Classically Abby - June 27, 2024


5 Secrets To A Happier Marriage Post-Kids!


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

214.95103

Word count

2,100

Sentence count

92

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

It s pretty common knowledge that once kids enter the picture, your relationship can feel a little bit strained sometimes. I think there are ways to spend time with your kids that make your relationship with each other and your kids even better!

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Here are five ways to make your relationship stronger than ever with your kids.
00:00:09.460 Hello and welcome to my channel. If you are new here, my name is Abby and I would love if you
00:00:14.280 would consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell. In today's video, we're going
00:00:18.100 to be talking about five ways you can make your marriage even stronger with your kids. I think
00:00:23.720 it's pretty common knowledge that once kids enter the picture, your relationship can feel a little
00:00:28.260 bit strained sometimes because there's so much energy put into your children and so a lot of
00:00:33.260 the time there's not that much energy left for each other but I think there are ways to spend
00:00:37.860 time with your kids that make your relationship with each other and with your kids even better
00:00:42.480 and that is so exciting. Instead of thinking, oh the kids are taking up all of our time so we have
00:00:48.180 no time for each other, you can view your kids as a way to connect even more. P.S. if you hear some
00:00:53.640 thunder, some rain. I hope you enjoy the aesthetic vibe going on here. It is rainy like crazy right
00:00:59.720 now and I actually kind of like the sound of it so let's just get into it. The first way to enjoy
00:01:05.100 your children as a couple is to recognize that your children are the entertainment. They are not 0.52
00:01:10.280 getting in the way of your entertainment. Just recently, my husband and our family went on a little
00:01:15.820 staycation to a hotel on the beach just so that we could enjoy the beach more easily and we had an
00:01:21.640 amazing time but we learned a great lesson. Basically, my husband and I really enjoy playing
00:01:27.080 board games but when you have a toddler and that toddler is awake, you are not going to be able to
00:01:32.520 play those games because he wants to play with all the pieces. He wants to do his own thing while you
00:01:38.240 guys are trying to follow the rules and put all the pieces down. What we learned was instead of viewing
00:01:43.100 it as, oh our kid is getting in the way of us trying to connect through a board game, he's the problem,
00:01:49.140 we just want to be able to spend time together by doing this activity. He became our activity.
00:01:54.580 He became the fun. We let him kind of guide the whole afternoon and so when we took out a board
00:02:01.120 game, just a small one where we couldn't really lose the pieces and he decided he wanted to play
00:02:05.340 with the pieces a specific way, we were like, yeah, let's follow his lead and it ended up being
00:02:10.960 so much better because we let him become our entertainment. We just enjoyed watching him figure
00:02:16.780 things out and him come up with ideas and him come up with rules that were a lot of fun to see
00:02:22.040 because he's so interesting and clever and enjoyable right now and it's so important to us
00:02:26.760 that we encourage that curiosity in him and encourage that creativity too and it's cool when you realize
00:02:32.680 that he's the culmination of our relationship, right? He is a reflection of both me and my husband
00:02:39.000 so whatever he's doing is like a reflection of who we are and what our love can make and bring
00:02:44.920 and we enjoy seeing him take on the world in the way that he does so instead of thinking,
00:02:50.260 man, I just wish he would stop messing up our board game, he became our game. He became our activity
00:02:56.660 and we just enjoyed seeing what he wanted to do and following along. So the big takeaway is stop
00:03:01.720 thinking of your children as getting in the way of the things you want to do. Instead, think of your
00:03:06.540 children as the thing you're enjoying right now and that might mean being flexible and putting those
00:03:12.180 really big activities that you guys enjoy on the back burner or for date night and instead the times
00:03:19.040 that you're spending with your children, those are going to be for them and enjoying what they come up
00:03:24.100 with. It's a really cool thing when you let yourself approach it with that mindset. The second way that you
00:03:29.300 can connect in your relationship more through your kids is to take your children places you enjoy as much
00:03:34.700 as they do. That's a way for you and your spouse to enjoy each other and your child. It's not taking
00:03:40.420 your kid to a place you actually despise and just sitting there while they play. It's taking them
00:03:45.900 somewhere that you can enjoy as a family and then you get to enjoy one-on-one time with your spouse
00:03:49.960 and one-on-one time with your kid and all of you guys are kind of the interpersonal relationships of
00:03:54.840 the family are developed in those situations. So for example, my husband and I actually love going to
00:04:01.340 the zoo. Before we had kids, we went to the zoo all the time, just the two of us. So now when we bring
00:04:05.820 our son to the zoo, we get to enjoy it with each other and we get to enjoy it with our son. So we
00:04:10.680 get to experience his joy and the newness of it all, but also when he's kind of looking at the
00:04:16.680 flamingos, the two of us can talk a little bit and enjoy the surroundings. It makes it a lot more fun
00:04:22.500 when you bring your child somewhere that you can enjoy with him. Now that doesn't work all the time,
00:04:27.300 obviously. I can't bring my son to an art museum yet. He's too young, but it means that I can be a
00:04:33.120 little more picky about the places we go and choose places that I enjoy too. I don't mind taking him to
00:04:38.700 certain play gyms because a lot of play gyms have a little place for me to set up and work and he can
00:04:42.840 play and I enjoy that. I don't mind it. There are certain play gyms in our area that are way too loud
00:04:49.500 and I hate going there and I never bring him there because I hate it. I would not want to be there and it
00:04:54.700 would make me not enjoy the experience. And if I were to go with my husband, the two of us would
00:04:59.360 be unhappy and it would actually not be something that would bring us together. Instead, we try to
00:05:03.540 find places that all of us can enjoy as a family, even if it's not entirely directed at our age group,
00:05:09.480 meaning adults. It needs to be pleasant enough that the two of us are enjoying one another's company
00:05:15.160 while we're enjoying our child. The third way to connect as a couple is to not take your children
00:05:20.140 places they are bound to fail. I think this is kind of the flip of what I was just talking about.
00:05:26.040 You should take your kids places you enjoy, but if you take your kids to places that you enjoy
00:05:30.540 that they are not going to do well, that is only going to put stress on your marriage,
00:05:35.480 on your relationship. If you go to an art museum with a toddler and they're supposed to be quiet,
00:05:40.680 that is not going to be fun for anyone in the family because the parents are trying to struggle
00:05:45.060 to keep the kids quiet. And then you guys are fighting and arguing and it's just not a good
00:05:49.760 fit. If you take your child to a restaurant and they are not ready to sit or they don't have a
00:05:54.580 toy and you didn't come prepared, that is a place that your children are bound to fail. They are not
00:05:59.580 going to have a good time. You are not going to have a good time. Everyone is just stressed out trying
00:06:03.480 to hold down the fort. I don't recommend bringing your children places that they're going to create
00:06:08.620 problems and then you and your spouse are just caught in the middle. Instead, find situations that are
00:06:14.880 going to be a really good fit for the family and that you and your spouse can feel good about being
00:06:19.080 together and working as a team to manage everybody's expectations, to manage everybody's
00:06:23.840 moods, and to manage everybody's behavior. So for us, that means going to an early dinner right when
00:06:29.700 my son is hungry, a place that brings out the food pretty quickly, and that maybe we sit outside so
00:06:35.200 that after he's finished eating, one of us can kind of chase my toddler around while the other one
00:06:39.540 stays with our six-month-old. That can be a way for us to eat out, enjoy one another's company,
00:06:44.640 our son is eating something he likes, and then after about 25 minutes of that, he can kind of
00:06:49.980 run around while we get everybody situated and leave. And that works really well for our family.
00:06:55.160 If we tried to go to a fancy sit-down dinner late when everybody's crying, everyone's exhausted,
00:07:00.760 that would be a disaster and it would not bring me and my husband closer, I'll tell you that.
00:07:04.540 The fourth way to deepen your relationship through your children is to see the world through your
00:07:08.940 children's eyes. Everything is new to kids. Everything is amazing. And that is such a special place
00:07:14.480 to inhabit. And it can really bring you and your spouse closer together when it kind of reminds you
00:07:19.220 of the childlike wonder that can exist in each of you. When you both kind of embrace that outlook,
00:07:24.920 that childlike outlook, it makes you both feel like younger and it makes you both enjoy one another
00:07:32.080 in a really special way. So when your toddler sees a truck and thinks that it's amazing, now my husband
00:07:37.360 and I think that trucks are amazing. We like thought about it and it's like, yeah, yeah, trucks are really
00:07:41.860 cool. When we see a truck, both of us are excited. And it's just fun to see your spouse reliving these
00:07:48.280 really cool things that as adults were jaded. As adults, of course, it's not new. Of course,
00:07:53.240 it's not cool. But as a child, it is. And so it's really a wonderful way to bring you and your spouse
00:07:58.600 closer together when you start to see the world through your child's eyes. The fifth way that you
00:08:03.820 can enjoy your children as a couple and allow your children to bring you closer together
00:08:08.240 is to discipline your children so that you enjoy them. I think we're in a in a complicated time
00:08:14.660 where gentle parenting crosses over into permissive parenting quite a bit. And so eventually parents
00:08:22.300 don't really enjoy spending time with their children. There's a lot of layers to that, meaning a child
00:08:27.500 who doesn't listen or if there's not a good schedule and children are overtired or if you're constantly
00:08:33.060 letting your children kind of dictate the day and not taking you on your role as like boss and parent,
00:08:38.800 I think it's really easy to just not enjoy spending time with your kids. And if you don't enjoy
00:08:43.460 spending time with your kids and you're spending time with them and you're spending time with your
00:08:46.780 spouse, like that's just an uncomfortable situation. Everybody is just with people they don't really
00:08:50.900 enjoy spending time with. The goal is to be a gentle parent who sets boundaries and uses discipline
00:08:57.960 in a really positive way so that your children are fun to spend time with. And then when your
00:09:02.580 children are fun to spend time with, the family dynamic brings couples closer and brings couples
00:09:07.320 together. So it's really important to lay down those boundaries to create that structure for your kids
00:09:12.280 and to make it so that you enjoy spending time with your kids so that your family enjoy spending time
00:09:18.000 together and you and your spouse enjoy being the head of the household as a team. So I hope you guys
00:09:24.620 enjoyed today's video. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. And if you watched all the way
00:09:28.800 till the end of today's video, leave a building emoji. They have a house, they have apartment buildings,
00:09:34.900 they have some really interesting emojis these days. So leave that down below. It's unrelated to
00:09:39.500 this video, but it's kind of fun. And thank you so much for watching. Please make sure to subscribe
00:09:43.100 if you haven't already. And I'll see you guys in my next video. Bye!