Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Hi everybody. Welcome back to another conversation in the Parenting with Impact podcast. This time, it's the Elaine and Diane show.

Diane Dempster: Okay, I guess, but I like just talking to you. I think this is probably my favorite thing to do—just riff on whatever topic we want to talk about, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, and what we're having fun with, y’all, is thinking about what topics are coming up in our experience with our community, with our coaching, and with our groups—like, what’s coming up that we realize it would really help you to know better.

Diane Dempster: Right, and this one particularly today.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: So, I’m teaching a four-week class that’s talking about the intersection between technology and emotional reactivity—triggers and technology. And one of the tools we’re saying is so critical is having effective agreements. 

Whether in this instance it’s around technology, we know that having an effective agreement—around chores, homework, technology, or whatever else it is—can be a really critical tool that you can use as parents to help things go more smoothly in your household.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. And I’m doing it for regroup on communications, right? And improving communications. Similarly, if your communication is on, you’re going to end up with effective agreements. 

But if your communication is misfiring, you might have agreements, but they’re not likely to be working for you in the way that you want them to.

Diane Dempster: Or you might have agreements around how you communicate with each other.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: I mean, there are all kinds of ways to use agreements and all kinds of things to have agreements about. And parents come to us all the time and say, "Well, but I had—we agreed."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. You agree to do it?

Diane Dempster: I was curious—what does that really mean? And did your kid really, really agree? Were they truly clear on what you agreed to? Did you even have their attention when you agreed? I mean, all these different nuances.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Were they agreeing, or were they just trying to shut you up?

Diane Dempster: Exactly. Just saying, “Yes, Mom, I got it.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: Just to get you off their back, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, we’ve spent some time with each other going through all the different things we teach, trying to come up with a real construct for you. So this is going to feel more like a lesson, in a way. 

Because we’ve broken it down into: What is the context of effective agreements? What are the components of effective agreements? And what do you do when it doesn’t work? So that’s what we’re going to try to cover in the next 30 minutes. I think we can do this, right?

Diane Dempster: So, you were telling me a story about a conversation you had with a client about an agreement a teacher tried to make with her kiddo. Tell us that story a little bit.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I was a school counselor, right? So here's the scenario: a 16-year-old kid in a school for kids who aren’t necessarily special needs, but it’s somewhat in that category. Because of COVID, the school shifted from in-person learning to hybrid, and then to virtual learning, and the kid started shutting down, refusing to show up. 

The counselor asks the mom to get the kid on the phone. The kid had been really resistant to the counselor, and the mom was trying to get the kid to collaborate with the counselor. Pretty soon, the mom realizes why the kid is resisting. The counselor said, “I’m here for you, I know this is really hard for you, but you’ve got to step up and meet us halfway.” At that point, the kid shut down again because he didn’t feel heard or listened to. 

The counselor was asking for what they wanted without negotiating or considering where the kid was coming from. The mom observed the dynamic and realized that she needed to get the kid off the phone and find another way to motivate him because this counselor wasn’t going to be effective.

Diane Dempster: Well, what I’m hearing from that, and I think we all do this, is that we have an agreement in mind in our heads.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: This is what I’ll do, this is what I’m going to do, and this is what you’ve got to do, right? It’s this sort of...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: This is what I expect you to agree to, you think?

Diane Dempster: Yes, exactly. It’s like, "Okay, I’m going to do this, and this is what you need to do."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And I think we do that as parents. I think schools do it a lot, and understandably so, because there are expectations we want our kids to meet. But sometimes, we have to realize that if we don’t really get them—and this is what we’ll talk about—they might not be committed to it. Maybe they’re not ready to meet those expectations or bought into them.

Diane Dempster: Or, no, and again, we’ll talk about this too, but this happens a lot—if the expectations aren’t realistic...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: Or clearly understood. You’re not...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Respectful of the person you're dealing with, or, right? There are so many factors.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, exactly.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, let’s get into it. First of all, what is an effective agreement? What are we talking about here?

Diane Dempster: What we’re talking about is when you have an expectation of your child, or your child has an expectation of you. It’s that intersection between one person’s needs, and that involves somebody else, right? 

It’s the agreement we have regarding getting up in the morning—here’s what you’re going to do, here’s what I’m going to do. It’s the agreement about how much computer time you can have. It’s the agreement on how we’re going to communicate with each other when we’re really upset.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, so we’re really talking about when somebody wants something, we’re looking for an outcome. It might be a behavioral outcome in terms of how we communicate, or it could be a tactical outcome, like getting out of bed or whatever. 

But when we’re looking for some specific outcome, we want to have an agreement on what that’s going to be. Is that fair?

Diane Dempster: Yeah. Because it might be something as simple as, “Hey, I’ll meet you at the mall at 4 o’clock”—that’s an agreement. It can be something that simple, or it could be something much more complicated than that as well.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Okay, so what we’re talking about here is how do we collaborate with our kids? We’re starting with the assumption that this is a collaborative approach, right?

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Because that’s what we did. So, how do we collaborate with our kids, who are our partners, or others, I guess, anyone, when there’s a particular outcome that we’re looking for, and we want to come to some agreement?

Diane Dempster: Well, so, tip number one—and I’m going to say it a little bit differently than you did—the best way to have an agreement be effective is to work on it collaboratively.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: If you go to somebody and say, “This is what I want you to agree to,” you’re going to have a whole different sort of adventure than if you say, “Hey, I want to create an agreement around this. Let’s talk about it.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. Well, and we could go into a whole other thing about negotiation and our job as parents in terms of teaching our kids to negotiate.

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: But let’s play out another conversation, right? Okay, so what’s the context of the agreement? What are the things that would be helpful if a parent brings to this negotiation, to this conversation, in order for the agreement to be effective? Right? 

One of the things I know is—it has to do with, I’m going to call this, the energy that we bring. I think it’s really important that we come without judgment, be really matter-of-fact, and not take it personally. We need to stay calm, simple, and practical about the conversation.

Diane Dempster: Well, and I guess the example there is like—I’m going to use technology, because I know that’s on my mind this week since I’m teaching this class. Parents come in with, like, “I’m having such a hard time getting my son off the computer.” So, we’re going to have a technology agreement. It’s this sort of, “We’re going to agree on what’s right.”

It’s like you’re creating the agreement because you’re trying to solve the problem. But that’s very different than trying to create an agreement to solve a trigger upset. It’s a sort of, “I want to challenge you to solve the upset.” The problem is that you don’t have an effective methodology or system for co-managing technology, as opposed to, “I’m doing this because I don’t want to be upset with you anymore.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, right. So, we’ve got to take off those layers of judgment, taking it personally, and all that stuff. I think the most effective tool we have as parents sometimes is just being matter-of-fact, taking the emotionality out of it.

Diane Dempster: How hard is that, though?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Practical? It is so hard sometimes. But sometimes it's not, I guess it just depends. Because we care, but when we’re holding tightly to needing something to be a certain way...

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It tends to put this energy on it that actually prevents us from getting the very outcomes we want.

Diane Dempster: And so, wait, hang on a second. So, from a context perspective, right? There's this parent-child relationship thing that often creates a dynamic because, "I’m your parent, I want to be in charge, I want to be the boss," and we all do that as parents. It’s part of being a parent. 

What I want to put forward is, if you think about an agreement you would make with a peer—I’m not suggesting your kids are peers—but I think if you start with the context that if Elaine and I were going to make an agreement, and we do this all the time about how we’re going to handle X, Y, and Z, or how we’re going to meet for dinner next week, or whatever it is, we would handle that agreement-setting in a different way than a parent who’s saying, "I’m their parent, you have to follow my rules." It’s like this sort of mutual respect. 

Again, collaboration and mutual respect definitely foster more effective agreements than one-sided, “I’m the boss, this is what we need to do.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right, holding the agenda and taking control.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, collaborative is the name of the game.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Once again, keeping it matter-of-fact, without judgment, not taking it personally, but just accepting it as it is, staying really tactical about it. I think we’ve been talking about negotiation. There’s an opportunity for agreement, and if you’re collaborative, there’s a space for a counteroffer, where you can say, "I’d like this," and the other person might say, "Well, I’d like this." 

That’s how I ended up with a hyphenated last name. It wasn’t like I went in saying it; we just went back and forth until we had an agreement. So, go ahead.

Diane Dempster: No, what I was going to say is, going back to this whole thing that we’re talking about, context—you want to set reasonable expectations.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: And I think that’s a lot of times what happens. We think something’s reasonable, but then the agreement isn’t followed through. And we’re like, "Wait a second, the kid said they would do it, but then they didn’t follow through."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Another lie to me.

Diane Dempster: Another lie to me, or they didn’t care, or there’s a consequence for the reality of it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: It may not be a realistic expectation. They might say, “Okay, yes, when the timer goes off, I will get off my computer,” and they may really want to do that because they know there’s a consequence. But just because they don’t get off doesn’t mean they don’t care—it might mean that getting off on their own independently isn’t a realistic expectation. And so, there are all kinds of factors.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Maybe it requires taking aim at something else.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, exactly.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, part of the message here is that when you’re setting an agreement, you want to assume that, whether it’s an agreement or a system you put in place, whatever that is—we say this all the time about systems—it’s the same for agreements. 

It’s not likely to be perfect the first time. There’s going to be a need to go back and have another conversation, to rinse and repeat, to figure out what worked, what didn’t, and what you want to do differently. And that is reasonable to expect.

Diane Dempster: Well, and here’s what I would say: that is a great negotiation tool.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: If you go into an agreement with a kid and you say, "Okay, let’s try this for a week. On Sunday, let’s review. You can talk about how it’s working for you, I’ll share my perspective on how it’s working for me, and we’ll figure out whether we want to tweak it or adjust it, or whether we want to leave the agreement as it is."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: That is a great tool. It gives them an out and makes them more willing to play with something. If they think it’s hard and fast, you might get more resistance. But if you say, "Okay, let’s try it, let’s play with it," then you can figure out whether it’s working long-term.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Exactly. The other thing I’m going to say, because we’re going to go into the components of an agreement in a second, is there’s one more thing I want to mention from a context perspective. There’s a whole section about this in the book, The Essential Guide. We have to be careful not to disguise a punishment as a consequence. 

When you talk about setting up expectations and agreements, and we’re going to talk about consequences, I want to be clear: the purpose here is to come to an agreement with each other, not to find a way to punish or impose consequences. We’ll come back to that in a minute. Let’s look at the components of an effective agreement.

Diane Dempster: So, the first one is buy-in, right? It’s sort of, you want to make sure that both of you have a commitment to the agreement, at least in concept, right? It’s like, “Okay, yep, I really want to try to make this work, and I’m committed to trying to do that.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And sometimes we’ll have a kid’s buy-in because they have ownership of it and they’re really into it, and they’re committed because they see it as something important. Sometimes we’ll get buy-in through rewards.

Diane Dempster: Or consequences. Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Consequences. I’m really going to focus on the rewards piece here. We’re likely to get buy-in from the reward, right? Sometimes we’ll get it because we’ve helped them find the motivation for it. So buy-in is about their commitment to it, right? It’s them saying yes, for real, not just, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mom,” or, “Yeah, yeah…”

Diane Dempster: Well, and that’s an important piece to distinguish because a lot of times our kids will say yes to something because they’re just trying to get us off their back or they don’t really have our attention, or—

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: They don’t think they have a choice to say anything else.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, that’s true.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right? If they don’t feel like they have the opportunity to counteroffer and negotiate with you, then they’re going to say yes. And then you’re going to get frustrated when they don’t do what they said they were going to do. But they didn’t really say it—you said it. That’s the thing here. So the other piece here, Diane and I were talking about this before we started, is that ownership is one of these interesting things. 

Ownership and buy-in are not the same thing. So, we’ve just been talking about buy-in. Buy-in is when they engage, they agree to it, they’re really committed to it, we find a hook to help them commit to it, we give them a reward, whatever it is—they may or may not own it. 

Ownership is about who’s holding the agenda. If you think about our four phases—those of you who are familiar with our work—we talk about collaboration and support. In the collaborative space, that’s where we’re doing buy-in and sharing ownership. In the support space, we’re really supporting them in something they’re now taking ownership of. 

So, an effective agreement can happen in all of those areas. An effective agreement can happen when you have more of the ownership of the agenda, when it’s a shared agenda, or when it’s their agenda. But the key is that somebody’s got to have the agenda. It doesn’t rely on them to really own it to get their buy-in to actually move forward.

Diane Dempster: Well, and what I would say is that buy-in and motivation look a little bit different if it’s your agenda.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, versus if—

Diane Dempster: If it’s a shared agenda, or if it’s their agenda, because if it’s a shared agenda, then there may be more intrinsic motivation, or built-in motivation in a very different way. If it’s your agenda, you may need to build in more motivation in order to get their buy-in.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. Or in order to either get their buy-in or to get their skill set to the place where they’re engaged in it, their capacity to do it. So one of the things you talk about a lot is that just because they agree, doesn’t mean they have the skills to adhere to the agreement on their own, without some support or structure or something to help them be successful.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. And just because they have the motivation, right? It’s like kids do this all the time. They say, “I’m going to lose my Xbox if I can’t do this. I don’t want to lose my Xbox.” And yet, they aren’t able to get off. Again, it’s not that they don’t want to, it’s not that they’re bought in, it’s not that they’re not motivated, it’s literally that they don’t have the skill. So you’ve got—

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: They don’t know how, right?

Diane Dempster: They don’t know.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And that goes back to the point that you need to take on something else. Now, you’ve got to… So this is where rinse and repeat comes in. Right? Let’s say you have an agreement on getting off the Xbox at a certain time, right? And they’re not doing it. When you rinse and repeat, you kind of figure out what’s working, what’s not. 

And what may not be working is that even though they want to, they’re standing there with one hand on the door and the other on the computer. So we may need to work with them to figure out how to stop being on the computer.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Like, what’s the structure for you to use there? Because sometimes that may be even if they want to, they don’t know how to get themselves—like, let’s take waking up. Just because my kid wanted to wake up in the morning to go to school doesn’t mean that they were going to wake up when that alarm went off.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right? And so we ended up spending months working with all kinds of different alarm systems—one that ran across the room, really loud and obnoxious ones, and all kinds of things to help them get up. But it wasn’t imposing it on them. It was collaboratively working with them to problem-solve around how to help them get up, because they had agreed to get up.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: But it was still hard for them to do that.

Diane Dempster: But just going back to the technology thing on the website, there’s a great tip that you and I did a recording about how to help your kid transition off of technology. So if that’s a problem for you, go look for that.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Good resources. Yeah, the search window on the website is fabulous. You just type in almost anything and you’ll find an article or a tip or a video or something.

Diane Dempster: So.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: What else do we want to hit?

Diane Dempster: The next thing is about accountability and consequences. And when I use the word consequences, it may be a positive reward, it may be a negative impact, depending on how you set it up. 

And it's important to know: is my kid more of a carrot kid or more of a stick kid? And making sure— I tend to be more focused on carrots and sticks because I really think they do work better.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: When the research is right behind you.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, and absolutely. And I think that the important piece about it is that you're creating the accountability collaboratively. You're not just saying, “This should be the consequence.” 

You might even say, “Well, what are three things that we could do that might be a motivation for you to get off on time or to get up in the morning?” So if you're coming up together with ideas for rewards, for consequences, those sorts of things...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: What will happen if it does? What will happen if it doesn't? One of my favorite parenting questions of all time is, “How do you want me to handle it when...?”

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: How do you want me to handle it when you asked me to wake you up, and I come to wake you up, and you yell at me? Like, because that doesn’t feel good for me? What do you want me to do?

Diane Dempster: I know you want to get up at 7 o'clock. How should I handle it if it's 7:20, and you're still in bed?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And you're still in bed.

Diane Dempster: Right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. So what we're talking about here, and I remember this conversation you and I had probably 8-10 years ago about this notion of it's not enough to have an agreement. The agreement has to be clearly communicated and agreed to by both sides.

Diane Dempster: Well, yeah, waking up is a great example. Right? So what does “awake” mean? Does it mean... does it mean feet on the floor? Does it mean eyes open? Does it mean straight? I mean, I think about myself this morning. 

I had one of those mornings where I kind of laid in bed longer than I might have wanted to, but it was like this sort of, I was awake. But was I really at a point where I was like ready to get moving into my day? No.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, I have a one of my kids, a young adult who was living with us recently. And literally just what you just said, she said, before you go into your whatever meeting, I have to be out of here at 7:30. 

Would you please make sure not that I’m just awake, but that my feet are on the floor? Would you check in with me? And that wasn’t just saying you’ve got to get up at 7:30? That was her being really clear with me about what it looks like for her to really...

Diane Dempster: Be awake, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: Well, and the same thing with cleaning a room is that I think that's where that conversation was about clear agreements. What does a clean room really look like?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: Yes. It’s your expectation regarding a clean room, because nothing's worse than a kid thinking they've spent three hours cleaning the room, and mom comes in and says, you didn’t do this.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: They didn’t do this.

Diane Dempster: They didn’t do this. Yeah, so you didn’t reach the agreement. So you don’t get your cookie, whatever.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So you want to be really clear and make sure everybody agrees, and we’re on the same page. We know what it is, and we know it’s going to happen and how we’re going to handle it when, and we have a time set to rinse and repeat, to kind of debrief and say what’s working, what’s not, how do we want to tweak this? 

I want to go back to that issue I brought up earlier about punishments versus consequences and making sure that what we’re doing here is setting them up for success and not just looking for excuses to find a punishment. Right?

Diane Dempster: Well, so hang on a second. And I kind of want you to explain that more. But before you do, I want to put a plug back in for the difference between a punishment and a consequence. Right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or, a punishment is a penalty?

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right? A punishment is you didn’t do it, or it’s for doing something wrong, or for making a mistake. And what we’ve learned in our community with complex kids is punishments aren’t very effective, because they don’t learn from it. But with consequences, you can bring them through the process of problem-solving. 

And really everything we’re talking about right now is a process of problem-solving. How do we want to address this issue to be successful, to set ourselves up for success with it? And so to do that, we want to look at it in terms of natural consequences whenever possible. The beautiful thing is, as your kids become teenagers, is the world starts imposing natural consequences. You don’t have to because the world is going to do it there.

Diane Dempster: Natural consequences don’t always work in terms of changing behavior. A kind of natural consequence might help with creating some motivation, but if your kid doesn’t have the skills…

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: It doesn’t matter whether, It’s sort of, well, I’ll just let them flunk out of math, and they’ll figure it out. Well, that might not really be true.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You can do that, but what if you actually worked with them to help them figure out what they needed to be successful in that.

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: At the end of the day, what we’re really talking about is setting our kids up for success.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And giving them the tools and the skills and having the kinds of conversations that empower them to take ownership, buy-in, follow through on agreements, and be successful with it. It's about giving them a sense of ownership, agency, control, and capacity for themselves.

Diane Dempster: Well, so let’s wrap it up by talking about what to do when agreements don’t work. And it really kind of takes us back.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I think we should just give up and walk away.

Diane Dempster: It comes back to those components, right? It’s just sort of, well, and remind you, rinse and repeat, right? Don’t say, well, I tried it, and it didn’t work. It’s a sort of challenge to go back and say, okay, so what did work? What didn’t work? 

Go back and look, did I really have buy-in? Was there motivation in place? What if it wasn’t a realistic expectation? And one thing about realistic expectations—just because they’ve done it once doesn’t mean they can do it all the time. Right? And that’s the cornerstone of these kids, particularly kids with ADHD. Some days, they can do it really well, and other days, they just literally can’t.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. And as you always say, until they’ve hit it about 80% of the time, they probably haven’t acquired it yet.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And so we can expect them to kind of be up and down in some of these areas. So when an agreement doesn’t work, rinse and repeat without judgment, right?

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Matter of factly, without taking it personally, without coming in and saying, "Well, that didn’t work, so now you’re getting punished."

Diane Dempster: Shame on you, right? It’s the feeling of curiosity. "Well, that’s really interesting. We had an agreement, and it didn’t work." That feels very different than, "You said you were gonna do this, and you didn’t, so now you get punished."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, if you start with rinse and repeat, right? With the three magic questions: What part of this did work? We always want to start with the positive. What part did work? Because something worked, even if it was just that we talked with each other and created an agreement. Well, that part worked. So then you can look at what parts didn’t work. What made it difficult for you, for me, or for us, instead of "Why didn’t you?"

Diane Dempster: Okay, and then the third one is, what do we want to tweak? What do we want to play with next? What’s the next generation of this? And part of rinse and repeat is setting up for the next rinse and repeat, which is: How do we want to check back in and see how it’s going? 

You always want to kick it forward and make a commitment to checking in again, because that’s part of what makes this successful—giving the opportunity to say, "This isn’t working for me the way I want it to," or "This is awesome! Let’s keep it going."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yes to everything you just said. And what came up as I was listening was also this notion of, if you go back to our model, we take aim on one thing, and we keep working on it for a while. We rinse and repeat, we tweak it, and we do it again and again. And sometimes it takes us to a point where it's like, okay, there's a different issue to take aim on now. 

So, we thought the problem was getting up, but now we realize the problem is going to sleep at night, or we realize the problem is staying up late because you're worried about your friends. And then we have something different to focus on. So sometimes we allow the process to let us shift focus to something else. That's where collaborative problem-solving really gets its juice.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. And that's the thing... Wait, so hang on a second.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: What we're really trying to do is teach our kids life skills.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: Yes, we're trying to get our kids off the computer, out the door in the morning, and handle all the other things. But what you're doing is setting your kids up to learn how to navigate agreements in life, how to ask for what they want, how to negotiate, and all those other life skills that are important in family dynamics.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That’s right.

Diane Dempster: So when...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, this is setting them up not just for the day-to-day stuff, but for them to ask for a raise from their boss 30 years from now. So here we go.

Diane Dempster: Awesome.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Alright, everybody, let's wrap this one up. That was great.

Diane Dempster: Great conversation. Thank you so much for being with us. As always, thanks for what you do for yourself and for your kids. At the end of the day, you make all the difference.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Take care, everybody.