How To Step In When Your Kids Talk Disrespects Your Wife - Episode: 129
Your kid is mouthing off to your wife. You hear it from the other room, and you come in hot to shut it down. Then somehow your wife turns on you. This episode breaks down why that happens and what to do instead when your kids disrespect their mom.
Listen on your preferred platform:
In this episode:
- Why mom sides with the kids over dad, and why it isn't about loyalty
- How to control your masculine energy
- Tending your fire before you walk into the room
- Two questions that change how you show up in a family argument
- The difference between parenting with patience and parenting from your stress
Takeaways:
- If you come in angry, your wife will stop dealing with the kid and start dealing with you.
- Ask what your wife needs right now, then ask what your kid needs right now.
- The goal isn't to fix the situation. The goal is to not make it worse.
- Coming in hot builds fear in your kids and resentment in your wife.
You get to decide how you parent. Make sure it's a decision and not a reaction.
Also in this episode: The next adventure trip is live. Joshua Tree, February 2027, with daily hikes and a 10-mile summit of Quail Mountain. Nine spots are left; more details are on the website.
Welcome And What We Stand For
SPEAKER_00 0:04
This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, Tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community, and most importantly,
Joshua Tree Adventure Trip Details
SPEAKER_00 0:17
your family.
SPEAKER_01 0:20
Alright, what's up? Episode 129. Today's Monday, September 28th, and we launched our next adventure trip. We're going to Joshua Tree in February 2027, and this is a new location. We're going to be doing daily hikes. We're going to be training ahead of time to get ready for a 10-mile hike up Quail Mountain, which is the highest peak in Joshua Tree National Park. We're going to be training ahead of time on group calls with a program that Craig's creating. And then we're going to go have an awesome time in Joshua Tree. So another challenge trip, go to the website, check it out. I think we have nine spots remaining on that trip. And shifting
The Moment Dads Jump In Hot
SPEAKER_01 1:05
to today's episode, what I want to talk about today is what to do as a dad when your kids are disrespecting your wife. I hear a lot of guys talk about those parenting moments where they're in the other room and they can overhear their wife arguing with their kids, asking their kids to do something, and the kids aren't listening. Sometimes it's as simple as that. Other times it escalates. And dad comes in hot, shut it down, you can't talk to your mother that way. Those are the scenes that I know happen in parenting and I want to talk about today. Because as a dad, if you come into those situations as a threat, mom can turn on to dad. Instead of being on dad's side and parenting the kids together, mom sees dad as a threat and focuses her energy on dad and telling dad, don't
Why Mom Protects Kids From Dad
SPEAKER_01 2:15
get so angry, get away from the kids. And then the dad's like, Holy shit, what am I supposed to do? This is confusing. I thought I was coming in to help, and all of a sudden this isn't helping. And I know this is an issue because one of the parenting coaches that I listen to a lot, his name's Kirk Martin. I've talked about him on the podcast, and he had an episode about why moms would choose their kids over her husband in these types of situations. If you are overreacting a lot in your parenting, he talked about how mom chooses kids over dad. And it's not a loyalty thing that she likes her kids more than her husband, but she has an instinct to protect her kids. And if dad's a threat, she's going to protect her kids. And if kids are scared of dad, she's going to protect her kids. What the podcast that I listened to didn't talk about is what to do as a dad. Instead of coming in and escalating the situation, what do you do as a parent? So that's what I want to do today. I want to give you guys some tools to reflect on those types of situations and
Tend Your Fire Before You Act
SPEAKER_01 3:25
change in the future if you want to. Be able to decide if you want to try a different tactic. So step one is looking back at an incident where this happened. Kids disrespecting your wife. You came in, tried to shut the kids down, look back at that and just ask, why did I act that way? What was I feeling when I came into that moment? A couple episodes ago, episode 122, I talked about the fire inside all of us and how we want to be the tender of the fire. In those moments, when your kids are talking back to your wife, what's the fire do inside of you? It probably heats up, it probably gets tense, it probably moves fast, maybe clenching the fists, maybe tight in the jaw, and then a lot of the times we'll just take that fire and let it out at our kids. First step is becoming the tender, recognizing the fire, knowing you're not the fire, and taking a few breaths to simmer it a little. And once you simmer
Ask What Your Wife Needs
SPEAKER_01 4:35
it and that event is still happening outside of you, you ask yourself two questions. One, what does my wife need right now? And two, what does my kid need right now? And that first question, what does my wife need right now? was a tactic that I put into play a couple weeks ago. It was a weekday morning and we were getting ready for school, or lack thereof, because my daughter wasn't getting ready for school. And my wife and her were going back and forth and just in an argument about it. And me coming downstairs, listening to this happen, really wanted to just get on my daughter, just put your damn shoes on, just brush your teeth and get going. And I was aware enough in that moment to tend my own fire. And then I asked, what does Brenda need right now? What does my wife need? I knew she needed to get out of that situation. I could just tell that she was arguing too much. And when I said, Hey, let's step into the other room for a second, she was open to it, and we stepped into the other room, and I said, just told her, I know our daughter's being a pain in the ass right now, and I'm pretty sure this isn't the way that you want to handle it and the way that you want a parent. She had to take a couple breaths and she agreed. I don't really remember what happened afterward, but that's not necessarily the point because the point isn't to calm the situation or to fix anything. The point is to not become the biggest threat in the room when your wife and your kid are arguing. So I came into
Ask What Your Kid Needs
SPEAKER_01 6:15
that room not as a threat, but supporting my wife in a different way. Another situation, and this is something that Brenda did that I noticed just last week. It was the same time of day, the morning. My daughter has these tickets that she has before school. It has everything that she's supposed to get done, and she takes the stickers and she puts them on the piece of paper to get ready for school. The rule is she can play all she wants, read all she wants once the stickers are done. And on this day, she wanted to play with a balloon, but the stickers weren't done yet. And I tried to be calm about it, explain what we have decided ahead of time, and it wasn't working. She had her heels dug in and we were going back and forth. Finally, Brenda came in. I settled. I just kind of quieted down. I didn't wasn't really engaging anymore. But Brenda must have asked herself, what does my daughter need? Because she went up and said, Hey kid, can I give you a massage and started rubbing her shoulders? And part of me was like, Are you freaking kidding me? That's not what she needs right now. She needs to get going. And luckily I was aware enough in that moment to just walk away. And I was able to kind of smile at it because that worked. My daughter ended up a couple minutes later starting to move and groove. That's what she needed in the moment. So, this is what you want to do the next time your kids are disrespecting your wife, instead of coming in with that hot, fiery reaction, which usually turns into your wife
Parent With Intention Not Reaction
SPEAKER_01 7:55
turning on you to protect her kids, simmer your fire, acknowledge that you're justified to be pissed off about the way that your kids are treating your wife, and remind yourself that it won't be helpful if you go in there with that fiery energy. And instead, ask yourself, what does my wife need right now? What do my kids need right now? And whatever the answer is to one of those questions, go and try it out. And not with the goal of calming the situation down, but with the goal of not being the biggest threat in the room. Because you're doing this not for your wife's approval, but that you create a household that's more loving. If you come in hot, you build fear in your kids because they get more afraid of dad, your wife has animosity building up because she doesn't agree with the way that you're parenting. Remember that you get to parent the way you want to. You don't have to agree with your wife. Make sure you're parenting in a way that's intentional and not just reactive based on how stressed you were that day or based on how your parents parented you. These steps of reflecting on a past incident and asking yourself different questions will just give you more control over how you want to parent. You get to decide how you want to parent, but make sure you're doing it from an intentional way. All right.
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