Ep. 1569 – The Good News with Angie Austin – Dr. Cheryl Lentz, Difficult Things You Won’t Regret Doing / Claudia Lombana – LAST-MINUTE SHOPPING SECRETS /Jeff Schadt, Compliance vs Change
00:12:06 Last-Minute Gift Ideas with Claudia Lombana
00:14:55 Discussing Parenting: Compliance vs. Change
SPEAKER 05 :
welcome to the good news with angie austin now with the good news here’s angie hey there it’s angie austin and dr cheryl lentz with the good news and today we are talking about difficult things that really have payoff so things you’d rather put off but the payoff is is as you know pretty impressive hey cheryl
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello, hello, hello. Hi, everybody.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, I was thinking about this today, actually, because my daughters are doing their finals for high school, and my senior went into finals with grades that were not so hot, and she brought them all up, and a couple of them significantly. And so, yeah, and I said to her, I said, it can be hard and boring, like memorizing things and studying. I’m like, but isn’t the payoff great?
SPEAKER 06 :
Some interesting lessons for… Not the instant gratification that our society is known for, that actually hard work has a longer payoff. So good lesson there, Mom.
SPEAKER 05 :
And Jim Stovall, our buddy, believes in pre-crastination. And he said his old secretary that he had for like, you know, 50 years, she just retired. Maybe it was 40. But she used to put all these things down that he’d already done. And he said, well, those are done already. She goes, I know, but it’s so satisfying to cross them off.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, that’s what I tell my students. I don’t have a to-do list. I have a to-done list. Oh, I love that. If it goes on the list, it has to come off. And I get annoyed if something’s been on there too long. That’s the motivation going, I don’t like when things hang out there. They’ve got to have a new list.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, that’s so funny. All right. This one I really like because I’ve thought about it many times just with my faith and everything, really giving everything my all. And it’s start putting your heart and soul into the little things you do. So let’s say like I’m doing the dishes and I just stack them all sloppy and then a glass falls off and breaks. I know it sounds silly, but to really do everything you do well.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and I think that’s important because how you do one thing is how you do everything.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s interesting. That’s so funny. That’s what grandpa said to me when someone brought this crummy salad with, you know, big onion chunks in it and some small, the strawberries were cut all shabbily. It was really not pretty. And it was, you know, a relative that doesn’t seem to care much. And he said, See, that’s why we just don’t even ask people to bring anything. I’d rather be responsible for everything. I’m like a little stick to still taste good because you have it. How she does one thing is how she does everything. She doesn’t put any care into it whatsoever.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, and that’s why, you know, it’s one of those if you look at from a religious standpoint, if If God can’t trust you to do the little things, why is he going to trust you to do the big things?
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, good one. Okay. Here’s one I think that you’ve done that you do do because you were such an exceptional student and organ player for many years. And to start stretching yourself to the edge of your ability. I don’t think most of us do that.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, because it’s safe for not to. I try to tell my students it’s when we’re out of our comfort zone is where the learning happens, because you already know what’s in your comfort zone. It’s when you have to find things you don’t know, and what you don’t know is uncomfortable. And so I want my students to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, I love that to get comfortable being uncomfortable because, you know, my friend just the other day, Michelle was saying she’s 80. She takes field trips still because she was a teacher and she and her husband, he’s a retired teacher. They take these really cool field trips to like the puzzle museum and the celestial tea factory and Hammond’s candy factory. And I’m like,
SPEAKER 06 :
oh that’s so cool she’s like when you stop learning like you die she said something that john wooden coach john wooden said something like that but when you stop learning you’re basically dead you know that you have to keep learning it’s a lie i mean you look at the idea of lifelong learning is what do you want to be when you grow up and if you never grow up you’re always in pursuit and that’s was the secret for one of john stovall’s book is the point isn’t the answer the point is in the quest for the answers
SPEAKER 05 :
oh he’s my favorite all right um another one start giving yourself more grace when things don’t go well or when you do fail and part of your um like when your ted talks wasn’t it about kind of failing to success oh absolutely succeed soon or fail faster succeed sooner oh i like that you’ve got all these great things i used to teach that all the time and i’ve scared the heck out of most of my bosses they’re like you want to do what
SPEAKER 06 :
I’m like, I want to teach them how to do things the wrong way, how to get it out of their system and be done with it so we can get to the good stuff. And they’re like, oh, but anything takes a learning curve. And most of us don’t have the patience because failure is just another way of learning.
SPEAKER 05 :
I like this one, and it’s funny because I think you also sidestep unnecessary drama, but you’re also extremely honest. So people might think you’re creating drama when I don’t think you like drama. You like honesty, but some people aren’t used to honesty, and so they might think that you’re being blunt. When in reality, you’re just being honest. You’re not trying to be hurtful. And so this one is sidestep drama when possible. And I have to say, I feel like I do that. I’m constantly tap dancing and sidestepping drama because my husband loves a good argument and I don’t. And so I’m always trying to calm the waters at home.
SPEAKER 06 :
But I think it’s the purpose of it. Sometimes some people have the, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And some of us also have the, if it ain’t broke, you need to break it. It all depends on what the situation calls for. No, I don’t like drama. But I also realize that there are problems that are not going to get better if we ignore them. And sometimes you have to have that upfront, honest conversation. But I think I’ve learned how to do it a little bit more diplomatically.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think you have.
SPEAKER 06 :
More preparation.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
Than trying to just say, hey, you suck. Yeah, that’s not going to go over real well.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, yeah. Okay, here’s one I like a lot. Make sure that you’re true to your values and convictions. Because if you aren’t, how do you even live with yourself, right?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and that’s something that I remember a coach of mine asking is, what’s your philosophy? Because we always in business create vision statements, right? And we always do it for the company, but we had to do it for us. And that’s what guides me is to be able to make sure, am I being true to me? And there was one time that I wasn’t and I had to quit my job to be successful elsewhere because they passed that line and I couldn’t do it.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, start looking for the silver linings. I think that’s something I try to do, you know, with the kids. Like, my husband just threw out, like, $1,500 worth of shoes of my son’s that he’d sold, and they were in the same bags that I do my donations in. And it was funny because he had them divided left and right. So he still has all the right shoes, but my husband donated all the left shoes. All right. and so but then my husband bought him this really neat trailer for his you know work and it’s like an enclosed trailer like really nice like one of those big Harley ones and I’m like see didn’t that kind of make up for the shoe situation that he bought and now he’s fixing it up for my son to use at thrift con and you know I’m like so look at the silver lining you’ve got to let go of the shoes it’s done like what’s done is done
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and that’s it. You can’t undo unring the bell. You can’t pull the bottle. You can’t rewrite history. All you can do is what are you going to do with the history that’s written? You have a choice on how you show up and when you show up differently. So does the world. But you can’t change what’s happened.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, we’re almost out of time, but I just want to mention this one because I think I did this a lot in trying to get ahead in my career. Start taking the next small step and the next and the next. Like your goals might take years, but if you take that little step each day, it’s not that painful, but each day you’re taking one more step. And some days you may take a really big step and some days you might take a step back, but start taking the next small step. Okay, Cheryl, stick around because I’ve got some great ideas coming up for last minute shopping with an expert. but I want to make sure people can find you as well. Dr. Cheryl Lentz.com and Merry Christmas, my friend.
SPEAKER 06 :
Merry Christmas to you.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, changing gears a bit. You know, shopping season is really starting to wind down. But for many people, there’s always a, you know, kind of a last-minute scramble to find gifts. And here to help is award-winning journalist and shopping expert, Claudia Lombana. Claudia is an Emmy and Peabody Award winner who regularly analyzes shopping trends for TV and radio. Welcome, Claudia.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here.
SPEAKER 05 :
You are welcome. All right, so how many of us really wait until the last minute to kind of shop or finish things up?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you are not alone. Let’s put it that way. We are really a procrastination nation. According to the National Retail Federation, 53% of us will be shopping on Super Saturday, which is the last Saturday before Christmas, the 21st of December. That’s 126 million people, so a lot of us waiting until the last minute.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yikes. All right, let’s talk about maybe a hot gift that you think will still be available out there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, so far this season, video games have been very hot, and this year we’ve got the newest in the franchise, Sonic, rather, the Hedgehog. We know and love. It’s been around for decades, and the new game is called Sonic X Shadow Generations. This combines classic Sonic and modern Sonic in an all-new collection featuring 2D and 3D Sonic levels. The gamers are going to love this new Sonic X Shadow Generations. It is available digitally and physically starting under $50, and it’s available on all the platforms, including PlayStation 5 and 4, Xbox Series XS, Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch family, and PC.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, that might sound like that. How about something unique?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I think we’ve all got those people in our lives that are kind of the person that has everything. What do I get them? think a really cool and unique gift is giving the gift of language with Rosetta Stone lifetime unlimited membership we’ve got 50% off for the holidays that gives you access forever to all 25 of the languages that Rosetta Stone offers for just $199 this is a really cool idea to help somebody learn a new language maybe the traveler in your life they’re going to a different country sometime in 2025 and they can learn a new language hmm
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. I like that idea because it can be difficult when you’re in a class doing it. So I like the idea of kind of doing it without being, you know, graded and judged. All right. I don’t know if everyone still does stockings, but we do. Any stocking stuffer ideas?
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. Now, my favorite stocking stuffer is to combine the idea of self-care with a gift. And we can do that this year with the Massage Envy gift card.
SPEAKER 04 :
And this is one gifted.
SPEAKER 07 :
Everybody will love. Yeah, and Massage Envy isn’t just massages. They’ve got everything from results-driven facials, of course the soothing massages, but they also have innovative stretching services. Nice. With a gift card from Massage Envy, yeah, you can let loved ones choose how they want to spend their quality self-care time. Now, they have a great deal going from now until the end of the year through December 31st. If you buy any combination of $100 worth of Massage Envy gift cards in location, you You’re going to get a free $20 promo card to use later. So this is a good way to give a gift to somebody else and to yourself. Some terms do apply. And you can get more information at MassageEnvy.com.
SPEAKER 05 :
And I don’t know if a lot of people realize it, but massage and stretching is very therapeutic, too. You think it’s just like, oh, it’s just fun. It just feels good. It’s actually extremely good for your body. And they have great prices, too, I think, compared to many of the spas. They’re very reasonable. All right. What about the gift that’ll, you know… I think I know what you’re going to talk about here because I saw, we chatted a little bit, and I saw your idea before we started, that light that can light up the holidays for someone. I think this might be something good for teenagers too.
SPEAKER 07 :
I think anybody can really use this. Now, this is the GE Sync Indoor Smart Plug. This is a great last-minute gift or stocking supper to make your holiday decorations smart. So the way that the GE Sync Indoor Smart Plug works is – You can plug anything into it, really. But for holidays, plug in your lights, your tree, any other light-up holiday decorations, and then you can control them with your voice, your phone, or the Sync app. So you just set it up to plug in. You turn your lights on and off at desired times. You can set that up as well. This is ideal for taking control of your holiday decor and making it smart. And after the holidays are over, you can plug anything into this guy to make anything smart. So I have a friend who uses it for her flat iron. I forgot to turn on my flat iron. Let me just hop on the phone or on my app, and I can turn it off remotely from there. This is a really cool thing. The GE Sync Indoor Smart Plug, you can find it on Amazon for under $20.
SPEAKER 05 :
I was going to do it for my daughter’s dorm room for next year for her lights, but she just called me like two days ago and said, Mom, I left the house. Can you go see if I left my flat iron on? I want to burn the house down. And she hadn’t, but her makeup mirror was on. I thought, oh, well, I didn’t know I could use it for that. That’s great. Where do we go for more info for all of this stuff, Claudia?
SPEAKER 07 :
You can head over to tipsontv.com.
SPEAKER 05 :
Tipsontv.com. Excellent. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 07 :
You bet. Happy shopping.
SPEAKER 05 :
You too.
SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
Hello, friend. It’s Angie Austin and the Kid Whisperer, Jeff Schott, and we are talking about his book. We’re going to kind of break it down chapter by chapter, and the book is What’s Really Causing My Kid’s Behavior. Jeff Schott, welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Angie, it’s great to be with you.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, so I want to start with chapter one because I thought, you know what, we can kind of work our way through the book and kind of, you know, break down parenting chapter by chapter. And the first chapter is compliance versus change. What do you mean by that and what are you teaching us as parents?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I think one of the challenges that I faced was when I started in my parenting journey and my first two kids of four were already in the house, I was doing the traditional parenting route. which what I discovered in the research I did with 3,000 kids meant I was getting my kids to comply, but their attitudes, their desires, their underlying feelings weren’t changing. They were complying because they wanted to avoid the consequences or the spanking, but they weren’t necessarily changing their perspective, their thoughts, their ideas, their attitudes.
SPEAKER 05 :
I like that. And when you say traditional way of parenting, I think it’s probably the way many of us do. But I have to be honest with you, Jeff. I think a lot of people are actually a lot more lax than my husband and I are. And I know I’m considered by the kids to be the nicer parent per se. But when we come up with a punishment, we stick with it. We’re not those fake punishment parents. They’re like, you know, if you don’t clean the bathroom, you’re not going to Disney World. And then, of course, the kid knows that, of course, they’re still going to Disney World because maybe you’ve traveled to Florida, right? And my husband did try that once while we were in Florida. He told the kids, if you don’t behave yourself, we’re not going to Disney World tomorrow. They go, oh, no, no, no. I said, we’re not doing that punishment because that punishes mommy. I’m like, so we’re going to have a punishment we really do, not a fake punishment. Because I see so many parents threaten and never follow through. So when you say you did the old school parenting, I think I might be what you’re talking about, the old school, my way or the highway kind of, a bit.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, no, that’s definitely what we’re talking about, but we’re also talking about the threats. I mean threats are, again, targeted at getting compliance, right? Yes, yes. And when you look at the way Jesus led and you see how he brought about deep internal change in the disciples’ desires – they went on and they continued in the faith and they actually went to their deaths for the faith, right? They obviously had internal desire change. They learned to love the sheep and lay down their lives for the sheep just like Jesus. And today what we see is so many kids are complying with their parents until they leave home. And the second they’re out of home and the parents aren’t there to force them to comply anymore, They go a thousand different directions, and a vast majority of them leave the faith. And so we’re not getting that heart change that we see Jesus got.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, I think about my, okay, I’m in like a mom’s dorm room group. And so it’s thousands of moms with kids that are like a lot of them freshmen, right? And a couple of them have mentioned that, you know, what you’re saying, like I had a straight A student, you know, everything was on time. You know, they were in sports, they had clubs, they were in honor society and did their volunteer work. But the mom micromanaged every second of their day. So straight, a student goes off to college and we expect that kid to succeed because that kid was, you know, the kid, the valedictorian. And then they’re like falling through the cracks and just things aren’t getting done. And the mom, you know, the specific mom that was mentioning this in the mom’s group said, I think it’s because I did a lot for them and I really didn’t make them accountable for their behavior. Like I managed their lives.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, well, what we saw in the research was we saw valedictorians who got to school, and they got their full-ride scholarship, and they got their spending money for the first semester, and they blew all their money in over three or four weeks.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s so funny you say that. And the parents didn’t have money to help them get through the rest of the semester, and they ended up back home because they didn’t know how to manage money. And so when we did this research, what we found is kids weren’t prepared to manage their own priorities, to manage their time, to manage their social decisions. Because the parents, out of fear, which I totally understand because I had the same fear with middle school and high school students. You know, we’re controlling them, preventing them from doing things. And so built all this back pressure, like I’m prevented from doing this and I’m prevented from doing that. I’m prevented from doing this. And my parents are controlling my money and my parents are controlling everything. And they get on campus and they don’t know how to manage any of it.
SPEAKER 05 :
and all that back pressure of having been prevented and controlled goes hog wild on campus it’s so funny you say that because just last night my son who’s a freshman said said to me we’re sorry i’m sorry about that i’m just coughing he said to me mom it happened he said mom i don’t want to be like these kids he goes i’ve seen their bank accounts he said one of my friends has six dollars in his account
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Yeah. And that’s where I think we’ve lost the whole point of the word discipline. Biblically, in biblical times, not today, but in biblical times, discipline meant teaching, training, and upbringing. It’s the root word of discipleship, which is what Jesus did with the disciples. Discipline is the root word of discipleship, not the root word of punishment. And so what we’re not doing is is helping our kids learn. I wish consequences taught kids to learn, but our research proved beyond a shadow of doubt that they don’t learn a thing from consequences. They’re up in their room lamenting the consequence, frustrated with their parent, and going, My parents, they sometimes yell at me. No one takes their cell phone away. How is this fair? How is this right? They’re not learning because when we issue a consequence, it shuts down having a productive conversation about what were you feeling? What went wrong? Why did you make this decision? What are you going to learn from this decision? And helping and discipling them and helping them learn from their own mistakes. Because failure, you know, the world says we learn more from our failures than our successes, and somehow in the church for parents it’s become never fail or else. And that’s not realistic because we’re in person inside of heaven, right? Right. So how do we get change? We have to go after what caused them in the first place to make the mistake. What emotional things were going on that led to, example from our previous radio program, your daughter hanging out in the parking lot and driving over curbs. The parking lot kids, yes. Right. What caused her to need to do that? What’s going on inside her that caused her to make those decisions? Helping her understand that through doing deeper conversations and helping them realize these things is how they start to learn. to avoid making such stupid decisions when they get out and are away from our consequences that keep them compliant.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know what’s amazing to me about all of that is we really didn’t punish her per se. We did stop sleepovers, but we really didn’t punish, but not at our house. She can have people here. We just didn’t let her sleep, but we haven’t let her. But other than that, there was no taking the phone away. There was no, you know, she still worked her job. We didn’t take any money. We didn’t take the car. We didn’t take the phone. We didn’t ground her. But I told her she was very, like, very embarrassed when we, you know, went on her phone and saw the videos of her driving over the curb and blah, blah, blah. So she she was so, like, ashamed. She said, I said, just not you. It’s not your behavior. That’s not who you are. You know, I mean, she is in young life. You know, she leads a Bible study for the young athlete. She goes to church every week and she has youth group. And then she has fellowship of Christian athletes. That’s five times a week that she voluntarily on her own, you know, gets up at six o’clock in the morning, like to do the Bible study this morning. OK, so and meets the kids before school. OK, so with that said, it didn’t like fit who she was and she was so embarrassed by it. And that was her biggest thing. She was embarrassed. And with and again, no, no punishments per se. And she stopped. I mean, she really turned her. It was probably like a month of bad summertime behavior that we figured out when we went into her phone, which I just said, give me your phone. You know, and I just went in and went through like all the Snapchat and all that, tried to figure out all the different apps and the hidden pictures and the for your eyes only. I’m like, what’s the code for for your eyes only? Like whose eyes? Because this is my phone. That’s for my eyes too. So anyway, once we uncovered all that, I didn’t shame her. I’m like, don’t be embarrassed. It’s over. It’s a new slate. And again, I was surprised my husband went along with the no punishment. And she really stopped. She really turned it around. And I know a lot of kids, you know, buck that kind of, you know, abrupt halt in their behavior where we’re like, no, this isn’t going to fly. This isn’t who you are. And she really did turn it around because she realized that wasn’t her identity.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. And I think, you know, what we’ve seen is if you can go even deeper with them and dig down to the roots of what was motivating you. Right. What’s going on inside of you? Is there a disconnect with us as your parents? Is there a disconnect going on where you hurt with another friend group and so you you needed to replace it? Helping them dig deeper is really important. The other thing parents have to be on guard for, unfortunately, is our research also found that 70 to 90 percent of Christian kids were leading dual lives. So the fact that they’re at Young Life and the fact that they’re a youth group doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not being pulled down dangerous roads. In fact, most of the kids in the research said the first time I was offered drugs or the first time I was offered to hook up or the first time I was offered drugs, Wow. Yeah. Yeah. from the research we did.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, yeah. Well, I do with my son, and again, I was probably most afraid with him of him kind of detaching from the faith when he went up to college. And I think I’ve told you that his young life on campus is like thriving and really big, and they have a big… a building on campus or right across the street, which is rare on a campus of 40,000 people to be right there on campus and be able to afford a building to be so close to the kids and convenient. That’s really been his main socialization. He’s not in a frat, so that’s like his frat. So I’m happy to say he hasn’t left the faith. But, you know, I think that is a fear of a lot of parents when we’re not the ones, you know, demanding they go to church. But I think the roles have switched in our family. I have to say that my 17-year-old got me to church this weekend, and the two of us went together, and it was, you know, her. Like, she drove me. She’s like, Mom, we have to leave in 15 minutes, or somebody make sure Mom’s up. You know, and so they actually have kind of taken the lead when it comes to, you know, helping us, you know, get to church.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s great, you know, and that’s— That’s not that common, as you probably know. And so there’s something that’s going on there that’s causing them to attach, which is great. And going off to Young Life, and Young Life does have a lot of ministries on campuses now. You’ve got Campus Crusade, Navigators, InterVarsity, all of that. Unfortunately, what we’ve started to pick up on from those groups in the research and the students we talked to, is that the dual life is unfortunately going on within those ministries now. That wasn’t the case 10, 15 years ago. And so once again, being able to talk deeply with your kids and talk to them about, hey, what are the other kids like in the group? Are kids pressuring you to do things? Is there a dual life going on within your ministry? Having the type of relationship where they’ll open up and talk with you about those things is where they really begin to grow, where they really begin to learn, where we have the opportunity to disciple them and see internal change as opposed to trying to force compliance. We need to be targeting those deeper conversations and drawing them out because I was stunned when I went to do the research. I had no idea any of this was going on, and when I’d sit down and ask these complete strangers – very deep questions about their life, what they were frustrated with in their homes, what they were thinking about the college transition, what was going on in their youth group. I was shocked at how many of them were like, I’ve gotten sucked into the dual life myself. I don’t want to. I didn’t want to, but I am. And they would tell me these stories and sometimes just them sharing that with me, me, got them to break out of that pattern because they talked about it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and it’s not their identity. Well, we’re out of time. Again, it’s Jeff Schott. He joins us weekly. What’s really causing my kids bad behavior? Thank you, Jeff.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, Angie.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
