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1:46

Hi, friends, this is Janet partial. Thanks so much

1:48

for choosing to spend the next hour with

1:50

us. Today's program is prerecorded, so our phone

1:52

lines are not open. But thanks so much

1:54

for being with us and enjoy the broadcast.

1:57

Here are some of the news headlines we're watching. The

1:59

conference was over. President won a pleasure.

2:01

So Americans worshiping government over God.

2:03

Extremely rare safety move by a

2:05

nation. 17 years of Palestinians

2:07

and Israelis negotiations. We

2:10

hear a lot of times. Hi

2:25

friends, welcome to In the Market with Janet

2:27

Parshall. We're going to open the phones this

2:29

hour because we're going to take up, I

2:32

think, a fascinating conversation. So you have all

2:34

of these admonitions in Scripture on

2:36

what we're supposed to do as parents for our

2:38

children. Never ever ever designed to be easy, by

2:40

the way. Tough stuff. 24-7 on

2:42

the job training. My mom used to say how

2:45

true that is. But

2:47

with specificity and chosen intentionality, if

2:49

I can be redundant, we're going

2:51

to teach our kids how to

2:53

be relationally intelligent. Hit

2:56

the brakes. What does that mean? That will

2:58

be our first question, but I just want

3:00

you to think about that for a minute.

3:02

Being relationally intelligent and why that is so

3:04

crucial. In fact, Dr. John Trent says, I'm

3:07

going to give you five keys to help

3:09

you have your child connect well with other

3:11

people. Now, who doesn't want that? We were

3:14

designed for community. We're trying

3:16

to figure out how we get along with other

3:18

people. We're on this earth to declare the gospel

3:20

to other people. So we want

3:22

to know what it means to be relationally intelligent.

3:24

Not just our kids, but us too. So here's

3:27

the real story this hour. We're not

3:29

only going to talk about how we do this for our kids, we're going to

3:31

learn how you and I can do this as well. Do you know who Dr.

3:33

Trent is? I hope so. Wow. His

3:35

writing certainly had an impact on my life. He is

3:37

the president and founder of strongfamilies.com. That

3:40

is a ministry that's committed to building

3:42

strong relationships in very stressful times. I

3:44

think if I look around, that's exactly

3:46

where we are today. So

3:49

he writes, he speaks, he goes to conferences,

3:51

retreats, business setting, churches, seminars, all over the

3:53

country. And in addition

3:55

to all of that, he speaks readily to

3:57

corporate America who needs to hear from him.

4:00

on team building, recruiting, and retaining outstanding employees.

4:02

So his new book that he's co-authored is

4:04

called The Relationally Intelligent Child. John, the warmest

4:06

of welcomes, thank you so much for the

4:08

gift of this time. I'm really looking forward

4:10

to this. Well, thank you.

4:13

It's great to be back with you,

4:15

Janet. I so appreciate everything that you

4:17

do and the way you care about

4:19

families and because of strongfamilies.com. I'm

4:21

not the least bit surprised that this poured out of

4:23

the work that you're doing. So obviously, the first question

4:26

we have to ask is, what does it mean? Forget

4:28

the child for a minute. I just want to know

4:30

for me as a grownup, what does it mean to

4:32

be relationally intelligent? Yeah,

4:34

boy, have we forgotten that as adults

4:36

too. You know, just think

4:39

about, I'm gonna say

4:41

something now, you know, you're super

4:43

smart and, you know,

4:45

I've got a earned degree or two too,

4:48

but here's the bottom line, IQ is

4:50

overrated. I mean, we are so afraid

4:53

and it's absolutely true that our

4:55

kids have lost ground. I

4:57

mean, in this last year, for example,

4:59

just imagine the ground that kids have

5:01

lost in terms of capacity

5:04

measurements and that's an IQ. See what

5:06

I mean? So IQ is how much

5:08

can you store in there? So my

5:10

twin brother is brilliant. He's an MD,

5:12

PhD, we're fraternal, I can brag on

5:14

him. And you,

5:16

for example, have a great capacity

5:18

for storing material.

5:20

That's IQ, okay? But guess

5:23

what they've really lost, those

5:25

kids is relational intelligence. And

5:28

that's an applicational measurement.

5:30

In other words, that's saying, okay, how

5:32

do I do life? And boy, people

5:34

that are relationally intelligent, and that needs

5:36

to be our kids and that needs

5:38

to be us to teach them that,

5:42

they can connect well with others. And

5:44

that's what we're losing. And I get

5:46

what we get to talk about today.

5:48

So let me just for clarifier. So

5:50

we talked about IQ, we're talking about

5:52

relationally intelligent. Where does EQ fit into

5:54

this? Well, emotional, EQ, and

5:57

a lot of people are familiar with that. is

6:00

emotional regulation and can you

6:02

be, that's certainly a part of

6:04

being able to relate well with others,

6:07

okay? But what

6:09

we're talking about really is again,

6:12

let me kind of give people a picture without giving a

6:14

plug to the Apple

6:16

Store, which I just did. But the point is,

6:18

you ever walked in there and Janet,

6:21

what do you think you're gonna do? I'm gonna

6:23

solve a problem. I need somebody with a high

6:25

IQ that's gonna walk up to me and

6:27

say, all right, here's my problem. Who do you meet when

6:30

you walk in there? Guess who they

6:32

pick? I have a good friend that works at

6:34

the Apple Store and he walked in with no, I

6:36

mean, he just had a new computer and he goes,

6:38

do you ever hire people like me? And he goes,

6:41

yeah. He goes, what we're looking

6:43

for are people that are relational. And

6:46

I'm telling you, whatever you do today and whatever

6:48

your kids do to be successful, we

6:51

have a daughter that's a nurse

6:53

practitioner. Guess where her ratings come

6:55

from. Now, it's not people

6:57

going, oh man, you did

6:59

a great job of ordering that test

7:01

or doing whatever. It's, how

7:04

did you relate with me? And if they

7:06

don't get these five star ratings, I

7:09

mean, they just let go to people where

7:11

she works because they can't relate to people.

7:13

Now, they may be great practitioners, but again,

7:15

what we're trying to say is, is man,

7:18

the Lord has created us as

7:20

parents. There is nobody better on

7:22

the planet to help teach our

7:24

kids relational intelligence than that mom

7:26

or dad, or if grandma and

7:28

grandpa are helping out as caretakers

7:31

too. Let me tell you,

7:33

those close connections we have are the ones

7:35

that need to be teaching us how to

7:37

be relationally intelligent. Yeah, couldn't agree

7:39

more. And I wanna get to

7:41

the child part, but I know that there

7:43

are all kinds of people listening or say,

7:46

yeah, I got it. I understand my role,

7:48

my responsibility, my God designed job

7:50

description when I speak into the life of this child,

7:52

but I don't know that I do it so well.

7:54

So let me back up a little bit just as

7:56

I get some groundwork laid on this. You went into

7:59

the Apple store. and they hire people

8:01

that are relational. But if I were to

8:03

go back to Apple in the lab, my

8:05

experience, and I love them, that's not the

8:07

way God made me, but most tech people

8:09

are not exactly interactive with human beings. They

8:11

can tell you a diode and a motherboard,

8:13

and they can tell you everything about software,

8:15

and my eyes glaze over, but they don't

8:17

tend to be particularly communicative, and they don't

8:20

necessarily, and I'm painting with a broad brush

8:22

here, so give me some grace, but it

8:25

isn't like being a salesperson on the floor

8:27

of Apple. So does God make all of

8:29

us with a directive

8:31

or the capability of being

8:33

relationally intelligent? Well, the

8:36

answer is I think, you know, yes,

8:38

because we are created for connection, and

8:40

we're created in his image. And

8:42

what's interesting is, is look at the disciples,

8:45

man, they were all over the map

8:47

in terms of, you know, what they did,

8:49

you know, fishermen, you know, this, tax

8:52

collectors, physicians, you know, and yet they

8:54

were able to communicate something. So I

8:56

think we have the, we have the

8:58

ability to learn that. And again, that's

9:01

what we'll talk about. It's not just

9:03

personality based. Okay, it's everybody can learn

9:05

this. Good. And that's

9:07

a great place to take our first break and

9:10

a great encouragement if you just stick around for

9:12

the whole hour so that you can learn how

9:14

to be relationally intelligent, and in turn, train up

9:16

your child to be relationally intelligent. I am going

9:18

to open the phone lines for questions only this

9:21

hour, because I want us to dig in and

9:23

really own this 877-548-3675, 877-548-3675. Dr.

9:31

John Trent is our guest for the entire hour. We're

9:33

just getting started. We'll pick it up at this point

9:35

when we return. Have

9:43

you been watching the news and wondering if the

9:46

end is near? That's why I've chosen Are We

9:48

Living in the End Times as this month's truth

9:50

tool from global conflicts to natural disasters. This truth

9:52

tool connects the dots between current events and biblical

9:54

prophecy. As for your copy of Are We Living

9:56

in the End Times when you get a gift

9:58

of any off to in the market. Call 877-JANET58.

10:01

That's 877-JANET58 or go to in the market with

10:03

janet partial

10:07

dot org. I

10:11

think this is a fascinating and much needed

10:13

topic, particularly in a world where social media

10:15

is the way in which we're interacting with

10:18

people. Whoa, wait a minute, back that up

10:20

a little bit. So God designs us to

10:22

be relational. I'm not sure how you share

10:25

the gospel of Jesus Christ without relationships.

10:28

And so how do we build that

10:30

into our children, that mandate to be

10:32

relationally intelligent? We're going to take a

10:35

look at the five elements that make

10:37

up relational intelligence. Dr. John Trent is

10:39

the president and founder of strongfamilies.com. He's

10:41

also the coauthor of the brand new

10:44

book, the relationally intelligent child five keys

10:46

to helping your kids connect well with

10:48

others. And I find it

10:50

interesting because the first element that you write about is

10:53

attachment. And John, the reason why I keep going back

10:55

to the adults on this is because I don't want

10:58

our friends listening to check out if

11:00

they can say, no way I can pass

11:02

this on to my child because I didn't have

11:04

it. So attachment is the first one. So you're

11:06

an adult and you have attachment issues. You've got

11:08

a disorder where it's really tough for you to

11:10

bond with people. If you don't have it, this

11:12

is you, my friend, in your book, The Blessing.

11:14

Thank you. Thank you. A thousand times over. If

11:17

you didn't get it, how do you pass it

11:19

on? Oh, that's a great question

11:21

because you're right. I mean, man, we want our

11:23

kids to be able to walk up to another

11:25

kid or a group of kids and know

11:28

how to relate and connect. But now we're

11:30

having trouble with that. I mean, people aren't

11:32

going back to church. They're not reconnecting

11:35

with others. There's

11:37

people that are quitting their job because they

11:39

go, hey, we're going back June one and

11:41

they're going, I'm not going back at all.

11:44

And so there's that sense in which we've

11:46

become afraid of face to face relationships. And

11:48

yet that's really what we are wired to

11:50

do. And in the attachment area. So can

11:52

I give you a quick example? Because what

11:55

you said is so true. Think about a

11:57

person now. This is just somebody had just

11:59

just worked. with. But okay, so here's the

12:02

the mom and this guy's mom and

12:04

dad divorce when he's young. Okay, dad

12:07

is never very attached hasn't been. But

12:09

now the son is married and has

12:11

their first grandchild. And he gets a

12:13

phone call from dad and dad says,

12:16

Hey, I want to come out and

12:18

you know, see new little the

12:21

new grandkid. And oh,

12:23

that's so cool. The guy never came out

12:25

to his graduation never came out, you know,

12:28

again, divorced family. So he wasn't he was

12:30

the one that was not their mom raised

12:33

him. Okay. So but then the

12:35

night before he gets her, here's what he does. Now

12:37

think about this in terms of relational intelligence,

12:40

he goes, Okay, I

12:42

want you to know something, I'm coming out.

12:44

But number one is, don't

12:46

pick me up. I've decided I'm going to get

12:48

a rental card. Don't pick me up. Number two is

12:51

I'm not staying at your house. I know you'd

12:53

brought that up. But I'm going to stay at

12:56

a hotel. And number three, I'm not eating dinner

12:58

with you. I'll just see it sometime tomorrow. And

13:01

okay, but but I'm coming out. And then

13:03

he you know, hangs up. Now, what

13:06

happens? You know, the son just sits there and goes,

13:08

Well, wait a minute, you know, wait a minute and

13:10

calls it back goes what? You don't

13:12

even want to come? Well, here's the situation

13:14

behind it. Here's what I'm trying to get

13:17

at. And in terms of relational intelligence, guess

13:19

what? Well, number one is he had a

13:21

free car rental, but he never said that

13:23

he never built a bridge of connection. He

13:26

had been on this weight loss diet. And he

13:28

thought, man, I don't I don't want to make

13:30

her the wife, redo all the meals, or we

13:33

have to go to special meals. So

13:35

we're not I'm not going to eat at your place. And

13:37

oh, by the way, I'm old, and I got to get

13:39

up several times at night. So I don't

13:41

want to wake up the baby. So

13:43

in his mind, what's the what's this

13:45

grandpa, you know, what's this guy thinking?

13:47

He's thinking, man, I, I

13:49

want I'm going to help the baby by not

13:51

doing this. I'm going to help my son, I'm

13:54

going to help his wife, and what he communicates

13:56

or what he fails to realize is that he

13:58

doesn't know how to connect. And

14:01

so by just laying that on them, all of

14:03

a sudden, you know, the son goes, well, why

14:05

are you even coming? And he goes, well,

14:07

maybe I'm not coming in. The whole thing blows up. So

14:10

what we're doing is, is you need to

14:12

learn. Each one of us need to learn,

14:14

no matter how old we are, that grandparent

14:17

or the son. And we need to teach

14:19

our kids, man, how do you relate? How

14:21

do you build bridges of connection and then

14:23

walk across them? And so let

14:25

me linger on attachment because in the book you say

14:27

several things that I found so intriguing. You

14:30

say that when we focus on the secure

14:32

attachment, it's going to impact my child several

14:34

ways, not the least of which is it's

14:36

going to make them more sensitive to the

14:38

emotions of other empathy. It's going to

14:40

help them regulate emotions around rejection or loss. It's

14:42

going to place a high value on others. Now

14:44

there's other points as well, but I love this

14:46

because I had been really under conviction lately that

14:49

we read how many times, quote, Jesus had compassion

14:51

on them in the New Testament. Being relational for

14:53

me is making sure that I

14:55

am empathetic for other people. I think that's, I

14:58

don't know how you can be without

15:00

being empathetic, but explain to me how

15:02

that works. So if I am securely

15:04

attached, how does that translate itself into

15:06

my being empathetic? Oh man,

15:09

that's a great question. Let me give you

15:11

an example. There's

15:13

these thing called mirror neurons. Okay.

15:15

We do a lot of work. I wrote this book with

15:17

a guy named Dewey Wilson. He's doctorate

15:20

in cognitive learning, super smart,

15:22

but in the neuroscience of

15:24

what's called close connection, which

15:26

is now it's called, you

15:28

know, that's the key terminology,

15:30

close connection. Well, bottom line

15:32

is, is that empathy is

15:34

when we see somebody being

15:36

empathetic, it turns on. It's

15:39

like we begin to mirror that feeling. It's like you're

15:41

watching somebody ride a bike, believe it or not, in your

15:43

mind, you're kind of riding a bike, you know? And

15:45

so there's that sense in which you mirror it,

15:48

which is, and so empathy is

15:50

something that we learn. And

15:54

can I give you a real quick example? There

15:57

was a great study at Virginia

15:59

Tech. Now, I haven't been to the campus

16:01

at Virginia Tech, but I guess there's a big high

16:03

hill there. And what they

16:06

would do is they would get students

16:08

who walked by individually or with somebody

16:10

close to them. They would think about

16:13

attachment, okay? So I want

16:15

people to think, okay, either you're by yourself

16:17

or you've got somebody that's a close friend.

16:19

And so they'd screen the couple or the

16:21

two people and they'd say, okay,

16:23

how close are you? Well,

16:25

we're roommates, we're best buddies and whatever.

16:27

And they'd say, all right. And then

16:29

what they do with individuals first is

16:31

they'd put a 45-pound backpack on them,

16:34

Janet. Now, ranger packs are

16:36

65 pounds, okay? So

16:38

45 is stout for a civilian, you

16:40

know, to put on or for anybody

16:42

to put on. So they

16:45

put on this 45-pound pack and they

16:47

had them stare up. It was a

16:49

cognitive visual perception study. And

16:51

every person that they looked at

16:53

by themselves would look up

16:55

at the hill and it was too high – it was

16:57

higher and harder to climb.

17:00

But if they had somebody with

17:02

them, attachment, the hill shrunk.

17:04

Wow. And so when we

17:07

attach with our kids, oh my gosh,

17:09

we give them empathy, but we also

17:11

give them the ability to, you

17:13

know, to have a secure base. Exactly.

17:16

Exact confidence and perseverance and all

17:18

of the residuals from that. Wow.

17:21

The book is called The Relationally Intelligent

17:23

Child. Dr. John Trent is the co-author

17:25

in it. There are five keys to

17:27

helping your kids connect well with others.

17:29

Paramount, Paramount, Paramount. More with Dr. Trent

17:32

and your questions. 877-548-3675

17:34

right after this. Boy,

17:45

I really am truly

17:47

believe in this idea of the mandate for

17:49

us to become relationally intelligent. And if it's

17:51

good for mom and dad, boy, it's Paramount

17:53

that we teach our children this as well.

17:56

And that's exactly what Dr. John Trent, president

17:58

and founder of Strong Family. families.com writes about

18:01

in his brand new book, Relational

18:03

Intelligence, and then he gives us five elements that

18:05

really help our kids learn how to connect with

18:07

others. I could spend the

18:09

entire hour on this idea of being securely attached,

18:12

but let me just ask one question before I

18:14

go, isn't that true? So just going

18:16

back, and I'm gonna go back and forth to The Blessing

18:18

a thousand times. Seminole book in my life, friends, if you

18:20

haven't read it, it's on your, you have to read it

18:22

before you go into glory list, okay? It's one of those

18:24

kind of books. But if you

18:27

had a distant parent, if

18:30

that co-walker with the backpack wasn't

18:32

with you in life, how

18:34

in the world does mom or dad turn around and

18:36

give that to their child? When all of their life,

18:38

they've been dying to connect somehow with people, and that's

18:40

been an absentia in their own life. Oh,

18:43

that's such a great and powerful

18:45

question. And I want you to think about

18:47

something, Janet, and so many of your listeners,

18:49

is there driving around or

18:52

doing life or just sitting down,

18:54

listening to this, and picture

18:57

this, picture you're 10 years old,

18:59

okay? And you're standing outside your

19:01

home, and you're looking in

19:03

the window. Now, your dad was a football

19:05

coach, right? He sure was. Yeah,

19:08

and so, I mean, now, he's home

19:10

from practice. You're outside, you're looking in,

19:12

you see mom, you know? And

19:15

was there somebody in your home when

19:18

you looked inside it that if they turn

19:20

and saw you, standing outside, their eyes would

19:22

light up and they'd beckon you in? See,

19:24

those are the kinds of things we're talking

19:26

about, is to say to someone, was there

19:28

somebody that, man, they

19:30

saw you, they really believed in

19:33

you, they cared for

19:35

you, but when that doesn't happen,

19:37

well, guess what? That's me, and

19:39

unfortunately, you know, I'm

19:42

so old, when I was a kid

19:44

in grade school, think about this, we

19:46

were the only kids in our grade

19:48

school, big public grade school here in

19:50

Phoenix, the only kids

19:52

in our grade school from

19:55

a single parent family. Wow.

20:00

My wife is a kindergarten, well, first

20:02

and second grade this year teacher. She

20:04

has 22 kids, 18 are

20:07

from either single parent or blended families.

20:10

So what I'm getting at in just in

20:12

that amount of time and what goes to

20:14

school, goes to church and is who's doing

20:16

life. So for so many of us, we

20:19

are so broken and we've come from people

20:21

where maybe we don't feel attached. But real

20:23

quick, man, gosh,

20:25

the most powerful thing is the Lord

20:28

does provide those substantive attitude attachment people.

20:30

For me, it was a coach like

20:32

your dad, the first guy

20:34

who was a Christian and a coach and

20:36

just changed my life. And then there was

20:38

a young life leader and then there was

20:40

somebody. So who are those people that are

20:42

seeing you? And then

20:45

also just understanding we've got a heavenly

20:47

father that, you know, and Jesus who

20:49

says, I will never leave you nor

20:51

forsake you. Remember that story

20:53

about the high hill in Virginia Tech? It

20:57

was replicated at Plymouth University in

20:59

England. But

21:02

guess what they did? They didn't have people with

21:04

backpacks. They had you stand there and say, I

21:06

want you to think about a person or

21:08

it could be an entity or anything, but I

21:10

want you to think about someone that

21:14

in your life would always be

21:16

there for in. And so all you're doing

21:18

is just bringing to mind, you don't even

21:20

have the person with you because maybe they've

21:22

passed away or maybe they're again, where that

21:25

teacher in third grade or but

21:27

attachment is they said, just think of somebody.

21:29

And I, you know, the same thing's true

21:31

with the Lord, he's always there for us

21:33

even right now today, you know. And

21:36

so bottom line is when they did that,

21:38

the hill shrunk when you could

21:40

just even think about somebody. So that's

21:43

why we're lingering on attachment. You're right.

21:45

There's there's kind of five elements of being

21:48

a relationally intelligent child or

21:51

a relationally intelligent person, but

21:53

it's attachment is so important.

21:56

It's just huge. Yeah. To

21:58

me, these five elements are like. nesting

22:00

eggs, you know, they're fit one inside the other

22:02

and that's why I wanted to linger on this

22:05

secure attachment one because it really portends how the

22:07

other four elements come into play. So I heard

22:09

something very important in what you said and then

22:11

I promise, promise, promise I'll go to the second

22:14

element. Yeah, as an encouragement to mom and dad,

22:16

you can, even if you didn't get it,

22:18

you can choose to be those bright sparkling

22:21

eyes when your child looks into the window,

22:23

even if you didn't have it. It's a

22:25

choice that you could make today. That's how

22:27

that cycle A gets broken, B that's how

22:29

that sense of secure attachment gets passed on.

22:31

So we're never powerless. You alluded to this

22:33

before about God filling in the gap, whether

22:36

it's people, but through his mighty empowering strength,

22:38

he can get you past your brokenness to

22:40

the point where you deliver to your child

22:42

what they need. Am I right or wrong?

22:44

Oh no, I mean there's a great verse

22:47

Deuteronomy 23 5 and you probably haven't read

22:49

it because it's in Deuteronomy. Who's read Deuteronomy?

22:51

But it says this, you know, it

22:54

says, for the Lord your God

22:56

was not willing that the curse,

22:58

that literally means subtraction, rest upon

23:00

you. But the Lord your God

23:02

turned the curse into a

23:04

blessing for you because the Lord your

23:07

God loves you. And so I'm telling

23:09

you, if you're like me and my

23:12

dad left when I was two months old, he

23:14

died. I held his hand for eight and

23:16

a half hours in a hospice as he

23:19

cussed at me for praying for him. And

23:21

I wasn't preaching, he just was dying of

23:23

congestive heart and lung failure and it was

23:25

a horrible way to die. And we've talked

23:28

about the blessing and the fact that and

23:30

in this book, the Relational Intelligent Child, God's

23:32

given us this great way to when we

23:34

bless our kids, we see them. When we

23:36

bless them, we touch them appropriately. When we

23:39

bless them, they hear our voice. So all

23:41

of these things on attachment, you

23:44

know, science, which is awesome. It's like it's

23:46

like science is finally catching up with the

23:48

Bible. So

23:51

that's really exciting. So attachment is all

23:53

about the blessing, that's for sure. Wow.

23:56

Okay, so that's just one of five elements. And by

23:58

the way, I always say this. If I find

24:00

a book rich and this is one of them and I

24:02

don't get through all of it, I'm not doing a book

24:04

report. I just want to take some of these key ideas

24:06

and if I haven't gotten through everything and

24:08

I've done my job actually because I've gotten

24:11

you curious enough to say that's going to

24:13

speak to me where I'm at, what I

24:15

need to know. So check it out. I've

24:17

got it on my website, the Relationally Intelligent

24:19

Child and I've got a link to strongfamilies.com

24:21

as well. That's the organization

24:23

that John Trent founded and is also

24:25

the president of In the Market with

24:27

janetpartial.org. Back on that red

24:30

box, it says program details and audio. It'll

24:32

take over in the information page. When we

24:34

come back, element number two. Friends,

24:45

this is Janet Partial and I want to take a

24:48

moment to remind you that today's program is pre-recorded so

24:50

our phone lines aren't open, but I sure do appreciate

24:52

your spending the hour with us and thanks so much

24:54

and enjoy the rest of the program. How

25:01

do you keep your finger on the pulse of

25:03

America while listening to the heartbeat of God's Word?

25:05

On In the Market, we look for God's perspective

25:07

on current events. Become a partial

25:10

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25:12

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for you. You'll get behind-the-scenes intel from

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my email to yours. Call

25:20

877-Janet58 or go online to In

25:23

the Market with janetpartial.org. I

25:29

am so glad we are spending the

25:31

hour together on what I think is

25:33

a very important topic. We're discussing relational

25:35

intelligence. Dr. John Trent is

25:37

with us. He's the president and founder

25:40

of strongfamilies.com and he's co-authored the brand

25:42

new book, The Relationally Intelligent Child, Five

25:44

Keys to Helping Your Kids Connect Well

25:47

with Others. Being relationally

25:49

intelligent, like John says, is the

25:51

most incredible gift parents can give

25:53

their child. It is the gift

25:55

to be able to teach them to live out

25:57

with the skills needed to become positive, healthy, and

25:59

successful. other-centered world-changing and

26:01

have very vibrant, healthy, face-to-face

26:04

relationships with others. Boy,

26:06

I guess that means living out your life

26:09

and living it abundantly. Really being that ambassador

26:11

for Christ, showing you what an

26:13

abundant life looks like and it feels like and

26:15

it sounds like and how it impacts others. Now,

26:18

we've talked about the secure attachment as element

26:20

number one. I love number two.

26:22

Maybe it's because we live

26:25

in fearful times and I want my

26:27

children to be fearless. It's going to

26:29

be, it's part of being countercultural. But

26:31

you talk about fearless exploration. I love

26:33

the coupling of those two words. It's

26:35

one thing to talk about being fearless

26:37

but you throw in the exploration

26:39

part of that. Why the coupling of

26:41

those two words? Well, you know, it's

26:44

interesting. There's this awesome TED Talk, you

26:46

know, the guy's name is Tom Griffith.

26:48

He's listening to this. He's a computational

26:50

cognitive scientist to get that correct.

26:53

So that's usually

26:55

not your first go-to person

26:57

for parenting advice, right? But

27:00

really what he does is his TED Talk

27:03

is all is, it's called the computer science

27:05

of human decision-making and here's what it shares.

27:08

Explore or exploit.

27:11

Now think about this. What does a

27:13

one-year-old do? We have a precious awesome

27:15

eight-month-old, almost one-year-old, little precious daughter, a

27:17

granddaughter. Well, bottom line is everything, what?

27:20

Explore, explore. It all goes in her

27:22

mouth. You know, I need to roll

27:24

toward this. I want to touch this,

27:27

you know. Well, now think of her

27:29

grandparents, you know, you

27:31

know, and they're done exploring. I mean,

27:33

how do you pick a restaurant? Okay.

27:36

When you're young, oh, let's go explore something

27:39

new. Well, when you're my age, it's like,

27:41

okay, I've already done all that. I know

27:43

this place is really good. We're going there.

27:45

Do you see what I'm getting at? It's

27:48

the absence in which for we

27:50

need to realize our kids are at

27:52

the explore stage and when we can

27:54

help kids in particular, but we need

27:57

to do that ourselves as well continually.

28:00

pushing the bounds. But man, oh man,

28:03

it's so important. And it

28:05

builds off that attachment thing we just

28:07

talked about in the blessing. When they've

28:09

got that firm base, you

28:12

know, Janet tonight, I'm sure, you know,

28:15

I don't know how much you're still into

28:17

football, maybe with your dad being a coach,

28:19

maybe, but you're not going to watch the

28:21

NFL tonight. But it's a, you know, tonight's

28:23

draft night, first night of

28:25

the draft. But the point is, that's

28:27

what those great athletes have in common.

28:30

Number one is, is they have unbelievable

28:32

balance, which comes from really just

28:34

kind of that secure base. So

28:36

you get attachment. Once

28:39

you're attached, once you've got a great

28:41

sense of, you know,

28:43

balance attachment, then guess what,

28:45

now you can cut left

28:47

or right or sideways, you

28:49

can begin to, to explore.

28:52

And so that's what we really challenge, you know, parents

28:54

to do with young kids or older kids. Can I

28:56

give a quick example? Please. Okay.

28:59

So what do we mean by, you know,

29:01

wait, help them explore, you know, well, but

29:04

bottom line is, is with very

29:06

young kids, you've

29:09

hopefully as a kid, did you, do

29:12

you remember Mr. Rogers? Sure

29:14

do. Yeah. Remember how, and of course there was

29:16

that great movie that came out a couple of

29:18

years ago, that really showed

29:21

a lot of just what a, an amazing, unique

29:23

person he was. But you know, one of the

29:25

things he do is what it does is what

29:27

sportscasters do. And so he'd be sitting

29:29

with a little kid and he'll say, for example,

29:31

you know, they have those rings and they put

29:33

them on the post and there's a big ring

29:36

and then a smaller ring and a smaller ring.

29:38

And it gets harder to do, you know, but

29:40

during the whole time, what he would do is

29:42

he'd say, Hey, you know, I, I'm gotta look

29:44

at this. You're putting each ring

29:46

on. Oh, that last one's really hard. Well,

29:48

I can see that's really frustrating that you're,

29:50

and guess what they're doing. They're being like

29:53

sports caster and because sportscasters we're watching

29:56

the game. Why don't we need a

29:58

sportscaster? Because they're reflecting. on

30:00

it. And when we reflect on what these

30:02

young kids are doing, we help them understand

30:05

what's going on inside them and we give

30:07

them the security and freedom to go reach

30:09

out for, go reach for the next thing,

30:11

you know. So you don't just stick them

30:13

in a corner and not do anything, engage

30:16

with them, you know. Help them

30:18

explore. Can I give you another

30:20

quick example of exploring? Okay,

30:22

let's say you have an older kid. Now that's

30:25

a, you know, two-year-old or a one-year-old, but

30:27

what if you have a teenager? Well, one of the

30:30

things we did was called, you know, 20

30:32

questions. And so what

30:34

we do is we would explore

30:36

them. So you want your kid

30:39

to go, you know, explore,

30:42

but how do you model that? Well, we'd

30:44

pick them up and before we got home,

30:46

we called it 20 questions. So you'd pick

30:49

them up and the first question, how'd your

30:51

day go, is always what? I

30:53

don't know. And then you ask them

30:55

another question. Well, what happened at lunch? And you

30:57

finally, you figure one that there's one that, you

30:59

know, they'll bite on and then the rest of

31:02

the time you're asking them 20

31:04

questions and you're exploring them. So

31:06

as a parent, you're

31:09

so right, it's so important. Man, just, you

31:13

know, build that attachment. But then,

31:15

you know, that gives them the

31:17

courage and the ability to, wow,

31:19

I can reach for something. I

31:22

can roll that direction. I can, you

31:24

know, deal with things that happen in life.

31:26

I'm going to go explore my world. You've

31:29

just given a case study in

31:31

why being a helicopter parent can't

31:33

be healthy, because how do I

31:35

create the independence if I'm just hovering

31:37

over them all the time? Yeah.

31:39

Oh, that's so true. That's just

31:41

that's awesome. Because, you know, we

31:43

think that I'm telling you,

31:45

some of these, you know, parents don't realize

31:48

the most protective

31:50

parents are the ones that are paralyzing

31:52

their kids from really reaching out. And

31:55

so, man, we need to really, you know, and

31:58

nobody's saying, okay, free. range kids

32:00

just see wouldn't it be great you

32:02

know, seeing the lights run like when

32:04

we grew up. But today it is

32:07

super important to say let's put them

32:09

in situations where they

32:11

can really explore. That's huge. Yeah,

32:14

I couldn't agree more. Also, I always look

32:16

for the theological applications and good stuff like

32:18

this. And one of them is the idea

32:20

of teaching our children to be an independent

32:22

thinker responsible for their own learning. Now, what

32:24

happens with a lot of kids when they

32:26

leave the home, right? Oh, that was what

32:28

my mom and dad believe. I'm shaking it

32:31

off. I'm not interested in it. It was

32:33

their faith. It's not my faith. But if

32:35

we can get them to start thinking and

32:37

examining and sifting and weighing and vetting when

32:39

they're younger, that actually makes them more relational.

32:41

That's what this whole thing is about. But

32:43

it also makes them healthier, it seems to

32:45

me, because particularly as it applies to our

32:47

relationship with Christ, it's their relationship

32:49

with Christ, not because they inherited it from

32:51

mom and dad, that independent thinking can lead

32:54

them back to a deeper relationship with Christ,

32:56

it seems to me. Yeah. And so you

32:58

take them to the movie. Okay, when movies

33:00

are reopening, and let's all go try to

33:02

help them stay, you know, get back in

33:04

business, and hopefully there'll be some decent ones

33:06

that come. But you take them to the

33:08

movie, but on the way back, you process

33:10

it with them. Yes. And as you noticed

33:12

with each one of these, and with each

33:14

one of these, we're saying, and you said

33:16

it at the very beginning, when you're a

33:19

parent, you're signing up for, you

33:21

know, train up a child in the

33:23

way they should go. And so you

33:25

don't just drop them off, you know,

33:27

it's like, hey, let's do some stuff

33:29

as a family and then process it

33:31

and then talk about it. And that's

33:33

when they begin to realize there's dialogue,

33:35

and oh, maybe there's two sides to

33:38

an issue, instead of it being so,

33:40

you know, you

33:42

know, where people can't talk about

33:44

anything. So you're modeling for them,

33:47

critical thinking. And that's actually one of

33:49

the things coming up is just, man,

33:52

we've got to teach them to make wise decisions.

33:54

Yeah. By the way, again, and this is about

33:56

the whole child, but I'm just zooming in on

33:58

one aspect, and that's the. spiritual character that's being

34:00

built as well. If as

34:03

we see with all of the data, and it's

34:05

kind of hard for mom and dad to take

34:07

this in, you think, my child was raised in

34:09

a Christian home, boy, we hear from people all

34:11

the time who say that on this program, but

34:14

then they get on campus and then they drift

34:16

away. If we have taught our children to be

34:18

independent thinkers who are absolutely fearless explorers, when they

34:20

butt up against ideas that are different, if they're

34:22

empathetic and they can relate to other people, they

34:25

don't see that as a threat to their worldview.

34:27

They can win some Lee engage in

34:30

the confidence they have in their worldview.

34:32

So this has ramifications, I

34:34

think beyond a lot of people's comprehension that

34:36

it really prepares them in ways you don't

34:38

readily see when they're eight years old, when

34:40

you're doing this. So this is why

34:42

I get excited about this topic. Yeah,

34:44

no, that's so powerful because you

34:47

are really and

34:49

truly preparing them for, you know,

34:51

to head out there. And so

34:53

with that secure base, with the

34:56

ability to explore, well, guess what?

34:59

You know, like you mentioned, part of why

35:01

kids have never, you know,

35:03

picked up on, why

35:06

so many kids kind of go down

35:08

in flames when they go to college

35:10

and whatever, is they haven't had the

35:12

experience at home, when they explore, guess

35:14

what's gonna happen? Well, they're gonna fall

35:16

down or they're gonna be creative. Oh,

35:18

let's try this. And boy,

35:20

that didn't work. How many times have

35:23

we said that over our head of

35:25

our kids? You know, well, that was

35:27

a mistake. But when that

35:29

happens, the third element is

35:31

resilience and that's getting back

35:33

up. You know, that's that

35:35

tremendous need to, you

35:37

know, internally, man, to know,

35:40

mom, dad, they're not going anywhere, Jesus

35:42

isn't going anywhere, so I can explore.

35:45

But when I start to explore and

35:47

I fall down and I look back,

35:49

somebody's saying, hey, I'm here, but

35:52

you can get up. You

35:54

can get up, that self-directed child.

35:57

And so anyways, just, these

36:00

are... It sounds like common sense, doesn't it?

36:02

But it's so important that this is what

36:04

we teach. And John, you

36:06

said this early on in our conversation. This

36:08

isn't about personality. I want our friends to

36:10

really grasp the fact that this is so

36:12

much deeper and wider and broader than that.

36:15

Again, the name of the book is called

36:17

The Relationally Intelligent Child. We've touched on three

36:20

of the five. I'll recap real quick. Secure

36:22

attachment, fearless exploration, unwavering resilience. Dr. John Trent

36:24

just touched on the resilience aspect. There's a

36:26

ton more in the book. But just so

36:29

you can get an overview of what these

36:31

five elements are, when we come back, John,

36:34

you touched on this idea of wise decision

36:36

making. I want to find out how this

36:39

ties into our being relationally intelligent. More with

36:41

Dr. John Trent right after this. We're

36:51

visiting with Dr. John Trent, who's president

36:53

and founder of strongfamilies.com, a wonderful ministry

36:56

that's committed, as you might guess, to

36:58

building strong relationships in very stressful times.

37:00

Those are the days in which we

37:02

find ourselves. So his new

37:04

book is co-authored by Dr. John Trent.

37:06

It's called The Relationally Intelligent Child. And

37:08

in the book, he offers five keys

37:10

to helping our kids connect well with others.

37:12

And we want to talk now about

37:14

this fourth element, which is this need

37:16

to teach them how to make wise

37:18

decisions. And what I find interesting is the

37:21

first aspect of this job is that

37:23

it's about helping them make decisions not

37:25

based solely on emotion. So let me

37:27

set this up this way. 2016

37:30

Oxford Dictionary, word of the year, post truth.

37:32

You look it up, it's a legitimate word.

37:34

It really means that the, and I'll use

37:36

the words we used to use in education,

37:38

the affective supersedes the cognitive. It's how you

37:40

feel about things rather than what is knowable,

37:42

objective, transcendent truth. And so now someone

37:44

will say, and by the way, this has had an impact on our

37:47

culture. It's had an impact on the way in which we evangelize. About

37:49

how in the world in a culture

37:52

that is fanning the idea of the

37:54

effect, the truth is irrelevant. It's how

37:56

I feel about myself, about others, about

37:58

your biblical truth. that supersedes everything else.

38:01

In other words, I

38:03

constantly quote to my kids, C.S. Lewis,

38:05

the will must precede the emotions, the

38:07

will must precede the emotions. How

38:09

in the world do we rein this in? Because

38:11

this is a horse that's left the barn and

38:13

he's 5000 miles away right now. That's for sure.

38:16

And, you know, it's

38:18

interesting. We're not saying to kids and

38:20

you're not saying to your kids, emotions

38:22

aren't important or you don't really feel

38:24

that or whatever. But let's go back

38:26

to that resilience part just real quick.

38:28

Did you know, like amazing

38:31

new Ohio State study,

38:33

83 percent of Americans

38:35

said, hey, I have a high emotional

38:37

and mental resilience. OK,

38:39

but then when they actually tested them,

38:41

it was 47 percent. And

38:44

what I'm getting at, there's this sense in which a

38:46

lot of people are going, you

38:49

know, well, hey, I don't need to know the

38:51

facts. I don't need to know any any of

38:53

the objective data. I I'm I'm

38:55

there, but I'm not really there. And

38:59

so I think what we need to do,

39:01

what what resilience is now. So

39:04

watch how this ties in with just helping

39:06

your kid make wise decisions like you talked

39:08

about, not not just basing a amount of

39:10

motion. So it isn't just projecting, oh, I

39:13

think I'm there. So I'm there. OK. But

39:16

what it is, what what resilience

39:18

is, it's getting out of a

39:21

stressful situation by recovering and recalibrating.

39:23

Did you watch the Masters by any

39:25

chance? Golf tournament. Well, you

39:27

know how the very

39:30

best golfers in the world? It's what

39:32

happens in the rough. It's that recovery

39:34

shot. It's they hit in a

39:36

trap or they they're so good at recovery

39:39

shots. But you've got to be realistic

39:41

about where you are. Sometimes they have to just chip

39:43

it sideways. Now, most of the time they can do

39:45

what we could never do and hit it around the

39:47

tree and right on the green. But you see what

39:50

I'm getting at. So so I

39:52

think you're exactly right. So when we get

39:54

into this whole idea of man, you're resilient,

39:56

you can get up. You can

39:58

find a new way to. you know to move

40:00

forward you know Jeremiah 29 11 you know the

40:03

Lord has a future

40:05

and a hope for you so you can get up

40:08

but the way you make wise

40:10

decisions is you learn from those

40:12

when you fall down and from the

40:14

reality of those situations so

40:16

that's you know what you're exactly right that

40:19

whole idea of wise decision-making

40:21

comes from you know

40:23

let's just you

40:25

know let's process it okay

40:27

you didn't make you know you tried

40:30

out in junior high for a

40:32

class president you didn't make it boy it

40:34

is that that just stinks I'm

40:36

really sorry and you just sit with them you

40:38

know you don't have to lecture or anything else

40:41

but down the road then you just say well

40:43

hey I know that was disappointing now let's talk

40:45

about turning the page I got a good friend

40:47

that wrote a book called turn

40:49

the page yeah that's

40:52

okay and I did that with our

40:54

girls I'd say okay is the story let's

40:56

go halfway the story and stop okay

40:59

is the now let's shut it because

41:01

there's no more wait there's still more of the story well

41:03

wait a minute that's all

41:05

you know we had a bad day so we

41:07

can't know there's more we can turn the page

41:10

so I think if we help our kids

41:12

be resilient then we're leading them to where

41:14

they can begin to make wise decisions I

41:17

love that you say that something else

41:19

that will happen is that our child

41:22

will learn to value experiences and insights

41:24

learned from others so again there's

41:26

so many of these things and I love the

41:28

way Bible verses just kind of flashed through your

41:30

mind so I love that scripture that says there's

41:32

wisdom in the counsel of many so there's

41:34

that relationship many number two it's empathy

41:36

because guess what I don't have all

41:38

the answers I need you talk to

41:41

me tell me about your experience offer

41:43

me your insights so there's a maturity

41:45

emotionally there there's an empathetic connection there

41:47

and there really is your being the

41:49

recipient the benefactor if you will of

41:51

somebody else's experience so that'll get factors

41:53

into making a wise decision John I

41:55

don't know about you but if I've

41:57

got a big decision to make I

41:59

never