013: How to Help Your Kids Make Good Decisions
Listen On:
Show Notes
In this episode, we dive deep into how to guide your kids toward making good decisions. Join me and life coach, Entrice Rowe, as she shares expert advice on nurturing your child's decision-making skills, and the foundation needed for learning to make good choices. We discuss how to not overstep when letting your kids have some autonomy, what to do when you need to intervene, and how to model good decision-making for your children. Entrice also shares advice on how to help your children make decisions from a Christian faith perspective, keeping God first and following Biblical principles. Tune in to discover how you can help shape your child's future through thoughtful guidance and support.
Key points:
Understand your own values and what's important
Establish foundational principles for your family, and share them with your kids
As your kids get older, bring them into the decision-making process
See what your children's strengths, weaknesses and personality are so you can tailor your support to each one individually
Start giving your kids choices when they're little so they can start to learn to make decisions — and leave some margin in your schedule to allow time for that
If you have a child who tends to make poor choices, then give them limited options to choose from that you select and would be happy with
Model for your kids that you are all on a team and need to work together. It's not just mom and dad's house. Giving kids agency and responsibilities within the home helps them take ownership and make good decisions
You make time for the important things — teaching life skills
When facing a situation where your child doesn't agree with your stance on something and your boundary — it all comes back to what you value as a family
If you want your children to honor and respect you, it starts with first honoring and respecting them. Show them you trust them.
Practicing making good choices starts at home
When your children make poor choices, you have to listen and not judge, to keep the communication open
Links Mentioned:
Decision Compass for setting the foundation for your decisions: www.anchoreddecisions.com/compass
Entrice's Instagram: www.instagram.com/entrice_rowe
Entrice's website: entricerowe.com
Entrice's Book "You Are Equipped: How to Do the Hard Things with Grace, Love, and Grit"
I AM MOM — free online "Momference" registration: anchoreddecisions.com/iammom
About Entrice:
Entrice is a certified life coach with years of experience in helping women transform their mindset from fear to faith. In addition to being a life coach, entrice is a writer, speaker, and author of forthcoming book, You Are Equipped: how you can do the hard things with grace, love, and grit. Entrice and her husband have four kids and reside in Jacksonville, Florida, where they enjoy serving their community and their local church.
Connect with me on social media:
www.instagram.com/anchoreddecisions
www.facebook.com/anchoreddecisions
Check out my website and decision guide shop:
www.anchoreddecisions.com
www.anchoreddecisions.com/shop
*Note: Some links might be affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission from the referral purchase at no extra expense to you. I only promote items I trust and believe in. Clicking these links helps support my show.
Transcript
Lauren
Hello and happy mother's day weekend, almost, to all my mama's out there. This episode is for parents. Originally, I was going to say for moms, but I realized that the dads out there could definitely use this as well. So if you are a parent, this episode's for you. If you are not a parent, then feel free to skip it or pass it along to a friend of yours that is a parent and could use some wisdom in how to help guide your kids in making good decisions.
I have a special guest on today Entrice Rowe, who is a life coach, an old friend of mine, and she shares so much wisdom. When we finished recording this I was just blown away. I wish I could have kept talking with her for hours just gleaning all of her parenting advice and wisdom.
Now This episode is all about helping your children who are still under your household to make good decisions. Next week, I have a guest for you on how to help your adult children make decisions. So I know I have some listeners with adult children, though most of my audience has younger children, but I still wanted to hit on it, especially because there are things we can do to prepare ourselves for when we get to that stage. And also we, as the adult children to older parents, can have things that we can learn from just hearing some of the struggles our parents are going through when they are trying to give us advice. And so how can we be open to listening to them?
But we'll save that for next week. So for now, tune into how to help guide your children to make good decisions with Entrice Rowe.
Intro: Welcome to the Anchored Decision Show. I'm your host, Lauren Black, the world's biggest overthinker turned decision coach, all by the grace of God. Now I'm on a mission to help you make easier decisions, discover God's will, and live with purpose. Tune in weekly to hear real life decision stories, expert insights, and faith based strategies to help you navigate your decisions with confidence. So ditch your pros and cons list and learn to make better decisions without asking your mom or losing another night of sleep. Let's go.
All right. So we are back with this special Mother's Day episode, and I am really excited for our guest Entrice Rowe. Entrice and I met in 2017 at a conference and she was one of the business coaches that helped people in this business conference for Christian business women. So Entrice is a certified life coach with years of experience in helping women transform their mindset from fear to faith. In addition to being a life coach, entrice is a writer, speaker, and author of forthcoming book, You Are Equipped: how you can do the hard things with grace, love, and grit. Entrice and her husband have four kids and reside in Jacksonville, Florida, where they enjoy serving their community and their local church.
So welcome Entrice.
Entrice
Thank you. So glad to be here with you today, Lauren.
Lauren
Yeah, I'm so glad to reconnect. Now tell us a little bit about your kids, kind of what activities they're into, what ages they are and all of that.
Entrice
So we are in a very, very busy season with the kids. My oldest is a junior in high school, so he's 17. And then I have a 15 year old that's a freshman that actually just got her learner's permit. So we're getting ready to have two drivers in the house soon. And then I have twins that are 12 years old and they are in sixth grade and all the kids are in sports and then both of my older children play piano and, so we have a very, very, very active household.
Lauren
Yes, I can imagine you've got a lot of chaotic nights of trying to figure out dinner between sports practices and piano practice and all that.
Entrice
Yes, yes. I'm like, they keep us on the move and what is what's happening next? What's happening next? It's fun though. We enjoy it.
Lauren
Yeah. Yeah. I bet. All right, so I wanted to talk to Entrice about how to help your children make good decisions and with her life coach background, and then just her experience with four amazing kids I just wanted to really dive into this topic. And now we planned this last minute. I had the idea for this on a Thursday, posted to Facebook, looking for someone. She responded and today's Friday when we're recording this. So, we didn't really prepare ahead of time. So this is just going to be kind of a fun conversation back and forth. I did write some questions ahead of time, but Entrice has not had time to prepare. So I'm excited to just glean your wisdom here, which I'm sure you just have so much of it, so you don't even need to be prepared.
So what are some foundational principles that we could start off with? Especially when like my kids are three and almost six, so they're young. So what could we do when you're speaking to someone with younger kids that sets that foundation for helping your kids make good decisions?
Entrice
I think it always starts with us first as parents. Anytime I'm working through any life lesson with my child, it's probably a lesson that I need to learn as well, in more depth. That's what I've come to learn over all these years. So typically it starts with understanding you as a mom, like what you value, what's important to you and when you have established what's important to you, what your core values are for yourself and maybe even your spouse.
We did this activity a long time ago when our kids were really small. We started establishing that framework for our family, just having some foundational principles that we live by as a family. And that I feel like it really secures you as a mother, gives you like an anchoring in terms of how you're going to navigate when it comes time to make decisions. And then, from there you get to practice.
Lauren
Right. So do you share those values with your kids, even when they're young?
Entrice
Yes. So you, you know, you keep it on a level always that they understand at each different stage of their development. But even as I process like core values, and that's something that I work with, with clients, like really getting them to understand everything we do really stems from what we value, how we relate to people, all of that.
It stems from what we value. And so, I think back to even as a kid for myself, some of the things that my parents instilled in me are still principles that I uphold today in my life. An example of that being truth was a foundational core value in the home that I grew up in and so it's something that's carried over into the home that I have with my family and my children. So yes, so you just you know, you have the one worders when they're little and the conversations get deeper as they get bigger. But when they're little it's just really getting them to understand those foundational principles on their their level.
Lauren
Yeah, I love that. I actually, I have a freebie called my decision compass that helps people to do just that of set your values and your non negotiables, your boundaries. And so it'd be awesome if people wanted to go through that with their spouse and then share some of those with their kids. So just a shameless plug to go grab that at, anchoreddecisions.com/compass, but yeah, I love that to start with that and, I guess I haven't always thought about sharing some of those things with my kids and I know sometimes they pick up on it just out of the way we live.
So we, for spring break made a last minute decision to drop everything and go up and visit some of Josh's family because family is a thing that we value in our family. And so we had to explain to the kids like, Oh, sorry, you can't go to, there was a birthday party that my son was invited to over spring break, and, we had plans to go to a water park and things like that. And we had to drop that in order to go see family, but that was the more important thing for us.
Entrice
Yes. And I think, as they get older, you bring them into that decision making process, because that's how they get to learn how to make, you know, decisions. But when mine were little, I can remember distinctly one of my kids, I could tell , It felt like decision making remorse. She would make a decision and then she'd be like and it often happened when she'd want to buy something, you know, and then she'd get it and then it'd be like, okay, I don't know if I really wanted that, you know, so it's also looking at their little personalities and how they're wired and just really honing in on what you see as their strengths and their weaknesses.
And like I said, taking opportunities to have conversations with them to figure out how you can help strengthen them in those areas.
Lauren
Yeah. I love that to think about their individual personalities because some might just have the tendency to make better decisions and some might want to make less good decisions or they might, yeah, kind of regret some of their decisions. I know my five year old does that as well a lot of times and he'll, he'll change his mind sometimes after it's too late. I tell him like, Hey, that was your choice. You made up your mind and now we can't go back. So, and I guess it's better to learn it over like buying a $5 toy or something small than, you know, a major decision down the line.
Entrice
Yes.
Lauren
So how can parents strike a balance between helping kids to be able to have the autonomy to make their own decisions and then also providing guidance in their decisions?
Entrice
Again, I go back again to when my kids were small, like when you build a foundation for this, it becomes a lot easier as they get older. So when they're little, and if you haven't started when they're little, you can jump in whenever, but when they're little, if you take the little decisions that they have to make, right?
Like, I think sometimes as parents, we want to own everything because it makes our life easier. But instead of trying to own everything and do everything for them, give them margin. I talk about giving margin, giving space, and that requires a little bit of work because, you know, you have to have some, some structure around that so that you don't feel frazzled, you know, because a lot of times we're making the decisions for them because we just want to keep moving. So, you have to kind of create some margin and space into your days so that they can be a part of their own process of learning how to do things. And so, when my kids were little, like I said, on the learning curve, I would create margin and opportunities for them to do things as simple as picking out their clothes, right? But this is not something we're doing on in the morning on a school day, you know? So if you would like to pick out your clothes and it's always giving them a choice, if you would like to pick out your clothes, it's something you have to do the night before. If you don't want to do it the night before, then mom's going to do it.
So then that still keeps you, I would say, in control of the situation, you know? So you still get some control there, but then they also feel like they have some control. Because if they really want to do what they're saying they want to do, then they have to take ownership and responsibility for what they're saying they want to do.
Lauren
Right. Now I'm going to play the devil's advocate a little bit. What if they do decide to pick something out and it's something that you really don't want them wearing to school the next day? Like maybe it's a Batman costume. You're like, that's not really school appropriate. How do you handle that when you've given them the chance to make their own decision, but now you kind of want them to change it.
Entrice
So, so again, at the end of the day, you're the parent, right? So I'm like, if you know your child tends to be that way, then school nights and mornings are not the opportunity for that. So you get to make those kinds of decisions on the weekend. So again, we're steering you in a direction where you get some agency and choice, but it's not going to mess up what we actually have to do.
And, you know, where we need to go and what we need to be doing. And you can even start with a child like that. Here are your two options. So you're not giving them that complete flexibility where they're all over the place. Here are the two options that you have. You can pick between A or B. Some kids need that amount of space to start with and other kids you can say, hey, you know, if you do it the night before, I'm fine with what you're gonna choose.
Like my daughter, my 15 year old, she's always just been that type of kid who is very just self motivated. She's got her stuff together. There's not a whole lot I have to do in her process, as she's been growing up even with her getting her learner's permit. I was like, why did you pay for your learner's permit? She was like, it's no problem. You know, cause she babysits. So she has a little bit of money of her own. I was like, you didn't have to do that. And she was like, Oh, I know. She was like, but I wanted to take it when I wanted to take it. So I was like, okay, you know, so, and yeah, and she makes good decisions, but you have other kids who like my oldest, he's still learning how to make decisions. So there's still a lot of help I have to give him along the way, but I try to, again, give him choices so that I'm not making the decision for him. And the conversation is always at the end of the day, this is your life, especially as they get older and, you have to be happy with those choices, you know, so mom and dad are not going to decide those things for you as you get older.
Lauren
Right, yeah. So what age do you think you started letting go of the choices a little more with your kids?
Entrice
Well, I think because I have four kids, honestly, and I realized pretty early on that I could not control everything, so I was going to have to give up control of something. Otherwise, it was going to drive me crazy, trying to micromanage all the different personalities, all the things that they wanted to do. There's no way I could do that and be sane.
So, it kind of naturally for me just was a thing where I was like, okay, I'm going to have to figure out how to make this work. I would say when the twins were probably about two is when I really started to get my kids in a place where they could feel confident about how the home environment flowed.
You know, and it's like, it's not just mom and dad's home. Like, that's another thing that we talk about as a family. This is our space, and so this is how we all work together. So, when you're on a team, everybody plays a role. Giving kids, again, agency and ownership is what helps them mature and make good decisions, you know, but we kind of stunt the decision making process when we do everything for them.
So, my kids have been pretty self sufficient since they were pretty, fairly little, in terms of being able to help with different tasks around the house. You know, they do their own laundry.
They have responsibility. When your Children have responsibility, it makes them feel confident and good about themselves.
Lauren
Right. Yeah. So how do you implement that as far as the responsibilities, like, do they get allowance for that? Or is it just kind of expected? Do you have a chart with a check it off? Like, how do you handle that?
Entrice
So, you know, it has ebb and flowed in terms of the allowance. These are talks we have all the time. We do family meetings and we do them generally about once a month. We sit down as a family and it's not super formal. It's just an opportunity for us to all sit down and talk. What I found, and it's sometimes quite hilarious, like, because they'll be holding on to something from another sibling where they need to get it out. And I'm like, you're still thinking about that that happened, you know, a few weeks ago. But it gives us an opportunity to sit down as a family and kind of just hash things out. For us as parents to tell them what we're seeing from them, areas of improvement we'd like to see in our home. Areas where they could pick up slack. And we also give them an opportunity to give us feedback as well. Again, ground rules have been set and we've been doing it for a while. And ground rules are really just honoring one another. No yelling at each other. You have to be kind with your words even if you're frustrated with somebody. And we take turns. So like I said, and sometimes we'll do it at a restaurant over food, you know, but it's just our way of checking in to see where everybody is and to make sure everyone's in a good spot. I think I, I kind of pivoted.
Lauren
I was personally just wanting to know what you did there. That was a selfish one off of mine. Like, I need to know how you handled chores.
Entrice
Yes. So, so age appropriate, right? So I've, I've often Googled what are age appropriate chores for the kids. And so based on what I have found on Google for age appropriate chores, you know, like at your kid's ages, they should be able to make their beds, they can put their dishes in the sink from the table.
So that's something that my kids did at that age. They can help unload the dishwasher. And they were not paid at that age. This is a part of again, part of being a family, you know? So these are things we help with because we're family. They can help bring groceries in from the car when you go grocery shopping. So these are just things that we do because we're family. We all live here and everybody has a need, and it's not fair for one person to shoulder all of the responsibility. So we work together as a family.
Now, as they've gotten older, we do have a few chores that they get paid for, and the way we have done it in our home, like I said, I have two boys and two girls, the girls work as partners and the boys work as partners. And I do it this way because I like to do a big kid with a little kid because, the little ones can't do everything the big ones can do and vice versa and having them work together again allows for them, that's like life, you know, like in life, you have to learn to work with other people. And so there was a season where my husband was like, well, I think, you know, they could probably get it done faster if they just each individually did it. I was like, they probably could. But that life skill of having to learn how to negotiate and be kind. Okay, well, maybe you could teach me something is lost when they do it individually. So, I think we have like, four chores that they can get paid for. One is kitchen, but it's like full cleaning of the kitchen, you know, where they're loading the dishwasher, wiping off the counters, cleaning out the sink, that sort of thing. Then taking care of the dog because they wanted a dog. Like, that is their responsibility. Making sure he's fed and making sure he gets to go out on walks and potty breaks. That is something that we pay them for. Taking out the trash. Collecting it around the house and then taking it out on trash day. That's a paid chore because that one does require, a little bit more labor. It's a little bit more labor intensive. So big chores like that. And then, my husband, he'll have like a list of chores with amounts that they can get paid for. And these are things that are not everyday chores. So cleaning out the refrigerator, the entire from top to bottom, pulling everything out, wiping things down, putting things back. Last time we did it, we all did it as a family. So, he did pay the kids, you know, and they thought it was fun because we work together as a team. So again, I'm like, it's creating those opportunities and some might say, how do you have time for that?
We make time for it because these are also life skills. It's not that we have like this crazy amount of time. Like, you know, but this is like, we're going to do this on a Friday evening. He was like, yes, we could be doing other things, but it's important to me for my kids to have these life skills, because I often think about, like, when you go off to college and you're a roommate, you want to be someone that somebody wants to live with, you know? And when you have a spouse one day, you want to be somebody that someone wants to live with.
So, you know, so just, I'm always thinking about where my kids are going, but not where they currently are. And that helps me to help them do the things they need to do.
Lauren
Yeah, definitely. So I, I'm beaming over here. I know people can't see it through the audio podcast, but I just feel like I could spend forever with you just glean all of this wisdom on how to raise my kids. I do want to pull it back to decision making, but that was awesome. So when it comes to decision making with your kids and helping them make good decisions, obviously we're Christians, so I would love to hear what you have done to instill a faith in your kids and help them make good decisions that are based off of biblical principles.
Entrice
Yeah, I love that question. So, yes, because for us, that's really the foundation of everything that we do in our home. It's very Jesus centered. I've told my kids since they were again really little. I'm like, I'm not with you always, but Jesus is. And not as like a scare tactic, because I've heard it, I've heard it say the other way, you know, where people tell their children that and then their children are a little bit afraid, you know, it's like, but no, like, I'm telling you that because that should be your comfort. That should be your strength. There will be times where you do have to make decisions where mom can't chime in and you need to go to Jesus and you need to hear from him as to what you're supposed to do .
So teaching them early how to pray and how to hear God's voice really is the foundation for that like, what is that voice on the inside? And teaching them the difference between their voice and hearing God's voice helps also with that decision making process. So when they're faced with a challenge or something, like my girls will often come to me with some things with friendships, right? And ask me my opinion. And so before I give my opinion, I'll ask them a few questions, about how they're feeling about the situation. And with my older daughter, what I tend to find is she just wants me to listen. She's not looking for my advice. She's going to make a decision. She just wants someone to listen as she processes. So giving them space to process and not feeling like you always have to jump in with advice even, gives them an opportunity to learn how to make decisions for themselves. And then when it comes to Jesus and having them at the center of their decisions, like I said, it's asking them, Hey, have you spent time with God processing that? When they're little it's praying with them. And showing them how God answers prayer, so there could be things that you're praying for as a family. There could be things they're praying for individually and as God answers their prayers. When my kids were little, I would like to show them like, see how God answered that particular prayer, and so then that builds faith inside of them for, Oh, God does hear me. I can talk to God. He is my friend. So that is really how we've gone about anchoring them in Christ in terms of their decision making and then reminding them of godly values, you know, the fruit of the spirit, was that kind, you know, was that done in love? So anchoring them in those biblical principles helps with their decision making process. Was there truth in that? Was there truth in love? Was their integrity? You know, in making that choice.
Entrice
Yeah, that's, that's awesome. I know one thing that I sometimes say with my kids during prayer time is God help us to choose what's right, even when it's hard. In today's day and age, I think even worse than when we grew up because of their social media and there's , just, I feel like kids are just meaner than they were back in our day.
I don't know, maybe, but I just feel like there's a lot of pressure to go with the flow and do what everyone else is doing. And, all these third graders asking for Stanley cups and, everybody wanting cell phones from elementary school. And to stand apart from that and say, we're going to be grounded in our faith and what's biblical. And even when it's hard, we need to stay grounded in that.
Entrice
Yeah, and that really comes from us as parents like as hard as it is and as much as we want to give to our kids. When my kids turned 12, they got cell phones because they were going off to a bigger campus when they went to seventh grade, my older two. And so, the cell phones stayed at home because they were still in sixth grade. They didn't need them for school. But I wanted them to get into a rhythm of using it before so it wasn't like this thing that they were constantly on in seventh grade. Well, I shifted the twins a year early. I moved them in sixth grade to the school that my older children were at. And so the plan was to stick with the plan. You're not getting the phone until 12. Until they got to that big campus and it's so different, because it's not like drop off and pick up at elementary school where the teacher walks them to the car. You know, they have their phone. free range of getting to the car on their own. So there are a couple of times in the beginning of the school year where I was late because I had other things going on. And with my older children, that was no problem, right? Because they're big, they know the drill and they have their phones. Well, the little kids, trying to stick with the plan of no cell phones. And I would text my daughter and she's like, Mom, like, I'm at practice. I'm not with them. So, I don't know, wherever you told them to be, hopefully they're there. And so she got in the car one day and she was like, I know you're trying to keep it fair and we didn't get phones till 12, but could you just get them phones? She was like, me having to keep up with them after school, it's not working, you know. So here's a decision, you know, like, am I gonna get them the phones or are we going to just stick to 12 because that's what we did before. Well we got them the phones.
Now here's where it got funny to me. So they get the phones and they were so excited. So they open up their phones and they're like, wait, it doesn't come with social media? And we were like, no. You're not getting social media. You know, so. And we stuck with that. So we're like, this is a parameter that we're setting for you. You have the phones. And this is the reason you have the phones. You have the phones so that we can access you. And so once they had the phones for a little while, they did ask for their first social media app. So we gave it to them again with parameters. But it's one app. And I do the phone checks, to check and see what's going on with those phones. But again, I just encourage families like don't be rigid in your process either, because you just have to go with the ebb and flows of life. And a lot of my parenting is about centered on not asking others, but God, what should I do in this moment? So it's really modeling my process of decision making is what anchors my kids and how they're going to make decisions. So they see me going to God. So that's what's modeled in the home. And so hopefully they will make the same choices, you know?
Lauren
Yeah, that's great. I think that's another argument for when you're doing your quiet time. I know a lot of times we want to do our prayer and Bible study in a quiet place away from our children, but at the same time, we want them to see us doing our Bible study. So for me, the kids know if they wake up early, they're going to find me in my Bible and doing prayer or on Saturday mornings when I sleep in a little bit, I give them show and I go do my Bible study and actually Austin's room, has a La-z-boy chair with this pretty lamp above it, so that's my favorite spot to do my devotion then. And they know that they, need to give mommy space and time to do that because it's important.
Entrice
Yeah. The Lord told me that years ago when my kids were little, he was like, don't ever close your door when you're spending time with me, because they need to see what that process looks like. And so I've always had that, that open door policy, and just bringing them in, like when God does something amazing in my life, I share it with my kids so that they can see the process that, I think sometimes again, as parents, we want our kids to see just one version of us, but I've learned to allow my kids again, you know, they don't see me raw, but they do see me in a way where it's like, Oh, mom has feelings, you know. Every day is not a great day for mom.
You know, my daughter said last night… my husband and I had to go to an event, this is my older daughter, and we came home with Chipotle and I was eating my dinner and I said, do you want some? And she said, no, I already had dinner. And she's like, why would you offer me your dinner? I said, because, I was like, this is something that you enjoy and so I thought I would just ask you if you wanted some. And she was like, oh, moms are so kind.
Lauren
Oh, I love that.
Entrice
She was like, I would not do that. And I was like. Hey, I was like, we love our kids. And so we're always going to give them our best, right? But with that being said, we also have to show them the realness of who we are, because that helps them become better people.
Lauren
Yeah. Now on the flip of that, when you go through a situation that your child doesn't like your stance on, and it's something that you've set a boundary that they're not happy with you, maybe it is a social media app that they really want that you've drawn the line and said, not that one. How do you handle that conversation and, help them understand that it's for their good.
Entrice
So again, you go back to your values. Like, does this align with what we value as a family? I often ask my kids, is this purposeful? You know, what's the purpose? Why are we doing this? So again, having those grounding principles in your life, a lot of times the reason why people are just all over the place is because they don't have that. They don't have the structure. They don't have the boundaries. My baby girl the other day, she was talking about, I like how you give us parameters is what she said, and she was like, we're not all over the place. And so that structure is very intentional. And I'm glad that they appreciate it. I think sometimes, you know, when we operate though in extremes, right, that's when sometimes you can have a tendency to not appreciate it. But that's another thing that I processed early on with the Lord in my, raising of kids. I was like, Lord, help me to never operate in extreme, you know, behavior. Like help me to have balanced behavior with my kids. I'm not saying I've perfected it or that it's always easy, but I think having an awareness of how I want to do it and where I want to be always leaves room for God to help me to navigate back to that place of center and balance and not being on the crazy ends, you know?
Lauren
Right. Yes.
I grew up with the little girl across the street from me was a year younger than me, and she had very, very strict parents that were like way overly strict, like the strictest that I had seen of all the friends I had hung out with and whatnot. And by about late middle school, high school, she started to rebel and just went off the deep end and went a little crazy and probably, I definitely blamed some of that on the parents being overly strict and it was too tight. It was too restrictive. It didn't give her any choices in things. And it took away from our friendship.
At one point we were in like, I was in third grade, she was in second grade and we used to have to tell her mom every room we were playing in, in her house. Mom, we're going in Ellie's room. Now, now we're going in the living room. Now, mom, we're going on the screened in back porch. And there was one time we forgot to tell her we went out in the backyard, which is fenced in and we didn't tell her. And I never got invited back again. And so there, she lost her friend all because of one little slip up that I wasn't used to. I, you know, it, it wasn't something that I was used to because my parents let, I'm one of five and I'm in the middle, and so like we could go outside if we wanted to, we didn't have a fenced in backyard, so it was sad to see that she was so restrained and then went a little crazy.
Entrice
Yeah. Yeah. You definitely have to talk to your children early on about trust, you know, and so we've had that conversation countless times, especially with my, my oldest because he drives, he has a car, and he has more access than the other kids on the phone, you know, all the things. He's a teenager, like a full teenager yeah at 17 years old. And so we're actually coming upon 18 soon where legally, he'll be able to make some choices, legally, but we're like, you're still living in our house, and you're under our roof. We pay your bills. So I don't know if we're going to go so much with legally, you know, but he honors and respects. But I believe the honor respects comes from the fact that we also respect him. This might be controversial to some parenting people, you know, but I'm like honor respect in my opinion flows both ways. You cannot ask your kids to just honor and respect you and not treat them in a way that honors their humanity. You know? 'cause at the end of the day, we're all people. And they're not on our level, but, the goal is to, in my opinion, have relationship with them when they leave my house, and relationship that they desire, not them feeling like, Oh, I have to call her. I have to see how she's doing. But no, I enjoy, you know, spending time with my mom and I want to talk to my mother.
Lauren
Yeah, yeah. I love that. So one more question. I would love to know if you have a story of when one of your kids either made a really good choice on their own or maybe made a not as good choice and how that was handled. Or if you have one of each example.
Entrice
I might have one of each, but I'll start with, you know, this one that really just kind of, I was like, wow, I was very impressed with my twin daughter. This particular school year, they go to an Episcopalian school, and around the Halloween season and people have again different views on all these things right around the Halloween season they have a haunted house. And to me, I'm like, that's interesting. You know, haunted house. Okay. And so she wanted to go in the haunted house but I was like, let's talk about that. Why do you want to go to the haunted house? And of course the main reason she wanted to go was because her friends were going. And so I was like, okay, well let's, let's just talk through that and let's, let's see what Jesus wants us to do. And so I did not tell her no. And I did not tell her yes at the end of our conversation. And I did not give her money to go to the haunted house. And so I thought that the haunted house actually got canceled because there was no more that I heard about it on the day of, it was on the day of a football game. So that evening we were all at the game and she didn't say anything about the haunted house. So I'm thinking, Oh, maybe it got canceled. Whew. And so that's actually not what happened. So the next day, Saturday morning, she and I are running errands and she says to me, she's like, mom, I did not go in the haunted house. And I was like, what? I thought it got canceled. She's like, no, it didn't get canceled. I was like, oh, I was like, you didn't go. I was like, well, tell me about it. And she said, well, I thought about our conversation and my friends asked me if I wanted to go. She was like, and they even offered to pay for me. And I was like, Oh, okay. And she said, so a couple of them went through the haunted house and they came out and they were telling me what was inside. And I was like, I don't think I should go in there. And so she said, this happened three times and they kept saying, we'll pay, just come with us. And she was like, no, I'm good.
And so, the next day she got a text from one of her friends who told her that she had nightmares. And so she was like, I am so glad I didn't go in and I told her I'll be praying for her. And so it just, I was just like, wow. Like I was super impressed. You know, she was 11 at the time is at the beginning of the school year that she, weighed the pros and cons of it all and made the decision for herself, felt confident about her decision and was not succumbed to peer pressure out of my presence.
I believe that comes from the freedom we give our children to say no, in our home. And not like willy nilly. Again, you are a child, so there are things that are required of you. However, the kids, we give them the ability to practice saying no.
I feel like this is so important in a home. Like if your kids don't have the ability to have agency and ownership of who they are, you can't expect that when they get out around their peers, they're going to be able to do that. So the practice starts at home while they're in the house with you.
So even when like they don't want to do something I asked them to, and I tell them it's okay to not want to do that, but here's why we're going to do it. So again, it's not taking away their no. It's just not fighting with them so much about the no. Like they're going to be things in life that you don't want to do but you have to do and that's different from saying no because someone's pressuring you to do something. So also explaining that difference to them. And sometimes they will say, well, I don't, you know, if I'm going somewhere and I would like them to come versus needing them to come and they say mom, I don't want to do that. Okay, you know, that's fine. I'm not going to pressure them to do it. Okay. Because again, I'm trying to model for them what it looks like to be able to say no and people not make you feel bad about the choices that you make. So, that was her making a good decision.
So, when it comes to decisions that probably are not so good, I have one of my kids, they took a picture of someone and they posted it on social media without the person's permission. Well, they got called into the office. And, they had to have a chat with one of the deans on campus about posting without permission. And, they got in a car and they told me this is what happened. Very forthcoming. They were like, there's nothing that you have to do, I learned my lesson. You know, they were a little bit, I think, embarrassed, that it had come to that, and very remorseful, like, I will not do that again. But I was like, do you see why that was not a good choice? And they were like, Yes, I definitely see why that was not a good choice.
So I think it's also not overreacting, you know, when they do make decisions that we don't necessarily agree with or that we don't think are right. Like, in the moment you have to save face, you have to save face, you know, like even if you have to come back to them later and have more of a conversation around why it wasn't a good choice. In the moment while they're telling you, like I said, as hard as it is, you just have to listen and not judge because that's what keeps the door open for communication. Because that particular kid could have just not told me what happened and I would not have been aware. But because in our family, with all the kids, we have a track record of not judging when they tell us things that feel hard for us to hear as parents, I feel like they feel very comfortable, all of them, coming to us with things.
Lauren
Yeah, yeah, you can tell that that child felt comfortable with you and they had their own remorse. They said, I don't even need punishment because I already feel bad enough myself. So I think you definitely are raising just awesome kids that I hope my kids can be like that one day. So I need to keep this episode in my back pocket and return to it often until it's like grounded in me because you've shared so much wisdom today.
So I really, really appreciate you coming on here and giving all this wisdom to us.
Entrice
Oh, yes, it's my, my honor. I love just sharing with parents and helping the things that I've learned along the journey that have been helpful for me sharing with others, just to make their load a little bit lighter.,
And I always say, I'm like, you know, you don't have to do it how I do it. You have to find your rhythm, what works for you, in your family. But that's what keeping it before the Lord will help you do. Find your rhythm.
Lauren
And as we talked about the beginning, each kid, their personality is different. So how you discipline is different, how you guide them in decisions is different.
I end all of my interviews with some rapid fire, quick decision questions. So let me know which you would choose:
Comedy or drama? Comedy.
City or country? City.
Sweet or savory? A hard one, but sweet.
Fiction or nonfiction? Nonfiction.
Singing or dancing. Singing.
All right, I figured that would be it since I know your kids are into piano. I feel like I've heard you sing on your social and it was awesome. Um, unless
Entrice
Oh no, not me.
Lauren
No, not you. Okay. Was it maybe one of your kids?
Entrice
My daughter, yes. Yes. No, it was my daughter. Yeah, my son played the piano. Yes.
Lauren
Yeah. Yeah, that was awesome.
All right. And now Entrice, tell everyone where they can find you online.
Entrice
You can find me on Instagram mainly at Entrice Rowe. And then, for coaching, my website is entricerowe.com. And then my book is on Amazon. You're equipped.
Lauren
Alright, great. And everybody can find that in the show notes at AnchoredDecisions.com/13 or wherever you are listening to your podcast. So thank you so much and have a great weekend and happy Mother's Day!
Entrice
Thank you. Yes. Happy Mother's Day.
Lauren
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Entrice about how to help guide your children to making good decisions. It all about setting that foundation and making sure communication is strong with your children, that they feel comfortable coming to you and you build that trust and that they feel you're trusting them. So they can start making decisions on their own, even when they're young and learn, what's a good choice and what's a bad choice and that you won't judge them when they make the poor choices, but help them to realize what they should do and why.
Now if you are a mom, I want to invite you to the 2024 I AM MOM, online conference. It's packed with 30 speakers, that you don't have to attend all of them, but it's just an online space where you can come and learn more things like this topics like this, that help you develop as a mom in your parenting, but also develop just as yourself and learn how to grow your faith, establish who you are in your purpose and your path. I will be speaking on setting your decision compass. So figuring out the lens from which you make your decisions so that you can pre decide things and make it easier, faster to make decisions and not have to spend all of your brain power on these decisions that you face daily.
So you can register for free at anchoreddecisions.com/iammom
Outro: Thank you so much for listening. If you're looking to make better decisions for you, found it on faith and your priorities, go grab my free decision compass. This will help you set the lens from which you make your decision to be sure you're making the best, most intentional decisions. Download it now at anchoreddecisions.com/compass. See you next week for another episode of the Anchored Decisions show.