The Relational Parenting Podcast

that child does not know the difference between what I just did is bad versus I am bad and so now what what you've done
0:07
as the parent is you've told your child they are bad even whether you meant to or not it's what you did and your child
0:15
is going to internalize that and they're going to think they are bad
0:20
welcome to the relational parenting podcast I'm Jennifer Hayes a parent
0:25
coach and 20-year Child Care veteran each week I sit down with my own father
0:30
Rick Hayes and discuss the complicated issues that parents face today as well
0:35
as some of the oldest questions in the book from the latest research and the framework of my relational parenting
0:41
method we offer thought-provoking solutions to your deepest parenting struggles or in other words how to
0:48
parent your kids without losing your mind or traumatizing theirs added bonuses include intergenerational
0:54
wounding discussions and guest Child Care Experts who will also start taking your parenting questions in episode 5 so
1:02
be sure to comment with your biggest questions or email me directly at Jenny
1:08
jennyb.com let's get started welcome back you guys okay so this week we are
1:15
diving right in to one of the most common and most harmful tools I see used
1:21
in parenting shame this is a huge topic and we definitely
1:26
go over the one hour mark on this one but we don't even come close to covering all of it shame has crept into our very
1:34
DNA and more often than not it starts in our own homes
1:39
throughout this episode my dad and I also talk about the alternatives to using shame and guilt to teach our
1:46
children how to be good people there are so many juicy nuggets in here
1:51
I can't wait to see what your takeaways are welcome back where this is the
1:57
relational parenting podcast and we are back with the topic of Shame and guilt
2:05
being used in parenting um and so we're going to talk about different situations that shame and
2:12
guilt are being used in and ways that you may not even know you're using them and then we're also going to talk about
2:18
the alternatives to using shame and guilt in the relational pyramid that I
2:23
talked about last week there you go so yeah so we kind of dove in a little
2:29
bit there and throughout throughout some examples of well we were talking about sharing so
2:37
let's back up a little bit and go back to to shame the different ways that shame
2:42
shows up shame is one of the biggest
2:49
issues across the board of existence not just in parenting not just in raising kids
2:57
not just in children not just in adults but shame across the board every culture
3:03
every country every whatever of existence shame is that is at such a
3:12
deep rooted inside of us kids it is and it's well
3:19
it's a means of controlling anyone and and most of us a lot of us have been raised with shame and so we grow into
3:28
adults who have shame and there's you know all of this self-healing and therapy and and inner work and and all
3:36
of you know the buzzwords going around and all of that's wonderful and I've done a lot of that and
3:42
we need it but we if we were raised without it we wouldn't
3:48
and we wouldn't just happen yeah we wouldn't just have this layer it's like
3:54
it's like the our foundation is the bottom layer of the builds up who
4:00
we are the bottom the foundation we're built on is shame and so the filter everything goes
4:06
through in our lives is shame like is shame and and perceived morality and so
4:12
you know is this person looking at me and judging me am I am I this am I too mean am I too nice am I too
4:18
demanding am I to what like whatever it is we're constantly self-evaluating and
4:24
we don't feel worthy and we are constantly trying to achieve something some image of worthiness
4:31
to ourselves and others yeah and so there's just all this like shame and shoulds and
4:38
and you know at the base of our at the base of of our existence and so that's
4:45
something I just wanted to start with it with this topic because it starts in childhood it starts with how we're
4:51
parented everything does right your first interactions on Earth are with your parents and so that low-level
4:58
firmware stuff people get in their heads I wonder if that's old if that not uniquely American but American and
5:04
British people talk about how uptight we are that's not the word I was
5:09
thinking compared I wonder if maybe America um gets more of that does more of that
5:16
than some other countries you know I just disagree I would yeah I don't
5:21
know I'm just curious there are a lot of Asian cultures puritanical rely
5:27
rely heavily on guilt and shame hmm yeah yeah
5:33
I have I have a lot of um a lot of close friends who
5:39
our first generation Americans so they come from other cultures yeah
5:46
Japan yeah and their parents
5:53
brought them here from their home country so their parents were born and raised
5:59
in that country and then they bring them here and they raise them with that
6:04
culture but in it inside of a new culture where their kids are going to an American school and learning English and
6:11
learning different customs and ways of doing things and different ways of thinking about things and like the their
6:17
parents version of right and wrong is very different from the kids version of right and wrong but they're
6:22
I know one one teenager in particular specifically
6:29
that I mentored several years ago she I mean her her
6:36
entire teenage Hood and that's when I met her and but I'm I
6:43
know from from her own mouth reporting that even before teenage years her
6:49
existence was torture because she was constantly everything she wanted to do
6:54
and B was constantly wrong in the eyes of her parents and yeah that's no fun
7:01
and it was B it was a cultural like it was cultural expectations that hmm
7:08
underlied those those issues and that might conflict uh culture from another culture when you're
7:15
like I mean sometimes people come and they kind of live in communities right you know
7:21
what am I trying to think of like the the north is kind of known for Swedish
7:26
and and uh northern European settlers you know and so there's a certain amount
7:33
of a bubble within a within a bigger bubble within a culture and so having expectations of one culture
7:41
and then the kids are out in school and relationships with other people and then
7:48
boy you know and there's Norms there so yeah that could make a lot of conflict and that would be a particularly
7:54
complicated yeah so I think I think as a mayor As Americans
8:00
I don't know if we fall somewhere in the middle there's also a lot of Hispanic families that I have known where shame
8:06
and guilt is it's like talks there's like this toxic loyalty to your to the family to to
8:16
like you're a fan you you stick together no matter what no one can penetrate the
8:22
family uh yeah yeah and there's particular loyalty or something in that
8:30
and there's like there's a healthy there's a there's a place for healthy loyalty
8:36
of course inside family and and but there's also toxicity and abuse and if
8:42
you're you know I've witnessed abuse happening inside of a family and
8:48
like not physical but emotional abuse um mental abuse guilt and shame and and
8:54
guilt trips and manipulation and then but then the the child the adult child
9:00
of the manipulator yeah it defends their parent and says oh they're well they're
9:06
just this or well they're just that or they were raised this way or they're they're right I should be more loyal or I should have
9:11
whatever done whatever for my mother when she asked me to do it and I'm like you're 35 with a wife and your own
9:17
children to take care of and your mother didn't it wasn't like it was something like so
9:23
minute that she asked for but just wanted to see if she could get you away from your wife and kids to do it for her
9:29
like is it a manipulation sure yeah is it healthy so that's my favorite word is
9:34
it healthy yeah yeah and that's a yeah so that kind of thing you know culture within a culture
9:41
kind of conflict that uh that's not only a childhood thing where we're
9:46
programming our kids basically or you know teaching them Norms is uh
9:54
expectations of taking care of parents in their old age and that kind of thing that varies from culture to culture and
10:00
so yeah we're gonna we're gonna end up we should we'll get a lot of comments so it'd be interesting to see comments from
10:06
people from other cultures and stuff you know because we are American we don't have that much we have experience from
10:13
outside of other cultures it'll be interesting to see what what people from inside those cultures have to say right
10:21
well yeah when there's nuances inside of everything absolutely everything but
10:27
there's and there's also there's a difference between taking care of your parents in their old age and valuing
10:33
like okay my parents raised me and loved me and provided for me and now I want to be able to do the same for them when
10:39
they can't take care of themselves there's a difference between having that having a value of of taking care of your
10:45
family versus this like this toxic Guilt Trip manipulation of a parent who
10:52
is perfectly capable of doing these things themselves if but is playing a
10:57
game to see if they still matter to you more than your spouse or your partner or
11:02
your own kids like they still want to be the most important person in your life
11:08
and unfortunately that's not the role of a parent is to be the most important person in your life
11:14
for your entire life like it's like empty nesting on steroids it's
11:19
not not necessarily a conscious manipulation or unconscious it's just an expectation you know maybe it's
11:26
legitimate somewhere else in the world where life is structured but in America you're kind of expected to go on and not
11:35
do that and stick your parents in a home or something you know it's yeah all kinds of conflicts again I'm not talking
11:41
about like values Elder like I'm not talking about nursing home versus like I'm not talking about like elderly
11:48
elderly parents who cannot take care of themselves yeah yeah the people who can't that's going to be that's going to
11:54
be a personal [Music] ability and financial ability and like
11:59
there's so many factors depend on like your personal ability to take care of your parents when they are no longer
12:04
able to take care of themselves and I don't want to I get it talk about different cultures and that value what
12:11
I'm talking about is parents who are perfectly capable relying on and putting the burden of
12:19
their worth yeah on their adult children yeah to
12:26
supply to need them to continuously need them and do things for them even though they
12:33
have even though they're building their own life yeah once the children have left the nest and are doing okay they're not
12:39
content to be a backstop there they they want to be there all day every day taking energy from the kids right right
12:47
like parents are supposed to launch their children into the world like we I've raised you I've given you a
12:54
foundation and now you're meant to go build your own life and but they're in
12:59
some cultures there's this pull to like I still come home for holidays and I still talk to my family like I still
13:06
like I'm talking to my parent right now like you still are in relationship with
13:12
your parents but you are building your own life and there are parents who just do this they want their kid to be to be
13:19
with them and on them and taking care of them and or finding a way to I don't
13:26
know but there's like that and using shame too and using shame as a tool to
13:32
accomplish it right long past long past uh childhood so let's
13:39
so let's take this back to Childhood because we're here to teach current parents how to do things differently
13:45
and current parents of children there are lots of parents of adults
13:52
um so parents of young children right now ways that
13:57
you may or may not be aware of using guilt and or shame in your parenting to get
14:05
your kid to do something or to teach your kid
14:11
you know what may be an important lesson but we're using guilt and shame to teach it instead of empathy and understanding
14:18
to change it um and so an example that comes to mind for me is
14:25
using very young children uh with a younger sibling or with
14:32
another child on the playground so I'm talking like two three four years old
14:38
things that are very normal for that age group is biting hitting hicking
14:45
but these are things that I'm the restraint yeah yeah to us as adults are
14:51
absolutely forbidden and unacceptable so we then see our two three and
14:57
four-year-old do that and we go at like we want to add like put a stop to it and
15:03
that like don't ever do that again and unfortunately at that developmental age
15:08
and Stage it's completely and totally normal and if we use shame to shut it
15:14
down or we tell like no like you don't get to do that and don't hate don't hit
15:19
your sister you're gonna hurt her do you want to hurt your sister that's so mean that's saying that's bad yeah like or
15:25
yeah say that's bad you don't do that generically evil right that is that
15:32
child does not know the difference between what I just did is bad versus I am bad and so now what what you've done
15:39
as the parent is you've told your child they are bad even whether you meant to or not it's what you did and your child
15:46
is going to internalize that and they're going to think they are bad and the more
15:52
a child thinks they're bad the more they're going to do the bad things because that's what they are that
15:58
becomes like their identity exactly and so you know and there's also there there so
16:06
many people don't know that that's normal it hasn't it hasn't gotten to the general public that those things are
16:13
developmentally normal that that is how a young child moves frustration out of their body so everything comes back to
16:22
um emotions right so once our physical needs are met we then feel emotions and
16:28
emotions I can't remember who it was that I was listening to that that defined the word
16:34
e motion um but it but emotions are energy e
16:41
energy in motion hmm and so energy comes and goes energy
16:47
moves energy cannot be created nor destroyed it simply converts or moves or
16:54
whatever and so emotions are the feelings that rise up in our body and
17:00
you can feel every single one of them in your body if anyone has ever done any kind of Bodywork or even just
17:06
stopped and taken a breath when you're angry you know that you feel emotions in your body and if you can imagine your
17:13
adult body being unable to contain those emotions without yelling or crying or punching the wall imagine a two-year-old
17:20
feeling an emotion just as big as yours but in a body a fifth the size and
17:26
experienced right and and with no with no prefrontal cortex to tell them when I
17:32
do this this is going to hurt somebody there's no valve there yet and that's
17:38
what you do when they bite somebody you know when a kid acts out like that that's a t that's a teaching moment when
17:45
they're doing that you know and they're little it's it's not I I guess I always go back to the to the
17:52
teaching and and trying to make kids more uh more uh competent in whatever
17:58
they're doing you know you don't shame them into it you go yeah this is we
18:03
don't want to do that and this is why and if you can't control it then we have to go do something else and and you know
18:10
you just try to teach them and show them logical consequences and eventually because that's how they stop doing that
18:16
you know there has to be some training or you know some input from an authority
18:21
figure maybe to to say hey that's nope we're not you can't do that here we won't allow that
18:28
not that you're doing anything unexpected it's just yeah that's we're
18:34
not going to allow that you have to try to control that develop that control yeah telling a two-year-old to control
18:40
to control something is a useless is you don't do it with the words I get it I
18:45
get that well even the phrase if you can't control it we're gonna have to go
18:51
do something else even that like that's unfair because they can't control it okay okay
18:58
so so an example
19:03
so would I just scoop them up and remove them from the situation no if they hit
19:09
then you and you see that especially you know if it's in public and it's another child that makes things more complicated
19:15
so let's do an at-home Let's do an at-home example [Music]
19:21
um would be you have a three-year-old and a one-year-old okay
19:27
uh they're in the living room playing with blocks or Lincoln Logs or whatever
19:34
and maybe you're on the couch and you're on your phone you're reading a book or
19:39
you're just spacing out because the kids are playing quietly for a minute thank God the church they're too quiet now
19:46
right and you're you're sitting there the kids are playing on the floor and then you know all of a sudden
19:51
three-year-old reaches over and smacks one-year-old yeah okay our knee-jerk
19:57
reaction is to launch into the middle of that and go no and
20:02
our energy gets big very quickly
20:08
before you even get to the verbal or physical correction of
20:15
the behavior you first have to check your energy because you're you are
20:22
having an internal reaction to What just occurred yeah and for me it's
20:29
Injustice that bigger three-year-old child just
20:34
assaulted my smaller one-year-old child a bigger kid has to be more responsible absolutely and so your parents your
20:43
parent instinct will kick in even if it's your child versus your child your
20:48
other child your parenting Instinct your protective Instinct will kick in
20:53
seeing something like that and so the first thing we have to do is pause in
20:59
that response so I like being mindful being intentional about right you gotta you
21:05
gotta go okay how do I want to deal with this and then and then you have to and then you have to make your voice come
21:11
out in a tone that portrays that you are a
21:18
regulated adult who can handle this situation because you are grown up manner you don't want to react from your
21:24
child or you know you don't want to do that knee-jerk thing you gotta go up you don't want to launch off the couch with
21:30
this like no energy you need to just you need to quietly you need to calmly put
21:36
your phone down and say hey what's going on and then it's immediate
21:43
it's immediate curiosity so you depending on the severity of the situation this is a this is a
21:49
three-year-old who has with his hand hit a one-year-old and stopped yeah there's
21:54
no brick involved or anything there's no knife there's no weapon there's no like there's no 16 year old beating up a
22:01
four-year-old this is a very specific situation where we are responding this way yeah um and it is
22:07
that no one's no one's life is in danger yeah um and so three-year-old reaches over
22:14
and hits one-year-old maybe even screams at her or says that's mine and or tries to rip a toy out of her hand yeah
22:21
you've all been there you know what we're talking about so the first thing to do is regulate yourself and your
22:28
voice and so you're going to regulate your body you're going to take a deep breath
22:33
you're going to tell yourself I can handle this and then you're gonna
22:40
put down whatever you're doing and you're going to turn to your children you're going to be like hey specifically
22:45
the three-year-old you want to address the three-year-old and you want to say hey what's going on what happened
22:51
because you so you want to regulate and then you want to lead with curiosity because if you lead with with
22:58
stop that or um judgment that your child is immediately going to
23:04
recoil from you and they're gonna They're Not Gonna Wanna Talk About It they're not they're gonna get upset themselves and start crying themselves
23:11
and then they'll immediately feel shame and if you look at your child with judgment and shame that's what they're gonna feel even if it doesn't come out
23:17
of your mouth yeah so you're going to regulate and then you're gonna ask a question hey buddy what's going on what happened
23:25
what's going on yeah and then you're gonna give that child a chance to tell him his what happened for him which is
23:32
it's going to be a feeling promise yeah where it's going to be she took my toy
23:37
and then you're gonna fill in the feeling and you're gonna say oh man that's frustrating and you're gonna
23:43
empathize name it yeah so we're gonna regulate we're gonna be curious and then we're gonna empathize
23:50
and all of those things have to happen before correction can happen before real
23:55
correction can happen before real correction and teaching can happen before that child is going to feel safe
24:01
enough to hear what you're teaching them you have to be calm curious and
24:08
empathetic exactly if you upset you know grown-ups when they're upset they don't
24:13
think straight and so you have to regulate yourself and then you also have to keep in mind when you're dealing with
24:21
your child you don't want to upset them because they're not gonna get the lesson or whatever it is you're trying to
24:27
communicate if they're upset you don't know I mean it's not like sometimes you don't want to upset them you want to you
24:33
want to teach them you want you want them to be able to absorb it that's interesting it also helps I wish when
24:40
you guys were younger that I'd had some of these principles floating around in my head a little more formal so when you
24:46
do that okay how am I going to react here I had two or three principles it's
24:52
like okay calm and you know the things you just named off there something to Rattle off in my head going
24:59
and then then go in and now I'm kind of now I got a process I'm not just doing
25:05
it intuitively and hoping it works you know it'd be nice to have some tools a little chuckling a little bitty little
25:12
short checklists because I have a little bitty little short brain but you know it's like okay yeah go at it go at it
25:19
here I don't have to remember a doctoral dissertation you know just a couple of okay here's how we want to go up after
25:25
here's how we're working on conflict with these kids at this age you know and that would change as you get older
25:31
that's interesting being mindful about it being deliberate well and so children and dogs have a lot
25:38
in common yes they do and one of the biggest things that they have in common
25:45
and that's and that comparison is not meant to be derogatory I know some people have a problem with that but
25:51
um that is a creature in our house that we have power over yeah it's as simple as that
25:59
and we whatever it is in our environment that we have power over is going to
26:04
respond to our energy they're not going to create the energy in the house they're going to respond to ours and so
26:10
my dog does not get hyped up and excited unless I get hyped up and excited unless
26:16
it senses you yeah and your child is going to respond to
26:23
your energy the same way and so if you're coming off the couch and launching at them
26:28
with this like anger and defensiveness that child is immediately terrified
26:34
imagine somebody three or four times your size launching themselves at you
26:39
and and running up on you a Goliath it's like oh my God I hope they're not gonna come kill me exactly that is exactly
26:47
what your child is thinking they don't they're not conscious of it but you are you are now a threat to their life and
26:54
they are going to they are completely shut down and they're going to fall apart into it into what we would call a
27:00
tantrum or crying or Screaming or running away from you or whatever overload of the emotional system yeah
27:06
right and it's a fear response and it's a natural one and it's a good one it protects them yeah lets their mom let
27:14
their dad know that something's going on yeah so so I want to finish the example for
27:21
the parents who are looking for like okay but how would the rest of that play out um so so we regulate ourselves first we
27:28
respond with calmness and then we ask a question curiosity
27:34
um and then when that child reveals to us what happened or why it happened or the way they felt
27:40
that something unjust happened to them or whatever we then empathize and we're we're that's not validating
27:47
the behavior but we're going to validate their feeling that caused the behavior so we're gonna be like oh it's so
27:54
frustrating when someone takes something away from you and then we're gonna if you haven't already you're gonna get
28:00
down on the floor with them try to get as low as you can to their little to
28:05
their level you're sitting down you're not towering over them and as long you know your child isn't still hitting
28:12
right so everyone's bodies is are calm and you're gonna say man that is so
28:19
frustrating how else or what else could you have
28:24
done when she took that toy away from you another question getting them engaged and thinking of other
28:30
possibilities teaching them to stop and think yeah instead of just oh no we do not hit that is not okay no sir you're
28:37
gonna go play over here now and with like immediate shame and punishment that's not going to teach them anything
28:43
don't explain the morality of it yeah all they're gonna feel is like [ __ ] and
28:49
they're gonna think you're the one that made him feel like [ __ ] and it's their sister's fault because their sister their sister took it away from him
28:54
that's right and that's awesome I'll get you later talk about sibling rivalry you
29:00
want to know who causes sibling rivalry because Mom and Dad yeah
29:05
sibling rivalry comes from how differently the children get treated based on age size
29:11
Etc that's a good point so
29:16
we're avoiding a lot of [ __ ] here relationships are so complicated y'all so you're getting down by being
29:23
regulated ourselves yeah you're getting down on their level and you are asking hey buddy
29:31
oh man that's so frustrating how what else could you have done when she took your toy instead of hitting her what do
29:37
you think what do you think you could have done instead and depending on how many
29:43
conversations you've had with your child they might come up with an answer themselves they might not but a couple of examples they might come up with
29:49
themselves is uh I could have just asked her to give it back to me
29:54
or I could have come and told you I could have come and gotten Mommy
30:01
and either of those perfectly acceptable some kids some three-year-olds will know the phrase use my words I could use my
30:08
words could you use my words go find somebody regulated there will also be
30:13
children who start crying anyway because they know what they did was wrong and they didn't
30:20
need to hurt their their sister and they don't they aren't capable yet of verbalizing to you a different option
30:26
they just feel bad they still feel bad the feeling has not moved and so we're going to help them move through it and
30:33
we're going to continue to empathize and we're going to ask them if they need a hug and we're just going to sit with
30:38
them while they're upset until the feeling passes and then we're gonna re-engage in this
30:43
conversation and we're gonna say you know if they're if they're unable to come up with an answer themselves that's
30:49
fine they're three give them the answer give them some choices this is where you're teaching next time
30:55
if [ __ ] takes your toy could just say hey I was playing with that will you get that back please yep
31:03
or you if you feel like you're gonna hit [ __ ] because you're so upset come get mommy I'll help you yeah
31:10
and it's as simple as that and then a natural consequent people you know there's there's
31:16
there are parenting voices out there being like well but he hit her so he needs a consequence or he's not going to
31:22
learn anything and what I advocate for as a parent coach is natural
31:27
consequences natural consequences are things that will naturally occur in a child's environment
31:35
as a res as a natural result of their behavior and so if you think of it if
31:41
you take it out of a child's environment put it into an adult's environment if I were to hit
31:48
my adult friend if I were to reach out and smack
31:53
my adult friend or husband or whatever mm-hmm
31:59
my natural consequence might be that they don't want to be my
32:04
friend anymore yep or they're not going to talk to me for a while or we're going to have words
32:12
and talk about it or like you know in horrible cases it's
32:17
domestic violence Etc we're not going to connect you back yeah they're gonna hit you back yeah okay so
32:26
in that situation the natural consequence most often that
32:31
I have witnessed is that one-year-old no longer wants to play with three-year-old
32:37
and so one-year-old wants to either snuggle with Mommy be comforted
32:43
get some attention get some yeah separate at one-year-old one year old
32:49
it's gonna be snuggles or a snack there's rarely a third party that runs
32:55
in and smacks you when you're an adult right you so there's nothing
33:00
too party three doesn't come smack party one right so but the natural consequence
33:07
then for the three-year-old is that [ __ ] doesn't want to play with you anymore so you guys were having fun on the floor
33:12
a lot and I've witnessed this firsthand and it's happened on the playground so between non-sibling children on the
33:18
playground they're playing they're playing they're playing one kid hits the other kid because there's hitting
33:24
happens through excitement too kids get so excited or they feel so much love
33:30
I've had a child hit me and then tell me I'm so I'm sorry I just love you
33:37
and it's it's a real thing I feel that like towards other like other children that call me
33:44
auntie that I that are in my life that I love or towards my dogs when they're being so cute I just squeeze my own
33:51
fists because they're gonna clench my own teeth and oh they're just so cute and it's like imagine that that feeling
33:58
of love and cuteness in a two-year-old's body they
34:03
don't need to do with that they're just gonna move their hand so we're on the playground it's two children non-siblings and one
34:11
reaches out and hits the other most often what's gonna happen is that friend doesn't want to play with with you
34:17
anymore that's your natural consequence you don't need anything else on top of that that is your natural life
34:23
consequence for what you just did yeah yeah we don't need the shame and the guilt and and God forbid the smacking or
34:32
the time out or whatever like there's no reason for any of that and none of that
34:37
is going to teach your child anything at least not on a you know onesie Tuesday kind of basis on that's also sounds to
34:45
me kind of like a healthy Habit to teach your kids which is if you're around the
34:50
other side of what you're saying or an older version is if you run into people who are verbally or physically abusive
34:58
or something like that it's good to say okay I don't necessarily want that in my
35:03
life and you learn to stay away from people like that that can be dependent upon to mistreach it in other ways you know
35:10
in any kind of way and it's like okay that's fine that's your thing but I'm it's not my job to come smack you when
35:18
you smack somebody else it's my job to just leave you stay stay out of Harm's
35:23
reach from you you know don't not be your friend you know so that's kind of that that would be consistent with a
35:30
good healthy teaching going forward that's nice I like that yeah well that's it's too it's two-sided
35:36
right because if you're if your child is the one that got hit
35:41
and you're consoling them or whatever and they're like they still want to play
35:48
with that friend that's I mean that's fine okay go play with your friend if they hit you again you need to come get
35:55
me yeah so shaming shaming that's something you know that's a hitting and
36:00
biting those are major behaviors and that's just one one tiny example of
36:08
how shame and guilt are used in raising children but that
36:16
that's kind of a glaringly obvious example well you start with easy ones to
36:21
Define I'm sure there's more complicated when wow as you dig in
36:28
more and more to the emotional and mental Health part of our foundation right that
36:35
we talked about in our first episode we have the bottom of our pyramid is the
36:41
physical needs are being met and then the second tier is emotional and mental
36:46
and then we have social and cognitive and so we're in this emotional mental
36:54
um tier of our developmental pyramid and there are
37:01
microaggressions for lack of a better word that we did before yeah have
37:07
towards our children and microaggressions in the way that we use shame and guilt
37:13
um as thought processes that we're teaching our children and it might just be in passing and one of those is you
37:22
give your three-year-old the spaghetti and broccoli that you made for dinner and they don't want to eat all of it and
37:29
you go they're starving children in Africa you need to eat your food yeah
37:35
yeah like little little things that we just say because either
37:42
we were raised on those phrases or we picked them up somewhere but the little ones that you just you get in this habit
37:49
of saying them as a response to a situation that occurs you know daily and
37:54
constantly and we all do it and we all do it in different ways in different settings but you you get that it's like
38:01
autopilots this auto response of like just try you're just trying to get your
38:07
kid to eat their [ __ ] dinner because you know they're gonna be hungry in an hour if they don't I mean really what
38:12
you're trying to do is get them to stop and focus and just you know watch how much they're eating and you know it
38:18
turns into trying to lay a guilt trip on them yeah shame so shame's a pretty common way to
38:25
to try to control people emotionally well then you know everybody wonders
38:31
where Eating Disorders come from and that's a big that's a big one in childhood because you want your child to
38:37
get the nutrition that they need and you as the adult know better
38:42
of what they whether they like the broccoli or not or
38:48
broccoli is new and scary and you just want them to try it and you're in like your intentions aren't bad but your
38:56
method is yeah message not great yeah and if you create shame as early as two
39:04
and three and four years old in your child around meal time just multiply that by 30 years and like
39:12
interesting compounding interest shame eating Comfort eating like forced eating
39:18
binge eating not eating it's all and even as someone I've never struggled
39:23
with an eating disorder but I've struggled with diets and my thought process around eating and feeling bad
39:30
for eating different things or feeling less worthy
39:36
or whatever and the thing that I finally figured out and I'm still working on it
39:43
and will probably be working on it forever is I eat foods that make my body
39:48
feel good which means I don't get bloated and gassy and feel like I just
39:55
need to lay down or like whatever like I take it easy on the cheeseburgers right
40:02
well but there are certain times that I need a cheeseburger a cheeseburger once
40:08
in a while is good for the soul well it's not even that it's like like women
40:13
and hormones like we need beef or iron you can get it from other
40:19
sources for me it's a burger but there are times like that I am I
40:25
literally can tell I'm low on iron just from years of like tuning in and cycle
40:31
sinking and things like that but like I like we our bodies have needs our bodies
40:38
know better than our minds do and if we don't teach that to our children from from a young age to listen to their body
40:45
when it comes to food it's not the same as encouraging your child to try new
40:51
things because everything is new to them and everything is going to be scary until they try it a few times and some
40:57
kids need to try it 12 times but letting your child choose what they do and don't
41:03
like and eating according to that and according to what their stomach is telling them I'm full or we don't like
41:08
this their taste buds are going to give them information their nose smelling things is giving them information and
41:15
listening to their tummy when it's full is giving them information and we need them to learn that young and encourage
41:21
that versus you need to eat three more bites of this before you can get down from the table yeah
41:27
why okay you know they're going to be hungry in an hour let them be hungry in an hour
41:34
I was just gonna say the winner so when the kid you know they're just anxious to go play
41:41
or they're upset or they're wanting to go watch a TV show or play a game I
41:46
guess would be a thing now and they don't eat they're too excited they're too emotional to sit down and
41:55
think ahead that you know no I'm not full I just don't want to be here I want to be with the game and so if you let
42:01
them if you let them down if you don't coerce them via some means to eat three
42:08
more bites and they come back hungry what's the healthy
42:14
is it healthy to teach them to think about what they're eating and are you really full and pay attention to your
42:20
body or you let them be hungry after a while or do you keep healthy snacks
42:26
around how do you negotiate that on a day-to-day I got better things to do
42:32
schedule as a parent well so yeah obviously that's it's
42:39
situational but my my aunt my general
42:44
answer that will work in most situations is is two two things the first one's a
42:51
question when you are super excited like so excited you can feel it in your body
42:57
you can feel it in your stomach are you gonna sit down and eat a meal
43:02
yeah that's not the best time to uh do anything thoughtfully is when you're super okay the studies show you're not
43:09
going to digest it either yeah you're gonna get a tummy ache if you force yourself to eat when you're super
43:16
excited or super anxious or super whatever okay your body your mind so
43:21
I've been to a couple of nutritionists who told me digestion starts up here
43:27
hmm if you look at your food if you look at your food and you don't
43:33
feel excited to eat what's on your plate you're not going to digest it well
43:39
it doesn't matter if you chew it 1700 times before you swallow it so that it's
43:44
super tiny and broken down and easy for your stomach to break down more and send through your intestines it's up here
43:51
it's disgusting you are not going to digest that food well you are not going to get the
43:58
vitamins and minerals from it you're going to get a tummy ache it's not going to go well yeah your brains involved and
44:06
it's kind of interesting I've heard the scene articles about listen to your gut and that kind of stuff you know they are
44:12
they are discovering more ties between your brain and your gut now that's interesting that all that that makes
44:18
sense in that context so if your child is so excited
44:23
about something happening that they are incapable of physically sitting down and
44:29
eating without being scared coerced or manipulated into it then okay your meal will be here when
44:37
you're hungry and they don't get to to run away and go
44:42
play some that's how you negate the like well maybe it's just maybe they just
44:47
want to eat ice cream and so they're just gonna wait to eat until it's ice cream time and they're gonna go play
44:53
this game right because then it's like my child's thinking ahead and they're just trying to get out of eating food
44:58
and you're like so you say okay like you're so excited I see how excited you
45:05
are like if right now you're too excited to eat that's fine you know
45:11
maybe sister's eating and you like we're gonna we're not we're still not gonna play the game until sister's done eating
45:16
so you can either sit here and try to like we can take some deep breaths and you can try to get your body ready to
45:22
eat or if you really want to wait you need to go move your body I'll get you out of your chair you can go to the living room and play with the blocks or
45:28
you could go set up the game or whatever it is I like that you can sit
45:34
here until that's fine but we're eating dinner now and so you can you we're
45:40
gonna eat dinner together before we move on to something else you're not confined by a child's attention span you know or
45:47
whatever or emotionally when it's even and obviously this is all age dependent and
45:52
situation dependent if it's family dinner right I'm thinking like breakfast
45:59
with a stay-at-home mom and another child in the room you've got a lot of
46:05
flexibility there if it's family dinner and there's four kids and two adults at the table and one child is too excited
46:12
to eat that's when you give options yeah and and you say you even if you the
46:18
adult know you're going to be hungry in an hour but they're so excited that to
46:24
do whatever mm-hmm that they can't that they're they don't
46:30
want to eat that's fine but you're gonna sit at the table with the rest of us while we eat because we can't go do that
46:36
thing until all of us eat and they may or may not regulating and yeah yeah well
46:41
so it does it forces them to regulate themselves they're gonna have to sit there and they're they're
46:48
nine times out of ten going to calm themselves down because they're like okay well I just have to sit here anyway
46:54
and they may pick at their food and they may not and you can even offer like if
46:59
you really don't want to eat do you want me to grab you a book and you can sit there and read or talk to us at the
47:05
table like these are your options it's dinner time you don't have to put food in your mouth but we're also not going
47:10
to go do anything else right now that's right just engage them in conversation and get them
47:18
do it without being annoyed it's so easy to take this tone of like you don't have
47:23
to eat but you're not gonna go play either that's right making it a punishment you don't have to eat but
47:31
like the rest of us are eating so just sit there and be quiet like there's a difference between
47:37
I see how excited you are and I know that's really hard to eat when you're excited and that's okay I'm excited too
47:44
but we're all eating right now it's dinner time and so we're all gonna sit here at the table together you don't
47:49
have to eat right now if you don't feel like your tummy can eat right now that's okay would you like a book or do you
47:55
just want to sit here and talk to the you know talk to us or whatever this is our chance to eat I can't fix another
48:00
meal in an hour right well and so that's when you also say like
48:05
then when you're hungry when your tummy does feel hungry this is what's for dinner
48:11
and there's no there are no snacks there's nothing else that that you can eat until you eat your dinner yeah you
48:18
get your snack after you eat your dinner if you don't get a snack if you don't eat dinner yeah so so when your tummy is
48:24
ready to eat I'll give I'll reheat your dinner or whatever it is so it's let's sit do or if it's dinner time we're
48:30
gonna sit here there's you know or you can have a book those are your two options and
48:36
your dinner will be here when you are hungry yeah and here's your dinner in a
48:42
baggie for later doesn't that look better than it does now no
48:47
that's also manipulation and collusion I know I know but being comic relief yeah
48:55
but yeah so yeah there's just there's there are so many
49:02
ways to handle it's it's like the minute that something is smaller and less
49:08
powerful than us we know better and want to
49:14
Force out of good intention
49:19
we want to have a healthy kid we want to make sure they learn things but through force and coercion and shame and guilt
49:25
are not they're not going to learn that way yeah and just because we know no better doesn't mean
49:32
one doesn't mean that we actually do and two doesn't mean that we get to take
49:39
away the autonomy choice and safety of that being
49:45
it kind of comes down to this is the way
49:50
I was taught you know I'm older I'm more experienced
49:57
you know I'm the parent so this is the way it works and I'm bigger and stronger than you and we don't always stop and
50:04
think about uh was that a good idea for us to have been taught that way you know and can we
50:11
do a little better you know it kind of gets tied to uh how do you make a better world kind of thing
50:18
and that's uh that means we have to change we have to not do things the way
50:23
we were raised sometimes when I think I think that there's a level of
50:31
awareness happening now that we we're seeing adults turning out to be not what
50:39
we thought we were teaching them to be in that yeah unintended consequences or
50:45
something right and so we have we have adults running around with
50:51
anxiety depression self-hatred suicide rates are up
50:56
uh uh lack of confidence someone argue there's generations with
51:03
too much confidence um yeah entitlement I think is good for
51:08
you running around so there's there's this like Spectrum right on on one side of the spectrum is
51:15
horrific violent traumatic toxic
51:21
physical beating Etc abuse parenting and on the other end
51:28
of the spectrum is complete and utter leniency and let them do whatever they
51:34
want and don't teach them anything yeah there's a bell curve and we're kind
51:40
of trying we're kind of here and somewhere in the middle is if we
51:46
just are in healthy relationship with all beings
51:51
adults children Etc we that means we know how to set healthy boundaries that
51:59
means we know ourselves well enough to know what our boundaries are that means
52:04
we let the world teach consequences and we are the safe place for our child to
52:10
mess up and to learn and to stand back up after they fall down and
52:18
try again and like if you want a resilient kid they have to have a safe place to fall
52:25
down and get back up again they have to go to learn a place to go to ask questions you have to be regulated to
52:32
teach them regulation and if you want a child who doesn't blindly follow whatever social media
52:40
influencer politician whatever is blabbing in their ear all day and to
52:46
actually think for themselves then you have to let your three-year-old argue with you when they disagree that's right
52:54
you have to teach them you can teach them to have a respectful argument but
53:01
you need to let them argue that's right you need to let them negotiate you need
53:06
to let them do those things and teach them how to do those things correctly and respectfully you have to model it so
53:13
that they can become adult well yeah and you need to do it so they can become adults who think for themselves and have
53:20
healthy conversations and talk through things and have friends and partners who
53:26
are also healthy and have good conversations and are not
53:32
manipulative yeah
53:38
that's kind of crazy I'm not sure I want to get hooked up too close with that one there's also there's like all these I
53:45
don't know if it's trending or it's a buzzword or we're just I think we're just there's Collective awareness of
53:53
issues societal issues or whatever and one of those that I've seen a lot in the last couple of years is narcissism and
54:02
that word can get overused and applied to situations that it does not apply to and yeah etc etc but but I've you know I
54:12
have been with a narcissist and I know other people who have escaped
54:20
relationships with narcissists and it took us way too long to figure it out well and
54:29
if we knew what those toxic love bombing behaviors looked like
54:37
before it happened we never would have gotten roped in and we would have run the other way and I don't know if
54:44
there's a way to teach people to spot that maybe there is by raising them by yeah with this relationship skills
54:51
gaslighting and stuff you know all that all that stuff I can look back now and take all these relationship skills and
54:57
look back at that relationship and go oh my God like we would not have made it to
55:03
the third date second date like like it was just so obvious now
55:12
that obviously know what I know now but if we were teaching that to Children if we were raising everyone
55:18
inside of this container of of relationship skills because relationship
55:23
skills are life skills and it's it's knowing it's being able to identify manipulation
55:30
it's being able to identify um and know that you don't deserve to be
55:36
yelled at no matter what you don't deserve to be abused no matter what you don't deserve to have your boundaries
55:41
crossed if someone isn't listening to a boundary that you set with them run right you don't need to be with them
55:49
right and if you but as children our parents have the run of the mill and we
55:56
just have to deal with it and instead of being in this equal relationship where our voice is
56:05
heard too and our parents hear it and respect it and have a healthy
56:10
conversation about it like that's how you teach yeah something as simple as
56:18
I set out shoes for my preschooler to wear today
56:24
and they don't want to wear those shoes instead of being like well too bad you're wearing those shoes you could be
56:30
like why what shoes do you want to wear and have a freaking conversation about it because
56:36
they might have a really good reason it's a form of choose your battle too it's like I'm not going to worry about
56:41
the shoes they're friends if it's so if they're old or middle school or something like that you know the friends
56:47
their friends will let them know when they're not in style and unless it's gonna cause frostbite
56:53
let them wear the sandals in the winter and figure out why we wear toes in the in the winter mostly you know and it's
57:00
snowy out natural consequences there's also like
57:05
something I've run across is there are a lot of shoes that little kids they're not comfortable
57:12
yeah they hurt yeah and they don't know how to say that because they don't have those words yet but if you if they if
57:19
they bring up that they don't want to wear those shoes ask why that's right and I bet you'll
57:25
eventually get to it because they'll eventually be like my toes hurt in those shoes or if you don't have time to ask
57:31
why and have a big discussion just say okay what what ones do you want to wear you know there's a there's a quick way
57:37
out of that too if you're married so would and if it's if it's snowy out and
57:43
you're you know your kid's gonna be out in the snow you know there's maybe not every
57:50
household has this option because you have one pair of snow appropriate shoes and that's it that's a lot of places and
57:57
situations I've been in there are multiple pairs of shoes that could work for that weather and you lay those and
58:05
you say okay you get to choose but it has to be one of these because it's really cold outside and these are the
58:10
only shoes that are warm enough I don't like you're walking home from the bus stop in wet feet so so we're still
58:17
giving choices parent card plan the parent card here a little bit yeah well and even like the phrase I don't
58:25
want you walking home from the bus stop in wet shoes wet socks means nothing to
58:31
a kid that's true it's too far off yeah so what like I'm gonna ask you where were
58:38
you when I was frozen okay you I know right I was too little
58:43
so how could you rephrase that phrase to actually teach and mean something to
58:50
a kid I'm a I'm afraid if you wear those shoes
58:56
your feet will get wet and hurt when you go outside let me just make an
59:02
observation Maybe you don't even you can say I'm afraid I'm afraid I
59:11
would even leave that out of it because you might be feelings
59:17
one you're putting your feelings on the child yeah yeah and you don't want your kid to
59:23
be responding to your feelings you want them to learn what could happen if they
59:30
wear sandals in the snow it's not it's not about you being afraid it's not
59:35
about it's not about you at all so we're framing things because our ultimate if
59:41
you pull everything out from on top you peel back all the layers what we're
59:47
trying to do is protect our child that's up the world from the world how to get through how to
59:52
get by in the world we're just communicating the world to them right and so so in order to protect your child
59:59
all you need to do is teach them the pros and cons of their choices how to
1:00:06
make choices how to think if how to think about it or whatever and make a choice
1:00:13
but for about froze off one year I've got my feet wet I wore sandals in the
1:00:19
snow and boy was that cold yes that's kind of putting me in it again though too well but sharing
1:00:26
sharing in this situation I would say that's not the best way to do it but it is better than the initial phrase there
1:00:34
are a lot of situations with old with kids that using a story about yourself
1:00:39
about how you felt what they're feeling before to normalize it for them so they don't
1:00:45
feel weird or Shame about it is totally viable and like excellent
1:00:52
is in something as simple as a child who's picking their shoes and weather I
1:00:58
would just I would just say and you could even you could even do a physical experiment with it
1:01:04
is let's go outside for a minute okay if it's a jacket and your kid doesn't want
1:01:12
to wear a jacket outside be like okay I'm gonna bring your jacket with us
1:01:17
let's go play outside of shoes yeah give it five minutes
1:01:24
please they're not going to die we all know
1:01:30
colds aren't actually caused by being out in the cold so let your child go outside and feel cold
1:01:36
they will ask for a jacket especially if it's a trip to a part I like that because then you can do that on the Fly
1:01:43
it's like well okay you pick shoes
1:01:48
um and then as you're walking you grab you grab appropriate shoes and coat and whatnot and just and just you know if
1:01:54
you can't just carry it with you and then you're you're whipping out of your purse like a magician
1:02:00
when they need it yeah and again there's going to be like different situations and abilities to do that and I can't
1:02:06
carry all that [ __ ] and blah blah blah you're gonna have to adjust this to your situation you can't do that for 30 kids
1:02:13
at school at once you know yeah there's there's levelers obvious limits like you need to be able like as a parent you
1:02:20
need to be able to this is part of like self-regulation and knowing what each situation needs is you need to be able
1:02:25
to look at the situation and go what's the next best step that causes no harm yeah and it's also I feel
1:02:33
feel obligated to throw in here too there's no perfect it's nice to have a
1:02:39
chance to you know life is very Dynamic these things are flying you don't do
1:02:44
this when a fire is going on you grab them pick them up and carry them when there's when there's actual danger and
1:02:50
you don't have to think of everything all the time all you can do is do a little better you try to be intentional
1:02:57
try to be thoughtful about how you're saying and what you're dealing you know how you're dealing with the situation
1:03:03
you're presented with and it gets better with time the more you do it the more the better you get and yeah okay this is
1:03:10
now instead of a uh there's starving people eat all your food clean your
1:03:15
plate regardless of how much food I put on it and your tummy and your emotional
1:03:21
state just just I don't know go go with it I lost my
1:03:26
train of thought there instead of guilting or coercing just see if there's a way to to move through it and do a
1:03:33
little better each time and then by the time they're 25 they'll be wonderful people you know you get them you know you get
1:03:42
the hang of it pretty quick I think you know it's starting to certain to think before you knee-jerk react yeah
1:03:50
there you go there you go that's what I do if you want to if you want to learn
1:03:56
it faster another place to have a place to practice it regularly that's right or
1:04:02
if you haven't seen any of it doing it hard the hard way just figuring it out on
1:04:07
your own that's tough if you've never seen it you know in my in my family you know uh
1:04:15
there was an alcoholic and I'd never seen alcoholism before and he died and I go and now I see that and I go
1:04:23
um you know red flag in somebody but I'd never seen it before and so you so it
1:04:28
goes by you until it's like crashed and you see it whether it's a you know
1:04:34
whatever unhealthy thing it is some kind of addiction or emotional thing and uh
1:04:40
yeah so there's no shame in watching a you know it's a place to watch a YouTube video and pick up a few tips and uh like
1:04:48
And subscribe and get to our patreon page or whatever that turns into or
1:04:54
there's somebody you can call and talk to for an hour about particular problems you know
1:05:01
yeah do you go about it deliberately absolutely yeah where was YouTube in the 80s I mean
1:05:09
it took me 20 years to figure all this stuff out
1:05:15
for myself and learn it and you know I learned through my jobs and working with children but I
1:05:22
also learned through I learned through my own adult relationships and trial and
1:05:27
error and what's healthy and what's toxic my own self work and like the inner
1:05:32
demons and [ __ ] I had to get over and heal and
1:05:38
you know undoing things I did to you your mother and I did to you well even just like you
1:05:47
know my own whether it was passed down through you guys or it was I was born with it as
1:05:53
part of my personality thought processes I don't know
1:05:58
some of it I know some of it I don't have examples and memories for so I don't know where it came from but dealing with your own [ __ ]
1:06:06
and deciding not to be that person and and
1:06:12
not just thinking about it but at taking action like your behavior in the world
1:06:17
is what makes you who you are and so but what drives your behavior is what lives in in here and so you have to fix what's
1:06:25
in here before you can change out here and so deciding to do that work and
1:06:31
change your behavior and and you know I'm lucky enough to have been
1:06:38
passionate about children for 20 years and that's been my career and that's what I've been doing and so I've learned
1:06:44
these things prior to having my own and I'm I know that I'm still going to
1:06:52
mess up and do things absolutely in a bad mood or in a bad phase of Life a
1:06:58
hard stressful or yeah yeah we're in a rush we're late like all these things
1:07:04
are gonna happen and I'm not gonna be perfect at it either but
1:07:09
there's something to be said for the amount of
1:07:14
time it can take if you're just doing this on your own and trying to figure it out as you go
1:07:20
versus intentionally taking time out of your schedule putting it on the calendar
1:07:27
to do yourself work or to work with a parent coach or whatever it might be
1:07:34
like you whether it's working with me or whatever modality you choose
1:07:41
the goal here is awareness that's why I wanted to do the podcast is so that more
1:07:49
people had access to this information and then to set aside make an
1:07:55
appointment with yourself or whatever just like you would work or the gym or a phone call with a family member or
1:08:00
whatever it is like if you don't prioritize and make time for it it won't happen yeah and so if you're just going
1:08:07
along every situation with your kids and hoping you get better it's not you're not going to yeah you have to practice
1:08:15
it and get help if you need it and we all know change happens faster when you
1:08:21
have someone holding you accountable for it so there's lots of options but I just want
1:08:27
to drive that point home of like you've got to do it on purpose yeah yeah that's all
1:08:33
that's change one of the words you used was change if you want to change or improve before you
1:08:39
grow that's that's an action that's not a wish
1:08:45
for that to happen usually there had my experiences growth usually comes with
1:08:50
some pain you know you don't people don't usually change until maybe that's
1:08:55
just us it hurts too much not to yeah we'll find out in the comments I'm sure I'm really anxious to see the comments
1:09:02
and I'll probably be a quivering bowl of jelly after I see them but yeah I'm not
1:09:07
reading comments you know someone else is reading comments and sending me the filter topic requests we'll pay somebody
1:09:14
if we if we get to that point I wonder how much it costs to yeah it wouldn't be so bad if they weren't personal I guess
1:09:21
you know I could filter somebody else's comments we're far too sensitive
1:09:28
one of our things but you do you have to do something take a class you have to
1:09:33
study it to me it all comes down to education the concept of Education there's people
1:09:40
who haven't gone to college didn't finish high school you know that's what kindergarten up is just exposure to new
1:09:47
information and deliberately you know going most days and doing a little bit
1:09:52
of homework or some reading or something and wanting to improve you know wanting to master something and this is no
1:09:59
different you know you can study parenting while you're doing parenting you can study math while you're doing math it doesn't matter what your level
1:10:06
is it's just a different area to educate yourself in you know maybe you like to
1:10:11
read the classics and you know a lot about fancy literature or or whether or
1:10:17
or Plumbing or welding or you know the technical trades are just whatever you
1:10:24
do you can you can study a little bit and think about how you want to do it and go about it more deliberately and
1:10:29
get better at it you know yeah people are eminently studyable so yeah just be
1:10:37
deliberate about the time spending a little bit of time we're not talking about a lot of time you know you're
1:10:44
talking about taking five percent of your life for two percent and spending some time
1:10:50
on an area that pays huge debit dividends you know it compounds over time
1:10:57
yeah on there parenting is arguably parenting is just
1:11:03
something we've always done evolutionarily it just is intuitive and and
1:11:09
but there's there is no formal education for it there's no
1:11:15
like no one is required like like math and science are requirements in high
1:11:20
school but parenting isn't but no manual more than half the population
1:11:26
become parents so it's like insane to me knowing what I know now that we are not
1:11:33
there's also no standard on how to parent that's right and different cultures and yeah something else that I
1:11:40
want to change that I want to change in the researchers who have spent studying parenting for 20 30 40 50 years and they
1:11:48
are discovering that there is a best practice it's not just personal
1:11:54
cultural societal like there is a best practice that turns out healthy functional resilient kind happy people
1:12:03
and for the mo like the majority of us are not doing it and
1:12:10
so without a formal Edge you know without it's just like anything else what you want to go to college for or
1:12:16
people who don't want to go to college and want to go to trade school or people who drop out of middle school and start
1:12:21
working because their family needs them to and then eventually figure out their passion and then they just they take a
1:12:28
class or they go do you know like you were saying like they you figure out what matters to you and you go do it and
1:12:36
get better at it and if you're a parent like it should matter to you
1:12:44
dude there's a value judge me you should but I agree well because your children didn't choose
1:12:50
to come into this world your children don't owe you anything I agree you chose to have children and so it's being a
1:12:58
good parent yeah why are you raising children there's kind of an assumption of you know okay I want to be good at
1:13:04
this because it's so intuitive well there's also there's the psychiat the psychology of like having children for
1:13:14
some not cool reasons like you know there's like this self-image and
1:13:19
reflection there's you know having children to take care of me because you won yeah
1:13:26
or because you want love and you know a child will love you or to keep a partnership together to
1:13:34
trap a partner or like whatever it might be there are lots of reasons people have children
1:13:41
because they want to be a guide for another Spirit a new
1:13:47
spirit on Earth to make the world a better place and
1:13:52
that's just an unfortunate truth and you know in our reality but if you are a
1:13:58
parent an intentional parent meaning that you had kids on
1:14:03
purpose because you wanted to create a family and a happy home and and all these things and continue your you know
1:14:09
your bloodline Etc then being the best parent you can be
1:14:16
I'm going to say should I normally don't use that word but in this case I'm gonna it would be nice
1:14:23
being the best parent you can be for your child to make the world a better place and to have a happy like if you
1:14:30
want your child to be happy in their adulthood
1:14:35
being a good parent should be something you're working on there you go it would be nice it would be nice if they were to
1:14:42
have avoid the should it would be nice for everybody nice for you nice for the child nice for the world
1:14:49
if uh if you studied it a little bit got better at
1:14:54
found some best practices as opposed to especially if what you know is beating
1:15:00
and shame and you know if you're if you're at bringing Woods horrible damaged I don't know how does
1:15:08
it go to hurt people hurt people kind of thing you know if you knew a lot of hurt then uh it should there yeah there I am
1:15:16
doing it you might want to think about undoing a couple of habits you know that
1:15:21
you're doing and that's you know and any and any Improvement is a is a great Boon
1:15:27
to the world that's the way it's going to get fixed it's not gonna you know there's no fairy dust there's no magic wand it's just
1:15:34
everybody people learning different habits the more we can do the more we can spread around
1:15:40
people don't people don't want to be an interfered you know you have to you can't look at
1:15:45
that as failure you just have to look at that as hey I'm working on being the best parent I can and everybody's unique
1:15:52
coming from unique places and so it's going to be a unique path yeah I'm really this is really this is
1:15:59
really interesting I'm anxious to see what uh what feedback we get on this see
1:16:05
how far see where we are under the bell curve yeah well and
1:16:12
like you were saying it doesn't happen overnight and it's not going to happen Perfection is not going to happen in one
1:16:20
generation we are yeah you know
1:16:25
cycle Breakers generational cycle Breakers and every family every culture passes down
1:16:32
whatever the past family members have passed down and you pass it down to your kids and they pass
1:16:37
it down to their kids and and until someone breaks the cycle it's going to
1:16:42
just keep going and you may not there might be 20 Cycles in your family line
1:16:48
and you've identified 10 of them and you're going to break 10 of them or two of them or 15 of them and it just
1:16:55
depends on which generation is made aware of what
1:17:01
you know and what and who is seeking the knowledge and the education to break the Cycles identify the cycles and break the
1:17:09
cycles and you don't have to put the world on your shoulders to fix
1:17:15
everything in your short lifetime but the more you break the less your
1:17:23
child is going to have to struggle with and the level of their children are going to have to struggle with and the
1:17:29
more the closer and closer we get to living in a place that is abundant and
1:17:37
joyful and fulfilling instead of yep a little traumatic and a little easier to
1:17:45
live in something like that yeah took a class
1:17:50
emotionally healthy relationships or something last year and
1:17:56
it was really interesting ran into I didn't know this existed a g not genomics
1:18:02
um Geno graphing something like that where you map your family and then there's different kinds
1:18:07
of lines between people you know and that who raised me and who did I have conflict with and
1:18:14
I forget the principles I gotta go back and look through that book and think about it because there's a lot
1:18:20
of yeah it gave me some insight into my own family
1:18:25
you know seeing it on I guess it's different modes of living learning or something you know it's like ah seeing
1:18:31
it on a piece of paper I'm in I.T I'm used to in software I'm used to dealing with boxes connected by lines
1:18:38
and arrows you know and it just kind of struck me seeing it written down as like oh you can right here's a chart for this
1:18:45
and uh like ah there was there was an aha of uh
1:18:52
boy there's a there's somebody's got a tool for working with this I was I was like hey that's snazzy I never even
1:18:58
thought of doing that um but it's good good to learn yeah I I wish I'd I wish I'd had it in
1:19:07
1985 or so when I started before I started having kids right
1:19:15
yeah it probably existed but I didn't see it I have to go back and look when
1:19:21
that stuff was invented well and it's I mean
1:19:27
it might have you know been a thought in someone's head and they wrote it down for the first time and you know invented
1:19:33
it but you being exposed to it in the right
1:19:40
place and time and like would you have been receptive to it in 1985 or would you have been in denial there's you know
1:19:47
so many everyone is developing and learning well after
1:19:54
childhood we are all developing and learning and capable of different things at different times in our lives like I'm
1:20:00
very good 34 and I've held multiple jobs you know all
1:20:07
generally in similar in a similar Arena but I'm not I don't have 15 years at one workplace and
1:20:14
there's you know my grandpa was a Methodist Minister for 40 years that's
1:20:20
what he did right and so that happens less and less I think
1:20:26
yeah well but like but the point is like different people need different things and we learn different things
1:20:32
differently and our minds are open to and closed off to different things at
1:20:38
different times in our lives based on our experiences and yeah very much Etc and so like if you're a 45 year old
1:20:45
parent hearing this [ __ ] for the first time and you've got young kids or you're a 20 year old parent hearing this stuff
1:20:50
for the first time and you've got young kids like it there's no one who's like the 45 year old isn't worse of a person
1:20:57
than the 20 year old simply because they're they've been exposed to something didn't run into it then yeah
1:21:02
right like because they weren't exposed to it or didn't run into it when they were 20 or weren't seeking it because they weren't a parent yet like age is
1:21:11
irrelevant and we're I got off track of the point I was
1:21:18
trying to make the point is we are all going to run into things
1:21:24
when we're meant to run into them yeah and when you run into something and you
1:21:29
become aware of something that you weren't aware of before your job from that point on isn't to
1:21:35
look at the past and go I wish I wish I wish it's true it's to go oh I now I'm
1:21:41
now aware of this and this is what I'm going to do about it moving forward it's a blessing it's an opportunity oh here
1:21:47
it is okay let's uh let's see what this is and there's probably some reason
1:21:52
waiting for me to use this somewhere you know there's a reason I ran into it now
1:21:57
rather than 100 years ago or the reason my parents didn't run into it or their parents didn't run it right well there's
1:22:04
stuff that you and Mom there's no point to go from your parents that I'm sure when you became parents you were like
1:22:10
we're never going to do that we're never going to do that we're never gonna be like our parents well no not in that sense but I mean
1:22:16
like there are things your parents did to you that you did not then to do to us so even if you were aware of it or like
1:22:23
purposeful or not there are things that you
1:22:28
saw that your parents did to you and hurt you and you didn't do it to us I
1:22:34
think my parents were perfect can I be can everybody sarcasm probably
1:22:40
doesn't translate into podcasts very good sorry no I think I think it's good I like it it's the truth of who we are
1:22:46
so we've got to bring it in right and you don't even know and you don't even know it you know that's why it's good to
1:22:53
have a coach be coachable you know if you guys
1:22:58
you know there was a time in my 20s
1:23:04
tough time there was a lot of my 20s where I was I was resentful
1:23:11
at varying times and varying years at varying stages of my therapy and
1:23:16
realizations of where my my stuff came from and if it came from you or it came
1:23:23
from Mom and a good job there was there was but then there was there's
1:23:29
integrating those things and I get to choose and and you came from something you came
1:23:38
from parenting that was probably that was even more dysfunctional or toxic and
1:23:44
you didn't do a lot of the things your parents did to you and so there's like this appreciation for you
1:23:49
taking the steps to break the cycle but yeah the point I'm actually trying to get to is that if
1:23:56
you weren't the parents that you were I would not be so passionate about what
1:24:04
I am passionate about and maybe I wouldn't have pursued what I have pursued and the knowledge in education
1:24:12
and career that I have pursued and I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now creating
1:24:18
this relationship based parenting model that I now plan to get you know give to the
1:24:25
world and to as many people as I can and trying to make it a better place yeah
1:24:30
right and so if I had been raised in what you know quote unquote the perfect
1:24:37
environment I wouldn't be who and what I am today
1:24:42
and so and that's you know I don't want that to turn into an argument for parents to be like well if my if I was a
1:24:49
perfect parent my kid won't have a passion about anything when they grow up like no
1:24:55
they will and we need to make the world a better place and we're we're also born like I came out of the womb loving
1:25:03
children that is innate in me nobody gave me that no that's been for him
1:25:08
since a young age yeah like people mom you excuse me your adult friends who
1:25:17
knew me back then like everybody knows Jenny Jenny and kids go together like
1:25:23
peanut butter and jelly and I didn't have any trouble finding babysitting gigs when you were of that age yeah I
1:25:29
mean I walked into a room with their kids if there's a baby like I will end up with it by the end of the night like
1:25:36
it will be mine very kid oriented yeah one kid and kids are drawn to me and
1:25:42
there's you know so that's my natural gift and I would have found that no matter what
1:25:49
hopefully hopefully um but the the passion
1:25:55
and the drive that I feel to correct the injustice
1:26:01
that I remember feeling in my childhood
1:26:06
that I remember working through in my 20s and that I am now mostly on the other
1:26:13
side of in my 30s is something because you're getting on
1:26:20
the other side of it well but it's what drove me to want to start
1:26:28
coaching versus I'm just going to take care of kids for the rest of my life it was a struggle it was a struggle and you
1:26:34
can make it easier sharing your struggle for other people oh well and there's kids who are raised
1:26:42
in super healthy healthy relational homes there are a few of them out there
1:26:50
um they still find their passion and my argument is they find it a lot quicker
1:26:56
yeah because they can because they're not dealing with trauma and yeah
1:27:02
brain just trying to survive constantly they're able to actually pursue their
1:27:08
passions become successful earlier and build
1:27:13
joyful fulfilling lives faster than those of us who are starting families in
1:27:20
our 30s they just go off you know people who haven't had trauma
1:27:27
and I think the 30s is the right time to do it so I think the latest science
1:27:34
I think the latest science is that your brain our brains are actually
1:27:39
not fully developed until we're 28 years old 25 27 yeah 28 and it's the
1:27:45
prefrontal cortex everything else is developed except the prefrontal cortex our Judgment centers are not fully
1:27:51
developed for 28 years and our brains continue growing throughout our whole
1:27:57
lives so but your judgment Zone is not fully developed until you're 28.
1:28:04
it's like driving it takes a long time after you get your driver's license to be a good driver you know because you
1:28:10
have to be in all those situations to make think through all those decisions and it's complicated like parents yeah
1:28:15
yeah I was mostly just making a joke about starting a family in my 30s I didn't find Lewis until
1:28:22
my 30s so timing again I didn't want to have kids with anybody until I found the right yeah person you value them pretty
1:28:30
much it took me a while to find the right person some people find themselves back to timing and fate in the universe
1:28:36
some people find themselves having kids way before they intended to before it
1:28:42
was a conscious thing but that's the situation and there's still a good idea to make the best you know do the best at
1:28:48
it that you can with a little bit of Education a little bit of talk and let go of the
1:28:54
um you know don't be defensive about things and uh
1:29:01
find somebody it resonates with and share some ideas you know a group of friends or a coach or whatever be
1:29:07
coachable yeah yeah when I we uh I just want to
1:29:13
put this out there like when you keep you keep using that phrase be coachable
1:29:18
and it's such an important phrase because it's something I had to learn I in everything and well I've had to learn
1:29:25
yeah and everything I've had to learn it and I've I've had I've done it I've I've been in therapy
1:29:32
for eight years I've hired coaches I like I wouldn't be out here being like
1:29:37
I'm a coach I can help you unless one I know what
1:29:43
I'm talking about and two I've done it I've seen a lot so I've hired coaches
1:29:48
I've I've reaped the rewards and the benefits and the the faster growth and
1:29:54
whatever from someone who's who's who's who's done it someone who's been in the
1:30:01
trenches and learned it and is on the other side and sharing what they know
1:30:06
and I just yeah it's something I I've I
1:30:12
highly value in my own life I have a coach right now I have a business coach
1:30:18
like I will continue to hire coaches according to what I'm working on in my life because I know I will get there so
1:30:25
much faster than if I were to just sit here in my office and spin about it in my own head or talk to my friends about
1:30:31
it on the side and try to figure it out yeah get out of the echo chamber imagine
1:30:37
I just had it Flash in my head a picture of a football team trying to self-organize and play football and
1:30:43
think no it's kind of that's gonna get done a lot faster if you're somebody uh
1:30:49
saying uh here's how you hold a football there's you know here's a better way to hold a football here's here's a better
1:30:54
way to run yeah you might want to put your helmet on for this yeah somebody who's done it before and
1:31:02
and uh well and I think I've seen some of it before he is a much more widely accepted notion
1:31:09
nowadays I feel like than it was in the 80s or 90s or even early 2000s it was kind of like a oh you're you're in
1:31:16
therapy you need help especially in your generation I think I still run into a lot of people that are like about that
1:31:22
but you're well you guys seem to talk to one another more but you were the ones that were ooh and eyeing at it in the
1:31:28
80s so oh yeah yeah oh yeah but it's much more widely accepted in my generation
1:31:34
maybe some Gen X but there's there's this this notion of like and
1:31:43
this is part of the way we're raised too of like there's shame in asking for help
1:31:49
there's Shameless people and children who
1:31:56
don't fit the standard mold or who who can't fake it to fit into the standard
1:32:02
mold long enough to get through public school or whatever and like people learn
1:32:08
different ways and we all like there is no one who gets through life without help from somebody
1:32:15
no there's no shame in not having seen a situation you know you have kids and you
1:32:20
don't know what kind of learning challenges they're gonna have or what
1:32:26
have physical challenges whatever you know and we haven't seen them all either we we have our little bubble of
1:32:33
experience but there's no shame in saying you know like with the alcoholism or toxic relationships or it's there's
1:32:40
no shame in not having run across something before and going I don't know exactly how to deal with this my trump
1:32:48
maybe ask around and see if anybody's seen this and get a couple of tips you know to make it go a little better not
1:32:54
that it's going to fix anything but cast about for some information
1:33:01
well yeah well but then there's this shame of like
1:33:06
people don't they don't reach out they don't do that because they were brought up to figure things out for yourself and
1:33:15
yeah dumb if you don't if you can't if you can't approach a new situation and
1:33:21
figure it out like it's not that's not human that's not how we operate we come
1:33:28
out of the womb completely helpless and the point of parents is to guide and
1:33:34
teach and I don't know there's
1:33:39
many people I know who parenting doesn't stop at 18. like that's just when the
1:33:46
government has decided you're an adult that doesn't mean anything in the reality of the timeline of
1:33:52
learning where that came from and it's but it's this it's deeply embedded in
1:33:59
our in our foundation and the shame in our DNA and however it's passed down and
1:34:04
taught retaught and over and over and over again of asking for help is shameful and it means that you there's
1:34:11
something wrong with you inherently wrong with you if you need help and the
1:34:17
but the reality is we all need help we can't all do everything all day every
1:34:24
single day nobody can like there's a man or a woman who comes and picks up my
1:34:30
trash every week because I don't have time to drive it 50 miles outside the
1:34:35
city and dump it like I can't cook every single day or I don't have time to like
1:34:43
clean my entire house all of the time like there everybody needs help in whatever ways that we need
1:34:51
help and it's kind of a tribe thing it's a you're better part of it yeah we weren't meant
1:34:57
to be to live these like lonely isolated lives and whatever wherever that started
1:35:03
this like hyper-independence and
1:35:09
and I even I've even heard it from from older Generations who believe in tribal
1:35:14
stuff and they think that the newer Generations are way too self-involved and and independent but then they but
1:35:21
then they shame you for for seeking help for help which is it yeah am I allowed
1:35:27
to rely on other people for stuff and ask for help or do I need to be toxically independent and which
1:35:36
one are you going to judge me for like yeah this is my tribe what uh what's wrong with having a tribe you know yeah
1:35:42
yeah it's Gotta you it's good it's healthy use that word
1:35:49
to share ideas and get better at things especially if something is important as
1:35:56
child rearing you know and value instilling and you
1:36:01
know make sure you've thought through your values and make sure you've thought through you know we also touched on
1:36:07
sometimes we we do what we know and maybe that's not uh maybe that has
1:36:13
unintended consequences and maybe it's good to discuss that stuff once in a while and uh get a well that's what
1:36:20
you're another opinion yeah we're looking at it you know that was one of the goals here is to be able to look at
1:36:26
the different facets and different sides the pros and cons and whatever of
1:36:34
all of these issues to be able to talk out loud about how that could be helpful or how that
1:36:40
could be harmful or because it's not happening it's not happening in our communities
1:36:49
and nobody's had time for it it's not like oh we're not going to the coffee shop with our friends and just blowing
1:36:55
off our jobs and having time to do things like we're not naturally in those situations where
1:37:02
like we're all living Separate Lives yeah we all live very Separate Lives we have different jobs in cars and houses
1:37:08
and we have different schedules in our own little our own fan our little family unit
1:37:14
yeah has their responsibilities and stuff and each family unit has all their
1:37:21
own stuff and so we're like living in the vicinity of each other but we're completely separated and you don't have
1:37:29
enough paper but you know people across the planet uh yeah and I've actually kind of yeah
1:37:35
always been a little jealous of cultures and
1:37:41
families who live together uh who who they all house together
1:37:49
pretty much their whole lives until the older children move out and start having their own children and maybe even
1:37:55
sometimes you know they're in and out move back in move out or whatever and have their own house and I know that
1:38:01
that a lot of that was because of socioeconomic need and it's not like a glamorous thing to
1:38:08
Aspire to and I don't want to be ignorant of that but I also
1:38:14
see that and it can be complicated and loud and noisy
1:38:20
and busy and and whatever but there's also an element of tribe to that and
1:38:25
like work together and there's somebody if somebody there's there's seven or eight adults
1:38:31
who can cook instead of just one or two in the house trying to handle everything and cook healthy meals and get the kids
1:38:39
everywhere and earn money and like if I could have a castle and
1:38:47
have all my friends and family live together but also I mean there's also I
1:38:55
value my space and I'm an introvert but like I just need a bedroom for that you know so it's like if I if I could live
1:39:02
in a big castle and move all my family and friends into it and we would all live together and work the land and raise the the cows and ride the horses
1:39:11
and do the things and there's multiple people going out to work jobs and there's multiple people at home taking
1:39:16
care of kids and there's multiple like there's shared labor and community and
1:39:22
constant interaction like they've they've shown again in the most recent studies connection Mission and
1:39:29
relationship and having a community is the number one determination determining factor in longevity in a healthy
1:39:38
length of Life active community like being in contact with and being in
1:39:46
relationship with people on a daily weekly regular basis and that's why they
1:39:52
like they've shown that like the elderly who get secluded in their homes and they just have a nurse visit everyone isolation after divorce for guys yeah
1:40:00
yeah depression and healthy things so but but anyway yeah I've always
1:40:06
loved that concept and you know have dreams about creating a
1:40:13
community or sharing a plot of land and farming it and raising
1:40:20
raising meat and animals and having shared resources and community
1:40:25
and that's an old bottle of family dinners and yeah chaos and excitement and
1:40:34
connection yeah disruption it's it's going to be interesting the longevity thing is this
1:40:42
you know we're in we're in the internet is about partly about communities you
1:40:47
know there's only two people that like to collect purple clown heads or something and if there can be six of
1:40:53
them on the planet and they can get together through the internet that was one of the you know you can have a so
1:40:59
that's a kind of community so is having your family grow up around 500
1:41:06
acres and everybody works the Family Farm like or or a plot a land like has
1:41:12
been going on for however many thousands of years it's going to be
1:41:17
interesting to see well and so getting within a family unit
1:41:23
there's habits and you know passed along sayings and all kinds of things it's going to be interesting to watch
1:41:30
and learn um through this through this podcast how
1:41:36
this how this affects Community you know can you have a a community of people all
1:41:43
trying to get better at part parenting or pick up a tip here and there or you know it beats watching Tick Tock dances
1:41:50
there's you know here's there's something a little more productive in my humble opinion and uh how that Community
1:41:56
affects people um what kind of community can you have
1:42:03
online and then of course with you there's always you know here's a phone number and and talk and face you get a
1:42:10
sort of kind of face time with a computer and get to know people to an extent online it's a it's going to be
1:42:17
interesting it's an extension a modification of community what's going on here it's going to be
1:42:23
very interesting to see in a hundred years
1:42:28
all right well I think we've gone off topic yeah we have I'm sorry
1:42:37
it is don't apologize I have to do that we um well everything is connected it's
1:42:44
gonna happen it's gonna happen every episode so if you're someone who demands linear thought in your episode
1:42:53
than your podcasts than this may not be for you you're gonna wait till have to wait till we get a little more practice
1:42:59
it's staying on point I don't know that we ever will we've been talking to each other for 34 years
1:43:05
so but I think it's helpful I think that I
1:43:10
think that there's a it's a normal especially in parenting it's such a daily thing that it's like if I do that
1:43:16
then it's gonna do this and if we do this then it's going to do that and I said where do I find the time kids is not linear so yeah it's your thoughts as
1:43:24
a parent you're like am I causing shame and guilt well what if I do this well then am I being am I letting them get
1:43:29
away with stuff and then what about this and there's you ping-ponging on the Spectrum back and forth constantly oh my
1:43:34
crew don't micromanage yourself yeah I think talking through these things and
1:43:39
and and seeing how they're all connected to different things and all of that I think
1:43:45
it's I think it's fine but we should probably end it we're well over our 60 Minutes oh my goodness that went fast
1:43:52
but yeah this was fun and uh and we'll see you all next time
1:44:01
if someone came to mind while you were listening to this episode or you are wishing you had a friend to digest it
1:44:08
with I would be so honored if you shared this link from this episode with them
1:44:14
I myself have always benefited from community and sharing and I truly believe that it takes a village to raise
1:44:22
a child our society has become so independent from one another and parenting these
1:44:29
days is often a lonely Journey but it doesn't have to be that way
1:44:35
that's why I'm here if you have been seeking a more intentional approach to
1:44:40
Parenting but you aren't sure where to start I would love to hear from you you
1:44:45
can find me and all of my offerings at www.jennyb.com
1:44:52
and come follow me on all major social media platforms it fills my heart to
1:44:57
hear your stories where you come from and your big goals for raising the Next
1:45:03
Generation and don't forget comment your parenting question on our YouTube channel the
1:45:09
relational parenting podcast to get it answered on one of our future episodes
1:45:14
if you enjoyed this podcast please hit the Subscribe button so you never miss out
1:45:20
I am so grateful that you are here and always remember you are never alone
1:45:27
I'll see you next week this show is intended for education and entertainment
1:45:32
purposes only we will discuss things like mental health abuse PTSD and other
1:45:39
potentially triggering subjects please listen at your own discretion and this podcast is not intended for anyone under
1:45:46
the age of 18.