Systems and Spirit Part 4 - Hold the Line or Hold Your Kid
Where systems and spirit finally meet
I’m excited to wrap this 4-part series I’m co-writing with Leo Rule from Align Your Family. We come at intentional parenting from different angles. I focus on systems and visibility, Jeremy focuses on regulation and presence. We realized our approaches aren’t opposites. They’re complements. This series explores how the best parents tap into both.
Middle school hit harder than any of us expected.
New expectations.
Grades that counted.
Assignments that didn’t disappear if you ignored them.
The first month was brutal.
One class in particular. Old-school teacher. Heavy reading. Worksheets. Tests that required actual memorization, not vibes. After the first month, the grade was a D.
There were tears.
Not quiet tears.
Hard, frustrated tears.
We had already built some architecture at the start of the year:
Faith.
Family.
School.
Activities.
In that order.
School mattered. A B average was the standard. The expectation wasn’t hidden. It was visible and shared. So we tightened things up.
Two weeks of studying before the next test. Early mornings. Flashcards in the car. Practice questions at the kitchen table. He needed an A to claw his way back.
He got it.
One of five kids in the grade.
A public shoutout from the teacher.
The D became a C+. Hard earned.
It still wasn’t the B.
So there were extra chores. Consequences stayed in place.
But we celebrated the win.
Second quarter started strong. The hard class climbed to an A-. School felt manageable again. The system was working. The rhythm held.
Until it didn’t.
He decided to try theater.
At first, it was just a couple days a week. Wrestling was still happening. The structure absorbed it.
Then theater hit full speed. Weekend wrestling tournaments started. Then life happened.
He missed a week of school sick.
Double rehearsals to catch up. 5:30 a.m. study sessions. He skipped wrestling twice. That hurt both of us, since I was the coach, but it was the right call.
The week of the social studies test, he had two other exams and multiple assignments to make up.
Friday afternoon, after theater practice, he got in the car. We were heading to a wrestling tournament. He hadn’t practiced all week. That morning I had walked him to school just to squeeze in more studying before the test he had to take after school.
The weight was heavy.
He closed the door.
And immediately started crying.
He got a C+.
He was exhausted.
He was disappointed.
He knew he hadn’t hit the expectation.
And in that moment, I felt it.
Hold the line…
or hold my kid?
The Hold Filter
This is the tension every parent feels, whether we name it or not.
So here’s the filter I’ve learned to run in moments like that:
1. Is safety, integrity, or a core value at stake?
If yes, hold the line.
2. Is emotion flooding the room?
If yes, hold your kid.
3. Am I regulated enough to choose wisely?
If not, reset before deciding anything.
It’s simple. Not easy. But simple.
In that car, safety wasn’t at stake.
Integrity wasn’t being violated.
He hadn’t quit. He hadn’t lied. He hadn’t coasted.
Emotion, though?
Emotion was everywhere.
So I didn’t start with the grade.
I started with what the structure had already revealed.
The early mornings.
The wrestling he skipped.
The strong start to the quarter that kept the average afloat.
The expectation didn’t disappear. The standard was still there.
But the moment needed connection first.
Holding the line protects standards.
Holding your kid protects the relationship.
And when you choose in the right order, you don’t lose either.
Leo’s Lens: Designing for the Moment
Jeremy knew what to do in that car because the architecture was already in place.
That’s the part that is easy to miss. A lot of times, I’ve seen a parent making a wise call in a hard moment and think it’s instinct, but it usually goes deeper than that. Instinct doesn’t establish standards ahead of time. Instinct doesn’t create the consequences and the celebrations.
Structure does.
And that’s what makes discernment possible when the pressure hits.
Clear expectations reduce emotional volatility. When Jeremy’s son got in that car crying, neither of them had to wonder what the standard was. It had been named months ago. Faith. Family. School. Activities. In that order. That clarity didn’t eliminate the emotion, but it kept the emotion from becoming chaos. When expectations live in your head, every hard moment becomes a negotiation, but when they’re visible and shared, it becomes clearer how to respond.
Visible priorities prevent confusion when things collide. Wrestling, theater, social studies, a week of illness. Life didn’t slow down to accommodate the plan. It never does. But because priorities had been ranked, Jeremy’s son already knew which trade-offs to make. He skipped wrestling to study. He chose the harder path. That’s not something a kid does in the moment without a framework underneath him. Visible priorities don’t prevent collisions. They tell you which thing to protect when everything can’t fit.
Structure creates safety, not control. It’s easy to think systems are about compliance. Rules for the sake of rules. But look at what actually happened. The structure created a container safe enough for a kid to get in the car and cry. He wasn’t afraid of his dad’s reaction. He wasn’t hiding the grade. He felt safe enough to be disappointed in front of someone he trusted. That’s not control. That’s the kind of safety only a consistent structure can build.
Here’s what I’ve learned building systems for my family: the real purpose of structure isn’t to prevent hard moments. It’s to prepare you for them. When you’ve done the work of naming your values, setting expectations, and making priorities visible, you don’t have to figure out your philosophy in the middle of a crisis. You already have one.
Integration: Bringing It Together
The clarity I felt in that car didn’t happen by accident.
It was built over months.
Visible priorities.
Clear expectations.
Shared effort.
Structure made the decision possible.
Spirit made the response humane.
Systems don’t remove hard moments.
They prepare you for them.
Spirit doesn’t weaken standards.
It keeps them from crushing the people inside them.
When structure and spirit repeat together over time, they become rhythm.
And rhythm becomes trust.
Trust that the line is steady.
Trust that love is not conditional.
Trust that effort matters even when outcomes fall short.
That’s the integration.
Not balance.
Discernment.
Appreciation + Closing
I’ve appreciated writing this series with Leo because it forced me to articulate something I’ve felt for years but hadn’t fully named.
Structure without spirit becomes rigid.
Spirit without structure becomes fragile.
But together, they create something sturdy enough to hold a family and soft enough to grow one.
Structure that holds.
Spirit that leads.
That’s not theory.
That’s the kind of leadership our kids can trust.
P.S.
This post is part of a 4-part series on Systems & Spirit, written with Leo from Align Your Fam and Jeremy from The Daily Dad Reset.
In Part 2, Leo went deep on visibility and how architecture protects families from drift.
In Part 3, Jeremy explored how spirit helps systems adapt and grow with the family.
If you have enjoyed this series, make sure to follow our newsletters below.
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Excellent framing, the 'Hold Filter' is exactly the actionable heuristic parents need in real time rather than philosophizing mid-crisis. What's undersold is that pre-established structure is what enables emotional attunement, not the reverse, and most parenting content misses this entirely. I've seen this dynamic in someone else's family and was struck by how much the prior prep work, not intsinct, was doing the heavy lifting. The 'rhythm becomes trust' line near the end is the real punchilne.