Pod Insights Jocko Podcast Jocko Underground: How to Finally Get Your Kids To do What You Want Them To. About this episode >Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe
Leading at Home Without Anger
(How to earn respect, guide your kids, and avoid becoming a tyrant parent.)
When a Neighbor Crosses the Line
(Handling heartless comments after the Charlie Kirk tragedy while keeping peace next door.)
Finding Peace After a Father’s Failings
(Moving forward when your dad wasn’t the hero you needed.)
Bipolar Disorder and the Fight for Balance
(Using sports, discipline, and creativity to manage the highs and lows.)
Set Up to Fail at Work?
(Navigating redundancy, lost progression, and building an exit strategy.)
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Jocko Willink? This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, number 182, sitting here with Echo Charles. We've got some questions from the troopers out there in the world.
0:09 Jocko Willink? We will provide answers. We'll provide recommendations, courses of actions.
0:14 Speaker 01 Courses of action, which is helpful, by the way.
0:18 Speaker 01 Okay, first question. Hi, Jocko. Longtime listener here. Father of two, eight, and four. Husband, business owner, and brown belt, who trains hard every morning, inspired by your example. My problem is my eight-year-old daughter is very bright, but extremely defiant about chores and daily effort. Every request turns into a fight, and I inevitably lose my cool. After a recent blow up, she asked, "What's the point? You're always mad anyway."
0:48 Jocko Willink? She got you.
0:50 Speaker 01 "I'm failing to lead at home. Anger sets a negative tone for my family. And on a break this cycle, earn her respect, motivate effort, and set discipline without crushing her trust or spirit. I've done therapy for anger in the past and greatly changed my perspective and approach. But I'm human, and I still struggle with triggers. What advice do you have for fathers wrestling with this battle at home? How do you lead defiant kids who rattle the home's stability and maintain trust so the family buys in? Thank you. Listening to your podcasts has helped me push through tough spots for years."
1:26 Jocko Willink? Yeah, right on. Classic case of imposing things on the people. Look, you can get away with that. Some of the times, like, maybe 10%, 20% of people will be okay with that.
1:43 Jocko Willink? Most people won't. That's why it doesn't work. That's why we didn't write a book, you know, called like Extreme Tyrannical Leadership. Because that doesn't work. Doesn't work in a business, doesn't work on the battlefield, and won't work with your family either. So here's a couple of things, just straightforward. It's gonna be a little tricky, because you, because I was about to say, you think you know best? And you actually do know best. You do know what's best for your daughter. And if you could program exactly what she should do, study from this time, train this much, clean this thing, play, you know, violin at this time, and you could program your kid and just break their spirit and just make them do, that would be like the ideal. You'd make the ideal kid, right? Except for the part that I said, where I said broken spirit. Because you have to break them to get them to do that, right? You have to break them to get them to do that. So.
2:29 Jocko Willink? You don't want to do that. You don't want to do that. Uh, you want to give her some ownership. You want to kind of as much as you can treat her like an adult. Not in a punitive way and don't go crazy, don't get overboard, but if you look at her, an eight year old kid. I've known, I, I've known guys that were eight years old, lived on a farm. And they would, you know, drive the tractor into town with hay and sell it. Like get the money and bring it back and you know what I mean? Like an eight year old is a capable human. And so let her come up with like, let her come up with the chores. And maybe there's going to be some successful dad, it doesn't make sense that I have to, you know, make my bed every day. Instead of freaking out and be like, you're going to lock discipline.
3:14 Jocko Willink? No, just be like, okay, cool. Yeah, you're right. Just pull the, just pull the comforter up so we can tell it's, you know? So you can put stuff on it, it won't be messy. Or if the dog jumps on it, it won't get, you know, hair inside, you know, just whatever some, just real simple. Let, let her come up with the chore list.
3:30 Jocko Willink? And then, you know, maybe negotiate some kind of a salary, you know, what, what do we? Let's work, let's, let's get some rewards, some compensation here. And, and you got to explain the why and the why's got to be pragmatic. And it's got to be something they can understand too. And kids don't understand this will instill this discipline that you need in the future. They don't care about that. Needs to be, hey, listen, here's the bottom line. If we have a fire in the house and the firefighters have to come through your window and there's crap all over the floor. They're not going to be able to get you out of here. So I don't care how clean the room is. You don't have to get the dust off the floor, but you can't have a bunch of toys all over the floor. Cool. Yep. Cool. So like a pragmatic explanation.
4:12 Jocko Willink? Hey, you can't have dishes in your room because then we have flies and we have mice and we'll have ants all over the house. So you can't have, you know, dishes in your room. That just pragmatically, you can't do it. Do you have to fold your clothes a certain way? No, you don't have to. If you don't mind going to school with wrinkled clothes, I don't care. What if the other parents judge you as a bad parent? Like whatever. My kids look like damn freaking, they were raised by wolves when my kids were that age. My son didn't wear shoes. He didn't wear a shirt. His feet look like he was a damn caveman. My daughters only wore like leotards, dirty leotards. So you see what I'm saying?
4:52 Speaker 01 Yes.
4:52 Jocko Willink? And I wasn't like, you know, people probably looking at me going, what are you know, that guy doesn't even, he's no discipline in this house. Really?
4:59 Speaker 01 Hmm.
5:00 Jocko Willink? Yeah. So tha- that's kind of like some pragmatic things to do. The other thing is, you want respect, you gotta give her respect. You want her to trust you, you gotta give her trust. You want to have influence over her, you better allow her to influence you. That's you trustless and respect, influence and care. That's what you gotta do. It's really hard to give those things to your kid. Cause you know, you're so much smarter than them. And I'm not, I'm saying that like being a jerk saying it, but I know it's true. I know for all of my kids, I could have given them the ultimate schedule. That they then would have been the jujitsu champion, the wrestling champion, the freaking guitar hero, whatever. Like you can,
5:41 Jocko Willink? you can impose, or you can come up with a plan, the perfect plan, put it in a chat B G B T. Hey, how many times a day should my, should my daughter be training jujitsu in order to be a world champion? What school should she go to for jujitsu? And where, you know, how many times a day? What, what athletic uh pursuit should she take on? What Olympic lifting? You see what I'm saying? You could do, and you'd be right. You'd be right. And you'd also have a child that would hate you. And you'd have a child that hated whatever sport you were trying to get him to do, or whatever thing you were trying to get him to do. So if you build a relationship with them and you make all those things fun instead of freaking misery and discipline doesn't become this
6:24 Jocko Willink? horrible, overbearing tone inside your house where everyone just thinks you're ridiculous. You're trying to run this thing like a, like a tyrant.
6:35 Jocko Willink? Then it'll be problematic, but if you treat them like, listen what they have to say, put some trust in, oh, hey, do you want to go, what are some things you're going to, hey, do you want to go and train jujitsu? I don't know, is he trying to get his kids to do jujitsu?
6:48 Speaker 01 No.
6:49 Jocko Willink? Um, uh, you're trying to get your kids, let's say you were trying to get your kids to trade jujitsu and they're like, well, I don't really want to change it. Oh, well, you want to do something else? Well, yeah. Well, what do you want to do? I don't know. Do you want to go get some ice cream? Okay. Yeah, let's go get some ice cream. They'll skip jujitsu. You see what I'm saying? Just have fun. Have fun. And by the way, what you're at, here's the, here's the important thing. That person that you raised like a robot ends up with a person without a mind that isn't going to be able to think, isn't going to be able to overcome adversity, isn't going to be able to figure out ways out of problems that they're going to get presented in their life. So you think you're making them a better person, but you're making them a worse person. You have to open up their minds. You have to allow them to brush the guardrails of failure. These are all things that you have to do. You have to teach them to think for themselves.
7:34 Jocko Willink? You want, that's, you have to teach them to think for themselves. And guess what? Sounds like your daughter thinks for herself right now. She's got that, she's got that beautiful, natural spark of individuality and spirit. And there's going to, that's going to come with some damn problems, bro. I was looking at old videos, videos the other day of my kids when they were little.
7:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:57 Jocko Willink? I almost posted them because you see a couple of videos of Rana and you're like, dude, that's going to be hard to handle. You know what I mean? She's just, you see some little pictures of Frey when she's like, you're, oh, that's going to be, you know, these are, these are not, these are not obedient, you know, slaves. Or my son, like when he's a little kid, you're like, oh, this kid's going to be, you're going to have to put some freaking guardrails up and he's going to hit him. And you've got that with your daughter. It's freaking amazing. It's freaking amazing. It's like when you're a battlefield leader, would you rather have that totally obedient guy that only does what you say? And you have to push him to get him to go out in the field and make it happen? You want to have some of that, dude, I gotta pull the reins in on this guy? Of course.
8:44 Jocko Willink? So that's what you gotta do with your daughter. Now with yourself, bro.
8:50 Jocko Willink? You gotta learn to detach. Take a step back, take a breath, recognize that you are embarrassing yourself when you get mad.
8:59 Jocko Willink? Your daughter, I laughed when you read that. I rarely interrupt you when you're reading echo. But when your eight-year-old daughters, daughter calls you out and says, what's the point? You get mad anyways. That's an eight-year-old calling you out. That's embarrassing. And she's right. You can't let that happen. You cannot let that happen.
9:22 Jocko Willink? So
9:24 Jocko Willink? treat your kids like they're a little, you know, like they're adults. Treat them with respect. Listen to what they have to say. Give them some leeway, bro. They wanna go out and expand into the world. Do you want them to stay in, in, in the nest for the rest of it? What is, uh, Jordan Peterson calls it a smothering mother.
9:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:41 Jocko Willink? You know, you just devouring mother. That's what it is. Devouring mother. That's what this, that's what you're acting like here. Is a devouring father. Everything must be my way. And it's horrible.
9:53 Jocko Willink? Be stoked that you've got some strong defiant, wild kind of kids. Those are the kids that become, you know, super.
10:04 Jocko Willink? Be thankful that you don't have unthinking automatons that are so scared of you that they just obey you out of fear. Cause as soon as they turn 18, they are out of there. And they're gonna go do some really truly defiant stuff. That's not healthy.
10:20 Jocko Willink? You got, you got, it sounds like you got some rebels on your hands. Good. But let's help them figure out what to rebel against and let's make sure that the thing that they're rebelling against isn't you.
10:33 Jocko Willink? And the stronger, the harder, the stronger, and the more you try to hold them down, the more they are going to try and break away from you.
10:45 Jocko Willink? So you you're in a beautiful situation. Luckily, she's only eight years old. Luckily, she's just gonna kind of remember. I got my kids right now. They'll kind of remember. That used to be mad a bunch, but then you'll they'll be like, oh, no, oh, yeah, when we were little. And they'll they'll probably end up thinking it was like some of the stuff that was maybe that they were doing. So you'll be okay. You'll be fine. And they'll go, yeah, my dad was awesome. Oh, yeah, he used to do this with us. Oh, yeah, we yep. And that's what you want, man. Don't try and freaking control people. It doesn't work. Try and build relationships with them. And that's what I got.
11:20 Speaker 01 I agree. There's one part that I don't necessarily agree, and I know you were making a huge point or nothing, but you said something like along the lines of, yeah, you know, best, right? The parent knows best. I don't even think that's true, girl, a lot of the time.
11:34 Jocko Willink? Yeah, you're you're right. How was I trying to explain? It's like.
11:40 Jocko Willink? That's the I know. Yeah, I know that you think that you know the best. And and I will say this. Most parents, many parents, if given, like I said, like a like if they were able to program the daily activities of a child. By the way, now, it's important to remember that they haven't even programmed daily activities for themselves, right? They're they're there. There's a reason why they're trying to put all this stuff on their So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jockounderground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this. We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms.
12:25 Jocko Willink? So we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you. More control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us.
12:53 Jocko Willink? And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So, thank you. It's jocko underground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us,
13:13 Jocko Willink? we can still support you. Just email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.
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