The 4 Emotional Needs Every Child Has (and How to Meet Them!) with Richard O’Keef

 DJ Stutz  00:14

You're listening to Imperfect Heroes: Insights into Parenting, the perfect podcast for imperfect parents looking to find joy in their experience of raising children in an imperfect world, and I'm your host, DJ Stutz. Welcome everybody, and thank you for joining us for this episode of Imperfect Heroes:, Insights into Parenting, and we have such an amazing topic. And when I got the opportunity to meet Richard, we found that he and I have had so many similar experiences, and we just got talking and talking. So before we get started on our topic for today is those four emotional needs that our kids need to have and what maybe some of the consequences are when those needs aren't met. I just want to remind everybody that if you don't want to miss a thing on Imperfect Heroes, if you want to know what's coming up and what events we're having, where I'm going to be speaking, other podcasts that I'm on, and what's going on on our podcast, you'll want to sign up for that newsletter. So you're going to get some added tips too, that you don't get necessarily on the podcast. You get some extra content which is fun and it doesn't cost you anything, so you just go to www.ImperfectHeroes.net and that will take you to the website where you can find my coaching, my books, everything else, or even if you just go to the podcast website, www.ImperfectHeroesPodcast.com,either site will sign you up for the newsletter, and you'll be able to get in on all that extra good, fun info. All right, let's get going. So. Richard O'Keefe, why don't you first talk to us a little bit about what you do and how you got started, and then we'll kind of share where our shared experiences brought us together.

 Richard O'Keefe  02:21

Thank you for asking .So, many years ago, when I was a young parent, there came a point where I had to make a decision. I had to make an intense change in my life, or I was in trouble, or my kids were in trouble. So I started reading parenting books, and the first thing I learned was how many parenting books there really are. I was looking for that one parenting book that was easy to read, easy to understand, shortened to the point that taught me all of the parenting skills that I needed to know. And well, I didn't find that one book that I was looking for. And so, as the saying goes, if you can't find the book that you want, you write it. And so that's what I did, but it took me 40 years to write it. What kicked me in the past to write this book was I teach parenting skills to incarcerated dads, and I teach in the state prison and in the county jails, and as I was rubbing shoulders with them, I've done this for about eight years now, I've come to understand what put them on those dark paths that took them to drug and alcohol addiction and crime and incarceration. And if I can tell parents how to keep their children off of similar paths, see that would make my life seem important, like I was doing something worthwhile. So that's what my legacy is going to be. I want parents to know how to keep their children on paths to success and happiness while the same time reduce their struggling and enjoy the parenting journey.

 DJ Stutz  03:49

Wow, that just sounds like a dream come true. And our similar experiences are that when I lived in Las Vegas, so that was from 1988 to 2008 was when we left. But during that time, for 16 of those years, I worked for the Division of Family and Youth Services, and part of my assignment for some of those years was working with incarcerated mommies. And so there were two women's prisons that I worked at and taught parenting skills to, and then I also did some work with several of the homeless shelters. So some were just for women, some were for families that I was able to spend some time with. And then there was also a program for incarcerated individuals who had just been released, and so part of their reintroduction to society, type program three I think it was a nine week program, and three of those weeks were me with family and parenting and all of that. So that's where our paths kind of intersect, and so we both have some amazing experiences. I don't know about for you, but for me, it became a very spiritual experience. Yeah. And working with these women and learning about how they are also daughters of God and are loved by God, and that is a very personal experience that happened to me that really turned my head around my little DJ personality with making conclusions about these women that were incorrect. So it was just an amazing experience for me. And I know in our talking you had some similar experiences.

 Richard O'Keefe  05:29

I teach 12 sessions. So sometimes those 12 sessions might last 12 weeks, and sometimes they might last six weeks, and sometimes three weeks. But what I've noticed in every course is that the guys come in on the first class, and they have the look in their eye like, what do you think you can teach me? And by the time they graduate, and we have a little graduation ceremony, they have light in their eyes. Their whole demeanor has changed. They have hope now, and they have some skills under their belt that can help them be better dance that can help them to defeat the demons that they've been carrying around and break the abusive cycle and become good dads.

 DJ Stutz  06:11

Yeah, and there is a reality that they can become good parents from that experience. It's not that the door slammed shut on them, and so we as society, as co-workers, as co-church goers, as neighbors, whatever it is our association with them, it's so important that we don't make that judgment and slam our personal door in their face, but we become part of their recovery, so to speak, and be Part of the answer for them. And if you do that, I have found that when I've done that, my doors start opening, and my attitudes, my patience and love increases, which just makes my whole life then much better.

 Richard O'Keefe  06:57

You feel like you're really making a difference in somebody's life. And that is life changing in and of itself.

 DJ Stutz  07:03

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And when, I think, when we first talked a little bit ago, I told you a story of how there was a couple of times that this happened while I lived in Las Vegas, but one time in particular, I was at the DMV with one of my kids. I can't even remember which one getting their license, la, la, la, and or their permit. And a lady came up to me who had three kids, and was like, Miss DJ, how are you? I'm fine.  I had no idea who this person was, but she clearly knew me. And the funny thing is that when they are incarcerated, it's like they're all in their little uniform, and there is no makeup, and their hair is, you know, and this lady was dressed happily, nicely. She had her makeup done. Her hair was beautiful, and she had these three beautiful children with her. And so it took me a while, and she was laughing that, of course, you don't remember me. I don't look nothing like I did before. And then she introduced her kids to me, and she told me, because I'll never forget that, she told her kids, this is the lady that changed Mama's life. This is the lady that taught me how to be a good mommy. And oh my gosh, I'll never, ever forget that moment and that feeling. What was nice too, is that my child that was with me got to hear that as well. And so that was kind of a wonderful thing.

 Richard O'Keefe  08:26

What a great experience that must have been. Yeah, it was wonderful. Melted your heart.

 DJ Stutz  08:31

It did. It totally did. So let's talk about, then, the things that we were teaching them, because you don't nee d to be incarcerated to get this message, do you? We're offering it to you now jail free! All of this great information that is so important.  And so Richard, why don't we get started on those four pillars that are so important?

 Richard O'Keefe  08:55

Sure, the very first class, when I teach my students, I write good dad up on the board, and I say, Well, how do you be a good dad? And we discuss that a little bit, and then I say, Well, I like to suggest four things to be a good dad. First of all, you build a good relationship with your children. Second of all, you instill your children wanting to cooperate. That's huge when it comes to being a parent, and a lot of these incarcerated dads don't realize that. Number three, you want to build a strong family where your children learn and practice good values. And number four, so important, you want to increase the odds that your children will make good choices when parents are not around. So I say all right now I'm going to show you in five words how you can meet these four objectives. And so on the board, I write, meet the four emotional needs. And I say, All children have four emotional needs that must be met. And when we as parents meet these four emotional needs that. When good things happen. For instance, that's when relationships get stronger, cooperation increases. Kids learn and practice good values, and they make good choices. I say when you meet the four emotional needs, you don't need to worry about how you're going to do this stuff. Over here, you meet these four emotional needs, and this stuff happens automatically and naturally so let me tell you what the four emotional needs are. Number one is a sense of belonging. All kids need to feel like they belong. They must feel that they're important and they need mom and dad's exclusive attention. Number two, all kids need to feel a sense of personal power. That means they need to feel significant. They want to make choices and decisions and be in charge of their own life, even when they're babies. You can see this coming out. Number three is all children need to be heard and understood, heard and understood. Death just means that we need to listen to them and then reflect back what they're feeling. And then number four, all children need boundaries, boundaries. And here's the thing, there's two parts about boundaries. When we want to meet our children's need for boundaries, we teach and then we correct. We teach good values, we teach what we're expecting from our kids. We teach rules if necessary, and then when children push those boundaries, which they will because they're kids, because they have a sense of they need that sense of personal charge, yeah, so we can expect that. So we need to correct their behavior. Now here is an interesting thing, if we do not have a good relationship with our children, they won't care about what we teach them. They will not be receptive, and when we try to correct their behavior, it'll seem futile. So how do we make a good relationship with our kids? Here's the beautiful thing about the four emotional needs you meet, the first three of the four emotional needs sense of belonging, sense of personal power and to be heard and understood. When we meet those first three needs, relationships grow, connection improves, bonding takes place. And then when we teach our kids our expectations, they listen to us, they remember, and when we correct their behavior, they're much more responsive to that. So the four emotional needs, I really think they are at the foundation of good parenting. Now let me just say this. I did not make up these four emotional needs. I've read dozens of parenting books, and as I went from One Book To Another, I noticed that each book taught one or more of the four emotional needs in its own unique way. So when I'm teaching the four emotional needs, I'm simply giving an easy to understand summary of all the parenting books in the universe. So this is not new information. It's not something that I made up. It's just something that I discovered as I was studying parenting. Meet the four emotional needs, man, it's powerful stuff.

 DJ Stutz  13:00

I agree. I agree so desperately. And I think too that as we give children a sense of belonging, and I look at our society, I look at some of the messages that are coming down now, from government, from media, from corporations, educators, even that, when we say, This is my child, and my child can say, I belong to my mom and dad, I belong to that family, but people jumping, Oh, you don't belong to anybody. And it's like, no, no, no, you're ruining it all. Because I love that sense that my husband and I belong to each other and that we care about each other and that we understand how my choices, my mood, my idiosyncrasies, all that affect my husband as his do me, and it's the same thing with our children, and so when we start identifying what are my Little issues that I have that are getting in the way of my child feeling that sense of belonging, that feeling of having their own empowerment, and that sense of to be heard, oh, being heard, being understood, yeah, and all of those things. What am I doing then? And it probably, I'll tell you, it's probably not anything that we're cognitively doing. It's stuff that this is my nature, this is what I do. But you know what? You can change that. And it's so important that if it's something that's getting in the way of those things, you need to really concentrate on changing that. How do you feel about that?

 Richard O'Keefe  14:39

Oh, absolutely. And what you've touched on is the next part of the meeting the four emotional needs, which are the 15 skills necessary to meet those needs. So I have done a lot of research, and I have come up with 15 parenting skills that are necessary to meet those four emotional needs. I would. Like to go over them quickly and just let you know what the 15 skills are. So to meet a sense of belonging. There are four skills. Number one is to spend one on one time with your children. Skill number two is spend family time together. Skill number three is get to know your children, and skill number four is to make positive deposits in their emotional bank account, then to meet their need for a sense of personal power. There's three skills. The first one is to give them choices. Skill number six is to teach life skills. And skill number seven is to set goals with your children, gives them a sense of personal power you see when they meet that goal and then to be heard and understood. Skill number eight is called, acknowledge negative feelings, and then we move into boundaries to meet boundaries. There are like seven or eight different skills. Skill number nine is give attention to good behavior. Skill number 10 is make requests effectively. Skill Number 11 is to teach values. Skill number 12 is to create rules if necessary. Skill 13 is to enforce those rules lovingly. And skill 14 is to use consequences wisely. And skill 15 the last of the parenting skills is the problem solved together.

 DJ Stutz  16:24

Boy, those are so key and so important. And I was writing down a couple of them because I think these are skills that I think sometimes we don't really think about doing as a parent. You know, we're so busy, go, go, go, do, do, do, and so sometimes it's just like, we're just taking one step after the other, without really seeing at what is the end game. Like, where am I going to be in an hour? Where are we going to be in a year? Whatever that is. And so when you said setting goals together, even with a three year old, you can start setting some goals, and they're simple goals. They're not like, I'm going to be a doctor.

 Richard O'Keefe  17:04

How about potty training? For instance?

 DJ Stutz  17:08

Yes, that is all part of them learning to set goals and when they can start setting those goals. And in fact, I'll tell you, that's part of knowing whether they're ready to potty train or not. And I've talked about maybe it's time to do another potty training show. It's probably been 100 shows ago, but it's making sure that they're ready for our expectations that we are having of them, and when they are part of setting the goals, they're more likely to embrace it, yes, making sure that you've really, truly included them on that goal setting, instead of manipulating them i nto saying what you want them to say.

 Richard O'Keefe  17:51

Yeah.  That's such a good point, and children will be much more likely to strive to reach their goals if it's something that they really want to do. As parents, you see, we can teach them that there's going to be obstacles along the way, and teach them what perseverance is when they get into trouble and when they want to quit. And we can boost their morale. We can encourage them, and then when they reach a step toward that goal, see, that's when we celebrate with them, and that gets them even more excited to achieve their goal.

 DJ Stutz  18:22

And again, you've brought up another important part. You're just a treasure chest, Richard. So one of them is celebrating the steps. Don't wait until they've had achieved that whole big goal. To celebrate, we went an hour without pee in our pants. We didn't open our pants off you actually did a poop in the toilet. It's all fun. Or if you have a kiddo, let's say they're in school and they're struggling with, say, spelling tests. That's an easy one to talk about. But so they're getting 20 30% if that right, but if they've gone from 15% to 20% yay, you did better. Instead of waiting for them to get 100% to starve celebration.

 Richard O'Keefe  19:08

Any improvement is worth a celebration.

 DJ Stutz  19:11

And then talking about, how did that improvement happen? Oh, my goodness, you got three more correct than you did last time. Why do you think you did so much better and letting them start contemplating on I don't know. What did I do? Maybe I wrote my words one extra time, or maybe we went over them the night before, or whatever, but helped them start then evaluating what made this smaller success happen. So then we can redo it, and that leads to a bigger, bigger, bigger successes.

 Richard O'Keefe  19:41

Yes.  When children meet their goal, or even meet another step toward their goal, look what happens to their self confidence. It goes up, their self worth, self esteem, goes up, the knowledge that they have goes up, and all that contributes to the next step or to a bigger goal.

 DJ Stutz  20:00

Yeah.  Absolutely, it does. Another thing that you mentioned was, and I'm I'm gonna butcher how you said it, and so I'm sorry, but just teaching them life skills, teaching them things that they can do on their own you don't need me to fix. I'm gonna teach you how to fix the tire on your bike, even if it's a little plumbing issue or they drop something down this the drain in the sink. Well, this is how we're going to unscrew the drain. This is how we're going to find what it is you dropped. So it's not that big of a deal. We can find it. But now you're going to know what to do if that happens, if you start giving them some of those key life skills where they can feel independent as an adult. I mean, it took me decades, many decades, to understand that my earring fell down the thing, and I'd be like, Russ, come help me. And then my daughter in law was visiting one time, and my earring went down, and she's like, I got this. I'm like, what you got this? What you're gonna fix this? Yeah, she showed me how, yeah, it's that easy. Yeah, it's that easy. Like, oh my gosh. So that's so empowering. And then it takes back on anxiety and stress when it's like, this thing happened, oh, I can fix this. I know what to do. And so giving them those skills, I love that you brought that up.

 Richard O'Keefe  21:18

Yeah, I was visiting my daughter and her 12 year old daughter said, Mom, we need to make an appointment with the dentist. She said, Okay, let's get on the phone and I will coach you through making an appointment. First time she's ever done something like that. So she gets on the phone, she coaches her daughter through making the appointment. She hangs up the phone. How do you think her daughter feels empowered? Self worth goes up. Self esteem goes up, the knowledge of how to do something goes up. And she is psyched. She is ready to take on another goal sometime.

 DJ Stutz  21:49

Yes, exactly. And again, that's a skill that they are going to need. When I was younger, at the gas station, people would come out and fill your tanks. Were you? And so I turned 16, I pull up some nice guy come fill my tank. Isn't that lovely? And I drive off. Well, that doesn't happen anymore, part of anywhere, maybe in Oregon, but I don't think anywhere else. And so the first time, I just had to go put gas in the tank. Something that simple. I was stressed out of my mind, like but, you know, I was afraid something's gonna explode. I didn't know what I was doing. And so that's something that's very simple, but it's something that empowers. And also imagine the stress just going to get gas in my tank and putting it in myself was very stressful for me for the first, like, three or four times that I did it, then that I felt good in doing it, empowered. Yes, one thing my dad did, which I think go dad was when I turned 16, I was not allowed to drive the car until I knew how to change a tire. He  did not want me left on the side of the road alone. You know, a cute little; I was cute back then, but 16 year old in Los Angeles, right at the mercy of whomever drives by. And so before I turned 16, I made sure I knew how to change that tire, and I actually did it faster than my brother, which made me feel good. But so that's very empowering. So how can we give these skills to our kids? And think of the relationship that's building while you're teaching them that skill,

 Richard O'Keefe  23:28

Right.  I tell my students that if you don't teach your children how to change a tire when it's warm and sunny, you'll be teaching them at night time when it's in the rain, so it's a good thing to prepare them in advance, yeah, but there's a there's age related skills we can teach them all the time. Cooking is a simple example how to make toast. So now kids can get the bread, put it in the toaster, push the little knob down, wait for the toast to come up, wait a few minutes, a few seconds for the toast to cool down, and then now they've got toast. Then you graduate to making your own sandwich. Then you graduate to go shopping, to read recipes, to make meals. Just as you become old enough to understand, you add new skills to their bucket, and by the time they leave the nest, they're prepared for life.

 DJ Stutz  24:24

And kids are so much more capable than what we think they are. When I was teaching for most of my teaching career, my students were the children of gang members, and so we would send food home with them, food packets on the weekends, and we had to make sure that it was a pool top can or whatever, because we had kids in kindergarten, first second grade that were putting together their own meals, you know, for whatever reason, and I'm not going to judge or blame, but that's their reality. But they were capable of doing that. I think somewhere in the first 15 episodes, there's a episode on going. Back to college, getting your degree while you're raising small kids. And Aaron Bennion, she got her doctorate while working three jobs, three kids, married, doing the whole thing, and finished her doctorate. But one of the things that she did was her daughter, sunny, was 10 years old, and she just gave the shopping list over to sunny, and so sunny would go online, and she would click on the order of the things that they needed, and it was the pickup. And so on the way back from something, Aaron would go and pick up whatever Sonny had chosen. But she taught her and talked to her about, okay, we have to plan our meal. So what are the meals that we want to have, and what are the ingredients we need to make sure that we have? And and that became sunny thing, and now she's gone on, and she's finishing her degree in college and moving on to a master's and athletic scholarship, and just a very capable young woman. But she started at 10 years old. She was capable of doing that. And I think sometimes we tend to over protect, oh, they're just too young. They're too young. They can't do that. They don't know what they're doing well to teach them so that they know kids are so smart. Yeah,

 Richard O'Keefe  26:12

Yeah. And sometimes parents think, well, it'll be easier and faster if I just do it myself, so they miss out on the opportunity to teach their kids.

 DJ Stutz  26:21

And you'll do it better.

 Richard O'Keefe  26:24

Before we sign off, I want to talk about one really important skill, and that skill number one is called spend one on one time. I think that spending one on one time with our kids is the foundation for all the rest of the skills. If we spend one on one time with our kids, that will make it easier for us to do all the rest of the skills. If we don't spend one on one time with our kids, it's going to make the other skills harder. So let me just tell you about spending one on one time. It means that each parent spends one on one time with each child every day, if possible, doing what the child loves to do. So that means that the child gets mom or dad exclusively to him or herself without having to compete with siblings. And it doesn't have to be a half a day deal, not even an hour. It can be three minutes in the morning, three minutes when you get home from work, and three minutes as you're tucking them into bed. Or it could be, I used to take my kids out on the trampoline at night, and we'd watch the stars. We'd take our blanket and our pillow and just be one on one, and we'd watch the satellites go over. We saw the International Space Station go over once. That was pretty amazing. Every once in a while we would see a shooting star, but while we were laying on the tramp, we would be talking just about anything that my child wanted to talk about, and so we did things like that. I have five daughters and one son, and so I went on a lot of Daddy daughter dates. We'd go to the park and we'd go out to fast food place and grab a bite. We'd walk the dog. We always had dog growing up. We'd walk the dog together, but anytime that I could spend one on one time with my kids, that was just sacred time, I thought. And once I started doing that, the discipline problems seemed to go down. So yeah, the children felt that one on one time, and it was meeting their need for a sense of belonging. And when we meet our children's need for a sense of belonging, like I said, good things happen.

 DJ Stutz  28:29

And in fact, that's probably one of the first things I would look at if we were starting to have behavior and discipline problems with our kids, one of the first questions I would ask myself is, am I or my husband? What time am I spending with that kid, one on one? And then what do we need to go to from there,

 Richard O'Keefe  28:49

I had a lady approached me once I was teaching a parenting class in the community, many years ago, and she raised her hand and she says, Richard, I have this teenage son. He's a young teen, like 12 years old, and he won't do anything that I ask, give me a consequence or a punishment that I can do to make him realize that I'm the boss. And I said, Well, let me ask you something. How much time do you spend with this child every day? And she says, No, I don't. And I said, your problem isn't a discipline problem. Your problem is a relationship problem. So we talked about ways that she could boost the relationships that she had, and the very first thing you do is spend one on one time with that child, doing what the child loves to do, take them to Wendy's, take them to a ball game, just throw the baseball back and forth, shoot hoops in the driveway, throw the frisbee back and forth, sit on the stairs and just have A talk for five minutes. Those things, those small things that you don't think would make a big difference after you've done them a few times, they accumulate, and they really do make a difference in a child's life, even teenagers, in one on one.

 DJ Stutz  29:52

Especially teenagers, oh, yeah, what? And when I was doing some of these parenting classes, and I would see parents were just having more problems with. Or teenagers. And so there was a program called back in control, like you ever in control in the first place, but that was the name of the program, and it was for teens. And I would have all these parents coming in, and you'd see angry teenagers, and you would see angry parents, you know, and everybody's all upset. And the question is, then, what are you doing? How much time are you spending? Well, they won't even spend time with me. Well, okay, that's on you personally. But next is, have you asked them to help you with something? Have you asked them to show you they're doing this game thing like all the all the guys or gals at work are playing this new game. I have no idea how to play it. Can you show me how to play? And, oh, they'll jump in and they'll show you what to do. Like, find ways that you can have them be an expert and show you what to do. And this is kind of like above our age range for the podcast, but it works. It's so strong. And so look for ways that I mean, can you come show me how to do this? I'm not sure how to get this done, and even a three year old will be thrilled. Okay, they'll show you how to sort the laundry.

 Richard O'Keefe  31:11

Yeah, it used to be how to program the VCR, and now it's how to use your iPhone.

 DJ Stutz  31:17

Yeah, use the 18 month old kiddos, and they're like, zip, zip, zip, zip, they know. And I was like, Oh, wow, they changed my password. I don't know what to do.

 Richard O'Keefe  31:28

So here's something that I've always found interesting. I asked my students, how many of you, when you were growing up, had your four emotional needs met? And most of them could not say that they did. And then I would say, Well, let me ask you this, do gangs meet the four emotional needs and all their heads bob up and down? I say, do gangs meet sense of belonging? Oh yeah, personal power definitely to be heard and understood? Yes. Do gangs have rules and expectations? Oh yeah. And so whenever I can I tell parents that if they meet their children's four emotional needs, then when kids get invited to a gang, they won't see any need for it.

 DJ Stutz  32:10

Yeah, I don't need the family because I got these guys over here. Yeah. And so the chances and nothing's 100% you're always gonna find a child that is just gonna utilize that freedom of choice, even though you've worked so hard to do it all, there's nothing's 100% but I would say more than nine times out of 10. I would say way more than that, if you can meet those four needs of your kids, you know, the gang issues, the other issues, drugs and alcohol, all of those things will fall more to the wayside.

 Richard O'Keefe  32:44

Yeah. And here's something we haven't mentioned yet, even if your child does do something that you totally disagree with, we always want to make sure that we show unconditional love, right? Because that child just needs to know that mom and dad care no matter what, and then we're just increasing the odds that that child will make a turnaround, or even if not, we can still have an influence on their lives if we show that undying love no matter what.

 DJ Stutz  33:14

Yeah, and a lot of times when kids lash out and they're in trouble, sometimes it's because they're embarrassed of what they've done, and so they'll lash out in anger to cover that they don't want to look weak by showing they're embarrassed by what they've done. So really knowing your kid, and that goes back to developing that relationship and talking to your kids and making sure that they're feeling heard. And one trick, and we'll have to slow things down, but one trick that I've always tried, is to let them talk until they're done. I want to jump in and say, Oh, that's not right. Oh, why would you say that? But just say, Tell me more. And keep going until they have nothing else to say. And then you can go back, because now they're kind of emotionally worn out. They're feeling heard because you haven't argued every point with them, and you can say, Wow, I can see this was really a hard thing for you, so let's look at and when you can have it in that way. And I was not perfect at this. Nobody ever is, but when you can do that, you're gonna just get so much further, whether they're 3, 13, or 23

 Richard O'Keefe  34:18

Right. You're talking about skill number eight, which is acknowledging negative feelings, which meets our child's need for to be heard and understood. When they're heard and understood, those negative feelings are not bottled up and suppressed, but they're released, and so they don't have to worry. You don't have to think about it, even though at one time, it was a real hard problem for them to deal with, yeah, now they can move on with their life, absolutely simply because we listened to them and made them feel heard and understood.

 DJ Stutz  34:48

Oh, we could go on forever. I love talking to you, and I love your strategies, but so will you please, Richard, tell our followers where they can get more information on you and your book and what. Have going on.

 Richard O'Keefe  35:00

I would love to do that. So my book is 911, what is your parenting emergency? You get this book on Amazon. And personally, I wrote the book, but I think that this is one of the best parenting books out there, excellent.

 DJ Stutz  35:17

So we're gonna have that information. All that will be in the show notes. If you're interested, just grow it on down and you it's a click away, and they'll be able to get that so thank you, Richard, so very much. Before we go, anyone who's listened to the show knows, whenever I have a guest, I always ask the same question at the end, because we know there are no perfect parents, hence the title of the podcast. But how Richard, would you maybe describe a successful parent?

 Richard O'Keefe  35:47

Sure, and like you say, there are no perfect parents, but as parents, we try to do the best we can and increase the odds that our children will make good choices. And if I was going to give any parent some advice, I would tell them in five words meet the four emotional needs.

 DJ Stutz  36:03

Yeah.  I love that, and they can find all of that and how to do that with the 15 strategies all in your book. So yes, and

 Richard O'Keefe  36:13

I made my book easy to read, easy to understand, minus the fluff, which is the non essential material. I tried to make it short and to the point I've tried to eliminate any excuse a parent could have for not reading this book.

 DJ Stutz  36:27

Excellent, excellent, excellent. So thank you so much, Richard for coming and being a part of our little history and everybody if you liked what you heard on today's program, be sure to give us a five star review. Yes, five stars, that's the right number, and leave a comment below the show notes. We love to hear what you're thinking, and if you have questions or are looking for answers or more strategies, you can always ask those questions there. We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram, Imperfect Heroes, and I'm even on Truth Social., I'm on X, I'm on, so you can find me pretty much anywhere, if you just look for imperfect heroes. And I would love to hear from you and hear what your questions are and how we can find people to get those answers for that, or I may have the answer. I'm pretty good at that too. So everyone, thank you so much for joining us. I love having my listeners. I love my guests. I've been so fortunate with such wonderful guests. So until next week, though, let's find joy in parenting. Let's see you later. Guys.   Bye, bye.  Thank you so much for sticking around to the end of today's episode of Imperfect Heroes. Parenting is truly one of the most rewarding journeys we can take. But let's face it, it can be incredibly challenging, and sometimes we make it harder on ourselves than it needs to be. The good news is that with a little bit of work up front, there are practical steps you can take to bring more peace and joy into your family life. I am passionate to share these strategies and insights with you. If you're ready to step on the path to joyful, effective parenting, I invite you to schedule a family checkup. Just click on the calendar link in the show notes below. Schedule a time that works perfectly for you, and let's work together to create a more harmonious and happy environment, and remember, every small step that you take today makes a big difference. So thank you again for joining us, and until next time, let's find joy in parenting.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai