Avoid Unrealistic Expectations of your kids; using Whole Brain Thinking with Special Guest Bertie le Roux

Hey, welcome back, No Problem Parents. Today's episode is all about unrealistic expectations that we have as parents sometimes about our kids. And before I get into the episode, I just want to remind you all to go to NoProblemParents.com and sign up for our newsletter.

when you do that you're going to get a free download right away on the make it right technique which can be used really for ages three or four all the way up to you know the adults using it yourself as an adult so make sure to go to noproblemeparents.com sign up for the newsletter because there's lots of new things that are going to be happening this fall at no problem parenting and one of the most exciting things I think that's happening right now is our book launch On September 20th, we have our first book, No Problem Parenting, Raising Your Kiddos with More Confidence and Less Fear.

And you guys, I have 21 authors, 22 if you're including me, in the book giving resources, sharing their stories, their real life examples of things that have happened to them and why they are doing the work that they're doing and how they can help you become that confident leader for your kiddos. All the authors have written their chapters around the three steps of no problem parenting. Seek first to understand, prepare for the worst, and change the conversation.

And so I recommend that you bookmark your calendar for September 20th because that's the day that the book is going to be published. We're going to launch it on Amazon and it's going to be absolutely free. So be sure to get on our newsletter. You'll get the reminder and the update.

follow us on Facebook or Instagram at No Problem Parents. So No Problem Parenting is all about a mindset shift for parents. Really foundationally, how can you shift from parenting out of frustration or anger or worry or sadness or sympathy for your kids? Get off the fear bus. Head over to noproblemparents.com. Get yourself registered for the course. It's just 96 minutes that is really going to change your mindset the way you think about your relationship with your kids and how you communicate with them so that you can be that confident leader that they really do crave you to be if you have any questions you can always click on the contact jackie tab give me a call we'll have a conversation and determine if no problem parenting can help you today's episode is featuring one of our authors in the compilation book. Meet Bertie LaRue. He is speaking with us today from South Africa. Bertie is an internationally awarded transformational coach and international speaker.

He's an avid radio presenter, a podcaster, and a 40-year business veteran. As a late developer, he was bullied at school. He was told he was a good-for-nothing kid by a middle school teacher. He suffered a hip fracture that derailed his dreams of anything related to sports.

And he almost lost everything twice as an adult. He was also fired twice. Growing up, he was living someone else's dream. And so now Bertie decided to dedicate his life to helping other people to live their deserved life in the here and now.

And passionately supports you in mapping your imagined vision or dream. Bertie's going to share with us how our unrealistic expectations can lead us to living vicariously through our kids and inadvertently how that affects our kiddos. He says our kids are born to stand out and not to fit in. I absolutely love that.

So welcome to the show, Bertie. Thank you very much. It's an absolute honor to be on your show and it's a pleasure to talk to you all the way from out of South Africa. it's late night already out here and you are having beautiful sunshine out your way.

So tell us a little bit about your background. You were in the world of investments and now all of a sudden you're this transformational coach. How did you make that shift? I think I'll start out in my educational career. I went to university and studied an accounting direction. And later on in life, I realized that I shouldn't have done that.

I am not a person for routine and structure and so forth. I'm much more of a right brain, passionate right brain person, passionate about people, passionate about people development, because I believe that we have got so much going for ourselves, but we hardly ever find that. and so often when I go around I see that you know that we are born unique and we each of us each of our children are born unique and then through circumstances and the way we brought up the schools communities we're in we spent the rest of our life trying to fit in rather than as we were born to stand out.

And that is where my passion was all about. And as a teacher, I experienced that firsthand. And that is what I would like to share with you tonight and with the listeners out there about unrealistic expectations that I experienced firsthand, both as a teacher and later on as a manager and business owner. what the impact is when we inadvertently use people in our own interest.

It makes me think about, you know, we have kids and we have all these hopes and dreams for our kids, but often we kind of, some of us, if we're being honest, we tend to sort of live vicariously through our children. And I think we see that a lot in sports or extracurricular activities. You know, maybe we didn't get to do the things we wanted to do growing up because our family didn't have the money or the time or the resources to get us to those events.

Or maybe we just didn't make it very far in our sports or our athletic careers or piano or music. And so now, as we're raising our kids, we're hoping for that for them. Absolutely. And all I can say to that statement is amen, because that is exactly that.

and nobody's here to be blamed. We just need to realize what we may inadvertently be doing and the effect it may have on the youngster, on your kids, whether they are eight years old or 18. You know, I just want to throw an angle in here. I sometimes find, you know, in all of us experiences that you get to a shop and there's a little youngster that goes out of his way screaming and jumping up and down.

Until you realize that so often as a parent, we will promise a little Johnny, if he's quiet in the store and at best his best behavior, he will get an ice cream or we will go to the park and he can play on the jungle gym or whatever the case may be. But then we've met up with a friend in the aisle and we spent 10, 15, 20 minutes talking to this friend, just catching up. Fantastic. Wonderful.

But forgotten about Johnny. And then we say to Johnny, Johnny, now we're running out of time. We can't go and play. We can't do this.

We can't do that. And then he's out of control and we say, Johnny is naughty. And I said, we as a parent made a commitment. We entered into a contract and we faulted on that contract.

So next time Johnny has to join you to the shop, he doesn't want to go at all because he doesn't trust you anymore but that is just something else we must understand our behavior and the impact our behavior has on our little children and we must not think that when they five or six they too young to understand they understand 100 percent they understand 100 percent and they remember all those things and unfortunately they talk about transactional analysis in psychology is everything that we learn we make a tape of because we make a tape in terms of our learnings and our response and we put that tape in a in a in a subconscious mind you know that situation happens again then we just play the tape and we respond accordingly and it might be a wrong thing because the brain is a wonderful thing you can't feed it negative things you just feel it anything where there's negative positive it doesn't distinguish and that is why i'm so passionate about this whole concept of unrealistic expectations we must understand how influential we as parents and for that matter vitally important as teachers are the role we play in creating those tapes that they store and they play them in the future crucial. And then we can't blame them. But often we do. They respond in ways that we say,

that is not right. Where did they learn that? This is so important, Bertie, and I'm so happy to have you on because as adults, because we finally are adults and we get to be in control, we often think that we can control our kids and they just have to do as we say, not as we do. And I don't say that frivolously or lightly, but if all the listeners today really think about what are the messages, what are the things you're saying to your kids, telling the expectations you have on them.

And your example in the grocery store is absolutely perfect. You make a promise to your kid if they behave, they're going to get something or some sort of reward, which first of all, if you're not going to be able to follow through, just don't even make that promise. Just set the expectation. We're going to the store. We need to get groceries.

you'll need to be patient with me right while we're there I don't want to be here either but we need to get this done but if you do set a reward if you do make a promise or a commitment to your child to do something you must follow through if not you're not believable right so do as I say not as I do this happens so often I also love that you're not only bringing it up for us parents, but also teachers, school systems, daycare centers, any place that works with kids.

When you send a message about your rules or expectations, your mission, your vision of the school, of the daycare, you say all those beautiful words and you have this great message you're sending to the kids about how wonderful your program is or whatever it is, but you don't actually walk the talk, the kids, like you say, even at five, they see it, they get it. And it is silly for us as adults to think that, oh, we're just looking good. You know, we're looking so great with our peers, pretending that we have this wonderful program or this wonderful household. And we're really not living up to the expectations, the morals, the mission, the vision, whatever it is that we have set and that we continue to, you know, sing our own praises about. So talk about that a little bit, Bertie. I can just think of a couple of examples where kids have actually said to me, well, why do I have to do it? The adults don't do it.

You're so right. And as I say, I'm a grandfather and I've got a three-year-old and a five-year-old. And I mean, they are sharp as you can get. um you know it is a matter of the monkey see monkey do and it's not just from parent now to child it is from the older child to the younger one and i mean they they learn they're like sponges they just absorb they just absorb from from early life they absorb and they and then when they the conversations come out and you sit sometimes you're aghast about a kid of that age that can have that logic but they learn it some way they learn it from us and we are so grateful that that we can that we can actually be part of that development that's where we need to be cautious about what we do and how we do it i'd like to talk here jackie a little bit about whole brain thinking because as a as a practitioner i'm a netling in a whole brain instrument practitioner And what it's all about, it's the ability to understand that we are left and right brain, born that way, and it's unique.

You don't change those quadrants that you're born with. And then because you're left and you're right brain, how you absorb experiences, learnings, it's totally different. and I often get parents that tell me about the kids and they and and they tell me let's use an example little Johnny and Mary is when when the sun is out there and they and and the parents want the kids just out of their house they just want to relax Mary's in the room she's playing with the dolls and she can't understand why Mary can't get out there you see sometimes get angry and just chase Mary outside.

Johnny is happy. He's all over the show, naughty as ever. And I mean, getting dirty. Then they come back and then they want them to go and study, to do their homework.

Then little Johnny is still all over the show in his room. He doesn't want to do that. Mary is quiet, he's just comfortable. And they don't understand that.

And they try to say and instill the same rules on both of them. but little johnny is right brain the little mary is left brain organized mary organized controlled she studies by desk she's in a room where she need quiet johnny is all over the show he can't study in his in his room because he wants chaos around him he wants his family he wants noise he wants a tv he's he's able to close himself off and study there but that is the that is the atmosphere really requires is a right brain versus left brain parents start trying to control that we are absolutely born that way and you know as you grow older um you you learn certain skills you know when the kids are young we just do an analysis and we can say they left the right brain but as they get older 18 20 and start going into the working environment as as as as college students then we do four quadrants because that's a that's a difference and that's something for another day what's applicable now is is really to think about the left and the right brain but it's uniqueness there um and and you can see everything in you if you understand that you will understand why they do what they do the way they do it and that's crucially important because the moment we ask that question we can ask the same question for ourselves is why do i do what I do the way I do it and because because it's different there it's not a matter of that it is this is something that's danger we're talking about the kids inside outside um and and how they

respond to one another in the house if you've got different kids I mean I had I had this boy and a girl and it's exactly that you know and and when you when later on I've learned this I learned how to understand what happened because if mary is left brain and you go into mary's room it's everything is perfect in its place you know the little teddy bear and the doll and the books and the bible and everything has got his place and it's always there everything's neat the bed is made you go to little johnny's room it's chaos but that's the only way johnny can be comfortable in his environment and he's in his skin is when there's when the things are chaotic because then he feels at place.

But you can ask him anything. He will go under the bed and get his toy and he's going to get his pencil there and he's in control. Then when he's at school and mom tidies up his room because he hates this untidy room, she messes up his life because when he walks into that room, he's in a strange place. He doesn't fit there.

He needs to create chaos quickly so that he can feel comfortable. And the same happened And if he then were to go to little Mary's room and just play with his sister, just communicate or share with his sister, what would he do? He will move things around because the moment he can create a little bit of chaos there, he could be comfortable there. If he's in that area where everything is controlled and neat and in place, he cannot relax because he's not comfortable.

We must understand as parents, and that's where the unrealistic expectations come from. the one thing is we should not live our youth through our old children we are not fair to them let them be child let them experience the playfulness and and and the good and the bad and the ugly of being a youngster being a teen let them go through that it's so important none of us are born and then we run we are born and then we manage to to to slide on our bum and then we start crawling and eventually we stand up and then we start walking that is the process and our teens our kids need to be brought up in the same way that they can find their own world and experience it as a parent my responsibility is is to keep them safe but allow them space okay just keep them safe but allow them space to be themselves to develop and grow. And if I understand the concept of the whole brain thinking in terms of myself, why I do what I do, the way I do it, I can understand the moment I enforce what is good for me, how I would have done it and how I think about it onto my children, that I could create conflict because I create discomfort in their area. I must find out which buttons I must press on my children to get the right response. And that means I need to understand how they think. Yeah, that is really good. This begins with the parent, right? We need to understand what our buttons are too. Step one in

no problem parenting is seek first to understand why is my child behaving the way they are, misbehaving or behaving the way they are. First, we need to understand why am I responding the way you are or reacting the way you are. And that's one of the things that you do really well when you meet with parents is to help them figure out not just their why, like their purpose and what they're interested in and all that, but why they tick the way they tick. That's a starting point because if you understand that you would be able to help them and guide them in the direction in terms of the future.

Because I mean, my preference thinking, if I prefer, if I'm a right brain person and you were spot on, I'm an emotional person. To me, it's all about people and caring and sharing. It is like you say, it's music, it's color, it's art. It's those things almost the pie in the sky, how you treat people, all those kinds of things you can't touch.

Now, if you are an engineer or an accountant even even a scientist and everything to you is there's no gray there's black and it's white this is the way it's done this is the right way to do it then and that's there's nothing wrong with it and there's two things your left and right brain there's nothing wrong it's just a unique me but if i understand that you can guide the child in terms of do the way you your preferential thinking takes you because then you will end up making the choices in terms of what you love doing and the moment you make the choices in in line with what you love doing you would choose the right career for yourself but sometimes we would guide our children even in that the way we think because um if you become a doctor you you're going to make money you will never be out you know without a job and all those kinds of things. Or you say to people,

don't become an artist. Don't become a musician. See that people are all struggling. They don't make money.

If you're passionate about what you do, you'll be good at it because you would love what you're doing. It's just a matter of understanding. We always talk about count till 10 or a hundred. Just stand back and saying, you know, there's two ways to drive to the shop.

It could be the straight one right down the road. Or you can go the scenic route. Does it really matter? Whether we now and again take the scenic route and satisfy the right brain's thinking preference or directly to the shop, in the shop and out you go, the left brain thinking preference.

Does it really matter? So sometimes we must just sit back and saying, there's no way I would have done it. Johnny, go on. Let you make a mess.

You know, soap and water cleans anything. Just let it be. Because now he's learning. Now he's developing.

Now he's growing. He would understand later on that if he has to clean a mess, he will be less messy. But just let him be. Otherwise, you take his creativity away from him.

All the intuition that he was born, you're taking away. You're suppressing it. And he started believing it. I've got no say.

I've got no mind of my own. I just have to follow suit, you know, like ants running in one straight line. We recently posted, we do a quote a day here at No Problem Parenting on our Instagram and Facebook sites at No Problem Parents. And recently we posted a quote that said, you know, we spend the first 12 months teaching our kids to walk and talk.

in the next 12 years to teaching them to shut up and sit down. Exactly. Yeah, it's exactly what you're saying. You know, parents, I think often, like we were talking, living vicariously through their kids, or even if they're not living vicariously through their kids, they just have these hopes and dreams for their kids.

And sometimes it's hard as a parent when your kid isn't interested in the same extracurricular activity that you were. It's ultimately our child's dream and vision, and we need to allow them to pursue it. So sometimes it's us pushing them in one direction, and sometimes it's us allowing them to go the direction that their heart desires. 10 out of 10.

Because, I mean, that's why we're here as a parent, and that is why it is so crucially important. you using an example of your own life I often get asked about my own kids what we've done but the strange thing is when we started out that we just had the two children we started out we said if we were invited to a place whether it's a wedding or a party or something and our kids is not welcome we don't go because we believe that those are the places whether it's a wedding it doesn't matter the kids learn through the experience the exposure and all we can do is is to give them the opportunity to experience so we are outdoor living people you know in and South Africa is a beautiful country for outdoor living and done a lot of things and we've done horseback riding and and downhill skiing which is not very uh uh popular thing in South Africa because you don't have the snow uh like you guys I was gonna say how do you downhill ski in South Africa you have to take a trip for that don't you we we do have in one of our adjacent countries that's actually inside South Africa called Lesotho called the mountain kingdom they have every ski they've got one slope now you would understand that there's one slope it probably takes me about one two minutes to get down to that you know and if you go to Austria and and Switzerland and you know your kilometers of of slope be that as it may but what what we've

then done we've we've really taken our kids everywhere and they've gone with us overseas local we go quad bike riding hiking all those kind of things not forcing them into it just phasing them into let them experience so that they can make up their mind to say I like this I would like that and that is crucially important now we had the opportunity here because of our country but that is what we need to do in any place we have, expose your children but not your wishes onto the the left brain will prefer a single kind of sport take on athletics for example because that's an individualized sport, tennis something but the right brain prefers team sport you know because you want to interact with people you want to feel people as part of it and that's and all of those kind of things that's why it's so challenging and i and my heart goes out to teachers i know when when i was there if you've got 30 children in your class you've got 30 individuals with unique thinking preferences yes they may be left unless they may be something right and you can do that but for you as a teacher to understand the left brain um is not necessarily the intelligent guys and the right brain neither are they the intelligent guys some learn quickly because you are busy with a subject that they can see and experience and within five minutes they have they've they've hit it they know it understand it. And then the teacher continue to try and get the others on the wagon as well. So the teacher's

got a challenge now to understand the concept of whole brain thinking and understand the differences and teach them accordingly, how they think. And I can go on for hours on this subject, Jackie, so you must not be there, but I'm just saying. No, this is really interesting. So I do want to segue into that. You're a practitioner for this whole brain thinking. Tell us more about that, because you're talking the left and right brain and I get all of that, but in my head, I go, yeah, but what about those kids with dyslexia? What about the kids with a mental health diagnosis?

What about, is it just as simple as it's a left brain and a right brain or how does all that other stuff, you know, the, the learning, uh, different abilities and the, and the mental health, how does that, how does that work with this? The system that we, that we apply it is you go online and you go through a battery of questions, which you choose one, your first preference, your second preference, your third preference, and the default, the fourth. So there's a battery of questions, of four questions, you get the answer. So that will then tell you whether your thinking preference is left or right. Okay. And then we can analyze it and go through that and test it with parents and saying, can you see Johnny here? Can you see Mary here? Can you see those things that you were struggling with when they outplay or when they're studying, you know, those kind of things. But what you touch on is kids with, let's say, a mental incapacity. The awareness of understanding that there's a different thinking preference is important. I say again, the importance is that we are sensitive in terms of that the people are different, that we don't enforce our thinking preferences on those we deal with. And we are talking about children here, but Mr. Business Owner, Mr. Manager, Mr. CEO, understand the same principles apply in your workspace.

Because we make so many mistakes as managers. When we appoint people that think like us, because it's so easy, then we expect them to do the jobs that we hate. And then we fire them for exactly the same reason we appointed them if i don't like about admin which by the way i hate admin and paperwork then i must appoint somebody that loves admin and papers not somebody that think like me i end up having a different person here but i understand the differences and the same with our children that we that that we can understand and i'm saying lots of those kids have got unique things that they love doing.

I mean, some of them are brilliant in maths. Some of them are brilliant in music. We must just understand, let's expose them. Let's expose them as much as we can so that we can find out what do they really enjoy doing?

Because not one of them are the same. And as they get older, then it's our job. We don't need to be, you know, I see this a lot in parenting that parents try to make everything happen for the kid rather than teaching the kid how to make it happen for themselves or supporting the child and making it happen. So we're rescuing, you know, sometimes parents have to realize if your kid isn't good at something, they're just not good at something. If the kid wants to do it bad enough, it's up to them to pursue it and to figure out how to keep working at it. And it's sometimes that's hard to watch. Sometimes it's hard knowing, oh, my kid's not good enough or not getting a fair shake or not, you know, it's just the way it is. Other times, parents, I think, are coddling their kids, hovering over their kids, comforting their kids too much, to the point of protecting them, so that the kid doesn't have to go through hardships or rejection or mistakes.

And that's what we think. But we are actually, again, doing an injustice. I'm smiling on this end because my son had a friend. He's an absolute brilliant guy.

I mean, he must have an IQ of 145, 115. As a kid, he was absolutely brilliant. It's cool. And he liked to come and visit Ewald over here. But when he comes visiting, the first thing they do when he arrives here, he undresses and he puts Ewald's clothes on. And then they go out in the garden and they go and play.

and then something like a half an hour or 40 minutes before his mother's due to pick him up they come in and they wash up clean up and then he dresses up again and then he goes back this you know in his mother's all happy and he i mean he loved coming here so he can get dirty in the mud his parents doesn't allow that it is not part of them he's brilliant he must study he's all the time and I'm saying that's not it's not fair to your kid so we were naughty but never did something wrong but the kid just loved to come here because here it's it's open season go out there do what you like trampoline swimming pool jungle gym trees just do what you like right make a fort out of the furniture in the living room and have blankets and have things all strewn you know some people aren't comfortable with mess yeah yeah so it is just that's the way we must allow our children to play because i say again that's how they will learn and understand what they love doing yeah this is so good we only learn through experience book book knowledge tv knowledge it doesn't help much we learn through experience and then we expand it we understand why do i do what i do the way i do it so i understand that you know when i choose a a friend a mate sometimes We understand how, you know, differences can also attract.

We understand that we appreciate it. And at the end of the day, those kind of exercises cost you very little. It doesn't help you give little Johnny $150, $100 and send him off to the mall. And I say, I'll pick you up in two hours.

Because you quickly want to go and spend some time with your friends. You're doing nobody a favor. Good point. Very good point. Well, this has been really helpful. We need to take a look at our unrealistic expectations from as parents, teachers, coaches, whoever it is, right? Any of the adults that are responsible for leading kids, leadership of kids, and then also understanding this whole brain approach.

Dr. Kubit Netlung studied under a professor in America Professor Paul Torrens Kubit has now got a couple of degrees doctorates under his band and I think that comes about I would say it's about 30 odd 30 40 years that started out studying creativity and creative thinking and then expanded into the whole brain thinking and so it's it comes a long way and interesting enough there's a there's a lot of people that swear by it nowadays as as even a way of identifying who to appoint into which position in the organization get rid of the square pegs in the round holes let's get the round holes are the round pegs in the in the round hole and it's not so complex and I would like to offer listeners out there an opportunity to get to know more about it by visiting my website and making contact with me and I can take them through this. Yeah, that's great. So we're going to put a link in the show notes. What you're going to do is click on that link. It's going to bring you to Birdie's contact page. You're going to put your name, your email, the subject, and you're going to want to put in whole brain thinking for the subject. That way Birdie will know that this is,

that's what you're interested in learning more about. Send them a message. You can let them know you came from the No Problem Parenting podcast. That would be nice too. They'll schedule that with you. You will send them the assessment. Is that how that works? I'll send them a code. They do the assessment and then I send them the report. And I would love to spend some time and I'll offer them a 30-minute Zoom or Teams call to discuss it with them. Okay, so and how long does the assessment take for them to complete? It should take about 20-25 minutes to half an hour. I mean, for adults, there's two battery of questions. That takes about 40 to 45 minutes because one of those things that you don't overthink. It asks you what's your preference. It gives you gives you four questions and it asks you what's your preference number one number two number three and fourth one is the default one and you go to the next one don't overthink it is it that's a test for kids uh for for young kids um young let's call them young um teens and then adults young adults and then adults in this you know there's a questionnaire to help you how to play better golf how to play netball how to play football you know what is your skill set communication style approach to money because all of those kind of things that's got a thinking preference you think about it in a different and unique way and there's a profile there's

i mean this net and brain instruments are available in 38 countries in the world so you know if a parent contact me i may even put them in touch with somebody out in your area and your in your state in in in these states so it is quite well known i mean like i say i can talk about this subject for hours because it's so important and there's so many angles to it whatever i mean we know that everything we do starts with a thought and my thinking is my preference and your thinking is your preference so it's everything starts with a thought and it and it guides you to whatever you want to do so we look at the same picture and we come to a different conclusion because of the way we think that is so good so i'm also really excited birdie because you are going to be one of the authors in our first compilation book here at No Problem Parenting. The book is called No Problem Parenting,

Raising Your Kiddos with More Confidence and Less Fear. It's coming out this September, and you are actually writing a chapter in that book. I'm excited about it, and I hope those that read the chapter will get learning experiences from that, because all we need to do is be aware about our differences. We seek first to understand. That is step one in No Problem Parenting.

Absolutely. Thank you so much again, Bertie, for being with me today. Lovely to spend time with you. I love every second of it. Thank you very much for the invite.

Thank you for tuning in to the No Problem Parenting podcast. Join Jackie next time for more tips, tools, and resources that will help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. Who do you know that we could support on their parenting journey? Like this podcast, subscribe share or leave a review of the show your support of the no problem parenting podcast pays it forward and helps us help more families Thank you.