Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hello there and welcome back to another episode of Just say Something podcast. My name is Philip Clark and I'm the CEO here at Just say Something and I am your weekly host. I appreciate you being with us today and before we get started, would like to remind you to please like share and subscribe to our podcast so others can especially share it with your co workers and families and friends and even your frenemies.
They'll, they need this advice too.
So today, you know, Just say something is was built on the back of parents of parents. Our organization formed back in the early 80s with a group of parents meeting around a kitchen table.
They didn't know what they didn't know and today they don't know what they don't know. And so many things have changed.
So today our guest is Lynn Hooper.
And Lynn has more or less built all of our parenting programs and, and has been the staple in this organization since the day she started.
And I won't say how long ago that was, but Lynn is a blessing to the organization, she's a blessing to me, and she's a blessing to the parents who she works with day in and day out. So Lynn, welcome.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: So tell us right now, tell us about the classes that we offer and then tell us what do we have going on right now.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Okay.
The classes that I personally do are parenting wisely, which is for parents of children from birth to about 8 years old back in Control, which is for parents of adolescents and teenagers.
Transparenting, which is a co parenting class that is designed to help parents who are going through a lot of changes in their life, maybe divorce, maybe a lot of different things to help them to help their kids live as normal life as they possibly can.
Right now we have going on. We just started a new parenting wisely last night.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: And that is a five week class.
Monday night, November 10th, we start a new back in control parenting class. And that will go on for six weeks.
And then on November 22, we do the transparent co parenting class.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Okay. All right.
So as I mentioned earlier, you've, you've been here for not quite as long as I have, but we've been here and seen a lot of change in the community, a lot of change for kids.
Is there something that's changed for parents from the 90s to the 20s?
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Absolutely. And it would be social media.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: The biggest change for parents is social media with their kids.
Not so much in the Parenting Wisely, which is a class for young parent for parents of young children, but definitely in the back and Control, which is the program that we do for parents of adolescent and teenagers. And social media is absolutely the biggest change. And I don't. It's not just a change in what we do in here. It is a change in our world.
And the thing about social media is parents do not know how to navigate and help their kids prioritize between social media and putting it down.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
You know, it never fails. When I go out to eat and I look at the people around me, if it's a family, everyone is on their phone.
And that goes so much against what we try to teach here for families of them communicating and actually having face to face conversations.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. And we work really, really hard in Back in control to try to help parents know how to have good conversations with their kids.
Because there isn't a lot of communication going on because that, like I said, they don't know how to navigate social media with their kids. And they give them, they hand them this phone and these kids just live on it.
They live on that. And if parents don't. And we try to help them find ways to not allow them to stay on it all the time with things like when you sit down at a meal together, make everybody put their phones in a basket and while you're eating, do not allow them to be on it, but do not allow yourself put yours in that basket too. And that's a hard part for parents because some of our parents, especially the younger parents, are as bad as the kids. They really are. They live on it too.
And these kids are just.
Their whole life is that they, they don't do any socializing outside of that phone.
Just sitting in a bedroom on that phone all the time.
It is affecting our kids and their mental health in a lot of ways. And that seems to be the biggest problem that we have today.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: Okay, great.
So for a parent that may be listening to this, and we get this a lot, I don't need parenting. I know what I'm doing.
What's your response to those?
Those kind of comments that we receive on a regular basis.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: And we absolutely do receive those.
I have a lot of parents that come into my class the first time.
I don't need this class. I don't know why I'm here. It's my child that's acting up.
And what I try to help them understand.
We are not here to try to teach you how to raise your children. That is not our job and that is not what we do.
But we, our parenting classes are offered to help you with your skills, to Learn new skills to put into practice. Maybe a lot of the skills that we share, and I find this to be very true, a lot of the skills we share are skills that these parents have grown up with.
Maybe their parents didn't put them into place as strong as they should have been, but they kind of know them, but they don't practice them themselves. It's kind of like they're in the back of their mind and when we talk about them, it kind of brings it to the forefront. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did know that then. But we definitely are not trying to help them or to teach them how, how to raise their children by any means. And that is what I try to help them understand when they come in here with that attitude. I try to, in the course of the five or six weeks, help them realize that's not what we do at all, but all of the skills that we offer and all of the conversations we have. And one of the things they love about the classes, they love hearing what other parents are going through because what they say is, it's just, it's in, it's enlightening to know that other parents have the same problems I do.
So we have a lot of discussions about that. But the skills that we prove we present to these parents are skills absolutely. That will help them to help their children and help them to have a lot of peace in their home and help them to know how to navigate their children.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Okay, so two of our main programs, Parenting Wisely, which are for parents that have kids from birth to probably seven or eight based, and that's a five week program.
What, what's one important piece of those five weeks that you could share with these listeners? That might be a, an idea of, of what you just talked about. As far as we're here to help them, what's the biggest part, I guess, of parenting wisely? That if there was one point you wanted to get across to the parents during that five weeks, what is that?
[00:09:45] Speaker B: It would be helping these parents learn to say no to their children.
They don't know how to say no. They give in.
They don't have a lot of patience with the little ones. Not all parents, but some of our parents.
And they sometimes they throw up their hands and just give in. They say no and then they don't mean it. They back down on what they've said and what they don't realize by doing that maybe you're solving a little problem at the moment, giving the child what they want. And maybe that brings down a lot of Confusion or hollering or screaming or something in the house.
But you aren't helping these kids learn.
They're going to be said no to a lot in their life, and it is not going to hurt them. In fact, one of the things I say say no to your children 10 times more than you say yes.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: So I think that's the biggest thing, helping these parents of young children learn. And we do that with teaching them Rules Follow through and consequences.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. All right.
Now, Back in Control for preteens and teenagers. What's the one piece? That one nugget that if you're talking to a parent and they might be thinking about a class, what's that one nugget from Back in Control?
[00:11:16] Speaker B: I think just like when you ask me the question of what's changed in parenting, I think helping these parents navigate social media with their kids, and we also do that through Rules Follow through and consequences, because that is a big, big part of our program.
And then helping in Back in Control because we are dealing with teenagers, and a lot of parents realize that they don't have control of their child's behavior because as I said about parenting wisely, they didn't say no when they were small.
And now it's even harder to say no because your children are not listening to you at all. They're doing what they want to.
So helping them navigate that and helping them learn how to communicate with these kids, how to talk with them. And one of the big things that I am finding that I have to work on a lot is helping these parents learn how to praise their children, because their kids, a lot of these parents, and I realized, because I've raised my family, when these kids get to be in these adolescence and teenage years, it's doggone hard they get sassy.
It's hard to really like them. I mean, we love them, but it's hard sometimes to really like them. We wonder, who is this kid when they're talking back and being sassy? And I think every parent goes through this, but one of the things that I work on real hard with these parents is help them by giving them a little praise, giving them a lot of encouragement, because with encouragement, they do better.
I mean, everybody does. We all do. Just like when we go to our job, if nobody ever said anything good or helped us in any way, how long would it take us to get really slack, Right? So it's the same with our kids. With a lot of encouragement on a daily basis, Even when you have to hunt something to encourage them about is rewarding because they will want to do better and they do try harder.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Right, right.
That's powerful.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: It is. It is very powerful. And helping parents realize that and listening to them tell you, oh, I don't. I don't find anything to praise them for. I mean, I can't even get them to do their chores. I'm going to praise them.
But just. Just hunting things and just working with your kids and giving them a lot of encouragement makes a tremendous difference with the child.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Okay. All right.
Thank you for sharing that.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: So we are in the midst of parenting wisely and back in control.
And we're getting close to the end of the year. And so our programming is on a continuous basis.
We typically take a week or two break in between classes.
We just started a class. We have nine families or parents in that one. And so one thing that a lot of people may not know is our classes are free.
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a big advantage. It really is. That that allows us to get more parents.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Right, right. And that also provides us an opportunity. If you're a local business that would like to have us come in and do something for your employees, if you have a lot of young employees that are. That have children, small children, or even teens, we can come in and do a lunch and learn for you. Lynn does a. A great job at that. And just know that you don't always have to come to us. We can also come to you.
And so our team is growing, and unfortunately, the demand is there, but we all need a little bit of help from time to time, and there's no shame in that whatsoever.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: And I work really hard to try to help the parents that come through my programs when they leave not to have the same attitude that they came in with. And everybody doesn't have that attitude. A lot of our parents just call, I need help with my teenager, and I would like to attend the classes. How can you help me? So a lot of them have a good attitude when they come in, better when they leave. So. So we work real hard to help parents understand that we're not trying to tell you how to raise your child, but to give you some skills that will help you do a better job and be a much better parent.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Right, Right. And no matter your zip code, that's exactly right.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: Wherever you are, that is true. Oh.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: So if you are interested in attending or seeing finding out more about our parenting classes, you can go to just say something. SC.org go over to programs and click on parenting and you will see a list you can also click there's a referral list or sign up list there or opportunity that you can fill out a few questions and hit submit and our team will be back in touch with you to get you signed up for our next set of classes.
Just or you can call us at 467-4099.
Lynn, thank you for being here with us and I always like to end with this last note. Is there one thing you didn't get to say that you would want to say to the parents or caregivers? You know uncles and aunts have a role in this as well as grandparents. So is there one more nugget from from Lynn that you would want to share with our listeners?
[00:17:06] Speaker B: I think the one thing that I would say to any parent tell your children you love them. Tell them they need to hear it daily.
Tell them you are proud of them.
Find something to be proud of your kids, draw them close to you that way, giving them a lot of encouragement because they are faced with a lot of things in this world today that we didn't have as parents. Even parents of younger children now it's different.
They need a lot of help. Get them off of social media as much as you can.
Take those phones up at night, charge them in your room because if you don't, your kids are going to be on them all night and they need to be fresh for school.
There are so many ways that you can help these kids navigate social media and if you really to learn and you really are serious about it, we have some answers for you that can help you if you're willing to do it.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Okay? And on that note we will end. Thank you Lynn. Always a pleasure having you with us.
And this is Philip Clark and this is another episode of Just say Something weekly podcast. Be sure to like subscribe and share and we will see you next time. Sam.
