“Raising Boys & Girls” with David Thomas and Sissy Goff

Shownotes:

Parenting is hard. Parenting through a pandemic is even harder, but David Thomas and Sissy Goff are here to provide help and support. Sissy and David work at Daystar Counseling Ministries in Nashville, Tennessee. Sissy is the Director of Child and Adolescent Counseling and David is the Director of Family Counseling. When they aren’t counseling and ministering to kids and parents alike, they find time to write, travel and speak, and produce their own podcast, Raising Boys and Girls.

In this episode, David and Sissy offer encouragement, resources, and hope to parents dealing with all the challenges and joys of raising boys and girls, including how to write your family’s own mission statement and books and authors who have guided them in their counseling ministries.

Resources:

Raising Boys and Girls
Instagram
Facebook
Podcast

Books by David Thomas and Sissy Goff are available for purchase at https://www.raisingboysandgirls.com/store.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

How Children Raise Parents by Dan Allender
The Whole-Brain Child by Tina Payne Bryson & Dan Siegel
Best Friends, Worst Enemies by Michael Thompson
Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys by Dan Klindon & Michael Thompson
Birds & Bees

Transcript:

Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.

Eddie Rester 00:02
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 00:04
Today we're talking to David Thomas and Sissy Goff from the Daystar Counseling Center in Nashville, Tennessee. And they've written a number of books on raising boys and girls.

Eddie Rester 00:14

They travel together and speak. They've written books together. They've talked about what parenting means. And here's one of the reasons why we wanted to talk with them is that one of the most anxiety inducing things adults can go through is parenting. You never know if you're doing it, right. You're, you know, my wife and I joke about, you know, what are they gonna end up talking to a counselor about that we did to them one day. And it's just this thing that you never know if you're doing it right or wrong. And then your kids show up, and you watch them struggle. And you just want to do something to help at some points, or you just want to direct them. And what I find with David and Sissy is that they're very practical, very thoughtful. And they've really began to help you frame the conversation around parenting in a better way.

Chris McAlilly 01:11

Yeah, I find that the conversation around faith and mental health is one that a lot of people are having. But I still feel like I'm getting oriented within the conversation. And this was helpful, as well, because as a father, as a parent, and as a pastor, and as a husband, I feel like I'm running around all the time. I don't feel like I've got a lot of time to... What I feel like I need to do is go do a PhD in child development or something, like I need to spend years reading about it. I don't have that kind of time. And so in this particular conversation, what you get is some very clear, you know, wisdom that emerged from 30 years of their work as practitioners in mental health. But it's faith informing emotion and mental health. And, you know, there's some very clear things that you can do as parents, and some very actionable steps that come out of their work.

Eddie Rester 02:04

I think one of the things I really liked was, Sissy says at one point, just be there. You don't overthink it. Stop overthinking it. I think that's one of the things that as a parent, I do overthink, and I've worried. Did I do this right? And then you really get to a moment where your kids, as my kids have, gone to college and there's this real moment of did I give them everything I needed to give them. And I think for me the conversation today was let the guilt go, lay some of the anxiety aside, encourage your kids, and if the worst thing that sends your kids to counseling one day is you encouraged them too much, that's an okay thing for them to work through.

Chris McAlilly 02:47

Yeah, we're doing this work together. You don't have to parent alone. And you got to find some people to be on the journey with. I've been in conversation with some of my buddies recently, and it's like, "is this as hard for you as it is for me?" And the answer is always absolutely, always 100% yes. You just have to know you're not in this alone. And these are some good, good resources for you. So we're glad that you've joined us today on The Weight. As always, you can like it, you can share it, leave us a review. We're always grateful to have you as a part of the conversation on The Weight.

Eddie Rester 03:22

[INTRO] Life can be heavy. We carry around with us the weight of our doubt, our pain, our suffering, our mental health, our family system, our politics. This is a podcast to create space for all of that.

Chris McAlilly 03:35

We want to talk about these things with humility, charity, and intellectual honesty. But more than that, we want to listen. It's time to open up our echo chamber. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Chris McAlilly 03:50

We're here today with David Thomas and Sissy Goff. So glad you guys are here with us on the podcast today.

Sissy Goff 03:57
We're so honored to be with y'all.

Chris McAlilly 03:59

Yeah, I was saying just before we got on this, for me, is awesome because Eddie's got two grown children, he has a lot of wisdom. And then David and Sissy, they teach people how to parent. I've got three young kids, and so this is going to be invaluable for me guys. Thank you. Two boys, one girl. I need all the wisdom. You pour it in. Pour it in.

Eddie Rester 04:23

Yeah, we'll see what we can do. I don't know that I've got anything. I'm still actively trying to get my kids to adult. I guess they're adults now. But how do I continue to push them into responsible adult living. So it's gonna be great. David and Sissy, tell us a little bit about your journey. You both have written a lot about parenting boys and girls. You speak all over the United States. You were telling us a little bit about your speaking schedule right now. How did each of you kind of find this place where you wanted to invest your lives in speaking to parents?

Sissy Goff 05:03

Well, I would say I think I really became what I wished or tried to become what I wish I had had in my life. And I was super involved in lots of places, youth type organization spiritually, and I was the kid who smiled all the time, acted like everything was great, even when things were hard at times. And as many amazing mentors as I had in my life, I never had anyone who said, "Sissy, no one smiles all the time. Like, that's not normal. There's got to be more happening inside of you."

Sissy Goff 05:35

And David and I are a lot older than y'all. But when we were both growing up, David, I think you'd agree with this, that we didn't hear much about psychology or counseling. No one was. I did not know a soul who would admit that they were in counseling if they were. And in fact, the only person I knew in the field was Marlena from "Days of Our Lives." She was the only psychologist I'd ever heard of. Yeah.

Eddie Rester 06:00
She had a great career. I think still has a career.

Sissy Goff 06:04

That's what I was gonna say! She's still doing it. Yeah, I can't imagine how old she is. Or maybe how many plastic surgeries she's had at this point. But so you know, I think I thought, well, that sounds really interesting child psychology, I'd love to work with kids. And then, as God does so often, he kind of opened the next door and the next door, and I loved the psychology classes in college at the University of Arkansas. Sorry, I'm a Razorback. And then after that, I knew I needed to go to grad school to be a counselor, and Nashville, Vanderbilt opened its doors. And then I interviewed with Melissa, our executive director for my internship and sat there with tears in my eyes the entire interview thinking "I never knew a place like this existed."

Sissy Goff 06:49

And really, because it's this beautiful Ministry of I mean, combination of ministry meets counseling. So we are able to go really deep into kids lives, but from a faith-based perspective, and it's so relational. David can tell you more about what Daystar is like. But I just fell in love immediately with the mission of this place, and now have been there 30 years. So obviously, I really loved it.

Eddie Rester 07:14 Obviously, yeah.

Sissy Goff 07:16 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 07:17 What about you, David?

David Thomas 07:19

You know, Sissy and I have similar stories in a lot of ways that we're both first borns in our family. And we are both Enneagram Ones, the reformer. And so I think, even as I think about that, I think on how I've kind of just grown into probably what was always there. I did an interview recently about being in Enneagram One and I, all of a sudden, remember I'd forgotten to say, I think I got the Good Citizen award four years in a row, which only an Enneagram One kid would get back then. And so I think.

Sissy Goff 07:53

Yeah.

David Thomas 07:53

You, too? All right, I'm glad to know that. And so I think as I think back on that similarity in my story, too, you know, I can remember being in high school, and you know, a lot of my friends would just come to me and talk about hard things that were going on in their lives. When I was in college, I was a camp counselor, and my co-workers would come get me with the kids who were really homesick, and they couldn't get to go to sleep at night. And there was just something about being in those spaces that didn't overwhelm me in ways that I think might other people, understandably. And so as I think back on the trajectory of my story, I think God was preparing me all along, I think in a lot of ways, just in how I was hardwired.

David Thomas 08:38

And I love the way Sissy talks about, you know, wanting to be what she needed. And I think same for me in a lot of ways as well. And so, when I finished grad school, or as I was finishing, I had known a little bit about the work of Daystar and and met Sissy through a mutual friend and asked her if we could go have lunch and I wanted to learn more. And thankfully...

Sissy Goff 09:00
Tell them what I said at first.

David Thomas 09:02 She said we're not hiring.

Eddie Rester 09:08 [LAUGHTER]

Sissy Goff 09:08
Kindly. I sounded kinder than that.

David Thomas 09:11
You did say it much kinder than that.

Chris McAlilly 09:13

With a smile, though. With a smile.

David Thomas 09:16

With a smile, exactly that great smile. But I'm thankful that that friendship and that lunch led to an opportunity for me to get to be at this amazing place where I've been for 25 years and just so thankful that Sissy and I get the opportunity out of what we learned day in, day out just sitting with kids and families, that we could then travel around the country and share that with other parents, and that we've had the privilege of writing some books, too, where we hope to get to take so much of what we've learned and make that useful to families across the globe.

Chris McAlilly 09:54

So I want to get to some of your writing and the way that you're synthesizing what you're seeing and some of the patterns and I want to get to that. But I want to hear a little bit more, if you'd be willing to share, what is your day to day practitioner life look like as a counselor, as a practitioner? How many folks are you seeing a week? You know what is the the nuts and bolts of your week in counseling? What's the base of your experience with that work right now?

Sissy Goff 10:30

We each work four days a week at the Daystar house. And our office is actually a little yellow house. A little boy said it was the little yellow house that helps people. And so we work four days a week there and, I mean, David, do you think 25 to 30-ish, sometimes 33-ish on a busy week?

David Thomas 10:50
Probably on a busy week, maybe a few more now that we're doing a little more administrative.

Sissy Goff 10:56

Yes. So we both do some individual counseling. We both do assessments, first time appointments for folks that come in our offices. And we both do what are called parent consults. So parents whose kids aren't in counseling, who are just saying is what I'm seeing normal, is there anything I need to be doing differently, help with this situation. We do a lot of those as well. So that's our nine to five, although it's not really that job during the week. And then I lead a group of adolescent girls every week, too, and then the weekends we travel and speak or when we're writing books, that's when we typically write as well. So we're usually meeting ourselves coming and going.

David Thomas 11:37
And then we have a podcast we record when we're not on the road.

Sissy Goff 11:41
Thank you, David. I forgot about that.

Eddie Rester 11:42
So a few things. Y'all have a few things to keep you busy.

David Thomas 11:45 Just a few.

Chris McAlilly 11:46
In terms of the counseling itself, what are some of the things that you've been seeing lately? Just kind of, you know, what are some recurring themes that you're seeing just in your practice?

David Thomas 11:59

We have always seen kids who are struggling with anxiety and depression for as long as we've been doing this for. We've never seen as many as we're seeing right now. And honestly, that was true pre-COVID, which is a huge part of why I'm so thankful Sissy has written so much content, needed content, about kids and anxiety. But you know, what we all know to be true, which is just COVID made everything that was hard that much harder. So, Sissy, share a little bit about what the stats were looking like pre-COVID, and what they look like now with anxiety.

Sissy Goff 12:32
Well, we wrote a book, I can't remember what year we wrote "Are My Kids on Track?" David, like eight years ago now probably?

David Thomas 12:39 Sounds about right.

Sissy Goff 12:40

Yeah. At that point, the statistics on kids and anxiety were one in eight kids. Jump to before the pandemic started, we had already moved to one in four kids, with girls twice as likely. And now we're sitting at one in three. And so it is just so prevalent among kids, and I mean, we could talk a lot about anxiety, but the average age of onset dropped from eight to six, with family seeing signs as young as four and five. And so that definitely felt like one of the biggest issues. And it's what propelled me, as David said, to start writing some books about anxiety.

Sissy Goff 13:15

But then David came along, and the publisher said, David, would you write a book about boys and anxiety? And he said, No, because boys are dealing with a whole lot of things as significantly as they are anxiety. I mean, I would say 70 to 75% of the girls coming into Daystar right now, it's anxiety based, if not higher. And for boys, it's anxiety and it's self-regulation and it's all these other issues that he wrote about in his book. Not that we meant to promote each other's books, but he has a wonderful book called "Raising Emotionally Strong Boys."

Eddie Rester 13:48

What do you think is driving just the anxiety and just the drop of ages Is it social media? Is it the anxiety that's kind of prevalent in our culture? Is it something that parents are doing differently now than we were doing 10 or 15 years ago? What's your sense of that? Or maybe what does the research show? Y'all may have research on that.

Sissy Goff 14:13
Yeah, yes to all the things you mentioned.

Eddie Rester 14:15 Okay.

Sissy Goff 14:16

And, I mean, one, I definitely think technology and social media are contributing to it significantly. Probably the social media piece and girls more than boys, but some boys, too. That's number one. Number two is, I think, you know, if girls are twice as likely, part of that is because girls feel more pressure today than they've ever felt. I've never heard as many girls talk about wanting to get 104s rather than just the hundreds, or they're not okay with the time that they made an attract need, or whatever it is. And it starts so young. Obviously, the age of onset, between six and eight, means they're not on technology yet, most of them. Hopefully. And so that is a piece of it.

Sissy Goff 14:58

And then the third thing is, the predominant thing I would say is that, statistically, if, as a parent, you have anxiety, your kids are seven times more likely to deal with it themselves. And what we're seeing is, a lot of parents, we're in different age brackets, but a lot of us didn't grow up with parents who were talking about emotions in a healthy way. We were not passing around feelings charts around the dinner table. And so we're seeing a lot of parents who, not only genetically are passing it on to their kids, but they didn't feel understood or heard, and so now they're majoring in helping their kids feel understood and heard and validated in it. But they're not necessarily giving them the tools to work through it. Because working through it involves doing the scarier thing, and they feel like that's pushing them too hard. So there's more. The two most common parenting strategies in light of anxiety are escape and avoidance. So there's a lot of stepping in and rescuing.

Chris McAlilly 15:54

Yeah, I didn't like your book, David, at all, because of this. You know, I'm reading through the book, and it's like, man, this guy's not giving... I mean, there are plenty of tools, but a lot of this is going to involve me actually doing a lot of work. And I don't like that, David.

David Thomas 16:15
You're not the first parent to tell me that.

Chris McAlilly 16:17 I'm just joking.

David Thomas 16:19

I get exactly what you're saying. And I love that we can laugh together in that. But I think there is just so much opportunity for us as people who love kids to be thinking about the ways we're operating in the world, think about the things we're modeling or not modeling. And you know, even how I would build on what great thing Sissy was saying in saying this, you know, how I think we as adults have accelerated everything in the world for kids. You know, I think about the classic saying of kindergarten is the new first grade. If we look back 50 years ago at what we were doing, you know, in first grade then, it is what we're doing in kindergarten.

David Thomas 16:58

Now, I challenge a lot of parents and say, ask your parents what their kindergarten experience was like. Well, you know, a lot of grandparents went to school three days a week, or only went nine to 12. And then came home and took a nap. And you know, now we do a full 35 hour academic week that mirrors what we once did in first grade, and all the way up. My kids in eighth grade took classes I took in high school. My kids in high school took classes that took in college. And think how we've accelerated the athletic experience for kids, that, you know, when we were growing up, kids played three or four sports every season. And now it's like by the time you get to high school, you've got to have picked one and it could be a 12 month commitment.

David Thomas 17:39

And so we've accelerated so many things in the world that I think Sissy and I would say don't necessarily honor development. And you know, the basic things that kids have needed have been the same for 10,000 years, will be the same 10,000 years from now. They're still going to need the exact same amount of sleep. They're still going to need outdoor play. They're still going to need downtime, all these great things. But as we accelerate the world around them, we're making for less time for them to do those basic things, which I think sets the stage for things like anxiety and depression immediately. So a lot of factors.

Eddie Rester 18:15

You talk about that time acceleration, I even think about when I was a kid, and my parents bought me Legos, they bought me a box of Legos and I poured them on the floor and built ridiculous things with them. When my kids wanted Legos, you got a 500 piece box with a picture on it and an instruction booklet that was 30 pages long for how to build the Eiffel Tower or something. And that loss of structured... They wanted to build the Eiffel Tower, but they couldn't just figure out how to build the Eiffel Tower. They had to plod through 30 pages.

Chris McAlilly 18:55
And you lose one piece. You lose one piece.

Eddie Rester 18:58

You lose one piece and the whole thing, yeah, that actually makes dad fall apart more than them. But we'll get to that. But so as you think about parenting, I mean, there's a lot of pressure and anxiety on parents to you got to pick your kids sport by the time they're eight. You've got to make sure they're in travel dance. You've got to make sure they're taking algebra in seventh grade. How can... What's your word to parents? I guess that's what I'm asking. How can you help parents think about their parenting differently?

David Thomas 19:37 Hmm.

Sissy Goff 19:38
David, will you talk about the family mission statement. I love when you talk about that.

David Thomas 19:43
Yeah, well, we wrote a book a couple years ago called "Intentional Parenting," and in the first chapter, we walk parents through how to write a family mission statement, much like how every church, every organization, every corporation has a mission statement that often will outline your core values. Will be a couple of sentences about what you're about in this world. And we love the idea of helping families think about that. What do you want to be about in this world? And so we kind of walk you through.

David Thomas 20:13

I'll even walk families through who are listening an easy way you could do this. You could do it with four sheets of paper and pencil. Make it super simple. And on the first sheet, brainstorm together with kids--and you could do this with kids who can't even write, you know, you could be the reporter--and say, let's make a list of everything we do in this world. So basketball, gymnastics, church, work, school, all the different things.

David Thomas 20:36

Okay, on the second sheet, let's make a list of things that we wish we did more of. And everybody gets to brainstorm. You know, kids might say, I wish we went to a water park more. Parents might say, I wish we volunteered more. I wish we played more board games. Just ideas. Don't critique anyone's ideas. Just to come up with ideas.

David Thomas 20:56

And then on the third sheet, we walk families through writing a family mission statement. It could include a scripture that's meaningful to your family. And it doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be complicated. And then we invite you to hold up those lists against that mission statement. You know, how do all the things we do in a given week line up with who we want to be? How do the things we wish we did more of line up with who we want to be?

David Thomas 21:19

And then the fourth sheet is kind of a do over. What do we want to do different? In light of this being who we want to be, what do we want to do different? And I think that fits within your great question. And I think often what we say to families is, you know, it could involve, it likely will involve, a lot of pushing back against what the world saying. So if the world is saying you need to pick your sport by seven, let's be reasonable adults that know that's not true. Kids should still be trying on activities like shirts when they're seven. They go, "Ooh, I like the way this fits. I don't like the way that fits." And you know, just because a lot of the world is going to say you need to do a travel sport, you don't. So I'm not saying that's a bad decision, I'm just saying, this exercise could allow you to t,hink about the decision that you make to align with who you want to be, instead of just getting kind of swept up in so much of what the world is saying in that space.

Chris McAlilly 22:12

Yeah, I think one of the things in reading your writing, both of you, and then thinking about what you're offering, and a lot of ways is you're offering... I mean, we're given new maps, new cultural forms to navigate that are different than the ones that that we were given. So, I mean, just navigating the questions around travel sports with my son who's an 11 year old looks very different than when I was 12 ,13, 14 and having those conversations just 30 years ago, or whatever. And so it really does, like, it's very disorienting. And I think, you know, one of the things that I see you guys do is you're just providing some structured maps, and kind of taking some of that ancient wisdom and reframing it and repackaging it in ways that I'm finding incredibly helpful.

Chris McAlilly 23:06

And so David, I mentioned your book, just because I'm, I've got a young daughter who's five, and we were dealing with bursts of emotion with her, but a lot of the complexity in parenting I'm dealing with right now is around that pre-adolescent, the movement. It really is dealing with stress and the way in which stress manifests itself, or sadness or fear or anxiety, it manifests itself in anger. And I was fascinated by just the ways that you talked about offloading stress in various ways, and providing parents with some categories and some language and some simple practices to deal with that. I wonder if you would just maybe bring some of that into the conversation, if you don't mind.

David Thomas 23:55

I'd love to, and it felt so important to write more around that, one because, you know, all four of us can testify to the fact that stress is a normal part of being human. Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. And so we're going to come up against that all throughout our lives, and so it's not something to be feared, but it's something we want to figure out. What does it look like? What are the practices I can put in place for when I experience it? And who are the people I go to for support?

David Thomas 24:27

And that's really what that new book was about, and equipping boys because, you know, according to the statistics, I think we have a long way to go, because, you know, adult men in our country consistently lead some of the scariest statistics out there. We lead for infidelity, internet pornography, substance abuse, suicide. The common denominator with all those being that it's males who are working hard to try to avoid what they're feeling, numb out what they're feeling, medicate what they're feeling, stop what they're feeling, as opposed to how could we prepare boys to know what to do with what they feel, and to name that also.

David Thomas 25:05

That's really where I start in terms of the practices, is, you know, I talk about how at early pediatric visits, 12, 18, 24 months, when pediatricians are asking, like, how many words is he saying? How many words is she saying? We know that girls are saying two to three times the number of words that boys are. So if her general vocabulary is bigger, it's understandable that her emotional vocabulary would be more expansive. So I think we're just gonna have to labor a little longer in that space with boys. And then to your great point, somewhere around 9 to 10, boys began to channel all primary emotions--fear, sadness, disappointment, worry--into one emotion, and that's anger, which is what I hear about in my office more every day than anything else. Boys of all ages, from 3 to 13 to 23, just so much anger comes out.

David Thomas 25:56

And so I think we're gonna have to work hard there, too, to help boys figure out what's underneath that anger. And then I think, to compound that, culturally, we send messages to boys all throughout development that say anger is an okay emotion, but sadness is not. And so already, he's got fewer words, then he's channeling everything toward anger And then the world is saying, keep doing that don't feel anything else. So I think all three of those coming together where I think it's so important to labor in these places with boys to help them figure out more, what do I feel what to do with it? Who were the people I go to, for support?

Chris McAlilly 26:32

Yeah, I read the book in a morning after a particularly stressful day, the day before, and I was like, man, you know, and it was all the things. It was like, I had the email you that was about something I couldn't control. And here comes, you know, I've got kids that are sick. It's like, you know, it's the normal life, and then it's the one or the two, or the three things piled on top of that. And by the end of the day, you realize it's like stress upon stress upon stress. And everybody knows what that feels like, you know. And I think the thing that, you know, I was joking about it, that is challenging about this is what I'm realizing, is that for the next five years of parenting are going to involve, for me, a heck of a lot of work, just kind of working through my own stuff, you know, in order to be set up well, to kind of help my boys navigate the next few years. And that feels a little bit overwhelming. I'm not gonna lie. But I found it really helpful to have language and in categories and practices.

Chris McAlilly 27:47

Sissy, how do you think about the kind of the same set of, you know, how does stress manifest itself for girls? You know, maybe at the beginning of adolescence, you mentioned anxiety, but I wonder, what are some of the patterns that you see or that you've written about?

Sissy Goff 28:04

Well, let me go back and say, I just love, and I know, David does, too, that you're talking about the importance of doing your own work, because I think we would probably both say in terms of healthy parenting, that's the number one thing. That's the best gift that you can give the kids in your life. And I had a conversation with a couple, a couple months ago. And this dad is the CEO of a company that he started. And he said, you know, I was at a conference about management. And he said, one of the things they talked about is that a CEO's job is to be the calmest person in the room. And he said, I think I'm figuring out that a parent's job is to be the calmest person in the room, too. And I think that the only way we can do that is when we do our own work. And so I'm just grateful for you sharing that important truth. And I'll talk about girls too, but I'm really grateful. So thank you for saying that.

Sissy Goff 29:00

And with girls, I mean, I think, younger, it's pretty similar. I sit with a lot of parents of young kids, especially ones that aren't super verbal yet, emotionally able to articulate their emotions, and they describe anger. And it's often directed outward, typically to the parents. A lot of anxious kids, I wrote a book called "Braver, Stronger, Smarter" and talked about how, for elementary age girls, and talked about how every girl I've ever met who deals with anxiety is really kind. They're conscientious. They try hard. They care so much. They want to get things really right. And they just can't turn the volume knob down on all that caring. And so they're often the kids that you go to a parent-teacher conference, and the teacher says, "I wish every child in my class acted like your daughter," and you're thinking, "Oh, that's not who I'm experiencing at home." Because girls reserve their biggest emotions for home. You get the pushback. The most negative emotions are going to come out at you because you're the safest. And so parents will often describe a lot of anger for younger kids.

Sissy Goff 30:05

And then for a lot of girls, there's kind of this age of awareness where they start to realize this is not okay. I don't like who I am after I explode this way. I get really mad at myself. And so that anger turns inward. And I read a study years ago that David and I talk about so much that when something goes wrong in a boy's world, he tends to blame someone else, and when something goes wrong in a girl's world, she blames herself. And it starts really early. And so I will often say to parents, if your daughter's getting angry with you, that's great news. Because at the point she turns it inward, you can't help her work through it anymore. You're not going to know what she's feeling.

Sissy Goff 30:47

And so when she's little and angry, let's figure out what are the patterns. Is it transitions? Is it unpredictability, which it often is with little girls? Is it something she didn't know was coming? Is it that she loves control so much? Control has become a coping strategy in lieu of any others. And so when her brother comes in and messes up her bed, she loses her mind. And if that's the case, let's talk about some things we can do to help so that when it gets more complex, and she starts to be harder on herself, she's learned these great tools already, that can enable her not to just shred herself when things go wrong, because that is so where girls go.

Eddie Rester 31:25
Yeah, I raised, and am raising, two daughters, 21 and 19.

Eddie Rester 31:37

When you talk, I mean, just sitting here thinking, that's exactly right. The people who knew my girls at school and in the world are like, man, whatever you did, you did it right. But then at home, we're dealing with this, and I'm just lost, I'm, you know, taking a beating about the head, I felt like at times, you know, just the swirl of emotion and sometimes anger and that frustration that you talk about, the the need to control and we'll have a session all on our own some other time. But you know, again, I'm in a little different place in the game, than than Chris is than Cody, who's our producer, who's in the room with Chris this morning.

Chris McAlilly 32:26 He's in survival mode.

Eddie Rester 32:28 He's in survival mode.

Chris McAlilly 32:29
How old are your kids, Cody?

Cody Hickman 32:30 Seven, five, four, and two.

Chris McAlilly 32:34
Whew. Seven, five, four, and two. Lord.

Sissy Goff 32:37 Whew, Cody!

Eddie Rester 32:37
Yeah, Seven, five, four, and two. I don't even want to think about that.

Chris McAlilly 32:40 [LAUGHTER]

Eddie Rester 32:41

I think sometimes when we get lost in that swirl, or where Cody is lost in survival, and you're just trying to figure out, am I doing anything right? Or am I damaging my kids some way? What encouragement could you give? What things would you say to parents who are in that moment of just the swirl of emotion or not sure, maybe the kids are acting up at school and you're getting all these emails from teachers? What would you offer as encouragement to parents in those moments?

Sissy Goff 33:21

You know, I did a podcast with some really amazing men recently, and we were talking about helping your kids know that they're brave and speaking truth into who they are. And one of them said, but doesn't that translate into pressure? Then all of a sudden, am I saying, I'm telling her that you're brave, and she gets to counseling when she's 30 and says, "My dad always said I was brave, and I'm really not and it confused my identity all these years." You know, I think part of what's happened, that introspective place that we go now of am I doing this wrong, am I a failure, I think we know too much and we get in our heads way too much. And so my response to him was, I don't care.

Sissy Goff 34:04

I mean, honestly, if your kids are in counseling because you over encouraged them, or you used the wrong encouraging words, that's totally fine. That's a great investment for them at some point, because if you're an intentional parenting parent who's even asking those questions, you're intuitive to a degree that you're not going to miss it entirely. And I think when we get in our heads, we talk with kids about anxiety, about how it's like the one loop rollercoaster at the fair, and there's something we spiral in. And I think often those questions are our own spirals. And what we would say with kids is when they're spiraling about is something bad gonna happen to my parents when I'm not with them, or am I gonna throw up or, am I'm gonna fail this test. It's never about the subject anyway, it's about the fact that anxiety has hijacked our bodies and brains.

Sissy Goff 34:54

And I think the same is true sometimes for us as adults who love kids that we can get stuck in the ruts, and think, "Oh no, I'm failing, I'm failing, I'm failing," to the degree that we're not even present with the kids we love. And so we heard this psychologist named Dan Allender speak once, who we love dearly, we've heard him speak a lot of times, but one of the things he said was, your kids are one of the only relationships in your life you don't get to choose. You think about your spouse, your friends, your co-workers even, because you're picking where you work. But you don't get to pick your kids, which really means somebody smarter than you or I picked for you.

Sissy Goff 35:34

And we would say, you've got everything you need in this space. You are the right parent for who each of your kids are, and who they're going to be. And you've got it. And when you can remind yourself of truths like that, rather than going back and checking every box of did I do that right, did I spend enough time, did I do all the things, I think that can be so much more freeing. So you really can be the parent that you are and that God knew you were gonna be.

Chris McAlilly 36:02
Yeah, that's good. So Dan Allander was the guy's name?

Sissy Goff 36:06 Yes.

Chris McAlilly 36:07 I wonder...

David Thomas 36:07
He wrote an amazing book called "How Children Raise Parents" that we absolutely love, couldn't recommend enough.

Chris McAlilly 36:13

I wonder, a lot of people go to you guys for resources. That was one of the questions that I had, and for kind of advice and resources and categories and language. And I wonder who are some of the other people that you go to, that are folks that you're learning from or that you find really helpful in helping you navigate your own practice and thinking about your continual learning and in this area?

David Thomas 36:40

I would say, hands down, that is one of my favorite parenting books that I have recommended. I don't even know how many times over the years. We both really love Dan's work. And one of the fun things we started last season of our podcast was doing interviews with other people that are voices we really trust and are excited to either introduce or if our listeners are familiar, reconnect them with these voices we really trust, and to your great question, are learning from ourselves. And we did a great interview with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson who wrote "The Whole- Brain Child." We love that book, and she and Dan Siegel's work. And recently recorded an episode that will come out this season with Dr. Michael Thompson, who wrote "Best Friends, Worst Enemies," some great content on how kids develop socially. And we love his work, too. He also wrote "Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys." Just some folks that we've long trusted their voices, that we're excited to bring to our podcast would be a couple that I would name. Sissy, what about for you?

Sissy Goff 37:53

Yes, they were the ones I was gonna say, and Madeline Levine, who we're gonna have on. And it's so fun for us because we do, you know, there's so many things we encounter in our counseling practice that we need to do a deep dive on certain topics that sometimes a lot of people haven't explored, because they're such specialists in certain fields. And so to bring folks like that, kind of, to our people is always so fun and such a gift for us. And like David said, it's one of our favorite things we've gotten to do on our podcast. And we just feel like we're jumping up and down the whole time that we're going to talk. We have a psychiatrist that's going to be on soon, who talked about you know, even when do you put kids on medication, things like that, that feel like we need to be talking about and sometimes we don't know who to go to. I mean, that was such a great question.

Eddie Rester 38:40

I'm sitting here thinking, the life of the church, and it's changed so much over the last 20 years. I was a youth director in the 1990s. Kids are different, parents are different, the church is different. What can the church do to partner in a better way with parents to help them raise adults one day, faithful, responsible, life-giving adults?

David Thomas 39:14

One of our favorite things that has been happening more and more over the last decade is this great privilege we talked about on the front side of our conversation that we get to travel around and be in churches and talk with parents. And I think, you know, when I was thinking about my own growing up, I never remember my church hosting a parenting conference ever. And if you think on that, you know, there just would, I guess be this assumption like every parent would just kind of know what to do. Like we would know how to be married. We would know how to be parents. And I love that churches are investing so deeply in those places to support parents and couples.

David Thomas 39:49

And even more specifically, we had on some dear ladies that we love who are part of an organization called Birds and Bees, that their whole mission simply educating parents on the front side of development, how to talk with kids about sex. And I think, what a gift that they're primarily in churches and schools. And churches are saying, this is such an important topic. And once upon a time, we didn't talk about it at all, and probably is a big contributing factor to why a lot of things are what they are in our world, because folks didn't get good education, and certainly in the church.

David Thomas 39:49

And I love that churches are leading in that space, too, of saying, you know, what this should be the first place we're having this conversation and equipping parents to know how to talk more with their kids. And so I have loved that movement in the church that I think is just in partnership with parents to say, this is hard. This is really hard. And it's something you care so deeply about, and we do, too. We care so deeply about children, and we want to do everything we can to really invest in families.

Chris McAlilly 40:51

I think one of the things that I find really interesting in navigating the space between mental health and the church or Christianity or biblical theological language is just where those things... There are places that, you know... I appreciate that you guys, there's a mutual benefiting and a mutual kind of reinforcing between, I guess, a counseling practitioner, scientific kind of set of resources, disciplines--you know, taking on board all of the wisdom that you can from secular sources, it seems to me, is part of what you guys are trying to do--while also holding the best spiritual wisdom, deep, biblical truth, those things that have always been the case.

Chris McAlilly 41:42

I guess, I wonder, how do you navigate that? How do you think about it for yourself? Do you, how do you talk about or think about how you integrate the language of mental health and the language of the faith? And then where do you see the rub coming up? Where were some places where you're like, you know, what, this is something that I need to, you know, I need to, this is... I guess, where they're mutually critical, or they're mutually constructive?

Sissy Goff 42:10

When I was becoming a counselor, I mean, in the process of becoming a counselor, I stumbled on another name that we didn't mention, David, but Dr. Larry Crabb, who worked with Dan Allender for a long time, and I read a book called "Inside Out" that I think is really what made me want to become a counselor. And it talked about living in a fallen world and how we long for more than we... We were created for more than we're experiencing today. Which, you know, we had all heard. We've all heard, but it put it in this language, that I think it bridged emotion and faith in a way I had never encountered it before. And I think sometimes that's what we miss. That feels like to me where the rub is.

Sissy Goff 42:51

And in the anxiety books, I talk a lot about John 16:33 of in this world, you will have trouble but Jesus is saying, but take heart, I've overcome the world. And we really felt like, pre-pandemic, that kids were living in this illusion of I'm not supposed to have trouble. My life is supposed to look like the highlight reel on social media. And so when something is wrong, it's either wrong with me, or maybe it's wrong with you, because I'm encountering it. And so their faith never informed their emotions. Or for a lot of them, it didn't do that. They didn't understand the concept of that we're gonna have trouble.

Sissy Goff 43:30

And we have a little summer retreat program at Daystar, and Melissa, who is our dear friend and director and on the podcast with us, I remember her looking at this group of seventh graders before the pandemic hit, and she looked at them, and she said, "I don't know who told you your life was not going to be hard. But they were wrong. And that's why we have Jesus." You know, and so to be able to bring the hope of the Gospel into... I mean, I had a group this past Tuesday night, and we were talking about that very thing and talking about one of our other counselors who's new and I love. I'm so excited she's on our staff. And she said to these girls, you know, part of what happens in therapy is you're told that your life should be really good. And if it's not, you need to have boundaries, and you need to do all these things.

Sissy Goff 44:17

And she said, that's not the Gospel. You know, you don't have to be perfect. Everything's not going to be perfect, because they were saying, I'm so disappointed in myself if I don't get the right grades if I don't do the right thing. And she said, You're never gonna hit it on all cylinders, because we live in a fallen world. And that's where the freedom lies when we're believers, which I love. And I think we had lost sight of in a lot of ways as a church and I think a lot of kids didn't believe faith was relevant to this mental health explosion they're starting to talk about. And so my hope is, the pandemic, we're being able to step in some ways to talk about okay, we've collectively lived in some trouble, and so how does our faith change us in that and how does it provide a backdrop for when we're struggling?

Eddie Rester 45:06

Yeah, one of the things we haven't gotten to even touch on is resilience in kids. And I think part of it is tied to when we as parents have worked so hard to make sure that there are no troubles in our kids' lives, that they can drift through without the struggle of having to go talk to a teacher, or they don't make the team and we say, "It's okay. It's part of life. You're gonna bounce back from that." You know, when we haven't given our kids tools to fail well, and see that the wholeness of God's life, the shalom, is still available in the midst, sometimes even more clearly through failure than it is in those moments where you've easily succeeded. My wife was a middle school principal for eight years. And she's never...

Sissy Goff 46:00
Bless her heart. Wow, that's awesome.

Chris McAlilly 46:03
Yeah, she's a saint. She has to live with Eddie and do that. It's a lot.

Sissy Goff 46:07 [LAUGHTER]

Eddie Rester 46:08

She is a recovering middle school principal. You know, a time in life where kids don't like themselves, and parents aren't sure they like their kids anymore. But just, you know, she would always get to see these kids who when the parents have allowed them to fully step into "I didn't make the team," "failed the test," "I'm struggling to find my friend group," there was always kind of a fullness on the other side of that when those kids were allowed to experience that moment. And so yeah, I think that's part of where our faith speaks well, to us in these matters.

Chris McAlilly 46:56

I have one last question. We have a lot of friends who are mental health providers, they are counselors or they are practitioners. And they, you know, there's... One of the things I've learned is that that's hard work. It's hard work to sustain. And I wonder, I'll pitch it to you, David, since Sissy's offered a beautiful kind of response to that faith and mental health question. How do you sustain, you know, for practitioners, you're gonna speak to folks who are in the work, who are doing your work, how do you sustain yourself, your own practice? What would you say to folks out there that are in the trenches, working with folks every day?

David Thomas 47:40

I would first say thank you, for what you're doing. That every one of us in this work knows this work has always been hard and never been harder than living through a global pandemic, when the needs are greater, and practitioners are fewer. And so we're doing this hard work in a bit of an impossible equation right now, where, you know, in the over 30 years that we've been in existence, we've never had a waitlist as long as we do. That's reflective of what's happening in every city, that the needs are just greater than ever.

David Thomas 48:08

So I think the need to care for yourself is greater than ever. And that's something that every one of us learned in the first, not just first semester of graduate school, first week of the first semester, and that they continue talking about and you continue talking about in supervision. Because if we don't care well, it's the exact same truth for parents, you know, it's the whole oxygen mask phenomena. It's like, unless I've got my mask on, I cannot help the kids around me. Unless I've got my mask on as a clinician, I cannot help the people around me.

Eddie Rester 48:41

I want to thank the two of you for your time today. Just appreciate your presence and your gifts and the ways that you so are so faithfully offering them, and I wish we could talk for about three hours, but I know that a lot of folks will have an opportunity in Oxford to experience you. But also if folks want to find out how they can maybe plug in to something in their area, is there a place they can go to say, "Where can I go hear from David and Sissy?"

David Thomas 48:41

And I think that comes in the simplest of ways. Like, I'm constantly saying to myself, like, have you moved your body at least 30 minutes a day? Have you hydrated well? The very things I'm wanting my clients to be doing, I'm having to ask myself, as well. And then are there opportunities? I talk so much with parents about the importance of kids having downtime, moments where they just get to turn off their brain and they're not responsible for any academic work or chores or responsibilities at home. Do I have those moments myself, where I just turn off my brain for a period of time and I'm in, you know, fun conversation with a friend or I'm watching a comedy for 30 minutes a day. I mean something as simple as that, that allows a refuelling to happen that I think is foundational to this work that we do.

Sissy Goff 49:59

raisingboysandgirls.com is our website. And so it has all of the dates, all the speaking information. It has our podcast place to listen, all those different things. And then we're also active on Instagram, as well, trying to help folks really daily as much as we possibly can provide resources.

David Thomas 50:18
We can't wait to be with you all in Oxford. I've been thinking throughout this conversation how much I look forward to being with you in person.

Chris McAlilly 50:24
Yeah, we'll clearly be the best and most wonderful place you've ever been, or that you will ever go. It's just gonna be phenomenal really.

Sissy Goff 50:31 Clearly.

Eddie Rester 50:32 Ever.

Chris McAlilly 50:33

Ever. Yeah. So now we're excited to have you and it's gonna be great. And this has been great. I'm so grateful to both of you for your time. Thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for your work, and we appreciate your time.

Eddie Rester 50:46
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.

Chris McAlilly 50:55

If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]