Prayer, Faith, and Parenting: Finding Hope and Strength with Rudy Chavarria

0:01 Mr Jesse L Hammonds: Welcome to the healthy, wealthy, and wise podcast with Dr. William T. Choctaw, MD, Dr. William T Choctaw: JD, where the doctor Mr Jesse L Hammonds: helps you unlock your full potential by equipping you with tools and knowledge in the areas of health, wealth, and wisdom anchored in his experience as a business executive, a physician, the surveyor for the joint commission, a former mayor, and over 50 years of experience as a general surgeon, you've got questions, he's got answers. So let's get started. Dr. William T. Choctaw, M. Dr. William T Choctaw: D., J. D. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, again to the Health, Wealth Wise podcast. We're absolutely delighted, absolutely delighted to have a very special guest with us, Mr.

0:44 Rudy Chavarria. Mr Rudy: You, you, you, you brought up a key point in your life that, you know, was the aha moment that you, you know, you had said that you weren't walking the walk, you, you knew at that point you needed to start getting good grades. And I'm going to bring that into another thing of, of young, of young parents or parenting or in general is what do they call them? Bulldozer parents helicopter parents. And you brought up a, that you were in your second foster home, you were angry. So my point is, is to not let your, do not shelter your child.

1:25 Because the more you shelter your child in your own words, we don't want them to be embarrassed by all the other students. But by, by that type of interaction where, and I believe this, that seeing our son grow up, that yeah, he needs to be embarrassed. He was in piano lesson yesterday, and the piano lesson teacher actually, she, Russian, really, you know, and she, she laid into him. Huh. And and I, and my wife's like, oh, she got mad, and I'm like, good. Let her get mad at him for mommy and daddy in the world. And so I think, again, can you, can you maybe run with that?

2:05 What I'm saying is that you needed to be embarrassed. As opposed to another parent who shelters you. Who is sheltered? Can you elaborate maybe on that? Dr. William T Choctaw: Absolutely. I can tell you what my philosophy was when my kids were young. And say in middle school and just coming up. I had the opportunity to put them in private school. Where they would wear, and there's nothing wrong with private school, where they would wear the uniform and blah blah blah. But my philosophy was, you know, I, I went to public school and I felt rightfully or wrongly, but I felt it was important that they be I'm accustomed to living in the real world, you know, real world with real people.

2:49 And that's not always easy, you know, and everybody doesn't understand you and everybody's not like you and they don't look like you and act like you or whatever, but that's life. And so I felt that it was important that, that they learn life early, that as a parent, I would be there to help them, you know, when they got off track or, or got hurt or whatever. So no, they'll know this, this means that to help to interpret it for me, for them. But, but for them to experience it because they will learn, you know, all kids I think are inherently smart and they adapt. I mean, that's life. That's how kids learn how to walk. They, they get up and they wobble a little bit and then they fall and they get up and they wobble a little bit more and they fall and then pretty soon they don't wobble as much, you know.

3:30 So, I think the brain is pretty similar to that, you know and this is all like in that pre quartal The frontal part of the brain, the, the emotion part of the brain, the amygdala is, is also the same thing that our emotions have to develop and grow. Disappointment, anger, sadness, happiness, all of those things have to grow also. And it's really important in the sense that they're at different stages at different ages. That a 15, a 10 year old is not going to understand like an 18 year old or 17 year old what to do. They're 10 years old and their brain is not just there and they're going to make some silly mistakes that, you know, maybe that 14 year old wouldn't make because they aren't 14 years of age.

4:12 And so we parents have to be patient, if you will, we can still be protected. We can still be supportive and we, and most importantly is loving, you know, and if I had to summarize it, not to sound too too basic, but, but it really is a matter of love, you know, I love you and it's okay, you know, and, and we, we will get through this and blah, blah, blah, because as long as the child knows that they have that security blanket, if you will, then, then there'll be okay. I, I once, I remember one time One, one of one of my grandkids when they were born, and, and Lorena, my wife and I, we were so concerned about this and that and whatever, whatever, and said, oh, is, is she talking soon enough? Or whatever, whatever.

4:53 We, typical grandparents, and we talked to one of our daughter-in-laws who was actually in child education, and, and I never forget what she said, she said. Every, every child, if there's one stable adult in that child's life, doesn't matter who it is, that child will be okay. And I never forgot that it could be parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt, I don't know, next door neighbor, whatever, teacher, one stable adult. And, and, and so what she did was she sort of made us feel better about the anxiety of, of parenting, you know, grandparenting in this, in this case that the kids do okay. They really do okay, that God has a plan, and he sort of worked all that stuff out, and all we need to do is just be supportive and loving, and the kids will basically be okay.

5:43 Mr Rudy: You know, you bring up a good point, and that, that is that children have to be told, as opposed to when a teenager or somebody who just gets to college, they don't have to be told. And, and I, I, when I, when my wife and I are disciplining our son, sometimes I say in this situation, he has to be told how to think. He has to be told how to feel. Yes. He doesn't Dr. William T Choctaw: know. It's new. It's new for him. Mr Rudy: It's new for him. And, and so when you said we have to learn how to be patient, I'm, we're always praying for patience because we think we're taught, and I've told my wife too, and I tell her, remind me if I'm doing this, say you talk to him like he's an adult or I'm like, yes, I do.

6:34 Because he needs to, he's learning now to understand things. And so when he does things like an award or does something around the house or, and I always say to him, good man. Yes, Dr. William T Choctaw: yes, that's good. That's Mr Rudy: important. Don't say good boy, right? Well, I will, but but for the most part, say good man. And when he asked me something, I said, yes, sir. What do you, what do you, he said, no, yes, Dr. William T Choctaw: sir. One of the things I learned along those lines that it's important for me when I make a mistake as a parent, when I screw up to apologize to my kid. And this is, and I'm thinking, I'll make this real quick. I I, we go to church, and I would have a thing many years ago when my kids were teenagers.

7:19 The boys about, you know, you wear church clothes, you wear a tie and whatever, whatever. Well, they just felt wearing a tie to church was silly. They said, you know, I'm, I'm neat and I'm clean. And why do I have to wear a tie? Well, you know, we wore ties back in the, in the fifties and the sixties when I was in Nashville, but I'm in California now. And so I went on and on and on. And then at some point, thank God, the light bulb came on and it said, you know, what's the most important thing here? Is it that they were a tie or that they go to church? So I said, okay, it's probably that they go to church. So I, I, I intentionally went back to them and apologized. I apologize, and I'm sort of an authoritative type father, but I thought it important to apologize to them.

8:07 Number one, to say, I can screw up too, number one. Number two, I respect you enough to say, you know what? Daddy made a mistake. You know, shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have said that whatever the words are. And, and I think that's another way of showing love that, that perfection is not a requirement in life. None of us is perfect. And, and so I know you're going to make mistakes and you're going to stumble and fall. That's why your dad is here and your mom are here because we're going to pick you up and help you. But when we, we make mistakes too, and that's okay. You, you, you get past that. And so I, that was an aha moment. for me as a parent. Mr Rudy: Yeah you know, I just had a moment where as a parent where my son actually got mad at me.

8:54 Called me cruel because of the new puppy and he had, he had peed in the house for the third time. Okay. Dr. William T Choctaw: I can imagine what that's like. Mr Rudy: I'm like, give me my anger, go away. And so So what happened in this particular incident, and I'll get to the point where he, he literally stood up and he yelled at me and he said, you're a cruel person. Yes. And, and it was because I picked up the dog.

9:35 And then I, I put him out in the garage and then I got some getting all the towels ready. And our son was sitting on the couch and we have been going through this phase where we ask him. Phoenix turn the TV off, it's time to start your homework. Okay, just a minute. Right. Just a minute, face. And then so I'm cleaning up. I open the door to go let, throw away the, the paper towels that are wet. And when I open the door, the, the dog, he's a dog town, which is the small mini wiener dogs with a lot of hair. Yes, yes. The door hits him on the nose and the dog yelped. And, and of course, I didn't mean to do that.

10:15 And so when I come back, I pick him up, I come back in, and that's when I walk into the living room and Phoenix stands up and he says, you, and he takes these papers and he's ripping them are a cruel human being and he throws the pillows. And I'm standing there, and I'm in shock. How old is he? How old is he? He just turned eight in November, and my wife is standing there in shock. And I'm like, Oh my God, take me now, Lord. I'm a horrible man. Meanwhile, the dog's licking my arms. The dog has forgiven you. And I stood there for a second, and I had to finally get my composure.

10:57 And then I said Wait a minute. I said, hold on. I said, first of all, I did not hurt, his name is Bruno, I did not hurt Bruno. The door, when it opened, it hit him in the nose and that's what you heard. And I said, and secondly, and I totally felt like I was talking to an adult. And I said, and secondly, may I remind you that I asked you to turn off the TV and Bruno was walking back and forth to one door, to the other door to get let out. Right. I said, and at the time I told him, let me lay down for five minutes. I just need to close my for five minutes before we start our homework and, and, or, or something.

11:40 And I'm, and I'm meanwhile, I'm still holding Bruno and I said, and you saw Bruno going back and forth. You acknowledged him going back and forth, but you sat there on the couch and you watched your TV show. And I said, you could have easily. I've been responsible to hit pause, get off the couch, go let Bruno out, and then I wouldn't be cleaning up his pee. Right. So I accept the fact that you're getting mad at me, but you also have to accept the fact that you were partly Dr. William T Choctaw: responsible for this. Right. He has some responsibility. Yeah. Mr Rudy: And I said, because you saw him wanting to go to the bathroom. And then he just stood there or just, you know.

12:23 And I said, so you need to sit up and now you're going to go do your homework. And I, and my wife was like, how are you going to handle this guy? I could see that look in his face, like, oh my God, he called you a cruel human being. And then I felt better about myself. Like, okay, I'm not that bad. You Dr. William T Choctaw: held it together. You held it together. For the Mr Rudy: rest of the day, my stomach was a knot. I kept thinking about, my son called me a cool man. It's called parenting, that's okay. When I was 14, he calls me something else. But I want to, I want to ask you since we're talking about, Yes. And I had said children need to be told how to feel, need to be told what to think when they're children, so they can understand it.

13:06 But I find that now college students, a lot of college students even feel the same way, or I get that vibe from them, except that they're older and they're in college. They don't know how to open up about it, but once you throw, throw out there on the table, like, okay, everybody, my cards are on the table. And I start telling the stories that everybody jumps in and do you, do you, do you agree that it's the same, it's the same type of approach that college students also need to be told? Well, Dr. William T Choctaw: you know, I think I would modify the be told. I think they need to be told initially, particularly when it's their first time. You know, and, and I think, I think like, like your son, he's never had a dog before that's peed on him.

13:48 So this is a new experience for him. He's learned about that now, I guarantee you. So he doesn't, so he doesn't have to be told every time. So I think it's okay for them to be told initially, but then I think you want to have a discussion. Well, what do you think? Did, did, does that make sense what I just said to you or does not make, you want to engage them because you're trying to see where they are. And I. And I think a lot of times, if they're comfortable, they will engage. If they're not comfortable, they won't engage. But I think the goal is to ultimately get them to engage because what you want is for them to come up with the solutions themselves and not wait on mom or dad or teacher to tell them what to do.

14:29 A lot of times, those students who, who get to college and don't know is they They really don't know because they've been told everything and they've never been given the opportunity to fail. They haven't been given the opportunity to try something and have it not work and then figure out what it means when it doesn't work. Or if they've made mistakes, they've been so brutalized that they say, I'll never try again. I'll just, I'll just stay back and follow the crowd and I'll just do what everybody else does. I'm not going to put myself out there and get hurt again. You, you want them. To blossom, you want them to take reasonable risk with things and not rely on anybody just telling them everything.

15:11 But certainly you want to have a conversation, you know, but I would start off with what do you think? You know, I said this, does that make sense to you or you think that's a better way? So you're constantly trying to get them to tell you what they should do. And then pretty soon. You know, it gets to the point where you said, okay, I think they're, they're, they're ready. Now I can step back and it's like driving a car pretty soon. They, they get it right. And then they don't go from, you know, side, sidewalk to sidewalk type thing. That's the process. And every, everybody's different. And here's the other kicker. Boys are different from girls. Boys are different from girls. I say this all the time.

15:52 In particular, one of my frustrations, and this is when I was practicing, is a patient would come in for whatever surgical reason, but they would just start talking. And they would talk about their son, who's in middle school, and the teacher can't control him because he's always talking and is this and is that. And the teacher said that he's, It's a hyperactive and whatever I hear that term, my ADHD and they want to put them on Ritalin. They want to put them on medication, and I give my basic speech about that. I said, number one, testosterone is different from estrogen. It's not like it's right or wrong. It's just different. You know, that whole was Mars, Venus thing.

16:34 That is true. And it just means that you've got to use different skills. with boys than you're going to use with girls. We know that in, in elementary school, girls have many times can be much more advanced in terms of language and English and articulation and expressing themselves. Boys develop a little later sometimes with that. Girls may grow taller. Boars grow. So part of it is just recognizing that boys and girls are different and not try to put one into the other's thing. And there's this excellent literature. I'm one of those people and you mentioned AI or the computer.

17:15 I'm one of those people who thinks parents should embrace AI. You don't have to be experts on it, but you need to learn it. You need to know what it can do. And, and those are basic AI types of questions that don't get into difficulty that you could ask. What's the difference between boys and girls at age nine? Yeah, I can tell you that because it's just basic facts, you know, has nothing to do with feelings or emotions or opinions. But they are different and, and, and recognize that difference. Got it. Mr Rudy: Wow. Yeah, that's yeah. And, and you know what? That's one of the things that when our son, who's our only child boy is hanging around his cousins, two cousins to our girls.

18:00 Okay. I've been, I've been really trying to, and we're doing that now. We're making sure Phoenix goes around, hangs around with some of his friends that are boys. And unfortunately our son gravitates towards the bad boys. Huh. Huh. Now he's starting to realize that, okay, these boys get me into trouble. Huh. And so now we are, we as parents are now moving forward to have like date nights we go to the movies with some of the boys and their parents. Okay. And so yeah, we're, we're making that. That transition. So this way, he's not just around because when he is around his cousins, his two cousins that are girls. Yes, he plays with them rough Dr. William T Choctaw: because he's a boy.

18:46 Mr Rudy: Yeah, I say we have to get him around other boys. Right. If you start playing rough with him, hey, it's part of the territory, dude. Don't complain. You do that. Dr. William T Choctaw: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. There is no easy answer to any of this, you know, and we all fumble our way through it, but the good news is, number one, God is in charge, and number two, most, most of the kids do well. I mean, in spite of the parents, you know, and in spite of us not knowing what to do or what to say and so forth, that always gives me, gives me hope that someone other than just the parents are in charge, you know, that the kids sort of find their way and that sort of thing. But it's a joy to be able to interreact with him, but our job is to protect and, and, and, and help them keep them Mr Rudy: safe.

19:34 And what we, how do you feel about that whole statement of, of, of prayer, you know being a major part of the family and even when, you know, it was like, because you keep bringing up God and that is a big part of having a successful child. Dr. William T Choctaw: It was certainly, and I can only speak about myself, it was certainly an important part of my life. You know, now I, you know, I, I was, I mentioned about the foster homes and that's, that's another whole different issue, but I was in. about three foster homes before I ended up, before I entered college and each one was a challenge for, for different reasons.

20:20 And, and I think what, what, what religion helped me with or my faith helped me with and my parents was went to church and, and that was just, just what we did was it, it, it allowed me at a certain point. To chart my own path, to develop my own relationship that was independent of my parents. And I think that was an important part of my growth. And I personally, I'm not talking about denomination, I think there's one God and, and I, you know, Whichever path you want to go through, you, you go through that path. But I do think, certainly for me personally, that recognizing that there is a supreme being, that recognizing that we humans are not the end all to everything sort of gives me hope.

21:06 And it's certainly given me hope doing different stages of my life, you know, and I want my kids to have that same opportunity, you know, how they use it is how they use it, but it was clearly a benefit for me, you know, I was not the best kid. I was, you know, I call them angels. There were a lot of adults and others who would pull me to the side and say, what are you doing? You know, you are, you know, that sort of thing. Now it's more difficult to do that nowadays, you know, because of the laws and the rules, but still there are people who will help you and will help your child. And there were people who helped me. And so I think faith is an important part of that.

21:47 Mr Rudy: Yes. Okay. Oh, man. What a, what a, I, I'm always so energized. In our conversations and in our last one, which was a month ago. I'm still buzzing about that last one, this one too. So, yeah, just. Fabulous information. And Dr. William T Choctaw: it's, and it's really why I think and like I said, we'll have Jesse get in touch with you. Our chief, our production officer. We can do other things together. Mr Rudy: Yeah, I, like, even this one right here would be brilliant for me to send it out to colleagues. Yeah, yeah. And such, so Dr. William T Choctaw: yeah.

22:27 And you can chop it up and do whatever you want to do. I'll send it out to you. Mr Rudy: That's fine. Because I believe the synergy that we both have off of each other, I think is brilliant. So Dr. William T Choctaw: you know, that's one of the things I learned as I was reading and you know, going through my process of trying to learn and, and, and what they talk about was just, just be yourself. And, and it's the value of that synergy, as you call it, that that's most beneficial to most people. Just two people talking, sharing experiences, you know, and, and others learn from that. Just like when I listen to stuff, you know, I can read a book or whatever, but I want to hear real world stuff, you know, and, and, and that, that's what, what I, I, what, what benefits the most.

23:14 Mr Rudy: Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. Now did you have anything written down that you wanted me Dr. William T Choctaw: to know? No, no, I, I, I completely go with you. I, you know, is, is, so I'll, I'll let you, is there anything else you want to share before we, before we end? And I, I appreciate you being so patient with us again to do this. No, Mr Rudy: no, no, this has been fantastic. I think the, the only thing, and this just came to me right now is that I, I would like to, for your audience, I don't know if it's a faith based audience or it's a mix of both, but especially since we're talking about faith in any denomination that there is God is, is to be able to say to your audience that, you know, if call this a prayer, but I'd, I'd like to ask, I'd like to push to, to say that may, may blessings come upon you may what we're talking about.

24:05 Enlighten you and, and that But I pray that that this helps somebody who is either confused or depressed or even suicidal think like, yeah, you know what? I can pull myself out of that. I'll now diligence to, to find out techniques because there are techniques for yourself out of depression. Yes. Yes. And to be that responsible to, to pull themselves out, you know, I pray this for your audience in, in, in concluding our our podcast that That everybody gets that and something. And if you do, then, and if you're, you're feeling it, then spread the word and, and with other friends and people.

24:47 And to that, I say, amen. Dr. William T Choctaw: Amen. I, I say amen also. I think, I think that's completely appropriate and good. I think, I think. One of the things of leadership is to share with others what's gotten you to where you are. And then they can judge, you know, they can agree or disagree or whatever. But as always, we thank you for your time and we thank you for your words of wisdom. And with that you have, you have a blessed day. Likewise. Mr Jesse L Hammonds: Thank you for listening to this episode of the healthy, wealthy, and wise podcast with Dr. William T. Choctaw, MD, JD. Be sure to check out other great episodes covering areas of health, wealth, and wisdom at thwwp.

25:31 com. And while you're there, be sure to check out the books, blogs, and other literature in your preferred format. And don't forget to leave a review, subscribe. Share Dr. William T Choctaw: and support the Mr Jesse L Hammonds: podcast. That's at t wwp com. You've been listening to the Healthy, wealthy and Wise Podcast with CHOC m.