Bonus: Live Coaching: Inner Child & Reparenting Work With a Challenging Child
/For this episode, I will be doing a live coaching with a member of my Balancing U Community. One of the perks of being a member of this community is that members will have an opportunity to come on the podcast where they share their experiences and get free coaching with me! If you are interested in joining us and getting access to the other benefits (like weekly Office Hours!), just send me an email at laura@laurafroyen.com and I'll get you the details!
In this Live Coaching episode, I had the opportunity to work with a wonderful mom of three kids. It is my hope that by being able to listen in to our discussion as we work through some triggers she has with her 3-year old, you will see what the Inner Work of Conscious Parenting can look like in action.
If you want to learn more, follow me on Instagram @laurafroyenphd.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts, and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello everybody Welcome to another episode of The Balance Parent Podcast. I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and I'm talking today with one of the members of my Balancing U membership community as a perk of being in my community, you get to come on the podcast and get free coaching with me and so I'm really excited to have this wonderful mom. She has a three year old, a two year old and a baby who is just shy of becoming earth side and so we're going to be talking today a little bit about her relationship with her three year old, how she's kind of triggered in that relationship.
Her reactivity and she's doing a lot of great, beautiful inner healing work that is still in progress and she's wondering, okay, so while I'm doing this and I'm healing work, while I'm kind of doing that work, how do I respond in the moment because the triggers are still happening and kind of how do I do this inner work as I'm also doing this external work of parenting. So Hi, welcome to the show, why don't you tell us a little bit about your situation yourself, your family, and we'll dig right into your relationship with your three year old.
Guest: Hey, okay, well I am uh you know, stay at home mom for almost 3.5 and two year old and I'm 37 weeks pregnant and I don't live around family. Nobody is close by. My husband tends to work a lot. So I really am pretty intensely involved in being a almost solo parents sometimes. Um, so my, you know, my my three year old and my two year old are exactly opposite personalities and my three year old is a very smart, cognitive creative, very emotionally attuned girl.
She is just a little bit more challenging for me and has always sort of been my child that triggers me more. My two year old is a little bit more laid back, she's more, I guess type B and she kind of goes with the flow a little bit more, a little more forgiving. Um, so you know, I'm home, I'm home all day with them. My three year old, I just started her with like a a couple hours in the morning to play groups. That gives me a little bit of space. But for the most part it's been a little bit intense, especially since Covid started with very few or no playdates and really no way of getting a break.
Laura: It's hard, isn't it, when we've got one, you know, one of our kids is kind of full on intense, sensitive, it makes the experience of attempting to hold a respectful space with them very intense, you know, like exhausting, right?
Guest: Yeah. You know, I've been reading up since day one on all this, you know, follow your blogs and General Lansbury and you know, I love this stuff and I have all the books and I'm trying to do all this in her work. But when it comes down practically speaking to my day to day, it's it's just so, so difficult to implement.
Laura: Yeah, it is, it's not easy. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it and we'd probably have a way better society, right? But it's not easy because we're working against, you know, generations of trauma and conditioning that we're undoing. And it is hard to move against the stream of the kind of the tide that's pulling us into keeping us in the same path that we've always been in.
I want to commend you on the work that you're doing to enact inter generational change in your family to be that inflection point where your family changes direction. That is a powerful place to be in, but it can be hard and it can be lonely. You were telling me before we started to that it's kind of been this way with your daughter from the moment she was born, but she was born kind of a difficult temperament baby. She was born with, you know, as difficult to soothe she had some call it going on and it's kind of just been this way.
Guest: Yeah. You know, being I wasn't new to newborn care, but having a colicky newborn reflux baby as your first is kind of traumatic.
Laura: I know I had one too.
Guest: Didn't quite realize what it really meant when your day in and day out with it. And I remember one time I just, I hired a babysitter through an agency and I just told her nose at the beginning of the winter, I'm like, just take her outside, I just can't listen to the screaming anymore. So all these intentions I had for her even as a young baby, you know the ways I wanted to interact the way I wanted to even sleep, train her all these things and ideas that I had in my head that I really value went out the window, just totally went out the window.
I was so reactive in a way that was kind of surprised me how strong because you're so raw without sleep and postpartum and that I wouldn't venture to say that I was had postpartum depression or anxiety, it wasn't quite there, but it was teetering because you just stripped away of all your defenses when you're a parent and all the stuff that you thought you had put together because I've been through therapy before. This is not new to me that I thought I kind of had some of this stuff together. You just get stripped of a lot of your defenses.
Laura: and then really raw time. It is.
Guest: Yeah. And you realize, I guess it's kind of in a way it's good to strip away the Band aid to see what you're left with. But it's also really difficult to model. I am very reactive to her from the beginning. I mean, her cry is just, you know, pulled at my heart in a way that I never experienced before.
Laura: Absolutely. And they do, they pull out you and they're supposed to write this is what keeps babies and humans safe and growing as a as a species. But at the same time, we also have this idea that we are supposed to know how to soothe our babies, that we are supposed to be able to sue their babies.
And when you have a baby who is difficult to soothe who has a difficult temperament and also has, you know, some of the colic or reflux stuff going on, That feedback loop that builds confidence in new parents is broken and we become almost every interaction with our baby confirms the bias that we have, that we're screwing it up, but we don't know what we're doing, that we're all of those negative thoughts that we might have about ourselves. It's a very vulnerable thing to have a baby that is difficult to soothe.
Guest: Yeah. And it really just continued into her top three years. You know, when I think about how I react to her now, it's not all that different. She's very, very sensitive child and she goes from 0 to 100 quickly, just like she did when she was a baby. It's just a little bit different now. And I guess I kind of had an expectation that she would grow out of certain things where she would, you know, I think of her as three going on 30 so she is very mature.
So sometimes I put a little bit too much adult regulation, emotional regulation onto her and I'm like why can't you just you know, stop screaming. The problem is not such a big deal. So, you know, I noticed with her talk back to me, that's what bothers me the most is when she plays or when she talks back to me and I hear myself through her through her voice. I think it's a bother what makes me realize how far gone I am sometimes and it scares me okay.
Laura: So I want to pull out a few things there that I think lots of parents experience. So one when we have a child who seems more mature maybe has like a bigger vocabulary in verbal expression skills. It can be so easy to have higher expectations of their emotional regulation and their impulse control and all of those types of skills. And it's so important to you know in the moment remind ourselves that even though they sound like they are talking like a four or five year old that really they're still emotionally three.
I think that that can be really hard though to do. And then the other piece that you were talking about two that just made me think about my episode that I did with an O. T. On raising sensitive and spirited kids It sounds to me so some kids are born with systems that are more sensitive and being in the world just kind of existing in the world is more taxing to their nervous systems to their regulation systems and which leads them to have a narrow window of tolerance that is just naturally more narrow and that means that things that wouldn't normally set off the average three year old do set off those three year olds and so you know I guess you probably listened to that episode but if you haven't I would definitely recommend going back and listening to it. And for anybody listening who's got one of these kids that just really feels like they are just you know losing it over everything going from 0 to 100 super intense, super sensitive.
Everything is the End of the world. Check out that Episode 34 just to see what you think and see if it might be might apply to you. I've heard from lots of people who have listened to that episode than gone and gotten and consult with an occupational therapist. The therapist roads like yes, we can help you and they're already seeing improvements. So that episode is wonderful. But the other, I mean, so the piece of this though is that how do we differentiate than when this is kind of typical three year old stuff?
Because three being a three year old is rough. Being a three year old is a hard time. It's even harder when you have a difficult temperament because that's what I'm kind of hearing you say is that she's got this is temperaments are something that have been studied a lot and kids, it's almost like the precursors to personality traits and some kids are more difficult.
Some kids are more intense, some kids are more sensitive. Those things don't necessarily have to be a bad thing. We just have to learn about them and flex and roll with what it is that they're doing, how they show up the kid that's kind of in front of us rather than the kid we were expecting to have.
But one of the things though that I think is so important is that when we are looking at our kid and we have all of these ideas about what a three year old is supposed to be like and they trigger us, that means we have other stuff that's kind of getting in the way of us seeing them clearly. That can block us from having an authentic connection with them. It can block us from being able to be the parent that we want to be with them.
That you know when things are calm and to the tune, our nervous system is down regulated and we were able to be conscious and intentional, we were like, oh that's not how I want to show up, but in that moment it can be so hard, right? And that's what you're experiencing, it sounds like.
Guest: Yeah. And I've never been really good with holding my boundaries with her because she tests me so much. So I really would love to be able to hold these healthy boundaries and give her that clarity of being the leader of the parents.
Laura: Yeah.
Guest: And she picks up on my inconsistencies and she picks up on all this stuff. So like, you know, we had an issue recently with night waking, she had been a great sleeper up until about I don't know, five months ago and all of a sudden it became an issue and so I try to set boundaries with that, but you know when she's screaming her head off at two o'clock in the morning and she's waking up her sister.
So I cave and there's a lot of back and you know going back and with that stuff because it's very hard to hold boundaries with the child like that, even though, you know, they need it so badly.
Laura: Yeah, so these are times to that it's helpful to, okay, so we, you know, if the night waking are starting to happen, I've had a couple of them, okay, now we need to make a proactive plan for what's going to happen rather than in the moment trying to figure it out.
But it is it is hard to hold boundaries and it's especially hard to hold boundaries when we are motivated by fear. Like even in just that what you were just talking about, you were afraid someone else would wake up, but you're also afraid that if I don't hold the boundary, she senses my inconsistency. So those fears there. And I was curious, we were talking before we started recording to about how she triggers some thoughts and fears in you, can you tell us a little bit about this? I asked you before if she reminds you of anybody.
Guest: Yeah, yeah, she does. This fear thing is very real to me. Whenever I look at our situation between my daughter and I and I feel like I'm failing. The first thing that pops up into my head is my, my oldest sister and my mom and to me, the failure between myself, my daughter is almost identical. Um my oldest sister also apparently triggered my mom, I think she was also a college baby from the stories I hear, she must have had some other stuff going on that they didn't really address back then, but they definitely struggled a lot from the story, the stories that my mother tells me about my oldest sister, they're all negative.
I mean all the baby stories that I hear are all about how she was always screaming and you know, they're all kind of negative and I get the sense that she was pretty traumatized by her and very triggered by her and she actually had my second sister close in age similar to what my situation is right now. And my second older one is to be really a lot more chilled out, kind of give my mother which she needed in terms of the nurturing. She wanted the hugs and the kisses and the cuddling while my oldest sister rejected.
That is not a touchy person, very similar to my situation. My oldest is highly sensitive but doesn't want the hugs and kisses. She wants you to talk to her with attention. She just needs to love in a different way. And my second child, she just wants you to hug and kiss her and you know, everything's fine and did and that feels good as a parent to because it feels good to me to receive that and my oldest rejects that and that's hard and I just, I see this playing out the same way it did with my mom. Yeah, it's a lot of fear.
Laura: So relationships, there are absolutely patterns in families that kind of run through a family like this. Most families have them if you draw a family tree and then add in kind of symbols to represent the, the type of relationship people had, you can see them flow through a family and it's normal I think to be afraid of that.
So there's this fear that is in the present moment, this fear of I don't want to have that same relationship with my daughter. I don't want to have that. I don't want to repeat that pattern with her. I do feel a little bit curious about how you now feel about your sister and how you remember feeling about her as a kid. I kind of want to focus in on what did you think about your sister as a kid? And what did you think about her now?
Guest: I'm kind of embarrassed to say, but I sort of reacted to her the family my mom did
Laura: when you were little when you were a kid?
Guest: Yeah, you didn't like her. Maybe even I never like yeah, she was always irritating to me as well.
Laura: Why do you think that is what you know now from your kind of adult place? Looking back down on it? Like why do you think that is? Why do you think a kid would kind of not like their sister?
Guest: Well, I mean I think it's a combination of her learning to receive negative attention from others as love. So she did actually do things to irritate you, Get a reaction from you. That was how she experienced love and attention. So that trickle down to her siblings as well. So she was always you know the do gooder and try and it was just a very irritating older sister to have. It was always, you know, tattle tailing on you and just not.
She just knew how to trigger all of ours buttons actually. But for me, I mean it was probably the only thing I learned. I mean that was washing my mom reacting to her so whether whether I and my child's mind knew that it was bad or wrong, it doesn't matter because that was my world and that's how I knew to react to her when she did things, even that work that we're really kinda get. Sometimes she would do things that we're trying to help me or try to help my mom. You know, she was always trying to be helpful but she would do it in a way that would trigger you or irritate you, you didn't want to help.
Laura: Yeah, okay, what you're saying makes so much sense. As a little kid, you're watching these interactions between your mom and your sister and you're learning okay, I cannot be that way. The way that my sister is as bad and wrong, It's getting her rejected. It's getting her punished.
You know, it is this what she's doing is scary and bad and wrong and I can't be that way if I want to stay in my mom's good graces if I want to stay connected with my mom. And so it makes complete sense that from a child's perspective like that, that's what they would be learning. And it also makes complete sense that when you see those very behaviors, those very behaviors that were labeled bad, wrong, annoying, irritating, obnoxious when you see them and your daughter, it makes sense that there is an echo there an echo of that like this is bad, this is wrong. This needs to stop now.
On the one part, there's this little one inside you who is like annoyed like, oh God, another sister like this, you know? And then there's another part that's like afraid for your daughter, afraid for like we have to stop this because she's going to get rejected, you know? And then there's this fear in the current moment of like, oh gosh, this pattern is repeating itself, I don't want this for my daughter, I don't want this for her and me, you know, there's all this stuff, it's very complicated.
So I do want to know how do you feel towards the little you who didn't like her sister now as an adult? Like looking back at that little one who was kind of annoyed by her sister, who couldn't see the good and her sister at that point in time, it was kind of just reacting based on the family system that she was in. How do you feel towards that towards little you?
Guest: I mean I can only think of it in my adult mind.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean like so looking back at adult you or from your adult chair, your adult position, looking back at little you who felt negatively towards your sister. How do you feel towards that little one?
Guest: I feel really sorry that I could even as a little girl, you know, a couple years younger than her, I couldn't be there for her.
Laura: There's guilt there.
Guest: Yeah. Like I couldn't I fell into the same pattern.
Laura: Yeah. And I wonder what it would be like to as your adult self right now, cultivate a little bit of compassion for that little girl. Like what is that little girl need? The one that you were who had a hard time in her family because her sister was so difficult. Is there any part of you that's open to like validating like little you saying it makes sense that you rejected your sister and you know, it maybe wasn't right and now we're grown ups and we know that there were other options. But you were a kid and you didn't know there were other options and you were doing the best you could. What would it be like to say that too little You?
Guest: Yeah. That's like my biggest challenge right now with the work that we're doing together? Yeah. Honestly, week one, compassionate week that is will be my biggest challenge. But you're saying makes sense to me. I just can't quite get there right now.
Laura: So let's go in a little bit too then to that little one little you who's there who's in this family system with a really difficult kid who's having a hard time and ill equipped parents, parents who don't know how to handle a kid who's difficult like this. Does it make sense to you? That like a kid who's in this scenario who's a sibling who's watching this happen would respond in the way that you maybe did just cognitively, Does that make sense?
Guest: It makes total sense cognitively. It just feels, you know, just.
Laura: yeah, absolutely. It feels wrong, but it makes sense. Like we can totally get why this little girl was this way, right? It's survival. It's it's all you know, to like if you grow up in a situation where difficult people are met with shame and blame and judgment instead of compassion, then how else are you supposed to know how to interact with them?
What do you think would have happened if you, like if you know there was an ant in your family who would come in and be like, I know your sister is having a really hard time right now and your parents are not handling it well. She's your sister is a lovely person and she wants to help you. You know what what if you had someone who came alongside you and helped you see your sister differently then just through the lens of your parents, what do you think would have, how would it have been different?
Guest: I would like to think that that would have helped a lot.
Laura: Yeah.
Guest: Understanding.
Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. And so I just part of me wonders to in as a part of your inner work that you're doing that the compassion peace can be hard. It can be quite a lot easier to come from a cognitive place of like it makes sense that you were the way you were. And then rather than going in and offering that little person compassion for being that way, you can also re parent yourself by coming alongside and being that aunt or someone else who came in and showed little you a different way to see your sister.
That might be really helpful. So if you have time to do some meditation, some reflections on incidences that you remember from your childhood where your sister was really difficult and you were watching and thinking back, pulling up some of those scenarios and then stepping into the frame as your wise adult self now and explaining it to the little one, explaining it with all of the little you, explaining it to little you, all of the things that are going on.
You know that right now your sister is overwhelmed. Her brain is you can even have a little session where you sit down with little you in your brain and you teach her about the brain stem and the three levels of cognitive development and what's going on in her sister's brain. These are all things that you can do as internal work with your little self that are maybe easier to access than like full on compassion. And that will help little you be more compassionate to your sister so that when you look back on those memories they will have a different color to them, a different tenor, a different vibration to them.
Does that make sense? And what is powerful about that? Is that when we do that, when we go in and we take a look at those memories that we have and we give them a different color. We kind of start shifting the lens that we ourselves were using while we were watching the situation. Then when they happen in our real life with the person who's triggering those memories, like the real life interactions also take on that different tenor.
Because the lens that you're viewing your daughter with when she's being difficult when she's kind of acting like your sister. That lens is completely clouded by little use lens, it's completely clouded. And so if we want to change the lens that we are using to view our kids for some people, you can learn new things about child development and it's easy to shift that lens away. But sometimes we have these old lenses that are deeply ingrained in us and it's really hard to move them in the moment. And so we have to go back in time and change the actual lens instead of shifting it away. I don't know if that makes sense.
Guest: Yeah. No, it makes total sense. I know when I've had success in doing that, it's just like taking me to a different mindset with her.
Laura: Yes, Absolutely.
Guest: When I am successful, it's amazing the shift that happens within me and then whatever I do or don't do whether it's quote unquote, right or wrong, parenting. It doesn't matter. Because the feeling she's getting from me is warm.
Laura: Yes. The feeling she's getting from you is acceptance, right? And in general, you have been programmed to reject her, right? So, you grew up in a situation that everything that she is, everything that she's embodies was you were programmed to reject it, right? And so we have to re program that so that you can be unconditionally accepting in the moment with her. And they feel that our kids feel the difference when we come at them from a place of acceptance, right? And so in the moment when that's happening, when she is waking up this echo of your sister, that's within you, right?
That's what it is. It's an echo, right? That's within you. She's waking it up. And the little one inside you is like, oh God, here we go again or whatever it is. And that they she says, I don't know what the things are that you get like, this doesn't need to be a big deal. Why does it have to be so difficult? I don't like are those are the things that you say to yourself in your head?
Absolutely. You know, I know this because I have similar echoes and I have a similar child, Right? And so what's beautiful about these children is that they give us the chance to heal really deep wounds, really deep patterns and quite, you know, in doing this work with your daughter as your kind of co-conspirator. She has the power to help you heal your relationship with your sister. And we're not putting that on her just to be super clear. It is not our children's job to heal us or do anything for us, but they do give us opportunities, right?
Okay. So in the moment when that's happening, in that echo kind of starts waking up inside of us and we have to recognize all the thoughts like why can't this just be easy? Why can't you just do what I ask? You know, we have to recognize all of those thoughts that flood that cascade of thoughts. Those thoughts are all coming from the past, those are all coming from our programming. Right? And so when that's happening, those little ones inside of us, those echoes are very present and close and concerned and they're listening, right? So they're open and available for changing too.
So in that moment if you can get a little bit of a pause which I hope you're doing your mindfulness practices so that you can have the nervous system soothing. That allows you to have the pause. If you can get a little bit of a pause and be able to acknowledge and accept that flood that flood of like why can't she just do this? Like this needs to get done, this needs to be over. Why does she have to be so difficult? You know all of those things that you tell yourself and start acknowledging like oh yeah that's the programming for my childhood, that's about my sister and separate from like what's actually going on now and get a little bit of that distance. I think that that can be really helpful.
You can also like that gives you an opportunity to do a little bit of work with seven, I don't know why I keep saying seven year old you, I keep saying in my head, I don't know if that's the actual age. It just, I don't know anyway, but going, going into talking a little bit like as you talk to your daughter, letting your in her child watch you do that. It's almost the same thing as kind of that proactive piece of the part of it where you're doing it proactively, you're calling up the memories and kind of re parenting yourself in the, in your memories, you're doing it in the moment where you're saying like, hey little me, listen to this, watch this, this is what your sister deserved and this is what you deserve to see and then we're going to model good, respectful parenting for the little one inside us. Does that make sense? I don't know. Or is it to like to.
Guest: Like you're saying? I'm trying to think of how this practically plays out, but I understand what you're saying.
Laura: Yeah. So give me an example of a time when she is, you know, your trigger, she's having a really hard time.
Guest: So one pretty typical scenario is around mealtime.
Laura: Yeah.
Guest: So it's always whatever I offer is good enough or it's not the right temperature or I didn't cut it right or I didn't do something right? Or she wants something I don't have. Usually there's some sort of meltdown around meal time.
Laura: Okay. Yeah.
Guest: When I go to that place in my head almost immediately, which is like, oh my God, what enough enough.
Laura: What what what are the things that you say to yourself like she doesn't like anything, She has to be difficult. What are the things that you say.
Guest: the main thing that my head is just? Why can't you be more flexible?
Laura: Why can't you be more flexible? Okay. Yeah.
Guest: Why does everything have to be perfect? Why does everything temperature perfect come the perfect way? Can't sneeze on it? I can't.
Laura: Why do you have to be so controlling? Why can't you be flexible? Okay? And so in the moment when you first see that thought float through your brain through the like the synapses fire and it goes through you can, if you can get a little bit of awareness, you can even pointed out say like, oh that thoughts about my sister.
Like even just pointed out that like, you guys can't see me because this is a podcast I totally forgot, but I'm pointing like, as in like it's a cloud floating by like, oh they're like that thoughts about my sister, so getting a little bit of clarity that when those habitual thoughts role in like thunder clouds rolling into a perfect sunny day that those thoughts belong in the past, those thoughts don't belong to your daughter and they are not their habits and they are not true, right? So why can't you be more flexible? There's probably reasons why she can't be more flexible. Do you have a sense of why flexibility is hard for her?
Guest: Yeah. I mean when I'm able to get back myself, I understand that she's three alright, was still three and yes, you know when I get to my higher self, able to understand these things
Laura: Absolutely. So even just pointing out in the moment to yourself like oh that thought belongs to my sister. That thoughts from the past, that thoughts a habit can bring you back to yourself much quicker. So being firm with your thoughts with your thought process because we have control over what we're thinking. Sometimes it feels like we don't because the cascade of thought starts flowing really fast, but we got to get right like these are called thought stopping techniques and they are kind of a placeholder for good thought work.
We have to get interrupt the flow right? Like this is kind of like if we're thinking about our thoughts are a river there flowing along a stream. Being able to say, oh that thought belongs in the past. That thought was about my sister pulls us out of the river until we can stand on the banks and watch the flow of our thoughts a little bit and get a little bit more distance and clarity. That pulls us out right? And so you said something before too about the like eat or don't eat, I don't care, right?
Guest: That's my anger. Peace.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean like there's also anger with it, but like that's an option, but with a different attitude and a different energy, right? So I don't I don't care comes from a place of like, I feel rejected, not good enough. Nothing I ever do is right for you. Yeah, I'm just guessing, but like I'm not responsible for making your meal perfect.
You know, like nobody I know you're disappointed you wanted to cut this way and it's not not so hard, has a little bit more of like the empathy and detached piece but still has the sense of like you can eat it or not. You know, it's I know it's not how you were hoping it would be. So the the eat it or don't eat it is an okay place to come from. But the energy behind it is what matters right.
Guest: This is in a nutshell, my challenge with her because I may not say the right things with my words, but it absolutely does not matter if I'm not there with my sensitivity.
Laura: with the energy. Okay, so this is making me think of something that you said a while back that's been kind of hanging out in the back of my mind. And I just am curious when you were talking about your mom and your oldest sister and your next older sister and how your next older sister was more easy going and could meet your mom's needs for affection.
Like the codependency like alarm bell went off in my head and I am wondering about that if there is some because I mean many of us were raised in kind of codependent relationships with our our families where we were emotionally responsible. We were responsible for our parents emotional well being for helping to meet our parents needs helping to keep things calm so that our parents could be okay. Like this is classic codependency, right? But and that sneaks in on us to the best of us, the idea that you need to be flexible so that my life can be easier kind of like thought pattern.
And so like this is with a heaping heaping doses of compassion and grace and we're just becoming aware of patterns with no blame, no shame or guilt because those things shut down any growth opportunities, right? I recognize those in myself and my thoughts often because I was raised in a co dependent family where there was a lot of emotional co dependency, like my dad was also raised in a very emotionally co dependent place. I mean, oh my gosh! His older brother was killed in a car accident and he became the one who was responsible for keeping his mom happy after that accident.
I mean, so he had no other option than to raise me in an emotionally co dependent way. He couldn't have possibly like those things take time to shift. Those patterns, take generations to shift and so they're still within me with no like blame or ill will towards my dad. He did the best that he could. But there were absolutely times where I needed to be different or showed up differently so that he could be okay emotionally.
There are still times where that pattern is still present and there are still times where as an adult, I have to block that pattern from happening with him in my kids where he will be pressuring them to do something to please him. And I step in and I say to my kids directly, it's okay for you to not do what he's asking, You don't have to, grandpa can handle it.
He's a grown up, you know, you know, and I'm talking directly to the kids, but in with compassion to my dad, of course, you know, we all want to keep the help, the people we love be happy, but kids are not responsible for that. And so when we notice that pattern of our thoughts flowing in our heads, it's so good to cultivate self talk back to us. Do you feel like you have a sense of like, were you aware sometimes your thoughts tended towards like I want her to be easy so that I can be okay?
Guest: Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe I wasn't labeling it exactly that way. So it's good to hear your phrase it that way.
Laura: But again with no judgment or blame or guilt at all okay with only compassion for ourselves, okay, because we're all doing the best that we can.
Guest: No, I I agree. I mean especially at this time where a lot of my needs are not getting that because of heaven, because of isolation and all that stuff, I put a lot on my kids.
Laura: Yeah, we all do and that is natural and it happens and at the same time we have to recognize patterns that are happening and coming up and work to change them and awareness is the first piece of it, right? And so cultivating some things you can say back to yourself can be really helpful, like you know, my ability to make food that's pleasing to my daughter does not define my worth as a parent or whether or not I'm doing a good job as a mom, you know, being able to say those things and if you know that like mealtimes are going to be a struggle giving yourself a pep talk beforehand can be super helpful. So like when one of my kids are in a picky phase like that and it happens with all kids, they go through them before we sit down to dinner. Sometimes, even if my husband happens to be there with me, we will say, okay, so we're serving this, we know that this one is not going to eat it. We know that they will complain about it. We know that that's going to happen, that they will, you know, not like it or whatever. And when that happens like this is how we're going to respond, we're going to have a plan for, we're going to be proactive about it. You can sit down with yourself in journal for two minutes before you call the kids to dinner about, you know, like, okay, so this is what she's probably going to say. This is what I'm going to say back.
This is what I'm going to say to myself, Okay, I'm going to practice that to myself over and over right now. My worth as a parent is not defined by whether or not my kids like my cooking, my worth as a parent is not defined by whether my kids like my cooking, whatever affirmation it is, and that puts you in a compassionate and kind of good mindset for it. Is that something you've tried to do before meals with? Yeah. And this, so with kids who are difficult temperament wise, who have this big sensitive personality, big feelings.
I mean these kids are here to wake us up there, here to change the world, They're here for a purpose, right? If we can just hang on for the ride and not crush it out of them, they are going to do amazing things because they have this power in them that just needs to be honed and cultivated and just needs a good prefrontal cortex on top to help them filter it and regulate it and they don't have it yet, right?
I think about sometimes about those of us who are like this, are the change makers in the world, who are you know what we could have done if we didn't have it crushed out of us are stuffed out of us as kids or we didn't get the message that this was wrong or bad for us as kids, but it's hard for the parents in the moment and we're all just doing the best that we can.
So being, if we know though, that this is who we have, this, we've got one of these change makers in our family, we've got one of these john world sensitive kids, then we got to be prepared for it. We know there's going to be pushed back on all of these things, there is no reason to like walk through your house and through your life with unexpected explosions coming up when we can map out the land mines that are there, there's no reason to feel like we are walking on eggshells because this is predictable, right?
We can get ahead of it. Yeah, absolutely. And so like with all of these things that proactive nature to it is what gets you out of feeling like you are just surviving, that you were just putting out fires, you know that you're constantly having to repair and reconnect instead of being able to be mindful and intentional in the moment, the proactive piece of it is so important. So I would also highly recommend that we sit down with yourself and make a list of like, okay, so when do I know we're going to have a problem?
When do I know there's going to be conflict, you know, with one of my kids right now, she's having some socks, sensitivities, I know that every time she puts on socks, every single time she puts on socks it's going to be rough, it's going to be hard. And so when it's time to put on socks, I take a few minutes to mentally prepare myself to see this myself, make sure I'm in a good head space, right? So mapping out your day, going through, sitting down and get those points out, and then it can be really helpful to have like where you are, where that happens to give yourself notes, like.
So we put on socks for the most part in the mud room and there's this cabinet and right at eye level, I put a post it note that says breathe mama on it and put it right there. So I see it when I'm standing kind of standing up, waiting for her to put her socks on. You know, like it's right there, right where I'm looking. Okay? So those are the proactive things and here's the in the moment stuff too. Well, I guess I want to hear what you have to say about the proactive piece of stuff. Piece of things.
Guest: I mean, you know, I love it. Okay, that's kind of what I'm already.
Laura: So yeah, right? So like I do, I think even for your homework, I would love to have you send me your list of predictable times. You know, she's going to lose it. You know, there's gonna be conflict. You know, there's going to be resistance, right? If you send those to me, that would be great just for accountability. Okay. And then, so in the moment when it's happening, we've talked a little bit about your mindset, your thought work again, the proactive work of self's oozing of building those skills so that you can get the pause in the moment and get yourself on right. But one of the biggest things you can do in my opinion, when this is all happening is to get lower than them.
Okay. So most of the time when this is happening with these kids, these kids are very sensitive to their sense of control and their autonomy and their individuality and any time we give them any kind of direction or any kind of change requests, it feels like an infringement mint on who they are and they push back against it. They have such a firm sense of who they are and such a very strong boundary around it. That when we feel like we're encroaching on that boundary, they shove it back on it. And so if we get lower than their eyes, that is a signal to their nervous system that they are in charge that they are in a position of power. And so the very first thing when this happens with my kiddos especially my explosive one is that I get lower, I get down lower so that she's over top of me.
We are big to these little kids, we are huge to them. It can be really helpful to to do an exercise if you have another adult in your life who is willing to do this with you to get lower yourself. Get down low, like sit down on the ground and have them stand over you and tell you what to do. Get mad at you and kind of role play that so that you have that experience of looking up on an adult who's angry with you.
And it can be a really great exercise to do with a partner if they have time and are available because there's attachment relationship between the two of you. And it will highlight how scary it can be. And for some kids who are in that situation who feel unsafe a lot of the time, just because of the body they have, just because of the brain.
They have the nervous system that they have, giving that trigger, giving that clue that you're safe. You're in control. You have power here by getting lower can be a big change, right? Do you do to get lower thing on a regular basis with her?
Guest: Not on a regular basis? I do try when I contacted sort of sit down. But sometimes that triggers
Laura: yeah, the sitting down, some people think that's sitting down in front of a kid feels like that you are grounded and you're not going anywhere. Like I like to crouch down with one foot up like on one leg down rather than actually sitting down planted so that I'm quick to move with an explosive kid who has low self regulation skills. You've got to be quick to move sometimes and sitting down cross legged, makes you not able to be so quick, you know, and I know that you are expecting a little one.
Your movements are a little bit limited right now too, I mean so that can help, but this is a perfect example about how general parenting advice to sometimes doesn't work for your kid and then you got to flex and be willing to move. What does help her soothe calm down, feel like she's got some power in a situation. Do you have a sense?
Guest: So it depends on the situation and what is triggering her reaction. Sometimes it's all about the power struggle and she just needs me to give her a little bit to give in a little bit whatever is I'm holding on to, you know, like sometimes I just I need to be more flexible and I need to be the one to sort of give in even though it feels like in the moment I'm holding my ground because I'm trying to keep the parent, but in reality it's probably just plain old power struggle and I'm holding my ground as much as she's holding her ground in those situations. That helps to just give it.
Just let her do at least one thing that she wants to do that I was resisting. And then there are times when she's just completely dis regulated and you know, it's like maybe I know what started it, but I couldn't change that situation for her. She was overstimulated for one reason or another and and she just, this is her coping and that's it. I need to hold space for that.
Laura: Yeah. And how did she like to have you help her with that?
Guest: So usually honestly she likes to be alone. I let her I gave her a stuffed animal she loves and a blanket that she loves and I just want to coax her to go to the yeah I said why don't you go get your blanket and you know your animal and your friend and give me a hug because she doesn't want me to do that to myself.
Laura: Yeah. You know I think that is more common than what people know. I think it kind of the popular peaceful parenting world. We get the message that we shouldn't leave our kids alone with their emotions and there's truth to that. We shouldn't banish them to their rooms with their big feelings because they're big feelings are unacceptable to us. But when they are asking for space, when they're seeking for space, when they are attempting to soothe themselves in our presence is making that harder for them. I think that it's respectful to trust our children to trust that this is what they need. This is the space that they need. And having a proactive plan for that can be really helpful to.
So like, you know, and that plan updates as kids get older. Well, when my five year old was three, our plan was different than it is now. Should we just updated our plan for when she's having big feelings now she wants me to, she used to like, like me to kind of help her get to her room so she could get it all out while I sat outside her door.
And now she wants me to just let her go to her room or wherever she is, you know, have her feelings and then check on her every three minutes and just, you know, every three minutes say, you know, it's been three minutes, are you ready for me? And then when she's ready that she crawls into my lap and we snuggle and talk about it, you know? But having a proactive plan can be really, really helpful for that. And this is just for listeners. It sounds like you have a proactive plan for your little one.
Guest: I can always Perfect.
Laura: Yeah. I mean it takes updating as they grow. And you know, I want to just mention to that for those who are listening, who are saying like hearing you say, I give in. You know, there is a difference between permissiveness and offering our child grace and the ability to be an imperfect human rights. So there is a difference between being permissive and not having any boundaries and not holding the ones that are important for keeping our kids safe and being able to walk it back.
Coming to understand when we've been too rigid or if we've invited them into a power struggle and taking a step back from that letting go of our need to control them. There are differences between there's nuance and shades of gray there. And so I think oftentimes lots of parents have a fear of being permissive and it keeps them from being flexible with their kids. And so I loved what you said there about how there are times when I just need to be flexible and I think that's part of being the grown up in the relationship, recognizing like I have the skills, the cognitive skills that I need to be flexible and a three year old does not.
Sometimes a three year old has rigid thinking and self centered thinking because they have a three year old brain and I don't have a three year old brain. I have the ability to be flexible here, which means I have the opportunity to offer her grace and compassion and offer that to myself and to be flexible. And I think that is drastically different than being permissive.
Do you know what I mean? And there's another proactive peace to this too is that when we have a kid who pushes back against all of our limits and all of our boundaries, we have to be super intentional about the limits and boundaries that we set the regular, you know, the kind of the rules of the house, and we may need to drastically reduce some of our expectations and drastically reduce some of the things that we asked kids to do in order to let things calm down, Especially for these kids whose nervous system reacts as if we're threatening them every time we ask them to do something.
And that's a fact that there are kids out there who every time we say it's time to put your shoes on. You know, do you need to go potty, you know now I can't let you have these, you know, the fruit snacks for snack because you just had a pack of fruit snacks or whatever it is. Any time we give any limit, they perceive it as a threat and their nervous systems are on high alert for that. And so sometimes drastically reducing our expectations can be really helpful too.
And that, you know, when you make that map of your day of the common land mines where I know there's going to be conflict, that's also a really good opportunity to revise and just kind of take a look at like, okay, so in this situation, what's my expectation ideally? What would she do? Is it reasonable? Do I need it isn't necessary? Is it one that I can prune away for now? Not always, but just for now until she can better meets more expectations. I don't know if that's helpful to
Guest: Yeah. Especially with all these changes that are going to be happening.
Laura: You know the new little ones and stuff?
Guest: Bare boned with my expectation.
Laura: Bare bones, give yourself permission to do so. In my respectful parenting. One of one course I teach about the three yeses for knowing kind of what limits to set they are. Safety is first. That's what we like. When we think about a limit we think about. For the most part, most of our limits should be around safety about keeping kids safe, keeping ourselves safe, keeping our property safe, you know? And then the next one is, the next stage is so thinking about kids developmental stage, is this expectation appropriate for them?
Is this something that reasonably we can expect them to be able to follow through on? And then the last s is our sanity? Can we handle them doing this? Can our relationship survive them doing this or do we need to limit it to kind of protect our relationship? And so thinking about those three yeses and looking at the places where you have these kind of landmines and explosions and really analyzing like do I need this?
This limit? Is this limit about her safety? You know? If it's yes then we keep it if it's no then we ask. Okay so is this limit developmentally appropriate? If it is you know then we keep it. If it's not then we let it go and then the next one is you know does this limit preserve our relationship? Does it preserve my sanity?
And if it does then you keep it if it doesn't then it's probably when we can let go. Then we found some that we can release. I would recommend going through that process too. I mean so like and that helps us fine tune. Like what do we really care about? What do we really believe? And so then when we have this list of what our actual limits are, but we really are going to be focusing on with our kiddos.
Then when the other ones come up, when we are met with resistance and the pushing back, we know like hey this one doesn't matter. You know, this one doesn't matter right now. I'm not focusing on this and we can let it go with confidence in the full knowledge that we're not being permissive, that we're holding the boundaries that matter to us. Right? Okay, so you were saying you wanted to have a clarify on the three S. Is right. Go ahead.
Guest: And Yeah, I mean I understand the boundaries that you set for for safety
Laura: Stage
Guest: stage of development and insanity. But what about teaching moments or you're trying to be proactive in trying to lead them or teach them?
Laura: Can you give me an example?
Guest: Trying to think of one as we're talking? So maybe it's something that so much of a boundary that they can't do something but you're trying to teach them how to handle a certain situation. So think of one. So for instance the other day my daughter was had a friend over who has an allergy and there was a snack that my daughter wanted and I told her normally I would let her have it. And I said you know, we can't have this because your friend had analogy, I said you know you're an allergy but your friend body can't handle this so it's not nice for us to eat it if she can't have it.
Now, I know this is a pretty mature lesson for a three year old, but and she, you know, she completely lost it and she had, you know, if I've been a tantrum on the floor, which I understand, but there are boundaries and maybe that would be considered more safety. But I'm thinking of just from achieving perspective of the situations.
Laura: So I think one of the things that in that moment, your expectation that she will be able to understand your rationale and accept the boundary with Grace, maybe developmentally inappropriate. All right, So, like, and that happens to us all the time. We think if we give them a good reason for why we're saying no, they'll accept that happily, right, You know, and they don't care, You know?
So I mean, and they can't care. So the part of the brain that allows a kid to put themselves into someone else's shoes consistently think about what it would be like to be in their perspective and being in that experience that part of the brain, the kids start getting really good at that between six and 8 and so for a three year old, they do not care about the other kids allergy or what might like hurt that they don't care.
And it's not that they because they're mean, it's because they can't care, they literally don't have that ability yet. Most of the time, you know, some kids are super empathetic and can do that, but that's there's a developmental range for those things and so when that's happening, like sometimes in our delivery of some limits, we give off the energy that we are trying to convince our kids to see it our way, that we're trying to convince our kids to like our limit like our boundary that that energy comes out of us. Like we are in trying to frame it in a way that so that we don't get the meltdown right.
And these kids, especially kids like your daughter and my oldest one are incredibly sensitive to that and it feels like lies and manipulation and they reject it right? So we're not lying to them, but we are kind of trying to convince them not to have their feelings right? When we do those things were kind of trying to convince them like you know this is a good thing like this is not you know like I mean we do this because we don't want our kids to struggle, we don't want our kids to have pain, we don't want to have a freaking meltdown when they're having a play date and I've got a friend over either.
You know, we're trying to avoid some of this, and then we go in and we give the delivery of a limit with a little bit of an energy that especially for some kids, but many kids see right through and don't care about, you know, and it can even be bigger and does that make sense?
Guest: It makes total sense, but it's still a boundary you have to hold.
Laura: It is so that's in the delivery then, like, yeah, nobody like, you know, so there's a difference between, like, you know, we can't have this right now because your friend can't have it and so we're not going to have it, you know, your friend isn't able to have it would be unsafe for us to have it right now, and we can't have it, you know? And just a little bit versus, you know, the piece of it wouldn't be nice to eat it in front of them, you know, like that kind of convincing and then like really getting comfortable with the idea that they do not have to like our boundaries right, but that we can handle a meltdown.
Like, first of all, my guess is that that meltdown was not about the snack at all. That meltdown was because her window of tolerance was being shortened by being with her friend, that she was having to engage in a lot of self regulation by simply existing and being in a space with another kid, her age, playing with them navigating social relationships, like that's exhausting to a three year old who has very few skills.
And so I'm guessing that that meltdown had very little to do with the snack and much more to do with that she had kind of nothing left to give in those moments. And so when that's happening, we can even tell ourselves like this isn't about like this isn't about the snack, she needs this meltdown, This meltdown is good for her, you know, this is her body offloading stress and the best way it knows how she needs to be able to cry.
She needs to get this out of our system, you know, having a good things to tell about it ourselves, but we also have to do the proactive work of not being afraid of our kids, big feelings and not trying to, you know, think that we need to they need to just accept our limits with Grace, that even adults have a hard time accepting boundaries and limits that they don't like, you know of navigating situations with grace, even adults have problems in those scenarios.
Like I mean you think about like if my husband came home the other day and had gotten some food while he, you know, to I don't know, had gotten some food while he was out. He was at work and he came home with food and he was like, they discontinued my favorite sandwich at this place. They don't have it anymore. He was upset about it. He was disappointed about it. You know, like, I mean, he didn't fall on the floor and have a meltdown, but that's because he had this great, you know, well developed brain, you know, that kept him from being able to do that that three year olds don't have have access to yet to.
So I hope that was helpful to our lens our mindset, even when we go in, like I would release the need to teach her anything in that moment and that she will learn the empathy simply by having been engaged in seeing you empathize with the kiddo, you know, like they don't need to learn all of that stuff. There's not an emergency in these learning things and most of the time when we are trying to teach a kid a lesson, the kid is in a brain state where they are the least likely to learn the lesson, you know? And so yeah, the learning opportunities, I think we can let a lot of those slide by and trust that they will learn those things and other ways that we don't need to directly teach a lot of that, that a lot of that will get that they will learn through experience and through seeing in action.
So we can kind of even reassure ourselves that we can release the idea that we are going to somehow make her see the perspective that it would be, how hard it would be to be at a friend's house, see them eating something you can't have, you know, like there's other opportunities and she will have time to learn that when she's older too, and there's no emergency, no need to speed through it at three, you know?
Yeah. And that's for lots of the teaching opportunities, you know? And and like I'm being kind to ourselves, of course, we all want to raise empathetic, compassionate, kind kids like and that's part of our identity to as parents. So I hope that you're super kind with yourself on those things, but I think you can also give yourself permission to let some of those agendas go so that you can hold a more clear boundary that is rooted in kind of what she needs, you know?
Guest: So keep it to the safety without the teacher.
Laura: Yes. Keep it at the same time.
Guest: The boundary is the safety is you're not right.
Laura: So yeah, exactly. Don't, we don't have to complicate it with all of our adult stuff. I think that we do that. Sometimes we take our adult lens and all that we want our kids to learn and be and we put it on our kids way too early. Like we can take that adult stuff is not their responsibility at this point in time. Like it's your responsibility to make sure that no allergies are out when the plate is happening and we can hold that boundary with confidence and she doesn't have to like it. And she will learn to be compassionate for her friends with allergies later. You know, and she will learn it through other ways of being.
So for example, we have so many kids in our network that have allergies and so every time before Covid we would have a birthday party, my kids would watch me carefully make three or four different birthday cakes so that everybody had a treat at the party. I mean what do you think? They learned? They learned that piece of it then as opposed to in the moment where they're being denied something and they're disappointed by it, you know, so they can be confident that our kids will learn the things that they need simply by watching us and being the beautiful, compassionate, empathetic person that I know you are.
Your kids will learn all of those things in time and there's no rush on any of them. Those are lifelong lessons that many adults I know are still learning two. Okay, alright. Thanks for asking that clarifying question. That was great. Okay, so this is a lot to digest. If you do have questions, feel free to follow up with me, thank you for being with us and being so open and vulnerable in this session. I think it's going to be really helpful for the folks who listen to it.
Guest: I hope so. Thank you very much.
Laura: Yeah.
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