Which Comes First... Parent or Friend?

Hello, and welcome to the 6570 family project podcast. If you are a parent of a tween teen or somewhere on the way, this is exactly the place for you. This is the playground for parents who want to raise their kids with intention, strength and joy. Come and hear all the discussions, get all the tactics and have lots of laughs along the way. We will dive into the real challenges and reason kids today how to show up as parents and teach your kids how to show up as members of the family and individuals of the world. My name is mellie harden, big city girl turns small towns sipping iced tea on the front porch Mama, who loves igniting transformation in the hearts and minds of families by helping them build self flood discipline and leadership that elevates the family experience. And sets the kids up with a rock solid foundation, they can launch their life on all before they ever leave home. This is the 6570 family project. Let's go.

Hello, everybody. It is so good to be here and be talking with you guys today. I hope you're having an exquisite, amazing day today. And this podcast is meeting you in your car in your home. Maybe you're doing some laundry, maybe you're mowing the lawn, or maybe you're just sitting there with a nice cup of iced tea or coffee and listening to this. I cannot wait to dive into this topic today. Because you guys, I get this question so often. And I don't necessarily get this question in a direct way. Although that does happen too. But more often than not, I get it in some sort of blurred circumstances and situational questions like, should I let my daughter date someone? I don't know. She would be so mad at me if I said no. Right? Or should I let my son and his friends stay at our house and eat all of our food and be noisy at night? I don't want him to think I'm not the cool parent. I want all of his friends to hang out here, right? Or should I let my kids just eat whatever they want? Because I mean, they're just kids, right? Nothing can harm them. And they think that veggies are super gross and terrible. And I don't want to make them mad. Right? It's this. It's this avoidance of conflict. And let me ask you a question when you are in a sport and trying to get better. Do you need a friend? They're just telling you Good job, good job and patting you on the back? Or do you need someone to guide you and refine you and protect your interest in challenge you to give birth to your unique passions, abilities and gifts? I thought so

I'm sure you were like, Oh yeah, I probably need the coach right and need that I need someone there to move me along. Those friends are very important. But that's not the role that you need in if you're going to get better. And let's face it, this is life. This is the game of life and we need to get better. So let me ask the inverse question. Because I feel like this answers the question for you. And I want to ask you, in reference to your kids, who would they be? If you didn't train them to be a good human that is ready for the world has a foundation of self love, discipline and leadership respect and understanding for the world out there? Right? Who would they be? Who would they be? So the better question is, if you don't who will? And anyone that's known me for a little while knows that I am a very big Wonder Woman fan. And she put in this is probably why it is this question right here that when the very first one, not the first first one and the you know, 60s and what have you came out but of the recent series, the first one that came out, she was leaving, and her mom was trying to stop her and she said Who would I be if I stayed? And that has always been in my head. In the version of if you don't, who will? Who would I be if I didn't do this? Who would you be if I didn't do this right. And so there's this great responsibility that rests on our shoulders as parents, and this is your book. Remember, this is your book. And remember that this is your story. Mama bears teach their babies how to survive in the world and you need to too, it just happens to be that our world is a little bit more complicated than a baby cubs world. Okay, so I want to go over with you. These four things that you will definitely want to take in your own unique way that go before parenting. Not in I'm sorry not not parenting friendship. Not instead of friendship, right? Friendship just comes after these, these four things come first. And friendship is so important. But these things have to come before that in again in your unique way for your unique story and your family. So number one is the guide. That is what you are. So what is a guide, that guide is a person who advises or shows the way to others, right? You think about you go on to go on a cruise, you go on a bus you there's the tour guide, right? But a not a tour guide. They're just showing you what other things have done, you are a guide for life. And that, again, is a person who advisors or shows the way to others. And we have 6570 days to build in that self led discipline and leadership into your kids. And remember, self led discipline is the art and it truly is an art of making a decision that benefits you others and the world going over the bridge of action and actually coming to an accomplishment on the other side. It was just funny. I've already referenced Wonder Woman today you guys I love I love some movies. And last night. My husband has been wanting to watch this movie for a while with the kids and we finally were able to watch it. Which is funny because I wasn't pushing it as much and I actually lived in this world and it was drumline. That 2002 movie, marching bands and it's just so funny because as we're watching this movie of drumline, and all the structure and things that go into a marching band, which I'm like, Oh, I saw so much of myself now, right? It's funny when you look back sometimes. But anyway, my point is within the movie, it says the percussion lead says to this little as like home crabs in the movie. These first years he says before you can, before you can lead you have to learn to follow. Right? And like Jim Rohn says to what like on that path discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. Jim Rohn Amazing, amazing. Man contributed so much to this world. But this is not something that you are born with. Being a leader is not necessarily something you're born with.

We have personality traits that can better tend to that tendency, definitely. But this is something that is crafted over time. It is crafted over time. And this is why we as parents have 18 years to do this. And for you family success vault members, there is the discipline hacker hacker in your vault area, the discipline hacker and if you don't have this yet, please be sure to go get your hands on it.

This exclusive area is open to you too. If you are hearing my voice right now that exclusive area is open to you details come at the end of the podcast as to where you can find that but I wanted to make sure that my family successful members know inside of there you will find the discipline hacker which of course discipline self led discipline leads to self led leadership, which is what we are all about helping our kids lead themselves and others in this world by the time they leave our 6570 training zone, family, parenthood childhood 6570 days that we have. So remember you are the parent you are the architect you are designing and planning and overseeing the building of your child You are the trainer, you are the guide. You are taking them there. So when something happens in life, how can I guide them? How can I guide them? Right? Okay, so the second one, so first, your guide, the second one is refinements. Okay. So refining is improving something by making small changes.

So I was a gymnast for a good 10 years or so. And was I born a gymnast? No, I was definitely not born a gymnast. And when I went in there on day one, I could maybe do a cartwheel. And then by the time I left, I was like a state vault champion. And so during that time, there was constant constant refinement. And that took discipline on my part to accept the refinement from others in order to better myself and do something I was passionate about it all intertwines, and true Trinity, one of my kiddos we were painting downstairs in our used to be office now it's a guest room, and we were paying handing over there. And she was just like, I want to do the trim work, right? And we're like, well, this is your first. Maybe it was second or third time painting. But you know, she's young. And so we just had them do the walls. And she was like, Nope, I want to do that. We're like, Well, before you can do that, you have to get really good at this part that you're doing right? Step a has to come before step B, she was like, I just want to skip step a, or like, Huh, but you can't. And that's the same with, you know, being a leader, you need to be a follower. First, by getting better, you have to have those refinements along the way. Right? There isn't two year olds running the world and running businesses and running, not for profits. And all of those, it might seem like that sometimes, but it's not the case. Because of all of this refinement, that has to go along right? To Can you imagine those sharing battles that your kids had? Or will have or are having, when they were like two, it's mine, it's mine, it's mine, right? And that then being put into a leadership position? Of course not, they are learning in third training zone, okay. So first we guide and then we refine, they have a behavior, we refine it and tweak it to better themselves, right. And we protect them. And we keep them safe from harm or injury, we protect their interests, and I am not talking about you know, helicopter parenting, protecting them all the time, Oh, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that, oh, watch out for that, you know, we don't want to do that. Because they have to experience this life in their own capacities and their own perspectives as well. And the biggest thing that you're going to want to do here is stay calm, stay calm, they're going to get hurt, physically, mentally, definitely emotionally, right, all of these things those will happen, it's part of that process, part of that refining part of that guiding and part of that protection that you're going to want to give them but they have to go through some of those experiences in order to be refined,

okay. You cannot protect them against everything, and nor should you, they can't be the best version of themselves if they've never been through conflict. Right? If we are always practice practicing conflict avoidance, right, then they won't be able to grow through conflict, I dare you to look back in your own life and say, Oh, I grew because I was, you know, classically sitting and eating bonbons by the pool side for the first 18 years of my life. Well, no, that doesn't grow you right? Those are respite, you know, times of peace, so to speak. And I'm here to say I've never eaten a bond bond in my life. I'm not even sure exactly what a bond bond is. Anyone else feel free to message me and let me know what a bond bond is. But anyway, that's just that old saying, but they are going to get hurt sometimes. But again, we're guiding them through that we're refining them through that. And we're protecting them, sometimes against themselves, and sometimes against others, sometimes against physical, but we can't protect them against everything. And I don't want you to ever feel like you're a bad parent and put that label on yourself because you didn't protect them from something. And also, conversely, I don't want them to think that they need to be protected from everything, they need to start going on their own two feet, right, we have 6000 days approximately, to get them standing on their own two feet. And we need to stay calm and help them navigate and so they can self navigate in the future.

Okay, so we have guide we have refine, we have protect, what is our fourth one, it is challenge, you want to challenge them. Something that needs a challenge is something that needs great mental, emotional, or physical effort in order to be done successfully, and therefore test a person's ability to effectively solve a problem. Guess what the world is full of guess what life is full of problems. There is not a day probably not more than I don't know a few hours in some people's lives not more than five minutes that go by without a problem. So that is why we can't protect them from everything because they won't learn how to solve those problems and get through life. Right. So that carrot You know, we've all heard that saying and seen that the carrot dangling out in front of the the horse's nose right? So we don't always want to be dangling the carrot and pushing them a little bit further and pushing them a little bit further. You need to pause sometimes celebrate the wins. Give like a huge round of applause. I'm so proud of us hugs high fives the whole thing but then move the carrot but then Move the carrot just a little bit. And so they grow just a little bit more. And so they grow, celebrate the winds move the carrot. So I used to. And one of my very many careers, if you guys listened to Episode One, you know that I have gone from humpbacks to humans. And so somewhere in the middle there, I was dealing with much smaller animals than humpbacks. And that was dogs, I used to train dogs. And this is how we would stretch them, right, you would, you would do something and then you would do something a little bit more, right, you teaching them to sit, you move that tree to just a little bit further up. So they would have just down a little bit further up, they'd have to sit down further, all of these things, and you would celebrate the wins along the way and go for it. Now, animals don't have the self awareness as much as humans do. And so we're dealing with much more complicated creatures in humans and in our children. But the concept is still the same challenge. Celebrate the wins, move the carrot, okay. So we want to guide, refine, protect and challenge. And then we can be friends and we can be friends and intervals along the way too. I am the first to say my kids are some of my best friends in the world. But I am parent first. Because if I don't do it, who will? Some person on tik tok? Some person on Instagram and YouTube, some teacher at school? I you know, there is some amazing teachers out there. And there's also some teachers and I there was just two instances last week where I had families coming to me or teachers were massively ridiculing the kids.

And it was really hard. Is that going to be the person that guides my kid through through life and teaches them all of these basics in their 6570 timezone? No, it's you, this is your story. It is mom, it is dad, his kids, his spouse it is whoever is involved in what this family looks like. Okay, it's your story. And it's your story to write, which means that you're at the helm, which means that you are the guide, you refine, you protect, and you challenge, and you're a friend, right? But the friend has to come after those other four things. And we, when you do this, when you're having these four, and then you're being a friend, you are literally building a rock solid relationship between you between you and your child that they that you can rely on, even during the tough times. Because we know tough times happen. I mean, that's a guarantee in life, it's literally a guarantee that you cannot get through this life unscathed. And so Wouldn't it be amazing to have that rock solid relationship where you can lead your kid so they can then lead themselves and lead others down the way. But you have that because you were able to guide, refine and protect and challenge them throughout this 6570 and maybe even some after. But remember, within the 6570, the 6570 days, how many days are in 18 years. This is your high impact high influence timezone that you will never get back again. So using it intentionally is very, very important. And I love that when I'm working with my family life coaching clients, we take this time, and we don't spend time anymore, we use time because the clock is always ticking. And I want you guys to be able to show up and I want your kids to be able to see you show up so that they can in turn show up later as being a guide and refining and protecting and challenging. Okay, you guys, I would love to know which one you are going to use today. Are you going to use one of them? Are you going to use all of them? Are you going to use one of each on multiple kids? How is that going to look? I would love to hear from you send me a message I'm on I'm on Instagram I'm on Facebook. I we have our discipline hackers community on Facebook as well. I would love to see you in there and I want to hear from you. What are you doing in your family? How is this working? How are you being a guide and protecting and challenging and what was my other one though and refining? Lost my lost my thought there for a second. So how are you showing up today? I hope you are having a great day and just as this podcast found you with a smile. I hope it's leaving you with one that's even bigger and happy day you guys happy day and happy building. Okay, bye bye.