Am I a Good Enough Parent? with special guest Bill Senyard

Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. From toddler tantrums to teenage eye rolls, this podcast is your go-to for updated and old school tips and tools that are going to help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. Do you ever wish there was a specific manual that came with each one of your kids? I mean, what works for one often doesn't work for the other, right? And let's face it, we don't know what we don't know. And even if there was a manual, it probably wouldn't be able to keep up with all the changes in our world. Well, this podcast is the next best thing. I'm your host, Jackie Finneman, a 30-year counselor turned parenting coach. And I've got a lot to share, including hundreds of resources that you have access to right from your home and strategies that are going to boost your confidence and energize you.

So whether you're knee deep in diapers or navigating the tween years, or you're launching your child into adulthood, subscribe and share this podcast with your friends, teachers, and daycare providers. We're going to turn your parenting problems into no problem, one episode at a time. All right, welcome back, No Problem Parents. My guest today is Dr. Bill Sinyard.

He's an author, a speaker, and pastor of 30 years. He's a husband, a parent of three, and a grandparent of two so far. Is there any more since we filled out the form? Okay.

His podcast, The Gospel Rant, is number 39 in Feedspot's Top 100 Christian Podcast. His passion is to help frustrated, beat-up, and weary Christians begin to hear the music again. He's created helpful biblical programs and tools for Christian parents of teenagers, those who struggle to forgive, and also those of us who wonder if God still loves us. I am excited to welcome you to the show.

So good to be here finally. I love it. And I'm loving your podcast. It's called Gospel Rant.

I think Christians in particular, and a lot of the people who've left churches, ex-evangelicals, they're tired of the talking head. They want straight shooting. They want questions. They don't want all the answers.

They want to be able to think for themselves. And so they're drawn to rants where I'm not teaching them. I'm doing a lot of teaching, but in the end, they have to decide whether they like it or not. And I'll be provocative.

I'll pick fights. There's some questionable stuff, things that are controversial in the Bible. I don't know if you knew that. Who knew? Yeah, there's nothing controversial in the Bible.

Are you kidding? I'm excited about that because I think the mystery draws you and everybody gets it. Life's complicated. And for one group of people to think we have all the answers is ridiculous.

The older I get in my faith, the more questions I have. Hey, me too. Interesting. Me too. I absolutely do. And I wanted to have you on today because there's another thing that we have in common besides our faith is attachment theory.

Yep. I love attachment theory. I was introduced to it while I was a pastor and preaching. There's two questions, according to attachment theory, that we're all asking. It's created inside of us, I believe. And the first one is, am I lovable? And is there anybody out there who actually loves me?

And am I lovable at all? And teenagers are OCD about that. And the second one is, is there anybody who has my back? And for attachment theorists, you can do a quadrant.

One is connected, connectedness. Can I count on you? Do I have my, does somebody have my back? And enoughness.

Am I enoughness to, when I walk into the room, does your face light up? Do I appear that you desire me and desire me to be present? And teams with all of the chemicals, you know, with the prefrontal cortex offline and all the other chemicals going, the reward circuit going, that's what they want to know. They're not, I tried to let the school district in my county know this, is they're not listening to classes until those things get answered.

And ideally it's answered at home. And if it's not, we need to fix that. And that's one of the things in my program. I love this quote.

You've probably heard this before. Let me find it. It's, oh, here we go. Yuri Bronfenbrenner, a child psychologist, not a particularly a person of faith, but I love this quote.

It's the gospel. Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her. And that's not just child. I need that.

I'm mid-60s. I need that. And I'm becoming more and more aware of that. And the gospel says we have one person who is irrationally crazy about us.

It's our creator God that Jesus purchased. But we don't experience it very often. Absolutely. You say that this begins at home with the parents.

I couldn't agree more. I don't think a lot of people realize. I think oftentimes parents think when the kiddos, when you have this baby and you bring them home and they can't talk back and they don't understand and none of this really matters until they hit the terrible twos and we hear the verbal defiance and things like that. But it's just so not true.

In fact, by the time your kiddo is two, they've already formed. That's right. Those inner working models. Yeah.

And some of that, you know, the two-year-old defiance is their brain saying, all right, I'm going to test my parents to see if they have my back. I'm going to test my parents. And they're not thinking this through. It's subconscious.

I'm going to push the envelope and see if my parent really loves me because I need to test that. and if we blow up if we take that personally which most of us do uh we blow that we blow that connection we blow that attunement opportunity and and with teens it's so obvious yeah absolutely and i think a lot of times parents are with the littles when i work with families who have newborns or one-year-olds or even two-year-olds and they'll say oh my my child's just super independent when i talk about you know did they come up and ask for hugs or if you go pick them up and give them a hug, you know, do they reciprocate? Oh no, my, my kiddo doesn't like to be held or they like to be down and they like to be independent. That's a flag. That's a red flag there. I don't trust you. That's right. And for teens too. What we know now with neuroscience is that adolescence is kind of a do-over of, of the first two years. The brain is exploding again,

like a chia pet for neurons. And so through adolescence, things get pruned and it's a use it or lose it kind of thing in the brain. And so if parents can, let's say a parent felt like they messed up or didn't know or were too busy or had emotional issues during the first couple years, there's a redo. God's redo is adolescence. And we can intentionally do what I call adolescent attunement. It's just simple skills. Good enough parents will do it one out of three times. It's not 90% or nobody does that. 30%. Oh, even I could have done 30%. Yeah, right. Well, we're getting a little ahead of ourselves because you and I kind of speak the same language. I want to back up just a little bit for the listeners today that don't know attachment theory. Yeah, attachment theory developed by Bowlby in the 60s is the idea that we are born disattached and desperately need to be attached. And that's the primary caregiver parent. So when a baby is born, we desperately need attachment. We're the one of the few mammals who are created that way. And that's through attunement, the word that's used, and all moms know what this is, is when you hold your baby up,

and all of a sudden, there's a connection. And you can almost hear the in syncing between the two brains, the neural networks, the mirroring that they talk about now, and you begin to communicate at a subconscious level. And the baby's getting shots of dopamine and oxytocin, the mother's getting shots of dopamine and oxytocin. It's just a beautiful thing. And there's a communication that's going on. Mom says goo goo, the baby says goo goo, there's touch, there's tone, rubbing, all those things. And when that happens, when that connections, we now know that the brain is causing neural connections like crazy that are positive, that are teaching the baby who they are, that they're adorable, that they're, well, those two questions, I'm lovable and I have somebody that has my back, even though they don't know the words,

they're feeling that and their brain is just kicking into gear. And according to attachment theory, if caregivers, primary caregivers can do that 30% of the time, the baby will end up into the next life cycle more secure, meaning they'll be more exploring, they'll be more responsive, They will give love, receive love. They'll be more honoring to the adults in their world. They'll learn more.

It's just a beautiful thing if that happens. And if that doesn't happen, they're going to struggle. And we now know from studies, long-term studies, that you can almost predict whether or not they're going to be good in relationship as adults. Lots of studies.

You can predict if they're going to be alcoholics or have proneness to addiction. You can predict whether or not they're going to struggle in school relationally. All of those things based upon the first two years. And like I said, the good news is, let's say you didn't know that.

I didn't know that when I was a parent. But when my kids became adolescents, I figured all this out. Attachment theory, Bowlby, and such. It is a do-over.

And you can't hold your teenager and go goo-goo. but there are things that you can do that trigger the exact same neural connectivity in the brain that hopefully when they enter adulthood and this is what we tell people in our good enough parent program the goal is that when they're 30 you're they're your best friend that's the goal yeah right and they'll come to you and i think a lot of that what you're talking about even i i think of the first year of life bonding cycle which i teach in no problem parenting babies have a need how do they let us know they have a need they cry you don't get to them soon enough what do they do they rage i mean their faces turn beet red and you know they arch their back their whole body stiffens up right it is like desperation i'm gonna die if you don't need this need right well if mom's in the shower dad's cooking dinner and doesn't get to them right away you know it's it it turns into desperation neural pathways are created yeah right so step step three or the third part of that cycle is we gratify them.

You know, we pick them up. We rock them just as you were saying, you know, we move them. We smile. We have eye contact.

We coo. We do all those things. And what that does is leads us to the fourth step of the cycle, which is trust. So the baby learns to trust us.

You are responsible. I like the terminology. Yeah. You're responsible for the good feeling I'm having.

You are safe. I can rely on you. And what you're saying is if that's done at least 30% of the time, we're good. But where there becomes a problem in this is when between that rage or that cry and the gratification, there's a break.

You know, if the baby's need isn't met at least 30% of the time, that's when things are happening like you're saying. And now that they grow, they stiff arm us, they reject us, they only want like, you know, they want stuff. And then as teenagers, we start to see separation even more. Well, in attachment theory, there's two main categories of insecurity as a third, but we won't talk about those, avoidant and anxious.

And the anxious child is the one who's actually going to be the screamer who's going to get your face in front of them because for them, they think that that's where they get some value because even an angry mom or dad is in front of me and that's a good thing. So they have learned to leverage relationships. And so as teenagers, they're the ones who cause problems just to get reactions. And subconscious, it's not like they're thinking that.

I'm here. And the avoidant child, which I am and was is, you know, I, I don't want the emotional. I don't want to talk about it. I'm fine. I'm good. I'm going to go to my room and do my thing or be a gamer or whatever. I'm going to go self-soothe because I don't need you, but there's a bitterness there. There's an anger there. And there's a cry. I want somebody to pursue me.

I want somebody to look in my face and not let me get away with fine and say, oh, no, no, no. Son, I'd buy stock in you. Son, I'm your biggest fan. We're going to disagree.

And I disagree with what you just did or said or whatever. We got to talk about that. But I'm not going anywhere because I'm your dad. I'm your mom.

For a child to do that's tripping. Yeah, it's so hard for parents to do because a lot of parents will say, well, my kid doesn't want to talk to me. They're in their room. They shut their door.

They say, I don't know. I don't care. you know and they shut down and you and i both know that's not true exactly they do want a connection but they don't want you to come in and teach them something the talking head and they don't want to know that you actually desire them yeah and everybody's different everybody's uh before we got on on air i told you about the shoulder move can i describe this please do please do this is great so i was giving i was giving a lecture on this at a social working convention and a guy came up to me a therapist and he says oh you need to hear my stuff and all right sure i'm game and so he's into psychology he's in the he's into attachment theory and neuroscience he says this is tried and true here's what you do is you get your your other person let's talk about a teen and you put your hand on their shoulder safe all right you don't you don't force them you put it on and then you kind of look them straight in the eye attunement right and you say i'll say son son i just want to let you know what you just did i totally don't agree with and i'm actually hurt by that but i want you to know i'm not going anywhere and i'm your biggest fan i think you're going to change the world i think whoever is going to marry you is going to be the most special person they're so fortunate i just want to say uh i i just i just I'd buy stock in you. And then you leave. It's a drive by of sorts. You don't require response.

And you do it at random times, he said. Now, what he says from a neuroscience per thing is if you can actually do it in Pat at a kind of a heartbeat level, you kick in the rim cycle of their brain that's actually washing out bad thoughts and bitter thoughts and things like that that are dragging you down. And you can actually increase their receptivity if you do this periodically and random and enough. And he says it actually neuroscientifically builds trust.

Yeah. Isn't that crazy? I've been teaching that to parents. I've been teaching that to couples and people are having a ball with it. And actually, I just have a new testimony of a couple in New Jersey that's using it for their teenage children. And they just say, we've never seen such changes in our kids. Yeah, I absolutely love it. Before we started recording, we were talking a little bit about step three of no problem parenting, which is to change the conversation. And I was telling you that I believe we're giving our kids too much unconditional praise. Oh yeah. So much so that they don't believe it themselves. They write it off. Right. What I mean by that is we're trying to convince them that they're, that they're smart,

that they're good, that they're friends, they have friends that they're, you know, all these things they see right through that. And they're like, ah, you just have to say that. Cause you're my mom or my dad. You don't really even believe that mom or dad. So I talk about leading with conditional praise, conditional factual praise. And I love that. I can't get a hug in because your kids, you know, a porcupine and you know, a porcupine, you put your hand on their shoulder, you're walking by hand on their back. So I think just enough to get some touch in some good touch in. Right. And then that eye contact is eyes are the window to the soul. So it's super good. But to be able to look at them now, there's another little hint I'll give you. I'm talking way too much. I'm hijacking the podcast. It's Friday as we're recording this, right? But one of the things I have said to our own son, who's 18 now, when your child's going out, your teen's going out with some kids and you're like, I don't really want them hanging out with that group. You're making poor decisions. We know as parents, you try to avoid that, prevent that. What are they going to do? They're going to become sneaky or they'll figure out a way. And so we don't want to do that. But instead, a good thing for parents to say is, you know, I don't really care for some of the things that these friends of yours are doing. But the good news is, is that you're going

to be hanging out with them. And I hope some of you rubs off on them. Oh, I love that. We tend to go to the problem or the negative of what all the other kids are doing. What message are we sending our kid? You're influential. Yeah. And these kids are going to influence you. So I'm totally going to steal that. Yeah, absolutely. You can, you can have it. So here, here's one of the things I would layer on top of what you just said. And it's one of the tips in the good enough parent. But let's let's say your child wants to go and have a sleepover at a friend's house and the parents aren't going to be there. You're not going to do it. Right. I mean, absurd. And and they know that.

Right. They know that. But in their brain right now, no prefrontal cortex is going, hmm, is that a good idea? It's offline. Right. And they're jonesing for this sense of enoughness and connectedness. Somebody loves me. Somebody has my back. And I'm thinking, you know, if I'm looking around my options, having a, spending a night over with my buds, man, that's going to be a pot load of connectedness and enoughness. So that sounds really good for me. And I'm jonesing like an addict, right? And I'm talking to my mom or my dad and I'm not getting much enoughness and connectedness from that reaction. So I'm going, well, I have, my choice is really obvious. I'm going, I don't care, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

and I know my mom is going to say I'm not enough and she's not going to have my back. So instead, you know, do the shoulder move and say, son, I just want to tell you, I'd buy stock in you. I think you can change the world, your talent, your whatever. I'm your biggest fan and that's never, ever, ever going to change. No, you can't go. Good talk.

Right. And you can throw in what you just said or say, look, they can come over here. I'll be glad We'll even toss in the pizza. They can come here.

But what I did was I started to plant little seeds in their enoughness and connectedness cup. And over time, that builds up. So I'm recognizing that it's not that they're not aware that that's a dangerous thing. It's that their need for enoughness and connectedness is at OCD levels.

And it's like a heat-seeking missile. so if I can begin to create a place in the home where they're getting more and more of that they're going to come to me more often and that is key they're going to come to you more often because they're going to trust you that you're not going to rant and rave and lecture and yell and tell them to jump and how high or what they can and can't do all those things and if they get into trouble or they do something they weren't supposed to do they're dishonest they know that they can come and actually tell you and you're not going to not going to fly out the handle and they have got some kind of a relationship with you so and in your eyes they're going to see they're going to see enoughness and connectedness one of the other tips is and then it's overstated kind of hyperbole but stop being reasonable with your children because they're not going to be reasonable without a prefrontal cortex so stop trying to argue the point it's just frustrating them because what they're really looking for is more enoughness and more connectedness with you when no matter what they say what their look what their brain is looking for and it's not going to stop until it finds it it's looking for am i lovable and uh is there somebody who has my back just like an infant yeah absolutely by the way married couples same thing give us a little rundown of good enough parents you have a freebie you're going to give away to my listeners today

if they go to goodenoughparent.online. That's correct. Yeah, it's 15 tips.

Once you register, we'll send you one tip a day, about 10 minutes, 15 minute video. You get 15 tips, one a day. And there's before and after surveys to help you see if you've actually moved some, you've moved the mark a little bit and you feel better about yourself as a good enough parent. Usable tips, it starts off with some biblical tips, some parenting tips.

and you know talking to you i get it that you're in this in sync with this part of the problem of parenting is in the largest problem we have as parents as us we're looking for the same thing enoughness and connectedness from our kids and we should know better we're the ones with the prefrontal cortex but we keep tripping emotionally as well so the first two tips are helping parents get their enoughness and connectedness cups filled a little bit it's it's faith-based it's a uh it's a gospel presentation to their midbrain in order to make them feel like they're enough. So they don't need their child's approval as much. That is so good, Bill. It is super important. I help parents become the confident leader I say our kids crave us to be. It doesn't always seem like that when they're isolating, when they're yelling at us, rolling their eyes back, talking, all of that.

They actually crave our leadership and you are really on a mission to help parents get their need met, not from their child, get their self-worth, their good enough parenting from some other avenue. Let's talk a little bit about this. How is the gospel related to all of this? Can I read you my little gospel card here?

Absolutely. And they can get this as well, or they can just listen to it. But this is, I call it the simple, uncluttered gospel. We're working on that murky, shadowy area of the midbrain that's not reasonable.

We can't choose to change it. It's where my critical inner voice is. It's where my amygdala is, where I trip off when my kid says they're not going to eat their broccoli. So basically, it's going to have to be habitual.

We're creating a new habit. So we ask people to say this aloud, word for word, twice a day for 45 days. We're creating a new habit. Okay?

So here it is. Jesus follower, parent, guardian, strictly because of what Jesus did for you 2,000 years ago, God actually loves you. He loves you with all of his heart, as much as the father loves the son and the son loves the father. He can't love you any more or any less than he does right now, whether you think you've been a good parent or not.

He loves you as you are, not as you should be or could be. You can't add to this love or take away from it. Now, I get it. It often feels like you've messed it up or need to do something so that God would like you better.

And that's what your teen will tell you. But it's not so. Simple. How do you experience it more now?

Simple. Good news. There is something you can do and are invited to do. You can take daily baby steps to ask the spirit inside of you to make you know, experience, and feel just how much God loves you right now.

Just ask. Ask again later today. Ask tomorrow. Make it a spiritual habit.

It's largely based on Ephesians 3 where Paul prays that for the Ephesians. The whole letter of Ephesians is based on circles around this single prayer, Ephesians 3. And he says to them, he's asking power from God through the spirit in them in order that they can begin to three things. The second one is to begin to experience the height and width and length and depth of the love of Christ for themselves and for others.

Very sophisticated. Paul seems to somehow be aware that there's something in my brain that is preventing me from being loved. Nothing has hurt me more than love gone south. and my brain has these inner working models that are preventing me from feeling it, from trusting it, and then from loving others.

So an attachment theory, avoidant and anxious. So I actually need God's power in order to begin to feel the love of Christ today. And if I'm feeling it, I don't need to have it from my child or spouse as much. That's wonderful.

That's incredible. I appreciate that. Is that a download or does that come with Good Enough Parent or where do they get that? They could get this also from the website.

Okay. It's called Simple Uncluttered Gospel for Parents. All right. You know, before we wrap up too, Bill, one of the things I do want to highlight is for those who have left the faith or they're just maybe shying away from it.

I know for me, the older I got, the more questions I had. Yeah. There can be, for a lot of people, a lot of shame in religion and in Christianity. and good enough parent really almost has this guarantee that it's 100% shame free.

So tell us what you mean by that. The good enough parent, the simple and cluttered gospel says that. Here's my passion theologically. And when I preach and when I teach, when I write, I'm doing a book in the Song of Songs.

I'm doing a book, hopefully published in January on overlooked and forgotten women in the Old Testament. But here's my passion. I'm going to get that one. Oh, it's so much fun for a long time.

So much fun. What's up with all the guys getting all the. Right. Oh, it's embarrassing.

In the Bible, you know, it's embarrassing. Look, it's totally embarrassing. And so here's the thing is, here's my passion down to a single phrase. God's love is for the unlovable, the unloved and the unlovely.

And that's all of us on any given day. If we were just a little bit honest, that's the gospel. That's the simple, simple, simple gospel. So how can I shame somebody if God's love is for the unlovable?

I can say you're wrong. I could say I have theological disagreements. I could say I disagree with your morals and what you're doing. But those are the people that God regularly pursues.

My podcast this week is about God's love pursuing Cain. That episode is drenched in this pursuing, desiring love of God. That's not how we've taught it. And we've made it a shame trip on doing good offerings.

And that's absurd. It's totally absurd to do it that way. And it's God trying to get this murderer who is who is anxious attachment. We don't go into that. But in my opinion, very anxious attachment.

He blows up. He does something in order to get in front of God's face. And he can't he can't look up. And God tells him twice.

Why are you looking at the ground? It's like a teenager. Why aren't you looking up into my face? Because the implication is if he looked up into God's face, he'd see this love for the unlovable murderer.

Look, if that's the height and width and length and depth of the love of God, oh, my goodness, we have something. And most churches are too cautious to say that because it sounds like you're enabling sin. Right. My response to that is we don't need enabling.

We're doing it all the time. We actually need love, attunement, experiential love from God in order for me to stop doing those crazy things that I'm choosing to do that are destructive. And I know it. And I know it for the most part.

Now, there's psychopaths out there, right? There's Mansons of the world. That's a whole different ballgame. Yeah.

That's not what we're talking about. For most of us, we are desperately, we desire to be desired by others, and that includes God. That kind of message, I think a lot of people who've left or organized church were looking for and didn't find. Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her.

Oh, my gosh. I just think the world could hear that. And I think everybody would go, yeah, that's probably right. And we're all looking for that.

Absolutely. I totally agree. I appreciate you so much being on the show with me today, taking the time to be with us and to share the resource, The Good Enough Parent, with my audience. Just thank you so much for being here, Bill.

So much fun. It's great to be your great host. Thank you very much. All right, that's it for today's episode of the No Problem Parenting Podcast.

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Until next time, remember, your confidence comes from embracing both successes and setbacks. So take a deep breath, embrace the chaos, and remember, you got this. you