Parenting the K-5's Without Forfeiting Your Marriage- Full Transcript
Brad Aldrich:
Let’s start the conversation. Hello everyone, and welcome to Still Becoming One. Yeah, welcome back. We’re glad that you’re here with us today.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, should I argue with that?
Brad Aldrich:
Of course you definitely should. I was just telling Kate that I had two people comment on our podcast this week and both of them said that they love hearing when we disagree with each other.
Kate Aldrich:
I have questions, lots of questions.
Brad Aldrich:
And I’m like, oh okay, yeah, no, we do do that sometimes.
Kate Aldrich:
We do and then I’m like, well, maybe we should just have a microphone in our house, because we definitely disagree on things. But yeah, we do it differently and they’re not many times now not point of tension or bring conflict.
Brad Aldrich:
Honestly, I would say most of the time In the past when we disagreed. I would often feel that as a disconnection right. That like something wasn’t right, like I didn’t get my point across right or whatever. But now I think most of the time I don’t even really sense it.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
You know, unless it’s something bigger. Sure. Right, and those do happen Like. I don’t want to give the impression that we never have larger disagreements, but when that happens I think usually I’m thinking okay, wait, I must have missed something.
Kate Aldrich:
Mm, hmm. Yes, or me to miss something in you or miss something in myself. Yes, or me too Miss something in you or miss something in myself.
Brad Aldrich:
Right, yeah, and that could be. You know, there are definitely days. I mean, probably the biggest thing that I can recognize that we’re good at is recognizing when we’re just in a mood. When we’re tired.
Kate Aldrich:
I don’t get in moods. That must be just you, yeah, so we’re just going to move on from that.
Brad Aldrich:
No, I think we should just dive into in moods. That must be just you, yeah. So we’re just going to move on from that.
Kate Aldrich:
No, I think we should just dive into your moods, just kidding.
Brad Aldrich:
But like you know, those days right Like where you’re just grouchy or whatever, I still don’t understand this.
Kate Aldrich:
I’m never grouchy, we just end up supporting each other.
Brad Aldrich:
I think, and better through that, rather than being like, oh, what’s wrong with you? You know we just kind of like help each other out a little bit more. I think that’s one of the things that we do different.
Kate Aldrich:
You say bigger things, but sometimes it’s just stupid things. I should self-admit I can get upset over stupid things.
Brad Aldrich:
Do you want to give an example? Oh wow, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I really have no idea.
Kate Aldrich:
And that, my friends, is a very nice way to throw your spouse under the bus and back up a few times over her.
Brad Aldrich:
Okay, all right, all right, backing up Wait did you just say all right, all right.
Kate Aldrich:
Did you just say all right, backing up yeah, I won’t. I won’t make you give an example wait, backing up was not a good thing, honey. Oh, you’re backing up over me.
Kate Aldrich:
Oh, that kind of back, okay, no, that’s um, I was just sitting because we’re sitting, we always podcast in brad’s office and we’re sitting around the plants and I know we said we’ve had conflict over them but I don’t know if we ever brought it up. But yes, I like, in the midst of all our like really heavy thickness of parenting a traumatized child, brad decides he wants plants in his office.
Kate Aldrich:
But honest, to goodness, because because I needed some, he needed life and life okay but he said some plants, guys, and, as I’ve, as I’ve shared before here, some plants went from 2 to 40 in all, but like 10 seconds. And I walked in one day and I was like what is happening? It’s like a jungle or Longwood Gardens, which we grew up we lived right next to Longwood Gardens growing up. It’s like what is happening, it’s like the conservatory at Longwood Gardens. And he was like what do you mean? I said I wanted plants and I was like this is a lot of plants and I literally started flipping out and Brad was like what is going on?
Kate Aldrich:
what’s wrong? They’re just plants and I had to like do some of my own story work and reflection to realize we have had house plants before and somehow the watering always not very many like two, and the watering always went to me and they always died. Guys, if you want your plants to meet jesus, you bring them to kate. I will help them get there. I don’t know if it’s painlessly, but I will help them get there. So when I saw all of this and I’m trying to keep humans alive and trying to learn how to communicate and help a traumatized child, as I saw was more responsibility and I’m going to kill these things right and brad was like the plants are mine.
Kate Aldrich:
If they die, it’s my responsibility. Like we had to work through this, so I can honestly say sometimes, yes, I and I literally said I don’t, I don’t care.
Brad Aldrich:
I’ve killed many of my plants because, right like I, have some persnickety ones and like you know. I’ve killed some and I just don’t care. It’s like, okay, well, try something else, it’s not a big deal.
Kate Aldrich:
But we are continuing on with our series of parenting, so we should say this does not carry over to our children.
Brad Aldrich:
No, I do care if we kill them right. I have some persnickety ones Well that’s true, but right, that’s exactly right.
Kate Aldrich:
So maybe we should. Just this doesn’t translate to that I was just giving you an example of some of my crazy like-.
Brad Aldrich:
Conflict that we ended up having to work out.
Kate Aldrich:
But if you think about it, it seems crazy on the surface, but when you understood the context of what was going on in our lives, for me it wasn’t.
Brad Aldrich:
So once I said like this is not your responsibility and I really don’t care if they live or die. Did that take off that tension for you?
Kate Aldrich:
Yes, well, you were basically saying they’re my responsibility, you don’t have to water them. And I said, even if you’re not here, he’s like, even if I’m not here, and I, even if I’m not here, and I was like, fine, I can do that. And then I also said you’ve got to keep them in the office because we have two dogs, and I’m like, if they eat the plants, and then I have to take them to the vet to see if they’re going to die from what they ate, yeah, I don’t want that too. And he was like, okay, okay, he has asked a few times if we can put one in the bay window. And I was like, what?
Brad Aldrich:
it’s a really nice bay window.
Kate Aldrich:
It is but we have. I said it’s a dogs with plants man. So we have also decided between us and our marriage that these are the last family pets we will have. They are our last family pets. So and we know that’s controversial for us the last family pets we will have.
Brad Aldrich:
They are our last family pets and we know that’s controversial. For us, we the last family pets, is controversial, no because a lot of people really really love and we love our pets.
Kate Aldrich:
We love our pets a lot.
Brad Aldrich:
But for us it holds back a layer of freedom that we don’t have to worry about who’s taking care of them.
Kate Aldrich:
We’ve just decided in Empty Nester we’re not going to have any pets, at least at this stage. Maybe when we’re old we’ll need a dog to walk or something, who knows?
Brad Aldrich:
Anyway, that’s totally off topic.
Kate Aldrich:
Moving right along.
Brad Aldrich:
Our topic today is continuing to get into our parenting series. So we’re really in the middle of this series of parenting and marriage where we’re trying to look at what are the challenges that come out of parenting that can challenge your marriage, because this is something we see all the time with our coaching clients is that they start arguments or they start tension just because of some of the dynamics that come in parenting. Tension just because of some of the dynamics that come in parenting.
Brad Aldrich:
So we started with trying to balance your relationship in the world of diapers in infancy stage and then last week we were looking at trying to continue intimacy and connection with toddler tornadoes.
Kate Aldrich:
Toddlers are the squishy phase we forgot to mention. Mention that I love when I see pictures of my toddlers come up on our like echo show and it’s like, oh, they’re squishy their arms like little sausages and they’re just so squishy.
Brad Aldrich:
But anyways, yes, we talked about that last, but they are tornadoes a little bit of that, but they’re so stinking cute so this week we’re getting into that challenge of elementary school age kiddos and what that brings to your marriage and how you can navigate that time well.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely. You know. They’re growing in so many ways physically, emotionally. Their brain development is huge during these years and they’re able to do some more for themselves, which is exciting. It’s also hard as a parent to let them do it, because you’ve just exited part of a phase where you really had to monitor so much of that, you know, and so it’s a really fun, exciting stage. They get to explore school and learning, whether that’s no matter what vein you choose to do it in, and our family has done everything from homeschooling to public school to private school.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, we had this policy kind of pretty early on that every year, kind of at the end of the year, we would take a look at our kids. Yeah. And when they got old enough, they got a voice into it and we kind of would, we would talk and they would talk and we would decide kind of what’s best for them the next year and so each year’s education was a little independent and we did some homeschool. Kate did homeschool for a number of years.
Kate Aldrich:
I like how you amended that.
Brad Aldrich:
Kate did homeschool. I did a little bit of science and a little bit of phys ed. That was about it.
Kate Aldrich:
Yes, you did help, for sure, I was working a lot at that time.
Brad Aldrich:
But you know, so we did the homeschool thing, we did public school for a little while with all of our kids, and then we had one who just really needed a different environment. So we did some private school for him, um, and so, yeah, we’ve done all of those decisions, one girl do private school too.
Kate Aldrich:
We kind of forget that we’ve done. Yeah, we’ve done it all the the gamut.
Brad Aldrich:
So school decisions. That’s part of it, but I think the challenge for us in this time I would say two different things. One, there is this tendency to get pulled in so many directions with this age kids.
Kate Aldrich:
That’s kind of when it starts, I think.
Brad Aldrich:
So that’s one distinct challenge that we can get into. The other one that I know we ran into at times was dealing with discipline issues.
Kate Aldrich:
We come from different perspectives. We come from different family of origins, different ways of handling things, how that’s impacted us. Every one of us has grown up and been disciplined or almost all of us, I feel like, have in some environment, but also, you know your family could lack that very severely. And so, yeah, how our kids are, you know how we’re giving them boundaries and containment is something you have to deal with as parents and it’s going to be very different and sometimes you’re going to have very different ideas.
Brad Aldrich:
Right, and that’s the challenge. It’s not actually doing it. I mean doing it sometimes is very difficult Right. But there’s lots of parenting podcasts out there that you can look at about, like okay, I need ideas on how to discipline my kid. I think what I wanted to talk about was when you and your spouse have different opinions on how to discipline.
Kate Aldrich:
That’s what I meant, man.
Brad Aldrich:
Okay, we’re supposed to argue.
Kate Aldrich:
That’s what I was getting at is like you come from two different stories, two different backgrounds two different and how it makes you feel inside to discipline your kids really impacts it.
Brad Aldrich:
It probably goes into how effective your parents were at discipline at containment, Like do you see what they did as helpful or do you see what they do as harming you? Like that probably contributes.
Kate Aldrich:
I’m sure there’s some of both in every kid’s story right. There are sometimes we feel like our parents did and it wasn’t great, and then other times we’re like, as adults, we’re like, wow, they did that pretty well, Like you know, and so it’s striking that balance and trying to yeah, and many of the parents today, right, they grew up in the generation of.
Brad Aldrich:
In elementary school they were brought home, maybe sometimes to an empty house, told to get a snack and then go outside and not come in until dark, Right, and so that was kind of the oversight in parenting that they had to do a lot on their own and a lot of independence. And I hear this dynamic from some parents that I work with of we don’t have to structure everything. We don’t have to tell them everything to do. We don’t have to deal with their sibling issues. They’ll figure it out on their own because that’s what they did, that’s what we did as kids. We didn’t really have a parent who was guiding a lot of that stuff. I can remember significant times of conflict with friends that my parents never got involved with yeah they probably
Kate Aldrich:
have never even knew it existed well, and that speaks to some other parts of your story I I feel like I did share those things with my family sometimes, but yeah, I don’t think other than talking to me about it. They certainly did, but maybe that’s what you mean talking to me about it.
Brad Aldrich:
No, I like a level of involvement. Yeah, I’m not sure Like I’m thinking through some things that I don’t think my parents ever knew, you know?
Kate Aldrich:
happened Well, of course, especially in high school.
Brad Aldrich:
Well, no, I’m even meaning elementary school age of like things going on, and you know I. So I think there is that discipline difference.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
And I hear this in both directions. I work with a lot of men and I hear the guys going. I don’t want to be just the heavy, like my dad was. He was called in when I did something really bad and that was the relationship I had with my dad. He was the disciplinarian and that was the relationship I had with my dad. He was the disciplinarian and I hear from guys now of like I kind of think one maybe that’s all I know.
Kate Aldrich:
Right.
Brad Aldrich:
And two I think, that’s what my wife wants me to do.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, I’ve heard that. I think, yeah, I think you’re not wrong.
Kate Aldrich:
I think a lot of wives as well, if we’re talking to end up working with their kids the most in this age bracket and toddlers, but there there can absolutely be some stay-at-home dads or part-time dads or whatnot but I think it also, moms don’t want to be the only one disciplining, and I think that’s what they feel, since the majority of the time the kids are around them, and that builds a lot of resentment, because you start to feel like dad is the fun guy.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah.
Kate Aldrich:
And all I do is show them the boundaries and help them with containment, and so I just feel like I’m not fun. And so I do think there is this piece of marriage working together so that both parents feel like they have space to be the fun parent and the parent who sometimes sets you know, has those hard conversations, or sits down and says, hey, this is not okay, has those hard conversations or sits down and says, hey, this is not okay, those kinds of things. And I think it I don’t know, I think it really is a melting of the two.
Brad Aldrich:
It’s hard, though, right, I remember a really hard conversation that we needed to have. So this is not a negative on you. This is a like this. I think this is something that happens a lot of times. I remember a hard conversation where routines are super important at this age. Right, we get into a routine, this is what we do, this is what we’re used to, and the kids function well with routines. And then I come home and I change the routine or I do it different, and that throws everybody off.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
And I remember a conversation where it’s like can’t you just do it my way, because you make it harder?
Kate Aldrich:
It’s funny you should mention a conversation. I don’t remember it being a conversation, but I do remember that conflict.
Brad Aldrich:
Okay, I was being nice. Yes, I believe I kind of got yelled at that. I make everything really harder.
Kate Aldrich:
Hang on here. I did not yell, but yes, I am the lover of the two shocker and I remember saying when you are home, you make it all so much more difficult. And even the kids were saying to him and it’s true, that’s not how mom does it.
Brad Aldrich:
Right.
Kate Aldrich:
Because I think moms do work really hard, which probably has some some things to think about to create routine for their kids. That it is easier getting everybody out the door Isn’t like herding cats which it already is anyways, and cats and all the junk they want to take with them. So right, like that definitely was a conversation we had to have and we didn’t do it well for a long time.
Brad Aldrich:
I agree, but it’s this really unique challenge where you were not wrong. You simply were not wrong. You simply were not wrong. Like I did, do it different and the kids did respond differently than that, and it does create a level of chaos, and the question is if I’m dealing with it, do you then have to clean up the chaos?
Kate Aldrich:
I think moms feel like they have to do, but you bring a good point and you’re not wrong.
Kate Aldrich:
Kids have to learn to adapt in different environments. They learn their teachers have different expectations and to do it this way, but you’re also not wrong. I think part of that is when the other parent is doing something of just stepping aside and letting them do it. The other parent is doing something of just stepping aside and letting them do it. I mean, I think now, as a parent, I should have just gone and sat in the car and had 25 minutes all to myself as you were trying to get their coats and shoes on and get them in the car.
Kate Aldrich:
Exactly right, I mean who knows, guys, it might have been a whole hour all to myself.
Brad Aldrich:
It’s possible, but I do think there is that place. One of the things that we tell parents when they’re trying to work through this is don’t allow discipline conflicts to be something that pulls at the two of you Right, unless it gets to that point where you feel like that parent is needs to tap out, losing it Right and we all lose it, Like just honest, we all lose it. So, there are times that we go okay, this let’s. Why don’t you take a break?
Brad Aldrich:
I’ll take over and support this and if there is a disagreement of what we’re doing, of how we’re going to do this, here’s the great thing about elementary age that’s different than like toddler, because toddlers, if you’re disciplining them, they won’t remember what they did wrong five minutes later. Elementary school age will they know that? They stole the cookie, and so if there is a disagreement of what we should be doing, there should be a way to kind of go. Can we pause and decide the discipline a little bit later, when?
Brad Aldrich:
we get a chance to talk and that a conversation happens between the two of you after things cool down a little. Mm-hmm.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, I think what you’re bringing up, though I think many times the main couples that we see that this is huge for them is they’re just really really on very different pages about parenting.
Brad Aldrich:
Oh yeah.
Kate Aldrich:
Not just discipline in general but parenting, and I think it’s really just worth doing some work of understanding why that page is so important to you. I’m not saying one way or the other, that one is better than the other, but why is your page that you are on so important for you to remain there with your feet Right?
Brad Aldrich:
That’s good.
Kate Aldrich:
Because it is going to bring conflict in your marriage, and this is what we see with couples of this age of like, well, we just do it differently and that then creates marriage conflict. And so I think to be able to understand why each one is so sort of for lack of a better term entrenched in their thought and what it should be. We don’t understand why it’s there, what’s it telling us, right? Because there’s stuff going on in the background. Yeah, I do feel like you and I, in general, were closer to the same page than a lot of couples are. We definitely had differences, but we weren’t so completely opposite.
Brad Aldrich:
But there were many times that we had to pull back when we felt ourselves arguing about what the kid was doing, and we had to pull back and go. Okay, how are we going to address this kid with this specific issue? And that’s the conversation that needs to happen, because one, each kid is different and right. Their commodity, their, their. How do you motivate them? Even their, what they’re doing wrong is often different. Yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
And then we need to like game plan a very specific issue, right, and how are we going to deal with it? And that was the conversation that needed to happen, but it almost never did until we were disagreeing with how do we deal with this, and then we would go back and have that conversation and it usually got a lot better.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, it’s fun, guys, it’s fun.
Brad Aldrich:
This is hard, and that’s what I’m saying is truly. This age brings up some of these conflicts and your past. Your story impacts it right, and so if you feel like you are in a marriage conflict about how you’re disciplining your kids, don’t forget that your story and your spouse’s story matter. And if you don’t know what those are, man, this would be a great time to dive in and kind of go okay, why is that discipline so hard? For you.
Brad Aldrich:
What was that like for you as a kid? And trying to understand them at a deeper level. I think you’re going to get some empathy of what is going on.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely you have to. Yeah to understand, you have to.
Brad Aldrich:
And we’re going to go. I think sometimes the harder topic is this next one, because it taps into some of these same things just from a different perspective of getting involved and getting your kids involved, because a lot of people have very strong feelings about making sure their kids have all of the opportunities that they never did.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, I just say don’t do it.
Brad Aldrich:
Don’t, because it’s a lot of work.
Kate Aldrich:
Don’t get rid like nomads no-transcript.
Brad Aldrich:
And their kids were very involved in this gymnastics. They were very good at it.
Brad Aldrich:
They were going to major competitions and spending lots of their money going to major competitions all over and I happen to know that there were two girls, both of them, doing this. Both of those girls have graduated and are not doing any gymnastics. They did not become Olympians, they did not move on. I’m sure it benefited their life, I’m positive it had good impacts, but the amount of time, tension and money that was spent on getting them the absolute best, I don’t see it in actually impacting their life much more than how it impacted the couple really being completely disconnected from each other and I see that stuff happening all the time.
Brad Aldrich:
And maybe it’s not just like oh, I’m going to get my kid in this travel sport, I mean that happens a lot, but maybe it’s just they’re going to do soccer, and then they’re going to do gymnastics, and then they’re going to do band, and so there’s something every night.
Kate Aldrich:
Sure, yeah. What we would say with this is like be intentional and, as a parent, try to figure out what your standard is going to be. And we did that early on and we stuck to it. Pretty much all of our kids school careers and we still have two in school, um, and it was just really important to us and to our family and we had three kids for the most of our for most of that time, and now a fourth. But you don’t have to do what we’re doing, it’s more, be intentional of what?
Brad Aldrich:
about what the standard is?
Kate Aldrich:
and and so we just decided like this is what we feel we’re able to do. And so with a, when they were elementary age, through the time that they could drive, we just said you’re involved in one thing at a time and, um, you know, there were sometimes one kiddo was involved in something and we would make the other one sort of make a sacrifice, like just being intentional about it now when they could drive themselves oh yeah, we opened up if if they had proven themselves responsible true then we, we opened up a lot more to them, but you know, we had four kids, or three kids for the most of that.
Brad Aldrich:
Three kids, one activity at a time Right, and you know, soccer was three times a week, like yeah hardly anything is once a week, so like that meant we were out most nights of the week.
Brad Aldrich:
And we also tended this is just our bias, I we tended to do um breadth of activities versus depth of anyone. Um, so we had mean by that, so we got them. Like, all of our kids did a little bit of sports. All of our kids did a little bit like art camp or like that kind of stuff or science camp our kids.
Kate Aldrich:
but we, we, yes, we tried to tell them activities could be more than just sports.
Brad Aldrich:
Right, and it wasn’t like we didn’t let anyone go deep into one activity. And some people love that they are the hockey kid and they’re going to do hockey, and they’re going to do hockey 24-7, and they’re going to, and that can be great and I don’t want to knock what that means, but it’s just so rare that that becomes your life, but so often it becomes your family’s life at this stage and man, unless you really have dreams of the NHL. I just question how valuable that is.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, yeah. So it’s just something to think about. And again, if that is your value, that’s fine. How do you keep your marriage important?
Brad Aldrich:
Important.
Kate Aldrich:
Right, because that is for lack of better terms. That is a child-centered approach.
Brad Aldrich:
So much so.
Kate Aldrich:
And this world has really promoted a child-centered time.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah when their activities are taking over your marriage. Yep, right, so like what does that mean and how are you going to balance it and everything? So we just really encourage intentionality with that. And having a plan doesn’t mean you can’t change the plan. It doesn’t mean you can’t change the plan and just thinking about how are we going to approach this as we enter into this stage. And again, you can tweak it, you can change it, especially when they’re young, they don’t know you’re tweaking it and changing it.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, exactly right, and I think this is the pull for this, and this is where I started is it’s our own story, it’s our own not being seen, it’s our own not being recognized sometimes that then we want to overdo for our kids and look, this is a bias. But I think we need to create more time for our kids to just unstructured play and a little less time in all the structured practice kind of thing.
Kate Aldrich:
And that brings up a good point Like this is a really great stage to get connected with other friends or neighbors that have kids in the same stage as you, because kids do start to start to play well together in this phase and like so then you know moms can have some connections, dads can have some connections and you can share like, hey, I’ll take your kids for the day while you guys go do something.
Kate Aldrich:
If you would take my kids for the day because they’re a little bit more independent Now, that obviously doesn’t mean that everybody has their youngest kid in elementary school, because you could have other kiddos that are toddlers and infants. But it’s good to build that community and rely on it, because we did that for our neighbors and friends and they did it for us and that really can give some time to your marriage, some much needed time for your marriage that is separate from the kids.
Brad Aldrich:
Correct, right. And it’s so important, right? So all of those are values. There’s things that you guys get to talk about and think through, and it’s just a challenge to see how is this not going to impact your marriage, or how do you make sure that you can do that time well, and this should be a time where you are taking back time for your marriage when you are dealing with those infants, when you’re dealing with toddler tornadoes.
Kate Aldrich:
It’s really hard to create time you need to come up with something else too. It just sounds awful, no I know, but I mean, I don’t have a toddler anymore, so it’s easy to forget how much of a tornado they are.
Brad Aldrich:
But like also, like I don’t know, they’re great, but they’re difficult.
Kate Aldrich:
Oh my gosh, toddlers are so cute.
Brad Aldrich:
And I just want to encourage that takes a ton of couple time. And it should be a time in this school age space where they’re being a little bit more independent that you can create space for your marriage again and you guys should be redating. You guys should be enjoying each other. You should be having conversations that have nothing to do with the kids.
Kate Aldrich:
Good luck with that.
Brad Aldrich:
Yep, and exploring and getting to know each other again, that should be happening, and if it’s only happening on the soccer field, then there’s probably something missing. That’s what I would challenge. Yeah, and all of that comes in space and time and learning, because you may have some school-age kids and some toddlers right and trying to balance all of that.
Kate Aldrich:
It doesn’t guarantee all of your kids are that age or older.
Brad Aldrich:
but yeah, I have this discipline story that I think is hilarious. I remember from when I was coaching one of our kiddos you know, young kid soccer team and I remember coaching them. This is the stage where the coach is pretty active in telling the kids what they need to do. And I remember hearing this conversation behind me of a parent with a toddler saying, yes, you can get off the blanket, but you’re not allowed to go on the field. And next thing I know that toddler is standing directly next to me, so I’m like right on the edge of the field. The toddler was standing directly next to me and they looked back at their parent and put their foot in the field. And that is like my picture of containment and boundaries that we need right. Every kid is going to challenge our boundaries.
Kate Aldrich:
Was that, while your sweet little girl was hanging off of your leg? It wasn’t that?
Brad Aldrich:
that year.
Kate Aldrich:
But um, yes, that happened too one year he was coaching both our middle son and middle daughter now and our daughter wanted to play because her older brother was playing and she just loved, love, loved him. And that daughter spent the whole season attached to her dad’s leg. Cause, this is like you actually were out there on the field with them.
Brad Aldrich:
Yes, that was a different one.
Kate Aldrich:
She would not do anything but hang on to his legs. So the next season she did not do soccer.
Brad Aldrich:
She is not our soccer kid, she just wanted to be on your leg.
Kate Aldrich:
She plays other sports. Now, though, yes, she does, but it was just so funny. You were like you have to go play, go play. She was like nope, so yes.
Brad Aldrich:
Fun times and I guess in saying that I want to say absolutely get your kids involved in things. It’s wonderful to see what they love and what they enjoy it grows them, but just be careful that.
Kate Aldrich:
It doesn’t have to grow you two apart. It’s not worth it.
Brad Aldrich:
That’s exactly right. So that’s the challenge in trying to figure out how do you do all that well. So I hope that was a helpful conversation in you guys learning from each other and really connecting through this time of elementary schoolers and trying to navigate it so that your marriage is growing as well, yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s all for this week, on Still Becoming One. Until next time, I’m Brad Aldrich.
Kate Aldrich:
And I’m Kate Aldrich. Be kind and take care of each other.
