I remember one Saturday morning. I took one of my daughters out for a little date Trying to squeeze it in nothing fancy. I had about 45 minutes She was probably seven or eight and we were just gonna grab some ice cream go for a little walk and Picked her up loaded her up zipped over to the ice cream parlor

Parked a truck in the front row, jumped out, and just instinctively started walking ahead to the ice cream shop. Made it up the curb, grabbed the door, and looked left and looked right and my daughter wasn't next to me. I thought, what? I turned around, there she was, still sitting in the passenger seat, unbuckled, just smiling at me.

She wasn't being difficult. She wasn't doing anything wrong. She was actually waiting. She wasn't being difficult. She wasn't doing anything wrong. She was waiting. She was waiting for me to come open her door.

And didn't have to say a word. She was smiling, grinning ear to ear. And in that moment, dads, she was training me. That's the thing about raising both boys and girls under the same roof. I think you're constantly being trained too. As a dad, you're teaching, but you're also being taught. And if you're paying attention,

You'll probably get better and better with each lesson. Welcome back to the Smart Dad podcast. I am a father of 15 kids, 10 daughters and five sons. And today we're closing out our mini series on raising kids. Today we're talking about what it's like raising boys and girls together.

So we talked about girls in the first episode. we, excuse me, we talked about raising boys. We talked about raising girls. And today we'll talk about what happens when you have them under the same roof. So in my case, there were at times young kids, old kids, girl, boy, girl, boy, sisters.

paired together brothers paired together and so i've had every combination it seems like and now i've got six girls at home and one boy so when you raise kids in a mixed sex household it's it's kind of like mixing having to run a coed locker room but also run

Fine dining and in casual dining restaurant and running a mission base for your military operations While also managing sleepover parties, and that's pretty much every day so It can be overwhelming, but if you get systems right remember system is s-y-s-t-e-m To me that spells save yourself time energy money if you get your systems, right?

and you get your relationships strong, it can be one of the most rewarding things in life. So today I want to talk about what's worked, what hasn't worked, and what I've learned. So first I want to talk about the things that have worked. Whenever I can, I try to create memorable mnemonics, memorization things, systems, and

kind of easy to understand belief systems. So I had girl, boy, girl, boy, and I realized that I had to train my firstborn, my firstborn boy how to treat his older sister, younger sister. Okay, he's five, six, seven, eight, nine years old. He's the big brother with a one a year older and one, two years younger. And then,

I kept this process going brother after brother after brother. It's pretty simple. I call it the five S's. Respect your sister's five S's. And it's simple. They're alphabetized. They all start with S. Again, this is how I roll. The first one is savior. That's S-A. The second one is self. That's S-E. The third one is space. That's S-P-A.

The fourth one is speech, that's S-P-E. And the fifth one is stuff, that's S-T. So I tell them respect your sister's savior. That means I want you to see your sister and think God loves her. God.

calls me to love her. Jesus wants me to do for her and love on her in a way that honors Him. It honors her walk with Him. Pray with her, pray for her. Encourage her in her purity. Encourage her in her strength. Encourage her in her purpose.

be a strong savior pointing person in her life. respect her savior in all you do. Kind of like WWJD, what would Jesus do? That's kind of how that starts. And then self, herself, that's her physical body. Respect her physical body. You don't hit your sisters.

You don't harass your sisters and annoy your sisters. don't touch her, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, her, touch her without permission. Touch her head, touch her ear, her elbows. Okay. Your body is strong as a young boy. It's going to get stronger. It's going to be in arguably stronger than hers. So you learn now to use it to protect her, not to provoke her.

The next S to respect is her space. Look, a sister gets her own space. Sometimes it's a permanent space like her bedroom. Maybe she has her own bathroom.

Sometimes it's a time of the day she gets her own space. It's temporary. Sometimes she gets to sit in a chair and be by herself and be the princess of that chair. Maybe she wants 10 minutes alone in a car and you need to just give her some space. Dad, how great is that for a boy to learn? Sometimes a female just needs her own space.

We have to respect that space. don't walk into her room unannounced. You don't invade her space. If you're too close to her, you back off if she tells you to back off. And that goes to our next S, which is speech. Men have to learn it as boys. Respect her speech. I tell my girls if I'm tickling them and they say, no daddy stop, then I stop because I want to train them.

that their speech is to train boys. Boys, brothers, your sisters, no means no. That's for you and anyone you see interacting with her. If you interrupt her, talk over her, be dismissive to her, mock her, that's not gonna fly here. You need to listen to how girls speak, learn to hear what they're saying, what they're not saying. What they don't say tells you sometimes more than what they do say.

And often you need to listen to their speech to know how they feel. Not just the words they use, but how they use them.

And the last S is stuff. Stay out of her stuff. Stay out of her purse, stay out of her closet, stay out of her journals, stay out of her stuff. Girls have things you don't wanna see, you don't wanna know about, just respect her privacy, her purse and a little bag that she opens certain times of the month and she, don't worry about that. And...

However long she wants to be getting ready with her makeup, don't worry about that. That's her stuff. So I didn't always get this right. You know, I was a camp counselor when I was very young and I helped some boys raid a girl's cabin and we tossed all their stuff in the middle of the room and...

The camp leader got on me and said, don't have any sisters. You don't know how violated they felt to have boys in their room and dumping their suitcases out. We thought it was funny. I was a leader, terrible leader, but I understood at 20 years old or however old I was that girls are so different than boys even with their stuff. So now,

When I'm thinking about raising boys, want to raise them to be protectors of their sisters and their wives and their daughters, savior, right? And self and space and speech and stuff.

I want to see my girls and really all girls feel safer, feel freer, feel more confident everywhere they go. Another thing that I want to point out is this seems to be true in the world. I was at church and we have a new building and there's lots of children who go to church and they're elementary school, preschool, newborns.

and it's full of wonderful caregivers and they're all females and there's one huge security guard. He's a police officer. Everyone knows him, but he's there to protect all five of those S's for all the little boys and girls and that's doing it right.

We don't want boys to be predators. We don't want men to be predators. We want them to be protectors. Use your strength to fend off anyone who doesn't respect your sister's savior, self, space, speech, or stuff.

Another thing that I picked up along the way, this actually came from being in the tutoring world and I spent a lot of time at kitchen tables and I saw how families ran their homes. I only had one brother, same sex.

Two boys in the house. We didn't have a whole lot of sleepovers. I guess because we were dudes or whatever. Maybe because I went to bed till I was 12 and we tried to fix it and couldn't. I don't know. But we didn't have to deal with sisters and we didn't have, I don't think, any sleepovers. So I didn't have any idea how to do this as a dad. So I watched in my tutoring space. How do these families successfully navigate?

Here's a simple and powerful system that we lived by. Your girls are seven, five, 10, 13. I don't really care their age, but if they're gonna have girls over one or many, the boys in my house had to leave. They have to go spend the night at grandma's house, spend the night at your cousin's house, wherever. So.

If the boys wanted to have some guys over, now the guys rarely ever spent the night, but if they did, guess what? We had to find a way for the girls to leave. Now, not the newbies, not the babies that slept in our rooms, but we had a rule. It wasn't complicated, but it also wasn't convenient. And it really kept things clean in terms of how we're gonna do this.

Everyone in the family learned that you might want something to happen, but you're going to defer to the plan Maybe you need a plan ahead you need to think ahead you need to think beyond yourselves and When I told other families hey if your daughters want to come over and give us a couple days notice or a week or whatever and

We need to find a place for my boys to go. They say, what do you mean? I say, well, I don't have any siblings over, you know, the opposite sex, just protecting and trying to overthink the situation.

You know what that did? Some families didn't like it. That's too annoying. That's too much work. So they faded out of our rotation. They weren't out of our friend group, but there was no overnight. And this isn't fear driven. One, it's reality driven. Two, it's responsibility driven. When you live in a mixed sex home, you teach kids to respect boundaries by having boundaries. Another

Interesting thing that I've learned and I've taught and I'm in Texas. So you may think this is nuts where you live but My boys as early as two years old are trained to open doors to hold doors to let everyone else go first Especially the ladies and to speak with respect. It's yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma'am No, ma'am. It's please and thank you

And they do this because their sisters are strong and respected. Not because they think their sisters are weak. They do it to show, I respect you. And my girls, just like I told you about my little ones sitting in the truck, I've taught them so well, they don't just accept it, they expect it. And it's not from a sense of entitlement, it's a sense of worth. In other words,

You thinking that I should open my door and shut my door and run in the rain or run in the heat Or try to walk through a parking lot How about you come be a gentleman open my door hold my hand help me get out down out of the truck Shut the door for me and walk with me across the parking lot These little things are caught not taught and I tell you what

This comes out in the simplest moment just like I tell you my daughter was sitting in that truck waiting for me to do the thing I've trained her to wait for me to do and I forgot because I was in my head trying to get in and out of the date 45 minutes She delighted in being cherished she grinned ear to ear and it's ironic and all those moments that I was training her right in that moment I kind of slipped up she was training me

Another thing is, I've got one son and a lot of girls under my roof right now. The girls love to play, pretend, they tell stories, they color, they draw, they have great imaginations, as does my son. And you know what they all do? They all love to be outside. They catch bugs, they pick up worms, they identify all the...

Flora and fauna around us. I don't know if I told you what we we rescued a turtle It was in the middle of the road. We brought it back. We fed it for a couple weeks We just released it into an area where we saw other big turtles who survived There was a squirrel that fell into our back area. couldn't escape Right we fed the turtle

release the turtle. We fed the squirrel, released the squirrel. Our dogs, one is really old, it's pretty chill. The young guy, he's all over the place. But the kids, they see this rhythm and they say, you know what, it's okay to have some chaos. It's okay to have some critters. It's okay to have some chores. Now, in our house, we don't call them chores, we call them contributions.

and contributions are your role that you take because you don't have to make money.

like dad does or maybe in your house mom and dad do. And you don't have to carry a child or nurse a child or put every child to bed like mom does. And dad puts kids to bed, gives them bath. You do your contribution. Maybe it's feeding the dogs, filling up the water, giving the squirrel the squirrel's nuts, giving the turtle the pellets. All those things they teach these kids responsibility in life. So what happens when things don't work?

Well, I have always been high energy. I've always enjoyed bringing structure, but I haven't always stopped to smell the roses. I haven't always had sweetness. I I was way too harsh. So intense with my younger, younger years, my oldest girls.

Especially felt the brunt of it. I mean I had this sweet firstborn female then I had this boy just a monster just because he he shows up and he's Terrorizing the household not because he's bad, but he's a boy then another girl and now this big boy is Standing over this little baby. don't step on her. Don't fall on her. Don't pick her up Don't drop her all these things and the more Kids I had the more stressed I was and I didn't really have a lot of tools in my tool belt

I grew up in a house where people yelled. I grew up in a house where people spanked. So guess what you do? You do what your parents did. I yelled, I spanked. I'm not proud of that.

I reading books, was studying and I didn't even notice how intensely amped and ramped and jacked up I was in terms of just pushing things to the red line. And you know my first born boy, again being a boy, he just constantly mixed it up. He's a couple years older than this one, he's three years older than that one, and he's loud and he's stronger and he's bigger and I'm trying to keep him in order by being, and being sweet to my girls and then I've got a baby boy after that. And it was a lot.

of stress dads and I can tell you what your kids may not give you a break they may hate you for the rest of your life because you messed up but you know what you have to say to yourself was I doing the best that I could I know I was and if they can't forgive you they can't give you a break that's their choice you have to give yourself a break let them have their path and you begin

to heal yourself where you can heal and you do what you can do. You know, my four oldest daughters were all born in, I don't know, under nine years. Three of them are not reconciled to me right now. They're grown. All right. One's in New York, one's in Scotland, one's in Colorado, one's here in Texas. They're building their lives. They're building their careers. They're building relationships. One's married, one's in a serious relationship.

One is not, one's not focused on that. They're all working on themselves and you know what, I'm proud of them and it's difficult for some of them to talk to me right now and you know what, I got a lot to do. I got eight kids to focus on.

Seven daughters and one son. Plenty to do. I raise them to be independent. Of course I would love for them to call me and hang out with me and come see us, but they're choosing not to do that right now. So I don't leverage money over them. I don't manipulate them. I'm just waiting. I'm loving and waiting. And if and when they're ready, I'll be here. So dads, your girls might need space. My sons, I want them to be independent and on their own. I don't expect them to call me every day, every week, every month.

Want my young men to never need me but want a relationship with me They still need a dad and that's that's a gift if they invite me into their lives And you know I can tell you When the kids were younger thinking it back to that intensity

I was focused on fixing things. If you ever felt that way, you're like, things are just out of control. Kids are crying. Kids are talking. You walk through a room. You walk back five minutes later, and it's a train wreck everywhere. Well, that doesn't make me very approachable because I'm so amped up. So my daughters didn't always want to talk to me. Sometimes they did. And when they did, I tried my best to listen. Sometimes they talked to their moms. Sometimes they talked to each other. Sometimes they talked to their friends.

But when your daughters come to you dads, try to lock in, try to listen, try to make eye contact. You might not be the easiest dad to talk to, just like I wasn't.

But if you just send out the vibes, be a safe place. Hey man, you can tell your dad anything. They're gonna test you. Over the years, I think I've gotten better at asking, waiting, listening, instead of just reacting. So girls need that, boys need to see us doing that. And you know what's interesting is, I've learned that with 15 kids,

with 10 daughters and 5 sons, treating them differently, boys versus girls, doesn't mean I'm being unfair. May not be a newsflash to you, but boys and girls are wired differently, right? That may be common sense. Growing up, I knew that. Well, your home can reflect that. You can have tasks.

for boys that aren't for girls. I just talked to a friend today. She's never mowed her yard. She told her husband that. He said, wait, what? She said, I'm a girl. My mom was a single mom and we paid people to do that. Even if we didn't have the money, we're not doing it. And then their home, girls didn't cut the grass. They didn't do the manual labor. Some homes, girls cook.

Some homes guys cook, some homes girls do laundry, some homes guys do laundry. You figure out your systems, you figure out your rhythms. Do you iron your own clothes? Sometimes I can't believe people put things in my closet that are as dirty as they are with dog hair or wrinkles. thinking, I'm not going to be able to wear this. So either I do it myself or I train them better or I pay somebody to do it. So

However you're raising kids, need to help them understand, I'm training you, I'm raising you to be a young man, to be a husband, to be a father. Daughters, I'm training you to be a young woman, to be a wife, to be a daughter. So whatever you're doing,

Go down that path. Systems are going to create safety. If your daughters know the five S's, they can know what to expect from their boyfriends, from people they work with at work, from their husbands. Overnight rule, they'll eventually understand why that's there. But guess what? You don't have to explain to a five or seven or nine year old why that's there. That's how we do it. You want a friend over? We have to work all these logistics out. How about training young men to treat young women?

with chivalry. This is building your culture. If that's what you want, pick what you want. For me, those were important. They're a form of shared language. So when someone sees me tip my cap, take my hat off to somebody, stand up when a lady sits down at the table, whatever it is, they're catching on. okay, this is how Derek is wired. Remember.

Your values are caught, not taught. You're constantly modeling behavior. In case you didn't know it, if you cuss, your kids will cuss. If you praise people and give them sincere compliments, your kids will praise people and give them some sincere compliments. If you're a negative Nellie and you're, this politics, this weather, this government, this money, this God, this boss, and all you do is complain.

Your kids are going to find things to complain about. If you open doors for your daughters, guess what your sons are going to do. If you respect privacy, hey, knock on the door. Hey, don't shut your door unless you need to. And as soon as you're done, open your door. Hey, how are you feeling? If your sons see you talk and have these conversations, they're going to pick up on it, guys. And what I've been working on listening is going to trump fixing. I'm a fixer.

I just am. Listening is harder. When you have a house with mixed sex kids in it, boys, you may want to say, ABC123, bam, bam, bam. And they go, awesome, thanks, bye. Girls, you might need to say, you know, I'm thinking, maybe, and then could you consider this? That's not always true.

Sometimes guys don't like straight answers. Sometimes girls are ABC one two three You can work Their communication style out and you can figure that out. But remember everybody's different boys tend to fall one direction girls tend to fall another Watch them learn from them and then finally wait with grace. I have not done it with grace. Sometimes I get impatient

and I don't send the nicest texts. Like, why are you not responding to me? Why are you ghosting me? Okay, that's not a good thing for a dad to send an adult. I've done it, not proud. Sometimes your kids will drift. Sometimes they'll shut down. Sometimes you don't know why they're going through it and have nothing to do with you. Dads, don't chase them. Don't guilt them. Just be someone worth coming back to.

So I was sitting at my dinner table the other night and I just heard this cacophony of voices and kicking, kicking, tapping, clacker, clack, clack, plates and glasses. And I looked around and I had nine people having a dinner with me and some were laughing, some were talking and it was overwhelming. But I smiled and said, you know, this is pretty awesome. Look how different everybody is. And that's what I want you to.

Think about what do you have? Celebrate what you have. was just watching Independence Day the movie from the 1990s. Will Smith saves us from the aliens and I gotta tell you there's a scene in there where the Jewish father tells the son, sometimes you gotta focus on what you've got, not on what you lost. I'm kind of paraphrasing but.

That's what you have right now. You've got girls and you've got boys. Focus on that. It's hard. It's extra work. Can't run around naked or in your underwear or whatever you could do in an all-guy or an all-girl house. But it's beautiful. You get to get this rich, raw perspective of how people can live together, serve each other, support each other, sharpen each other. Dads, if you're in this boat,

of raising kids of both sexes. Build systems, build boundaries. Get some spaces for each. And don't forget the basics. Open your daughter's door. Open your wife's door. Hold her hand, but hold her heart. And your sons, they're watching you. Your kids are training you, and you, you're training them. So, you can do it.

I need you to be thinking, need you to be planning and try little by little what's going to work in your house. A lot of failure on my part. Hopefully it's been beneficial to you. A lot of things work. You try them and let me know. Thanks for listening to the Smart Dad podcast. I'll see you next time. Go out today and be a smart dad. You can do this.