Talking to Your Kids About Recovery Pt 2
Episode #307
00;00;00;01 - 00;00;23;28
Greg Miller
One of the other things is this idea of, you know, we've talked about using language that the children can understand. It's also important to understand the language that children are using and asking their questions. We may be assuming that they're asking one particular thing, but the reality is, once we dig into what they're wanting to know, then we realize, oh, they're not wanting to know this.
00;00;23;28 - 00;00;46;25
Greg Miller
They're actually wanting to know this. And this is something that I can share, especially with younger children or even children in junior high and high school. They're using a vocabulary. You know, a great example would be the term hookup. And so our culture uses hook up a lot. I've heard that a lot in working with men. I know that that could be language that different generations use.
00;00;47;02 - 00;01;00;12
Greg Miller
So to if someone you know, if a child asks a dad, hey, did you ever have a hook up? I think it's important that the dad get clarity and say, now tell me what you mean by that. And then you. I can answer the question based upon your definition of that word.
00;01;00;13 - 00;01;17;17
Alexis Greeves
Yeah.
00;01;17;19 - 00;01;46;15
Randy Evert
Welcome to the Faithful and True podcast. I'm Randy Every year co-host. And today we're going to rejoin doctor Greg Miller and Alexis Greaves as they continue their conversation about talking to your kids about recovery. This is part two of this two part series, and we're sure that you're going to enjoy this as well. Here now is Doctor Greg Miller and Alexis Greaves and the Faithful and True podcast.
00;01;46;17 - 00;02;18;28
Alexis Greeves
Yeah, I think I think this is why it's so important that women are well, either parent I spend a lot of time with, women are thinking about and doing their own work because one of the things that's just so critical is that we're not turning to our kids to meet our emotional needs. And so if those emotional needs aren't being met in some healthy ways, you know, in your pursuit of emotional growth, then, then women can turn to their children to create alignment.
00;02;19;00 - 00;02;43;04
Alexis Greeves
And that's why I think this idea of, as I'm thinking about what I'm going to share with my children, to think about what is their experience as opposed to what is my need right from my child. Right. And if my need is is like validation, validation that I'm going to say things that are going to create alignment, my child to align with me rather than than just kind of sit in the reality and the truth.
00;02;43;05 - 00;03;00;27
Greg Miller
Yeah. That kind of using our language here, what we would say is if you're going to have a conversation with your children, it is very important that it's your wise adult that's having that conversation. And because for the men, if you're in your survivor man, it could be about your shame. And that's not going to be helpful for your children.
00;03;01;01 - 00;03;25;04
Greg Miller
Or it could be about blame. And that's certainly not going to be helpful for your children. And so it's really being grounded in the truth. And it's you staying as the adult, taking care of your children, not wanting your children to take care of you. And you know, many times what we see is whatever the patterns were prior to the discovery, some of those patterns can be reenacted even if they're not healthy.
00;03;25;11 - 00;03;39;08
Greg Miller
And so we want parents to really work on their ability to show up as wise adults when they're having these conversations. They're complex as they are. So your best bet of it going well is to be as wise adult as you possibly can.
00;03;39;10 - 00;03;39;25
Alexis Greeves
Yeah.
00;03;40;02 - 00;03;42;27
Alexis Greeves
And to be grounded and yeah.
00;03;42;29 - 00;04;07;13
Greg Miller
When one of the other things that I think while we're just talking about in general about circumstances, if there is a direct consequence of somebody acting out, I do believe it's important that the children know that. I'm like in my case, I lost my job. What we couldn't hide that from them. And in some ways that was a gift because that was a direct consequence I had to share.
00;04;07;19 - 00;04;26;03
Greg Miller
I do know of situations where, parents try to hide those significant details, and I know of a situation where a dad continued to leave even though he had lost his job. He left at the same time, and it was kind of an agreement between the mom and dad, because they didn't want the kids to know about what was going on.
00;04;26;07 - 00;04;55;20
Greg Miller
And in my opinion, and I'm sure I shared it, I'm I don't believe that that was helpful. So if there is a very strong consequence that the children are impacted by, even though they may not know about, it's important that they know that. Yeah. One of the conversations that we got into, and it was very complicated, was this idea of is one of the details that a child needs to know is if there was an affair with whom the affair was.
00;04;55;22 - 00;05;17;27
Greg Miller
And what's true is we came up with the idea of it just depends. But there are times where, maybe because of it affair, the family is having to move. So maybe you'll determine I. I'm not going to tell who the affair partner was, but I am going to tell. The reason we are moving is because of my choices.
00;05;18;04 - 00;05;38;25
Greg Miller
Because without that, the kids won't understand why we are moving, you know? So it leaves at least gives them a context. We know of situations where because of who the affair was with, the relationships were cut off. If it was a friend or the, you know, the wife's friend or something like that, then suddenly we're not seeing those people anymore.
00;05;38;28 - 00;05;57;01
Greg Miller
And again, we we did not agree as a staff, whether that was wise to share that particular detail. So that's why we encourage couples to really get support from good, qualified counselors to try to wrestle with some of these issues, because at the end of the day, it's got to be y'all's decision.
00;05;57;02 - 00;05;57;27
Alexis Greeves
Yeah, yeah.
00;05;58;02 - 00;06;11;02
Alexis Greeves
Like I'm just thinking about some of the complexity of an affair partner who had, let's say it's, you know, the father is acting out with a woman, and that woman has some kind of relationship with the children.
00;06;11;03 - 00;06;11;17
Alexis Greeves
Right.
00;06;11;19 - 00;06;31;15
Alexis Greeves
And, and to what degree do you honor that relationship or try to preserve, you know, some you may not have to preserve the actual spending time together. That might be too painful for the parents, but in some way, to, honor that there was a relationship for the child.
00;06;31;16 - 00;06;49;00
Greg Miller
Well, and part of the honoring is the truth. Yeah. One of the things that I teach is truth is always honoring, even if it's painful, even if there's consequences. And so maybe what's true is we simply say, because of if you're vague, because of a dynamic between the two of us, we're no longer going to be hanging out together.
00;06;49;02 - 00;07;16;11
Greg Miller
Or you may be more specific because of an inappropriate relationship, or you may even get more specific because of an inappropriate sexual relationship. We're not going to be connecting with that family anymore. And I'm the the dad would say, and I'm sorry, I'm owning that my choice is created, that consequence. Yeah. And again, you know, one of the things that we talked about is we were even preparing for this is you can make the decision not to answer a question.
00;07;16;17 - 00;07;21;09
Greg Miller
The problem is, that doesn't mean the child isn't still asking that question to themselves.
00;07;21;10 - 00;07;21;22
Alexis Greeves
Yes.
00;07;21;24 - 00;07;32;01
Greg Miller
So if you talk about the fact that you had an affair, but you don't share any more information beyond that, it makes perfect sense. The child's asking him or herself, who is the affair with.
00;07;32;05 - 00;07;33;03
Alexis Greeves
Yeah.
00;07;33;05 - 00;07;57;24
Greg Miller
And so you may be thinking, well, we're protecting the child, but the reality is the child is still going to have questions. Yeah. A situation that I do know of is where a man had an affair with somebody at work. The children had no contact with this particular person, but the reality was the dad was leaving his job because of the affair, which meant they were having to move.
00;07;57;26 - 00;08;19;19
Greg Miller
And it would have been easy for the dad to just say, well, I got a better opportunity. But that leads to resentment because the kids are having a great opportunity. They don't want to move. Right. And so to be able to say, because I had an inappropriate relationship with somebody at work, we are going to need to move because I have found a different job because it's not good for me to be at that company anymore.
00;08;19;22 - 00;08;29;02
Greg Miller
And I know that for a lot of men, that can feel very scary. And the reason it's scary is because it's vulnerable. But again, it can be very helpful for children to have some context.
00;08;29;03 - 00;08;31;06
Alexis Greeves
Yeah. Yeah.
00;08;31;08 - 00;08;49;28
Alexis Greeves
One of the things I have been thinking about when it comes to having a conversations with children is a frame that I got from the book, the whole brainchild. And this is, you'll edit out all my arms.
00;08;49;28 - 00;08;51;17
Alexis Greeves
I'm hoping.
00;08;51;19 - 00;09;19;05
Alexis Greeves
This is the book written by Dan Siegel, who created Interpersonal Neurobiology, and in the book he describes this idea of, when there's a hard story to share, to think about it in three, like three stories in one. One is sharing the facts, right? Sharing the truth. So what we're speaking of, right. Like you retell the truth of the story.
00;09;19;07 - 00;09;47;20
Alexis Greeves
The second is to get beneath the story and to share what's the emotional what's the emotional story here? So this is I hurt your mom. I am I'm sad. I, you know, I'm scared, whatever it might be. And then to also weave into that story. Resourcing. Who's helping us? How are we getting help? And the more I think we.
00;09;47;21 - 00;09;49;22
Alexis Greeves
And we can do that with very young children.
00;09;49;26 - 00;09;50;10
Alexis Greeves
Right?
00;09;50;14 - 00;10;12;19
Alexis Greeves
You know, we can we can really tell stories of a hard thing happened. Here's how everybody feels and here's how we're getting help. And I've even seen these stories not as it pertains to, betrayal trauma, but as it pertains to scary things that impact kids or overwhelming things. Stories that parents have been able to tell with kids as young as 18 months old.
00;10;12;20 - 00;10;13;17
Alexis Greeves
00;10;13;19 - 00;10;23;11
Alexis Greeves
And being able to use very, scaled down language, but to help children, have a sense of like right.
00;10;23;11 - 00;10;24;26
Alexis Greeves
Got it. Yeah. Got it.
00;10;24;27 - 00;10;33;02
Greg Miller
Well what's true what's true is if this is about communication, then the key to communication is using language that the other person understands.
00;10;33;05 - 00;10;33;17
Alexis Greeves
Yeah.
00;10;33;18 - 00;10;57;24
Greg Miller
And so, you know, when we talk about age appropriate conversations, one of the primary things that we're talking about is language and vocabulary that is appropriate for that particular age group. And more than likely, you know, your elementary school kids will not know what an affair partner is. And so finding language that helps them to understand it was an and they're not even going to understand inappropriate.
00;10;57;25 - 00;11;18;18
Greg Miller
But this idea of this was a relationship that I had that hurt your mom. And the reason it hurt your mom is because things happen in that relationship that are only supposed to happen in the relationship with your mom. One of the things that we say in any podcast when we're talking about talking to children is it's an ongoing conversation.
00;11;18;23 - 00;11;41;13
Greg Miller
So the conversation is ongoing. You have a different conversation in elementary school or middle school or high school, and then with adult children if they come back. And one of the things that can be true is, children are going to respond to this based upon who they are. Because children are different and how they experience what happened.
00;11;41;16 - 00;12;03;00
Greg Miller
There are some children. What's true is they are less tuned in to what's going on. My brother and I had a conversation one time. My mother had just died. We were reading some of her journals that she had left. One of the things that was really highlighted was her depression. And after reading it, you know, one of the things that my brother said is I had no idea this was going on.
00;12;03;03 - 00;12;28;09
Greg Miller
I was shocked. I was like, how could you have not known what was going on? And what I said to him is probably what's true is you would have benefited from being a little bit more tuned in, and I would have been I would have benefited of being less aware. And so even if we're talking about these big events, it's important for us to recognize our children are going to experience them differently based upon who they are, their age at the time, what their needs are at the time.
00;12;28;16 - 00;12;36;20
Greg Miller
But it's also true that they may need to come back, and we can continue to offer them information as some of those dynamics begin to change.
00;12;36;25 - 00;12;40;03
Alexis Greeves
Yeah. Yeah.
00;12;40;05 - 00;12;54;28
Alexis Greeves
Yeah. I really believe, as you said, this idea of the ongoing the ongoing stories, the ongoing communication, and as they're developing and maturing, we're we're bringing in perhaps pieces of new information.
00;12;55;00 - 00;12;55;10
Alexis Greeves
00;12;55;17 - 00;13;26;22
Alexis Greeves
I had a situation recently with my daughter where my husband and I have been open and honest with the girls about what's happened, and we've, matured the language as the girls have matured. And yet I was really surprised when day when I, we were speaking about a different family member. Who's that? That couple is breaking up, and my daughter said, did he did he cheat on her?
00;13;26;24 - 00;13;45;07
Alexis Greeves
And I said, I don't know. I don't I don't know the the reasons for the breaking up of this marriage. And my daughter teenager was saying, you know, I ever got married and my husband ever did x, Y and Z, you know, and and I just listened to it and said, yeah, well, you have a right. You'd be a right to be said if those kinds of things happened.
00;13;45;07 - 00;14;01;25
Alexis Greeves
And, and I said something like, and then other women make other choices. I said I, was really curious to see how dad would respond. After he cheated on me. And she turned to me and she said, what?
00;14;01;27 - 00;14;02;28
Alexis Greeves
And she.
00;14;02;29 - 00;14;06;07
Alexis Greeves
Was so good. It was so it was so perplexing to me.
00;14;06;08 - 00;14;06;16
Alexis Greeves
That.
00;14;06;16 - 00;14;25;05
Alexis Greeves
She didn't know what I was talking about. I said, well, you know, the fact that dad was acting out in his addiction and she said, he cheated on you. And what I realized was, yeah, I'd never. Used that language. I was using it now because that was something that she was attaching to. And.
00;14;25;07 - 00;14;31;28
Greg Miller
And that's a great example of that is the language of teenagers. And so if we're speaking the language of recovery and.
00;14;31;28 - 00;14;32;23
Alexis Greeves
Adults, right.
00;14;32;24 - 00;14;38;08
Greg Miller
Then they may not hear what it is that we are saying, right? Or not understand it fully.
00;14;38;09 - 00;14;58;15
Alexis Greeves
That's right. And then she said to me, okay. So tell me everything again. You know, we like I said, we've had you know, we've had kind of parts of these conversations, but it was just fascinating to see her in her teenage years say, okay, so like, let's start over. Like, I know there's this story. I know it's painful.
00;14;58;17 - 00;15;04;21
Alexis Greeves
I know there have been things that I wanted to hear and other things I have not start over, like, let's do it.
00;15;04;21 - 00;15;05;13
Alexis Greeves
Again, right?
00;15;05;14 - 00;15;31;19
Alexis Greeves
You know what was happening when? How old was I when this happened? Okay. You were five years old. Okay. And then how old was I when this happened? You were seven years old, and, It was. Yeah. It was really interesting. And it was such a great reminder to me as a parent, of how when kids reach kind of developmental milestones or new ways of understanding the world, they might need to hear the whole story again through this new.
00;15;31;19 - 00;15;32;17
Alexis Greeves
Lens, right?
00;15;32;19 - 00;15;54;21
Greg Miller
Yeah. And I do think that this idea of if if the idea is we're going to serve our children by telling the story, then we're going to attune to them. We're going to see what would be helpful for them. We're going to use the language that they are able to hear. And we're also going to provide the details that I think are helpful.
00;15;54;28 - 00;16;14;25
Greg Miller
You know, one of the things that we've kind of danced around is this idea of the impact the addiction has had on money. And so one of the questions that someone may be asking is, do we we encourage a full disclosure with a spouse that you share how much money you've spent. But do we need to tell our children that?
00;16;14;26 - 00;16;33;23
Greg Miller
Well, what I would say is, if your children have been impacted by that, then yes, that is something that needs to be shared. And you get to discern if you want to talk about the numbers. But let's say that money has gone towards the addiction that could have gone towards something else, or there were plans for a family vacation that now is not going to happen.
00;16;33;23 - 00;16;59;21
Greg Miller
Or they're supposed to be money in a college fund that has gone towards other things. That is the kind of information that I think is helpful for a child to understand. And again, the person struggling with the addiction may not want to share that because they want to avoid the consequences of their choices. But one of the best things that we can do is own that there are consequences to our choices and whatever they may be, even if it is difficult and painful for the child to hear.
00;16;59;24 - 00;17;20;21
Greg Miller
You know, just one other thing about adult children is I've heard a variety of different stories where for some of the adult children, it was validating. It was affirming. They were so thankful that the conversation happened. I know of other situations where the adult child says, I don't want to know anything. I feel like I know enough so I don't need any more information from you.
00;17;20;21 - 00;17;40;09
Greg Miller
And if I need more information, I'll come back. And then there are those that with the additional information or the validation of their perceptions, they do need distance from the parents. And so, you know, one of the questions that we often get is how will children respond? And the answer is we don't know. Every child is different.
00;17;40;09 - 00;17;57;25
Greg Miller
Every story is different. The information is different. But what we would say is, what we would trust is that there is a God who is bigger. You know, when in the early days of my recovery, all I could pray is, God, I need for you to be bigger than what I've done, and I need for you to be bigger than the people I've hurt.
00;17;57;27 - 00;18;19;00
Greg Miller
And so may you just show up in big ways in everybody's life. And sometimes that's our prayer. So for those of you that are considering the possibility of sharing more information, our hope is that you will look at the details. You will ask yourself, what are the details that I think that my children may already be aware of, and how can we validate those?
00;18;19;06 - 00;18;43;09
Greg Miller
What are the details that are important that help our children live in reality now? And for older children, what are the details that we can share that helps validate their experiences when they were younger? And again, what's beautiful is maybe you're hesitant to share a detail and so you don't. And and yet later you discern that that would be helpful.
00;18;43;12 - 00;18;44;12
Greg Miller
You can come back and.
00;18;44;12 - 00;18;45;12
Alexis Greeves
Share it.
00;18;45;15 - 00;19;04;09
Greg Miller
And then one other thing I would say is just because a child ask a question, you don't have to answer it if your sense is that wouldn't be helpful. Or they're asking for maybe not their wisest place. So it's okay to say right now, I don't want to enter that. Let me think about it and I'll come back.
00;19;04;09 - 00;19;26;07
Greg Miller
So with this conversation, as the parent, it's important for you to feel empowered that you get to have your know. And if they ask a question and for whatever reason, you don't think it's helpful, you can put a pause on that. Or if you need time to think about it and then you can discern. My encouragement is you go back later and engage the child and say, you know what?
00;19;26;07 - 00;19;33;26
Greg Miller
I've thought about it a little bit more, and I've decided I don't want to share that with you, or I've thought about it a little bit more. And here's the answer to your question.
00;19;33;27 - 00;19;45;07
Alexis Greeves
I think I would also encourage parents. Not everyone will want to do this. But even to reflect back to the child, can you tell me a little bit about why this question?
00;19;45;09 - 00;19;46;01
Alexis Greeves
Absolutely.
00;19;46;05 - 00;20;05;07
Alexis Greeves
Like I think that's a really nice way to encourage children to do some reflecting on what is it about this piece of information. Because I think if we can understand the why behind the question, we can make a choice not to answer that specific piece of information. But there might be something else related, right?
00;20;05;08 - 00;20;05;22
Alexis Greeves
Yeah.
00;20;05;24 - 00;20;16;27
Alexis Greeves
Like, I want to know this because I want to know, you know, I can't I'm not going to I'm choosing not to tell you who the affair partner is. Can you tell me why? That would be an important.
00;20;16;27 - 00;20;17;21
Alexis Greeves
Question for you?
00;20;17;27 - 00;20;29;20
Alexis Greeves
Well, I just want to know if I'm walking into church every day, every Sunday, if this person is going to be there, okay, I can. What I can answer for you is this person is not does not attend our. Church or, you know, something.
00;20;29;20 - 00;20;30;09
Alexis Greeves
Along those lines or.
00;20;30;09 - 00;20;32;04
Greg Miller
This person is not in our relational world.
00;20;32;05 - 00;20;32;17
Alexis Greeves
Yeah.
00;20;32;22 - 00;20;57;16
Greg Miller
You know, one one of the other things is this idea of, you know, we've talked about using language that the children can understand. It's also important to understand the language the children are using and asking their questions. We may be assuming that they're asking one particular thing, but the reality is, once we dig into what they're wanting to know, then we realize, oh, they're not wanting to know this.
00;20;57;16 - 00;21;20;17
Greg Miller
They're actually wanting to know this. And this is something that I can share, especially with younger children or even children in junior high and high school. They're using a vocabulary. You know, a great example would be the term hookup. And so our culture uses hook up a lot. I've heard that a lot in working with men. I know that that could be language that different generations use.
00;21;20;24 - 00;21;33;15
Greg Miller
So to if someone, you know, if a child asks a dad, hey, did you ever have a hook up? I think it's important that the dad get clarity and say, now tell me what you mean by that. And then you. I can answer the question based upon your definition of.
00;21;33;16 - 00;21;34;02
Alexis Greeves
That word.
00;21;34;03 - 00;21;39;20
Greg Miller
Yeah, but just to answer it in the way I understand it may actually not give the child the answer that they're looking for.
00;21;39;21 - 00;21;40;22
Alexis Greeves
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00;21;40;22 - 00;21;46;25
Alexis Greeves
That's yeah. That's really that is really important is to understand. Yeah. What is the what is what is the meaning.
00;21;46;25 - 00;21;47;22
Alexis Greeves
What is.
00;21;47;24 - 00;21;49;01
Alexis Greeves
Child's understanding of the.
00;21;49;01 - 00;21;50;05
Alexis Greeves
Question asking.
00;21;50;06 - 00;21;55;19
Alexis Greeves
Yeah, yeah. Do you think we could talk for a moment about legal some questions around.
00;21;55;20 - 00;21;55;29
Alexis Greeves
Yes.
00;21;56;00 - 00;22;09;08
Greg Miller
Yeah. I think that's a great idea. Because one of the things that came up in our staff meeting were questions about what do you tell children if there are legal ramifications and consequences to somebody acting out?
00;22;09;08 - 00;22;09;16
Alexis Greeves
Yes.
00;22;09;21 - 00;22;21;01
Greg Miller
And so I do think that that would just be a great thing for us to mention at this point, because it makes sense that there may be different parameters for those particular congregation congregations, those conversations.
00;22;21;02 - 00;22;22;05
Alexis Greeves
Yeah, yeah.
00;22;22;07 - 00;22;56;20
Alexis Greeves
So one of the things that we know is that when somebody is going through the legal process, what is kind of common knowledge or what is say this, what is being said can be used in a legal proceeding. What people know can kind of come back in some other way, perhaps to hurt them. And and so just being mindful right, of what it is that my, my attorney might be saying, like, don't talk about this with anybody.
00;22;56;23 - 00;22;57;05
Alexis Greeves
00;22;57;22 - 00;23;10;15
Alexis Greeves
And then to communicate to a child, I understand that you're very curious about this. I am eager to tell you I can't do that right now. Right. And to maybe explain some of the parameters.
00;23;10;16 - 00;23;10;25
Alexis Greeves
Or.
00;23;10;28 - 00;23;32;21
Greg Miller
And even to be able to say, because of the limits that I'm in right now, I'm not able to fully share it. And kind of a way to see it is what you intend as a conversation someone else may intend as a confession. And so you never want to put somebody in the place of hearing your confession when you simply meant for it to be a conversation.
00;23;32;21 - 00;23;55;05
Greg Miller
And one of the things I would say about the legal system, in my experience working with men, is there are a lot of good hearted men who just wanted to be honest, just wanted to be open, was they were ready to come clean. And because of that, it created more chaos for them. Because your desire and your goals may be different than the legal systems goals.
00;23;55;05 - 00;24;25;10
Greg Miller
And that's where we encourage people to get wise attorneys to listen to them. And so kind of a thing that we would say is, for those of you that are wanting to be more open with your children, and you are in the process of some sort of legal decision, it's probably important that you talk to your lawyer about that to see what would be wise, because that's what we're wanting in all of this is for wise adults to share wise information and sometimes.
00;24;25;10 - 00;24;25;22
Alexis Greeves
With.
00;24;25;22 - 00;24;25;29
Alexis Greeves
Lies.
00;24;26;00 - 00;24;48;03
Greg Miller
Timing and with wise counsel. And so it may be helpful for you to get some clarity about that. And again, I often say there's a difference between being discreet and being deceptive. And so sometimes we limit information because of discretion. That's not the same as being deceptive. And I'm so glad that you brought this up for our listeners that that's a part of their process.
00;24;48;05 - 00;25;09;26
Greg Miller
And again, there may come a time when everything has been decided, either it's no longer a legal issue or the legal decision has been made. And at that point, talking more openly to your children about it could be very helpful. I would say, though, that the one caveat is if there is a legal component, it is important that the children know that.
00;25;09;27 - 00;25;10;18
Alexis Greeves
Yeah.
00;25;10;20 - 00;25;26;18
Greg Miller
That they're not surprised by that or it gives them a context of some of the things that are happening. And so you don't have to go into details, but you can at least acknowledge because of the choices I've made, there is a legal component, and we're waiting to see how that's going to unfold.
00;25;26;21 - 00;25;27;03
Alexis Greeves
Yeah.
00;25;27;05 - 00;25;31;25
Alexis Greeves
And what might come hand in hand with the legal component is some intervention by child welfare.
00;25;31;27 - 00;25;32;11
Alexis Greeves
Right.
00;25;32;12 - 00;25;43;25
Alexis Greeves
And so now they're going to be people in the child's world, that are going to be new to them, and they're going to need help making sense of, you know, why? Why do we need this person here when dad's visiting us.
00;25;43;26 - 00;25;44;03
Greg Miller
Right.
00;25;44;05 - 00;25;45;23
Alexis Greeves
Exactly. Yeah.
00;25;45;27 - 00;26;08;02
Greg Miller
Yeah I think that's a great awareness that if there are and again that's the the reality piece, if something is changing in the child's reality it is important that they hear it from the parents of this is some of the dynamic. And again we can be discreet in that information. But instead of the child having to figure out why somebody is here with dad, now, dad is telling them why somebody is here.
00;26;08;04 - 00;26;08;23
Alexis Greeves
Yes.
00;26;08;25 - 00;26;12;29
Greg Miller
And that can make all of the difference. Okay.
00;26;13;02 - 00;26;13;20
Alexis Greeves
Well, great.
00;26;13;21 - 00;26;15;07
Greg Miller
Yes. Well, thanks for your time.
00;26;15;08 - 00;26;16;01
Alexis Greeves
Thank you.
00;26;16;03 - 00;26;19;25
Greg Miller
Just kind of. In summary, we want to acknowledge this is complicated.
00;26;19;26 - 00;26;20;04
Alexis Greeves
Yeah.
00;26;20;12 - 00;26;47;23
Greg Miller
Get a lot of help and support. Know that truth, even difficult truth, even truth with consequences is a gift. And it's a gift to our children. And we do want them to be able to right size and validate their experiences and their perceptions. And, the key is don't do it alone, you know, get support from your community, from wise counsel as you're trying to discern how much to share, what to share.
00;26;47;25 - 00;26;50;19
Greg Miller
And again, see it as an ongoing conversation.
00;26;50;21 - 00;26;51;09
Alexis Greeves
Yeah, yeah.
00;26;51;11 - 00;26;52;13
Alexis Greeves
Your children will be grateful.
00;26;52;13 - 00;26;52;24
Alexis Greeves
For that.
00;26;52;25 - 00;26;54;11
Greg Miller
Absolutely. Okay.
00;26;54;13 - 00;26;54;27
Alexis Greeves
Well, great.
00;26;54;28 - 00;26;55;26
Alexis Greeves
Thank you Greg.
00;26;55;28 - 00;27;14;29
Greg Miller
Well, thanks for being a part of the Faithful and True podcast. And again, if there's a way that Faithful and True can support you on your journey, and please reach out to us at Faithful and true.com. We do workshops once a month for men, and we do women's workshops for five times a year. And we also do a couples one and couples two workshop.
00;27;14;29 - 00;27;29;02
Greg Miller
And all of that information is available on our website. So again, our hope is whatever your journey is, you will feel supported, encouraged and that you will also feel empowered. So thank you for joining us.
00;27;29;04 - 00;28;01;07
Randy Evert
Thank you for joining us today on the Faithful and True podcast. You've been listening to Doctor Greg Miller and Alexis Greaves from the staff of Faithful and True, as they discussed talking to your kids about recovery. We hope that this has been a beneficial and helpful podcast for you, and we invite you to visit our website, Faithful and true.com, where you'll find many resources and information to help you.
00;28;01;09 - 00;28;25;12
Randy Evert
You'll also find the online information and registration for our three day intensive workshops. So go to Faithful and true.com. Check it out and you're sure to be pleased with what you'll find. In the meantime, we hope that this coming week is going to be a week for you that's filled with many blessings and with great vision.
