TLP 33: Emotions and Parenting, Part 2

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Mom is a doormat dictator parent, Dad's a joker judge parent, and at the end of this unfortunate parenting debacle, the daughter's been sent to a room to formulate her own conclusions about life, which eventually result in her running away.

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Welcome to Truth. Love. Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents.

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Here's your host, A .M. Brewster. If that introduction left you confused and you're wondering who the doormat, dictator, joker, and judge parents are,

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I'd encourage you to listen to the two -part show called The Fifth Way to Parent. You'll find that study in episodes 26 and 27.

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They are two of our most popular shows because they define for us the only parenting style that genuinely glorifies

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God. Now, to today's topic of emotions and parenting. Let me say again that I really did enjoy the overall plot, humor, and the general themes of Pixar's movie

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Inside Out. From a psychological standpoint, the movie is filled with as many hilarious elements as Finding Nemo was.

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However, there is too far too rich a collection of truths here to let dissipate into the mist of a forgotten entertainment.

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Last time on part one, we discussed the nature of emotions. Their real purpose and practice is very different than with what our modern culture has indoctrinated us.

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If you haven't heard that episode yet, I suggest you do that first. But for those of you who are returning, my desire for part two is to just systematically explain how one of the scenes from the movie all too accurately depicts the modern

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American family. We want to observe just how much more deadly the reality is, of course, than the movie.

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And we want to discover God's plan for similar family conflicts that we may encounter in our own homes.

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But more on that in a minute. I want to thank you for listening and learning with us today. That's fantastic.

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But I hope you'll take the next step and subscribe on iTunes and then share this podcast with your friends. If you're really invested and thankful for Truth Love Parent, I'd invite you then to rate and review us on iTunes.

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Every opportunity you have to interact can help you be more intentional premeditated parent, and it can help other

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Christians parents be the same. Okay, so let's meet the players in this scene that we're going to dissect and take a few minutes to listen to their dinner conversation.

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In the movie, we're introduced to a painfully typical three -member family. I don't look down on families with only one child, of course.

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To be honest, I'm actually more surprised that the parents in this movie are still together, and this scene didn't occur with a single mom and her daughter.

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However, since having children has become a cultural accident, one generally worthy of eradication, it's not shocking to see families produce as few offspring as they can.

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So, in this movie, we have a mother, daughter, and father, and there's another set of cast members hiding in the wings, or actually better yet, kind of at the helm of each person's mind.

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If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. Each of the family members is controlled by five emotions living in their heads.

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Sadness, disgust, joy, anger, and fear are not only along for the ride, but they're the ones choosing how the family communicates and relates to one another.

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We're going to listen to this scene, and you'll recognize it if you've seen the movie, or even the trailers for it.

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The daughter, Riley, has just had a terrible first day at a new school, and everyone's sitting around the dinner table.

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It'll be hard to gather from the audio, but I'll fill you in about the parts that you can't see as we go. For example, the scene starts with Mom trying to find out how

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Riley's day was. Riley doesn't respond well, and Mom tries to silently encourage Dad to get involved, but he's too distracted by a sports rerun in his head to catch what's happening.

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Let's go ahead and take a listen. Even if you've seen it, it'll be very important for the incident to be fresh in your mind.

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So, how was the first day of school? It was fine, I guess. I don't know. Now we jump inside Mom's brain, and we hear her emotions saying this.

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Did you guys pick up on that? Sure did. Something's wrong. We're going to find out what's happening, but we'll need support.

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Signal the husband. Of course, Dad's not paying attention, because in his mind, he's rerunning this soccer game.

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Uh -oh, she's looking at us. What did she say? What? Oh, sorry, sir.

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No one was listening. Is it garbage night? Uh, we left the toilet seat up. What? What is it, woman? What?

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Signal him again. So, Mom kind of gives him the eye again, and he slowly comes to this realization of, oh,

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I see. We're supposed to be engaging our daughter. Right, gotcha. And what

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I'm going to do next is this. I'm going to actually edit down this interaction. I'm going to take out the voices of the emotions, okay?

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We're just going to hear the interaction between the family. And then when that's done, I'll give you some insight into some important things that kind of happened in their heads that we weren't able to listen to.

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How was school? School was great, all right? Riley, is everything okay? Riley, I do not like this new attitude.

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What is your problem? Just leave me alone. I don't know where this disrespectful attitude came from.

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Yeah, well, just shut up! That's it. Go to your room. Now, with the exception of the background music,

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I don't know about you, but I think I've heard way too much of that in my life. And to be honest,

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I don't want to sound like a pretentious snob when I say that watching this episode, even with all the cute little fuzzy emotions playing their roles and the little jokes, watching that, it didn't really make me laugh.

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It really broke my heart. So you have to realize that I've been working with hurting families for years now.

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And though the foibles of this animated family are meant to make us laugh, the reality is that many scarier and sadder behaviors grow out of so, quote unquote, tiny a seed.

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Looking at it from strictly a literary eye, the premise of the entire trailer rested firmly on a seething heap of cultural stereotypes.

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Let's break this down for a minute. OK, so first of all, mom is engaged in important childhood milestones, while dad's priorities have him watching reruns of sporting events.

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That's cliche. The prepubescent daughter exhibits this high school sized angst beyond her years when mom shows even the slightest interest in school.

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Mom's the only adult intelligent enough to realize there's a problem with Riley's very first response.

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And since dad's a present slash absentee father, mom's lapping him in her parental skills.

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Again, all of these cliches. Mom's motivating emotion. And you couldn't see this.

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I couldn't, excuse me, you couldn't hear this. But if you went back and you watched the video and definitely if you saw the movie, it's very interesting to note that mom's motivating emotion throughout the whole thing is sadness, whereas dad's is anger.

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And the daughter's is disgust and anger kind of doing most of the work. There's no joy around the dinner table at all.

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Of course, in the movie, this makes perfect sense because of what happened to Riley's joy and sadness.

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But in real life, this all seems to be way too accurate. And then we go on more stereotypes.

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The daughter's every response is uber emotional because she seems to hate the fact that people care to know what's going on in her life.

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And dad loses his cool to a child and feels the need to make a show to gain back the respect he thinks he's due.

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Dad responds with consequences and no love, finds success in having meted out punishment with no admonishment, and completely misses the fact that nothing good just happened.

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It's also interesting to note that the emotions that kind of initiated father's disciplinary response to his daughter were fear and disgust, taking orders from anger.

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Mom is all the while saddened and disgusted by the whole scenario. And not only does she validate her romantic fantasizing, which again, you couldn't hear what we just did, but there were two times, one at the beginning when dad was zoned out that mom's like, really?

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We gave up this Brazilian helicopter pilot for this guy sitting across the table for me? And then at the end, when he's completely messed up in the whole situation, she starts daydreaming about the

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Brazilian helicopter pilot, all like, oh, he's so cute. So she's validating her romantic fantasizing in light of his inability as a father.

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But the audience is supposed to think that this is cute, that this is funny. And just to prove my point that all of this is acceptable because our society says it is, imagine if dad had been the tuned -in parent.

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Well, that's weird. Imagine that mom was in left field. Oh, what? And then imagine if dad were the one fantasizing about some girl because his wife was inept.

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Yeah, it's not so funny anymore, is it? It's because our humor has been tuned and has been sensitized by our culture, not by reality.

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The reality is that mom is a doormat slash dictator parent. Dad's a joker judge parent.

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And at the end of this unfortunate parenting debacle, the daughter has been sent to a room to formulate her own conclusions about life, which eventually result in her running away.

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Wow. Now, when you take away the fuzzy emotions and you take away the soundtrack and you slap some real skin on these people, the picture isn't quite so enjoyable.

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In fact, likely this is all too familiar a scene in some of our homes. And these scenes don't leave us laughing.

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They don't leave us giggling. They leave us broken and hopeless. So what's the harm of a little family dysfunction?

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Entertainment has told us every family doesn't mean every situational comedy about families involves dysfunction. And we all have it, right?

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So, well, I mean, have you ever witnessed a tragedy, a real life -altering tragedy? Have you ever asked yourself, how did that happen?

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You saw the whole thing take place, but you're just not sure how everything spiraled downward so quickly. Well, as a family counselor and with the very unique job of being a professional parent, in a boy's home,

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I not only get to witness my fair share of destruction in my own family, my own little family of four, but I also get box tickets to the reality -bending choices of the people in my professional family.

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And there are very few destructive scenarios I haven't witnessed in the past 10 years of family counseling.

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And every time I sit down to analyze the cause of the explosion, when I ask myself, how did we get here?

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I always find three things. Number one, hurtful words and behaviors.

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Two, dominating emotions. And three, self -worship. Let's break each of these down so that we understand them.

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The first and easiest thing to see in these conflicts are the behaviors and to hear the words. And what happens when a seaside town gets in the way of a tsunami?

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Pretty much the same thing that happens when a child gets in the way of his parents' desires. It's just an avalanche. And yes,

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I know I'm mixing my weather -related metaphors, but whether it's a second -grade classroom, a high school locker room, the dinner table, or a bedroom,

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James chapter 4 tells us that conflict arises due to unfulfilled desires. We want something, we don't get it, so we lash out emotionally, and the conflict escalates the more

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I don't get what I want. The reason we yell or use unedifying words or use a silent treatment or passive -aggressive comments or physical positioning or we withhold shows of affection is that we've given our emotions the control of our responses.

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So when we kind of dig down through the scenario, we see the unkind words, we see the behaviors, but we have to go below that and see what's motivating those.

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And what's motivating those is number two, our dominating emotions. You may not have noticed it because, again, you couldn't see the trailer, but all of our human player's actions were eventually controlled by the same feeling.

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They each responded out of anger. The dad had anger sitting at the helm from the get -go.

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The daughter's anger wouldn't even listen to her fear of reprisal. Even mom succumbed. You couldn't see this either, but it was mom's anger that replayed the

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Brazilian helicopter fantasy. You see, what started as a simple family meal became a hothouse of anger.

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Well, why did this happen? Because like we saw last time, emotions are not the end -all. There's something underneath the emotions.

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Yes, they are a response to some type of a stimulus, but there's also something that our emotions are grounded in.

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And as we saw last time, that is our worldview, our belief system. Our negative behaviors grow out of some very ugly roots.

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And out of those negative emotions which ruled our poor choices, they also found their source and more tangled roots of our belief system.

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The ultimate answer to every uncontrolled emotional outbreak is this, and this is the third one, self -worship.

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The belief that what I want is more important than what God wants. Every single one of the negative behaviors and stereotypes listed before is the result of believing that my way is the best.

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See, dad's not mentally present because he has something better to do. Daughter doesn't want to be bothered because she believes she doesn't need her parents' input in her life.

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Mother gets to fantasize about a lost love because she believes her desires are more important than the stability of her marriage.

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Self -worship is the sole cause of every hurt relationship.

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If I find more pleasure in fulfilling my own desires, then the desires of others will inevitably be trampled on my way to perceived satisfaction.

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And of course, we know, in other people anyway, that this failure philosophy never works. If we all lived that way, our silent treatment will get in the way of our children and our spouse's dreams, and they won't like that any more than we do.

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And when no one seems to realize that I deserve my way, and I've run out of the quote -unquote respectable forms of aggression, and I refuse to acknowledge

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God's opinion on the matter, there's no other recourse than to shame or scare someone into submission.

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Of course, my reasoning for why you need to cater to me will never convince you to abandon your reasoning for why

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I need to cater to you. And we're all left in this emotion -soaked, slandering, accusing, yelling, crying, threatening, name -calling, throwing, hitting, and killing scenario.

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Almost every time behaviors like this occur in an otherwise normal family, you can be certain that at least one person has lost control of their emotions because they're basically calling

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God a liar. And that's what you'd expect in a world where everyone's emotions are inside out.

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So, in reverse, when my expectations are grounded in who I am instead of who

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God is, I will not be happy when people don't meet my expectations. And then my inappropriate feelings will embolden my sinful behavior, which grows out of my belief that I should get what

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I want. But here is the glorious just perfection of God's Word.

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See, when our families are engaged with the Word of God, then we see a dad, a mom, a brother, and a sister who all need to seek

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God's kingdom first. We need to love each other by working toward the best interest of the others.

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This biblical worldview accomplishes three things in me. Number one, I don't allow my desires to usurp yours.

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Number two, I don't hurt you to get my way because my way is at the bottom of my priority list.

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It's not something worth fighting for. Number three, I'm not ruled by my emotions. They will be ruled by God's truth.

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But in this scenario, I do need to say, it doesn't mean that I as dad am a pushover. Dad mustn't allow his daughter to be disrespectful.

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Not because it offends him, though. Not because he's not getting what he wants, you know, a respectful daughter. But because as an ambassador parent, he knows that it offends

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God. Dad will use God's truth with God's love to address the problem in God's way.

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When we worship God and take our God -given role of the fifth parent, we passionately work for his ends, in his power, for his reasons.

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That leaves no room for selfishness or pride. And that type of worldview never loses its temper.

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So let's rewrite this scene from a biblical perspective. Mom and dad and daughter are all engaged in the family.

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They're not daydreaming at the table. They're in some time in the course of conversation, in the unlikely chance that daughter hasn't already brought it up because of the open relationship she has with her parents.

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Mom asks her how her first day of school was. Now, regardless of whether it went well or not, daughter responds honestly and openly.

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Dad and mom then are able to help her interpret her day in the light of God's word. Relationships are strengthened.

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Potential pitfalls are avoided. No one's mad at each other. In fact, daughter loves her parents even more because they've always been there for her.

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And mom and dad are both practically turned on by how sexy it is when the other genuinely and selflessly parents their daughter as an ambassador of God.

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And that may have caught you off guard, but I'm thinking most of us have experienced that before, where when your spouse is being a good parent, how attractive that is.

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So there ends up being no conflict. There's no negative consequences. No one's putting the foot down or fantasizing about lost romance.

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It's building the relationship, tying them together. And those are the kind of people that I'd like to have dinner with.

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How about you? And feel free to leave your comments below. We would love to hear your additions to this study.

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And also, don't forget the episode notes linked in the description, just in case you'd like to go back and be able to just kind of see it all at a glance.

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As we come to the end of our love and sex and emotion study for February, I want to discuss just one more emotion -centered concept before we move on and have our interview with Tim Challies.

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If you've ever heard or you've never heard of the phrase emotion coaching, you'll want to join us next time to discover if this practice has any place in the life of a

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Christian parent. And if today's episode has been a blessing, I hope you'll subscribe and share. I also invite you to like and follow

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TLP on Facebook, as well as finding me on Twitter at AM Brewster. And also be sure to rate and review.

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If you haven't done that yet, take a handful of seconds and search for us on iTunes, because when we get high ratings and solid reviews, it enables more people to find us and hear how

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God's Word can apply to their parenting. And as always, we're here to glorify God and assist you as you become an intentional premeditated parent.

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So please don't ever hesitate to contact us at counselor at evermindministries .com.

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Our emotions are terrible decision makers, but isn't it great that God gives us everything we need to parent for life and godliness in His Word?

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I look forward to meeting with you again and pray that you parent in truth and not emotion. Truth.

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Love. Parent. Is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

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Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today.