want to set that good example. But then again, you know, you have parents that go out of their way to have good examples, but the child just doesn’t see it or has some sort of issue where, no, I’m not going to be like that.

Michelle 00:31:50:02 00:32:09:20 I want to be the exact opposite of my parent. So as parents, you kind of hope for the best that you do enough to show what’s right and wrong enough for your child to make that own, you know, their own decision.

Madison 00:32:09:24 00:32:16:29 Yeah, because you can’t always guarantee that the kid’s going to really even be listening to your example or doing the exact opposite.

Joseph 00:32:17:02 00:32:20:08 Sometimes people are just around the corner. He can’t get past that.

Michelle 00:32:20:12 00:32:20:27 Right.

Madison 00:32:21:00 00:32:23:16 Fair enough.

Madison 00:32:23:19 00:32:38:09 All right. Turning this over to you, Daddy. It is this something that can be entrusted by outside forces like school appears to be taught to kids?

Joseph 00:32:38:12 00:33:03:27 Well, I don’t. I Yes, it can. In so much as these types of behaviors can be instilled through discipline. And you can even go so far as to say the military, you know, you’ve got a lot of kids that come out of high school who don’t know who they are, don’t know what they want to be, and they’re they’re wild and dangerous and they wind up in the military.

Joseph 00:33:03:27 00:33:34:03 And the military puts gives them that that discipline, that structure that they need because they might not be getting it at home. So, yes, there’s a place that schools can serve as a tool to that end. Is it their responsibility should parents abdicate their responsibility to to the schools to do that? Absolutely not. This type of of behavior of your behavioral training or learning has to happen at home.

Joseph 00:33:34:06 00:34:24:09 And when parents forego that and parents decide that they’re not responsible for teaching their kids how to behave properly, then you run into all kinds of societal problems and the kids run into all kinds of, you know, disciplinary problems, academic problems, legal problems. And I think that’s where a good portion and I hate to put all the blame on the parents, but I think a lot of the crime that you have in society today, a lot of the cruelty and the hatred that you see in today’s society, I want to put that blame on parents, because I think if you had better parenting, better mentoring at home and parents who took the time and exercised

Joseph 00:34:24:09 00:34:47:20 the responsibility to raise your kids right society would be a place today. All too often we want to abdicate that responsibility and say, Well, the school system should do that, or the government should do or go into the military. We’re going to send you to the military. I know you need to be a good parent. It’s that’s really what it boils down to.

Joseph 00:34:47:22 00:35:14:16 And a good parents primary concern is, one, protect your children and to make sure they become productive citizens in society. And if you can’t make sure those two things happen, then you fail. As a parent, though, sometimes protecting your kid is hard to do in today’s society because of people who have failed the system. But no one has any excuse for not raising your kids.

Joseph 00:35:14:16 00:35:34:27 Right? You can go through the motions and like we say, you know, the kids might not take it and they just might be rotten to the core. There are literally people out there that are just bad people, but if the parents didn’t put the effort in, you can’t blame the child. You have to blame the parents at that point.

Joseph 00:35:35:00 00:35:56:06 So I can’t say that that schools are responsible for this. Schools can do this. Your peers can do this. Peers become mentors, you know, as you as you grow older so they can do it. And they should to a certain extent, do it because it’s the right thing to do. But ultimately it has to start with the parents.

Madison 00:35:56:08 00:36:07:14 That’s understandable. All right. The next question is for you, Mommy. In what ways can a parent and still both good and bad behaviors and children?

Michelle 00:36:07:16 00:36:46:15 Well, I think that by whatever example you’re you’re showing your child kind the whole. If you go out to a restaurant and you totally become a Karen in, you know, I want to see the manager and this is horrible, you know, and you’re constantly complaining because nothing is is done right when you’re going over and above and and showing that to your child, your child’s going to see them and think either, oh, this is the way I have to be.

Michelle 00:36:46:15 00:37:07:24 I have to be a jerk in order to get what I want. Or your child might say, you know what? I was really kind of kind of wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t be like that. So you always hope for for the best. But I think also showing, you know, the right example, hey, if something went wrong, this is the way you take care of it.

Michelle 00:37:07:24 00:37:35:28 You don’t just go off the handle like that or you know how to deal with anger or how to deal with something that goes wrong and, you know, so that you don’t have that anxiety or the issues of of having that bad behavior learned. You know, you kind of go, okay, this is how I deal with it and I move on and everything is better.

Michelle 00:37:35:28 00:38:08:26 So But then there are parents that they think the way that they’re raising their kids is right. When other parents would look at them and go, no, shouldn’t be that way. You shouldn’t be like that. You know, that’s that’s one of the things where kids don’t learn how to be a bully from other kids. They learn it from, you know, other adults that then those would learn it from that.

Michelle 00:38:08:26 00:38:29:14 You know, you don’t have the kids sitting around and and a kid just decides to say something mean to somebody else. They said it because they heard somebody older or saw it on TV or something. So the parents need to kind of teach, you know, okay, this is the right way to do it. This is the wrong way to do it.

Michelle 00:38:29:16 00:38:50:11 And again, it kind of goes back to, you know, the schools and things like that where, yes, it’s not the school’s responsibility here. The parents have to set that foundation. But the other part of it, too, is when you think about how many hours a day you’re in school, you’re actually in school. And with those people longer than you are with your own family.

Michelle 00:38:50:13 00:39:24:18 So while it’s it’s almost like a a co-op of sorts, you have to have the help from the school. Not saying that it’s their 100% their responsibility. But again, if you if the parents lay that foundation, then everything else builds up from it. Kind of like, you know, if I teach you to be a decent human being, everything else should come, you know, come naturally and should be, you know, teaching you everything.

Michelle 00:39:24:18 00:39:40:23 Oh, okay. Well, if I think, All right, decent human being, what I do this or what I do this now, this makes sense. Doing that would be the bad thing. And hopefully then it kind of makes the rest of the lessons go go smoothly.

Madison 00:39:40:25 00:39:46:16 That makes sense. All right. Next question is for you, Father.

Joseph 00:39:46:18 00:39:49:04 Are they promoted again?

Madison 00:39:49:06 00:39:50:12 So is teacher. Mr..

Joseph 00:39:50:12 00:39:56:29 Well, this question is for you anyway.

Madison 00:39:57:01 00:40:06:18 Anyway. Is teaching nothing about good or bad behaviors to children something to make a deal over or not?

Joseph 00:40:06:20 00:40:35:02 That’s a tough question. There are there’s an argument to be made to curb what you’re teaching your kids when it comes to certain things you don’t. Kids are developing, their brains are still developing. So if you impose your fears on kids and you try to teach them about some of the terrible things that happened, you know, talk about current events.

Joseph 00:40:35:02 00:41:29:15 Now you’ve got the the the war in Gaza right now, you’ve got the war in Ukraine. There’s a lot of things, the COVID experience, there’s a lot of serious things that go on in the world that are anxiety inducing. And while you want kids to learn from these things and mature from them and take something positive away from them, in trying to get to that positive outcome, you can very easily overwhelm a kid’s senses and you can very easily scare them and and scar them with the imagery that you see on TV and the repeated atrocities that are happening.

Joseph 00:41:29:15 00:41:52:27 So when it comes to stuff like that, there’s an argument to be made to tone it down, You know, not not do away with it entirely because kids are going to see this stuff on the news. They’re going to hear about it, their friends are going to talk about it, and they’re going to have questions and they’re going to be to understand what these things mean and how it affects them and so forth.

Joseph 00:41:53:00 00:42:31:18 But you don’t want to throw them, you know, into the fire and give them everything. So there’s a certain level of discretion, I think, that’s involved in that, that parents really need to understand their kids. And this is this is part of going back and being a good parent. It’s not just about setting an example. It’s about understanding the audience, and it’s about knowing what kind of message is best received and sometimes dwelling on some of the negative things or even being overly optimistic sets the wrong tone.

Joseph 00:42:31:21 00:43:01:05 So I think parents have to understand their kids. You have to respect your kids and and you have to talk to your kids. Every kid is different. And the only way you’re going to know how to present information and lessons to your kid is to get to know them. And sometimes that requires a certain amount of discretion to make sure that you’re not over saturating them with positive or negative.

Joseph 00:43:01:05 00:43:02:09 I think.

Madison 00:43:02:12 00:43:10:27 That’s fair. All right. For a bit of personal experience, Mommy, what have you done to instill good behaviors in me?

Michelle 00:43:11:01 00:43:11:12 What have.

Joseph 00:43:11:12 00:43:14:08 You done?

Michelle 00:43:14:11 00:43:25:25 I locked you in a closet. No.

Joseph 00:43:25:27 00:43:28:04 What didn’t you do?

Michelle 00:43:28:06 00:43:30:21 What didn’t I do? I think.

Joseph 00:43:30:24 00:43:34:06 The beatings will continue until you’re.

Michelle 00:43:34:08 00:43:37:04 Um.

Michelle 00:43:37:06 00:44:13:02 I don’t know. I for the most part, you were a really good kid. You’re still a good kid like you. And we never really went through, like I can look back at so far in the last 17 years and there really hasn’t been the. Oh, my God. Do you remember this time when.

Joseph 00:44:13:05 00:44:15:03 Yeah, I do. I remember.

Michelle 00:44:15:05 00:45:04:27 But I don’t I don’t know if it’s because I blocked it out like that, my not remembering things I, you know, like obviously we had ups and downs especially going like everybody going through puberty. You know, your emotions go out of whack and but because we talk about it and I think that’s that’s actually been very helpful. I think the fact that we have this understanding between all of us, for the most part, you know, there are obviously things that you don’t want to talk to daddy about because it’s, you know, a girl thing, a female thing, you know.

Joseph 00:45:05:00 00:45:08:01 And that is very beautiful for that. Right.

Madison 00:45:08:03 00:45:10:06 You’re more empathetic than him, right?

Michelle 00:45:10:06 00:45:11:12 Or that that.

Joseph 00:45:11:12 00:45:12:27 Apathetic.

Michelle 00:45:12:29 00:45:43:24 Not all wrong. Yeah, that but I think because we’ve always had that open communication where our daddy knows a whole lot more about female reproduction than he ever wanted to learn. And I but I think that was helpful. It wasn’t. We’ll go and talk to your mother about this. I don’t want to know about that, you know, and I think that also helped.

Michelle 00:45:44:01 00:45:48:02 So when the mood swings hit.

Joseph 00:45:48:04 00:45:51:08 He understood that he knew to bring chocolate home those days.

Michelle 00:45:51:08 00:46:17:27 Right. And when you’d mind when you brought chocolate home, everything was right with the world. And it was like, oh, yeah. So that probably been, you know, our biggest hurdle in terms of that. The other, you know, thing is, you know, schoolwork and school grades and, and the, the biggest hurdle there is getting you to believe in yourself.

Madison 00:46:17:27 00:46:24:15 Really. We’re not there yet. So we’re all we’re discussing that in a minute so we can hold off on that for that.

Michelle 00:46:24:15 00:46:48:02 But I think it’s just, you know, it’s been you know, there’s always that little hurdle that we have, but we talk things out. And I think that’s the biggest thing is that we talk about it and we communicate. And if it’s something I don’t want to talk about it now. Okay, We don’t talk about it now, but we’ll talk about it later and we talk things through.

Michelle 00:46:48:02 00:47:09:09 And sometimes it doesn’t make sense when we’re talking about it, but then it’s kind of like you have that epiphany of, Oh, okay, this kind of makes sense now. All right, I see your point or I don’t really believe what you’re saying, but it doesn’t make sense. Hopefully at some point I’ll I’ll believe you. You know that you say, you know what it is.

Michelle 00:47:09:09 00:47:24:09 And I think you you realize that we have your best interests at heart. We want you to succeed and and whatever we, you know, can do for you, we will.

Madison 00:47:24:11 00:47:54:10 All right. I think that’s, you know, solid that. Thanks. I’m sorry. I’m. I don’t know. I’m. I’m starting to lose it. Sorry. All right, so the last question we’ll go over for this segment, leaning towards you, Mr. Whalen. So, Whalen, do you feel instilling good behavior in kids is a more difficult task for certain parents?

Joseph 00:47:54:12 00:48:28:09 Yes, There are parents who don’t exhibit the behavior that they want their kids to exhibit. And when that happens, the parents come across as hypocrites. My parent, my father was that way. My father expected a certain level behavior. If you were out in public or if you were at home with family. And my father expected respect. He was big on demanding respect.

Joseph 00:48:28:11 00:49:06:16 And unfortunately, you can’t demand respect. Respect is something that’s earned. And the way that my father treated us was on a level several levels below where he treated perfect strangers. And as a result, there was a very little respect that I can have for. So when that sort of expectation is there and you as a parent can’t deliver on it yourself, it’s very difficult for that parent to dictate how you should behave.

Joseph 00:49:06:18 00:49:43:10 That’s why I think the most important lesson or lessons your parents teach you through their example if your parents are decent people, if they’re respectful, if they have pride in you and self-confidence in you, those things transferred down to you. Unfortunately, so do their negative traits. If your parents lack ambition or if they’re lazy or they’re disrespectful, or they insult people or they’re negative, those those traits transferred down to the kids as well.

Joseph 00:49:43:13 00:50:01:06 So I think a parent can’t the man or expect any more of their kid than they’re willing to do themselves because the kid’s not going to respect you at that point in time. And if anything, that’s going to cause your kids to rebelled against you. And that in and of itself is a lesson.

Madison 00:50:01:08 00:50:13:26 That is fair. I think that was a good way to end this. All right. So we will be back after a short break. And when we do, we’re going to be talking about looking after your kids educational needs.

Joseph 00:50:13:26 00:50:14:23 All righty.

Michelle 00:50:14:26 00:50:54:21 We’ll be right back. Insights into entertainment, a podcast series taking a deeper look into entertainment and media. Our husband and wife team of pop culture fanatics are exploring all things from music and movies to television and fandom. We’ll look at the interesting and obscure entertainment news of the week. We’ll talk about theme park and pop culture news. We’ll give you the latest and greatest on pop culture conventions.

Michelle 00:50:54:24 00:51:24:26 We’ll give you a deep dive into Disney, Star Wars and much more. Check out our video episodes at YouTube.com. Backslash Insights into things are audio. Episodes at podcast are insights into entertainment dot com or check us out on the web at insights into things icon.

Madison 00:51:24:28 00:51:50:09 Welcome back to Insights into Teens Today and perspectives on parenting. We’re looking at getting them ready and now we’re going to talk about looking after your kids educational needs. So to keep with the older mommy, the first question is for you. Okay, so what do you feel are some of the most important educational needs of a child.

Joseph 00:51:50:12 00:51:56:29 Reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Michelle 00:51:57:01 00:52:35:04 Making sure that they get a good education is probably the the biggest thing. Obviously, everybody learns differently. So you have to make sure that your child in an environment where they can excel, I think any child can excel. It just is a matter of are they being taught the right way because everybody learns different ways. So what works for one child might not work for another child.

Michelle 00:52:35:06 00:52:54:04 So I think that’s that’s a big thing is is knowing where your child’s limitations are, what do they excel in, what do they need help in, and to try and help them navigate that so that they can succeed.

Madison 00:52:54:07 00:52:57:17 All right. That’s fair. Want to comment on any of that?

Joseph 00:52:57:21 00:52:59:28 No, I think she’s spot on there.

Madison 00:53:00:00 00:53:14:09 All righty. Right. Next question is for you then. Should there be a line between what parents have to teach the kids and what they should learn in school? Something I feel like, you know, is kind of put in question a lot in the modern day, so.

Joseph 00:53:14:12 00:53:47:21 Well, absolutely. And I and I think my take on it is parents should teach their kids wisdom and schools should teach the kids knowledge. So you learn book knowledge and your math, your sciences, your languages, all that comes from school. And I’m perfectly fine with that. How do you use that? Know how to use that knowledge is what is wisdom, right?

Joseph 00:53:47:21 00:54:18:26 So your parents teach you that. How do you how to utilize his the abilities that you gain from school when they utilize them and how best to put them to use that benefits society. That’s what your parents should be teaching you to do. I think schools can’t do that and schools can’t do that because schools job is not to do that.

Joseph 00:54:18:28 00:54:59:09 Schools job is to don’t knowledge in to you, teach you the subjects. And when schools try to teach you the moral side of those things, that’s where they run into problems. Because schools are or are institutions of the state and the state itself is, by its very nature, biased. I think parents who it’s their responsibility to praise productive members of society should be the ones that are teaching their kids how to use that knowledge and how to interact in society.

Joseph 00:54:59:12 00:55:39:28 While schools can maintain the control that knowledge and teaching of that knowledge with the oversight of parents, parents should have control over the knowledge that you get. You know, you should. Parents shouldn’t abdicate teaching kids about history. And I’m talking real history, not watered down history that make people uncomfortable. You know, history is history. And that’s what you should be taught, even if some of the subjects may be sensitive or uncomfortable or may not hold a certain light to individuals or institutions in this country, it history.

Joseph 00:55:40:00 00:56:01:24 And it’s worth learning. You know, your sciences of the same thing. Let the teach that the parents be the ones to teach kids the intricacies of how that knowledge is then used for the betterment of society and keep the schools out of the raising of the kids. They should be the teaching, the kids.

Madison 00:56:01:26 00:56:25:07 All right. I definitely think that’s fair. So this question kind of goes along with that. And despite that, we haven’t gotten entirely your opinion on the full matter. I still think it would be good to get part of your perspective on this, Mommy. So due to more neglectful or restrictive parenting, should schools be required to teach a bit more about sensitive topics?

Michelle 00:56:25:09 00:57:05:00 Well, I think well, I don’t think it’s the school’s responsibility. It’s someone’s responsibility. And I think that’s where you kind of have to, you know, let let the school kind of gauge where, you know, something might be lacking and where, you know, a teacher should reach out to the parent saying, hey, did you know such and such was going on with your child?

Michelle 00:57:05:00 00:57:36:24 Because in some cases, the parent might not know because, you know, maybe when the child is at home, they act, you know, one way. But yet when they go to school, they’re a completely different person. And especially if it’s a bad behavior or something along those lines. So you again, they’re going to school to to learn and to to get that knowledge.

Michelle 00:57:36:29 00:58:08:12 But again, like I had said, kids are in school far more hours than they are at home, you know, during the week, you know, And then, of course, if you have parents are are divorced, where then their time is even more split between, you know, different parents or whatever their the parent’s work schedule might be. So I don’t want to say that, you know, the school needs to be surrogate parents.

Michelle 00:58:08:12 00:58:35:06 But again, it’s a cooperative between, you know, the school or whatever education or if it’s a club or something that, you know, a child is involved with. Hopefully there’s some sort of advisor that is seeing something that maybe the parents not seeing, that they can at least bring it to the parents attention and say, hey, listen, we realized, you know, this is going on.

Michelle 00:58:35:06 00:58:47:04 Did you even know about it? Do you even, you know, realize that this is an issue and kind of go go from there?

Madison 00:58:47:06 00:58:59:00 That’s fair. All right. Turning it over to you, Mr. Will, and do teens educational needs include more than just academics?

Joseph 00:58:59:03 00:59:30:23 Oh, absolutely. And I think we’ve we touched on, I think one of the most significant aspects of this when we talked about socializing and social skills in the in the first segment, socializing isn’t something that’s in the book, right? You don’t you don’t take a course on how to be social. Social interactions happen a byproduct of being in a school with multiple kids and adults.

Joseph 00:59:30:23 01:00:01:23 Who are your teachers or your counselors or stuff. So there’s more that happens. There’s more information and knowledge that’s imbued on you than is what’s in the textbooks. So, yes, I absolutely agree with that. And you can take that a step past that to nutrition and physical education and the, you know, the basic health understandings, you know, learning your information to to learn to drive, you know, stuff like that.

Joseph 01:00:01:23 01:00:37:25 There’s there’s so much that happens in school that’s not just academic related. That’s important for kids growth. Creativity is another one. You know, even though it’s considered an academic activity, your ability to express yourself creatively is something that’s nurtured in school. That’s really not an academic. You don’t get graded on whether or not you can draw on a pretty picture or not, but your ability to express yourself through that way is something that’s nurtured in school as well.

Joseph 01:00:37:25 01:00:41:04 So definitely more than just academics.

Madison 01:00:41:06 01:00:54:16 All right. We’ll move the next question to you, Mommy. So what topics do you feel schools need to prioritize more or add to get kids ready for the real world?

Michelle 01:00:54:18 01:01:26:25 Well, I think now, you know, a class that you’ll actually have later this this year, your personal finance class, that was something that we never had in a high school, really. I think unless you were a business major or, you know, taking business classes, how do you even balance a checkbook? How do I pay bills? How do I, you know, get car insurance?

Michelle 01:01:26:25 01:01:56:26 These are things that, you know, you’re going to need to learn how to do. I’m kind of, you know, the one one thing I kind of wish you did have was I know when I was in middle school and we started having these electives and things, homework was one of them. It was basic cooking, basics, sewing. We also did woodshop and other things.

Michelle 01:01:56:29 01:02:31:24 So you kind of got a little taste of that. And that was something where now if you wanted to take a cooking class, you could. But with all of your other classes that you you have, you know, for engineering and stuff, you don’t have that space available. But I think something like that should be something that that’s taught just basic, you know, everyday survival of, you know, how to do laundry and things like that.

Michelle 01:02:31:29 01:02:54:28 Not necessarily that it needs to be a class because again, that should be something that, you know, that’s done at home. But I think if your parents are ones that like to cook or know how to cook, I think if you were in an environment with your friends on how to cook, you’d have more fun learning it where, you know, there are some people that that have fun cooking with their family.

Michelle 01:02:55:04 01:03:32:21 If their family likes to cook, there are some you families that don’t like to cook or have relatives that do cook. So I think that would be something I’m surprised they’ve gotten away from that and added all these other things because the other thing too is while it’s great that you can end up graduating high school and have all of these college credits, there are some kids that, you know, end up having like double majors in high school now where they’re graduate ing high school already with an associate’s.

Michelle 01:03:32:23 01:04:05:24 And it’s like, okay, so now what do you do? You’re you’re still only 18 years old. You still have a lot of learning to to still do what’s that piece of paper going to do? Are you really ready for the the real world? Maybe you are. Maybe you’re not. So I think in some cases there’s more pressure on kids your age than when, you know, Daddy and I went to school.

Michelle 01:04:05:27 01:04:33:06 But but yet I think also you guys have more advantages because there’s more information out there. But I think in a lot of cases, it’s almost information overload, too. So it’s kind of like a double edged sword where you have it better in some cases. But I think you’re kind of lacking in others because there’s so much more out there to do.

Michelle 01:04:33:07 01:04:57:06 You know, like some of the classes you’re taking are things that I took I couldn’t take until college. And it’s funny because I remember having this same conversation with my parents when I was in eighth grade and what I was learning. They didn’t learn until college as well. And I was actually using their college textbook to help me with a rapport.

Michelle 01:04:57:09 01:05:22:25 So it’s, you know, I get to now see that kind of full circle of, oh, well, back in my day, I didn’t do that until I went to college or I went to a trade school and now it’s, Oh, I’m doing that in seventh grade. So yeah. So I think that’s kind of where, you know, again, double edged sword.

Michelle 01:05:22:25 01:05:34:04 I think there’s a lot that should be taught, but then there’s a lot that you’re being taught that somebody would have had to go to college for.

Madison 01:05:34:06 01:05:41:13 So fair enough. All right. Now we get to the college question also.

Michelle 01:05:41:15 01:05:45:05 Don’t turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn.

Madison 01:05:45:11 01:05:51:08 Sorry. All right. First of them goes to you, Daddy, should parents.

Joseph 01:05:51:10 01:05:54:07 Well, I’m going to everybody, end of the.

Madison 01:05:54:09 01:05:58:15 So should parents be the ones fully responsible for sending their kids to college?

Joseph 01:05:58:18 01:06:02:11 Absolutely not. Somebody else should pay for it.

Madison 01:06:02:13 01:06:04:17 And if so, who? Huh?

Michelle 01:06:04:19 01:06:06:06 Please write us a check now.

Joseph 01:06:06:06 01:06:27:27 And you know what? It’s funny. I was thinking about this question that the college boards agree, and that’s why the college boards just look at your academic transcript. They look at the clubs that you’re in. They look at the charity work that you do. They look at they look at who you are. They try to look at who you are as a person.

Joseph 01:06:27:27 01:07:01:17 They look at personality, they look at it everything. And the person that you become isn’t the person that you are on your test score sheets, on your on your CV or CV CV. It’s the person who is in that afterschool club or the person who volunteers at the soup kitchen or at the animal shelter. These are all the various different things that help you get to college and put you through college.

Joseph 01:07:01:19 01:07:33:24 Now that’s just talking about the personality and the the morality, the the, the character development side of things. But outside of that, from a financial standpoint, there’s tons of different things that you that can help you financially get through college and get to college or the parents shouldn’t think that the burden is all on their own to send you to college, keep you in college and buy your books and all that.

Joseph 01:07:33:24 01:07:58:11 There’s a lot of help that’s out there, and a lot of that comes from you, too. A lot of it comes from your academic achievements. You know, the the higher you score on on your academic efforts, the easier it is to get financial aid. So you’re helping to pay part of your college just from your performance. It’s not just the parents.

Joseph 01:07:58:14 01:08:31:05 I think the parents have a large role in it. I think I look at it from a from a strictly dollars and cents standpoint. If you look at it that way, it’s an investment. Your parent’s getting you to college and getting you through college is an investment for your future. And if there’s one thing that parents want for their kids, it’s for them to be successful in whatever you do, whatever you choose to go to college for, whatever you choose to do in life afterwards, you can choose not to go to college.

Joseph 01:08:31:07 01:09:01:05 Mommy and daddy want you to be successful, and we want you to be happy. And, you know, success lends itself to happiness. So it’s an investment there, but it’s also the community who helped to build you into that person that makes you successful. We can’t take credit for it. The majority of the effort comes from your father, but there’s a lot of guidance.

Joseph 01:09:01:05 01:09:27:22 There’s a lot of help along the way. Some of that comes from friends. It comes from your your peers. It comes from mentors that you’re going to be associated with. You know, you’re taking a trip to Japan that to Japan. Very few kids are going to take that trip before they get out of high school. You’re going to learn a ton, not just about Japan, but about life you’re going to learn about travel.

Joseph 01:09:27:22 01:09:53:06 You’re going to learn about finance. You’ve already learned about finance because you’ve had to finance a portion of that trip. All these things are what get you to college. And I’m not just talking financially, I’m talking knowledge wise. And these are things that are going to serve you through college and after college, through life. So now it’s not just the parents.

Joseph 01:09:53:08 01:10:00:25 There’s a lot of factors that go into your success moving forward, not the least of which is your own.

Madison 01:10:00:27 01:10:05:12 All right. Fair enough. You get the big one, Mommy.

Michelle 01:10:05:14 01:10:06:22 No, boy.

Madison 01:10:06:25 01:10:23:15 So let’s get this one out of the way is covered. It’s cut. And I’m already it grade. Is college inherently necessary for someone to live a successful life?

Michelle 01:10:23:18 01:10:26:22 No.

Joseph 01:10:26:24 01:10:28:10 Okay, We’ve been along.

Madison 01:10:28:13 01:10:30:00 Hey.

Michelle 01:10:30:02 01:11:01:28 College is not for everybody that it’s while it’s, you know, again, back in the day, you had the people that went to college and the people that didn’t. And depending on what your test were, you were either college prep or you weren’t. That was how it was back. You know, when when I was in school, depending on what your grades were.

Michelle 01:11:02:05 01:11:26:29 Oh, you’re going to college. Okay. Or okay. So if you’re not going to college, then what are you doing? Are you going into the military or are you going and working at the gas station? It was, you know, almost like an insult to the person that didn’t go to college. And and sometimes the person wasn’t going to college because of financial reasons.

Michelle 01:11:26:29 01:11:52:21 B, because it was just too expensive to to do that. So if you have to want to do it, you know, there are kids that their parents tell them you’re going to college whether you like it or not, and then that kid ends up in college for ten years because they go to school and they don’t know what they want to major in.

Michelle 01:11:52:21 01:12:26:27 So they major in one thing and they do that for a couple of years and they don’t like that and they move on to something else. And you get that professional student where they just keep getting more and more degrees because they don’t want to go into the real world. They just rather stay. I think nowadays there’s so many technical schools out there are where that might be better suited for, you know, for a student or for for a child to go into that aspect.

Michelle 01:12:26:27 01:12:48:08 You have to do what you want to do. If it’s something where you want to be in the medical field, you want to to work in that, then you have to go to college. Unless you want to be a medical tech. Then you would go to, you know, a technical school that deals with that. You know, you want to be a lawyer.

Michelle 01:12:48:08 01:13:10:14 Well, you have to go to law school, then you have to go to college. You know, depending on what it is that you want to do, then there’s a certain path that you have to follow. If it’s something where you’re not sure, should you still go to college? Well, maybe. Maybe that’s where you decide to kind of stay more local.

Michelle 01:13:10:16 01:13:47:01 Maybe you decide to go for an associate’s degree where you go to a community college and kind of test the waters and see what it is that that you like. And and that’s where I think nowadays high school has kind of become almost that precursor to to having these choice schools and having these academies or these majors that you can have in in high school where you can kind of test the waters and see, ooh, do I want to do a career in music?

Michelle 01:13:47:01 01:13:55:28 Do I want to do a career in nursing? Do I want to do a career in business? So you start taking classes and you realize, Wow, I really hate this.

Joseph 01:13:56:03 01:13:57:24 Where do you want to do a career in truck driving?

Michelle 01:13:57:27 01:14:29:17 Where do you want to be a truck driver? That’s, you know, a noble career as well. You have to do what makes you comfortable. What? You know, like daddy said, what makes you happy, where you feel you’re going to be successful. And success is based on what you feel. You might only make, you know, $50,000 a year, but you’re completely happy where you could be making $100,000 a year and you’re completely miserable.

Michelle 01:14:29:17 01:14:58:28 It’s all a matter of perspective. So you have to do you know what makes you happy? Maybe working in that corporate environment makes you AB absolutely miserable. So you don’t want to do it. But you know, working in, you know, a clinic, you know, a veterinary clinic or something, you know, as a, as a, as a technician makes you happy.

Michelle 01:14:59:01 01:15:20:29 You’re not making as much money. But you’re happy. You go home at the end of the day, feeling fulfilled. That’s what you know. You have to figure out what will make you happy. What do you feel will be successful and what path do you need to get there? Is it college? Is it engineering? Is it music? Is it art?

Michelle 01:15:21:01 01:15:37:21 It computer science? What is it that that brings you? Joy That’s that’s really kind of the the main thing that you have to to look at and and then just kind of go from there.

Madison 01:15:37:24 01:15:42:13 All right. I’m not going to ask you if college is right for me. We’re not going to go down that path.

Michelle 01:15:42:13 01:16:12:16 Yes. You are going to college whether you like it or not. No, no. And we and no, seriously, we’ve we’ve had this discussion. We had, you know, kind of the precursor to this discussion when it came to National Honor Society. I’m just saying this is where we we talked about it. And you were very adamant that you didn’t want to do it.

Michelle 01:16:12:21 01:16:28:03 You probably could have gotten in if you had applied and you were asked to apply. You got the invitation to apply and you chose not to. That was your decision.

Joseph 01:16:28:06 01:16:31:24 We did negotiate at least two years of college.

Michelle 01:16:31:26 01:16:32:17 Right.

Joseph 01:16:32:20 01:16:33:03 Just for the.

Michelle 01:16:33:03 01:16:57:05 Record. Right. And we did say, you know, and that’s because we felt because of where your grades are, we know you’re going to get into a four year school. There’s there’s no question about it. And that’s the other thing, too, is nowadays there’s a college out there for everybody. Now, you can go.

Joseph 01:16:57:11 01:16:58:08 Even truck drivers.

Michelle 01:16:58:14 01:17:32:19 Yeah, I’m sure there is. I wouldn’t be surprised. You can go anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. And there is a college if you want to do a virtual school, there are tons of virtual schools out there, so you never want to set foot on a campus somewhere. You still have the ability to take classes and get a degree because again, the world has changed in the last 1015 years and it’s so much more accessible to to do that.

Michelle 01:17:32:21 01:18:04:20 You know, if it’s something where we start visiting colleges and there’s nothing that sparks any sort of joy in you where you’re like, nope, nope, nope, nope, we’re not going to force you to go to Pennsylvania, to go to North Jersey, to go to Delaware, or to go to Virginia, to go to Florida, you know, for school. That’s where we had said, well, then stay local and at least get that associate’s degree and then let’s see where you are.

Michelle 01:18:04:25 01:18:42:27 So this way you can you know what? I tried it. I did it. You know what we always said growing up? At least try something once. And if you don’t like it, you never have to do it again. And that’s kind of where we’ve kind of decided, you know, with college and and that might be a conversation other kids need to have with their parents because their parents might be setting these grand expectations for their kids when if they just actually sat and had the conversation with their child, they’d realize, that’s not what I want to go and do.

Michelle 01:18:42:27 01:18:53:17 I want to do this. And then, you know, if it everybody’s happy that way. All righty.

Joseph 01:18:53:20 01:19:00:04 All righty. You look very happy now.

Madison 01:19:00:07 01:19:17:28 Okay. Hopefully this one will be this is the last question we’ve got. And honestly, I think it’s it’s set up right for you to answer it. So personal one again, how do you help provide me with my educational needs?

Joseph 01:19:18:00 01:19:20:10 I do absolutely nothing.

Madison 01:19:20:12 01:19:21:18 And like it and.

Joseph 01:19:21:18 01:19:42:18 Like it. No encouragement. And I think that’s the biggest thing. Be there for your kids. We study a lot. We try to find the best study technique that works for you, and we’ll try one way. If you don’t get the scores you want, we’ll try a different way and, you know, try to get you excited and try to get you interested in things.

Joseph 01:19:42:18 01:20:05:00 I think when you’re interested in the subjects that you have and granted that period history that you’re doing right now, it’s very difficult to get interested in. You have to have some some some vested interest in it. And one of the things I try to do is make it interesting, make it fun. You know, we we study for your we try to make that fun.

Joseph 01:20:05:00 01:20:18:15 You know, I’ll find videos that that show a little bit extra or give you a little bit more background on some of the historic stuff that we do. I won’t touch math with a ten foot pole, though. That’s not my area of expertise. So that’s all you.

Madison 01:20:18:18 01:20:20:03 We figured that out.

Joseph 01:20:20:05 01:20:49:20 Yeah. I mean, what I do try to make it interesting. I try to keep you, you know, focused on it. I try to not make it a grind. And I think a lot of kids run into the situation where the school can be a grind. It gets boring. It’s topics you don’t want to talk about. And I think if parents can come peek their kids interest can first of all notice that the kids are zoning out or that they’re not interested in what they’re talking about and encourage your kids.

Joseph 01:20:49:20 01:21:10:09 I think that’s the biggest thing. You know, my my parents are very hands off when it came to school, unless they brought home bad grades and then they yelled at me. And I think that’s the wrong approach. The parents need to get involved with their kids before there’s a need to yell at them. Because if there’s a need to yell at your kids, it’s probably because you haven’t been involved with them.

Joseph 01:21:10:12 01:21:18:22 So get involved with them, Encourage them and try to make it a little bit more entertaining. That’s all I got.

Madison 01:21:18:25 01:21:28:18 All right. That’s fair that’s all we had for today. So did you want to do a quick break and then we’ll come back with closing remarks and.

Joseph 01:21:28:20 01:21:36:16 You got it. Here we go.

Madison 01:21:36:18 01:21:55:26 All right. So this was the end of our supposed to be one episode segment on, you know, top challenges Parenting over estimated how long the answers were specifically.

Joseph 01:21:55:26 01:22:00:06 But parenting is really hard. We had to go through a number of, say, a number of episodes.

Madison 01:22:00:09 01:22:21:21 But, hey, you know, I think got the most out of it because, you know, we were still able to get to everything. So now we can get into some of the more interesting topics outside of this for our next ones, although that’s going to be obviously a while from here. All right. But thank you both for joining me.

Joseph 01:22:21:24 01:22:23:12 Thank you for having me, too.

Madison 01:22:23:14 01:22:24:07 No problem.

Joseph 01:22:24:08 01:22:27:16 Now that I know that I know my 12 names.

Madison 01:22:27:18 01:22:58:23 Yeah, that was fun. So, you know, thank you for joining us. And before we go completely, I’d like to give us a bit of a start. Our show plugs. So when it comes to our subscriptions, you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and really anywhere you can get a podcast, you can email us a comment and insights into things XCOM or on Twitter or X, whatever.

Madison 01:22:58:24 01:23:30:13 You really go by at this point, at Insights underscore things. We have High Rez, the videos on YouTube at YouTube.com Insights and the things we stream five days a week on Twitch at towards dark TV slash insights and the things you can find audio versions of this podcast listen as podcast insights into TRANSCOM. We’re on Facebook at Facebook.com slash Insights into Things podcast.

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Joseph 01:23:41:26 01:23:43:19 It that’s it. Another one of the books.

Madison 01:23:43:19 01:23:44:12 By everyone.

Joseph 01:23:44:12 01:23:44:28 By.