Speaker 1: All right, it is Mojo in the morning. And this
Speaker 1: is so crazy to think how fast summer has gone by.
Speaker 1: But also it's so crazy to think how grown up
Speaker 1: Mike's Cecily is. Cecily to me has always been the
Speaker 1: little girl that you know Mike and Ali. You know,
Speaker 1: I remember taking the first grade probably was you know
Speaker 1: a thing. She's going to middle school? Now, How crazy
Speaker 1: is that? How did she get that old that fast?
Speaker 2: Mike? I have no idea.
Speaker 3: I just reminisced about it as we did orientation yesterday
Speaker 3: for middle school.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's what was it like for you
Speaker 1: to go into the orientation and everybody think that you
Speaker 1: were a middle schooler.
Speaker 3: If I didn't have a beer, they would be like, Sarah,
Speaker 3: you need your school idea, young man.
Speaker 2: Is she excited about it? She's very, very excited.
Speaker 3: I think it's starting because we have like these talks
Speaker 3: each night before we go to bed, we have a
Speaker 3: talk with each Milo and ces So we've been talking
Speaker 3: to her about kind of what's what to expect going
Speaker 3: into to middle school. And I think some of the
Speaker 3: stuff that she didn't realize is going away is starting
Speaker 3: to hit her.
Speaker 2: And we didn't know this either like there's no recess.
Speaker 3: Like I know that's a silly thing, but to a kid,
Speaker 3: like their whole world is is that that moment at
Speaker 3: recess and it's about to change. And she's kind of
Speaker 3: like bummed about that. And we're starting to teach her
Speaker 3: like just how to be a little more grown, like
Speaker 3: a little you know, a little more mature. And it sucks.
Speaker 3: It really sucks because I want her to still call
Speaker 3: it play dates and that kind of stuff, and it's
Speaker 3: all disappearing, and I think she's excited because it's something
Speaker 3: new and she's going to see her friends again. I
Speaker 3: ended up doing a slightly messy podcast like from that talk,
Speaker 3: and so that's up Mojo Mojo in the Morning dot
Speaker 3: com if.
Speaker 2: You want to listen to that. But it brought up
Speaker 2: a lot of feels in my own world. Talk to
Speaker 2: me about it. What did it bring up?
Speaker 3: So I moved in fifth grade to Belding. I was
Speaker 3: like going to school in Grand Rapids and moved to
Speaker 3: Belding in fifth grade, which was middle school for me
Speaker 3: hers is until seventh grade.
Speaker 2: And when I moved there, I we kind.
Speaker 3: Of just threw me in, Like there was no orientation,
Speaker 3: There was no advice, There was no nothing, and I
Speaker 3: never really I haven't really thought about it my entire
Speaker 3: life up until now when we're talking to her and
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, I really wish I really wish somebody
Speaker 3: had done this for me. Like I had no idea
Speaker 3: what I was doing. I was just thrown in and said, go.
Speaker 1: So you didn't have any kids that you knew, Like
Speaker 1: there were no neighborhood friends or anything like that.
Speaker 3: That you went to school, No, because I didn't go there,
Speaker 3: So I didn't. So all those elementary schools who everybody
Speaker 3: knew everybody, they they were, you know, their friends. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And now I didn't know anybody. So I was the
Speaker 3: new kid in fifth grade and it was cool, like
Speaker 3: like part of it I think about, like I think
Speaker 3: it forced me to go out of my comfort zone
Speaker 3: and talk to people. And now I'm like really comfortable
Speaker 3: like walking up to anybody and talking to them. But
Speaker 3: at the enther end of that, I'm seeing her and
Speaker 3: what she's going through of like not understanding why recesses
Speaker 3: disappeared and why we can't do you know, certain things
Speaker 3: and lunches this and class like none of that I
Speaker 3: had any idea or preparation. I was still playing Power
Speaker 3: Rangers at that point in fifth grade, and I and yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just does she Are there any little kid stuff
Speaker 1: that that she still enjoys doing that you do not
Speaker 1: want to take have it taken away from her, like
Speaker 1: like you know, the whole idea, Like I remember when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I loved playing with my Matchbox cars.
Speaker 1: You know, I had like a million Matchbox cars, hot wheels,
Speaker 1: cars and stuff like that. And I remember my brother's
Speaker 1: saying to me, as I was going into senior year
Speaker 1: high school, Hey, you know, you probably should think about that,
Speaker 1: like most of your friends are really driving.
Speaker 2: But no, but but I was.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I had a little bit of my childhood that
Speaker 1: was I was like the and not. First off, I
Speaker 1: looked like I was twenty eight years old when I was,
Speaker 1: you know, five, so you're already kind to look older.
Speaker 1: So it looks weird, like you look like you might
Speaker 1: be you know, I don't know, it's having some issues,
Speaker 1: but I wonder sometimes I don't want to take that
Speaker 1: away from Cecily, that she still loves playing with dolls
Speaker 1: or doing things like that, Like I don't want the
Speaker 1: kid all of a sudden growing up and you know
Speaker 1: now she's you know, trying to be old, too old,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we went to the orientation.
Speaker 3: We went to his eighth grader orientation cause we're taking
Speaker 3: off tonight and going camping up north, so we can't
Speaker 3: go to the seventh grade tomorrow. And the difference between
Speaker 3: an eighth grader and a seventh grader, because we see
Speaker 3: our seventh grader in those eighth graders is wild. They're
Speaker 3: all taller, like a lot taller. They like, they must
Speaker 3: change a lot. And I don't remember because I didn't
Speaker 3: grow very tall, but they must change. They're like their
Speaker 3: clothing is like Cecily is still wearing like dragon t
Speaker 3: shirts and still like loves to draw dragons and write
Speaker 3: dragon comic books. And we've tried to have a conversation
Speaker 3: of like, don't lose that that spark or that you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I've been trying to come up with
Speaker 3: advice for Zero, but it's.
Speaker 4: Her, that's her, and that's what she likes.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's well, it all changes when you get
Speaker 1: a phone for him, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: once they.
Speaker 2: Get a phone, they all of a sudden turn into
Speaker 2: an adult.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think middle school. I mean middle school is definitely.
Speaker 4: I think you'll see changes for sure, Like they just
Speaker 4: grow up all of a sudden, you blink and you're like, wait,
Speaker 4: what in the heck happened? That's that's what my experience
Speaker 4: was from from middle school. Because LUs is going to
Speaker 4: seventh grade too, But middle school for us started at
Speaker 4: sixth grade.
Speaker 2: Oh did it really?
Speaker 3: What was the biggest change you notice?
Speaker 4: I just feel like, like for her too, it was
Speaker 4: an entirely new group of friends, and so I felt
Speaker 4: like sixth grade and thank goodness, she has a great
Speaker 4: group of friends that she met. But I feel like
Speaker 4: it was a lot of trying to figure out where
Speaker 4: she fit in and how she fit in. And so
Speaker 4: I said this to you, Like, the one thing that
Speaker 4: I really tried to drill in her was be Lucy.
Speaker 4: Don't try to change yourself so that you can fit
Speaker 4: in with like this girl or this group of friends. Like,
Speaker 4: just be you, and that's how you're going to find
Speaker 4: your you know, community of people. But yeah, six middle
Speaker 4: school girls, man.
Speaker 3: Who That's my biggest fear is like the clicks are
Speaker 3: going to start and and we've always just been like
Speaker 3: be kind and do this thing, you know, do the
Speaker 3: be kind to somebody who's maybe sitting by themselves. But
Speaker 3: I know, I just have a feeling and I'm a
Speaker 3: little nervous about it, like this is just gonna break her,
Speaker 3: Like I She's gonna come home one day and something's
Speaker 3: gonna happen that she has never had happened to her before,
Speaker 3: because up until this point, everybody's been kind to each other.
Speaker 2: Part.
Speaker 1: I got a question to throw out to you and
Speaker 1: Shannon because both you guys and keV, because you guys
Speaker 1: all have kids the same age.
Speaker 2: Which one would be worse.
Speaker 1: For you finding out that your kid was the kid
Speaker 1: that everybody was picking on or finding out that your
Speaker 1: kid was the kid that was picking on everyone?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so I don't want my kid to
Speaker 2: be mean. What do you think, keV? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, you don't want you don't want your kid
Speaker 5: to be big doing but I don't know it would
Speaker 5: be Absolutely I do not want my kid to be
Speaker 5: the one that's being a bully and being disrespectful because
Speaker 5: I think that says a lot more about the type
Speaker 5: of parent that you've been and how you've raised your
Speaker 5: child or what they've witnessed I shold.
Speaker 2: I agree with you. I think it's a reflection on
Speaker 2: the parents.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I also want to be the type of
Speaker 5: parent where I don't hopefully my child would have stood
Speaker 5: up for themselves in that instance. I mean, even if
Speaker 5: they come home and they break down because they feel
Speaker 5: safe in front of me, Hopefully I've instilled in them
Speaker 5: the ability to speak up and to not necessarily fight back,
Speaker 5: but to show that, you know, they won't tolerate that
Speaker 5: type of behavior.
Speaker 1: Also, you know, it's weird because I was never like
Speaker 1: sent off to school.
Speaker 2: I don't think you guys were either.
Speaker 1: Where your parents basically said all right, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: kids that are gonna say this to you, or you're
Speaker 1: gonna it's all you're You're you're more reactive than you know, uh, proactive,
Speaker 1: And I do think like, I don't think I ever
Speaker 1: said to my kids like going into any kind of
Speaker 1: a level of their lives. If you got a kid
Speaker 1: that does this, it's usually they had a kid that
Speaker 1: did it, and you say to them, all right, what's
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 2: I wonder if nowadays.
Speaker 5: You have I mean, taking Joe Sigh out of a
Speaker 5: predominantly black school and sending them to school with a
Speaker 5: bunch of white kids. You gotta have a conversation like, hey,
Speaker 5: this might happen. Let me know if this is said
Speaker 5: to you, let me know if you feel like this,
Speaker 5: let me know if a teacher DUDEA da da da da,
Speaker 5: Like you gotta have them type of conversations. Yeah, in
Speaker 5: that particular situation, I just feel it. You know, it's
Speaker 5: wild because of I isn't it crazy to that? I
Speaker 5: do not remember like it being as hard as it
Speaker 5: is on these kids nowadays.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean there's just so much more to
Speaker 4: it than we dealt with. I will tell you this, Mike.
Speaker 4: One thing that like really kind of has blown me away,
Speaker 4: I would say over the past like four months is
Speaker 4: luc and I have always been really really really really close,
Speaker 4: like attached to the hip. She's my bestie, and I
Speaker 4: will say sixth grade kinda like I could feel her
Speaker 4: going more towards her like making that separation. Oh, like
Speaker 4: her friends are her world, and that is really hard
Speaker 4: as a parent. That is really really hard as a parent.
Speaker 4: That's yeah, you want.
Speaker 2: That right, like you grown independent.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it has been a huge shift for me
Speaker 4: and not one that I have done well with so.
Speaker 3: We can tell it's starting and we are. We have
Speaker 3: talked about a phone and I don't know, like I
Speaker 3: don't want to. I haven't talked to her too much
Speaker 3: about bullies or any of that kind of stuff. I've
Speaker 3: just said, I if somebody's not nice to you, what
Speaker 3: are you gonna do? And we thought about doing like, hey,
Speaker 3: we're gonna pretend like we're bullying you and see how
Speaker 3: she reacts. But I think we're just gonna let her
Speaker 3: figure that part out because I felt like I didn't
Speaker 3: get to talk about that either. And I you know,
Speaker 3: I maybe had a couple bullies here and there, but
Speaker 3: I was just like, that's where I created like humor.
Speaker 3: That's how I learned. Like I don't think you I
Speaker 3: don't think you can prepare somebody to be bullied. I
Speaker 3: think you can talk to them and give them, you know,
Speaker 3: this is what you should do if they say this,
Speaker 3: if there's specific things.
Speaker 2: But I think we just got to let her figure
Speaker 2: it out at that point.
Speaker 1: Your hope is that you guys have such good dialogue
Speaker 1: with each other that she would say something to you
Speaker 1: or you would notice it, you know, before it goes
Speaker 1: too far but Jessica wants to make a comment about Cecily.
Speaker 2: Would you want to say, just have her.
Speaker 6: Join as much like after school clubs or activities. That's
Speaker 6: how my daughter got her group of friends who are
Speaker 6: absolutely amazing. And she was like in the art stuff,
Speaker 6: drawing stuff too. So just have her join as much
Speaker 6: as possible, all different kinds of activities and she'll find
Speaker 6: multiple friend groups and hopefully we'll be able to just
Speaker 6: intermingle with everyone and not.
Speaker 2: Really have that bully.
Speaker 1: She's a She's a pretty active kid, isn't she might?
Speaker 1: She likes to do a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: Very personable, very Uh, yeah, we do.
Speaker 3: We're trying in that era of still trying out things
Speaker 3: like volleyball, and we've tried out a bunch of different things,
Speaker 3: so we're trying out stuff.
Speaker 2: Hey, Stacy, what's up? It's moje in the morning, and say.
Speaker 7: Hey to Mike, Hey, Michael, are you.
Speaker 2: Good, Stacy? How are you?
Speaker 7: I'm wonderful, sir. I'm gonna speak on both ends of
Speaker 7: the spectrum on this one because my oldest was a
Speaker 7: bully and my youngest was bullied. So the best I
Speaker 7: can say and advice I can offer is number one
Speaker 7: open communication all the time, but maybe find are a
Speaker 7: mentor outside of you and your wife, somebody that's going
Speaker 7: to teach her how to conduct herself in different manners.
Speaker 7: Because I have this theory, it's called the same voice theory.
Speaker 7: Your child will not listen to you, and somebody can
Speaker 7: say for batim what you have told them and they'll listen.
Speaker 7: So getting somebody else's voice involved is detrimental. My children,
Speaker 7: they're adults now. But if I would have had somebody
Speaker 7: to mentor my son, especially, I think that he would
Speaker 7: have gone a different path in life. He's a good kid,
Speaker 7: don't get me wrong. He's a hard worker, he's a
Speaker 7: great dad. But I think that if he would have
Speaker 7: had a strong male mentor in his life, he wouldn't
Speaker 7: have felt the need to bully other people. And then
Speaker 7: my daughter, she was just once she hit middle school,
Speaker 7: it was a nightmare. And it was hers was during COVID,
Speaker 7: so it was a whole, a whole thing. But she
Speaker 7: went back to public school and I ended up pulling
Speaker 7: her out, putting her into private school because just I
Speaker 7: saw her life going in a whole direction.
Speaker 2: That I was not prepared for doing better.
Speaker 7: Oh she you she graduated, she's looking into going into
Speaker 7: the trades. She is the one who stood up for
Speaker 7: the kids that were bullied. Even though she was bullied.
Speaker 7: There was no kid ever left behind with her and
Speaker 7: she challenged people that were much bigger than her when
Speaker 7: they saw when when she saw somebody else being bullied.
Speaker 1: In an interesting you can have two kids that are
Speaker 1: totally different and you raise them in the same way.
Speaker 3: I love the same voice things to you, but maybe
Speaker 3: I got to get her into karate.
Speaker 1: And the funny how parents will throw their kids in
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu or karate or something like that.
Speaker 2: What's up, Dana, How you doing, I'm.
Speaker 8: Doing good, Good morning. I was just gonna say, like,
Speaker 8: when you guys were talking about would you rather have
Speaker 8: your child be the one that's bullied or be a bully?
Speaker 8: And I think that it's probably easier to talk to
Speaker 8: your child and stop them from bullying then to give
Speaker 8: your child that confidence to get out there and start
Speaker 8: those friendships.
Speaker 2: And that's a total perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, you're you're right in some kids never
Speaker 1: get over that that they've been bullied no matter what
Speaker 1: you do.
Speaker 2: That's a wow, great comment. Vicky. What's up?
Speaker 9: Hey, how's it going good?
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 9: Nothing. I just wanted to let Mike know. One of
Speaker 9: the biggest things is try not to ask, no matter
Speaker 9: how much you want to, try not to ask so
Speaker 9: many questions of like, hey, how was your day? Did
Speaker 9: you have a good launch? Did you And when something
Speaker 9: comes up, just listen.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, yes and yes, yes, okay, try not
Speaker 4: to say anything.
Speaker 9: But if they say something about oh, so and so
Speaker 9: did this and you don't hear anything for a few days,
Speaker 9: be like, oh my gosh, what happened with so and so?
Speaker 4: You never told me all that the best advice Okay.
Speaker 9: Yep, did that with our daughter, and then she brought
Speaker 9: home the troubles and issues to us and just kept
Speaker 9: like the generic like politeness with other people at school,
Speaker 9: and then came home and was.
Speaker 10: Like, man, and will you became the safe excuse me,
Speaker 10: the safe space. So and uh, we're through college and
Speaker 10: she's pretty well adjusted for that.
Speaker 1: And Mike, wear clothes in the pickup line when you're
Speaker 1: picking her up from school like makes me go shirtless,
Speaker 1: like actually yeah, with.
Speaker 2: A with a can of Red Bull in your hands. Well,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to get confident enough.
Speaker 3: So I can show up and start singing outside of
Speaker 3: the song and embarrass her, Like I just need her
Speaker 3: to get that confident so I can start embarrassing her
Speaker 3: at school.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Kids, When kids stop giving kisses to you at the
Speaker 1: pickup line, that's when you know your kid's grown up.