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Amy Julia (00:07)
I’m Amy Julia Becker and this is Take the Next Step, a podcast for families experiencing disability. We have teamed up with our friends at Hope Heals to bring you weekly conversations with fellow parents, therapists, and disability advocates about practical ways to cultivate a thriving future for the whole family. Here at Take the Next Step, we see your family as a gift to our society and to your local community. Your family matters, your child matters.
We need you among us. Today I’m talking with Sissy Goff about what it actually looks like to delight in our children. Sissy is the executive director of Daystar Counseling Ministries in Nashville, Tennessee. And since 1993, she has been helping girls and their parents find confidence in who they are and hope in who God is making them to be. So we are excited to talk to her today and ask questions like, how do we express our delight in our children?
What gets in the way of delight? How do we make space for hardship and loss? Sissy brings so much wisdom and practical steps for all of us parents to consider and think about how we can express delight in our kids every day. Sissy is a frequent guest on media outlets, including NBC News, CNN, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, Christianity Today, and Here She Is on Take the Next Step.
She’s also a bestselling author of 14 books, co-host of the 11 million plus downloaded podcast, Raising Boys and Girls. So we are thrilled that she is here to share some wisdom with us. Before I get to that interview, one last note, we are collecting questions for an upcoming question and response episode, and we would love to hear from you. Go to the show notes, click the link, record your question, and we will answer as many as we can.
I am thrilled to be here today with Sissy Goff. Sissy, thank you so much for just taking the time to talk with me. I know you are talking to parents and children and families all the time who are coming out of all sorts of situations, but I’m excited to have you here today to just offer some guidance for families who have been affected by disability in all sorts of different ways. So thank you for being here.
Sissy (02:25)
I’m so honored. You know I’d do anything that you ask me to do. I’m happy to be on your team for anything I can be. So really excited you’re doing this in this space. I think it’s an amazing work.
Amy Julia (02:34)
Well, thank you. Well, as we were chatting ahead of time and I was mentioning to you this project that we’re working on called Reimagining Family Life with Disability and that there are really kind of three pillars to that. Start with delight, connect to community, take the next step towards a good future. I’m sure you could give us ⁓ plenty of wisdom on all three of those, but I really wanted to hone in on the idea of delight because a couple of years ago I read a book and it was ⁓ written by a couple who are both therapists and they said, you know,
Something that children cannot ever have too much of is delight. Like you can have too strong boundaries. You can have too much ⁓ unstructured freedom from your parents, but you can’t have too much delight. So I wanted to ask you if you could just speak to the idea, like what is delight and why does it matter so much?
Sissy (03:21)
Love that you’re using that word in this. And we haven’t even talked about this, but one of my first books, I don’t know how many years ago, was called Raising Girls. And I have a whole chapter on delight. Isn’t that fun?
Amy Julia (03:32)
that’s all.
Which I read at some point.
Sissy (03:36)
Well, it doesn’t matter about that, but I just love that word when I think about kids, because I think one of the things I talk about is when we delight in kids, they believe they’re delightful. And I think the concept of delight feels really simple to me because I think it’s just engaging in a moment that we slow down. And I would say engaging from a place of enjoyment that calls out who they are.
Amy Julia (04:06)
Hmm.
Sissy (04:07)
So getting on the floor and playing with them, mean, whatever it is we’re doing, I don’t think it matters what we do. I think it’s more our posture of putting away our devices, looking them eyeball to eyeball, not having an agenda, which I know you’re an integrated one with me, and we can get so agenda driven. And I think especially in this world where there’s so much that’s tugging on us for our time.
just to have those significant moments. And it can be moments where we’re looking at them and we’re smiling and we’re engaged in a way that they truly feel like we delight in them, that we like who they are.
Amy Julia (04:45)
Can you give an example of just how we might express delight in our children? You’ve said a little bit of this, put away devices, get down on the floor, smile. Those are all very practical. But I’m thinking about, ⁓ yeah, do you have any other examples or stories that might just give us a picture of delight?
Sissy (05:04)
This
is such a silly story, but the first thing that came to my mind, a long time ago, I thought it would be really interesting to talk to kids of all ages about if they felt liked by their parents. Yeah. And so I asked all these different kids and a lot of younger ones said, yes, you can maybe imagine what happens. A lot of adolescents said no. And there was one who said, I feel like my mom really likes me. And I said, tell me when have you felt that lately? And she said,
We were standing in the grocery store, a distance from each other on the same aisle. And we were both looking at something. And she said, some song came on that my mom and I both love. And I looked over and she started dancing and I was kind of dancing and we started dancing towards each other in the grocery store. Ow. Again, so silly. If you plan to do that with an adolescent, they would say no way and run. But it was this spontaneous, again, sweet moment of enjoyment that
is intentional, but it’s not planned intentional. It’s spontaneously intentional in that I’m going to look for places and ways I can connect and remind them that I enjoy them, that I like who they are in the world.
Amy Julia (06:16)
I love that and I love that story and especially that we’ve actually inadvertently talked about little ones as well as adolescents because that need, I mean, as a 48 year old, I need to know that people delight. Yes.
So what gets in the way of it? What gets in, especially for parents, like what prevents us from either experiencing or expressing delight in our kids?
Sissy (06:41)
I think I would answer and say two primary things. One is agenda. And that can be schedules, that can be what we think needs to be happening for that child in particular, the milestones they need to be reaching, all the things that we’re worried about that we’re not moving towards. I would say ⁓ agenda and anxiety. one of the things I read in some research was that anxiety in kids is often linked to a lack of parental warmth.
Amy Julia (07:10)
Hmm.
Sissy (07:11)
Which that’s not to say if you have an anxious child, it’s because you’re not a warm parent. But I think when we’re anxious, we lose that sense of warmth. And when we’re there, we cannot delight because anxiety is in the past and the future, not in the present moment. And so we have to be present to delight in anyone. And so I think we’ve got to have some ways that we’re doing our own self care to deal with our own worry and anxiety so that we can be fully present in delight in kids.
Amy Julia (07:40)
I love that and I am so struck as the parent of a child with a disability by both those words, agenda and anxiety. Because I certainly, especially when my daughter Penny was young, she’s almost 20 years old now, so some of this has abated. But when she was young, I felt like it wasn’t just that I had an agenda, but actually that I was being told I better have an agenda for her so she won’t be even more quote unquote behind. So she won’t be.
quote unquote, not achieving milestones, right? So was like an agenda that made me also all the more anxious because that was not what was happening. Like she was not developing in the way that I was ⁓ being told she should. And I know so many parents end up with this ⁓ implicit or explicit message that they’re supposed to focus on the ways their child is not achieving, on the deficit. ⁓ And when we, well, I’m curious, actually, if you could speak to a minute, if we are focused on our children’s deficits,
⁓ How does that actually affect the ability to delight?
Sissy (08:45)
⁓ I love even that you asked that question and that that is so easy to do. And there’s that psychological term of confirmation bias that we find what we’re looking for. And I think when we are focused on those deficits, sometimes the deficits are all we see rather than focusing on strengths. And so I think I would encourage any parents who are listening to be doing your own work, not just with anxiety, but with journaling.
and taking some moments to reflect as, of course, there are professionals that are pointing you towards how they need to be moving forward. So how can I think about that and the deficits? But also, I want to take some time each week to think of three places they’ve grown, three strengths I’m seeing in them right now. And I want to pay more attention to those than I am the deficits, because I think it does. It just shifts our focus and impacts our relationship with them.
really significantly. And I would counter and say as a therapist, I think there is so much of delight and relationship and connection to use two of your words that I think really helps kids move forward in their development in all ways.
Amy Julia (09:57)
Yeah. Well, and that’s where I also, one of the things that we were ⁓ taught early on actually at a conference was this idea of responsive parenting within the disability space of actually exactly what you just said, pay attention to your child’s, he called them strengths and I think that’s a good way to say it, or just the places where they find delight because that’s actually where they both want to be and you as a parent will enjoy being with them.
And that will begin a cycle of mutually reinforcing delight, which actually is positive for both of you. And guess what? Those things that are being called deficits will actually come along. For us, it was reading with Penny. She’s just always loved books. so, know, flipping the pages of a book is a fine motor skill, but we paying attention to fine motor skills or to deficits.
we were just paying attention to something she enjoyed and we enjoyed together, which was reading this book and the same, you you’re doing speech therapy when you’re talking ⁓ to each other and trying to memorize. How much that I wasn’t thinking about any of that until later on. And so I do think, and I have friends who their kids never wanted to read books. They wanted to run around and it’s like, okay, yes, pay attention to what your kid actually wants to be doing to take delight in that. And then to.
Sissy (10:59)
and social skills development.
Amy Julia (11:17)
allow to kind of trust, I guess that the way they are developing will actually ⁓ be all the more delightful for you and for them and still happen when you’re paying attention to who they kind of already are and who they’re.
Sissy (11:31)
Yes, yes, your relationship will be richer, all the things. Yeah, love.
Amy Julia (11:36)
Yeah, it seems to me that sometimes I think of I’m either going to like kind of lazily delight in my child or I’m going to be a like more responsible parent who makes sure I’m paying attention to all the ways they are not doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Which when I say it out loud, it sounds terrible. you know, even with my typical kids, I’m aware of like, oh, you didn’t do your math today. And it’s coming out of a place of wanting what is good for them. And yet I think it often
what I’m expressing to them is you’re not good enough.
Sissy (12:09)
Right, exactly, when we’re paying more attention to that. Yeah, I think it could even be great to ask yourself once a day, when’s the time I’ve delighted in them? I mean, that that just starts to be something, kind of a script in your head of thinking about over and over.
Amy Julia (12:25)
I wonder how much it also has to do with us. How much does our own understanding of being delightful ⁓ lead us to know how to delight in our children?
Sissy (12:37)
⁓
that’s such a good question. I think really significantly, because I think when we don’t feel a sense of delight in our own lives, I just think we’re locked down in that we’re doing the next thing. And there’s not that sense of joy, the warmth, the connection, communicating what that looks like. And so I think it’s going to spill over into the kids that we love without us ever intending for it to.
Amy Julia (13:04)
Is there anything that parents can do to, ⁓ I guess, have our own identity that is ⁓ connected to a sense of delight?
Sissy (13:16)
I mean, I would probably go back to the ideas of self care and I met with a couple who they have ⁓ five girls, one of whom is on the spectrum and, and we were talking about just all of their kids and they said, we’re, feel like we’re going under. We’re just really struggling. And I said, I want you to go for a walk once a day.
for 10 minutes. I don’t care how long it is. I don’t care if you have to hire a babysitter to come be at your house for those 10 minutes, but you’re going to have more to give out of that experience of taking time away for a few moments rather than being there all the time and being frustrated, which I think is what you’re doing. You’re living out of a place of ⁓ deficit rather than your own deficit, rather than an overflow of what you’re receiving. That idea of when we don’t have any margin.
We just don’t have much to give.
Amy Julia (14:14)
I read a book, the name of which is Escaping Me, and it was like a productivity book or something, but at the end of it, he was talking about how in his family, four kids, one of them was experiencing like a ⁓ really unexpected seizures and medical situation that they did not have the answers for. And he said, know, the instinct as a parent is to double down on research.
and to stay up all night making sure that we have every expert involved and just to go for it as far as information and expertise. And he said that was exactly the wrong thing for us to do. What we needed to do is say, we’re going to get some experts involved. We don’t know the answers. The best thing we can do is enjoy our family, take care of ourselves. We don’t know when this road is ending.
Like this may be forever, this may be a limited period of time, but we don’t know. So get some sleep, get some, you know, and obviously it is so hard when you’re in the midst of some of those really scary, hard situations to be like, ⁓ let’s enjoy. Let’s do that instead. Let’s take a walk. Let’s play the piano. Let’s, you know, ⁓ and yet I also am so struck with by what you are saying and by what you said, just that, you know, that is a way for us
to even communicate to our children instead of crisis and fear to communicate a sense of we don’t know all the answers, but right here, I am here, you are here, and I love you, and I delight in who you are.
Sissy (15:48)
Here we go. And I mean, emotionally, when we’re thinking about that for kids, they take their cues from us. And so if we are in the midst of the swirl with them, then they’re going to think, ⁓ things really are bad. This is really hard and scary. Rather than if I’m centered and OK, even if you feel fearful, they’re going to look to me and say, I’m OK because my mom’s OK.
Amy Julia (16:11)
Well, so the other thing I’m thinking about here, we’ve been talking about delight, is that in any family, and this is often particularly true if you’re in a family experiencing disability, there is still hardship, there is still pain, there is still, you know, just all the normal human experiences of anger and fear and frustration with your kids and with yourself and all those things. And I don’t want this to be a message of toxic positivity or of pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just paste a smile on your face.
And so I’m curious, like what place there is for hardship and loss in the midst of delighting in our children. What place is there for expressing that things are not going the way you want them to, whether that’s, you know, maybe expressing them with your child, it may not. ⁓ But it seems to me that we need to make space for the reality of hardship and loss while also communicating how much we delight in our children. And I’m curious if you have any advice for how to go about that.
Sissy (17:12)
Being honest, I mean, that feels like the crux of it to me. And I would say we are living in a world, you’re right, that it is either toxic positivity or ⁓ we don’t know how to access delight in the midst of sorrow. And to live in both places and ⁓ there is a, you probably have read the book, The Prophet a long time ago. I don’t know.
I don’t know much about the author, but he said something that has stayed with me so significantly over the years of being a therapist, that the deeper that sorrow carves into our being, the more joy we can contain, which I think is just beautiful. And I think when we are living in our reality, whatever our reality looks like as a family, when we are speaking to the truth of
that things are hard and there are seasons that will be harder than others. And we’re allowing that sorrow to carve out space for joy. I would say we can laugh harder and enjoy each other deeper than if we weren’t being honest. And that doesn’t mean, I do think as a parent, it’s really important to be honest and to allow your kids to see you struggle, to allow your kids to see you even grieve in different spaces.
but not to process with them, if that makes sense. That we’re modeling healthy coping, but they’re not feeling the weight of that. Because I think in any given situation, kids can rise up and feel like they need to take care of their parents, especially maybe an oldest girl, we could say. And so I think to be aware of carrying both, I think what an immense gift.
for kids to experience that prepares them for life. Whereas the kids that are living and believing the highlight reel are not well prepared at all for what’s coming for all of us. I mean, we know in this world we’re gonna have trouble. And I think when you’re a family living with disability, you are walking through that in a way that some kids aren’t aware of until a little bit later.
And I would say the families that I’ve worked with who live with disability, I think those kids are so much more resilient because they know how to live in both spaces. And so I think both are equally important.
Amy Julia (19:44)
Yeah, one of the things, as you know, our family has gone to Hope Hills camp as a family. And one of the things that ⁓ comes up every day at Hope Hills at the end of the day is the question for all the volunteers who are there, ⁓ what was good in your day and what was hard. And those are very simple words, but we’ve actually brought them back with us as a family and just been asking those questions. What was good, what was hard, which gives, I think all of us permission to have.
hard things and to express them and to assume that that’s actually gonna be a part of every day, whether that’s just like, got a blister or something really, really sad happened. But then also to be looking for the good and naming that and naming that with each other. And that has been just this like pretty simple practice for us as a family that we’ve been doing actually recently because we’re on vacation just in the mornings together, but other times just at dinner or ⁓ on a walk.
grateful for even those simple words of good and hard and ⁓ trying to say these are not like these things go together. What you were saying about joy and sorrow. And when I open my heart to the goodness of the world, I’m also opening it to the hardship. And when I’m opening it to the sorrow, I’m also opening it to the joy and trying to allow those things to coexist. for
even for that hardship to be a part of our delight. Because I delight in you, I am sad with you when somebody is mean or when you are disappointed or whatever it is that actually can ⁓ perhaps lead back to the same place.
Sissy (21:25)
Well, and I really do think about, mean, for some reason that made me think about my, I have a sister who’s 16 years younger than I am and we lost our mom five years ago and mom lived with my sister and her husband and son and I moved in with them the last month of mom’s life. And I think we were walking through obviously like unspeakable sadness. And I think I laughed more with my sister and sometimes our mom.
in that month than I maybe have in our whole life collectively. I just think that’s part of where God shows up in this mysterious way that we don’t understand. And I think our setting aside our agenda sometimes and being open to the surprise of those moments feels really important and like holy work even.
Amy Julia (22:17)
I love that. Well, as we come towards the end of our time and we’re thinking about starting with delight, for parents who are listening to this, I’d love to just conclude, and it can be repeating things we’ve already said, but with just a few practical ways. If I’m a mom who’s folding my laundry right now or driving my kids or doing some other task and I want to just hold on to one or two things that I can do today,
to begin to delight in my child, like what would those be?
Sissy (22:50)
think one is I would pay attention to what your child loves because when we can join them in what they love, I think it opens up a shared delight. Two is think about literally what your face looks like when you’re with your child and just be conscious of having an openness, smiling at them, what does warmth look like? And three, I
especially if you’re walking through a really painful season or ⁓ a season where it just feels like you’re carrying a lot. think one silly, super surfacey way, but I tell parents all the time, I want them to do this with their kids, I want you to find a show you can watch with them. it could be, mean, really comedy might be the best in some ways because I think if we are carrying such heaviness that we don’t feel like we’re laughing much, let’s find some silly laughter somewhere else.
that we can experience together because sometimes we just can’t drum it up inside of ourselves, but someplace where you can connect and enjoy and delight. I’m just so grateful you’re talking about that.
Amy Julia (23:59)
Well, I’m so grateful that you are helping us not just talk about it, but actually live it out in our families because that is what we need. So thank you again for being here today. is such a gift.
Sissy (24:08)
Of
course. Well, thank you for what you’re doing.
Amy Julia (24:13)
Thanks so much for joining me here at Take the Next Step. This show is produced in partnership with our friends at Hope Heals, a nonprofit that creates sacred spaces of belonging and belovedness for families affected by disabilities so that they can experience sustaining hope in the context of inter-ability communities.
I do want to make sure you know how to follow SissyGolf. You might want more from her. She’s on Instagram at Raising Boys and Girls and at SissyGolf. And again, her podcast Raising Boys and Girls is also a terrific resource.
Another quick note that you can record your questions for our upcoming question and response episode. Just go to the show note and click on the link. And then finally, we have upcoming some great interviews that are going to be again talking about what it looks like to delight in our children, delight in our families, connect a community and take the next step towards a good future. I’ll be talking with Eric Carter,
professor at Baylor University who does research on families and the church and disability. The Jillian Benfield who is both a mom and a writer and a speaker about what it looks like to take the next step. Kevin Chandler who’s written a beautiful book, The Hospitality of Need, about his experience as a disabled man who has been both needy and gifted in this world. Please if you are listening still I would
really ask you to follow this show so you’ll get the next episode. If you are like super fan already, you could go rate and review it so more people know that it’s out there. And of course, your word of mouth sharing it with others makes a big, big difference in terms of people finding out that this resource is available. You can also send questions or suggestions my way when it comes to this podcast. So if you just tap the send us a text link at the end of the show notes or email me
at amyjuliabeckerwriter at gmail.com. I want to thank Jake Hansen for editing this podcast, Amber Beery, my assistant, for doing everything to make sure it happens. And I hope you leave this time with a lot of encouragement to start with delight, connect to community, and take the next small step toward a good future.
