← Focus on the Family with Jim Daly
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- [00:01]
Jim Daly
God is at work and he's calling his people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. Visit truthrising.com today. That's truthrising.com.
- [00:39]
Deborah Fileta
I'm not scared or concerned of all these emotional explosions that I'm seeing. I see them as an invitation. God wants to heal us from the inside out. He wants to heal our families. He wants to heal our marriages. He wants to heal our country. And so when we see these things happening, we can panic or we can say, okay, this is an invitation. Let's lean into it.
- [00:59]
John Fuller
That's counselor and mom Deborah Fileta, and she joins us again today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for being here. I'm John Fuller.
- [01:08]
Jim Daly
You know, John, last time we talked with Deborah, we kind of laid that foundation for emotional health in adults, married couples, moms and dads. And we talked about breaking negative patterns, relinquishing that emotional baggage that we bring in from our childhood traumas that we might have. And Deborah even said these can be even little things that just cumulatively add up and they create triggers in us. And when we push each other's buttons, that's how we respond. But as Christians, we're not supposed to stay there. You know, we need to grow in Christ and turn to the Father to help mend those broken places. And if you missed the program last time, get our smartphone app and you can have access to all the programs or go to the website and download it. It's accessible to you, and it's one of those ways I think you really want to see. And you can do that through YouTube as well.
- [01:59]
John Fuller
Yeah. We've got pretty much every channel covered. And we would ask you to share about this show with friends because there's so much good content that we cover in all of these episodes. Well, Deborah has been here a number of times and she's written a couple of books. We're bundling the grown up book that she wrote, Are youe Really okay? Getting Real about who youo Are, how youw're Doing and why It Matters. Along with that children's book Any Day Emotions, a great little tale that helps you as a parent unpack emotions with your children. Get the bundle from us here at the ministry. The details are in the show notes.
- [02:33]
Jim Daly
Deborah, welcome back.
- [02:34]
Deborah Fileta
It's good to be back.
- [02:35]
Jim Daly
You know, in Thinking about talking with you today, I was thinking about us as Christians, you know, moms and dads and how we struggle with things still. We haven't got it perfected. We're trying, but whether it's anger like we talked about last time, or over worrying or whatever it might be, boy, your kids see it. Yeah. Have an illusion sometimes as the adult that we can hide that. But kids have a unique way of knowing us, maybe sometimes better than we even know ourselves.
- [03:05]
Deborah Fileta
You're right. They can tell. They can sense it. And when it comes to emotional expression, I don't believe there's a need to hide it. I think of Jesus and how he modeled emotional expression to the people around him, to his disciples. He wasn't hiding away expressing his emotions. He expressed them right there in front of them. I think of the Garden of Gethsemane at some of his most vulnerable moments of sorrow and grief. He didn't hide away from them. He invited them into it. And so one of the best ways that we teach our kids how to handle emotions is by showing them how we manage our emotions and doing that to the best of our ability.
- [03:46]
Jim Daly
Yeah, I think that's so good. You mentioned that emotional contagion. You're kind of touching on that. But is that the concept is how to emit the right emotional vibes as the parent?
- [03:59]
Deborah Fileta
There's this funny clips on Instagram where a parent walks in and pretends that they got hurt. Or a parent walks in and pretends that there's something scary. Or a parent walks in and starts to act really joyful. And it's interesting to watch the child's reaction begins to mimic the parent's reaction. So let's say a parent walks in and pretends that there's something scary on the floor and jumps away.
- [04:25]
Jim Daly
The.
- [04:25]
Deborah Fileta
The kid will jump away as well, even though there's nothing there. And that is the concept in psychology that we call emotional contagion. And the fact that our emotions, whether or not we want them to, whether or not we mean them, to begin to overflow on the people around us.
- [04:41]
Jim Daly
Yeah, that's so good. You know, I think not being trained professionally in this area, some parents probably feel overwhelmed. We don't understand completely what the right thing to do in modeling for our kids, et cetera. I remember one time with Trent. Trent, he was our hard, strong willed kid. And Troy was so compliant. It was night and day, but Trent, you know, he got some discipline. And I remember one time he just clammed up and you know, it's the Balsa spoon. I remember one time he said to me, dad, that didn't even hurt. And I said, well, you know, okay. But I remember one time disciplining him like that, and he just clammed up. And I remember talking to him and he wouldn't respond verbally to me. And I said, would you be able to write down what you're feeling? And he gives me this nod, like one shake of the head. So I went and got him a pen and paper. I said, well, what does it feel like when you've misbehaved and I'm disciplining you? And he wrote, it feels like you don't love me. Isn't that awesome?
- [05:42]
Deborah Fileta
Yeah.
- [05:42]
Jim Daly
I mean, and he was probably. He was able to write, so he may have been 8ish. And, you know, it opened up an opportunity for me to talk with him. And I was so grateful for his ability to communicate that, you know, he went right to the core of it. You know, if you spank me, it feels you spanked me because I hit my brother. What's the difference? It's that kind of logic. And it did catch me. And I was like. I did back down on that and found different ways, like taking a toy or, you know. Cause it was communicating something. I didn't intend for it to communicate.
- [06:13]
Deborah Fileta
And you invited him to share.
- [06:16]
Jim Daly
Yeah.
- [06:16]
Deborah Fileta
If you wouldn't have invited him to share, there's a good chance he wouldn't have shared. Right. And I think that's where we as parents have to open our eyes for the opportunity to invite our children. It's not, I need you to do this. Tell me how you're feeling. You better talk. It's an invitation. It's creating opportunities to talk with them. And that's one of the reasons I'm really excited about this particular work, is because I believe it's a conversation starter. It's an invitation for children and parents to sit down and talk through 13 different emotions that they might not otherwise know how to talk about. And not just here's what the emotion feels like, but here's the healthy way to respond to it. So hopefully it's an invitation to a lot of families to go a little bit deeper.
- [07:03]
Jim Daly
Yeah. And, you know, one of the things for us as parents, I mean, we're looking sometimes very superficially at our own emotions. You know, we don't understand them very well either. Then to become that parent and intentionally begin to help them understand our children, understand the emotions they're feeling. I mean, you really can make an art out of this, and you should as a parent. This is a way you get to know your child and what helps them respond and what you're shaping their personalities, their responses, et cetera. So I just find it really important to be engaged that way and deal with anger and deal with those things in a more deeper way.
- [07:41]
Deborah Fileta
And here's why this matters to us as parents. When the disciples asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment? Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And those are four different compartments of who we are. They're four different quadrants. Jesus could have just said, love the Lord your God, but he was intentional in saying, heart, soul, mind, and strength. Your emotional health, your spiritual health, your mental health, your physical health, all of those quadrants matter. And often as parents, we focus on the spiritual health. We focus on the physical health. Sometimes, though, the emotional health component gets neglected. And so that's why it's really important for us to be intentional about having these conversations.
- [08:27]
Jim Daly
Since you raised this, I had some observation of parents behaving poorly at sporting events. Jean actually went to one baseball game that Troy was playing in, and she told me about two of the dads that were so on their kids when they were at bat, you know, they struck out. I mean, verbally shaming them as they walked away from the plate. So unhealthy. And I just felt so bad. Even when she expressed it to me, I just felt like, wow, if that father knew. Knew the damage that he was doing. So speak to that idea. Yeah. Concentrating purely on the physical.
- [09:04]
Deborah Fileta
Yeah. Sometimes we have a tendency to affirm our children based on what they do rather than who they are. I mean, think about your encouragement. First of all, we're not good at affirmation in general. I think, generally speaking, the rule of thumb in psychology is five affirmations to one critique. I think we're not even close to that most of the time. But then when we do affirm our children, we're affirming them on, oh, good job getting good grades or great job cleaning the house. But we also need to be intentional on affirming them for who they are. Yeah, I love having you as a son. It's so fun to just be with you. I enjoy your company. Who they are as a person, not just what they do. And think about how God looks at us. It's not we, Lord knows, it's not because of what we do, because so many times we miss the mark, but because of who we are. And so it's important for us to Think of our kids in that way and help affirm that part of them.
- [10:05]
Jim Daly
Yeah, it's so true. I mean, that's a good place for a parent to always go back to. Right. To do the restart. How does God treat you? And why don't you try treating your children that way? That's a great idea. You're open with the fact that one of your sons, in fact, you said that this book kind of embraces your children's own emotional issues and opportunities. But in that context, one of your sons who struggles with anger, how did you help them process that, and how is it described in the book?
- [10:37]
Deborah Fileta
This book has been fun for all of us. I mean, it'd be fun to have my kids here for an interview of what does it feel like to have.
- [10:43]
Jim Daly
A mom with a counselor? That would be fun.
- [10:46]
Deborah Fileta
We're constantly talking about these things. I've taught my kids that emotions are like a volcano. And when the pressure begins to build and you're ignoring will build and build and build. And just like a volcano, it hits the point where it finds the path of least resistance, and there's an emotional explosion. And whether that emotional explosion is an argument or you do something wrong or in adults, we have emotional explosions that could look like addictions or marriage issues. It's because we've neglected to deal with what's going on underneath the surface of the volcano. And so one of my boys, I've talked with him a lot about really identifying what's happening in the volcano. So if he has a moment where he loses it, he has an anger outburst, we'll stop and we'll review the film together. And he'll say, okay, I think I did that because this morning, the breakfast I wanted wasn't available. My brother ate it before I could. So that was about 20% of my feelings. And then I didn't do a good job of my homework, so that was 30%. And he'll give me percentages. He's very mathematical, so he'll give me percentages of what was going on underneath of the volcano and the different things he was feeling. And it's really helped him to conceptualize what's happening underneath the surface of his life and not just to assume that you can just blow up and move on.
- [12:11]
Jim Daly
Well, and in such a clear way, you're helping provide coping mechanisms for him with his anger issue, which is a great parenting tool. Right. That's what you want as an outcome.
- [12:21]
Deborah Fileta
Yeah. You want them to start to have these conversations, to think differently about what's happening. We talked in the last conversation about how our thoughts lead to our feelings, which then lead to our behaviors. So the feeling portion of this equation is a really important one to help our kids navigate.
- [12:40]
Jim Daly
You know, when you look at scripture, particularly the Old Testament, I'm so glad the Lord took the time to make different people write the Old Testament and New Testament as well. But when you look at it, there's so many misfits in there.
- [12:53]
Deborah Fileta
Yeah.
- [12:54]
Jim Daly
Which is a lot of dysfunction. Yeah, there's a lot of dysfunction in the Old Testament. I mean, manipulation, families. I mean, the whole bit. Obviously, the Lord wanted us to have that record so that we could see ourselves in there and realize we need Him. So with all that said, when you look at that and you look at children, and again, you're looking at those typical issues, like your son with anger and others with guilt and sadness, excitement, all those emotions. Do you sometimes tie that to a spiritual truth for your kids when you're doing your children's devotional time, to say, you know, that's just like what King David experienced or whatever?
- [13:32]
Deborah Fileta
Absolutely. And I also remind them that God created emotions as a signal. God created emotions to give us a signal to pay attention. To pay attention. Something's going on here that I want you to address. I remind them that God created emotions to help us connect to him and to connect to others. So these emotions are not bad. Even when you feel anger, that's not bad.
- [13:59]
Jim Daly
Oh, that's healthy.
- [14:00]
Deborah Fileta
How you handle the anger that leads you into unhealthy territory or healthy territory. I'm fine with your anger. I'm fine with you feeling these emotions. Now what are we gonna do with him, Deborah?
- [14:11]
Jim Daly
Anxiety seems to be on the rise. The CDC center for Disease has identified anxiety and depression on the rise. Something like one study I read, 50% of kids 15 to 25. And now I use that loosely. Young adults have experienced heightened anxiety or depression, suicidal ideation, et cetera. What is going on? The country that by most measuring sticks, has the most material ability, you don't go wanting. You're not hungry, typically, you have phones, you have education. You have the things that modernity will give you. And yet we're desperately anxious. What's happening?
- [14:57]
Deborah Fileta
Yeah, number one, I think we have too much going on.
- [15:01]
Jim Daly
Too much going on.
- [15:02]
Deborah Fileta
When we think about what our capacity is and what we can hold, what we can handle, we have overwhelmed our body, we've overwhelmed our senses with all the many things. There's so much stimulation. There's so much on our schedule. There's so many expectations of us. And I think that is transferring onto our children all these different things that they believe are expected of them. Rather than what Jesus says, only one thing is needed. Remember, he says that to Martha and Mary. Martha was anxious.
- [15:39]
Jim Daly
There's so much going on here, Martha.
- [15:42]
Deborah Fileta
So much going on. Mary was focused on the one thing. And I think when we stray from that one thing, loving God and loving others, it starts to pile up. You know, all these things on social media, all these expectations of children, all of the things you're supposed to do, like you were saying sports and you're supposed to look a certain way and your grades and friends, and it's overwhelming. And I think our job in our home is to begin to model to our kids the concept the only one thing really matters here, it's our relationship with one another, our relationship with God. And begin to get them back to in that context.
- [16:23]
Jim Daly
How has that been amplified through Covid. And what we had to go through is Covid. I'm thinking Troy, my son, who was a junior senior. They didn't have prom the senior year. Prom was at a place, but they taped in cohorts. They actually taped on the floor, like an area that 10 to 12 students could stand in. And you had to remain in that area at the prom.
- [16:45]
Deborah Fileta
Yeah.
- [16:46]
Jim Daly
And then you can go out into an open air deck to which every student was out on the deck. Nobody stayed in their taped in cohort. Just that weird stuff. Right. It's like, this seems damaging when you.
- [16:58]
Deborah Fileta
Think about the volcano analogy and the pressure that's going on underneath the surface. And then you add global and universal trauma to that. Even people who didn't feel like their pressure was very high found themselves struggling with emotional explosions during that season and beyond. And so we're in a season as counselors where we're kind of cleaning up the mess, but in a good way. I see that God has brought these things up to the surface of our lives because he's inviting us to heal and to do it better and to face some of these things to alleviate some of that underlying pressure in a healthy way. And so I guess I would say as a counselor, I'm not scared or concerned of all of these emotional explosions that I'm seeing. I see them as an invitation. God wants to heal us from the inside out. He wants to heal our families, he wants to heal our marriages, he wants to heal our country. And so when we see these things happening, we can panic or we can say, okay, this is an invitation. Let's lean into it.
- [18:05]
Jim Daly
Deborah, so often mental health issues, they're not things that we typically are thinking about or dealing with. And I've described it. It's like seeing a car wreck. And you're asking, am I really seeing what I think I'm seeing? What are some of those ways that our antenna can be out there so we're not deceiving ourselves that everything's fine and when it's not, and we tend to want to lean that direction. I'm sure my child's fine, but underneath it, they're bullied. Something's happening. How do we pick up on the signals and then how do we act on those?
- [18:40]
Deborah Fileta
We want everything to be okay. And it even goes back to the title of my book, are you really okay? Because there comes a time when we just have to be a little bit more direct with people and ask them the hard questions, like, hey, how are you doing? What's going on? I've noticed these patterns. Sometimes we're even afraid of bringing up the word suicide because we don't wanna put it in someone's head. But if they're already thinking about it and we're just ignoring it, we're not doing them a favor. Are you struggling with these type of thoughts? Are you having any suicidal thoughts? Are you struggling with depression? How can we support you? And then taking the next step. Sometimes that next step means a psychological assessment. Sometimes it means working with a counselor and bringing someone in to help you on your journey. Just as we would look at physical issues and go to a doctor, it is very important for us to see the mental and emotional struggle and then move our family to the help we need with a professional counselor instead of just ignoring it and avoiding it until it gets worse and worse and worse.
- [19:48]
Jim Daly
Yeah, I would think, and this is my temperament, I am a half full kind of guy. I mean, I wake up and it's just, it's half full right from the get go. We probably are prone to ignoring signals because we just want it to be good. You know, it just needs to be good. Let's pick up our bootstraps and go. And I think if I'm real about those weaknesses, for me that would be one. And that's where you have to be aware of yourself and not blow by what your spouse or what your children may be feeling because they're wired differently from you.
- [20:20]
Deborah Fileta
Yeah, and not only that, we need to be intentional about having these type of check in conversations with our kids before we get to the point where the alarms are going off. We want to create a culture where it's normal every day to say, how are you doing? How are you feeling? You struggling with stress? What are you stressed about? Are you depressed? What are you depressed about? What are you afraid of? I have this activity that I'll often encourage parents to do where they outline. It's almost like a gingerbread man outline. Or you could just draw an outline of a person. And especially with young kids, this can be really great. And you give them a few different markers. Maybe blue represents sadness, and red represents anger, and yellow represents joy. And you can decide what colors represent what feeling and ask them to draw. How much of this feeling do you feel in your body? And you'll be surprised. I remember with one of my boys specifically thinking, the whole body's gonna be red with anger. But it wasn't. He had a little portion that was red. And that's the part where he said, mom, I do struggle with losing my temper, but underneath the surface, I'm also feeling a little worry, a little fear, some joy. Half of his body was yellow, which surprised me, but it was a good conversation. And. And then my daughter, I had her do this at a really young age. And she presents as joyful, responsible, positive. She's the firstborn.
- [21:44]
Jim Daly
Yep.
- [21:45]
Deborah Fileta
But as a little girl, when I had her do this activity, the majority of her body was orange for worry, which I wouldn't have otherwise known, that she was struggling with these worries underneath the surface and just certain things that were going on inside of her that she wasn't presenting that way. So these are activities that you can do to help your kids open up and for these emotional conversations to be a routine part of your life.
- [22:10]
Jim Daly
Yeah, I think. And that's a brilliant way. I hadn't thought of doing it that way with colors at a younger age. And then that hopefully will develop into dinner conversation that's meaningful. And find out where your kids are at as they get older. And then, you know, that's something we've tried to practice, you know, to have that open communication, et cetera.
- [22:30]
Deborah Fileta
And that's where it's important for us to understand that dealing with these emotions is not a once and done experience. They're gonna come up over and over and over again. And every time they come up, I see it as an opportunity to do something with this feeling. Am I gonna allow the fear to overwhelm me and ruin my day? Or am I gonna take this fear and give it to God? Connect with him, connect with others, renew my mind with the right thoughts. Fear is just a Signal that my body is processing something. And now it's a matter of how am I gonna process this emotion. I don't think it means that you're not supposed to feel the feelings.
- [23:10]
Jim Daly
Yeah. The fact that it says fear not means you are feeling fear.
- [23:14]
Deborah Fileta
Yeah.
- [23:14]
Jim Daly
To say fear not means you're fearful.
- [23:17]
Deborah Fileta
Right. It means you're fearful of something. But I don't think the Bible is telling us you should not have the feeling of fear.
- [23:24]
Jim Daly
Right, I agree.
- [23:25]
Deborah Fileta
I think it's this, the underlying belief. What are you thinking about? What do you really believe? What do you do with this feeling when it comes up? Are you connecting with God and others when the feeling comes up or not? And specifically in that case of fear, not most of the time when that specific phrase was used, it was in the context of an angel appearing and something that, you know, their body was probably like, what is going on here?
- [23:50]
Jim Daly
It's interesting. Every time that an angel appears, they say fear not, because who wouldn't be afraid? They must look intensely intimidating.
- [23:59]
Deborah Fileta
I know. And you think about that in the context where God is assuring his children, this is what I want you to know. This is what I want you to believe when your body is struggling with these underlying feelings of, here's what you should do with these feelings. And so these are the conversations that are just so important for us to continually have with our kids, which I so appreciate.
- [24:20]
Jim Daly
And again, the idea here, as the adult, you're helping your child to better understand how to trust the Lord, how to lean into the Lord, and even using those Scriptures to reinforce that. But like so much of the Christian life, unfortunately, sometimes we're not living it well enough to put it on display, especially for our kids. So we have got to do that well as well. We've got to become mature in Christ to lean into him so that our kids can see, oh, mom and dad are doing that.
- [24:50]
Deborah Fileta
Right. I've heard from some parents half joking that this book is a children's book, but it's actually been helpful to them in navigating the feelings and knowing what to do with them and how to respond. And it actually comes with a parent's guide to helping your children deal with emotions. So it's a free guide. There's activities in there. And so it's not just for the kids, but it's also going to equip the parents into, what can I actually do to help my children with this?
- [25:17]
Jim Daly
Yeah. This has been so good, Deborah, it's fun having you here. I love you. Could probably see that I enjoy talking with you and just the enthusiasm that you bring and the clarity. It's really. It's so good. And I grateful that you point to the Lord and how he designed us and how we then have to work with him to live this life as.
- [25:36]
Deborah Fileta
Well as God wants us to heal. And he says, let the little children come to me. And you know, Jim, I think of even as we're talking about a children's book, I think of the little child in each of us. And Jesus says, I want that version of you to be healed too. I want all of you to come to me. So he wants to heal us and in our childhood, he wants to heal us as adults. He wants to heal every part of us. And I'm so grateful that we serve a God that can heal.
- [26:03]
Jim Daly
What's exciting about that is there's something about children that the Lord loves. You know, when you're a child, you're so honest and so trusting and it's kind of the core of how he created us. Then over time, the world kind of and our flesh destroy that aspect, I think, or certainly hinder it. So I love the fact that God loves children because they're probably the closest thing to him that we see on this earth, really.
- [26:26]
Deborah Fileta
Amen.
- [26:27]
Jim Daly
So thank you, Deborah. Deborah, this is great. We have touched on so much here. If last time and this time something's in you, don't hesitate to call us. We're here for you. The donor community has provided a way for us to do counseling with you. It's free. Just call us. We'll set up a time for our counselors to call you back and talk with you about some of these things. There's no question that is too silly too whatever. Just get in touch with us. Don't hold back and you can get this bundle set of are you really okay? And any day emotions for your children by making a gift of any amount $10 and just become part of the team. We'll send you the books as our way of saying thank you for being in ministry with us.
- [27:11]
John Fuller
Yeah, you can reach out and we'll arrange that phone consultation with one of our counselors. Our number is 800 the letter A in the word family. And then we have the link for that opportunity for you to connect with someone and also to donate and get a copy of these books. The bundle Are youe Really okay? And any day emot. The links are in the show notes. On behalf of Jim and the entire team, thanks for joining us for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
- [27:51]
Jim Daly
God is at work and he's calling his people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. Visit truthrising.com today. That's truthrising.com.