All Blended Up
Get real world advise from a family that has been navigating the waters of a blended family.
All Blended Up
Discipline in a Blended Family
Johnathon and Shantanell discuss a viral video showcasing the clash of disciplinary styles in a blended family. We peel back the layers of parenting within such complex family units, bringing our own experiences to the table. Settle in as we, alongside our listeners, dissect these intricate dynamics, sharing insights from Johnathon's fatherly perspective on the essential roles communication and respect play between biological parents and stepparents.
Our conversation evolves, examining the generational shifts in discipline and respect, and the ripple effect these have on our children's relationship with authority, from parents to educators. We also open up about how our own upbringing and the habits we've modeled can reflect in our kids' actions – sometimes in ways that take us by surprise. Bridging biblical wisdom with the trials of modern parenting, this episode is an invitation to embrace forgiveness and understanding, as we navigate the often-turbulent waters of raising children in today's blended families. Join us for a heartfelt exploration into the art of discipline, as we aim to build stronger, more resilient family bonds.
Good evening everyone and welcome back to All Blended Up.
Shantanell:It's your girl, Shantanell Lindon and Johnathon Lindon and we are so grateful for y'all to tune back in with us kind of got on yes, uh, last week with episode 11, discussing there's nothing new under the sun, like and just um, really kind of a part two of one of the videos I did um a few weeks back to encourage parents, because sometimes we think our children, some of the things that they do or some of the situations that they find themselves in, we think it's the end of the world.
Shantanell:But then when you think about the things that you have done or you begin to talk to other parents, you realize they're doing the same thing or they're falling into the same pitfalls, and I was explaining how Solomon, at the end of his life, he realized that like, there's nothing new under the sun, and so what's been done before it'll be done again, and I think each generation figures that out once they begin to get older.
Shantanell:But every child feels as though they're reinventing the wheel, and so that was an awesome segment. We encourage y'all to go back, check it out, as well as our other episodes introducing ourselves and just some good stuff that we're putting out there to help other parents that may not have had a platform like this, because I know, when I started out, especially with a blended family, I didn't really have a lot of examples. Most people that I was around, their families wasn't blended, and so we just want to be a resource for you guys and we just hope that you continue to tune in and that these segments are blessing y'all. So that's it On to what our episode is about today. I have my husband here today to talk about discipline, the importance of discipline, what discipline is, and just even discipline within a blended family unit. So, babe, welcome back.
Johnathon:What's up's up. What's up how y'all doing today hi, and so we both.
Shantanell:It's so funny because I was on my phone one day on Facebook scrolling, and I ran across this video where this mother was confronting her, her child's father's girlfriend, in a situation where I'm assuming the the girlfriend whooped the child. And then it's so funny like probably a day or two later I'm walking past my husband and he's watching the same video, and so I was like, oh my goodness, I was just watching that video and I wanted to get his opinion on it. And um, so I'll just kind of give the background of the video. So she went over there, confronted the, the young lady, the mother of the child, basically I guess the child had got in trouble at her dad's house. The dad wasn't there and so the girlfriend took it upon herself to whoop the child, which the mother was upset about. She was just like you, you know, I didn't give you permission, you should have called me, you know. And she just showed up at their house and so they got into a confrontation. The girlfriend was saying oh, you're being dish, your daughter was being disrespectful, your daughter got it so you could get it to.
Shantanell:And you know, I got real confrontation, got real heated, and although I had my opinions on how both sides handled it. It just made me think about the whole idea of discipline and I wanted to kind of bring it to the platform because I know that, if those people were still trying to figure it out, that there's other families out there that try to figure out how it is that you incorporate discipline, especially in the confines of a blended family, because discipline can already have its own. Everybody does something different or views it differently, I would say, and so we wanted to just go into bringing that up to the forefront just to help those that may be struggling in a component of punishment and discipline in the confines of a blended family. So, bae, what was your thoughts when you saw that video? What was some of the things you thought about in how they handled it or the whole topic of discipline?
Johnathon:Well, first, when I first seen it, I had mixed views of it, because it was actually the lady who was doing it, which most of the time I feel like it was always the lady.
Johnathon:But I had a situation like that before, and it kind of reminded me of what I did at that situation. It wasn't that I was saying that this person couldn't touch my child, or that we couldn't touch my child, or that you know that we couldn't communicate, and stuff like that. The thing was, at that time we had split up. She was talking to somebody else that I didn't know. You know what I'm saying, not saying I have to, like I have to actually know this person, but I just wanted to know who she was talking to. You know, like who my child was going to be around's gonna be around, so she was coming to pick him up.
Johnathon:One knows, yes, he was coming to pick him up one day and I was like I break, see, like no, I'm a break, I'm like why not? Or my friend. I said, okay, cool, so no, I said I just wanted let me make this do. Hey, what's up, how you doing this. And then and then, you know, over the times, you come pick, I could probably talk to him like he been misbehaving, but he was smaller then though, but if that was the person she would have been with, you know as he was growing up me and that guy can have a conversation.
Johnathon:Hey, just my do's and my don'ts and how you feel about how you run your house, cause I can't tell another man how to run his house. But what's my like that to me now I'm going to have to talk to this man, that's right, and we're going to have to have a talk. So my biggest, I had mixed reviews on it. So it's like, on the man perspective, I feel like you know you should be a man and hey, call me or tell the mom, hey, you need to talk to his daddy and this and that we need to have a talk. And on the woman perspective, it's just like I feel like women kind of like you say women are more nurturous. So I don't feel like she should have put up. Well, but that's a young lady too, yeah. So that's how I'm looking at it too Now, because I don't want to touch it. Even with my little girl I wouldn't want to touch it, yeah, but as a mother you know what I'm saying I can kind of understand because she knows what girls do.
Shantanell:Right.
Johnathon:And this and that, so I just feel like them. Parents need to have a sit down before anything. Yes, yes, that's something that needs to be spoken about.
Shantanell:I agree, be spoken about. I, I agree, and I feel like the mother. You know I have, uh, like you say, mixed reviews on it. You know she came and she confronted the young lady and the dad was saying, well, why you didn't call me? And she was like, well, I did call you. So you can see that there's a lapse in communication there. So she's hearing what her child say. A child come home, say, hey, daddy's new girlfriend and that's one one thing stuck out too, like the caption on the video was like a wife um, whoops, you know, but wife and girlfriend is a different dynamic and then also new girlfriend.
Shantanell:So this is somebody, from the sounds of it, that's just entered into this child's life and then now you're using like physical discipline and you know it sounds like from what the girlfriend starts saying as they got into confrontation. A dad did give her permission, but if it was me in that situation I would want to have that okay, but from both parents, because I want you to feel comfortable when your child is over at my house. I don't want to just and incorporate punishment. You know, and that's how confusion and that kid. You know kids don't be knowing but and sometimes they do, I don't know, at a certain age.
Johnathon:I believe that parent, all the parents, need to be there with the child. The child 10, 11 years old. Yes, they understand what they're doing, they know who, they know the adults and they know how to uh the disrespect and the respect part of it. So that's everybody need to have a sit down. That's if you feel that I don't even care if that's not who you feel like you're gonna be with, because I can't control who you're talking to that's right you know so, but every time you talk to somebody I mean that person gonna have to talk yeah, if they gonna be around your child.
Johnathon:It ain't gonna be. No, I don't know, and I have to feel. I also gotta feel out that person too, before you be coming touching my kid no, absolutely, and I think that's only right.
Shantanell:What I've noticed and this is just my personal opinion, because, based on this video, the mother's all upset, and rightfully so. She feel like this woman done crossed the boundary. And then there was a discussion that was not hate, and so I understood her frustration, but then, at the same time, I feel like that mother, just based off the energy she was giving off, she don't want the woman whooping her kid period, and so that's why, like you say, the communication needs to be there, there needs to be a conversation, and they need to be. There, needs to be a discussion. And then one of the things that the dad was saying cuz you know, he's defending his girlfriend, wife or whomever she was, and he's just like what? She was being disrespectful. And the mama like, well, she don't disrespect me, she don't disrespect me, what are y'all doing when she's disrespecting you? Okay, then how do we establish discipline in our home? What form of punishment can we enforce that makes you comfortable when a child isn't being disrespectful?
Johnathon:That's when them kids start trying to play ball side.
Shantanell:Yes.
Johnathon:You know what you can get away with here? If you don't, I'm going to go tell my mom. Yeah, dad, oh, because you can't, you know.
Shantanell:And parents not parents, but school teachers have to deal with it. Because, oh well, you know, you're not my mama, and so we have to be careful as parents to be like well, they're not disrespecting me, what are you know? That's something I think we both agree on. Like okay, yeah, you're respecting me, but then you're at the school disrespecting the teacher. Are you at your auntie house disrespecting your auntie? Like that's not okay. And so, as the mother, I would have had a sit down also with my child. I probably would have addressed the issue, like, hey, man, like I don't even know, you like that to be whooping my kid. But I also will be letting that child know, even in my home, that you don't need to be disrespecting adults. Now, if it's something that's going on that you need to talk about to me, then you come to me and then I'll talk to that adult and we, you know, do it that way. But you don't be disrespectful because you are setting your child up for failure.
Shantanell:Because we live in a society, there's rules. I don't care where you go, you you're. You're on the highway, you gotta abide by the rules of that highway. Whether you get away with it 10 times speeding, you know, on i-10, because you know that's the freeway where we from. On i-10 you may get away with it all the time, but it's gonna be that one time where that police is sitting out in the cut and you don't see them and they gonna pull you Over and, guess what, you're gonna get a speeding ticket.
Shantanell:So we don't want to set our children up for failure, that that they can't, um, just book an authority, and I feel like in this generation we're seeing that so often, and so that was one of the things that I got from that video. It's like man, yeah, I don't have an open thing on point of communication being even on the dad's part. The mother will say, well, I've tried to kind. She kept saying okay, because he was like I might be just showing up in my house, why you're showing up. She was like I called you answer the phone and she and he was like we can have a conversation that I. She said okay, what else is your phone when I call you answer your? It pertains to the child, so you could tell that probably a lot of the confusion could have been.
Johnathon:It could have, but it started off with the family, with the mom and the dad too, and that's another thing them kids see that they're having a miscommunication.
Johnathon:That child's going to have a miscommunication with the next person. But let's get deeper into this, because I was just thinking about something and you said generation, right? Yeah, so the generation that's before us. Remember when they say that I whooped your butt and then take you home and then your parents will come home and whoop you again? Yeah, see, that's why generations, things have changed, because I remember that's when I was with them, that used to happen to them and when it got to us it kind of happened. Every. It depends it'll be the certain people that can touch us and stuff like that.
Johnathon:Then you have some people just don't touch my child, you don't touch my child. And then now is the time that and I see this a lot and I know the reason why is because a lot of these parents and I say myself, now you're 30 years old, a grandfather, a grandmother, so you got a whole different perspective of because you, down there, you ready to fight with your kids, a grandma out there trying to fight with her kid at the school. You, 37 years old, 35 years old, you ain't never trying to fight. 18 years old, because you grew up with this child, you had this child at 15. 15, 16 years old, and that child kind of looking at you and that child actually looking older than you sometimes, and so that's another thing. So it's a generational thing too that you have to look at also because a lot of these students looking older than these teachers.
Johnathon:So they feel like I don't respect y'all looking down on them and stuff like that. So that's why all the discipline, all the respect and everything should start off at home.
Shantanell:Absolutely, and I like how you even brought that point that each generation it's like different levels of discipline.
Shantanell:So, like you say, maybe your grandmother's generation. You knew, oh, baby, you're going to get it when you, because you could still paddle back in the day. So you're getting paddled at the schoolhouse. Then when you get home to your parents, they're going to paddle you too. And so the thing about it is when your parents do some things that you feel like ain't right, you're like, okay, I'm going to do something different with my kids. So you know, let's take the paddling out of the school. So now the teachers don't have as much authority or not as respected as much. Or maybe you did have that one teacher you felt like was picking on you and your parents. They just took the teacher teacher side.
Shantanell:So now when your kid coming to you about stuff, you automatically I'm gonna defend my child, I'm gonna be there for my child, I'm gonna, you know, and your kid really up there, maybe bucking, and so you really have to get to the bottom of, like we can go into something with unhealed trauma and then now we and we're putting it on our kids and we're not helping them because just because you had a bad teacher, don't mean that teacher lying on your kid or just because your child is a little angel at home, they up there bucking or vice versa.
Shantanell:Maybe you do know, like your kid, they across the board the same way. And so if this teacher is coming across to you and saying, hey, man, these kids doing this, that, and the third, the third, you're like, oh no, I know the character of my child. So it's just really, it's really you investigating and you figuring out things. You know, really getting to the bottom of things, because we're seeing it so much in the world, it's so chaotic, and so I want to kind of shift a little bit. Babe, like I was before prior to us having this conversation, I was, I remember, like a few months ago. It might have been. Well, it was last year now, because you know we're at the beginning of 2024.
Shantanell:I was in this group with mothers and stuff like that, and they were talking about discipline and punishment and one of the things that the lady like pointed out is that in English language you kind of use discipline and punishment interchangeably and I was like, okay, I never thought about that and so, honestly, when you in our head. So I went and looked up what punishment meant in the Bible and what discipline um meant in the Bible. So discipline um in the old testament meant like iniquity, punishment, fault, mischief or sin, and then some other words was like perversity, depravity, uh, guilt of punishment, and so when I also looked at what it meant in the New Testament, it meant instruction, correction, chasing, chastisement, check, bond, doctrine or rebuke. I was just looking for that.
Johnathon:Yes, okay, that's what I was looking for.
Shantanell:And what I noticed is when you because I think I was looking at the KJV, because you know, baba got different translations. When you look in other translations, like the word instruction is in the replace for discipline, and so I think sometimes we jump straight to punishment, because punishment when I looked that up it was about dang. I had it written down but I don't know what I did with it. But yeah, punishment is like um, you is it right here? Hold on y'all. Yeah, so for punishment, it's correction, punishment or penalty. So when you enforcing punishment, the penalty of whatever you did is now being enforced. But how can you do punishment if you haven't trained them? And that's why discipline means instruction.
Shantanell:So you're laying the foundation, you're disciplining the child, you're telling them what to do. That's just like with a toddler, and I think I used this example before. You're not telling. You're telling them don't touch the high stove. You're setting up that expectation like don't touch that hospital, don't do that. And then you might have a child that go over there and touch the high stove and they figure out it's hot and that's the penalty Of them going against your instruction. Now you got burnt. And so sometimes I will say, as parents, we go straight the punishment. We have not taught our children, we have not instructed them, but we have this expectation that they supposed to already know how to do something and I've caught myself doing it.
Shantanell:I'd be like I Can't remember what it was, oh it was, and I was like God, you use some of the simplest things sometimes with us. So I had about Joshua Gatorade, but it was like a new way to open the top and so I was like you can't open that gatorade and I was just kind of going I'm like why you can't open it? You can't open it. But it wasn't just the screw on top, it was like.
Shantanell:It was like you flip it and then you gotta pull it up yeah and he didn't know, he had never heard had that kind of Gatorade bottle before and so it was like, in that moment, laws like show him how to open it yeah, like fussing at him about opening it, but you haven't showed him how to do it, and I think sometimes those parents can jump the gun and go straight into the punishment, but we have not instructed our children so no, basically I was gonna get into.
Johnathon:I was looking for. I believe is in some, but I'm just gonna try to. I was gonna go to where I go. I give us instructions. I always feel like we either already know or we just try to do it our way. And God you know, one thing is about discipline. What's the other one? Discipline and punishment. Yeah, discipline and punishment. So it's like when you don't do the things he asks you to do or you don't believe like he asks you to believe in and have that faith that you do, you always find yourself in a bind.
Shantanell:Yeah.
Johnathon:You know it be the simplest thing. It's just like we do things naturally you know what I'm saying and not realizing it. Just like common example bills. You know you have to pay these bills at a certain time, but what you do you're like, oh, I'll just put this off, and then you get that late payment. So now you're paying more than what you. It's sort of the same thing in life.
Johnathon:When you don't obey God's word, in the long run you're going to pay for it. That's true, and it happens. We naturally do it. So one thing that we do, just like we need the Bible to have faith. These kids are looking at us and they're basically having faith in us that we do the right thing so they can go and do the right thing. That's right. But if you don't do right there, they're gonna do what you do that's right, so you can't blame nobody.
Shantanell:You have to look at the mirror and you look at yourself because the thing about it is and we I think we may have even mentioned this on the podcast before you get it all the dodge where it's like don't do, don't do as I do, but do as I say and it's just like no children are gonna model what you do. You could be telling them all the right things in the world, but they're looking at what you do. Think about your toddlers those of you who have maybe have a toddler or kids, you know, just think back and, like my little girl, this little girl does everything I do and sometimes it's annoying because like, for instance, um, I use this example before she got in my body, but my brother's just replaced my brother again. Thank you, bro, his girlfriend makes it and so I left it. You know, I started cleaning up and I left it sitting on our couches, half cup holders. I come back.
Shantanell:She had put two big old claw fingers in my butter again and had the body butter all over her hands. So I had to wash her hands and I'm so mad. I'm like you know what I got in my body butter again. But it's like sis, you didn't learn from the first time? Put it up high, because she see you getting lotioned up, she trying to lotion up, and so I can tell her don't touch my body butter, but she's seeing me use it, so in her little mind you know she's trying to use it too. Now, of course, you do have to teach your children boundaries, like okay, this is for me, this is for you, that's not for you. So she see mama doing that, she's trying to do the exact same thing, and so that's just another nugget for parents. Don't sit up here and just be telling your kids the right thing to do, but then your actions are displaying something else and.
Johnathon:I also saw like a video one day that don't just go for the younger kids either, because the older kids, as they get older, like I, have an 18, you know, jonathan, he 18, but it's crazy that he's still doing stuff that he see me do. Why I feel like he's seeing me do it?
Johnathon:because just like he started driving. Now he got his license, now he driving. So I let him drive the car to the store and came back and you know how to the car make the sound when the seatbelt in that buckle, right, yeah. So I got in the car like after he here came from start winning the car, why he got the seatbelt already in the bucket so he's sitting on top of the seatbelt so it won't sound.
Johnathon:Oh my gosh so I remember doing that before. I'm like is this like this? So you just ain't gonna ride with the seat? So it was crazy. I'm like this dude 18 years old and you, just you don at the seatbelt. So it was crazy. I'm like this dude, 18 years old and you, just you don't want to arrive at the seatbelt. But I remember my grandma did not like because you know, the top part seemed like going over her chest. So she used to do that. So I remember doing it.
Shantanell:So you started doing it, now your child doing it, and that just see the cycle, your grandma been gone, you far along, and that's something that done, been passed down. Y'all don't know what y'all see and it's something simple, like that man, you don't even realize it, like it'd be the little things that we do that I, that our kids can pick up on. So it just goes back to that older dodge man. Don't throw that out.
Shantanell:If you want your children to model something differently, then you have to show late day that that thing and the reality about it is to, even if you're doing everything right or you feel as though you're doing everything right, this child has their own mind. They had a home on, they have their own way and they kind of got they gotta get out there. We want to, we want to spare them, because we feel like I done been through it. I don't want you to go through it you. So you try to spare them but at the same time you have to let them.
Shantanell:Sometimes yes because we do it. We do it to the lord, like we do it all the time. Like you say god give us an instruction, which is um, another word for discipline. We don't do it, and he may give us chance after chance, after chance, after chance after chance, because the words say he's long suffering, he don't want to see anybody perish. He don't want to see anybody perish, he don't want to see anybody be slack of lacking anything. But then at some point he like okay, go out there.
Shantanell:Then you get beat up or whatever. You start going through things, you see a penalty. You start to see that the instructions that are laid out in the word is not for cause. Some people be like, oh man, when you get, say you can't do nothing. But as I've gotten older, I understand. Be like, oh man, when you get saved, you can't do nothing. But as I've got older, I understand more of the instructions that's laid out in the bible. It's like it's to help you, like some of this stuff is just to really help you still is this a word.
Johnathon:Is is to simplify your life.
Shantanell:Yeah, to make things simple yes, because when you let's use um, the, the topic sex, and so a lot of times you know, when you get to be a teenager and maybe your parents, they didn't really talk to you about it. They just told you don't do it or don't have babies or any of those things, and they didn't really go into why not. But the Bible gives you instructions. But look at the consequences. So many families are like ours. That is blended and our family is beautiful. I wouldn't trade it for anything. But the thing about it is look at what comes with it.
Shantanell:Going back to the example that we used at the beginning of the podcast, now it's so many moving pieces. Okay, let me make sure if I discipline my stepson, you know I'm not stepping on no toes with um, my um son's mothers or something like that. Or make sure that you know my husband's okay with whatever discipline I'm enforcing or whatever the case may be when it wouldn't even be all of that if everybody you know was just. You know it wasn't like um, step parents or step kids and all of that different type of stuff. And so the lord, when he put these things in place, it was for your good, because he don't want you to have to go through things. Or and then let's just be honest, some people got what we call baby mama, baby daddy drama.
Shantanell:So you trying to move on and you're trying to co-parent, correctly, but the other one they just spazzing out, and so now you're having a deal with something that you wouldn't have to deal with if you had a follow the Instructions that the Lord laid out to say, hey, wait up, wait until you get married, have kids within the confines of a marriage and I know it's gonna be those naysayers out there how people get the boys. That is true too.
Shantanell:But a lot of times it's not because somebody got a divorce that there's in the they're in a blended family. It's because you had a girlfriend or a boyfriend and y'all was fornicating and a baby came as a result. Then you broke up because it didn't last forever. Now a person that you know is no longer that otherwise you wouldn't have had in your life, now you are attached, you're tethered to that person for the rest of your life Because y'all have a common person and that's your child. But thank God that he is merciful, thank God that he is a forgiving God. But I just wanted to bring that up because God gives us instructions. He disciplines us. He has these instructions laid out for us to make our lives, like my husband say, most simple. We complicate things and then we be mad like dang, and then we go back to the Lord complaining and the Lord like I didn't tell you to get in, that you did that.
Johnathon:You made that choice. He gave you to get in that. You did that. You made that choice give you free will.
Shantanell:There you go. I was just about to say that. And we give you free, I give you free will. I'm not gonna jump down your throat. I want you to obey my laws and my rules because you want to obey them, not because I'm down your throat with it. And and so, man, you have a choice not to. Yeah, no, thanks. So anything else you wanted to add?
Johnathon:No, that's everything. Thank y'all for listening to us tonight, and well, this evening, and we enjoy you Until next time. My name is Johnathan Lindon and Shantanell Lindon, with All Blended Up. Bye-bye.
