Kimmen

Thanks for the comments i got here. My wife and I, decided to sit our son down and talk to him about the influence this kid on my sons behaviors and the consequences my son suffered from it. Much like Stacey did with her 14 year old. We also took your advice on restricting our son's access to this child and today there's hardly any contact. My son is avoiding Bob, and is now doing much better here at home and at school. I used my own experience from the past and i tried my best to explain to him how Bob's influence is affecting his own behavior. To my surprise, my son had already thought about the things we discussed that evening and agreed that Bob is a kid to currently stay away from. @spenc My son is not forced to do anything. Soccer practice is my son's own choice. Attending religious meetings is also totally volunteer, as my wife and i have an agreement around that topic, to never force our children to go if they refuse too, which has happen several times, and when it does, they stay with me. School is mandatory where i live, but my son has never said that he hates being there. If he did, all alarms in my head would go off and i would help in any way i can. I do not believe in forcing anyone to do anything, it has to come from them, all i can do, is provide the tools they need to figure things out on their own, and encourage discussion on any subject.

Question 4: [2:33:29] This part is not available to me, question 3 start over again at this stamp, whats wrong? https://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/4008/the-dangers-of-false-forgiveness-call-in-show-february-14th-2018

My son prefers to play with John and seems to only be around Bob when John isn't available. My son have told us several times how Bob is being a jerk to him, but still can't say no to Bob. So it seems inconsistent from my son to complain about how Bob treats him and say that he does not want to be around him no more, when he agrees to come out and play when Bob shows up at our door.

Hey, I find myself on a position where my son (7) year old, is having bad social exposure around particularly one kid, we can call him Bob. Bob is also (7) years old and is going in the same class as my son at school. Bob's dad, is also one of the coaches in my son's soccer practices where Bob also attends. Bob lives 80 meter's away from my son and is practically a neighbor here on the block. There are 4 kids in total in this neighborhood that is around my son's age. We can call the rest (Max 6 years old and John 7 years old). I believe it is significant to mention how small this group is and that it is in general very difficult to exile one of the boys from the group duo to his behavior. John is my son's best friend and his mom is a good friend of my wife. John, like Bob, is also in the same class as my son at school. Max is one year younger and is starting school now in 1st grade. Max is living in a family where the parents are divorced and where his dad has the main custody, Max also lives with his mom and i believe that they are currently trying out 50/50 split custody now as of recent, which means he is not always around. My family has a christian upbringing and my wife is actively involved with the religious community and so is John and his family. My son will often meet John in our congregation and John's grandmother is my son's grandmother's neighbor too. Safe to say, John and my son spend alot of time with eachother. John has very good behavior, he respects his parents and other adults and i have never heared John swear. So i encourage my son to spend time with John and i let my son invite John into our home so they can play inside on occasion. We extended this arrangement to Bob aswell, but keep having issues with him. The problems we run into are extremely rude behavior which sometimes our son is copying. When Bob and my son are together, they both end up acting bad. The bad behavior is showing the middle finger to other kids and adults, yelling and swearing, cursing other kids and adults. Terrorizing our neighborhood with knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell's only to run away. My son has started to lie to us alot and i have observed that Bob bully's our son with rude hurtful words and sometimes hitting him, especially when Bob has visitors. John's parents are experiencing similar issues when Bob is over at John's place with my son. We are scared to talk with Bob's parents as they seem extremely protective of their son and makes alot of excuses for his behavior. We are scared to instruct our kids to stop being with Bob, because if Bob tells his parents that we have said that, then they are likely involve the school in these matters, which the school really do not have any business getting involved with. There are also the fear of Bob's dad treating my son differently on soccer practice if Bob and my son don't get along etc. Bob is doing whatever he wants and dont seem to have any structure around him. He is out very late in the evening, his parents leaves Bob alone in the house unattended and sometimes with is older step sister. Bob hurt himself one day, falling of his bike, instead of going home to his parents, he came to me for help, so i cleaned his wounds and told him to go home. Bob recently got a brother, so his mom is taking care of the baby alot, but i can see Bob is not happy with it. Bob's dad seems like a tough guy, but i cant say for sure how they are, only what i see around my son. I was bullied alot back in school and i do not want my son to go trough that. I do not wish war with Bob and his family and i try to avoid them as much as i can. I try my best to give my son positive exposure and with John, my son behave very well, so John is a good influence as Bob is the very opposite. Before Bob got into our life, my son was doing very well and behaved well. What can i as a parent do, to stop this from becoming a future disaster?

Hey LiveFree, My wife and I, have not read or listened to Stefans's book Real-Time Relationships: The Logic of Love. I searched for it now and found it for free at https://freedomainradio.com/free/ Here i can read it or listen to Stefan, while he reads it. My wife has dyslexia and hardly ever reads books, besides children's stories to our kids at bedtime and religious texts to boost her faith. So this audio file seems to be the way to go, if she is interested in it. I can't however figure out how to make that process easier. The audio file is 558 minutes long, and not sorted by chapters. I will have a go at it and perhaps get it in book form somewhere. Thank you for the tip, appreciate it.

Its been over a month since i first made this post and i promised to give feedback on the tips and suggestions we got. We are very thankful for the helpful insights and the willingness to assist us in this troubled times. @Gloria We really took your second advice to heart and implemented it right away. We are very surprised and happy to announce that the issues now seems to be resolved. Whenever our son wakes up in the middle of the night, we now firmly follow your advice and its working. It was abit hard to begin with, as we and our children is used to us cuddle with them for a long time after the wake up in the night. In fact, our son has now achieved full time sleep and has reduced his troubles at night by an enormous amount. I believe we only had a couple of times the last 3-4 weeks, which with your advice went smoothly for us all. THANK YOU SO MUCH !! <3 Your third suggestion we have also implemented and stayed with for the last 4 weeks and this has also yield results. The temper tantrums has been reduced in numbers of times and in duration. My son now always get 3 hard-boiled eggs for lunch with him to school, to increase proteins during the day. He also get milk regularly at school. We also focus more on dinners that consist of chicken or fish. We have removed all products of pure sugars and they are only being given candy on Saturdays once a week. No more cookies and candy laying around the house for them to "steal". The results are finally making our family dynamics dramatically better for all of us. We are embarrassed to report that we have not got Iron vitamins as of yet, we will get it soon. In addition to this, we followed Stef's advise on negotiating with both kids as much as possible and explaining to them what plans we got for the day. We have stopped arguing with them during the tantrums and thank god, me and my wife has stopped yelling at them and at each-other. It is a huge change for us and we hope it stays like this from now on. Your forth advise i am happy to report that i have started the weight-loss program and i have been at it for 4 weeks. I am now used to the regime and its going grate. I have lost 4.9 kilos in this time and it still going down. I also wrote some about my issues with eating unhealthy food in the evenings after the kids go to bed because of my depression, i am excited to report back that this has stopped entirely the last month and that my depression is lifting abit, another rather surprising win. I have started to exercise again, however, sadly, i got admitted to hospital for another 8 days, when i started to get tremendous amount of pain in my hip and lower back. The back pain is diagnosed to be prolapse, but nothing serious and i feel much better now. The hip pain, i thought was the hip-replacement loosening, since i had the same pain-patterns when i went with loose hip-replacement back in 2009-2011. It turns out, that the hip is not loose, but that the pain may come from the nerve damage i got from the 4cm leg adjustment. I have now started on nerve medication, and gratefully cut back on the opioids meds almost entirely as a result of that. I came home from hospital soon to be 2 weeks ago, and i have started to exercise again, and its going well, i even bought weight manuals to train my arms as im sitting down, its grate and i feel much better now. I have contacted a physiotherapist and will start up a program with them soon. @spence Your suggestion to listen back to Stef's video, has also yield results. I did this with my wife and we both have restrained ourselves from yelling. We are managing the tantrums way more effective now and we have worked hard on negotiating before problems arise and we are slowly applying philosophical tools to our relationships. Thank you for that. <3 I have connected alot more with my kids and my wife this past month and i am living more and more in the moment instead of just being in the proximity. I play more with them and i am much more available to them all, this was scary for me, but i am happy i tried it and i am still trying hard to correct this behavior within my own mind and putting it out in practice. I do more and more together with my son, and i even told my wife today, how much things has improved over the past few months. I play super mario and mariocart with him, and he just loves it. I also started to drawing with him and puzzle with him and playing with beads with him, its healing for the both of us. I have negotiated that he will join me when i go for a walk to exercise, and in return, we will play chess, after we get home, as that is currently his new thing from school. The thing that i enjoy the most, is the conversations we have together now and i treasure that alot in our relationship, im so sad to have missed out on this stuff for so long. During the upcoming summer, i planned to take him fishing and mountaineering, just me and him. Thank you for your contributions on this topic thus far, really appreciate it. <3 @Jaeger I got inspired from your post and i just want you to know that because of you, i have now made myself approachable even on the worst days. Now, my kids are coming back to me for more, and it seems that they no-longer are reserved to make contact, even if i have a terrible day. Even on bad days, i now interact with my family and i am coming out of isolation on purpose, i can see in my kids eyes that they respect this from me, and my youngest, my daughter thats 3 years old, walked up to me and said "Im so proud of you daddy, that you make time for me, even when i can see you are in pain". I melted and became very emotional, i never thought she could say anything like it or even understand at such young age. It was beautiful, just amazing moment. I experience the same as you, that now, my kids wish to be included in my conditions and we talk about them more in-debth and it seems to have cleared up some of their questions about my past absence. Your point of looking at your mistakes as an opportunity to improve instead of self attack, really stuck with me. Wise words worth applying to all aspects of life and while i am a novice at doing that, i at the very least do my best to achieve that, rather giving up. Thank you for your help and assist buddy, and may we both harvest improvements as a result in the future. - Summarizing, the overall conditions have improved tremendously and is continuing to improve as we speak. We still have issues, but it is healing and becoming way more manageable now, compared to when i made the first post. I observe that my son still got tendencies to say really hurtful things while he is angry. My wife and I, talk to him about that, and he says that he dont mean those things, but that it just comes out in rage. How should we go about this in our conversations to reduce the insults and may this come from his interaction with other kids at school and soccer practice? We both observe that these incidents has diminished over the past 4 weeks, but still, they come out. He does not get that from us, as we NEVER say things like that ever. Greets Kimmen

@spence It is not the problem that it is too late, but that my rig is in the bedrom where my wife and i sleep. Also the appartment is very small, so kids may wake up, hence why i said i need to make arrangements. I have been in contact with Michael, and he said that i cannot call in on weekends, i asked about that specifically since that would in fact help alot. Obesity was forced upon me, the lifestyle changes i talk about is the issues i got after getting obese in the first place, allthough i can see why you thought it was contradicting. The lifestyle changes applies to last year, where i have comforteating after failing the education i was forced into and the consequenses of that following depression and weight gain. @jaeger Very nice share, you made good points and gratulations with your win thus far. It is indeed a long and hard journey to parent whilst dealing with chronic pain and sickness. I am currently writing from my ipad, sad to say, from hospital. Turns out that yet again my hip-replacement could be loose. I am scared. I have no idea whats going to happen, but i fear the worst. Seems too me that i may need yet again a new surgery. Will know more in the next days after weekend. FML.

As far as the draft goes, im not going to ask for it. If i earn it by paying, then ill have a go at it, for now, ill work with what i got. I have been absent for 5 years, not 1. My son was born in April 2010. In Sept 2009, my hip replacement broke because of a technical error and as i stated above, i had to walk around with a loose hip-replacement that generated alot of pain for 2 years. At the same time, i had to use painkillers and do physiotherapy and i had to try working in order to get welfare. We also bought a house in the summer of 2010, which needed rehabilitation, so together with my wife, family and friends, we worked on the house whenever we could until we sold it in the summer of 2012. I had no energy to take care of my son in this time, so my wife did all the work with him. We could agree that if i had prioritized differently, i could have stopped the renovation on the house, in order to spend more time with my son, however, i had a different mindset at the time and i take the responsibility for those actions today. In 2011, i had the final surgery and i could not fully walk until summer 2013, so in this time, i also had alot of pain, i have nerve damage, fighting hard with physiotherapy and moving closer to my in-laws to get more help with the kids, as i could not be of assistance to my wife. I assume that all you see here is excuses, but i will argue that i did the best i could staying alive and focused on healing myself for me and my family. I wasn't there for my kids, i still aint fully there for them. I really recognize myself in the way this husband explained his position to Stef. I am also just in the proximity and not really connecting with my kids all the time. I do connect with them during the days now, but i can still improve this. I have completely stopped gaming, im out of bed, i do most of the work in the household, i actually play with my kids now and i talk to them daily. I have saved my marriage from failing and i have won over the welfare office and the state for the damage i received while in hospital. Im predicted to win against the state in my ongoing lawsuit, judgement is duo on week 11 of this year, so next week. I have started weight-loss program again and i am in therapy. I have so many things going on right now, that it starting to become overwhelming. I have turned to philosophy and red-pilled myself, i am pursuing self-knowledge and i am dealing with my depression. I got to tell you, this is brutal! Having to deal with young children and marriage at the same time, is very consuming not just for me, but also for my wife and kids. I am very aware of the damage done here, and i am acknowledging it thus seeking help. I got to admit i am very confused as what it is you are recommending me to do, besides calling in on the show and discus it with Stef. I am currently thinking like this, i want to make priorities that has the highest effect in the here and now, to ease the situation abit. Then i want to but more efforts into the long term perspective. I really struggle to find the correct schedule and balance between what is urgent and what can wait. For example: With my physical health: I am currently on morphine pills for the pain i feel in the lower-back, streaming down my thigh, hip, kne and ancle. I can't even tie my own shoe on the right foot and i need to work hard with myself to get my sock on. I am obese aswell from the passive lifestyle that got forced upon me with a chain of surgerys and the complications from those. My hip-replacement duration is depended on the wear and tear, so when you are 140 kilo, its pretty significant and weight-loss seems to be extremely important. This require lots of training and a lifestyle change when it comes to food. Mental health: I am currently in therapy to deal with my depression, helplessness, self-knowledge and processing the trauma ive been trough. I struggle with eating unhealthy stuff in the evenings after things get quiet, because of my depression. So with unhealthy food and snacks, combined with forced passive lifestyle, i got to be obese. In summer 2013, i started on a weight-loss program and i succeeded in loosing alot of that overweight and came down to 106 kilo, but after being forced into education by the welfare office, in august 2014, i failed it hard in October/November and got severely depressed. So by spending 13 months in bed, all the overweight came back on and the passive lifestyle continued. Then i got a ultimatum from my wife in jan 2016, not because she didn't love me anymore, but because the situation was unbearable for us as a family and i seemed to have given up and resigned. So i prioritized fixing the marriage and in this process i also found stefans videos and started working on myself aswell. It seems like no matter what i do, i cant win, because it always something that happens next. Then we have the marriage issues and the parenting issues. So, what am i supposed to do with all of this? Explaining to me all the failures and the results from said failures, is not really motivating me, but rather destroying the will to proceed, because i already know the failure and the consequences those bring. I would much rather appreciate tips on repairing and finding the most critical things to address first, because i have no energy and resources to tackle it all at once. I am sorry if this comes off as offensive and rude, please, that is not my intention at all. I am happy to continue answering questions, and i am currently considering calling in, but stefs show is starting my 1 am and its in the middle of the week, so i have to make arrangements to make that happen, if i dare calling in at all. All calls gets posted, and my anxiety is really a barrier for that.

Hey Spenc, Thank you for your kind suggestions. I have listen to this call once before and i convinced my wife to join me last night and listen to it also. We got alot of nice tips and suggestions from that call and the part about never yelling again and not making apology's you cannot honor, really reasoned with us. We have on occasions apologized for yelling, but continued the behavior sporadically. We now understand how awful that is and will never apologize unless we commit to changing our behavior. We also understand how arrogant and obnoxious it is for us to demand our kids to control their tantrums, when we ourselves allow to yell at them and failing in containing our own misbehavior. We both agree to commit to dealing with this nonsense and give ourself the rule to never yell again. Stefans way of explaining food for stomach and food for tongue, really motivated us to try the same approach and we will soon. Negotiating before and not in the middle of or after things happens, really made total sense and we will do that immediately. I tried to access the last link from your post related to Stefans draft of a peaceful parenting book, however that seems to be gated behind a donation wall, since i cannot access it. Maybe in time, i can afford to donate much more and get this access. We have now accumulated some suggestions and put them in action. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to help our family back on track, i really appreciate it and will for sure report back with our results.

Just came back from vacation with my family, thus the late reply. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. We will discuss this later tonight when the kids are in bed. 1: Its done! 2: We have discussed this topic recently and we both believe that this would be the way to try and go from here. I will update this thread with our experience in a few weeks to see if this helped. 3: This is for sure worth trying. Our kids dont eat breakfast, lunch at home during weekdays, our daughter get it in daycare which here in Norway is very strict and focused on being healthy. We make food for our son, that he brings with him to school. This food is always healthy and we also add fruit. He gets water from home and milk at school. We have made grate efforts the last year when it comes to dinner, since i am the one making it. In the past we used fast and easy ways to get dinner, which one could argue isn't very healthy in the longrun. Where we come short, is how much sweets and suger products they also get. Both our kids are healthy and none of them are overweight. The first thing we should try, is get rid of sweets and adding more protein, which conveniently fits with my plans for weight-loss. Today we went through the vitamins and found that we could use more iron, so thats the second thing we can do. Our kids always eat when they are hungry, even tho we have routine on dinner and supper. I will report back after negotiating this with my wife and hopefully enforce it soon. 4: No can do. Dismissing the painkillers is not an option for me. I have tried to do that several times, but the pain is too aggressive and according to the doctor, its permanent chronic pain. I can however improve things with exercise and weight-loss. I will also get physiotherapy to help me out with this. Dismissing painkillers is rather unlikely with the nerve-damage and complications caused by the surgery's ive been trough. Nobody would be more happy than me to dismiss them entirely, but all previous efforts to do so, have failed because the pain i have is to big. I have also big concerns about using them which i addressed my doctor with, he says i must prepare to use this for the rest of my life to have some life quality. Im not saying you are totally wrong, but i am saying that for now, if i choose to not take them, i will be spending my time in bed. I really do not want to end up there once again. 5: I do, everyday. Thanks for your opinions and knowledge, we will discuss and implement some of them to our family and i will report back after a while with the results.

Hey, first time poster here. Me and my wife are having issues with our two kids when it comes to temper tantrums. My son (6y) can say to his mother ("I hate you and i wish you were dead" - "I wanna move out of this house" - "leave me alone, go and die" - "you are so mean and vile") He will be crying and talking to himself about how he is the victim and nobody cares about him and nobody wants to be with him and so on. This can happen when he has had a bad dream and starts crying in the middle of the night, and we both attend to comfort him. My wife usually takes over and cuddle him, talking to him, asking whats wrong and so on. Our son will after a short while push her away and lash out against her with the example phrases above. When the temper tantrum is over, it takes time before he is ready to apologize, the next day, i observe him saying "I love you very much mom" "Mom you are very beautiful" "Mom, im sorry for saying all those bad things earlier". He is very emotional so when he is sad, he is really sad to the extreme and it works the same way when he is excited for something, that he will be jumping up and down and uncontrollably scream out of happiness. He can't seem to control his emotions. It is especially bad for my wife, with me, my son always calms down and we can talk and negotiate. Our daughter (3y) has the worst temper tantrums, she is whining and yelling and crying loudly, like really loud. She screams on top of her lounges when she doesn't get her way or when she refuse to brush her teeth, clean the room, eating etc etc. She never says anything hurtful like our son, but is very loud and screaming/crying. She can show the same behavior towards our son when they disagree, but seem to not do this in daycare. After it has escalated to the point where she is screaming yelling and crying, i find that the only two things that helps, is time out or pacifier. I then pick her up, carry her to her room and place her on the bed, then i leave the room. If she comes out, i repeat it twice, and if she still try to come out, i block the door so she cannot get out. From there, i can negotiate with her when she is calming down. After we successfully come to an agreement, we hug and cuddle some, then things get quiet and she goes about doing the task she refused to. - Adding to the story is that me and my wife have been trough a very rough marriage. We started dating when we were teens, i was 15 and she was 16. We married 4 years later (2004) and are now closing in on 13 years of marriage. After the first 2 years (2006), i started to get big problems with my hip and had to go to surgery for a hip-replacement. I got it implemented in 2007. This incident had us postpone our decision to have children. In the early summer of 2009, things got stable, and we decided to try getting pregnant. Beginning at fall 2009 my hip-replacement breaks because of a technical error with it and at the same time, we get news that she is 2 weeks pregnant. The new hip-replacement i then get, never heals and settles in my bones, so its loose and generating alot of physical pain for me, making it extremely difficult to move around and be active. We buy a house in the summer of 2010, just after my son is born. in the fall 2011 i get another hip-replacement, since the previous did not settle. During this surgery i get nerve damage and a 4 cm length adjustment to my leg, sending me into a tremendous amount of pain. I am not allowed to fully walk on my foot before summer 2013. By this time my wife has been alone in parenting our son and she has nursed me at home in addition to working 90%. In 2012 my wife ask what we should do about our desire to have our second and last child. We agree to have a new baby, because we still believe i can get healthy again after this last surgery. I have gained alot of weight from 2006 when this first started and went from 95 kilo and up to 142,5 kilo by summer 2013. So instantly when i am allowed to walk fully on my foot, i start weight-loss programs. I train 5 days a week and i made changes to my eating habits.My daughter gets born in the fall 2013. By summer 2014, i have lost 36,5 kilo and weigh 106 kilo. I am starting to get back on my feet and are now spending a little bit more time with my family and trying my best to help out in the household. But before i can stabilize and finish the weight-loss, the social welfare office put forth an ultimatum saying i need to get a job or be in education to continue receiving welfare. That creates a mental reaction on my part, and generates ton of stress, so i contact a private psychologist to get help working through it. I also on my own accord, find a way to attend a rehabilitation center to help me get ready for school and fulfill the requirement from the social welfare office. I spend 5 weeks in rehab and a week after i am done there, i start school. I get top grades at school and i start to think that maybe this can work, but 2 months in, the physical pain from my hip and lower back get to problematic and i realize that it is impossible to complete it. So by the end of 2014, i fail and hit rock bottom. I spend the next 13 months mostly in bed and completely isolated from everyone, extremely depressed, wishing that i dont wake up the next day. Jan 2016 my wife gives me an ultimatum saying that she cannot work, raise our two kids alone, and nurse me at the same time. 2 weeks later, i also get disabled and i get compensated for the loss of income and for the damage done to me in surgery. We are also in a lawsuit against the state for the loss of future income, duo to my disability, a lawsuit that started back in 2010 when we knew it was a technical issue that ruined my hip-replacement. I start to search for help, im going to therapy and i stumble over one of Stefans videos on Youtube, after watching a few videos from him, i "wake up". I start to pursue self-knowledge and i start dealing with my own issues. I also started to listening to peaceful parenting videos, and since all this, we have made alot of positive changes and progress. I am still on heavy pain medication (morphine pills) which i have to take 3 times a day to keep the pain in check. My doc says it is permanent damage and chronic pain. I have also gained all the weight back, so currently i am working on setting up and preparing for a new wight-loss program. So with this history in mind, my wife has basically had a really difficult job raising the kids alone with me absent. My son started full time daycare at the age of 1, same for our daughter, which currently still goes there because i cannot take care of her alone. When she leaves the kids in daycare, they get really sad and angry and are crying on top of their lounges. This reaction was terrible the first few months and now they react like this maybe once every few months. My son is now in school. I have spank my son once when he was 3 years old and i have dragged him by the hair once, also when he was 3 years old, but stopped it entirely as it did not feel right. After watching Stefans video on parenting, i have completely changed my mindset and believe now, that physical discipline is not an option, as before i thought it was okay if the kids misbehaved badly. We still yell at our kids when they misbehave and have done so since the kids were able to speak to us. We know this is bad, and are currently working hard on not raising our voice at them. Obviously we both know that putting the children in daycare fulltime is terrible. We know that yelling is unacceptable now and we understand that our behavior and decisions is a strong part of the issues/consequences we now experience with our children. I am not sure if my son remembers me physically punishing him twice, i could ask, i dont believe that has much to do with current behavior and as explained, its totally off the table/unacceptable. Questions is, what can we now do to prevent the temper tantrums and how can we deal with them appropriately? Or are we doomed to live with this? Does Stefan have a video for us where he talks about what parents should do when being in such situation? Please help. I am sorry for all this backstory, i hope it helps knowing it.