Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family

• MPF 326: The Art of Raising Humans

  "God gives us our children to heal and transform us." - Kyle Wester   Summary In many ways, being a parent is less about our kids and more about our own formation!  When we lean into the vocation of parenthood, God can use every experience with our children to show us His love and to form us into the person He has created us to be.  In this podcast, we talk to Kyle and Sara Wester, counselors and hosts of the podcast The Art of Raising Humans. During our conversation, they explained four different parenting styles that we move in and out of depending on our life circumstances, how our marriage is actually the most important parenting tool we have, and how our understanding of who we are in the eyes of God affects how we relate to our kids.  This podcast is full of great insights for parents and we know you will gain from the Wester’s wisdom.     Key Takeaways Children need to be taught relationship skills and correct behavior.  The most powerful way they learn is by watching how you relate to your spouse.  God gives us our children to heal and transform us.  To love our children effectively, we need to first receive God’s love for us personally.  Every conflict with our spouse or children is about expectations.   When our child exhibits behavior that is inappropriate for a situation, we need to ask ourselves, “What is this behavior telling me about this child?” Discipline comes from discipleship and the foundation of discipleship is relationship.  We all must work on having a deep and rich relationship with our children to form them.   There are 4 different parenting styles that we move through depending on our life circumstances.  We don’t always choose what is best, but we can keep in mind the goal of Loving Guidance and move towards that.  Recommended books from the Westers: Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids by Dr. Laura Markham Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by by Rebecca Bailey Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen No Drama Discipline by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson   Couple Discussion Questions Are we happy with how we are modeling conflict resolution for our children? How can we do this better?  What in our children do we see in ourselves?  Write these things down.  Do we love these things in ourselves? Why or why not?   Resources:   The Art of Raising Humans Podcast Link    Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/artofraisinghumans   Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/artofraisinghumans?igsh=MXkyOGRwbzJ2ZDF1MQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@artofraisinghumans?_t=8itlE1tnZSF&_r=1

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• MPF 325: Let’s Get Intimate…

  “Lovemaking puts flesh on the vows that we exchange in marriage” - Byron and Francine Pirola   Summary A few years ago in Australia, we met an amazing couple who we immediately wanted to share with our listeners.  Byron and Francine Piroloa from Smart Loving, are on a mission to make marriages stronger all over the world and they are willing to talk about that subject that few couples will tackle - physical intimacy.  We aired this podcast five years ago and it got such a great response that we decided to put it up again for all of you.  Listen in as we talk to the Pirolas about how and why you should make time for sex, how the arousal pattern for men is different from women and why sex gets better and better the longer you are married!  This is a podcast filled with wisdom, but also laughter and honesty.  We hope you will enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed talking to them!    Key Takeaways Anything precious and unique needs rules to be protected.  That is why the Church gives us boundaries in this area to teach us how to be appropriately vulnerable in our marital relationships A person’s sexual prime is in their 20s, but our erotic prime is reached in our 50s. This is a culmination of our relationship and our intimacy that is built over time.  Sexual relations can slip into the “recreational” category in our minds when we are trying to survive.  The antidote is seeing sex as a sacred communication that needs to be prioritized.  Desire, arousal, climax, resolution is a typical male pattern.  For most women the pattern is different - arousal, or foreplay, creates desire in the woman.   We need to work and train our brains to connect with our spouse emotionally, to be present, so the intimacy that we share emotionally and physically.    Couple Discussion Questions How are we creating a romantic environment in our relationship?  Where are we making space for marital relations? How are we opening our hearts to our spouse in lovemaking?  Can we work on being present to our spouse and retrain our brains to focus on them?    Resources Free Conversation Starter on Sexual Intimacy Smart Loving Marriage Kit Catholiccouplesgetaway.com Family Board Meeting April Course  

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• MPF 324: Moving from Isolation to Unity

  Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.  Genesis 2:24   Summary Unity between man and woman was God’s original plan, but the Fall not only broke our relationship with God, it also broke our relationship with each other.  But the good news is that Jesus has given us grace in the sacrament of Matrimony so we can have a oneness in marriage that would be impossible otherwise!  With unity, couples can handle anything life dishes out. Without it, even the easy things will seem hard. Couples need to constantly be striving for unity, because if spouses aren’t intentional, those marriages will drift apart!  In this podcast, we will give you three tools - honoring, forgiveness, and vulnerability - that you can use to start moving towards your spouse.  We need to intentionally use these tools to work towards the greater unity within the gift of marriage that God has for us.     Key Takeaways All couples must strive for unity - if you float along, you will drift apart Unity was what we were made for, but the fall introduced distrust into the male/female relationships There are three things you can do to move towards unity:  honoring, forgiveness, and vulnerability On the scale of Affirmation/Criticism, choose to honor your spouse, even publicly to build them up On the scale of Resentment/Forgiveness, choose to forgive them instead of being resentful of their shortcomings On the scale of Detachment/Intimacy we need to choose vulnerability and openness to our spouse.    Couple Discussion Questions On a scale of 1-10, how are we doing in our unity? In which of the three areas can we do better?  Which one of these three areas is the most challenging for me?  Why do I think that is?     Resources Free Mini-Marriage Retreat:  https://messyfamilyproject.org/guide/mini-marriage-check-in/ Register for the Family Board Meeting!  https://messyfamilyproject.org/course/family-board-meeting/ Easter Webinar Register here…. www.Catholiccouplesgetaway.com  

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• MPF 323: Desires, Vices, and Holiness for Parents

  Vices are our disordered way of fulfilling our God-given good desires.    Summary So many of us thought we were good people till we had kids, right?  This is because kids expose our weaknesses and we need to be aware of them in order to overcome them.  Listen in as we reveal Satan’s plan for you and lay out God’s great plan of using our rightly ordered desires to develop virtues and live according to His plan.   The desires that God has put in our hearts for dignity, communion, justice, and peace are all good, but when we try to fulfill them on our own, they can lead to vice, or repeated bad habits.  We do this because we are all fallen, wounded people!  But the good news is that we just need to tap into learning how to satisfy those desires in the best way, which is what God intended for us.  This is a snapshot from our video series we are doing for our Cana90 Fellowship this year.  In that series, each vice gets its own video where we break it down and show how we as parents are particularly susceptible to falling into it.  Join the Fellowship here for the rest of the series!    Key Takeaways Vices are our disordered desires.  Every vice has a longing or desire behind it and a corresponding virtue to help overcome it.  Parents struggle with vices in particular ways that may not have been evident before they had kids.   Envy is the longing for Dignity and it comes from the fear that we will not be seen, known, and acknowledged.  We get this from our Heavenly Father!  Sloth is the longing for Peace and it causes us to choose a “fake peace” that comes from ignoring problems instead of working through them.    Couple Discussion Questions Where do I struggle to act?  What situations would I rather ignore than deal with? Write down some ideas.  Try them each day one at a time.  What is one thing I can do to make this room/situation/gathering better? How can I be proactive?  Think of when someone else was kind to you.  How did it make you feel?  List 25 things you can do to make the lives of others around you more pleasant   References Bishop Barron’s series on the Seven Deadly Sins https://www.wofdigital.org/seven-deadly-sins-seven-lively-virtues Broken Gods by Dr. Gregory Popcak https://amazon.com/dp/B00N6PETQ2?ref=KC_GS_GB_US Cana90 Fellowship  https://messyfamilyproject.org/programs/cana90/

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• MFP 322: Dealing with Mouthy Teens

  A problem with disrespect from a child always goes back to a dysfunction in the parent-child relationship.   Summary When our sweet children enter the teen years and adolescence is upon them, something happens that tends to cause parents stress and dismay - back talk and disrespect.  Some of this is immaturity on the part of the child and some is simply lack of training in relationships.  It is our job as parents to teach our children how to express their feelings, disagree, and even debate while maintaining an attitude of respect towards us and therefore, other people in their lives.  The family is the training ground for life!  In this podcast we will give you some perspective on the struggles teens have, tell you what NOT to do and explain the Three C’s of responding to a mouthy teen.  Listen in!   Key Takeaways A disrespectful child is, simply put, someone no one wants to be around. But the good news is that parents can change this!  We can help our child become someone we not just love, but like.   Yelling, punishing, taking things personally, and debating with your teen does not work.  Avoid these reactions.  Tweens and teens need us to guide them on acceptable ways of speaking to others.  This will help them be successful in many areas of life.  CONTROL YOURSELF - If you are triggered by your teen and fly off the handle, ask yourself why and get your emotional life in order.  CONSEQUENCES - It is our responsibility to help them see what happens when they don’t control their tongue.  The world’s consequences will be much harder than ours!  COACH - We need to point our teens towards adulthood so they can see we are not treating them as a child, we are teaching them how to be an adult.  Couple Discussion Questions Are we happy with the way that our children speak to us?  Can we identify areas of difficulty with them?  What would be a quick, acceptable consequence for our child’s disrespect?  Which one of us would be best to talk to them about this?  How can we coach our child to do better?    Links: Link to Cana90 https://messyfamilyproject.org/programs/cana90/ Link to Beloved Event https://arrayofhope.regfox.com/beloved  

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