LAURA-2017(25of35).jpg — The Balanced Parent

*Perfection not required

Welcome to the home of The Balanced Parent Podcast!

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 each and every day to keep ourselves 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 open-hearted authenticity and balance. Let’s go!

May 24, 2022

Episode 119: No Longer Last on the List with Jo Bevilacqua

May 24, 2022/ Laura Froyen

The past few weeks have been a brutal reminder for me that prioritizing my own health and well-being is absolutely critical, not only for parenting and partnering consciously, but just for living a purposeful, meaningful life! So often when self-care is taught to parents, especially moms, we get "sold" on it by highlighting the benefits of taking good, gentle care of yourself for your family:

You'll be able to be a better parent!

It will be easier to stay calm and well-regulated!

You'll be able to enjoy your kids more!

Your kids & partner will feel more loved and connected if you're able to be fully present, and self-care can help with that!

The list goes on. But very rarely do we just come out and say it: you would be worthy of rest, nourishment, and gentle care even if you weren't a parent and even if it did nothing to help you be better for others. You're worthy because you are living. Because you're a person with human needs. You don't have to earn it, and it's ok if something is just for you.

That's what this week's episode is all about! I am joined by my new colleague, Jo Bevilacqua, author of No Longer Last On The List and its for women who are juggling the pressure of life and expectations.

She will help us learn how to:

Set boundaries with friends and family
Embrace our worth
Say no without feeling guilty
Make more time for ourselves

If you want to read her book you can get it HERE. Be sure to follow Jo on Facebook and Instagram!

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. This is Dr. Laura Froyen, and on this episode of The Balance Parent Podcast, we're going to be talking about how critical it is for parents and especially Moms, to stop putting ourselves last on the list and how we can use boundaries, healthy boundaries to achieve that goal. And to help me with this conversation, we're going to be talking with new friend and colleague, Jo, and she's going to introduce ourselves. So, Jo, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do.

Jo: Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here, so I'm, I am a multi business owner. So I'm over in England and we have multiple businesses here, bricks and mortar businesses. So we have a flowing business. We have a health and beauty salon with a crash, and I have a mentoring business too. And then last year, I decided to become an author

Laura: Because we didn't have enough to do.

Jo: So kids partner with a dog.

Laura: So, yeah, to add something else to my to do list.

Laura: And tell us a little bit about your book. No longer last on the list.

Jo: Yeah, So I decided that this book was something that was in me for quite a few years. I'm such a girl's girl. I have lots of different groups of friends. All at different stages in their life, careers, family and the same conversations are coming up time and time again, boundaries being one of them. And during the pandemic, two of my businesses temporarily shut down. My mental business went really busy and really crazy.

But again, everything that I was hearing pandemic I was hearing. But it was heightened. So women were definitely putting themselves last on the list, if at all, on the list, and everything. And everyone seemed to come above the wants and needs of the women that I really the friends with, I was working with or I was having conversations with. So I definitely felt like this was the time to put pen to paper, and to write all the things that I've learned over the years, and I am by no means perfect. I definitely follow my advice more time.

But I feel like there was something that was needed for parents and adults and women, especially with lots of responsibility you go to and to feel like they were seeing and they were hard and they were understood, but not only read through it, but actually have been useful activities and tools that we're gonna help them to make themselves more of a priority. And I definitely feel like during covid. And now, even though we're kind of still in it, women are continuously putting themselves on the list.

So I just feel like it's a great tool for women to read and to use and to share and to spark conversations that the world is not perfect. No one else as well. That's perfect. There's a lot of parents out there where you feel like everyone else has got his shit together. And we were the only ones that difficult juggling all these millions place that we have. So that was the premise of me writing the book, and I can't believe that it's nearly been out a year already.

So I love talking about it. I love having these conversations, and I feel like it's something is women that we need to do more of. We need to open up our hearts and our conversations and admit have difficult things can be or how much pressure. We feel on a day to day basis and if this book sparks that conversation then amazing.

Laura: Yeah, I think it's a really important thing to be considering. So the research that's coming out on families right now is that the moms of children who are school-age have been terribly impacted by this pandemic.

And so I think that your, I've seen exactly what you were witnessing, that all of the things that made motherhood in particular really difficult before the pandemic. We're only heightened, especially because once the kids came home, we were all home. There is so much additional load placed on mothers and at the same time all of our outlets, all of our opportunities for self-care were stripped away at the exact same time.

So we had extra load and fewer outlets. I think it's been really, really hard on parents all across this beautiful world, so it's good to know that other people are seeing this. I think that the research is showing this, and I think that all of our listeners are listening right now, are probably raising their hands and saying, Yes, that's me. That's been my experience, too. I think it's been really hard for all of us. And so I guess I'm kind of curious about your in this place. You realize, Okay, this big load has been on me. It's continuing to be on me.

We're you know, we're looking ahead in this pandemic. There have been times where we thought, Oh, it's coming to an end and then, you know it's not and it's closing down again, and it seems like that cyclical nature is going to be here for a while. I think we need to get prepared for it to be here for a little bit of a of time.

And so, in this new kind of reality that were in as parents, what can we be doing? Especially us moms, as both of us are. What can we be doing to lessen the negative impact this is having on us and get ourselves on the list, let alone closer to the top?

Jo: Yeah, so the first thing we do, I think it's such a good point. There's so many things that pandemic we would normally do, so we would go out for coffee with girlfriends or for dinner, or we'd go and have a blow out and have some drinks and have a dance.

Laura: Or go to a yoga class. Yes, yeah, I used to be able to go to dance classes for a few nights a week, and I can go to my dance classes on Zoom I can. It's not the same as being in a room field of I went to a body positive dance studio. So being in a room full of like, beautiful curvaceous women who are embodied and enjoy full movement like it's not the same as doing that in your living room. And it's just not.

Jo: The conversations different. There has been a great substitute for a while, but yeah, the conversations that you have in passing when you get your guard down a little bit, there's just such a deeper level, and I feel like that's what we've been missing is that deep connection with ourselves and each other, and with people that are outside of our immediate family?

I'm just a space offload because being an adult is hard. Being a parent is hard. Being an employee or a business owner is hard life. That's a little bit more than that. So how can we change the narrative, and how can we bring some fun back? How can we take control of our surroundings when things feel so out of our control at the moment? And there's various different things and different ways in which we can do that. The first activity that we do in the book is asking everybody to write a list of priorities kind of 1 to 10, 1 to 20.

But I don't think too much about it just left down what comes into your head. And by doing that, so many people were literally putting themselves last on the list or not on the list at all, which is even more worrying. So it's about looking at what you think is a priority and maybe just thinking about how can we readjust this?

How can we slowly move our way up on the list of priorities? Because in an ideal world we're going from the bottom. We would go straight to the top, but life is life, responsibilities, responsibilities, and we have to be a bit real about it. So how can we move ourselves slowly from position? Tend to position nine to position eight to make sure that by three months or six months or a year, we're back at the top and we are putting ourselves. So what does it look like?

Laura: Yeah, I was just gonna say to like, it doesn't have to be all or nothing, too. I think that we get stuck in this place as humans because humans are prone to black and white thinking. That's just the way our brains work. We get stuck in thinking like, okay, you know, either I do nothing for myself or I go on and do all the self-care things and we go in and we do all the self-care things, and then we're burned out from that, too.

And so I think it's really important to bring a little like a piece of balance to this, that there are times in places for you to be further down on your list. Your kids are sick. Your partner's got a big presentation at work that they're stressed about. There's times where we do like it's just the reality for parents. We do have to go further down, but it doesn't have to be all the time. There are times where we can say, sweetheart, I know you want to play with me right now and I love playing dinosaurs with you and right now I'm reading.

Right now. I'm generally and I'll be with you in 10 minutes to go ahead and set a timer and I'll be right there in 10 minutes and I'm going to finish my journal like it's okay. There's room for balance in this. I think we're tempted to do all in or it's like this all or nothing thing. And there's a space and time for move up and down through the list in various positions throughout the course of your day and week. I don't know.

Jo: Yeah, I think change is hard right with the program to our routines and our expectations and other people's opinions and our feelings and making changes can feel really difficult. But if you make a small changes, then that's brilliant. So, actually do you have a normal five minute shower because that's all you have time for.

But you are craving a bath with candles and nice millions of bathrooms and do that card at the time. But to do that you need to be really clear on what it is that makes you happy. You have to be really clear on what is gonna make you feel. And this is my favorite saying itself full. Every time I say to the moment, you can do this so you can do that. Or you can change this so you can change that.

But I would feel so selfish. Selfish has such a negative connotation at a negative attachment to that word. So actually, what if we just switch to that a little bit and say they're not being selfish for being self full? And the happier you are in the more self full, you are happier. Everybody is around you. I know that when I'm arguing with my kids or I have a connection with my husband is because I'm not helpful. I feel like there's something missing. Then I become a little bit more. You have a word in a G.

I don't know whether you guys, it's like, more agitated, so handy, and my temporary short term and things bother me. That wouldn't normally bother me. So I need to just take a step back and think, Okay, what am I doing or not doing for myself at this moment in time and how can I change that? It's all about what we can control. There's so many things in this world that we can't control. But actually, let's look at our environment.

Let's look at our emotions. That's how we reacting to things. Look at what we're doing for ourselves. Let's look at all the things we're doing for other people. And let's start doing more of what makes us still happy rather than thinking about everybody else all of the time, because that's when we become happy that we become more fulfilled. That's only feel like actually, we've got this.

Everything seems a little bit easier and doesn't seem a stressful. And boundaries is something that's really important to that. When you allow people to continue asking you for things or asking you for time or asking you for your attention and you allow them, the more they're going to do it. So we just need to start learning how to say no, no, again, it's not a negative one, which is another word in the dictionary we can use that and know is a full answer.

We don't need to explain ourselves no, is the answer, not right now, I can't quite manage that. What can you do to take responsibility? What can you do to make what you want to happen? So it's just about sometimes with having to perspective and make sure that other people are taking ownership over what they want and what they need, because we don't have the answers for everything and everyone as much as we feel that we are super women or that we have to be super women, that really isn't a realistic expectation that we put on ourselves.

Laura: So I agree. And I think that when we take on that super women persona that when we really we are attempting and trying to do all the things and the all the things to all the people, not only do we sometimes things fall through the cracks, we're not taking care of ourselves. Things don't get done as well as they could be.

But we're also this piece of learned helplessness that also comes as a part of that where we are training those around us to rely on us and not do for themselves. And we're robbing them of opportunities for their own creativity and their own resourcefulness, too. So I mean, I think that there's this piece of like, yes, it's nice to feel like we can do it all, but it's not truly sustainable or not fully serving us or anyone else.

Jo: We talk about this in the book a lot, and I think I feel the wanting to feel needed. Are you good?

Laura: Oh, yeah.

Jo: With our… Oh, my goodness, they need me.

Laura: I'm so important. But this is how we socialize girls to write. This is this is what we are culturally trained that our value and worth is wrapped up in how we serve others.

Jo: Absolutely. So are you a good girl? Because you've done this for somebody out we don't want to share. That's really selfish, you know, to helping this past them out. Really? That's a little bit me. Okay, so we get so much.

Laura: But this is why boundaries are hard, especially for women, because we've been trained our whole lives not to have any that we've been trained our whole lives that we don't get any. And when we try to have some, that was a bad person because of it, that it makes us a bad person, a bad girl a bad woman. So it's really freaking hard than to go and do it. And I think it's easy for us to say It sounds like you've had some practice with boundaries.

I've had a lot of practice learning to set boundaries, but I think it's really easy for us to say like no, it's a complete sentence and much harder to actually put in to action for a person who hasn't had the opportunity to work with boundaries for a little while. So I mean, I started setting boundaries with my dad and big explosive ways and I was like 13. Those also weren't super healthy boundaries.

But I started practicing with that because I knew that there was some unhealthy investment. You know, his ego was wrapped up in my school performance or something like that. You know, I could tell that there was some not healthy stuff going on and so I started practicing with that earlier. But there's lots of other things I had to learn. It takes time.

So for those of us who are new to setting boundaries, you know we need to have them, but it fills us with fear, like terror and fear of rejection. That's the first step, you know, if we're not quite yet at the like the no, it's a complete sentence stage. How do we get there?

Jo: Yeah, just that resonate with this is hilarious. So funny how it all goes through different experiences in life, that certain things. I think we all feel like we've gone through as women for sure. And I would say that setting boundaries just like a muscle more you do it. The better you get at, the bigger it becomes more important than more confident you become was saying it.

So I absolutely agree that should you go out tomorrow and start saying no to everything and everyone, that's probably not going to be so hopefully you're gonna be like I ended up here, Jo said. And Laura that everything. But it is definitely, um so I think start small when somebody asked something of you. And you know, when you just get that feeling in your data, listen to your gut. That's definitely something I have to work on A lot over the last few years is you're not being paranoid or not being evasive sensitive.

You're not being a bit like none of those things are gonna happen if you say no, that's not who you are. So it's about just listening to you get something, doesn't feel right. If you don't want to do something, then don't feel pressured into doing it. And there's loads of different Come back in which you can say, Okay, thank you for asking me. I feel really honored, but actually, I can't do that right now. I can't get that in my schedule right now. I don't think I'm the right person for that right now. Actually, I feel like you can do a great job that there's so many ways that you can slip up saying no, while you get in the practice of just saying.

Laura: I think so, too. And I think it's also, like, always okay to ask for time to someone asked you to do something to say like, I'm gonna need a couple of days to see if I can make that work, and then you can come back and say no later. When you've had a chance to practice your response and your delivery.

You can always ask for time to make a decision, and you can even be overt with people. You know, I'm trying to get better at making sure that I only say yes to the things that are really aligned that I know I can put my full energy to. So I'm going to take a little bit of time to make sure that this is a yes for me before I say yes to it.

Jo: And that's just because I'm not going to say, Of course I'll do that. How it is, that's just I think enough. Like you say, We've been trying to just step in and look cues and how you can help people. It just naturally, like I've done it before. It doesn't actually comes out of my mouth, and as soon as I can see why did I just want to make other people happy to help people out? But time? I think it's really important to give yourself that moment or an hour or a day. I don't rush into making decisions

Laura: And you can go back. So if you said that automatic, yes and you get home and your intuition is talking to you, that's what like listening to your gut means is that when you're getting that kind of spider since that little tinkle and you've got sick contraction, like feeling that feeling like, why did I say yes to that?

It's okay to circle back and say, you know, I was kind of caught off guard in the moment, and I've had a chance to think about it. And I really don't have space or capacity right now to take an additional thing on, I'm gonna have to say no to you. It's okay to circle back to those things. And people don't have to like it either they don't.

Jo: But today what people understand, we think they gonna hate us. They're gonna think we're horrible or that we're not helpful. And they all these stories that we tell ourselves, But actually the times where I have to say no or circle battle. But actually, I think I could do it, but I don't have the capacity. Okay, Cool. I'll just get somebody else to do it. And I was like, Oh, my goodness. I've just expressing over there for, like, three days.

I really getting somebody else to do it. We're doing it themselves, so yeah, I think sometimes we just need to check out the stories we tell ourselves and just they actually, it's gonna be fine. No one's gonna die. No one's gonna be hard. No one's gonna fall out with me. Nobody's gonna hate me. It's fine. Boundaries are important. I think everyone should start also complimenting other people sitting down because sometimes we need the information that we completely fine. I understand that. Thank you for letting me know, because you're like and for me to do that for me when I say boundary,

Laura: I so agree. So I feel like it is it takes a lot of practice and work, and I feel like something that's coming out of this conversation that we're having right now, for me is that most of the work that goes into boundary setting is internal. It's in conversation with yourself. It's checking in. How does this align with me? How does this feel to me? Is this is this? I know How can I deliver this in a way that feels aligned in terms of the relationship that I have with this person who's making this request?

Jo: I agree, and that brings me to my next point, which is actually just stupid and do some work on who are my as the person. What are my values? What am I good at? What am I willing to allow other people to hope for me or gift to me? So I think working on yourself and who you are and what your core values are really important. So in times where I think that I'm gonna let that person down or I don't feel like a good friend, I actually come back and take a step back. And I go back to my piece of paper where I have written down Who am I, right? So you can do a really simple exercise.

And then you just put your name in the middle of a piece of paper and almost like a spider grass. Just like all the words that you think are amazing about yourself. What are the things that you really feel make you as a person? And when I do this for people, if I say right, all the bad things, they can write it down really quickly. If I get them to right, good things about themselves. They really struggled because again so being conditions that if we talk about ourselves. We're working or we're both full or we're not modest and it's not a good look. But actually, we should be excited by who we are.

We are also unique in our in different ways, so I would definitely heard your listeners to really take some time. Whether that's in the bathroom, in the bed, on the sofa and the car, wherever you are, just get out a piece of paper and really love on yourself. You remind yourself of all the things that make you a beautiful person that you are, and that could be your lawyer. Your fun. You're excitable, You are good friends. You are a wholesome person. You really care for other people. You really care for yourself.

You are worth it. All these things that you want to tell yourself, Remind yourself, do that visually and go back to it often, especially when you're feeling a bit of a wobble. When it comes to the boundaries, or if you're having a bad day, we need to be able to remind yourself what an amazing person you are. All the things that you've achieved and all the things that you learn and just amazing person that you are.

Laura: I love that. And you know, that sounds like a really good exercise for writing. Your own affirmations to affirmations are an interesting thing and mantras. I think that, it's we go like look for lists of them on Pinterest and on Google.

But I think it's always better to write them for ourselves. And I think that would be a great tool for writing your own affirmations. Like I am kind of curious being like that would feel really good for me to say about myself. But I didn't see that. I would never find that on a list of affirmations.

Jo: Other things we can do for boundaries is writing. This is something that I found really helpful for myself, and some of the women that I've worked with is just doing like a simple Twenty-Four seven calendar and almost drawing out what you're gonna say perfect in my speech bubbles because there is no perfect. But what would your perfect week look like? When will you get up? What will you do? Well, you do your thing in the morning when you do exercise where you just have a quiet cup of coffee and so far we go for a run Or do you want to get up and spend time with your kids and have breakfast and make them fresh pancakes? I don't know. I'm not at that stage.

Yeah, I love my too much. I'm like, give me everything. I mean in the morning. Like, what is your week Look like? What do you do? Where do you spend your time? What is it that you do if you're working? How many hours do you want to spend on that? Do you want to work three days for five days? Do you want to work in the things when the kids are in that, What do you want your week to look like? And then if somebody is trying to ask if you have something that again, it's another visual reminder.

This doesn't sit in with how I want my time to look my day or my week. So I'm not gonna be able to do that right now. And again, it's just another tool to give you the confirmation that what other people needing from you is not sitting right with what you want to do right now and having that visual tool. Really? How does a reminder to just put yourself in your name for.

Laura: Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about, a little bit of a different piece of boundaries that I think parents, especially moms, run into around not necessarily things that were being asked to do but almost information that's coming in towards us?

Advice about how parents are child gifts that are wonderful and generous, but not in alignment with what we're trying to do in our home, because we're trying to have a more simple life, you know, what about those types of boundaries? Or perhaps interactions that loved ones well-meaning loved ones are having with their kids aren't really in alignment with our goals and priorities are for our kids. What about that aspect of boundaries? Because it's a little bit different than just not taking on a new role in Yeah,

Jo: So I feel like communication is something again that we all need to be more comfortable with you guys in America so much more open I feel than us, as the British were like.

Laura: We have a big British audience, though, so lots of folks who are listening or in the U. K in Ireland. So just so you know, people are here.

Jo: Yeah, it's almost like the whole A lift and just keep everything in or sweet things under the carpet.

Laura: Calm and carry on.

Jo: Yeah, whereas sometimes I feel that we can have better communication when things start to a little bit. And it's about talking about the little things sometimes that bother us rather than waiting for a big explosion. So what happens is all these little things and all these little niggles, other people's expectations and other people's opinions and again, speech bubbles, guidance and support that people have all these messages that we have thrown at us all the time by friends or family or colleagues of society, or tv or social media with throwing all these different kind of messages.

But it's about having clear communication with the people around us, and again it goes back to control the controllable. And what can we can? We can control it on T V, but we can control what we watch. We can't control it on social media, but we can control who follow. We can't control what they right in the magazines that we can control what magazines we buy.

Laura: Okay, so let's take this and apply it to interactions with loved ones. I'm thinking about an example with my mother-in-law. I can't control what clothes she buys for my kids, but I can control whether those close go in my kids drawers versus getting donated.

Jo: Yeah, exchange them. But I think it's about you know,

Laura: That she puts the tags off because she doesn't because she doesn't want me to be able to exchange them.

Jo: But I think it's about again, is how do we? Because people will always do what they feel is right and what makes them happy. So I feel like actually we need to have a question with ourselves. Is this such a big deal, or is it just my kids love the clothes? Or is it me that have a problem with the clothes or do I mean sometimes I get it looking at Okay, well, I wouldn't just my kids in that. Does that mean that it's not nice? Maybe not.

Laura: It's a volume like literally won't fit in the drawers issue. It's a volume issue, not a style. I mean, kids go to the media free school so they can't have any characters or immediate images on their clothing at school. So we generally just don't really want close that they can't wear. But no, it's not a quality or anything like that. It's just volume. And the kids have asked for no more closed because they feel overwhelmed because they're in charge of putting their own clothes away and they can't get close in the drawers. I mean, I think

Jo: I guess that it would be the whole communication thing, isn't it, like thank them for a donation? Um, so and I think as humans, we always want to feel validated. We always want to listen to you and hard appreciated, I think, especially when it comes to grandparents'. I've definitely noticed that with my own parents and their relationships with my kids. But I guess it's about again having those communication lines and opening up that were really thankful. And we really appreciate the time that you spend going to get all of these clothes. But actually, at the moment the kids don't need any more is causing a bit of problems in this.

So actually, rather than buying them more clothes, which they probably won't wear and you're going to waste your money. Why don't you think about actually doing something like getting them a day voucher to do something fun with the kids instead or or buy them something, that they're going to help them with the education or have more fun or create memories?

That's definitely the way that we've gone down with our friends and because, I mean, we have a family. I cannot tell you the amount of family members and again we would get lots of presents that the kids might look at, but actually not time to play with that. We just have to have a really honest conversations, and they actually what's happening is they're getting so much stuff that they're not being able to play with it and or things are getting broken or things are not being used.

So actually, what we're trying to do more of a family is go to the cinema more so cinema. But that would be amazing or we want to go to a theme park and actually that would be really amazing or they have this hobby. So actually my daughter's into photography, so a camera and accessories and film and all of those things lessons they all cost money actually would much rather your hard-earned money going into something that's going to really help them. Long time, then another thing that it's just gonna take that space and they're not going to play with.

Laura: I think that's so beautiful and so wonderful. I think that's a great place to start. But I also know that there are lots of people who will just disregard that and keep going with what they want to do. That a lot of the parents in my community come to me with that exact thing we've set. We've set compassionate, kind boundaries and they just get disregarded. And I think that that's something that is, it's so important for everybody listening to know that when that is happening, that doesn't mean anything about how that person respects you or how they feel about you.

You can't control how they respond to your boundary or with those types of boundaries. You know, a request for a different sort of gift, or that they stick to like a wishlist or something like you can't control those things. We don't want to be ungrateful. Of course, like you were saying before. You have to look for where you do have control, right?

So we can always control some of those things that they are. If the person in question also has a hard time with boundaries and is having a hard time sticking with the boundary that you're compassionately trying to set, then you have to have, I think, other boundaries in place, like backup boundaries, like, you know, that I don't have to bring this into my house. I also don't have to bring the feelings from this into my heart.

I don't have to bring the feelings into our relationship. I can still have a lovely warm relationship with my mother-in-law with my dad or, you know, with whoever and have a good internal emotional boundary. You know.

Jo: something that we did not so long ago. Somebody talked to me about the love languages. How about that? Amazing. So my dad is who came over from the U K about 40 years ago, came over with very little black really, really hard, and he would always buy a gift. That was how he showed us. He left us. He would always have money or get.

So if we were doing well at school or we had a good report, it was okay, Here's the money. Or let's get you a gift and all he wanted with someone and all I wanted was, I was so proud of you, Um, make some memories and and I really resented the fact that he didn't really have as much time for me and my siblings is what we wanted to do.

And it wasn't like older myself. And I started thinking and self development, and then when I found love languages, I was like, Oh, my God, this makes so much sense And it's not that he wasn't giving me what I needed. He was just showing me, in his own way what he thought I wanted and what he thought it was a token of his life with your amazing because I'm like, I just want you to tell me proud of me. So I think exploring that is really key because we all have different languages would be communicated to in a different way. And just because you want to be communicated or rewarded or firms in one way doesn't mean that the other person knows that or is aware of that and changed that.

So again, those conversations are really key. And I did that with my kids and my husband, and it was a real eye-opener for all of us, which was really, really good. But I feel like you're right. I feel like sometimes I feel like they're not listening to us or they're not respecting us because they're not listening to what I'm saying. And sometimes it's not about that at all. They just they want to show how they are in a certain way.

But I feel like being consistent with your messaging is really, really important. So if you say if they get closed birthdays for Christmas or just on a whim, it's about being consistent with your messaging, planting the seed before. So if it's a birthday is coming up and they're gonna get a bundle full of close, it's actually saying, you know what, So and so he's made a list of what they really want to their birthday. Here's some ideas of what you can get for them. So again you're trynna just give that communication in a really lovely way. I think that's really key to, But again, you can say things really lovely.

But if you feel like you're not being listened to, you can be more done being done. And being assertive doesn't make you a Sometimes you just need to communicate to people in different ways. And my father in law, I mean, he's amazing. He's a great father-in-law, but we are very, very different. And I was very strict with my daughter's routines, and if she didn't eat her dinner in her bed, she wouldn't get putting and and things like that. I remember there was a whole incident at their house once she didn't eat her dinner and I said, Right, there's there's no putting. A little five minutes later, he came and sat down and give her some putting. I just lost my, which I don't recommend for everybody.

You just need to be a little bit more done. And it did cause friction, obviously that night. But I feel like actually there's a bit of a wake up call for him to say. Actually, I need to respect that you are, You are doing things your way. I might not necessarily agree with them, but you're the one that has to remember how, seven days a week, we just for one afternoon, a week or whatever.

So you just have to think about what is more important, getting your message across to the person or not being seen as a certain type of person, because I feel that if we're to assertive, we're gonna leave. The bad taste in people around that makes it a bad person is actually. Sometimes people just need that shock and that reality that I'm not gonna stand for this any longer.

Laura: Yeah

Jo: And put your foot down.

Laura: Absolutely. I definitely think that sometimes it's not wrong to be assertive. I think, too, though we have to take a look at our goals and priorities like we've been talking about earlier and around, like what is more important to us? And is this something that's a deal breaker? Is this something that takes the scales and crosses a firm line for us to the close? It's not something I'm going to go to the mat over with my mother-in-law. I'm not. She's wonderful, generous person, you know.

We feel more fulfilled when she's making like she had makes toys for my kids beautiful. Send more of those. But she enjoys being the close. It's her thing. It's fine, you know. But when it comes to things like forcing affection, which I've had to set pretty firm boundaries with all of my kids grandparents, because it's a different generation, they're not used to it.

But those are things that I am really firm about because I want my girls who grew up knowing that their bodies are theirs and they have full autonomy over the touches that they receive, you know, And so knowing where those lines are for yourself and where the boundaries have to come in and where there are consequences to around like, you know, if you're not able to stop yourself from tickling my daughter when she says No, we won't be able to be around you It's okay to say those hard boundaries.

That's obviously not what you want. I mean, most of us want to have a good relationship with grandparents', but there are lines that and the lines are different for every family. And there are things that you know, When I was younger and younger mom with younger kids, I got worked up over, and now when I look back and like, I should have just let that go, I was not letting them have their own relationship.

You know, like there's some things that just you can just let them things go but really clear on, like what the actual deal breakers are, where the actual line needs to be for your family, and it's okay to take a firm stance on those things.

Jo: I agree 100% is something that I'm very passionate about. I had really six parents like Super Six parents and no, no for them, there was no exploring the reason why you're explanation or any of those. No understanding, no communication. And that was really hard for me growing up because I didn't know the power of pushing back on people. It was the same day, and that's it or consequence because it's a very consequence.

So I, for one, have lived through what you're talking about, that I'm so open with my kids. We talked about everything. We nothing is God. They have such a powerful voice, but I am so proud of because I am not shocked. I don't judge there's anything they say is okay if you're having a bad day and they wanted to tell me to do one like that, it's okay to like kids need the face and the boundaries. Their bodies are so important. And I feel like there are lessons that we need to know, Like someone that really young.

It's about you giving them permission to do that with you clearly are. And it's about standing up for them. When they do, their voices were given them the power to save their grandparents'. That's not okay. I'm not enjoying that. That needs to stop my dad again with the whole time thing. He was again getting my kids present, my kids, but I just wanted to kind of watching football or netball. And why don't you come and see you see that? And he's like, I'm too busy. And then my daughter turned around and said, You're always you always gonna be working. We need to be there for us. We need to make more time, we come and see you. And she was only about eight, I think, and he looked at me and he was like, Oh my goodness, where has come from being really rude.

I'm like, No, she's not being rude. She's being honest. She's getting you need to take it on board because if the child is saying is that is what she wants, that's what she's thinking. I'm not gonna tell her after that. You need to listen and you know what? He listened, and sometimes they just they need to hear from somebody else.

But as long as we can empower our kids to have their own voice and they're going to be so much better than boundaries than we are, Oh my goodness, it's just gonna be hopefully not being able to say no dots that our generation and the kids, they're coming up today and you know the power of their boys and know what's right for them and know what's not right for them. And they're able to voice those and we listen to. I think it's really, really important.

Laura: It's so important and it starts with us, right? This is I mean, this is the whole point of I mean, I guess I get a little tired of hearing that you do this for your kids. I mean, but that's often times what we have to say the moms to get them to take care of themselves, right? Like so, Yes. Do this for your kids. But I also know that this you are deserving of time and boundaries and not being last on the list. Just because you're a freaking person, you're endowed with humanity.

Jo: Yeah, model behavior, right? Yeah. I mean, I have a degree in childhood services. You're clearly very educated yourself in this. So this is the whole nature and nurture thing. Yeah, they see things, a copy, the behavior. They model what they do. So if they see you as a month, you can do whatever you wanna do.

You can go to the moon. You can be the next prime minister or president, and you can say no. And and you don't have to do anything that you don't want to do. And you don't have to be sad because you can put into a situation or you can use your voice and you're saying all these things to your kids. But you're not doing it yourself.

Laura: It's a mixed messages, Really. It's a confusing message for kids.

Jo: Yeah, I can do this, but I'm not doing it.

Laura: Absolutely.

Jo: I'm telling you can achieve this, but I'm not achieving it. It's confusing.

Laura: Yeah.

Jo: They're gonna, they're gonna model. They're going to do what they think.

Laura: Yeah. There's definitely moments of dissonance that make it really challenging for kids to get clear. And I'm blanking on the word that I wanna say it starts with the C.

Can't.

I can't see it. It's okay, I'll have rain. Things that happened, but it really clear and concise. I don't know. I can't think of the word I want to say.

Yeah, but like, not connected but like aligned message a message that is where the message was saying is aligned with our behaviors where they are. You know, you can see that there is alignment between those things. I think it's really important. So, Jo, thank you so much for all of this conversation. I want to make sure that people know where they can find you and follow us. So why don't you tell us where they can, where you live on the internet.

Jo: Thank you so much. I feel like we're going to do today.

Laura: It was good.

Jo: So many different things, but yeah. So I am on Facebook, Jo Bevilacqua, a bit of a mouthful B e v i l a c q u a on Instagram, which I think is where we've been talking a clubhouse room. I love her house. I don't really have that much time for at the moment because I just get so engrossed in it. So Facebook and stuff. I have a website and in my book is on Amazon, or so we've got the paperback and the Kindle versions.

So I really wanna go to read the comments and reach out if any of this has resonated with anybody and yeah, if you start implementing anything or start exercising that muscle and saying no, I want to know about it for sure, I guess so. Pumped when people start putting themselves higher priority list and it starts to pay off.

Laura: So so agree. It's so much fun to hear from focus when something has resonated and you're starting to put it into practice. It's so much fun for sure. Well, thank you so much. It was so fun to get to know you and chat with you all about boundaries today.

Jo: Thank you, see you soon.

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this.

May 17, 2022

Episode 118: Healing the Mother Daughter Relationship with Ann Dillard

May 17, 2022/ Laura Froyen

For this week's episode on The Balanced Parent Podcast, we will have the second installment of the motherhood series. And in this episode, we are going to dive deep into the mother-daughter relationship and figure out how we can have a healthy relationship between us and our daughters, and our Moms too! To help me in this conversation, I am joined by Ann Dillard who is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist offering mental health services to teen girls and their families. She hosts conversation circles and coaching programs internationally, where she helps women of all ages to navigate challenges in their mother/daughter relationships. If you are having challenges keeping a healthy connection with your daughter (and your mother), then this is for you! Here is an overview of what we talked about:

The mother-daughter relationship and what it a healthy relationship looks like
The healing process of repairing a strained relationship
Healthy boundaries: What they look like and how to establish them

To get more resources, visit her website at www.anndillard.com and follow her on Instagram @AnnDillard.LMFT.
Facebook Group: Building Authentic Mother Daughter Relationships

Laura: Hello everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen. And on this episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be diving in to the mother-daughter relationship. So we're gonna be figuring out how we can have a healthy mother daughter relationship and what are some of the things that we need to know to set us up for success for a lifelong relationship that's beautiful and lovely between us and our daughters.

And then also looking kind of backwards through our ancestral line and thinking about what are some of the things that need healing in the mother daughter kind of story that's going on in our family. And so to help me with this conversation, I'm bringing in a new friend and colleague Ann Dillard um she is an expert in all things mother daughter and she also really works primarily with older kids and young adults and so she's going to be this like sage kind of guide who's ahead in our path and letting us know what we need to know right now to set us up for success down the line. So, and welcome to the show. I'm so excited to talk with you.

Ann: Well thank you Dr. Laura, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here to talk about this very important topic. Right? The mother-daughter relationship and what's ahead and how do we kind of nestle in for healthy ride? Right.

Laura: Absolutely. Well why don't you just tell us a little bit like about yourself for just a few minutes.

Ann: Awesome. My name is Anne Dillard and like yourself, I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and I am licensed in the state of Georgia and Minnesota where I served my clients primarily. Well, 100% virtual now. Since Covid-19 I have been doing telehealth across these two states. I have, I do have a private practice brick and mortar in Decatur, Georgia. I'm working from home, so we're not in the office someday.

I look forward to going back into that space where I can work with my teams and their mom's face to face. Alright, I still look forward to that, but right now we do the best that we can. I am the creator of the Mother Daughter Conversation Cards, the mother daughter prompt journal as well, and the team talk, conversation cards that I share with my audiences and I'm just excited to be here and I'm sure as we talk a little more about me will come out along this, this journey.

Laura: Okay, well, awesome, thank you so much. Okay, so I think one of the things that I'm really, really curious about and that um lots of my listeners struggle with is they're trying to figure out how to have healthy relationships with their children and you know, we're focusing on mothers and daughters right now, but in general, they're trying to have healthy relationships with their children when they perhaps not experience a healthy mother daughter relationship themselves. And it can be really hard to go into that goal when you, you only really know what you don't want and you don't know how to actually get to where you want to be. And so it's just, you know, can we just start there?

Ann: Yeah, I think that's really important because as we talk, one of the things that you'll know about me as well is that pretty transparent about my my mother daughter journey, right? And so I have one daughter, she's now 32 years old. And as I was growing up, there are things that would come up in my relationship with my mother that I was like, I will never do that to my child. I would never say that this will never happen.

And so that is the desire going into parenting, right? But what happens is if we have not intentionally identified those things that we want to change in our lineage and if we have not intentionally thought out, help learn different coping mechanisms and do some rewiring of our brains when we get in stressful situations.

Those are the things that pop up and that's what you know, that's what you learn. And so without that intentionality we repeat what we don't repair. And that is one of the quotes that that I love to use and the name of the author is slipping me right now and she says we repeat what we don't repair. It sounds so simple, but there's so much depth to that.

Laura: So much truth. And so, okay, so now I feel like the folks who are listening are like, yes, that makes sense. I'm just part of me wants to help them know how to repair, especially for our listeners who have lost their mothers or who have relationships with their mothers that are really strained and or they know their parents will never engage with them. How can we go back and repair what needs to be repaired if we don't have the buying.

And I'm super lucky my mom is right there with me and willing to do the work. It's beautiful the way she is vulnerable. She's on my post on Instagram, on Facebook. She really engages with me like the healing process, It's gorgeous. But not all people have that, not, you know, and so how do we go about repairing when we don't have that? Or maybe even we don't want to forgive the hurts that came towards us.

Ann: That's pretty loaded right there, right? And kudos to your mom, that is such a gift. That is such a gift in. And kudos to her being a trendsetter because usually in my practice I find young adult daughters who are reaching out to say, hey, I want to do this. But my mom isn't necessary. You know, she said in her ways, she doesn't necessarily see a need for anything to change. Um, but I do it right.

And so when we think about, there might be a parent who might be unwilling or unavailable to do this work, we still have to do the work for ourselves because if we don't do the work, then we're passing it on to our children to do, right? And so in my mother daughter coaching program, I've really set up about five steps to, to really navigate this space. And the first one is introspection and reflection. We have to have that level of awareness of what is it that we want to change what it is, What is it that we want to be different?

And what do we bring to the table? Right. Kind of like in this space also focusing on what is in my control? What about this relationship? Can I control? And what can I not control? And then focusing in on the things that you can control. Right? So that that is like first step and then we look at how do we establish healthy boundaries, right?

And when we hear boundaries, especially for our moms who are, you know, a little older, it's like you're setting up walls and you're the boundaries are not really walls boundaries are really saying how we're gonna operate in our relationship so that you can be safe and I can be safe.

Laura: Yeah. Okay. So then what do healthy boundaries and a mother daughter relationship look like and at different ages. So, you know, for we all, you know, most of us have had a mother and most of us, you know, we have children who are listening to this, right?

So how like how does the health like healthy mother daughter relationship look with our own mom? If we have one who's who we're working with right now who were around and spending time with and then also what does it look like with our own children? Can we talk? What are the characteristics of those healthy boundaries?

Ann: Right? And you're you're so correct. It it looks differently at different ages, right? For example, I'm going to give you an example in my own life. So my daughter is 32, she's married and they recently had a child or to hold this I should say.

So I have my thoughts and my ideas of how she should raise her child, right? Because the mother with all the wisdom and I'm older than you kind of think, but I remember specifically when I went to stay and spend some time with her after her baby was born and I remember just looking at her trying to figure things out and I'm like, you know what? It's really not about me right now and this is the part where you can be if you are able to be reflect and interesting this this is where it comes in.

I'm like it's really not about me right now, it's about her having this experience. And so one of the things that I did was I assured her and reassure her that you have everything that you need to be amazing parents just tell me how I can support you, right?

And so even when he was crying and in the back of my head I was thinking this baby is hungry, we need some more food, right? I said to her, you know, I I just gently say, what kind of cry do you think that is? You know, just just inviting her to explore because for me, I've been doing my work and I know that it's important to have boundaries. I don't get to go in and Bogart and take over her experience.

Laura: Yeah, I love that. And you know, it's funny, like I know that we were saying that this looks different at different ages, right? But it's pretty like it's similar to when a kiddo is building legos are magnetized when they're little holding back and thinking like this is their experience, this is their play. I don't need to step in. I need to support and having that attitude of this is there's this is their life and I can be there to support them. I think that that carries through all, you know, all through our relationship with our kids.

Ann: It does. And again, we're talking about mother daughter, but this applies to all of our relationships, right? And so that was a healthy boundary to ask her, what is it that you want for him? How do you want to raise him? And I'll support you in those efforts versus were in third grade, I think it might have been my son and they were studying the solar system.

I had to make that contraption to be, you know, no Pluto goes here and it's got to be this color, it is that was so unhealthy, right? But learning along the way how to endorse their own personality and give them space for autonomy and agency is so important and not be so wrapped up where their identity is so connected to mine that I forgo who they are as individuals.

Laura: Yeah. Yeah. So much. It's also not easy when again, you know, our models were different too, you know, and so I, one thing I do feel curious about, so you were talking, you gave this beautiful example of you having healthy boundaries with your daughter as she became a mother and I feel curious about when you're in the mother, like in your daughter's shoes, you've just become a mother and you are having an interaction with your mother. What would a healthy boundary setting look like from on her part because people have lots of opinions about how we're supposed to raise our kids, right? So what would a healthy boundary setting sound like coming from your daughter's place?

Ann: Yeah, I think that's really a good example or a good place to look at boundaries. So it might be that a daughter said mom, I, I know you want to be with my son or I know you want to be with your grandchild, but can you give me some time, you know, asking for time because a lot of times, especially when our daughters have children, we feel like we need to, you know, assert ourselves in there a little more.

But even respect and respecting that space or just saying things like I understand that you know this or gel worked when I was a kid but now they have new studies that we need or a gel with a different ingredients and, and just to be as a mother to be able to accept that and say okay and give her that space instead of feeling like she's attacking me or she's saying you don't what you did wasn't good enough.

Laura: Oh absolutely. I think that we run into that so much that when we try to explain our way of parenting differently to the older generation that we, we inadvertently hurt their feelings. We, it feels like a rejection or dismissal or an criticism of how they did it things and you know, if we think about how wrapped up we are our identity is in rearing our children and being a parent, being a mother is a big piece of identity and then to be on the receiving end of I didn't like how you did it and I'm doing it differently. It's quite a vulnerable thing to be on the receiving end of that.

So I love that you're encouraging us to tap into compassion for our parents and of course there are parents who did did real harm but for the most part, most of us have parents who did the best they could with what they have the information they had at the time coming in from that place of compassion and just, you know, acknowledgment of, you know, I know you care assuming the best.

I know that you really want, what's best for me, my new child and, and I know you have good intentions and I know that you had good intentions when you were raising me and now we just know things are different, we know more and and now I'm doing things differently and that doesn't mean how you did it was wrong. All right, good coaching, you know, like that's the therapy term, right coaching things.

Ann: And it helps if if mom is doing her own work right, because again, so much of our identity as mothers, you know, caught up in what our children do. One of the things that I coach and teach my clients is that your children aren't here to fulfill your unmet dreams, they have their own and we get to support them or not, but they're not here to fulfill our unmet dreams.

Laura: And I think, you know, it's funny, I think that that like for those of us with younger kids, I feel like that feels really obvious, but as they get older and they start moving towards the teenage years and or moving towards thinking about college or careers, I think it's hard to remember that at times, especially if you've seen them take a very different path.

Ann: Right? And we're dealing with the generation that we're dealing with now, things are so different, right? We have people who will quit jobs on the, you know, in a minute. Whereas we might be from the school of thought that you give them 30 days, You give them, you give them two weeks notice and you have another job before you quit your job.

And and then here we have these young girl with millennials and they take risk and they don't necessarily care about being on a job for 30 years, right? And so that looks totally different than the values that we have as older parents. And so how do we trust them to navigate their own path and just be a soft place for them to land?

Laura: Yeah, I like that. That's a soft place for them to land. That's beautiful. Okay, so I have a couple of questions that I want to know, kind of what you're your teens and young adults would say like, if you could ask them, what are like the top five things that moms can do when their girls are young to set them up to have a healthy relationship. What would your your clients, your young adults and teen clients say?

Ann: oh my, they would say mom could listen listen to me listen, listen, listen, right? And I've been paying attention. Even when I'm having a tantrum still listen to me because some of my teams feel like their mothers or or their parents love is conditional only when you behave the way I want you to behave or I expect you to behave, right?

So then there becomes this separation when I don't act right. Or I don't behave properly. And there's this separation and during that time of separation or isolation, there's so much that happens within their cognitive state. It just is not good. Right? And so listening would be one, being there is an extension of listening but also allow me to take risk.

Laura: Yeah, allow me to take risks. That can be hard. Okay.

Ann: It can be hard, especially when you've lived this life already, Right? That's like that's where that agency comes in, right? Allowing them to take with, they would say that one of the big things that my teens say is Miss and I don't always want to hear the comparative story like when I was your age, I didn't have to da da da and and I had to walk and I had to do this kind of work and I had to do this and I had to do this and you have it so easy.

Laura: I bet that feels really invalidating to them.

Ann: Very much so. And very minimized into their experiences. And so if parents would understand that they might not have the exact same experiences but their experiences are valid and there's reasons or are reasons why they could be stressed or having a mental health really challenges around their lifestyle even though you have worked as hard as you can to make it cushy or comfortable or you know, offer the things that you didn't have. It doesn't mean that they're not faced with their own challenges.

Laura: Yeah. Okay. So listen, allow mistakes. Yeah, I know comparing experiences. Okay. I need other wisdom from teens.

Ann: Yes. They would say don't share my business with other people.

Laura: Respect my privacy.

Ann: Oh my goodness. Oh, I have, I posted something like that on facebook a little while ago and one of my friends who was a little younger than me, she said when she got started her menstrual cycle, her mom walked down the street with a box of pads and saying my girl is a woman now. And so I think it's important that parents realize that it is a difference when you have a support system and you have a village that you know, you consult with or you, you have to encourage you and your child along than when you're just sharing their business and also for them to to hear you share their business.

That could be so so hurtful. And yeah, so even in in the instance where yes, it's the village, but you might need to or consider asking permission. Is it okay that I share this with grandma or is it okay that I share this with auntie.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that this is something that can be practiced early. I I practice this with my kids. My kids are nine and 6 and we practiced this and have been for years. It's one of the reasons why I rarely talk about my parenting struggles here because my parenting struggles include my children and that's their story and I, and they're little, they can't really give good consent for me right now to, to share their stories. So I really appreciate that. Okay, so listen, allow risks, no comparison. respect my privacy. Let's do you have one more so we can have five.

Ann: no comparison, respect my privacy. And then the other one would be, let's see, I'm thinking about, I have a few teams in mind that's coming up and the one that I'm thinking about really ties back into listening and it's like not minimizing the things that that I'm experiencing and that that kind of ties together.

Yes, believe me. So that the door can be left open by, but also an extent of this one right here, which is I think believe me would be a good topic for this one, but also in that belief, not forced me to do things or engage with people who I don't feel comfortable engaging with. Right? So growing up in our household, you respected adults. You respected by hugging people, you know, without regards to your autonomy right with, without it's totally disregarded, right?

You did this because you're showing respect and if you did not greet and kiss and hug and did all of those things, the people might look at your parents and say, what kind of parents are they or what kind of children are they raising? But I think for parents to take a step back and say, and if the child doesn't want to engage with people in a certain way, trust in and believe in that they have a reason or they might know. Yeah, something.

Laura: Yeah. And that's another thing that can start right away from the beginning or forced affection right away. Yeah. And I mean and this is these are teaching healthy boundaries too. And it's healthy boundaries aren't just what happens between you and your children, but it's how you support your children and holding them with other people to its beauty.

It's absolutely to give to your children to teach them how to listen to their intuition, how to trust themselves and to know that they are trustworthy by trusting that Yeah. it's just right

Ann: That's right. And by believing them by trusting them and giving them, you know, support in knowing that you can listen to yourself and that, you know, so many times we have been taught especially as women to override our intuition so much. And even though, you know, we might say I had a gut feeling about that, but we've been, it has been minimized so much.

It has been invalidated or seen as wrong or we've been called sensitive or too emotional or so many different labels have been attacked to us really cueing into our our intuition that we lose sight and we override those feelings. And I think embracing them in our children the whole such a gift.

Laura: It's such a gift. You know, I so agree with you. We've been so conditioned. I think the world is afraid of the power of women who listen to their intuition. I think that it is a a thing that happens on purpose where we get conditioned to not listen to it because the world, I mean, we would be so powerful, you know, just as women, like, we would just be, our intuitions are so beautiful and wonderful and spot on, we are so good at seeing injustice when we're trusting our gut. We're so good at seeing patterns were, I don't know, the intuition of women is something that's so beautiful to me. It's one of the, like my biggest goals for my girls is that they never quiet that voice within them.

Ann: because we're intuitively good at our core. We're intuitively ourselves, that part of us. It's intuitively good and and it'll it'll guide us right and and that's where our personal power comes from. But if we keep quiet in it and if we keep overriding it and ignore our children when they express their their emotions. And yes, they might be big emotions, the more we override it or dismiss those emotions, the more we quiet those intuitions and those intuitive parts of them.

Laura: I so agree. And I, you know this all goes hand in hand with doing our own work. So many of my clients and I'm sure your your parent clients to the moms that you work with have such a hard time trusting their own intuition as parents um and reclaiming that for yourself, Learning to trust your intuition.

Learning not to run to the next parenting expert like you and me, but rather turning inward to be your own inner guide is a crucial practice. And I think sometimes when we are nurturing that in our children they can be such an inspiration to us. They can really teach us how to do that if we let them, you know.

Ann: Oh that's so beautiful. He said absolutely.

Laura: Yeah. Oh goodness, okay so I feel like I could talk about mother and daughter relationships with you you know so long and I know that my listeners are going to want to learn more about what you have to offer. So where can they go to find you and learn more about. You know, you have great free content on Instagram, you do a really nice job of putting prompt like prompts, you know things to say to your daughter things Mother should say to their daughters. I love those posts of yours. So where can they find you?

Ann: Well, they can find me on my website. First of all that will take you to all social media platforms, www.anndillard.com, and Instagram @AnnDillard.LMFT, Facebook, and KIP Consulting Services is the name of my, my business, my practice, but I also have a mother daughter group that's called Building Authentic Mother Daughter Relationships and I, I share lots of free content in that group as well.

Laura: Oh my gosh, well, I'll make sure that all the links to those things are in the show notes and and I really appreciated connecting with you on these topics today. I love the, the attention and space you give to mother daughter relationships. We need more of it.

Ann: Thank you so much and thank you for continuing to do the work that you do serve in your audience. It's a breath of fresh air.

Laura: Well yeah, again, I really just loved chatting with you. So thank you so much.

Ann: Thank you Laura.

May 10, 2022

Episode 117: Five Steps for a More Confident Motherhood with Zelmira Crespi

May 10, 2022/ Laura Froyen

For the rest of this month, we will be talking all about motherhood starting with an interview with Zelmira Crespi, author of Happy Mom, Happy Kid

We will be talking about the transition to motherhood and how to find ourselves, happiness, and joy in this journey, including

Managing stress levels and find ways to live motherhood on a positive note
Managing expectations that we have of ourselves as mothers
Cope with guilt and shame, and learn to enjoy the ride

To get more information on their book Happy Mom, Happy Kid, check out their Instagram page @happymombook.

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.

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast, we're going to be talking about the transition to motherhood and how to find ourselves and find happiness and joy in this parenting journey. So, to help me with this conversation I'm bringing in a colleague and author of a book Happy Mom, Happy Kid.

Her name is Zelmira and she's doing this interview. Although the book is co-authored with her friend Maria, it's a beautiful light book that's easy to read and can really help us shift the way we see our transition to parenthood. So Zelmira, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Zelmira: Hi, thanks for having us. Well Maria couldn't be here but we are very excited to be doing this podcast. We wrote a book together during the outbreak of the pandemic when we were both being full time moms from 8AM to 8PM. So basically this book was written in the wee hours of the morning or late at night But it was totally worth it. We are both moms of several children. She has um 4 under 11 and I have 5 and 8 and we have been talking about this conversation about what really happens to moms when we hit motherhood.

I'm a communication specialist so I have a very deep need to communicate and process everything that I live and my co author, she's a child psychologist and an entrepreneur, online businesses and stuff like that. And she's just a very curious person as well For everything. And we just had this ongoing conversation throughout throughout the 10 years that we've been friends and and one day we just decided to sit down and really get our hands dirty and investigate and do like a bit of like I told her there's such a thing as investigative journalism which I studied and I, and I know how to do and we started to see what actually goes through the mind body and soul of a mom when she becomes a mother because we did notice a massive change in our lives and then in the lives of all of our home moms around us.

So that's basically the reason that we actually wrote the book. It was more to help other moms and to actually answer our own questions and it's been a ride. I mean it was great because like I, I don't think there's anything more gratifying than trying to write a book and you find these answers and you just have so many “aha” moments because even though you kind of know certain subjects or you've heard or you've read to be able to dive into certain things and and really pick them up and look at them and think about how you process them yourself is really powerful. And that's why in our book we have a lot of information.

We try to give a lot of information or maybe leads to more people that can talk to you, our readers about certain subjects. And then we have our own personal experiences because we're talking about something that we both went through as well and we kind of want to have moms to have the permission to feel whatever they're feeling. And if they have any questions they can read our book and then we can obviously guide them to other professionals that we mentioned or a book that dive in a little bit more deeper into certain aspects of it.

Laura: It's a beautiful book and I think it's a needed topic. I know that for myself personally, when I became a mom, I went into it with such rose colored glasses, I had so many ideas about what motherhood was going to be like, I'd wanted to be a mom since I was like two years old. It was one of the very, like the only consistent aspirations I had through my whole life was to be a mom and it was radically different than what I thought it was going to be. And the only word that I can use to describe how I felt was untethered.

I didn't no really who I was, things were different than I expected. I felt big shifts in my relationship with my husband and in my relationship with myself. And so I really do appreciate that The goal of your book is to make that transition smoother for moms and to help them reconnect with themselves. You have this line in it that I think is one of the purposes of the book is to really help parents get clear on how guilt and shame and unrealistic expectations are robbing us of joy. And I guess I was just kind of curious about, if you can say more about that about how that happens and and what are some of the expectations that we put on ourselves that are make it hard for us to actually enjoy motherhood.

Zelmira: Yeah, I've always said that when I was born, obviously I knew I was a woman that I can have kids and that eventually I could be a mom and I always had it in my future, like CV like my projection of my life, like obviously like eventually I'm going to be married by 25 I have four kids that was kind of like what I used to say when I was like maybe six or seven. And so a lot of us women, we go to school and we're prepared to learn how our ABC’s and and 123’s and then we go to high school and like, and then college and and you write your admissions letter and you have to really have to develop like who you are, what you want in life and we have this huge preparation for our entire professional life.

And then like the motherhood thing is always kind of lingering and then eventually it's like, oh finally I can be a mom and this is obviously gonna, you're gonna walk into that as prepared as I've prepared for the rest of the things in my life that I've chosen and then you kind of walk into it and you're like the homemade class did not give me that much information. I mean I didn't read enough books on this, that one article that I read? I kind of skimmed through it but I wasn't really understanding what I was reading.

So I just kind of skim through it and when I'm a mom I'll read it. And that's when you turn into like you, you get into this cycle of trying to catch up with the whole entire preparation that you maybe thought you should have had. And I'm not saying that we all have to be professionally prepared to be moms. What I do say is that it does kind of come as a shock that naturally your focus isn't there. And then like when you go and you start doing your baby registry and on on amazon and everything's so shiny and so bright and so beautiful and then that there's a baby shower and everything is pink or blue and there's so many balloons and everything is like so festive and then maternity hits. If you had the baby yourself, you're wearing those huge panties with the big diaper that the nurse explains to you.

And like, I mean one of the things that was so interesting for me was like the lightness with which with the nurse was like, okay, so we're gonna put this huge diaper and two pads and you're gonna pull it up and this is how you're going to go to the bathroom for the next three days? Nobody told me about this. Nobody like why didn't anybody tell me now you can kind of see on Instagram, maybe like three kind of mentions it and you kind of start seeing it but 89 years back, I did not have any information about this in my book. I mentioned that I have a certain situation that I started doing crossfit like three months after I give birth. I had no idea that you couldn't, that you kind of had to take care of your body and like the shock to realize that you couldn't just like up and start running so naturally because I had not, I had lost some of the pelvic strength and I pee myself at 28 I pee my pants and I was like what is happening like when?

And that's when I started to feel this. Like maybe I haven't sat down and really understood, understood, understood what I was walking into and then, I mean I just kept on seeing a lot of moms that just walked around through life with their kids.

Obviously you would maybe see them that they weren't sleeping so well or maybe they were saying they were a little bit tired or maybe you could see a couple of things but the actual living through the process of becoming a mom can really be a little bit mind boggling and I do feel that today with social media and so many moms that wanna do so much more than just being mom, there is some sort of like anxiety going on a lot of moms that maybe I'm doing this wrong, maybe I'm not fit for this, maybe I'm not doing what I should be doing for many years. I suffered for, I could be doing so much more and writing the book, I finished the book and during a podcast interview, I swear to God, I was talking during somebody was interviewing me and they were like, so what have you been doing?

And it's like, I've been always trying to do something, do something more, do, like get back on the professional thing and she's like, well when did you have your children? And I started giving her the the years when I had the kids and while I was answering it after writing this book, after publishing it after having a couple of code candidate entries, I was like, did not have that much time for the first time. I was like what?

Like relax, I mean you did a lot during those years and and I think it's hard to really be able to give yourself the permission to not be the Uber entrepreneur mom Pinterest, everything's perfect, strong pelvic floor, baby bounce back girl today because that's basically what we're being fed And I think that it's really hard.

Laura: something I've been playing with for myself because I think you're so right, I think we're inundated with so many cultural messages about what motherhood is supposed to be like, but very little actual support and figuring out how we want it to be. So, I teach my kids about being wise consumers about being kind of aware, conscious consumers, so noticing when they're being sold on something. So when we're walking in the toy oil, we think about like, huh, I wonder why they put that toy right there, you know, really thinking about from a marketing perspective and you know, creating resilient kids who can't be sold to.

So I've been applying that to my motherhood as I scroll through Pinterest or Instagram thinking about like what am I being sold right now, who is benefiting from me feeling badly about myself right now, you know, and of course influencers and folks who are posting beautiful pictures, they're not trying to make any, I don't think most people are actively trying to make anybody feel bad or like they're failing motherhood, but I think that there is a this capitalistic society that we are embedded in, encourage us to do this.

It encourages us to only really post our highlight reel and not show the messy back blooper reel and as a result we start getting into this comparison game and it really steals our joy and being sold a lie about what it's actually like, I really appreciate this conversation.

Zelmira: So I think that there's something really important that you just touched on. I think there is with social media. I think that the wise consuming, I think that's awesome. I've never really looked at it that way. But what I think is that when you do post something, no matter who you are, really ask yourself why are you posting it? Like who are you posting it for? Because for example, I mean I have my private Instagram account and I have a lot of family members or friends that are very far away from me.

So the pictures that I post are obviously the reason is to look like this is how old this this one is and look how we celebrated his birthday. And it's, it's a, it's a genuine like we're, we really want to share because we're connected because we're far away. The other reason why you're posting it or you're looking for the best picture. And I think there should be a conscious, posting process of what you're posting and why you're posting it.

And is there a real reason to post everything you do? Like, I mean today everybody is very on top of let's share everything and let's let's connect everybody. And I think that in the process of trying to share everything with everybody. We're kind of taking away time from sharing actual, more deeper connections with our own kids or with our with our actual husbands.

Laura: It pulls us out of presence with our children and our partners and we lose it, we lose the opportunity to connect that could have been there. I find that for myself. So I talk a lot about play on my Instagram page and I like sharing pictures of my kids play because I think play is amazing and wonderful.

But I do notice that when I'm trying to get a good picture, I don't get to see all of the beauty and wonder in it. I lose focus on those things. So sometimes I have to, you know, put on the backburner my goal of sharing things for my audience versus actually being present for the moment with my kids.

Zelmira: Absolutely. Yeah. Or sometimes you do have the fact that it's the timeline that you're living. If yesterday there was a really nice picture and today is a new day and everything is very nice. But if you keep on popping into Instagram and seeing how many likes your yesterday picture got, you're still not paying attention to the today or the tomorrow. So yeah, I think that as moms, we have to make a huge effort because it's not easy and I'm the first one to figure my phone and scroll my Instagram when I need a mental break to really focus on being connected with the moment.

And just just check in with ourselves and with our consciousness. We talked about in the book about the consciousness of our connections with our friends with our kids with our spouses. The secret is really there because in terms of satisfaction, we did a study of with our book, we did um we studied over 600 women and then we got 100 women and we kind of did a more in depth study and we told them to check on a list how many times they felt that they were taking care of their personal health, how many times they were taking care of their spirituality or maybe kind of like interconnectedness, what whatever you want to name it with their spouses, with their kids, with their friends, with their social life and with their mental wellness.

The great thing about this is that we don't need so much to feel that we're on top of our game. It was just once a week if you take care of these areas and a very conscious way you'll be okay because what we're trying to do is calm down that anxiety that you're doing less, that you should, that you're doing something wrong, that you're not really running at the beat that you should be running. Everybody has their own time and their process to process motherhood. It's a huge, huge ball game

Laura: And it changes right? It changes, it changes when you add a new child. It changes when your kids hit new developmental stages. I think that's something that I also, I really appreciated about your book, You have this Rubik cube analogy in here that really resonated that there's why don't you explain that to us.

Zelmira: I love the Rubik's cube analogy because it was actually the Rubik cube was developed as it's something to actually study physics I think or something and then it turned into like a very popular toy and everybody started to play with it. But it's really hard to play, it's really hard to actually like solve it and uh and not everybody can solve it so quickly. And I think it's a great example of like some people do process motherhood in a faster way for millions of reasons and some people don't and that's okay. I mean I don't, I'm not less of a person because I can't do the Rubik's cubes as fast as my neighbor and same goes for motherhood Maria had a much easier process with motherhood.

I had a much harder process with motherhood but we're both great moms and we both have great kids and a great family basically the idea of the Rubik's cube was to try to explain that you walk into motherhood and you're like okay I got this, I got this and then like certain things of your life for certain aspects of your life starts shifting, it starts even in pregnancy, it doesn't start the second that you gave birth or that you adopted it because it goes earlier when you start like changing that mindset, you start changing that mindset of I'm going to try to dominate this area. I'm gonna try to grab hold of this aspect of my life or who I used to be or I got this baby part down finally and then something else always has to shift when you focused on that something else lost your focus. And that is naturally going to be harder to find later.

And it's just the natural process of how motherhood works because there is a complete shift of your identity. You don't have to be scared about it. 100% of moms go through it. I think that was my favorite part of writing the book was the second I ran into the word mattresses, dr Alexandra sacks talks about there's this great article that she wrote for the new york times and it explains the direct impact that moms have to their hormonal mind and body changes that they go through. And it's called mattresses because it's compared directly to adolescence that teenagers go through this. They have this hormonal in mind and body changing situation going on. And everybody's like, oh, oh, the teenagers are like, like let's there.

So in their teenage years, but nobody really talks about that one with a mom, Like just given birth. Like nobody's like, oh well she's just a mom, she just gave birth, she might might be a little bit all over the place or maybe she's a little bit like, I mean she can't be tired, that's allowed she has to be happy and she has to be very grateful and she has to be and she has to be and as a mom going through it, there has to be can be a little bit heavy because sometimes it can be scary. I mean we talked about postpartum depression.

A lot of women think that they're going through a heavy postpartum depression and we're like, no, it's just that it's hard and it's complicated. But I mean that doesn't make you less of a mom just because you're having a little bit of difficulty trying to understand what's going on or who you are or who you're gonna be.

Laura: Yeah. I think that we have skyrocketing rates of, I guess perinatal mood disorders simply because the lack of support, especially in our society for mothers. I think it's huge. Okay as we're wrapping up, as we're kind of coming to the end of this interview, I'd love to get really practical for my listeners. So if people are listening here and they're feeling like, yes, I feel lost. I'm not really sure who I am anymore. I feel like I'm always failing at motherhood that I'm not that this does not feel how it's supposed to feel what it would be, the three top things you'd want them to do. Like right now.

Zelmira: first of all, I want them to say you're fine and you're normal and it happens, but you're doing great anyways.

Laura: So tap into like self compassion and Grace give themselves a little bit of compassion and Grace, okay.

Zelmira: just give yourself the permission to feel whatever you're feeling and then I am a personal believer in journalism like and journal writing just like get it out, write it down, vomit all the thoughts that are just going on through your head and then reread it and just kind of do like a check, like do you really, really think that you are everything that you're writing down, like, are you going to buy this?

Like if you were your best friend and you read this, like would you say this about yourself then, if you read our book, we have our checklist, which I personally, I developed the checklist. I had already had my four kids, now I have my fifth and he's five months old and I had to do the checklist like twice since he's born and it's just like, I mean I should know this by now, I should be able to mentally do this and no, I mean every time you go through childbirth, everything chips like to the right or to the left and you kind of have to regroup and you have to reconnect with yourself.

And I had a couple of days and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna do the checklist this week to see if I'm being able to cover all the areas that positive psychology and most people that are talking about wellness today, tell you to really pay attention to, to see if I'm okay because if I look back, you know, if I look forward I can't really do much about those things but I can do like I can work on myself today and now and that does have a direct impact on how I live and enjoy my kids today and the messy hot mess that in my house can be sometimes but it's just knowing what to expect right now. I have, he just turned four and the other one just turned three.

They're going through the motions of sharing me with baby and you know what I mean? Everybody needs to be on top of mom right now. Everybody can be on top of mom right now it's fine and just being empathetic with myself helps me be empathetic with them so much so I think it's kind of there and then just like just stop the ball, stop the constant brainstorming of what you could be doing, what you should be doing, what you could have done.

Just put the ball down on the floor and let's stop the game for a second and just you're gonna be okay the second that you stop thinking about everything that's going on and just like really focused on how you're feeling and and how you're connecting to that newborn baby by all means if you feel that something is just more often it should be. There are thousands of professionals that can give you a hand. I had to call up my psychologist which I called her up every once in a while and just like you know what I want to talk for awhile. I wanted, I wanted to chat about a couple of things and just not be scared of the emotions.

Laura: Yeah. Okay. So that was five beautiful things to offer yourself compassion and Grace Journal, write out your story and what you're feeling and then and evaluate it. Don't let it be a passive process but really take a close look at it, check in with yourself slow down and then get support. Those are beautiful. Thank you for that.

Zelmira: I actually I did something different this time because I always journal but this time I had a really bad day my postpartum and I wrote down a lot of things and they were pretty nasty things about myself and what I did was that I showed them to my husband and I was like I don't like this, I don't like what I wrote down and he's like well this is not true and this is not true and this is not true. So like and so it was really like for the first time it was just like I had never done that practice of actually showing it to somebody that I really trust and that I know has my back. So what are we gonna do about this?

And he's like, well I mean I can help you say together let's say together this is not true and the next day I just had such a much better day because I obviously I am tired and I'm not perfect and baby gets up at night and somebody has to pee in the middle of the night as well. And there are so many after school activities right now. It's crazy. And we had to literally sit down with my husband like for two hours and right up our afternoon schedule.

So you take him to soccer, I take him to swimming and and it was like an actually it's a good job but we are organized and we have a very strict routine to just simply not go crazy and then we're really, really, really serious on all kids at night, Bedtime is at a certain hour so that we do have our parent parent meeting, our parent meeting. Are you alive? Yes, I am. Hello every night. So that helps.

Laura: Absolutely. And you know, don't Zelmira, you hit on something right there that I think is really important. You journal out all of these kind of not so great things that you were saying to yourself. I think that sometimes because of the way our subconscious and unconscious mind works, we don't realize that those thoughts are flowing through our head. Whether we recognize them or not, whether we're aware of them or not, whether we write, write them down or not.

And I think a lot of our bad moods grumpy days, just days where we feel like total crap about ourselves. Often we have that internal dialogue just kind of like running in the background is like background static that's making us feel terrible about ourselves and so writing it down, getting it out on paper so you can actually take a look at these thoughts that are there anyway. I think it's so important. I think it can be really intimidating for some folks who aren't, who don't journal to like face writing them down and own.

But yeah, I'm saying this stuff about myself and I know I'm not supposed to and I am, but whether we recognize it or are aware of it or not, that stuff is still rolling through the back of our minds and it impacts it impacts our mood, it impacts our relationships, our interactions with the people that matter to us

Zelmira: Now and it gets, it makes you really tired more than you actually realize it. So at the end of the day, maybe you went to the park for a while, you took the kids to school, you went to the supermarket, you took the kids to the park and if you look at your life in an instagram page, it looks fine. I mean there's nothing there, but if you actually hear the back conversation of your head, it's really, really, really draining. So I think that that's why I say like stop the ball, like all hands on deck, let's do the checklist this week, let's see like how I'm doing in all these areas and just focus.

I mean it's rewiring your brain to focus on today. Don't worry if you were surprised about this. Don't worry if you weren't expecting that. Don't worry about the mom that made that comment. Everybody's going through their own motions. A lot of comments from our mom shaming come from their own personal experiences and you have to again be empathetic with the the other person and nobody wants to put down to mom. If it happens, it's because there may be going through something as well and we, we already have our own internal critic. We don't need more help in and kind of seeing what we're doing. We don't need extra people coaching us. So I think it's just stop the ball relax, take a deep breath.

Look inside, see how you're feeling and see what you can work on you. Maybe you need to go have a drink with a friend and just disconnect a little bit to go back into your house a little bit more fresher or go out for a walk or I don't have the name but the other day I thought I saw like a Tinder for moms find yourself a mom friend and just talk about it. Just unload the brain and journalists journaling and unloading the brain talking as women. We process talking that. That's not a mystery. We need to process a lot in verbally and that helps us a lot.

Laura: Yeah. Okay, well thank you so much for all of these things. Why don't you just give us one last run down of the name of your book and where folks can reach out to you if they want to connect.

Zelmira: Well, our book is called Happy Mom, Happy Kid, it's called and it's how to reconnect with the best version of you for your kids and you can find us on Amazon and we have audible, we have kindle, we have everything, every single sort of format that you need to just get it red or give it to your best friend that's about to have a baby or if mom's that already had babies and moms that have older kids, they feel that something's off, they have to pick up this book if they feel that now they're fine.

But something was off before they have to read this book. It's basically a book about two really good friends having like a very long conversation in-depth conversation about things that we all care about. We're professionals and experience above all, and, and we're just really glad that we're we want this conversation to happen as much as we can.

Laura: Absolutely. And I think that there's things in this book for you, no matter how old your kids are, because the identity of motherhood is a shifting moving target, It changes as your kids get older as they need you less. My nine year old needs me way less than she needed me when she was two.

And that is a shift in identity of, you know, moving from being a very, you know, so my kids are entering into middle child, I'm out of the, the little, you know, preschool years now and it's very different. It's a very different experience. Parts of it are freeing parts of it are like there's loss. So I think that there's, I'm guessing that, you know, as you move into the teen years and as your kids leave for college or careers or trade school, that those things will keep coming up, you'll need to continually shift that identity.

Zelmira: Absolutely. It's more, that's I think that that's the biggest challenge that we want to help moms transition mattress is the best way possible or go through like postpartum the best way possible because you do have a future and the future can be lived in a much lighter note if you really know who you are, what your role is, what you want to be, what type of mom you want to be. I remember when one of my best friends were, she had her first baby. And she's like, I don't know, I don't know about this. I think I want to go back to work.

I don't know if this is for me and I was like, you know what, you just have to relax and you can choose what type of mom you want to be. I mean, and and once you choose it, you have to be okay with it and you have to allow yourself to be okay with that. And if you feel the need to go to back to a 9 to 5 job that's great. I mean, and if not you can stay home, but you have to be okay with who you want to be and that is a choice. And once you make that choice, just roll with it. And if not you can just, it's okay, it's okay. We're not like our kids want us to be happy, our kids want us to be solid and they wanted to be present and they want us to be living our lives.

I mean, I can't tell my eight year old with Down Syndrome that she can do everything that she put proposes herself to do if I don't do it myself. And that's why I wrote a book during the pandemic. I was like, I I'm a writer, I want to write a book, I want to write a book. And I and I I had to tell my kids, I wrote a book. I needed to say that so that they saw that I wasn't a mom that just would tell them you have to go to school, you have to run at soccer. You have to, you have to and I'm just doing the things that moms do. I wanted to give them something that I could say, you know what I, I wanted to do this. I made the effort and I did it and you can do the same

Laura: Yeah, whatever that is beautiful.

Zelmira: You want to be the best baker, like the best breakfast mom maker, that's awesome. Just do it and then tell them, you know, I'm really proud of myself and you should be proud of yourself because of such and such

Laura: Walking the walk that we, that we want our kids to do. Yes. Alright, well thank you so much Zelmira. This was such a lovely conversation. Thanks for sharing with us.

Zelmira: Yes, it was great. Thank you was so nice meeting you.

And if you're listening, grab ish green shot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

May 03, 2022

Episode 116: Things We Don’t Talk About with Parent Mental Health with Amanda Gorman

May 03, 2022/ Laura Froyen

When it comes to parenting and especially motherhood, there are so many things that we hide or gloss over, dirty little secrets that shame and fear and judgment tell us to keep to ourselves. Sometimes it's the small stuff (like how each of my kids have had YEARS long stretches of sleeping in their clothes the next day to avoid the morning getting dressed battles) and then sometimes it's the big stuff. On this week's episode my guest and I dive into one of the most hidden and shame-laden topics there is in parenthood: Rage. Specifically postpartum rage.

Grab a cup of tea and settle in as I share my own story of the rage I experienced as a part of a perinatal mood disorder after the birth of my second child, and witness my guest's story too. As we share our stories we also discuss how we got support and moved forward, and the ongoing work we're doing. If you've experienced that rush of overwhelming emotions, seeing red, irrational, explosive reactivity, then you know how hard it can be to get support and to manage and I hope this episode is a balm to your soul. And if you haven't, you'll likely still benefit from the experience of witnessing another's story. There will be pieces that resonate for everyone.

In this episode with my guest Amanda Gordon of the Finding Your Village Podcast, I will be discussing:

Rage as a symptom of a perinatal mood and anxiety disorder.
What parents can do in addition to therapy for their mental health
How to support non-birthing partners with their own mental health struggles.

Be sure to follow Amanda on Instagram as well. Her social handle is @findingyourvillage. And if you want more resources about birth, postpartum, and parent mental health, her Finding Your Village Podcast will be a good listen too!

To learn more about developmentally appropriate behaviors, CHECK IT HERE.

Amanda: Hey Laura, how are you?

Laura: Hey Amanda, it's so nice to get to chat with you. I'm really excited to talk about this topic.

Amanda: I am too. So the topic being perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and things that don't get talked about quite as often or enough in my opinion and we're doing a podcast swap collaboration where this is airing on both our Podcast. I love doing episodes like this and so to kick things off. We can both introduce ourselves for each other's respective listenership so that they can no kind of who is talking today. So if you want to go first.

Laura: Absolutely. Well, Amanda, I just want to say how honored I feel to be able to be in your space and on your podcast, I know you carefully select the people who come on and you create a really safe space for your listeners. And I just really appreciate being able to be here and have this conversation.

I'm Dr. Laura Froyen, I have my PhD in Human Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy. I'm a mom to two kiddos who are nine and 6 and a half and so I know lots of your listeners are on the, you still have the littles, I'm on the other side, I'm in middle childhood and I want to tell you it gets so good. I mean it's so good when they're little, but it's so good when they're big too.

There's challenges of course, but yeah, and so one of my biggest passions is supporting families and feeling more connected and grounded in themselves and starting to live in alignment with their true core values, their priorities, their goals for their family, getting rid of all the kind of society's expectations of ourselves and really living into what what matters most for us. So I'm excited to have this conversation from that place. what about you, Amanda? I would love for my audience to get to know you a little bit too.

Amanda: Yeah, well, thank you so much. Thanks for your kind words and thank you for that introduction. I feel the same way. Thank you so much for, you know, agreeing to share this space with me and for um just encouraging that reminder of the importance of having a safe space and a place to have these conversations about topics that don't always get talked about enough for a myriad of reasons. So I am Amanda Gorman, I am a mom of two as well. Mine are 3 and a half and 5 and a half I'm glad you said your yours is 6.5 because the half is very important to them.

Laura: Yes, I mean my, my 6 and a half, almost seven as she will tell you. But yes. Yes.

Amanda: Yes. And we have even gotten down to define it as my 5.5 year old defines it as a young, 5 and a half or an old, 5 and a half as she gets closer to her birthday. So I have two kids as well and we're kind of spanning that gap of like early parenting days to, I'm just just on the other side of like toddlerhood and you're on the other side to where I am headed next. So I love that progression and and I love the encouragement that you gave as well that it gets better.

And I'm seeing that it's fun. It's like that bittersweet of I am grieving the loss of those baby days in the toddler days, but I'm also just rejoicing in where my kids are today and like what our connection is like and what they're capable of like this saturday for instance, we have had a cold going through our house and thankfully like I'm not in the thick of that cold right now, but my husband was and I was up with the kids this week and so on saturday morning, we both wanted to sleep in like he was not feeling good and I was just tired from caretaking and my kids like watched cartoons on saturday morning and that was the first, I was like, oh my gosh, we're at that stage of parenting where they can watch saturday morning cartoons like I have arrived

Laura: They're like, like pivotal moments where you're like, this is peak parenting right here.

Amanda: Yes, exactly.

Laura: New Level unlocked.

Amanda: Yes

Laura: And achieved.

Amanda: Exactly like I know it's not gonna happen every saturday and that's fine, but I was like, oh my gosh, this isn't, this isn't the first and this is great. I love the extra hour that I got while they were watching cartoons. So anyways to go back to just finishing my introduction. I am a childbirth educator as well and host of the Finding Your Village Podcast and I also work in the space of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders by way of being on the board of director for Postpartum Support international Georgia chapter.

So this is something that is near and dear to my heart from a personal perspective as being a survivor of postpartum depression and postpartum O. C. D. And also just in the work that I do every day with families in Georgia.

Laura: Wow, that's so beautiful. Well, I didn't know you had such a personal connection to this. I'm really glad to hear that you have recovered and you're on the other side. I also experienced perinatal mood disorders, mind manifested more in anxiety and rage which doesn't get talked about very often. And it's hard to as you know, I'm sure you relate to this as professionals we have. It's almost like the world wants us to have this kind of persona that things are perfect for us that we don't suffer from the same things that the average person suffers from.

But that's not real. I've never hidden those things from, from the folks that I work with. It's where real human beings and there are things about early motherhood that are really challenging early parenthood too. You know, I think one of the things we were talking about when we first started chatting was that dads get overlooked in this conversation so much. So where do you want to go with this? Where do you want to?

Amanda: Well, I think that you touched on two things that we definitely want to talk about today. I also personally understand the term rage as it relates to dealing with a mood disorder and anxiety disorder, particularly in the postpartum stage. And so I think that we should maybe start there and I absolutely want to talk about like spouses or partners or dads and how they are impacted by these mood and anxiety disorders as well.

So, let's start by talking about rage as being a symptom of postpartum depression or another type of perinatal mood or anxiety disorder and what that looks like, what that feels like and kind of stuff that goes beside it.

Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Do you wanna start there, you're kind of the expert there. What, how, how is post, like, how is rage related to these postpartum kind of, cluster of disorders that come up? How is it related? How, like, why, why do we see it? And you know, for those of you who are listening and have experienced it, you might even be feeling like right now, like, oh, there's there's there's there's a name for this, you know? So what does it look like? Yeah. Get start us off.

Amanda: Yeah. and thank you and I personally would not call myself an expert of just, but just like, someone who has personally experienced it and deeply concerned with other people that are experiencing this and don't have language to talk about it or have a safe place to go and so that's just kind of my posture about it.

But from my personal experience, when I had my second child, I had um prenatal depression, I had postpartum depression. It was a really tough season, but also it was, it was a very great season and the fact that I was welcoming my second baby and had a beautiful birth experience with him and just like on one hand felt that kind of bliss of having two kids and two babies and like this is my dream, this is, I can't believe this has come true and this is wonderful and kind of being in that family cocoon.

So I experienced that on one hand, and on the other hand, I had some negative symptoms, feelings, emotions, sensations that were going on with me from the prenatal depression and from postpartum depression and so the rage came out when I would feel really overwhelmed um with my emotions and probably wasn't processing them. I don't know, I, I hesitate to say like I wasn't processing them well because that kind of sounds judgmental and I don't, I don't judge myself for how I was feeling and what I was dealing with, but but I don't think that I was processing them in a healthy way, that was that I was actually like taking the time to process them.

Laura: Yeah. So like we're in survival mode, but a lot of the early postpartum period, we are parenting, you know, we're both in the US were parenting in a system that is not set up to support young families, families with young children. You are, human biology demands a village, not just like you need the village, but demands it.

Our babies come out and they are so dependent. I mean quite capable and wonderful not to like bash on babies are so awesome. They can do so much, but they really need a lot of support. They need a lot of time. They need a lot of, you know, there they're demanding little beings and they need it and and it's hard because we have no universal paternal parental leave. You know, we have none other supports that we biologically need and evolutionarily are designed to have, you know, so there's a reason why why when we're all women are all, you know, or people with uteruses are altogether that are cycles sync up and so that we can get pregnant and have babies at the same time and help each other out.

You know, and it's so we can nurse each other's babies and it's just it's weird just there's so much that go so much lack of support. There's so much on us and then we have to push it down and then there's also those feelings that you were speaking to that, I think lots of us experiences like this is our dream come true, this is what we wanted, what we desperately hoped and prayed for that. We, you know, have seen ourselves doing since we were perhaps even little kids, you know, for many of us it's something that's the culmination of a lot of hopes and dreams and then to be stuck in a place of feeling dissatisfied or out of control or overwhelmed or angry.

Yes, we feel like we are betraying ourselves to, you know, and there's this there's this pressure to look like you have it all together or this pressure to be happy and satisfied. Yes, and not be a full human and we just don't give ourselves, I think, I think we just don't give ourselves permission to be full humans with big messy feelings to the both. And we demand either or of feelings, you're either happy or you're mad and you can't be both. You know?

Amanda: I do and the not only the pressure that goes along with that, but also the guilt I particularly felt very guilty about like, but this is what I wanted. This is a dream come true and I am so thankful to have this little baby and to have my adorable little two year old and to see them, you know, get to know each other and to see her love on him. I mean it was precious and

Laura: and it's like the most therapeutic word is it's not,

Amanda: it was not a but it was an and I also had a lot of stuff going on, I had a lot of a lot of negative emotions to process, I had a lot of experiences and some trauma to process and it came out one of the symptoms was rage and so I definitely felt kind of more of the stereotypical postpartum depression, feelings of sadness.

Weepiness, tired those kind of symptoms that most people think of when they think of postpartum depression, but I also was experiencing rage and it would come at times when I would feel overwhelmed and maybe maybe especially in those times when I was really feeling guilty and really feeling like confused by my and feelings of feeling love and appreciation and feeling tired and sad and just you know, processing or experiencing trauma and the rage would also come out when I was touched out, especially after breastfeeding, so I breastfed my son I breast fed both of my kids and that was just, you know, that's just part of my, my lived experience and my story and I remember sometimes maybe after particularly like cluster feedings and he would just be eating a lot and then my two year old would also want my attention and I wanted to give it to her and sometimes when he was done nursing.

I would just kind of, I would have this overwhelming feeling, sensation is the better word for it sensation in my body. I would be overcome with rage. Like I would just like gripped my fists and grit my teeth and I think I was holding in my rage as a, as a protective mechanism so it would not come out in any way of my baby because towards my baby or my kids because I think I was also scared of that sensation in my body.

Laura: Oh my God, Amanda can just talk about how scary this is. So I know that this is the opinion of you've experienced this, you might be feeling lots of guilt. How can we feel this raged towards our family, towards our, you know towards the situation that we're in that we chose. But but it's scary to be in the midst of of those feelings of feeling so out of control and feeling so overcome. It's scary. It is, it was confusing and and it was scary in particular because I was like what is going on with my head? What's going on with my body? Why am I gripping my hands and white knuckling it physically, literally, why am I, why is my jaw so tense and why do I feel so much anger right now?

And I would, And then I would feel like it would kind of be this, I don't even know like 10 seconds feeling and behavior of like I'm done nursing, I am done. Like I do not want anybody to touch me right now. I feel very irritated. I feel tense in my body. I need to put my baby down um Because I'm irritated and touched out and also I want him to be safe because these feelings that I'm having in my body and my emotions are scaring me and I'm also being very protective of my baby that I would not want any any of this crap that's going on inside to come out towards him or my daughter.

Of course yeah and it was just it was just kind of like A cluster like it was a wild experience of like 10 seconds of feelings and sensations. And I just remember kind of scratching my head. And this is one of the things that I came to my therapist about and I started seeing the therapist that I see now. I started seeing her almost 3 and a half years ago when my son he's 5 and a half now. 35 and a half important. And I started seeing her. I started seeing her when he was I think around three months old.

And I went to see her because of these sensations because of the depression that I was feeling and because of like OCD tendencies that were heightened like at their highest. And I had already had before. But they were the symptoms were like screaming at me during this time. And so I went to go see her for that. But I want to flip it over to you to talk about your experience because you said that you also personally know what rage feels like. So I would love to hear your part of your story.

Laura: Absolutely. I mean, so my experience was very similar. I had some trauma during my pregnancy. I was in a car accident, I had um birth trauma with my first that was kind of re triggered with my second birth, you know, and I had a physical disability from my car accident at the time. I've recovered from that disability now. And but at the time I was dealing with chronic pain, chronic debilitating pain.

And so, you know the way that I like, I think about it is that when when we are in this kind of these survival modes, right? And we have all the stress on ourselves, We have this um nervous system that is very tender and delicate and shaky and and quick to to be triggered, right? And so we have these moments where we if we're nervous system is overcome, we get shunted kind of down the levels of our brain into our fight or flight system.

Just like a three year old who is not getting what they want, get shunted down this the levels of their brain and we have three levels are executive brain, our limbic system where emotionality happens and then our primal brain, where are fight flight and free system lives, You know? And so when, when we think about rage happening, that's the fight response. It's a very natural normal fight response.

And so I started working with a therapist as well. My husband is a therapist. I'm so I'm a trained therapist myself, and sometimes I feel like we're the worst, getting the help that we need. And then my husband was like, I think it's time. And so I went back to a therapist that I had a relationship before, but, and I was lucky to be able to get in. I know that that's something that for folks who are experiencing these things right now, the weightless Times are are are huge. They're astronomical. So at some point, I think we can maybe talk a little bit about things that are helpful while you're waiting to get into a therapist because, the wait times are just no matter what, if you find the perfect therapist, it's the everybody is seeing a therapist right now, therapists are maxed out and therapists are experiencing kind of a collective trauma from these past two years as well. So they're setting healthier boundaries and taking fewer cases.

So, anyway, the um, you know, so really understanding that for myself was helpful that this, that these this rage was a signal from my body that something wasn't okay, that I wasn't okay. The rage was a symptom and an automatic response, not something that I had volitional control over. And so if we think about guilt, usually guilt is about something that we have a choice over, you know, we feel justifiably guilty when we make, you know, a mistake that we we chose to make, we were speeding and clipped a car or something.

You can feel guilty about those things. And guilt is not necessarily a terrible emotion, but when it comes to experiencing feelings of rage that we don't act on, but that we just really, you know, those are automatic responses. And so it doesn't always make a ton of sense to feel super guilty or shameful about those things because we don't have control over when we get triggered and are down in our fight or flight system. In fact are the fight or flight system is designed to take away our choice and control because when were we perceive threats? Our bodies want us not making decisions,

They want us reacting out of habit, out of, you know, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, that's what they want us doing, you know? Um, and so understanding that was really helpful for me and kind of releasing some of the guilt and shame that went with those feelings, understanding that this was something that my body was doing to protect me to keep the space, um, that my brain didn't doesn't know that my screaming baby and melting down toddler because my kids were the same age difference. You know. So I mean having, I mean you know this is the other thing too is that we often are having babies when our oldest ones are like at the hardest age.

You know? So there are 2 and a half they're finding their voice their fighting for autonomy and that's all happening when we have an infant. So I mean it makes sense that our brains might perceive those things as a threats. And so that allowed me to embrace a little bit more of grace and compassion. Self compassion. So self compassion was instrumental in my healing process. I'm a regular self compassion practice of just offering myself. Grace was really helpful. And recognizing too that so many of my symptoms were an attempt to control that which cannot be controlled.

You know I the my anxiety has almost always manifested in control and I think you know someone who's experienced OCD-like symptoms, you probably, that speaks very much. Yeah. So the the other piece of that that's been really helpful for me is acceptance. Really working hard through compassionate acceptance of what is you know um as opposed to resisting what is trying to guess what it is or change what it is. You know what I mean?

Amanda: I do. I absolutely do. That's something that I did not understand or embrace because I couldn't because I didn't have that as a tool in my toolkit, I didn't understand that until I was at my bottom in the pandemic and I got sober and I went through recovery and like that whole journey and I went through some DBT therapy dialectical behavioral therapy for those that have not heard of it and one of the core tenants and that is radical acceptance and that is when I, I understood that and it took all a long time. It took several like interactions, that topic, like it had to be said several times for me to get it and be like, but I don't like that, so I'm not going to accept that because I deeply do not like it. So those can't live in the same space and then that was me fighting that understanding and then surrendering.

Laura: Yeah, so, I mean, that's the thing though, is that like, that radical acceptance doesn't mean that we like it right, right? It doesn't mean that we condone it or think good or celebrate it just acknowledging it as it is

Amanda: Exactly. It just, it just is and it took so long for me to kind of surrender to like exactly that I don't have to like it and both and and I can accept it, I can just accept that it is what it is like right now, it just is, and I remember now I'm moving away from, you know, those early postpartum days, but this has just been part of my journey. I went through intense recovery and came home and was kind of reintegrating into myself and my family and I just had this like kind of silly small moment, but it was very meaningful for me personally where of this idea of radical acceptance, where I was like, oh maybe I do get it finally.

And one day I was doing something in the kitchen, my son was two and like, right, fresh at two in the throes of exactly what you just described and I was doing something, you know, turned away from him for 30 seconds, whatever and he had taken on our kitchen table, he had taken a whole can of Lacroix and the salt shaker and poured both of them onto our kitchen table and was making like an ocean in the kitchen table and I just saw this, I looked over and saw him doing this and I first reacted like, oh no, like stop, this is not good.

But I also kind of observed myself accepting the situation and not freaking out of just like going over to him with like calm reserve of like, I'm going to remove him from making the ocean, like we're going to stop the mess and then it is what it is. Like, I'm just going to clean it up, that's the next best thing for me to do. I'm going to clean it up and I'm going to, you know, steer him in the direction of playing with something that is more appropriate and not as destructive and so and that's what I did and it just wasn't a big deal.

And before though when I was in the throes of all of the mental health stuff, I was going on in addiction and all of this stuff, it was a very big deal. I think I would, I don't even know like I would have like probably yelled and just gotten very emotionally dis regulated and I just watched myself be okay with it. Like it wasn't an okay situation. I wasn't like, oh sweetie, how cute your ocean. Like I was not condoning the behavior. I still did the thing of, you know, like directing and something appropriate. And I cleaned it up.

But I just watched myself kind of like, except it was like, okay, well this just happened and it just, this was like such a small moment that maybe nobody else would think about, but for me, I still think about it, you know, like a year and a half later. So that's to me that's my example of moving from not understanding. I like how you put it compassionate acceptance. or radical acceptance. Not understanding that to embracing it of like it just is okay. What's the next right thing I can do.

Laura: Yeah. And it and it it just is and it doesn't mean anything. So I think a key piece of understanding radical acceptance is that the meaning that we attach to things that happen has to get severed in order for that acceptance to be there. So it doesn't when, you know, I think so many parents can identify with that kind of that seeing red, that comes over you when you saw him dumping with Lacroix in this salt. And and it blocks us from being able to interpret that as for what it really is.

A two year old who's exploring physics and his world who is a scientist who was experimenting and and you know, and and doesn't know that if he dumps the Lacroix on the table, it will spill onto the floor. Doesn't know that if he wants to explore dumping the Lacroix, he needs to do it into the sink or into a bowl where it will be caught. Doesn't understand those physics and this is just a kid who's figuring out his world when we get blocked from that, we attach different meaning to it. This is a kid who's just trying to make my life hard. I don't have the energy or time for this. I'm a bad mom.

If I had been watching this, wouldn't be happening, we have all these stories just that flood our brain and that's what's causing the red, you know, us to see that we think it's so often we think it's the kid or the thing that is causing us to see red and it's not, it's it's the flood of thoughts is the flood of meaning. And so radical acceptance is part a huge part of it is finding those chords of meaning that we tied a thing very like gently, very kindly, very compassionately clipping them. I'm you can't see you all can't using my fingers like this is like clip, clip clip, like, oh there's that there's meaning that I've attached to this and is that meaning real?

So like if my kid dumps Lacroix on the table, does that mean I'm a bad, inattentive mom? Of course not. No. Does that mean my kid is just out to bug me and get under my skin? No, of course not. There's just been too. And we just clipped the meaning and it makes it does make the acceptance so much easier.

Amanda: Yes, that is so huge. And for me personally, um when you go through recovery and you go through like a 12 step program, one of the things you do is you identify your defects of character. And so for me, a big one that I identified was going into victim mentality. I don't like the phrase playing the victim. because I instead say fall into the well of victimhood and then I have the choice to just climb right back out or just like sit down there and like wallow and I was very used to sitting and wallowing and so I the meaning that I assigned that situation was like yeah of course the universe is out to get me.

It wasn't even my kid, it wasn't even like it was just like the universe is out to get me like here I am trying my darndest and like why does this have to happen to me on a Tuesday? Like why can't I have it easier? That was the immediate story that went through my head because that is part of my defective character and and just being able to identify that and like you said, just gently clip that that string clip that cord of like I don't think the universe is out to get me. I think that this is just my son exploring the world and this is what was available to him. And so that just happened like it's okay, it's not and he's one thing

Laura: He's telling me he needs water player, like he's telling me like I should put him into the bathtub with cub you know, like that's like you know, communicating with me. Yeah, I think that's beautiful. And so I think like so we were thinking about like giving some people some tools as they're waiting to get into their therapist.

So I love that self compassion of regular loving kindness. Practice. It is beautiful and it's proven to change the brain proven to shift the brain to be more compassionate. It's proven like very well documented scientific fact and beyond mindfulness. So when we do compassion based self compassion based mindfulness and we compare it in a study against just a regular mindfulness program. The self compassion based my influence has better results.

So that is something to start with. Selfcompassion.org is the website run by the you know the leading self compassion researcher. she is fabulous and has lots of free guided meditations and exercises. So that's a free resource. You can start doing immediately figuring out what you were just talking about, Amanda, figuring out the the thoughts and the meaning and the negative flood of meaning that you are attributing to the things that caused the rage.

So writing down your triggers, I guess if everybody knows the things that make you feel sad or anxious or kind of get some things going within you that you don't love. It's like you're not showing up as your best self um and you're trying to push it down instead write them down. You know, don't push it anymore. Get it out, get it onto paper and then start taking a look at the thoughts that lead up to it.

The story you're telling yourself and start constructing a story that actually leads you where you want to go because if your story is of course this would happen to me, why do things always happen to me? There's very like that boxes you into a one path, right? The outcomes are narrow, right? And so figuring out, okay, what do I want my outcome to be and what thoughts and stories are that could support that outcome.

And that are believable to me too. And so that's the other thing. We have to make these things believable. So if our immediate thought is I'm a terrible mom and we try to replace it with like I'm a wonderful mom, our brain is gonna be like, like the, am I allowed to swear I don't have the bullcrap meter goes off in our brain. It's like, no, I don't believe that, you know, and so we have to have, you have to stay, have statements like I'm doing my best right now or it's natural for me to make mistakes, you know, some, some very believable thought around those stories that or this, you know, this incident has nothing to do with my ability as a parent, you know, whatever, whatever it is.

So make it believable. I think that those are,, and then, you know, and moving towards acceptance of what is this. I feel like I like having three, three Things. Right? So three everything's self compassion, working with your thoughts and story. and, and learning to accept as opposed to try to change and control.

Amanda: Yeah, I think those are great tools that, um, folks can do themselves. Like you said, if they're on a wait list to go see a therapist or even if you do see a therapist and you usually just go once every two weeks, two weeks is a long time in between sessions. So what can you do in the in between time? And one other thing that I will add from my own experience is the power of support groups of people that are going through similar situations that that get it. Like, you know that that phrase, like I feel seen, you know, that entering a space intentionally where you have the opportunity to feel seen.

And so, you know, there's 12 step programs for for, there's a 12 step program pretty much for everything. It's not just for alcoholics or you know, people that are addicted to a substance. There's also like codependent, there's emotions anonymous. I mean there's so many 12 step programs that are support groups that are available online that are free, but If 12 step is not your thing, which it's not everybody's thing.

There's also just support groups that are either led by a therapist or led by appear that have been trained. there are some of course I'm gonna plug ps I postpartum support international. There's a whole directory. If you go to their website on support groups, therapist led. Pure lead. And that's just a nice thing to add to your tool kit as well. so that you can feel seen so that you can have a chance to kind of like vent or even just gain some perspective because a lot of the things that I learned um were in a group setting, like, oh, I didn't think about that, I didn't know that or oh, that's an interesting take on that.

Laura: So yeah, and she thrives in secrecy, right? And so moving bravely into a space where you're sharing and open. can you a beautifully kind of a beautiful way to combat shame, you know? And also I think I do think that helping, especially for parents, you know, in in my realm and what I do is I do a lot of teaching on on child development and helping reframe their behaviors. and that does help Recraft the narrative and the story.

So I do think, you know, if this is if you are feeling overwhelmed by your child's behavior that is likely age appropriate, really digging in. There's some great series of books um there's a wonderful website that has just a kind of a huge list of what of developmentally appropriate behaviors through, like I think it goes through the teens. I can grab you the link for that for the show notes. But really digging in to child development can be helpful as well.

Amanda: Yeah, I think that's a great point of view and to go back to our theme, I think of both and something that I think it is important to, for someone maybe to hear and to acknowledge is that part of the struggle of parenting, I think is the both and of attending to your own needs and your own emotional regulations and kind of putting things in your toolkit for yourself and being, you know, tuning into what your kids need, being attentive to that and responding in an appropriate way. And so there's a learning curve for both.

There's a learning curve for how to process our emotions because unfortunately, that's not something that's really emphasized. It wasn't emphasized when I was growing up, I heard a lot from other people. You're shaking your head. No, like, like, it was not emphasized for you either. And so there's a learning curve for that, and then there's a learning curve for understanding what your kids, um what's appropriate for their age, what milestones are, you know, how kind of how to help them too, and, like, that's just a big task and it's not, and it's, you know, thinking of acceptance, it's it's not good or bad. It it just is like, there's both.

And so I just wanted to speak to that of there's a both and for that, and like, just acknowledging that it's a big, it's a big task and in one day, if you need to be more focused on your own emotional regulation and just, like, really more tuning into yourself and what you need, so that you can show up whole maybe the next day and tune in a little bit more to your, to your kids needs the next day.

That's all right. I mean, and I'm not talking about of course neglect or anything like that. I'm just talking about like if there's a guilt story going on your head of like, well how am I gonna, you know, help myself? And then also read these articles about what my kids are supposed to be doing. Like, you don't have to do it all at once and like that idea of compassion, right? Of, of accepting where you are and what you're capable of and for that day or that hour.

Laura: Absolutely. And you know, I know that probably parents are tired of hearing this phrase of putting your own oxygen mask on first, you know, but it's true, like we can't do anything for our kids if we're not taking good care of ourselves. We, the reason we feel like we are drained and run dry and run ragged is because we poor in without, you know, without filling ourselves. So thinking about about ourselves as a, as a well, that's kind of bubbling up and overflowing into others is really what I want. My family is thinking about and picturing when they are doing themselves and so having that, that well within themselves is so important.

Amanda: Yeah, I totally agree.

Laura: And, and you know, to, we've been focused a lot on mother's or the kind of the person who carried the child or the child or who was the primary caregiver of the infant because of course not all babies enter a family through birth., but, there's also the non, you know, primary care, non birthing partner to consider too. And the research is quite clear that,, you know, at least on dad's, which is where we have most of the data.

So data, you know, we haven't done not nearly enough work to incorporate,, you know, non heterosexual couples in this research, but the data on heterosexual couples is that dad's experience postpartum or perinatal mood disorders at a rate that's pretty similar to to their partners, to their birthing partners. And so that's something that like, does not get talked about nearly enough. And the support systems, of course, it's something that we need to be advocating for more support for moms.

But there are systems there, there's, you know, there's organizations that are attempting to raise awareness and that support culturally just isn't always there for dad., And unfortunately in heterosexual couples, dad, most dads primary support person who they go to for emotional support is there partner. And if their partner is taken out by a perinatal mood disorder, then that support person is gone for them. And so building a robust systems for dads is also really important. Yeah, the research on the way that men rely on their female partner is, is shocking and somewhat devastating to. So when we think about longevity and marriage, there is a net benefit to men being married.

They live longer married men live longer than their single counterparts, whereas women who are married live a shorter amount of time than their single counterparts. And there is an emotional toll on women and it doesn't ultimately benefit any of us, you know, because men often who lose their wives are bereft and and and struggle um to find emotional support because they kind of put all their eggs in one basket. and so I think really I just want to advocate for everybody who's listening to, you know, to understand that you're, you know, if you're married to a man, um he might not be okay to, you know, he might be struggling as well.

They go through hormonal changes as well. So the bonding hormones that flood our systems also flood. There's they have, you know, have very similar brain changes. they experience similar sleep deprivation, which causes brain changes to and yeah, so I would just love and lots of love and compassion for dads as well.

Amanda: Yeah, and I completely agree with everything that you just said and especially the, you know, the societal implications, the cultural implications, it's hurting all of us, right? It's not like, like it it just kind of sucks that that there's a net benefit for married men. It sucks for married women, but it also sucks for the men that like they're raised to culturally kind of push down their feelings and that it is not invited for them to process their feelings in. I mean going back to what we were talking about earlier, like none of us were really, I trained with the importance of processing feelings, I didn't understand that or learn that like literally like you should process your feelings.

I didn't learn that until I was 33 years old, I was two years ago and, and I'm a woman and so that is something that I think was even more available to me than maybe my husband for his friends or men in general and to me. I can really hold space for that and and be sad about that, like it's it's both and like I had going back to that, but I had a hard time I experienced, you know, para natal mood and anxiety disorder and I can also hold space for like my husband and his struggles. It doesn't mean that like I can only have space to feel bad about myself and maybe this goes back to the victim mentality that I naturally go to, but if anybody else can relate to that I just kind of wanted to speak to that that like it doesn't have to be one person or one group that we kind of, you know, feel sadness about or feel like they were given a disservice.

I think that we can collectively hold that space and be like, wow, okay, this is actually hurting all of us, impacting all of us and what can we do, what can we do about it? You know, it just kind of starting with that acknowledgement, the acceptance of where we are now and then also challenging ourselves personally to do maybe one small thing in the direction of that goes counter to what was not serving us before. And so one thing um and I'll check with my husband after the fact because I haven't asked him, but I'll say it now and hopefully he'll be okay with me sharing this and if not, I'll edit it out. but one thing that he has been going through recently is he has reckoned with the fact that especially with the pandemic that has exacerbated every problem under the sun, right?

He has acknowledged that a lot of the relationships that he had that were, that were his support system has fallen to the wayside, and he absolutely was relying on me even more to be his support system and a lot of times I was not available and that left him feeling a lot of negative feelings and so he has proactively gone out of his way to reach out to, you know, his buddies and his male friends to say like I would like to, you know, talk more regularly, like hey, would it be all right with you when I'm going through a tough time, would it be okay to text you? Would it be okay to say like, hey, are you available for a call? And the amount of vulnerability that it took for him to do that is incredible.

Like I just want to acknowledge that., and so for any man, any spouse, any partner, really regardless of your gender, I am speaking to the male side of things more because that's, you know, my experience with my husband and then that's kind of more of my understanding, but just in general, like that is that is very difficult. That is not the norm. And thankfully his effort was received very well and I imagine I make up the story in my mind that that may have even been relieving for the guys that he reached out to

Laura: Absolutely!

Amanda: Wow. Like I could dang I could use that to like I'm glad that you reached out and those are some of the anecdotes that I've heard from him as a response to these, you know, efforts, but like that it was a challenge for him. That took effort. That took intentionality. Um and so like that's just another thing that I'll say is something you can add to your toolkit, but also don't want to belittle the the challenge of that and the courage and vulnerability that it would take to do that.

Laura: Absolutely. Oh my gosh, so much vulnerability. My husband has been having a kind of a similar awakening experience. And I do have his permission to talk about his experience. He over the winter read from the book Man Enough, by Justin Baldoni., and it really digs into the cultural issues and how they're harming men. how the way we view masculinity, the way we, you know, the way we treat our boys, the way we raise them to be, you know, you know, not emotional, not soft, you know, um, how much it harms everybody, just like you were saying, so that it was a great book for my husband to read.

And he has had to be very brave and very vulnerable in reaching out and building new relationships., and part of his awakening to kind of the emotional world is, is there's some grief for him now. He spent most of his life, you know, if we think about emotions on a spectrum, right? So there's, you know, the positive end of emotions where you have big joy and excitement and wonder and delight.

And then there's this negative side of the emotions where there's, you know, despair and grief and sadness and disappointment and frustration. You know, if we think about that range and you can't just cut off one end of the spectrum. Right? So if you dampen down the negative feelings, you also dampen down the positive feelings and he has just come to realize that he was living kind of a half life very kind of emotionally closed up and muted life, you know, and so he's starting to see the world and more vibrant emotional colors. and there's grief with that, that he's missed years of his kid's childhood. I'm not fully able to access the full range of human emotion. It's hard.

Amanda: Is it so hard? And thank you for sharing that and thank you for your husband to, for, you know, allowing you to kind of share that, because I think that this is this is exactly what we set out to do in this episode, and this conversation is like, talk about the stuff that not everybody brings up, the kind of stuff that's like under the surface that's brewing and then, and just bringing it into the light and speaking to what you said before, like that's how we dissipate shame. Just like, let's talk about it, let's bring it up. And the thing that I love about podcast and I imagine you might feel similarly is the intimate connection of like having someone, like, I'm in someone's ear, you're in someone's ear, like, that's like a conversation.

Yes. And so I don't take that responsibility lightly. And so I challenged myself to bring up hard topics and vulnerable topics for that reason of like, maybe in that setting someone hearing this will encourage them to to take one small step towards acceptance or challenging themselves or doing the next right thing. and or maybe they'll just feel seen or feel heard.

Laura: And not so alone. Yeah, thank you so much for this conversation. It was so good and so important.

Amanda: And 100% agree

Laura: Honestly, rather healing for for me to, it felt very good to be vulnerable.

Amanda: Yeah, I am so glad that you were open to accepting my invitation and I just, I love this conversation. So thank you.

Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from. And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

April 26, 2022

Episode 115: Feel the Joy of a Healthy Couple Relationship with Erin and Stephen Mitchell

April 26, 2022/ Laura Froyen

As couples, it is inevitable that we argue sometimes and that's understandable because even though we are married or in a relationship, we are still two different human beings with different personalities. And a few of the many questions I get on parenting is that...

Is it okay to disagree in front of our kids?
How do we do that without harming them?
How can we still feel the joy in marriage despite the disagreements?

To help me answer these questions, I brought in Erin and Stephen Mitchell. They are a couple who has been married for 13 years. Erin works as a Writer and Relationship Educator while Stephen is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and Professor. Together, they have the privilege of creating couples courses to provide relationship education and make couples stronger. They will be teaching us:

What a healthy relationship looks and feels like (it may not be what you think!)
Handling conflicts as a couple in a way that brings you closer together!

If you want more support, follow Erin & Stephen on Instagram. Their Instagram handle is @couples.counseling.for.parents. You can also check out their website createyourcouplestory.com.

April 22, 2022

Bonus: Live Coaching: How to Finally Stop Using Bribes, Threats, & Control in Your Parenting

April 22, 2022/ Laura Froyen

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 or my assistant, Eugene, at team@laurafryoen.com and we will give you the details!

In this Live Coaching episode, I had the opportunity to work with a wonderful mom who is interested in diving deep into conscious parenting. You see, she's been working hard on improving how she parents and I am really excited to share our conversation on how to finally stop using bribes, threats, and control. I hope that listening to our conversation may help you learn to make mindful shifts in your parenting.

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.

Laura: Hello everybody! On this episode of The Balanced Parent, we are going to be talking with one of my clients and community members. Uh this is a perk of being in my balancing new membership and this mom is oh my gosh, just a wonderful parent, a joy to have in my courses and programs and one of the things you're gonna see here is that she's really coachable that she really takes feedback to heart.

She's really interested in diving deep and she's been working really hard on conscious parenting and I'm really excited for this conversation because she's found something that's sticky, something that's lingering, that's really getting hard, you know, just as staying in her vocabulary when she doesn't want it there. And so we're gonna dig into that. And so I hope that this conversation is really helpful for you and join me in welcoming Iram to the show. Hi Iram, how are you doing?

Iram: Hi Laura, how are you?

Laura: Good. Thank you so much for sharing this part of your journey with us. I just want to say that it is a vulnerable, brave thing to do to be open and honest and put your journey out to the public like this. I really appreciate it.

Iram: Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I love the word vulnerability. It's something that I've since Covid have really been taking to heart because I think it's important that we don't show perfection because what really is perfection, right? I don't think it truly exists. I think when we strive for that, we just heard ourselves and people around us.

Laura: You know, perfection is an attempt to be loved and accepted, which of course is the human condition that's what we all want. So, it makes sense that people try to get that through perfection.

I know I have for years and still recovering. I'm still identify as a recovering perfectionist and so it's natural to be that way and at the same time, it's really hard to grow and change when you can't make any mistakes, you know? Yeah. Okay, so Iram, why don't you just tell us a little bit about your family and what's going on and some of the work you've been doing and where your struggle is today.

Iram: You know, I am a mom of two spirited girl. My older one has really been my best teacher. 2nd, I think I knew I was pregnant, like everything went out the window, like all the things I thought I was going to be doing, everything went out the window and she's really been my best teacher. My younger one is also very spirited in a different way.

She's mellow at times. I want to give them the best as much as I can. Not always there. I feel like since I became a mother of 5 and a half years ago, I really am trying to be conscious of my parenting and it's not easy. It's oh my goodness, days where I am a couch potato, you know, because my brain is over tired. One of the things that I feel like

Laura: I wait, hold on, let's just pause there for a second. I want you to know that it is okay to rest.. You know, in our society, we focus so much on productivity and what you got done and sometimes resting is the thing that needs to get done and that's okay.

Iram:I still struggle with shame around resting, but I'm working on it.

Laura: Covid has been a good teacher for lots of us in that way.

Iram: The one thing that I feel pretty confident and good that I worked together with my girls and their personalities instead of working against them. There is one thing, however, I've been paying more attention that I as my older one is getting older and you know, it's all mental work with them as they get older because they can answer you, they can challenge you. And I get stuck with, I want to say manipulation or control, which I really don't like.

I remember as a kid that that was a common thing that was done and I absolutely hated it. And it shocks me that I just do it so naturally with my own Children. And then when I sit down and reflect like, where do I see that I need to grow? And I, this is one thing that I it's working me, it's like getting under my skin. It's really important for internal motivation to instill that or to model or coach my kids rather than external rewards and punishments.

And I feel like this kind of falls in line with that where I will tell her well, if you don't do this, you can't have that, you know, or I changed my mind, we can't do this anymore. And as you know, as a mom, I think you're a mom of a spirited child as well. You can rock the boat right?

Laura: Because it feels like control to them. It feels like manipulation.

Iram: and I feel it in my bones like why am I doing that? But I'm just doing it. It doesn't feel right. It doesn't sit right with me. However I'm doing it like it's not not a big deal, like I'm not proud of it.

Laura: Yeah. Well can we dig there for just a second? Because I want to let you know that it might be surprising to you that that you would have experienced that so negatively growing up when it was done to you as a child. And it seems like there's a disconnect there that like if I didn't like that as a kid, why am I doing that to my own kids?

But to me it makes complete sense that that's what you would do because we only know what we know, right? So the habit pattern, the programming. So when we're little, our brains are like computers, right? And the way we were parented is what gets hardwired into the computer. You know, like when you get a computer there is already programs installed, right? You know? And like as you start using it, you realize like, oh, I don't really like that program. I'm going to go out and look for another one and you download some software, right?

But the the way we were parented is what's hard wired into our beautiful computer brains, right? And so in situations where an adult or an authority figure isn't getting what they want. The pattern, the program is like, oh, if this is happening, apply this method. The method that was applied to you and your software just needs updating which you've been working on for years with me with other folks on your own.

You've been doing a really great job working. But these programming and patterns, they're tricky. They're sticky. So here's the thing about them that was example or an analogy that's super cold, right? So it's very clinical and you know, very technical. But the programming in us is not that way. This program is also rooted in our hearts and our souls and love and fear of losing love. Right? So when you were a kid and that manipulation was handed to you, those threats were handed to you shame was handed to you. How did you respond to that as a child? What did you do?

Iram: It broke my spirit. You know, as an adult, I turned 35 this year and I'm still trying to figure out who I am. You know, I'm a recovering codependent. Melody puts it in words. The hard part is is with the parenting is I'm still trying to parent myself while I'm parenting my kids and it's exhausting. It's like things where I'm like throwing out the window like, you know what I'm doing everything else. But time to address it up. My daughter is getting older. I don't want to cultivate that relationship with her.

Laura:Yeah, absolutely.

Iram: Respect is important. Appreciation is important when she looks back. I want her to feel in her bones that mama loved me, mama respected me. That's important for me.

Laura: Of course. Absolutely. And I think we can all relate to that. And at the same time, you know, when you were a kid and these things were handed to you, you had to lock away parts of yourself. Right? So that those things teach us those interactions with our parents, teach us about ourselves.

We are young kids are learning about what parts of me are acceptable and lovable and what parts of me are not okay, what parts of me are going to put me at risk, right of losing love. And it's not conscious, this happens unconsciously. And it's starting to happen very young as kids move into the late, you know, toddlers, preschool ages. That's when this all starts around four and five.

And so it's lovely that you are concerned about this now with your kiddo. But it's important to remember that inside you, there's a little one who's worried if they're lovable and who has these parts that they've been walking away for a long time. You know, and then we're faced with a child who perhaps echoes them a little bit. You see yourself and your daughter.

Iram: Absolutely. I think she is that spirited child that it's possible I was I once was, but it was you know, my mom did the best she could whatever resources, you know, being an immigrant family, they had a lot. I'm privileged to have more time to address this. You know, when you're thinking of survival, you don't have time for this kind of stuff. So if there's anyone out there that's listening and they can't do the work right now, it's okay.

Like I wanna I want a place of privilege. And when I reflect back on what my mom did, I'm still amazed with the lack of resources and sometimes support even acceptance for her own self. You know, if I am who I am today, it's because she allowed those little moments a burst of who her authentic self was and I think I clung to that and I'm fortunate that I have that, you know, I come from a very long line of strong women and I want to instill the good parts for my daughters and at the same time, but I want to show them their lovable, They are strong, they can trust themselves.

You know, I think we're all born with inner wisdom like this voice that I think consciously and subconsciously parents kind of diminished that parenting from within talks about it like we don't even realize, but we kind of squash that down and I don't want to do that. That is like one of my anchors that I want to instill in both of them and when I start using shame or control. I know I'm going against them bringing myself back to my core values.

Like this is what I want for my daughters. This is what I want for our family, not just them. I want to treat my husband the same way I want to treat myself the same way. You know the family dynamic, we can teach them all you want. But if you're not modeling it.

Laura: Oh my gosh! Okay, so for these two, you're spilling so much wisdom all over us right now. It's so beautiful. Thank you so much. So you mentioned our work together and parenting from within which is a group coaching program. So I just wanted people to know that that's available to them.

But there's two things here that I feel like we could go both directions and I hope we have time. So the first one is you are talking about compassion for your mom, love and acceptance for her that she was doing the very best that she could. I wanted to take that one step further. That if you take a look at what she was doing, even those moments where she manipulated or threatened or shamed, you can we assume that she was trying to protect you, trying to keep you safe? The best way she knew how?

Iram: Absolutely. There's no doubt in my mind.

Laura: Absolutely. And so then when those parts come up within you, right, that are shaming towards your kiddos, those parts only know how to protect in that way that your mom did? You know what I mean? Okay, so when we think about it that way we can think about like so you also mentioned treating yourself well and re parenting yourself well and not using shame and blame on yourself as you're making changes and this is where it's this wraparound support is so important because we can't make those changes externally with our kids and we're still using that same shame and blame language with ourselves, right?

And the key thing is is that inner critic, the one who really is harsh with us when we show up in ways that historically we were told we weren't ok, you know, in those parts of ourselves show up that inner critic is just like your mom doing the best dang job they can to keep you safe. Does that make sense? Does that resonate with you? Okay? And so then we also, we have this inner critic who's doing this job of keeping you safe, right of trying, you know, to do, you know, who is tasked with this job of keeping the system within you safe.

And then we also have this habit response that's aimed at keeping your kids safe in the only way, you know how do this or else if you don't do this right now this will happen. That's the patterning, right? That's the programming and so what do you think? Do you think that the first task is to re-pattern that within yourself and the way you talk to yourself? Do you think you need to re-pattern it with the way you talk to your kids both at the same time? Like what do you think? What? Because you are so wise, you have so much intuition.

Iram: it is something that I've been working on shame and judgment. I have a really great therapist that I've been working with for about a year now and I finally am sort of like coming above water a little bit about in terms of shame and judgment. It's hard though because everyone around you will find a way to shame or judge you and then you fall back on old habits.

So yes, I think that the more I do the work for myself, it gets easier I think for me to start doing the work on myself, that's how becoming aware that this is something that I don't want to continue. I don't know if that makes sense. But before that I was just doing it, I wasn't even thinking about it, but now I don't like that, you know why did I say that to her? Why am I doing that? But I'm doing it.

Laura: Yeah. So the very first, like you're at the step, you're at the awareness step, right? That's the first step to any change process and when you are noticing that, how in that, like when you notice, like we have like a parenting cringe moment, do you know? Like I have those too and I'm like, oh dang could have said that differently.

You know, when you have those cringe moments, you all can't see us. But I'm like contracting like it's like, you know, like a cringe when you have that moment, what would feel good, right then? How could you be kind to yourself, right in that moment? What would feel good?

Iram: You know, I'm aware of just knowing that I'm aware and that it's something trust that I'm aware of it. It's something that I've got to change and I trust myself that I'm going to get their overnight because you have to unlearn something that's embedded in you, right? As part of your core D. N. A. And now you're rewiring yourself.

Laura:Yes.

Iram: Like, I feel like that's been my entire parenting journey is rewiring constantly.

Laura: So, you know, so you just wrote yourself some beautiful affirmations. Did you know that that you wrote yourself some affirmations there. So, I am learning, I trust myself in this process as I unlearn old patterns. You did a beautiful job. Well you'll have to go back and re listen and write them down and say this to yourself.

So that's part of re patterning and rewiring your brain is by saying, okay this is the old way I was thinking. And now we're thinking this way, we're thinking with self kindness and with understanding and with accountability holding, that's what was beautiful about those affirmations of yours. Iram they were kind but responsible, they were, you know, this is not the way I want to do things and I'm learning and there's time for me to learn this, I'm allowed to make mistakes and be human and I can do this.

Iram: I don't know about you, Laura, we've done so much work together between your workshops and classes, which was such a privilege to be part of Thank you. I genuinely feel like when you talk to yourself that way or when you start to come in that space, it's easier to get unstuck. Like when I'm stuck in shame and guilt and judgment, I'm just stuck there, I can't move, there's no progress able to move from there, I can be like, it's like overnight, you know, things that take me years, it's like, nah, it's quick and easy, its just hard in the moment to remember that.

Laura: It is, it's so hard and I mean, and this is one of the things that you can do proactively, so you can have little times with yourself where just when you haven't made a mistake, you just remind yourself, oh, hey, I'm still learning, I'm human and I'm learning and I'm here to learn, you know, you can remind yourself of that kindness in other moments, I really love having my hand on my heart during those times so that when I can feel it rising within me, you know, Bernie Brown calls it the warm wash of shame.

You know where it just kind of washes over you whenever I feel that I almost immediately put my hand on my heart because my hand on my heart triggers self compassion for me because that's where I practice self compassion. The hand on the heart works for me. But you can find other little things that.

Iram: I absolutely love that during our every time we ended this session you would do a poem or Yeah, and I and I genuinely love those moments that you cultivated within your workshops as well that we did, you know, coaching. It's good to use different senses, right?

Laura: It is, it's so good. And I mean, and that's something that to like smells, you know, can help to like an essential oil on your wrist that you can just like, okay, I feel that warm wash of shame. I've made a mistake. I'm gonna just take a second for myself and you know what with your little ones. So your little ones, that internal voice that's so harsh on all of us.

We all noticed. Maybe we don't all noticed, but two year olds and kind of late, you know, early threes will will really talk aloud like outside into the world to themselves. You know, they'll narrate their play, they'll think of tell us what they're thinking and doing and then around 3.5 that starts to go internal and so your little one, your oldest is 5? 6?

Iram: Yeah, about 5 and a half.

Laura: 5 and a half Yeah. So she's developing her inner voice right now. And so in those moments where you have that warm wash of shame where you realize you've made a mistake, it's okay to say out loud who I could have said that better and you just close your eyes and they know you're talking to yourself. You can say, oh I need a moment just for a second.

Oh I could have done better, I could have said that differently and I'm learning, I'm working so hard, I'm going to be kind to myself and now that feels better and now I can repair with my child and tell my child what I actually meant to say what I wish I had said and then you can go into that repair process but they can hear you be kind to yourself, that's how we've they learned their own internal voices because kids who are five and six often already know like if we teach them what inner critic means, they already know that voice. They already have that voice in their head

Iram: Because what's happening with my 5 and a half year old is when she makes a mistake or

does something, she's actually not internalizing it, which I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but at least

Laura: It's a good thing because then you can hear it and you can work with the it's good.

Iram: I know bad kid. I'm terrible. I hate myself. And oh my goodness. When I hear that I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. That can't be your internal voice.

Laura: Okay, I'm saying that in your own head. Or are you saying it to her?

Iram: I'm saying it in my own head. I mean, right immediately I want to just go in and fix and I know I can't, I have to give her space to let it all out. Let it right? And I think when this pattern started, that's when I started becoming really aware because it's like reflecting back, like what's going on over here?

I don't mind doing that's contributing to that voice because in my mind, on an overall level I'm thinking I'm doing a great job. Like I'm working really, really hard. Yeah, this is where I still have work to do. And you know, like, like we've discussed in our sessions like this is an ongoing journey and that's what I have to remind myself. There's always going to be work to be done. And right now this is my work.

Laura: I just want to pull out two things that you did really beautifully there, that I want to highlight for you? Okay. So this is to take on you said when you notice that you asked how am I contributing to this, which means you didn't take all the blame on yourself. You know that there is other stuff going on.

Every human being has an inner critic. It's part of our brain, it's part of our psychology. Okay. You did not cause the inner critic to be there. You are not making the inner critic who it is. You are taking a look at how could I make this easier or better? How am I contributing to this? And that is a beautiful thing, right?

Where we don't blame and shame ourselves but are willing to take a look and then you also just did a beautiful job of noticing that like it's not mutually exclusive like learning and practicing and work and having more work to do, like you can have both at the same time, you know, like no one expects you to be perfect except maybe yourself, you're being really kind and sweet to yourself. So I just wanted to pull those two things out for yourself to look at. You're doing a beautiful job.

Iram: We don't hear those positive reinforces enough I think as mothers especially, but I'm working on it, I have a nice tribe of people around me that we do that for one another. So it helps them.

Laura: It does help so much. Yes to have affirming loving people in your life.

Iram: Like when she's saying things like that, can you coach me on how? What should I do in that moment? Because in that moment I can make it about myself or I can make it about her and that's where my dilemma comes in and I kind of freeze because I want to react but I don't think I should be reacting. I should just.

Laura: Yeah so this is where I. F. S. Internal Family Systems can really be helpful. Okay so you have that content in parenting from within everybody. We did an IF. Episode in my inner work series back in March I think. And so everybody has access to some information on IFS. But what you would be doing here is you would be noticing your internal family and how it's reacting to your kiddo.

I don't know if you've seen the movie Inside out, it's a cartoon movie. Yeah so there's this one scene where the family is at the dinner table and you get to see in every family member's heads and they're all the parts inside their heads are reacting to what everybody else is saying. So you have to kind of envision that a little bit when this is happening and coach your inner family. Like reassure them. It's almost as if like there there are little kids inside you that are like ah this is terrible, look she can't have that voice.

She cannot this cannot be her inner voice. And so then you turn inward to yourself and say I hear you you and you validate right? And you reassure I hear you that is a big concern for you. It is so hard sometimes to have that inner critic talking so loudly to us and you're afraid for your sweet daughter for our sweet girl, you don't want that voice for her. I know it's really hard, I'm gonna help her with it right now.

I've got this so this is a reassuring piece of our internal family needs us to be the wise confident leader, right? The inner wisdom that you know you have they need us to step into that place of leadership of I've got this, I hear your concern and I we will not let this go unaddressed don't worry I've got this I and at the same time I've got to go support her now okay can you trust me? Can you trust me enough to just step back a little bit so I can hear her so I can help her.

Like this is an internal conversation you're having with your parts. Yeah. You're coaching yourself. Yes. Yeah and that's all can happen as you are moving slowly and getting close to your little one. Now kids have different reactions during these times. We all know how uncomfortable the wash of shame is. We all know how just red hot frustration can feel kids have that same capacity for feeling right and they have no executive functioning accessible to lessen it, right? So when those things happen for us, we don't always explode some grown ups do, but we have our beautiful brains that kind of keep the lid on and we can manage it.

Kids, little ones don't always have access to those skills and so you know, your kiddo best on that front of what they need. Some kids need a parent to just get close and make say almost nothing and just like just nod. You know, some kids don't want any eye contact, some kids want space and these are conversations that you can have with your kiddo in outside moments.

You know, so coming to them proactively when they are not upset and being able to say like you know, yesterday when we were working on letters or when you were doing legos and you were really frustrated and you were really down on yourself, part of me really wanted to go to you and hug you, but it didn't seem like you wanted me nearby and I didn't know quite what to do and I would love to know how I can support you when you're feeling so badly and just let them tell you, let their calm self tell you what they need and make a plan for that. You know, they're the experts.

You know, I think some often we, you know, we go out there into the parenting world, you know, looking for calm down strategies. I don't know that we need to do that so much as we need to listen to our kids and find out what they need and this is part of the you know here and we were talking earlier about your inner wisdom and how quickly especially for women and I know you've got girls, how quickly that is silenced and quieted and so in going to her and saying you are so wise, you know, your body best of all.

I want to support you in the way that's right for you. How can I help you and let her tell you and then trust her. So one of my kids wants to be left alone and have no one talked to her and you know, and after 10 minutes she wants a note slipped under the door that she can because she's reading now. She wants a note slipped under the door with an invitation to reconnect. That's what she wants during those moments. That's fine. The other one when she's having a really hard time wants us to get down on eye level with her and make a specific clicking sound and say do you want a hug?

And then she wants a hug and usually that's it's over at that point, you know, so kids have different strategies but they really know what they need and building that kind of inner trust happens now happens early with kiddos, Okay, so that's that but then in the moment, I mean when it comes to us, like circling back, she is not too young to know about her inner inner critic and her inner coach.

So you can start using that language and say like, oh, what's that inner critic talking to you a little bit? Was that negative voice kind of saying some things to you when you were upset and you know, when you couldn't get that just right or you know, it seemed like your inner critic was talking a little bit to you. Did you know, you have an inner critic and you can give them some information about that too.

Iram: I think of the movie Luca where one of the characters refers to the inner critic as Bruno. You know, she that's fresh in her head that she was perfect.

Laura: Yeah, that's perfect. And so but she's she's definitely not too young for that. I have, I'll have to check that movie out because that sounds great. There's also a book called Sam and the Negative voice that can help teach that. But I also think it's important for kids to know that voice is not them to personify it, to give it to externalize it and also let them know that did you know that you have an inner coach to did you know that you have someone who, you know that you can talk back to that voice and then modeling that for them letting them see when it's happening to you.

You know, so like when I and I do this on like low stakes things where I spill a glass of water and I say oh my inner critic is talking to me right now. She wants me to know that she thinks I'm clumsy and really what I know what my inner coach is gonna say back is that everybody still things from time to time and that's easy to clean up, you know? So I like will say it out loud in front of my kids, you know?

So that again like kids are social learners, humans are social learners we learned through modeling, we learn through seeing other people do it and and even just having that language is so good. What you don't want to do when you hear them being hard on themselves is to negate what they're saying to come back and argue with them about how they see themselves or how they see you right? You have to remember.

So Externalizing their inner critic is also good for us remembering that that's their inner critic talking that they don't really think that about themselves or if they're saying negative things about us, they don't actually think those things about us either. That's just a part of them, a little part that's activated right now so that can be helpful for us. But when we go in and the gate, oh no you're not. You're so smart, you're so good at legos you're so good at drawing. I love your drawings. We invalidate them and we what I

Iram: You know, I'm paralyzed in that moment because that's what I don't want to do. Validation is important for me because as an adult I need validation.

Laura: Of course we all do.

Iram: Yes. I like that. I like the coaching part for her and for myself. Thank you.

Laura: Yes, absolutely. And I mean and that's what conscious parenting is. It's really like continual self coaching. You know, I mean it's a lot of effort. It's this is not the easy way to do things but what's beautiful

Iram: The work that no one really sees.

Laura: Oh it is. It's so much, I mean there's so much invisible work that goes along with motherhood. But this is, this one is a lot. This mental and emotional load is a lot. And here's the other thing is that it's likely that your mom did a lot of her own work. She was strong. She had to be brave. She did a lot of her own work and her work enabled you to be available for the work that you're doing right now in this generation as you raise this next generation of kids and I this can be uncomfortable for parents to hear sometimes, but your kids will have their work to do to.

Iram: Absolutely.

Laura: Yeah. And so the work you're doing is not for nothing. The work you're doing is giving her access to a higher level of work too, right? There will be things that she'll come out of childhood and be like, man, I did not like that aspect of my mom's parenting, like that was not so right for me, you know, I'm going to do things differently.

I know, but it's there it's because you know, lots of this all comes down to misunderstandings and good intentions delivered poorly and being human, hopefully luckily, you know, we have when we were little and we're building relationships right now and relationships can heal and grow and change over time, you know, and so we don't have to get it perfect even in the long term there were you know, change takes time. I think we hear a lot right now about being a a cycle breaker and inter-generational change and it's so important to know that change even in our generational change, it takes time.

It takes time. You know, if you think about the family legacy that you're creating and what things were like three generations ago in your family, I Iram, we've been able to do a kind of almost like a genealogy together in the past and if we look at the patterns that you're breaking your family, your kids are gonna go on and break so many more. We can't do it all in one generation though, you know, but you're freeing them up.

Iram: I don't strive for perfection in that area. I just look at my parenting and say look as long as I give her tools whenever she is in that moment where she doesn't know what to do. She can access the box of tools that I've helped her build, you know since childhood and she can you know be do what she needs to do at that point. I think that's my goal. The tools really.

Laura: Yeah. And to know probably, I mean I know you but so to know that no matter what she is acceptable and worthy. Yeah. Oh this is all good stuff. So we didn't actually get to the if then statements, you know, okay, so I do want to get there though because those threats are super common for families I want to know.

So the way you get rid of them is by identifying the fear that you are attempting to control. Okay, If then statements, if we don't do this now you don't get a treat if we if we, you know, if you keep acting like this, we're not going to the pool this afternoon.

There's always fear behind those because when we feel out of control, when we're worried about something, when we have concerns that we feel like you know that need to be managed, then we go to control. Okay. And so the key then is to ask. Okay, so what am I afraid of right now? What am I worried about? What are my concerns and get clear on those first of all. So do you want to get work through an example? Like I don't know if you have one on the top of your mind?

Iram: Generally it's when she's not doing something screen time, Everybody's uh dilemma. You know when I say you've got 30 minutes left or one show and then she doesn't turn it off. You know, I'm going to turn it off or I'm not having that play date because you're not listening Something along those lines and I don't want to do that. I don't want to shame her.

I mean I know I can actively say okay if in 30 minutes when the timer is up, I will be doing this and just leaving it at that rather than threatening her. Like well if this doesn't go off and if you give me a hard time then I'm not having your Playdate. Like eliminating that portion.

Laura: Okay. So in that time what is your concern, Your worry or your fear? Like what is the struggle? So let's say she turned, you know it's the end of the show is over. It's time to turn it off. And you do have to say, it seems like it's really hard for you right now I'm gonna turn it off and then she has a big reaction and meltdown. Is that what you are hoping to avoid? Like what is, what is the fear?

Iram: A lot of times yes transitions are hard for her and usually it becomes like a 20 minute meltdown. Like I almost wish I didn't have to use green time at all. But I just, I'm one of those parents that need it.

Laura: And it's okay, it's okay to need it.

Iram: It's me and them all day long, 12, 13 hours a day. So it's, it's tough, you know.

Laura: It's okay, it's okay to need it, you know? And so this is something that I teach two and you know, and we talked about this a lot in my membership and balancing you. But this sort of thing is a great opportunity for problem solving because I am guessing that she also does not like the way that screen time ends. I'm sure she doesn't feel good as it ends and having those meltdowns and that none of that feels good to her.

So I would love to see you problem solved with her and come up with a plan for ending screen time in a different way so that she has access to the resources she needs to make that transition. Well, transitions are something that are really hard for kids this age across the board, they are kind of still on this one track, mind it's really hard for them to shift from one thing to another.

And so having good transition rituals for the tasks that are hard to transition from are really, really good. So as just as an example, one that works well for my kid who doesn't do well getting off of screens, we have right next to where she watches screens, we have a few sensory options to regulate her body because she feels really when she's watching screens she's told me, and this is all the product of a problem solving conversation, she tells me that she feels her eye, her eyes hurt because she doesn't blink and she feels like she's not in her body, she feels out of her body because she's been concentrating so hard and so we quickly go into some grounding sensory activities, she likes to swing or she likes to run around the house and feel her feet pounding into the earth. And so those are the things like that's our plan.

We have a sensory grounding plan for after screens. And because it's good, but here's the thing is that that works for her because it addressed her specific concerns. You know, 20 different solutions, none of which may work for your child, because one they might not actually address her concerns and to she wasn't involved in coming up with them. you know, So I have this workshop and that's Really affordable, it's called problem solving with kids and it's $47, it's yours for life if you take it's prerecorded, but anyway, that teaches you how to do this, but if we come from a place of, like I've noticed it's been really hard for you to get off of screens lately. So I've decided afterwards we're going to go in the sensory swing.

That might be a great solution for her. But it might not. It's really uninformed. We don't know what's going on for her, why? It's so hard to get off screens. She might not even know why It's so hard to get off of screens. And then the solution might have nothing to do, you know, with it. And she wasn't involved. So collaborative problem solving really is what I would love to see you doing here. But when you get into that feeling of, you know, in the meantime, when you get into that feeling of control, you need to be really clear on the limit or boundary that I'm setting. I'm not setting one that I need her to do something for me to be able to hold it. Because that's when you start feeling disempowered, I'm guessing. But most parents feel.

Iram: I think it’s lack of trust in myself too that I know what I'm doing with them. I think it's here. Like you said, it comes out and And now that we're talking about it and I'm thinking about it, I think it's a lack of trust within myself to that I mean it's the right thing And then I have this explosive adult tantrum, right? I'm reacting. To her tantrum. Which is not helping her or myself.

Laura: Yeah, okay. And so then that leads right into what would feel when you're in that place, that fear of I'm not gonna handle this. Well, I don't know what to do when she says no or openly defies me. What would feel really soothing to those parts that are worried and concerned about this. What could you say to yourself in that moment?

Iram: I'm still a good mom, you know, and I'm still doing a great job with them, working hard. That's the fear, right? Raising kids that are, someone's talking down to you and saying, oh, you're not a good mother, Your, you know, your child is acting out because you're doing a city job, you know, I guess that's the internal fear because there's always gonna be someone, your mother, mother in law, family, that's gonna be judging you, right? And I think if I'm honest with myself deep down, I guess that's if I become aware of what's going on, I think that is a big thing for me, obviously could be different for another person.

Laura: Absolutely.

Iram: But not knowing what to do is like a big fear factor for me too. I like to control. And when I'm not in control, I get crazy.

Laura: Yeah, we don't feel safe when we're not in control. That's a very normal reaction to not feeling in control, Right? And so that's one reason why being proactive and have a plan, having a plan. So you have a plan in place, you know exactly what to do. It is really helpful, right? And, you know, the plan was developed collaboratively with your child? Your child has buy in, you know, it works for your child because you wouldn't make a collaborative plan without actually getting approval from both parties making the plan right?

So having that reassurance will be really helpful I think. But I also think having some kind of affirmation that counters those two things, the fear of, I don't know what I'm doing and I'm going to be judged can be really helpful. Okay. No matter what happens, you know I mean? And these are the things like, you know, when we have spirited kids, sometimes things do seem to come out of nowhere, but for the most part, we know where the conflict is gonna be like, you know, it's like little landmines that you have mapped out in your day, like we're coming up to this land mine.

So if we know we're coming up to the landmine, we can take a second to say like, okay, no matter what happens right now, when I asked her to turn off the Ipad, I know I can handle this, she and I are a team and we're gonna get through this together. You know, having something that feels good like that can be really helpful and then when your brain starts projecting into the future, oh my gosh, if she has a meltdown, she's never going to learn to control herself and everybody's gonna think I'm a terrible mom, right? Those having something you can say back to that can also be really helpful cause is that reality? Like, is she going to grow up and have no self control over her feelings?

Iram: No, no.

Laura: And if she did, would it be your fault? No. If people judged you harshly for that, would that be your fault or would it be kind of something that's going on with them? Some lack with that's going on for them, their stuff..

Iram: Their stuff.

Laura: Yeah. So having getting like, super kind of curious with yourself and like, so that's a little bit of cognitive behavioral therapy that you can kind of do on yourself is like, like is that really going to happen? You know, I hear you're concerned about that, but if it did happen, would it really be my fault? You know, just kind of getting curious and oftentimes our worries are baseless are founded on, you know, on fear, but not reality.

So fact checking worries can be helpful too sometimes. And those things, you know, this this is the part of being proactive about it, is that you don't want to be surprised by these things because that's what triggers are right, triggers are when we get we know, you know, something happens and were surprised and taken a back and then we're reactive, Right? So if we know the trigger is coming, then we can be responsive instead. I really like that affirmation for you. You know, even if this doesn't go well she and I are a team and we're gonna get through this together, that will ground you in your goal of not going over the top to her. It's okay, don't worry.

Iram: I love everything you gave me. I'm gonna work on this and maybe we'll retouch if there's room where I need a little more guidance absolutely much for this. I really appreciate your

Laura: sweet little one. Hello? Oh, you go back to your day and your beautiful family. Thank you so much for joining us. You go right ahead and sign off. It was really nice to see you.

Iram: Thanks very much for this opportunity. I appreciate it.

Laura: Alright, so Iram had to go but I hope that this episode, this coaching session was helpful for you. We went in a lot of different places, but I think we went full circle and I don't know about you, the beautiful listener in my community, but all of the things that we talked about with serum today are things that are work that I personally do every day with my family.

We're all a work in progress and these skills and tools that we talked about today are available to you to help you and support you in this journey. So, thank you for being with me today here in the show. Um check out the show notes for the resources that we mentioned in in the session and we'll get you connected if you need help. So one of the things that I think can help is I do have a free workbook if you're looking for a free resource called yelling recovery workbook and it walks you through pretty much the process that we outlined in our session today, doing that thought work and that self kindness as you figure out why you lost it or kind of parenting in a way you didn't want to and how to make changes lasting changes in the future.

So check out that workbook and you can also are welcome to reach out to me about my parenting from within program. That's a group coaching program that I don't have the opportunity to run very often because it's very intensive. But if you want to be put on the wait list, the link to that is here in the show notes. And then we also have my membership which is available to you if you're interested in doing this work. So thank you so much for your time today and I hope you all have a really good one and that you're kind to yourself.

April 19, 2022

Episode 114: Perfection Culture in Parenthood & What to Do About It with Lindsay Adams

April 19, 2022/ Laura Froyen

I don't know if you know this story yet. But if you have been with me from the beginning, then you probably know I have struggled with perfectionism and limiting beliefs, just like most of you. And this has affected how I parent. It was weighing me down and realized that if I continue to let this limiting belief and need for perfection drive the ship, it will take me away from my true goals for my children. One of my deepest hopes as a mom is that my kids will grow up knowing that they are lovable, worthy, and valued for who they are, not what they do.

But this truth that I wanted to convey to my children, is not one I always embody myself, and kids learn by watching us just as much as they learn through their interactions with us. How could I hope to teach my kids something I didn't know how to do for myself? Sure, they would be safe and held and seen in my home, but eventually they go out into the world and are exposed to cultural narratives of productivity and value and worth, and I want to be able to teach them how to walk in the world, a world that is beautiful yet hard to be in, with confidence and compassion for themselves and others.

QUESTION FOR YOU: Is this resonating? Are there hopes and goals you have for your children that you're not yet embodying yourself? If so, comment and tell me about it. I won't be able to reply to everyone, but there is power and purpose in writing something down and putting it out there!

The way I see it, the hard work of addressing our limiting beliefs and releasing perfectionism is a crucial part of conscious parenting. And so for this week's episode on The Balanced Parent Podcast, I brought in a fellow podcaster, a mom, and a therapist, Lindsay Adams. She is a social worker and she hosts the Mindful as a Mother Podcast. She will be helping us learn the following:

Limiting beliefs and how they manifest themselves
How to address our limiting beliefs in ourselves and in parenthood
The connection between limiting beliefs and perfectionism

If you are struggling with perfectionism and looking for more support, follow Lindsay on Instagram @Linds_AdamsLCSW.

TRANSCRIPT

Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic overwhelm. 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.

Laura: Hello, everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to have a guest, a fellow podcaster, a mom and a therapist. We are welcoming Lindsay Adams. She is a social worker and she hosts the Mindful as a Mother Podcast and we're gonna be discussing limiting beliefs, perfectionism and how to relax a little bit into parenthood. So Lindsay, welcome to the show.
Lindsay: Hey!
Laura: Hi! Tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do.

Lindsay: Okay, so I'm a social worker in private practice. But I've also worked for seven years with children in the foster care system and outside of work I am my mom to three kids. I have a five, almost six-year old, and then I have twin girls that are three. And I'm super passionate about bringing authenticity to motherhood and making therapy and clinical terms super relatable to parents. And helping moms just feel like they're not alone in this mess that is motherhood. It's a beautiful mess, but it is a mess.

Laura: Yeah, it totally can be. And so, I love your Instagram account. You've got some great things on a kind of the therapy speak and making it real and usable. And I was particularly struck by how you talk about limiting beliefs because I see in the people that I work with, I see limiting beliefs about parenthood, about your kids, about yourself as a parent come up all the time. And I was hoping you might help us have a little bit of a conversation. Explain what limiting beliefs are and how they manifest themselves, how they make life harder than it needs to be. Can we chat about that?

Lindsay: Yeah, I'd love to. So to me, limiting beliefs are ingrained beliefs that we have about ourselves, other people are children that come from our own childhood or society or even just ourselves and our experiences. And they often are things that limit us from being our truest self in motherhood especially. So a lot of people like have the limiting belief that I should be ______ as a mom, right? And that limiting belief keeps people stuck and from enjoying motherhood because they're so focused on being, say we’re saying like my house should be clean as a mom. So stuck on keeping the house clean that you can't fully enjoy the journey of motherhood.

Laura: Okay, all right. And so can we talk for a second about how to identify a limiting belief. Right, so how do we know we've got one going on?

Lindsay: So, I like to think of its times when you get really emotional or reactionary to something. And you kind of wonder, “I wonder why this is such a big deal to me.” And really exiting with that and exploring with that is how we kind of notice if there is a limiting belief there. A common one that comes up about our child's behavior is if our child has a tantrum in the store, we get very reactionary to that. A lot of people get really upset.

And if you look back and you sit with it and you think to yourself, “why is that so upsetting to me?”. And it's because I have this belief that my child should behave a certain way in public. Where did that belief come from? And you can go deeper into recognizing where that came from maybe our own childhood, maybe society, maybe it's your own fear of being judged as a mom. So really just sitting with things that bring up really big emotions in us is for me, the best way I found to identify limiting beliefs.

Laura: Yeah. Another one that I hear a lot from and I don't, you probably do too, but when I talk about being playful as a parent, a lot of parents come to me and say I'm just not playful. I'm just not a playful mom. I know I should be, but I'm just not. That's a big limiting belief that I see parents come to me with a lot. So once you've found a limiting belief, what do you do with it?

Lindsay: Yeah, the first step is to sit with it and feel all the feelings that come up with it and think about where it came from and acknowledge that you have this belief about yourself and you as a mother. And then work on identifying a belief that feels more true to who you are and creating it. You can write it out even like in a workbook or a journal. So if the belief is like, “I am not a playful person.” Sit with that. Where did that come from? What does it feel like to not feel like a playful person? And then identify how you want to be in motherhood.

Laura: Okay, so one of the things too, I think like often times we have these beliefs, they're so deeply held, they feel like they're written like carved into stone. Usually there is a time in our lives where they weren't true and sometimes when I find limiting beliefs about myself, I think to myself, I ask myself, “is that true, has it always been true?”

“Was there a time when it wasn't true? What would it be like if it wasn't true? You know, if this thing wasn't true of me, what would I be like? You know, what would be my options?” You know, like just kind of curiosity, right? It just kind of wondering, just kind of playing with thoughts that you have around those beliefs like “where did that come from?”

Lindsay: Yeah, I love that. And I love even taking it deeper and challenging maybe the belief in some ways by saying, there are times that I have been playful with my kids. And I have, you know, we played on the floor together and I was engaged and playful with them or there was a time as a teenager or child that I was playful by nature. And trying to tap into what that was like for you so that you can bring it into today.

Laura: Yes, that's so critical because I think that you know, we're so hard on ourselves as moms on all of these things. And the playfulness in particular for myself, I was a babysitter for a long time, this is how I made my money as a teenager and as a college student, like a lot of money, good money. I was good at my job. I was playful. Kids always wanted me to come over. It was so much fun and I loved it. And I always thought that's exactly how I was going to be as a mom. And then I got into motherhood and the weight of it was so much more. And so, in reflecting back and thinking about this because I had this limiting belief.

I'm just you know, I was playful before, but I'm just not a playful mom. I started looking at like what were the conditions that allowed me to be playful before?

Lindsay: Oh, that’s great! Yeah.
Laura: What was it that allowed that playfulness to be free flowing from me? What allowed me to be that other version of myself? And then I started taking a look at like, okay, so if I was able to be playful with other people's kids or with my niece and nephew before I was a mom, like why does it feel so heavy now? And rather than focusing on my actual playfulness, I focused on those other things that we're getting in the way and getting those things sorted allowed playfulness to emerge again in my life.

Lindsay: Yeah. So really asking yourself, what gets in the way, what are the barriers to being playful and addressing those.

Laura: Whatever limiting belief it is. So like “no, I'm just a slob or I'm just lazy or I just don't like working out” or you know, like whatever the things are that we think about ourselves. Most of the time, I think we think our thoughts are facts.

Lindsay: Yeah. We just accept them as truth. Something I like to say to clients. I have a lot of teenage clients. But I'll say, “do you believe everything you see on Instagram?” And they'll say, “well no.” And I said,” well then why do you believe everything you think in your head? It's just a thought.” But because it comes from us, we think that it's true and we need to just accept that as truth.

Laura: Yes, exactly. Okay. So I know you also like to talk quite a lot about perfectionism. How do you see limiting beliefs and perfectionism like being related? Do you see them as related?

Lindsay: Yeah. So related. I think that as mothers, we compare ourselves to our own mothers, to people on Instagram, to people we're friends with. And we want to be give our kids the best. We have the intention of being the best mom we can be to our kids, which is a good intention. But we can be really hard on ourselves and get caught in the shame cycle when we're human, when we mess up and we yell or when we're not.

You know, I kind of use like the Pinterest mom when we're not like hand making party decorations for our kids.We’re just not organized. Our house is a mess. We think, “oh well this person's house is always clean” or I saw this person doing this on Instagram and we compare ourselves and we beat ourselves up.

So I think that's how perfectionism plays into motherhood. And I really like to challenge that and keep it real with people. Like no one's perfect. No one's house is clean all the time and we all have these unique gifts and strengths that if we acknowledge those and appreciate those and focus on those in our motherhood, those are the things that connect us to our kids. And those are the reason that we were given our kids.

Laura: Okay, so you're talking about perfectionism in kind of, it's almost like the kind of the surface level perfectionism. But I run into with a lot of my parents’ perfectionism in their parenting, like attempting to be the perfect peaceful parent or the perfect respectful parent. And they’re, it seems to me like there's a lot of fear underlying all of that that if I don't do this perfectly, I'm going to screw up my kids. I guess that's kind of a limiting belief too.

Lindsay: Right. And I think that there's a lot of like black and white thinking about conscious parenting, respectful parenting, peaceful parenting, whatever we wanna call this, right? Like I want to be the best parent and parent my kids using this perspective. And somehow that means I can never mess up and if I do, I have permanently damaged my child and they will not recover and those are kind of..
Laura: Oh, that’s kind of heavy.
Lindsay: Yeah, the shame is so heavy with that one.

Laura: And there's no other option, like there's no option, like there's no room for mistakes or humanity. It's either I'm perfect or I screw up my kids forever, right? Like there's no middle ground there.

Lindsay: Right. And what I like to tell people in that moment is when we mess up with our kids, we are showing our kids a few things. One that it's okay that they mess up. That is part of that conscious parenting and just accepting our child for who they are, that unconditional acceptance that we give them, we have to give ourselves first. And how we show them that we do that is by modeling it to them.

The second piece is we're showing them how to repair by apologizing by connecting after and having conversations. And that's such an important life and relationship skill that we need to teach our kids and that is the best way to teach it is by modeling it yourself.

Laura: Okay, so when we've made a mistake, how does repair happen? How should it look?

Lindsay: Well, I think it's going to look different for every parent. But usually I would say there's like a calm down time or a tie break. And then the parent apologizing and then letting the child express their feelings, how it made them feel. And the parent expressing their feelings. And then I like to add like some kind of connecting, whether it's like doing something together, some kind of time together, physical touch of some kind, just to kind of like repair and reset the tone for the relationship.

Laura: Yeah. I think when critical piece, so I think a lot of folks, so many parents that are listening right now, had parents who made mistakes even though they were doing the best that they could and never once apologized or owned up or took responsibility for those things. But some of us did have parents who were like able to recognize that they weren't perfect that they made mistakes, but I think even when that was happening, the excuses were laid out too.

So like I'm sorry I yelled at you, but you just weren't listening or you know, kind of the butts were put in and so then we, that's what we think an apology needs to sound like. And I think it's so important for us to recognize that that we have to, if we're gonna apologize and repair that we have to accept full responsibility. Nobody can make us be a certain way or have a certain reaction we need to really take in and leave any butts or however out of the picture, you know?

Lindsay: Yes. And that's why I love leaving the space for the child to express their feelings. I think a lot of times our parents apologized to us through just saying like I'm sorry and we were supposed to just like accept that and not be able to say, well it really made me feel this way and so like being able to sit in the space where your child expresses how it made them feel when you yelled at them and the parents saying, I am so sorry, I made you feel that way. That was not my intention. I love you preparing in that way without the butts or I yelled because you weren't listening or anything like that.

Laura: Yeah, I agree. You know, I'm still like this is something that even as an adult with adult parents, I still run into this. I still have never had a fully formed healthy apology and repair attempt with my dad ever.

Lindsay: But I mean either with my mom and I think that's how we learn what we want to do better with our own children.

Laura: Yeah. And show up differently, not perfectly but differently. So we've been talking about some pretty like big cognitive behavioral therapy terms so far. So limiting beliefs, black and white thinking we touched on perfectionism when I think about CBT I think about thought work, working with our kind of internal dialogue.

Folks are wanting to do some of that work with themselves. They know that they've got somewhat unhealthy internal dialogue going on. What are some of the things that they can do because that's part of mindfulness to write? I know you have your mindfulness as a mother podcast. So this is part of mindfulness is starting to become aware of our internal stuff and working with.

Lindsay: Yeah, so the first step I would say is to just be aware of how you're talking to yourself and the things you're saying to yourself. And some people are big like love journaling, love writing things down. If you're one of those people, I think it's great to write down your thoughts and seeing them on paper or on your phone in the notes section can be kind of shocking to see that I have been talking to myself this way and then something I love is ask yourself whether you would talk to a friend that way. Would you say these things to a friend?

Laura: Yeah, okay, so some journal pumps then for everybody who's listening, you can jot these down and put them into your notes. So just regular check ins awareness of my thoughts. What am I thinking right now? Another one that I like is what story am I telling myself right now? Or am I making this mean about me or about my child or my relationship? What am I making this mean right now? And then what will come next?

Lindsay: So I like to identify the feelings that come up from this? Like what feelings does this bring up for me? And is this something from my past? Like a feeling from my past or an event that I'm having a reaction to? Or is this like a new feeling or situation and then taking it a step further and kind of looking at those beliefs or thoughts and saying whether it's true or not, does it help me to think about myself this way?

Laura: Oh yes. Is this serving me right now? Okay. And so then if the conclusion is no, these thoughts are not helping me out right now, how do you go about constructing new ones?

Lindsay: There's like the typical cognitive reframing where you take the thought and you change it into a new thought and practicing that to yourself every time that you have that particular thought. And I love that idea. I think that what we change our thought into, we need to believe it and be relatable. So it doesn't have to be like, So if the thoughts like I'm a bad mom, we don't want to say I'm the best mom or I am, you know, I'm a good mom if you don't believe that, But you could say I have wonderful qualities as a mother or I love my Children unconditionally or things that genuinely feel true to you because you have to buy into them.

Laura: Yeah. And you can get to neutral first two and this is something that I like to teach is that it's tempting to just go all the way to the furthest positive end of the spectrum. I'm a great mom, I love my body, you know, I'm a wonderful wife, I can clean anything. I'm so good at organizing my house when in reality that's not believable, like you were saying, so getting to neutral and getting to facts like what's an observable fact.

So even going from, I'm a terrible mom too. I'm a mom is a step in the right direction. I'm a mom, I have a body, I have a house, there are things out that are, you know, that aren't in cupboards and then you can move into kind of, I'm figuring it out into just gentle er things like, you know, I'm figuring out how to be a good mom. I'm learning how to have better discussions with my partner. I am, you know, figuring out how to keep the house organized. It's something I've never done before. You know, just little kind things. It's like a ladder.

Lindsay: You're just like inching yourself in the positive direction. Yes.

Laura: Cool, okay, what other tips do you have for us? I feel like I'm like mining your brain.

Lindsay: About what?

Laura: So I mean, this process of kind of what we're talking about is growing up alongside our kids. Right?

Lindsay: Okay, so I have a tip. My tip is to always be learning and growing and working on yourself, right? Because we can't expect our kids to do something that we're not willing to do ourselves. So be reading books, be doing your own therapy, be taking classes listening to podcasts and I mean if they're already listening to this podcast, they're already doing the work right? So like just keep doing that work on yourself and it is really, really cool to see how having Children can really bring out every issue you need to work on in your life.

Laura: Yes, they are so good at that, aren't they?

Lindsay: Yeah.

Laura: amazing.

Lindsay: If you have something deep down that you have been avoiding working on your Children will bring it out in you you know, acknowledge that feel the feelings and then take that as a the opportunity to work through that issue.

Laura: Yeah. Okay, so how do you feel the feelings when you grew up in a home where you weren't allowed to feel the feelings?

Lindsay: Oh yes, great question. So and this is like super common. Some people don't even know what they're feeling because they haven't felt feelings in so long. They can't even identify like what feelings are.

Laura: Some folks were denied. The very basic education of what feelings are even the name of them, especially the dads that I work with, they typically know 4 to 5 feelings words.

Lindsay: Right? And so for that the first step would be just learning about there's a feelings wheel that has a bunch of different feelings, reading them, learning the definitions of them and then starting to recognize them in other people or in yourself like oh this is what furious looks like or this that's what disgusted looks like and it can even be in like and this is the way to teach feelings to your Children.

Also in tv shows that child looks very sad or embarrassed and it helps them make that connection. But you can also do that for yourself. And then I love mindfulness for learning to recognize where you feel things in your body. So like recognizing that every time I get nervous I have a stomach ache and then saying oh this is what anxiety or being nervous feels like for me.

Laura: It seems like always right. The first step is awareness. Just noticing and then after we noticed that there has to be this kind of accepting and allowing space so we're not going to try to move it, we're not going to try to deny it or push it down, we're just going to acknowledge and accept it.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Laura: Permission to be there. And what's fascinating too is that emotions typically last around 90 seconds. We think that they're huge. We think that we're going to drown in them especially when they're big but for the most part if we can just hang on, they don't last very long. Isn't that crazy.

Lindsay: Yeah, I like to think of it. This is very DBT is like a wave. It comes in, it peaks. It kinda crashes at the shore that's like the most intense part and then it just kind of goes out slowly and peacefully.

Laura: It absolutely does. And you know I use that wave analogy to teach my kiddos to about their feelings. And really like when it comes to our kids big feelings, it's our job to be the steady rock in the midst of the way storm of waves right that they are having these big waves of emotions and we're right there with them but just holding steady that they can kind of rage against and crash against and we're right there something they can be tethered to. Its not as helpful when we're having our own big waves and they're having big waves and the waves just start crashing up against each other. That's helpful.

Lindsay: Yes. And you have to be able to manage your own emotions in order to help your child manage there's.

Laura: Yeah. And really like how are you supposed to do that if you've never learned? That's when I mean it makes sense to me that it's hard for parents to be present emotionally with their kids. Big feelings when they aren't able to be present with their own, it always starts with us as hard as it seems.

Lindsay: And that can feel like a lot of pressure.

Laura: Well I feel like you gave us some very very good information here. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us? Where can people find you and learn more from you?

Lindsay: Yes. So my Instagram is @linds_adamslcsw.

Laura: Okay and I'll have the link to it in the show notes.

Lindsay: And then my podcast is Mindful as a Mother and it can be found on any podcast platform.

Laura: Great, well Lindsay, thank you so much for coming and chatting with us.

Lindsay: Thank you for having me.

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

April 12, 2022

Episode 113: How to Support Your Kiddo With A New Sibling with Hannah & Kelty of Upbringing

April 12, 2022/ Laura Froyen

So, I know you know that nothing is ever just one thing, that we are constantly in a place of "both/and" but I have to tell you, it was really hard to see that in the early days of being a parent.

If you've ever wondered what my transition to parenthood was like, or want to hear about the bumpiest part of my journey raising two kiddos, I'd love to have you check out this week's episode of The Balanced Parent podcast, where I sat down with my friends and colleagues Hannah & Kelty of @Upbringing.co to get a bit raw and vulnerable about those hard days, what we learned, and how we can support you.

Even if you're out of the baby years, there is wisdom in this chat for you!

However, if you do have a little one, or are expecting one or are planning to grow your family, keep scrolling!!

Check them out on Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest!

When you have a baby, it’s so easy to get confused by all the conflicting advice.

You know you want to be ‘attached’ to your baby, but what does that even mean? Does it mean you have to ‘wear’ them all the time and make sure you run to them whenever they cry?

If you sleep train, will your baby be scarred for life?

And how can you get them to play independently so you can have a moment to yourself?!

My colleagues Jen of Your Parenting Mojo and Hannah & Kelty of Upbringing have come together to develop a course for expecting parents and those with children under age 1 called Right From The Start.

Right From The Start will help you to:

Understand what scientific research says about baby's sleep, attachment, feeding and other essential topics
Know that you're doing the best you can for your baby's development
Find your sense of yourself again (or maintain it if you're not yet a parent)
Let go of the overwhelm and worry that there isn't enough of you to go around
Find support and strength in a community of like-minded parents and parents-to-be

Through nine modules on topics like sleep, feeding, attachment, and play, Jen, Hannah & Kelty, tell you about what the scientific research says on each topic and then help you to find the right path for you and your baby (rather than following prescriptions about what you should and shouldn’t do).

And it isn’t just content: you also get access to a supportive community of parents who are on this journey with you, and *four group coaching* calls with Jen, Hannah, and/or Kelty to answer all your questions.

Does this sound like something you need in your life? (If you’re expecting, you probably don’t yet realize how much you need this in your life - trust me, you’re going to wish you had this after baby is born!)

The course is available now, and doors close on April 13th!

CHECK IT OUT HERE

Reviews from previous participants have been great.

As a second-time Mum, Right From The Start provided a great dose of reality, grounded in research which gave me both great ideas to inform my parenting choices and above all an incredible sense of support and genuine, vulnerable connection with other parents having the same kinds of challenges, fears, and doubts as I do. This sense of community has also helped me finally become more capable of self-compassion as I navigate what I consider to be the hardest job anyone will ever do.”
- Claire B.

“The ‘Right from the Start’ course has been a wonderful way to connect with other parents to think through perspective shifts in our parenting and also to get support through the tough newborn stage. I was already aware of “respectful parenting” approaches and practiced them with my first child. This course was a good refresher and provided new ideas for ways of approaching my parenting that helped me feel more sane while caring for two kids at home in a pandemic!”

I so appreciated the opportunity to learn from Jen, Hannah and Kelty as they have thought so deeply about how we can show up better for our kids, I am constantly learning from them. I would highly recommend the course to anyone expecting a new baby - I’m planning on gifting it to my brother and sister-in-law when the time comes.”
- Shannon M.

Want to get all this information, support, and community?

Click here to sign learn more about Right From The Start.

Doors are open now until April 13th

Drop me a comment if you have any questions, or reach out directly to Jen, Hannah, & Kelty at support@yourparentingmojo.com.

April 05, 2022

Episode 112: A Curious and Collaborative Approach to Technology with Kids w/ Carrie Rogers-Whitehead

April 05, 2022/ Laura Froyen

Two things for you this week:

1.) I'll be going live on Friday at 12:30 on IG with my friends, Hannah & Kelty of Upbringing, to chat about sibling issues, especially helping prep kiddos for a new little one.

**Parents of kiddos under 2 or those that are expecting, be sure to read the PS

2.) Details on the podcast episode this week are below! We will be doing a giveaway on the featured book, so be sure you're following me on IG (@laurafroyenphd) for updates!

As a result of the pandemic, the use of technology has risen and changed the way we socialize and interact with each other, for better or for worse. And although we are slowly getting back to normal, there is no denying that our use of online technology will continue. I have been hearing from a lot of you that as you move back into "regular" life you're wondering how to set yourselves and your children up for success when it comes to tech.

And so for this week's episode, we'll talk about screen time, internet safety, and raising digitally literate kids in a way that feels safe and balanced for your family in a tech-heavy environment. To help me in this conversation, I brought in an expert and the author of The 3 Ms of Fearless Digital Parenting, Carrie Rogers-Whitehead. She is the founder of Digital Respons-Ability, a mission-based company that works with educators, parents, and students to teach digital citizenship. And she will be helping us:

Learn ways we can be more balanced around technology
Collaboratively set technology rules in our home
Set an example around technology with our kids

Visit digital-parenting.com and respons-ability.net for more.

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.

Laura: Hi everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen. And on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be talking about screen time, online safety and raising technologically savvy kids in the tech heavy world in a way that feels safe and balanced for your family. So to help me with this conversation. I'm bringing in an expert and the author of the Three M's of Fearless Digital Parenting, Carrie Rogers-Whitehead. Carrie, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Carrie: Thank you, Dr. Laura. I'm glad to be here.

Laura: I'm so glad to have you. Will you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Carrie: Yeah, so I'm the founder of Digital Respons-Ability. We provide digital citizenship education. That's a mouthful. Digital citizenship is like creating a healthy and responsible digital citizens. So, we talked about everything from safety. But also things like commerce, digital law, media literacy, like what's real, what's fake, how do we communicate, how do we be private.

So we do deep dive classes across where the state provider out here in Utah, teaching tens of thousands of kids and parents. So this book was created through tens of thousands of pre imposed test surveys and talking to kids and working with hundreds and hundreds of parents of like on the ground and I'm excited to bring what we've learned through that experience is and up to date research on how do we balance technology in our lives.

Laura: Well, I'm so glad to be talking about this with you. So my husband and I over the summer we watched the social dilemma documentary on netflix and I have to say it freaked us out. We have almost nine year old and a six year old at the time of having this conversation and they go to a media free school. So no cellphones are even allowed on campus even by parents, you know, so they're not exposed to a lot of technology at school, they use some games and apps on our ipad, but we are always sitting right next to them.

But I know that as my daughters get older that that's going to be changing and sometimes my husband and I feel really intimidated by thinking about that we're going to have to help them figure out how to navigate This online world in a safe way. We want them to be savvy, we want them to go out into the world and know how to be safe.

I love that phrase. Digital citizens, you know, understand their rights and their responsibilities online. It feels very overwhelming, especially for, to folks who were born in the early 80s. I mean we didn't come up with this. I know I did some really shady things on a well messenger as a kid and it's, there's so much more so for parents who are feeling overwhelmed and a little like almost like let's just ignore it and not worry about it because they're too young, which is, I feel like I've been in an avoidance place. What are some of the things you might say to me? I just threw you a lot. I know that was a lot.

Carrie: No, and I'm glad you expressed that I hear that a lot from parents when we surveyed parents in 2019, their biggest fears were around screen time specifically and you know how their child are interacting with screens. So those fears, and those you know, things are genuine because there it's out in the media all the time.

And I started off writing the book I wrote, I've been a freelance journalist for years and I tell a story about how my most popular story I ever written was never the popular positive. Hey, here's all the great things. It was one about the dark web. I got far and away more hits and views than anything else.

And so we kind of have a skewed version of reality of what's actually out there. To me, it's like we're, you know, the internet is like a car, we do it every day for work for school and you know, it's, it's, it's kind of like this common thing, but we treat it like an airplane and we freaked out about airplanes, We don't freak about cars, right?

Laura: So taking the point on that analogy, it's interesting too that I try really hard in my parenting to not parent from a place of fear to parent from a place of trust and relationship and connection. And I think that that's also kind of what you're saying is that it's easy to get caught up in the fear and when we let fear drive the ship, we don't always make the best decisions or teach kids what they need to know.

Carrie: We get more of authoritarian styles, more black and white thinking more just making rules for our own anxieties are we creating these rules and structures because of us or because it's generally helpful for them and I'm really glad you brought up the generational divide and that's part of why we see this with every generation, you know, like your parents are probably there all the radio, you know, oro like all these that the tv was a moral panic issue and I traced a little bit of the moral panic behind video games.

I mean we were freaking out about Atari, so there's always this panic between the generations because it's very unfamiliar and new and so, you know, you could say we're the last millennials are like the last kind of generation to not have it during childhood and now we're having to parent with no guidebook from, from how we grew up.

Laura: Yes. And you know, carry something that I experienced in my own kind of teens when I was learning how to navigate the internet and chat rooms and all of those things. My parents didn't know the questions to ask, they didn't know how to keep tabs on me and I worry that I'm not going to know how to have those conversations with my own kids, you know that they will know things about apps and we used to hide their activity online and all of those things that I don't know because I don't I'm not aware, I don't want to be in that position of not only want my kids to be well informed and good as citizens, I want myself to be well informed, you know?

Carrie: No, I think that's and that's great and it's like this balance between being informed but not overwhelmed because as I said before the media blows a lot out, it grabs the most scary possible thing about everything not just technology, so and I the first to say like especially around media literacy and what's real and fake, I want to consume media to know what's going on. But I do have those days that I feel like oh wow this is too much and it's just affecting my own emotions and I think we have to do that as parents around technology, we have to be like okay well we need to know but do I need to know every single name of every single app? Probably not.

Laura: Right. And I mean and even while you're talking about this like just because some kids out there doing these things that doesn't necessarily mean my kids are going to be out finding those apps and it's there's still room for a relationship and communication and connection over these things, right?

Carrie: Yeah, I like to talk about well the positives and that's why it's called fearless digital parenting but I talk about that as well, I'm sure there's a few places, a personal story of I was I had my own feelings around gaming, my own biases around even though I was a gamer is throughout my kids and teens, I was like this is a time suck.

This is a waste too much screen time and I have like the strong feelings around it and then I found that gaming became this amazing way to connect with my child and we play all the time together. I actually run a gaming review site now, so I've had to like say where did these feelings come from? And when I look back, I'm like, oh it came from this experience and this experience, but why am I taking those past experiences and and extrapolating it to something new just because you know, like we want to be open to the idea of the positives to.

Laura: Yeah, I know you're saying something that we talked about on this podcast all the time that when we bump up against ingrained beliefs, you know, we have to get curious with them and figure out. So yes, I think this right now, but do I actually believe this and is this the belief that is serving me and serving my family and you know, getting curious with where did this belief come from? Is it grounded in reality? Is it helpful in guiding our family and if it's not shifting it?

Carrie: Yeah. So can I ask you where did you, do you have a bias around our fear? I mean, I have had the gaming ones like that, that was a waste of time screen time issues. Did you have something like where did it come from and where do we get a lot of these? I'm curious for you.

Laura: I mean, so, yes, absolutely. I wasn't allowed to have video games or to play video games growing up as a child. I don't know that that's a track I will necessarily take with my kids if they start asking. I think that there will be conversations and ways to fit that in with our family. But now as an adult, I'm really uncomfortable with those games because I don't know how to play them.

Like I'm so terrible at them. So I mean there's those things too. And I mean, absolutely, my husband and I both grew up on farms and outside time was really emphasized and time spent reading was really emphasized. My mom was a reading teacher. I think the environment that we grow up in can communicate values. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, so, I mean, I think our early childhood experiences and I think worries and fears really informed things a lot for parents and I know that we all want to be moving away from parenting from fear. Right?

Carrie: Yeah. And we have a lot of the millennial and gen x parents that are raising them without some of these same childhood experiences. So they're not familiar and they bring that to it. I don't know what I'm doing.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so let me just ask you then what are some ways that families can bring a bit more balance into their lives around the topic of technology?

Carrie: Yeah, so I talked a lot about working like creating this word norms because we create these norms and values in our family, right? And they start from a very young age and we don't even know that we're communicating these to our kids model behavior, They watch us there observing. So the first thing I did to tell parents to take a step back and what are you communicating of your norms and values around technology?

So when are you using it? Where are you using it? Why are you using it? Are we just scrolling because we're tired, you know, at the end of the day, I think parents come to some of my training and I think they expect me to be like this to tell them a lot about like how to fix your kids and I'm like no first step because we are not always the best models of that.

So especially at that young age when they're observing that as well, I tell parents, especially young kids and I get it because I used the YouTube kids app so I could take showers in the morning, get ready for work, but like why are we using it? Are we using it for a purpose? Is it just babysitting, is it we are don't want them to whine or we're trying to like why are we using it and how are we demonstrating that because of the kids?

Are we putting the tv in the background just because that's what's normal in our house. Do we eat at the couch with laptop? So dinner? Is that just because that was normal? So, and evaluating that because I think it's helpful to start what, what is normal for us? And is that the best? Is that the best way? And what are we communicating?

Laura: Yeah. And is that what we want to be communicating? What have we maybe perhaps unintentionally communicated so far? And what is it that we actually do want to communicate? Right?

Carrie: Yes. So some advice I give her parents is like narrative parenting is actually saying what you're doing on a device, like I am calling grandma, I am having to work and I think that's fair to say your kids, I'm working and because think of the kid's first exposure to technology when they're like infants and toddlers a lot of the time, it's their a game or through a video. So you've got young kids, they're like, wow, my mom's on her phone all the time, watching videos instead of looking at me. And what else are they gonna assume that, right?

But it also helps them understand that technology is a tool because so often with young kids, that's their first exposure as an entertainment device. They're probably not using it as much for a tool until they get into school and they're doing homework or other kinds of things. So Mary like what you're doing and why you're doing it. I also like to talk for, especially the younger ages, the concept of distracted parenting. There's a great Atlantic piece on it that I just like the concept is we have spent actually a lot of hours with our kids compared to earlier generations. I mean go millennials and gen xers, right?

We're gonna pushing back on some of that. We're working moms spend as much ours as stay at home moms did during the boomer years. So we're there were physically there, but we're not always emotionally there. And so often the technology is like a wall in between us. So we're there, but we're not there. So I have parents think about, are you? Yes, you're there, are you there? Because technology is a very easy way for us to zone out to have a wall and a space in between our kids.

Laura: Yeah. And that's not to say, but there was not room in space and time to do that vegging out for parents. Right? So like this is a guilt and judgment free zone on those things. I always think about, I saw this one article, I don't know once early in my parenting that was really coming down hard on a mom who was on her phone at the park, what she was missing while she was looking in the phone.

Then I saw a counter article to this lovely internet as good at, you know, showing multiple sides sometimes that just encouraged us to broaden our view and understand what that moment might have been for. That mom who was taking a second while her child was happily occupied for herself. And I think it's a both and right. It's not this either or you're either all one way or another.

It's just taking an open, curious, compassionate, self compassionate look, an honest look at are these am I there are there times when I could be more present for me, I have to put in boundaries around that for myself so that I can be present during those times because I work a lot on social media. That's you know, folks here who are listening who see my Instagram reels and my post, you know, that's work for me.

And so they see me on Instagram engaging in social media a lot and I have to be really mindful and intentional about my off hours. So I don't get on social media usually in the morning before school I and so once they're dropped off then I can work and then once they get home I usually have it away, my husband and I put our phones away for the first half hour or so after the kids are tucked in to prioritize our relationship to, you know, I have a human brain and these apps are designed to pull me in right? And so I put it away in a drawer, I have to it because if it's out of sight out of mind for me. And I think that that's modeling good boundaries too.

Carrie: And I like that you said that were intentional. And so when I talk to parents, I'm like, well, what are your device free zones or times? So I'm very much like, yeah, adaptable and flexible when I advise families and talk to them and consult with them. But I'm very, very strict about sleep if I'm going to make some hard and fast rules for kids, it's that devices are not in the room were very careful about things in the evening and nighttime because they do need that developmentally.

But I like that you so what are my times that I do this? What do we do at dinner time? What do we do at lunchtime? What do we do on trips and how do we communicate with the kids? That's why I like that term if you are, Yeah, look, I spend too much time probably on reddit scrolling somewhere that I'm tired and I admit that buzzfeed is my like guilty pleasure when my brain is tired in the evening. I do try to communicate it and I'm like, you know, I'm gonna be upfront with you son. Mom's tired and this is funny to me. So we're gonna look at fat cats here for the next half hour.

Laura: I'm just gonna get myself a quick little headed dopamine which to be good.

Carrie: Yes, so I try to communicate that and I was like, oh, mom's doing that, I want to be intentional. I don't want to unintentionally communicate that I'm not there or listening or care. Does that make sense?

Laura: No, it makes so much sense. You are wanting to make sure that the interpretation or the message that you're modeling is sending is one that you've chosen and you're not leaving your kid up to, you know, leaving it up to them to interpret what they're seeing and how they're seeing. You used technology and that's so important when it comes to modeling. I think that sometimes we think just doing it is enough and it it's not something we have to do, that narrative piece. And I love the way that you're advocating communication in a family. That's wonderful.

Carrie: Yeah. And especially even as they get older, you're constantly modeling that because as they get into tweens and teens now they're exposed to a wider variety of norms and values. And so if you haven't, like sometimes we create a foundation, hopefully like this is what our how our family is, this is what we feel what we believe, but now the peer pressure and the outside influences come in as they age.

And so that communication piece remains even more important as they age too, because there's all these outside influences and that leads to great conversations to? Well he does that over there and that's over this way. But what is it like for me? Because if you think about it, a kid is getting a wide variety of different rules.

They go to someone at a friend's house and there's a rule around the technology here, school has rules around technology, grandma's house has another rule, maybe there's a another parental figure and so all of these different norms and values across multiple locations, because as they age their out more out and about more requires us to really kind of be better communicators about that. Well, that's great that he does that. But over here as you know, we have no phones at the dinner table. So you are.

Laura: Yeah, okay. So what are some of the most common questions that you get from parents of kids?

Carrie: Well, I get questions around. Well, big one is when should my kid get a phone? That is it? That is a very that is a very big one. And my answer is I look a lot of this developmentally. So the three MSR Model, Manage and Monitor and it's like at different ages, you do different things just around technology. So I kind of kind of sometimes compare it a little bit maybe to a leash, we're letting the leash go out as they get a little older and they can Kind of like be more independent, have that autonomy and sometimes make mistakes as they age.

So understanding where they are developmentally, I recommend, you know, looking at that 13, 14 because the majority of kids are probably going to get their phone on average stats are in 80-90% around 13 and 14 and at that age their peers are really, really important to them and that's good for them. It's good for them to be in touch with those peers and have those social connections even though sometimes their peers may drive you crazy.

So I look at it in terms of when most of their friends are having it around those ages, those Tween ages if we can push it back a little bit because peer influence is strong. But we also have to recognize the need to be with their friends and talk to their friends and that's often where their friends are. So there's a great site called Wait until 8th that has some advocacy and things around pushing it to around eighth grade and I kind of aligned with that issues that your kid needs a phone earlier.

There are even more options than there ever was before with the watch. We did a smart watch for a while the stripped down phones that just the kids phones as they're kind of training wheels until a smartphone. But if you're gonna give your kid a phone, I always tell parents this, don't just give it to them create like a family contract together with your kid. Let's talk about these things before you just hand them the phone.

Laura: Yes. Let's talk about what the rules are the expectations all of those things for sure.

Carrie: And I like the values like we care about these things therefore that's why we have these rules and so hopefully you've modeled some of that.

Laura: Absolutely. I think it's really important. I like that idea of this that you know having kids get used to having access to phones and things kind of gradually. So tell me the three M's again.

Carrie: Models. So we're Modeling behavior, Managing behavior that means at those ages, maybe those Tween ages, we know some of their passwords, we know who their friends are, we're helping sending them up for accounts? We have we're more hands on right remaining accounts and then I pull back to monitor. So then you know they're teenagers are getting on their own and you're looking for red flags, You're watching your.

Laura: What are the red flags you're looking for?

Carrie: Yeah, well some of the red flags you'll find for technology around a lot that you find for things like suicide prevention and mental health. Are they withdrawing from? You know there's a certain amount of withdrawing that it's developmentally appropriate because they're just being on their own but are they refusing to participate at all? Are their sleep patterns different?

Are they constantly on our, do they have anxiety or fears around the phone? I especially tell parents to look at it dating red flags to those incidences that might run into as they start dating relationships because teenagers, they're learning to date and what healthy relationships are as they learn how to use devices at the same time. Also just things like grades, dropping, losing, you know, changing hobbies, not being as interested in there and and watching, watching, monitoring a lot of that.

Laura: Okay, so can we talk for just a second about balancing monitoring and trusting your kids? Because I'm in this great digital parenting group and there are some parents in their who've got their kids monitored and tracked and locked down all the time and it feels like a lot and not to criticize anybody. I wonder how that feels to the child and I know that I'm gonna want to be able to trust my kids too. And so how do you figure that out? How do you figure out like what the right level of monitoring is for your kid and in your family and do that in a way that feels respectful to the child too.

Carrie: Yeah, and that's a hard question and I get it. I don't recommend monitoring after their teenagers unless there's an issue of abuse or trauma or major mental health issues. But even then you tell the child this is what's going on, you have a phone contract and you say for this period of time and not forever, we're going to do this and then you back off and you have like a plan in place to kind of back off, right?

I think you have to give them some autonomy and freedom, but I do understand that some kids are have high risk factors and there are some issues and I get that this is a fraught subject. One time I was teaching a class and I had a mom and I don't, maybe brag is a strong word, but talking about how her daughter didn't know about all the tracking devices and all the things that she had seen on daughter phone. And I pushed back on that and it got a little heated because I'm like if your daughter finds out about that, then all trust is lost.

Like I understand your concern for watching it, but she doesn't know it's there and she's gonna find out eventually. Kids are really smart about figuring that stuff out and I just expressed, it's a major concern about this can go really, really bad and then at that point she's lost all trust. It's hard hard to regain trust.

Laura: So Carrie, I'm so glad you're saying that because I really think that oftentimes as parents, we are focused on being able to trust our children and we say that to our kids, it's really easy to lose trust and hard to gain it back, but it's trust is a two way street and I don't think we realize sometimes that they need to trust us to, you know, I also think at the same time that kids are entitled to parents who will keep them safe.

I think that kids deserve parents who will advocate for them and who will, you know, just like when they're, you know, three won't let them cross the street without holding hands, you know, and one that let them run into a parking lot, kids deserve that. And I think that that balance can be tricky. And I guess probably different kids need that at different times and need different bumpers kind of around their technology.

Carrie: But always communicate what you're doing. Don't key tracking software or whatever. But I, oh, like, oh, there's anything you can think of and monitoring, actually it's improved since Covid and all the remote work from home. I mean, it's like parents are often bosses spying on using the employees Spyware programs and like I have had parents say, well, it's, I bought it so I should be able to do it well, okay.

But also just think about the consequences of this because you want your child to communicate to you and when they're gonna, they're already, you know, getting on their own, which is normal and appropriate.

But if something goes bad, you want them to turn to you, you want them to come to you for advice and why would they come to you for advice when they feel betrayed and spied on you're there for your watching and I understand the concern about safety, but there's other ways to monitor your kid's besides sometimes tracking devices or instead of a tracking device, maybe you just have certain times that the wifi is on in your house or you have different, like you use screen time settings or you just regularly talk and have check ins with your kids and you don't freak out if they do tell you something to, which is a hard one.

Laura: Oh my gosh, yes. Like when they do tell you something like that's the time where you have to be like, okay, this is it, this is my moment, this is the moment, this is what I've been waiting for and I have to make sure they tell me the next time. So I can't do anything right now. That will decrease the chances that they'll tell me the next time because there will be a next time, right?

Carrie: Yes. I did a focus group of teenagers and interviewed teens writing the book and I remember having some teens tell me that they were frustrated with their parents because their parents think they're addicts and they're like, I'm not an addict at all why they keep using the word addict. They haven't even seen my friends, they don't know what I do, they don't know what it's at.

And there's sometimes we just label these behaviors and we react emotionally and we assume that this one team in the media is doing this and my team is doing this too. And I'm not stepping back to actually asking the kids what they're doing online, what brings them joy online who they talked to online and just assuming there an addict, which I don't use that word but yeah that's going to use a lot with our kids are labels so it and it shut in its silences them and it shuts them down.

Laura: Yeah you're really coming back to that spirit of curiosity which is so good in all relationships. Oh yeah that phrase, I think lots of parents think that their kids are addicted to screens or addicted to technology. I mean it seems like that was something that you felt really strongly about not using that word, Can you tell us a little bit more about kind of what that means to you what it can mean to kids and.

Carrie: Yeah so I don't like the word because sometimes it implies and people use it in a way, well I'm addicted so I can't help it and it absolves the responsibility in their behavior and you see that word, oh well and to be clear there are real addictions out there, but internet addiction is not in the D. S. M. Five and the gaming addiction in the World Health Organization, that's a highly highly controversial diagnosis and there's not alignment between the community on if these things actually exist.

So first of all let's say that but also like you hear that word flippantly, Oh I'm an addict, I can't help it and we can help it. And I'm not saying that it's not easy. I mean I get the algorithms are there to keep our engagement and our intention and, and I feel like yes, we need to do an individual, we should push back on the algorithms and the systems that are there. We should push on it. We should talk about it. I talk to kids about how algorithms create bubbles and how they can help with their bubbles.

But at the same time we shouldn't, I use the word habits because habits you can break and addictions just kind of succumbed to them and our kids, I believe in our kids, I work with kids, they're strong. They can do it and as adults can do it too, even though some days it's hard.

Laura: Yes. Yeah, I agree. There's this sense of, but I think that that's why parents use that word about their kids because they feel powerless. They say my kid is addicted to Youtube. You know, I think parents feel powerless like they're up against something that's bigger than them. And so for those parents who maybe even, especially these past year and a half have really relied on technology and screen media and social media because hey, we're all surviving here.

You know, we're all attempting to, you know, most of us were schooling from home and working from home, it was a lot, especially for moms, there's so much research on that. But now if we're at the point where we are wanting to take a more intentional look and perhaps scale back a little bit and there's resistance. How do you have any recommendations for parents on that?

Carrie: I mean, change is hard, right? Habits are hard to break. I think it goes back to not having a very top down approach. I mean, younger kids. Yeah. You know, three year olds, you can't let them run down the street. You're not gonna be like, so three year olds or do you want to run out on the street? You're gonna be like, you're gonna yank the kid right?

But as their older, you're communicating it with them and helping them come up with your values together. And as I talked to a lot of young people, they recognize the effects of technology on them, just like adults do. I heard many teams say that like I see the effects of this. I don't like this. I want to make my own goals. So we do digital goal setting and some of my classes, teens and I've watched saved so many goals and they're like, I'm gonna be on this less or I'm going to do this more.

So I feel like we're leaving our kids out of the conversation and assuming they're not having it and they're just addicts, you know, you have this like generational divide, but they are talking about the same things adults are. So let's talk with them about, okay, let's do this together. So you want this well how do we get there? How can I help you? How can you help me with my technology habits? And that's really a great intentional way to work together on this?

Laura: Yeah, I love that. I love that collaborative approach. I think it's so important and I really liked that answer a lot. I like this idea too of co creating our values with our kids. I think as soon as they are old enough to really sit in a family meeting like that, you know, is a great time to start discussing those things and if we're starting young then they have lots of experience with collaboration is different than compromise right?

Which is compromise is usually lose, lose or both giving up a little bit of something or as collaboration is win. Win. I think by the time they're older they know they're skilled in that and they know how to prioritize their values and their priorities and their goals and work together with you. I think that that's so wonderful.

Carrie: I like motivational interviewing who want to be online. How much time do I want to spend instead of this very top down. I'm going to tell you what your values are.

Laura: Yeah. And you touched on something to that I think is really heartening to hear that kids. No, they know the effect that it has on them and that if we're helping them reflect and get curious with themselves, they know that they often want to reduce how much they're using or reduce the pole it has on them. I read a study, I don't remember years ago now.

So maybe things have changed, but they were interviewing like 14-16 year olds and these kids preferred going to homes that had a no phones policy where the parents would make the kids turn their phones over when they came in the house. These kids preferred going to those houses because they actually got to like play and interact with their friends, which I think is really interesting. I think kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for, you know?

Carrie: Yeah, they're observing some things to do and I tell in the book, like be the scapegoat, be that parent who has that rules because they care so much about their peers, which is normal. Yeah. So put, but you don't care what a 12 year old thinks. Do you write like, you know, I, there's no reason for that. Like, and if, but you know, I'll do it with your kids, but you feel free to say if you feel this way child use me use me as the example why you can't, I'm fine with that.

Laura: Oh my gosh Carrie. That's something that my mom did for me when I was a kid and she was always willing to be the bad guy, like if my, you know, like if I had some friends who wanted to talk late into the night and I wanted to do my homework and go to bed. I was kind of a word and then and so she and I had a signal and when I gave her the signal she would say Laura it's time to get off the phone now and would totally be the bad guy for me. I also do that for my kids. It's like I'm always willing to be the bummer for them so that they can save face with their peers and still meet their goals, you know?

Carrie: Yeah, it's hard for them to put it, we forget that right. Like we don't just say no, just don't do it, what's the problem? But we forget where they're at.

Laura: But it's hard setting boundaries is hard, just say no, I mean how many grownups have a hard time saying no to an extra task at work or two, you know, a bake sale obligation at school. We have a hard time saying no to setting boundaries is freaking hard.

Carrie: But we often teach this about, we'll just say no to it, just turn it off. Just don't do it like a lot of that online safety that way and it's not really understanding where kids are developmentally.

Laura: It's not, they need help with some of those things too. Like I don't think we have to rush kids in that, I think it's okay for us to support them, you know, resisting peer pressure, resisting those things are hard. It's okay for them to lean on us for a little while while they can.

Carrie: Yes. Especially that in that tween age, right? When they get a little older, they kind of created their identities and they know themselves better. But that like 10-14 age, that's a high peer pressure age.

Laura: Carrie I really appreciate this conversation so much. I know that you were saying that perhaps we can do a giveaway for the book when this episode comes out.

Carrie: Yes, I will give away five free copies. I will mail them with a little note to you.

Laura: Okay? So everybody listening will give you the details on my Instagram and Facebook accounts for how to enter that contest. And those details will also be in the show notes here. But Carrie is giving away copies of the book.

Carrie: Thank you.

Laura: Carrie and I want to make sure everybody can go and find you. They don't want to wait to see if they won the copy of the book. So where can, where's the best place to get in touch with you?

Carrie: One great praise for parents is digital-parenting.com. And that's where I run game reviews. I have free resources with parents and I have blogs and other kind of information. They can contact us there. If you happen to be in the state of Utah, we can provide free parent education on this topic, but please contact us if you wanted to, you know, bring it out your way or have a consult.

Laura: Thanks so much, Carrie.

March 28, 2022

Episode 111: How to Help Our Kids Avoid External Validation with Mory Fontanez

March 28, 2022/ Laura Froyen

We want our children to understand and know their worth, advocate for themselves, and be confident in who they are. And that they do not need to be anything other than who they are to be appreciated, loved, and seen in our family. But the more time children spend out in the world, in school or sports or online on social media, the more they start comparing themselves to others and seeking external validation. It's just how the world is set up, and we sometimes, with the best of intentions, do it too! We give praise that isn't specific or focuses on outcomes instead of effort, we give feedback rather than directing them to reflect on themselves, and try as hard as we might, we compare and label siblings. (I do it too, even though I know better! Sometimes the doing and the knowing are two different things, right?)

As parents, it can happen to us too. Seeing photos of what seem to be perfect families and perfect lives on social media ruin our self-esteem, suck us into comparison, and lead to feelings of discontent. It's one of the reasons I've been far less active on IG these days. I hop on to make a silly reel for you (did you see my dancing in this one?? 😂 ) and then close the app so that I can focus on my true life, rather than the fantasy social media can suck me into...

But it's not easy. And as a person who was raised to thrive on external validation: praise, accomplishments, good grades, degrees, publications, awards, grants, etc; releasing the need for that feedback to prove my worth has been ongoing, deeply challenging work. I still face it, every time I read a review of the podcast or one of my programs, or get an email from one of you about how your family is changing and growing it is WORK for me to feel the JOY and DELIGHT that I get to do this as my job, all while not letting it mean anything about my WORTH as a human. It would be so easy to live for your reviews, feedback, and emails, but I know the flipside is crushing. Wondering if I'm worthless if I can't be of service...

It's not what I want for my kids, and it isn't what I want for myself! What about you? Is this something you're working on?

Well, if you at all identified with Luisa or Isabela in Encanto, this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast is for you!

We will talk about external validation and how it can distract us from staying true to ourselves. To help me in this conversation, I brought in my colleague, Mory Fontanez. She will be teaching us the following:

External Validation Addiction: What it is, how does it start, and how do children learn it from us
How to raise children who can self-validate

Do follow Mory on Instagram. Her social handle is @moryfontanez.

TRANSCRIPT

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen, and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast we're going to be talking about external validation, how it can really distract us from listening to our true intuition and really staying true to ourselves and how it can really make things hard for our kids.

Now to have this conversation I'm bringing in a friend and colleague Mory Fontanez and she's going to help us understand how we can help raise our children to avoid validation addiction and hopefully we have a chance to talk about how we can work on that within ourselves too. So Mory, welcome to the show! Thanks for having this conversation with me. Will you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Mory: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I love your show and I'm excited to talk to parents about parenting. Some are very passionate about that but that is not my background. I will explain just a little bit. I am an executive purpose coach and the owner of a business consulting firm.

I basically started 822 groups which is my firm after about 20 years on the agency side helping Fortune five hundred's manage crisis and chaos and change and really try to build relationships with their employees and customers and I left that career because I was seeing a major problem in business which is that leaders were disconnected from themselves and my intuition told me over and over again that I needed to do something about that.

And so 822 group and my work is really about reconnecting leaders and actually just people back to their intuition so they can live and thrive in their purpose. And in doing that I've really become a student of all of the limiting belief systems or the things that block us from being intuitive that block us from being purposeful and from thriving and one of those things that I teach a lot in my methodology is what I call validation addiction and over the last three years that I've been teaching my clients about this.

I've also in order to walk the walk really been looking at how that plays in our lives and particularly as a parent with my children. And so lately I've started talking a lot about validation addiction in children. What does it mean? How does it start, how do they learn it from us and how, you know right now with social media being the primary way that they communicate, it expounds upon that addiction and what we can do to kind of help them navigate it and become their own source of validation.

Laura: I love that, you know, I feel like in the parenting world we um we hear the praise junkies that we don't want to raise kids that are praised junkies. I think a little bit dismissive of something that what we're really saying is that we want our kids to know who they are, we want our kids to know what deeply matters to them to be able to stand up for themselves, stand up for what they believe is right and to follow their heart without thinking that they have to do something or be a certain way in order to be loved accepted, valued and seen in our families and I think that that's what we're talking about here today, when we talk about validation addiction, we're talking about really external validation, right?

Mory: That's right. Absolutely.

Laura: So, what are some of the things that parents can unknowingly and with the best of intentions be doing that actually sets our kids up to look for and seek external validation?

Mory: Yeah, that's such a good question. I mean, listen, the biggest truth is that you know, we mirror behavior for our children, right? And so they're learning not from the things we're telling them maybe a little bit, but really from watching us and you know, I have noticed as I've been looking at validation addiction, you know, what are the ways that I as a parent show that other people's opinions of meat not only matter but define my value for me, right.

Am I constantly checking my Instagram now that I'm building a brand to make sure people are liking the content, you know, am I really overly reliant on my mother or my sister's opinion of a decision that I've made, How do I interact with my fiancee in front of them in terms of being able to speak my truth and hold that truth regardless of his reaction because those are the things that we really do by living that our kids learn from.

And so the biggest thing I would say is really being mindful about how much do you look to external sources and people to tell you you're valuable to tell you you're worth it to tell you that you matter to tell you you're successful, that you're a good mom or a good dad, right? How much do you need that from others to define your sense of self and

Laura: Absolutely, yes. And not even need that feedback that you are successful. What even need other people to tell you what does success mean? It's so important for us to think about that, you know? So the way that I parent my kids, everybody who gets a chance to work with me knows that I am not here to tell you how to parent your kids.

I parent my kids in the way that's right. In a line for me, I'm here to help you figure out are you actually parenting in alignment with what's right for you? But I mean we get to decide, we get to choose what a successful parenting day looks like or a successful business day or a successful partnering day looks like for us, those are our choices. But oftentimes we are seeking outside definition.

Mory: Absolutely, and you're so right, that that's kind of the root, right? Like that's the seed we have someone else or a system or a culture, right? Like in Persian? So for Persians being a mom looks a certain way, it certainly did not look like traveling three weeks out of the month when my kids were two and four for my career. Right?

So my mom was sort of like, what are you doing and really having to understand that culturally systemically in our relationships. We are told what good looks like and that is actually the seed that plants the validation addiction because then we're constantly trying to meet someone else's definition.

And the crisis comes in when we genuinely hit a moment where we're like that I'm not happy trying to do it this way, I'm getting the validation but it just doesn't even feel good anymore. So that's I mean that could be a different topic. We can talk about that for hours, but I think you're absolutely right that it starts from trying to fit into someone else's definition of good.

Laura: Absolutely. You know, I don't know that I've talked about my professional background very much on this Podcast, but I was a professor in my dream job. You know what I thought was my dream job. In reality it was the job that a friend had told me I would never be qualified or good enough to get. And then I went out and got it.

You know, I was in it and I was realizing so in academia, all definitions of success are external. When you go up for tenure, you seek out the experts in your fields, you know, kind of a permission and approval to get promoted. Your you know how well you're doing is based on your, you know, your publication acceptance rate.

You know, it's all external. And I had this big dissonance, this big moment of realizing that I was living a life that was not what I actually believed in or wanted or was good for me. And I was completely disconnected from my purpose because it was taking years for all of my research on parenting to actually get into the hands of parents. And so I quit.

But I mean, this is I don't I know I do not want my kids to find themselves in their mid thirties at a crisis point where they don't know who they are. They've been lived trying to live up to other people's standards that they don't even believe in. I've just been handed to them unconsciously, I don't want that. So, I think our listeners agree like this is not what we want for our kids. But it was done to us. We don't want that for our kids.

Mory: Literally happened today. That I had to just to show that this is constant work as a parent, right? I am getting remarried five weeks and I had my dress fitting today. And my mom went with me and it was such a poignant moment. She's getting older. I was like, wow, this is so amazing that I get to have this memory.

And we were walking back to the car and in my head, I was thinking, God, I really can't wait to have this with my daughter. And I stopped myself. And I was like, if I have this with my daughter, if she chooses this, which, by the way, I don't know. And I had to ask myself in that moment, can you let go of this desire for her?

And it was like, resoundingly yes. So that's it's like the tiniest, teeniest little moments that we build these boxes for our kids. That was a really positive thing. I wanted to share something that I thought was lovely with my daughter, but I had to stop myself with a parent and say she might not think that's lovely.

Laura: Yeah, she might never want to get married. Yes, I think you're so right. I think it is so important for us to remember. It's fine to have hopes and dreams for our kids, but not to the extent that, like you said, it boxes them in like them in a little space that is by our definition, and we leave room for them to be themselves too.

Mory: And that creates disappointment for us that they can feel.

Laura: And they can they're so good at feeling of disappointment, aren't they?

Mory: Absolutely.

Laura: And so what are some other pieces then? So I very much appreciate the invitation, you know, when we're looking to inspire our kids to a good look at ourselves and really step into that kind of fierce, strong place of living in our values so that we can transmit them more fully to our kids. I love that.

Mory: Yeah.

Laura: But what about our interactions with our kids when we have moments and opportunities to help our kids learn to start self evaluating and finding satisfaction and in their true compass within themselves. Any thoughts on those?

Mory: Yeah, I have three big ones. The first one is in when they accomplish something that we feel proud of. One of my rules is to not say I'm proud of you. First my rule is to ask, are you proud of yourself so that it immediately creates that kind of circuitry that what matters most is how proud of yourself you are. Then I can tell you I'm really proud of you too. So that's a simple one. I do all the time right now so that they can have that internal guidance system start to grow within them.

That's asking am I proud of myself not, am I trying to make my mom proud? The first one, the second one is in problem solving with them, right? You know they're having a hard time in a class or with a friend instead of telling them what to do. I do a lot of asking them what they think is the right thing to do.

And one of the things I say to both of them is I always use this with them, what is your higher self telling you right now because it's important to me as a parent who really values intuition to build that connection with their own intuition first and foremost, I help them envision it as their higher self. We've even done things they're little where like they would draw what it looked like and then they can ask, you know what is right right now or what should I do with my friend. And so it's more of being their partner in brainstorming and being there, reminder that they can reconnect to this like unending source of wisdom within themselves to find the answer rather than mommy has the answer right now.

Honestly I am not perfect and there are moments where we are racing around or I'm stressed out or I feel like it's a you know not life or death but it could be a dangerous situation where I'm way more directive. But I am very mindful about choosing those moments very carefully. It is not heavy handed, it is not the majority of the way that I parent, it is to really be thoughtful about when I'm really being directive and when I can actually ask them to stop and think.

And then the 3rd 1 is that I teach this to executives that I coach. I always tell people nothing is ever personal ever when you're interacting with someone else because everyone is in their own hurricane always. And so they're not even thinking enough about how they're going to drag you down to be doing things related to you. It's about them, they're either triggered or they're traumatized or whatever it might be.

So in their interactions with their friends. When that stuff gets hard is to really help them to distance themselves and ask what is this person going through that has nothing to do with me so that they can understand that it's never about them. The byproduct of that, which is so lovely is that it also build empathy because then they have understanding.

But one of the things I'm also teaching them is that you can have empathy without crossing the boundary of trying to fix it for them, right? You can just experience or understand it and take yourself out of the scenario. If you take yourself out a scenario all of a sudden you can be emotionally neutral about it because it's not about you anymore. So those are the three kind of big things that I talked about.

Laura: I love that. I think that's so important. I think so many parents that I have the beautiful opportunity to work with feel lost and like they don't have an intuition that they can trust and you know, through working together, they find it again, they start listening again. But I know that's very hungry to not quiet, especially their daughters. I think in our world.

Women especially are told that we have to quiet our intuition and fit into, you know, certain places and I love this the last example of helping our kids engage in perspective taking. It's really hard for little kids who cognitively aren't quite there yet.

But as I get older, we I mean we can be inviting them to see the other side. Just this morning, my daughters were out watering our garden and one had a hose and was on the raspberry pageant was kind of just moving it across the raspberries and went too far and sprayed or sister, it was a complete accident and the sister who got sprayed was started yelling about it and then that one got really, you know, the one who did the spring felt terrible and was so upset, doesn't she's really sensitive to getting yelled at. It was this big blow up. And really at the end of the day, like what came down to it as I sat down with the older one, he was a little bit more able to do the perspective taking.

And I said, honey, you think she meant to spray you or you do you think it was an accident? And this was after validating about so uncomfortable to get sprayed? It was just surprised. Yes, I know that water is hard water, so it's itchy on your skin, you know, because she has some sensory stuff, All the validation first. And then the invitation for perspective taking and she goes, no, I suppose I didn't really need to yell at her because it was an accident. She would never spray me on purpose without my consent. And I was like, I didn't think they both apologized and it was fine. They've been playing beautifully all day.

You know, having them come to that conclusion themselves I think is so much more helpful than just telling them and I really appreciate you bringing that. I also really loved what you had to say about asking them to self evaluate. I think that that's so important. And even like those of you who are listening, even when your kids are really little, you can still do this. So when they come to you with a scribble on the paper and they've got a big grin and they say mama, look at what I drew like you. I mean of course you love it. It's beautiful.

And you can also just pause for just a second and say, oh I see you've got a big grin on your face. What do you think about your drawing and just invite them? Pretty mama and then you say so pretty. You know, and then you go in but even when they're tiny and barely verbal that you can still invite self reflection and self evaluation.

Mory: Yes. Can we talk about your raspberry patch? You know, you're my business. Yeah, amazing. I want to come to your house.

Laura: Oh my God, we're so like we have just such a beautiful backyard. It's a dream. So fortunate that

Mory: I do it like they're spraying.

Laura: Yes, it's yeah, no, it was there when we moved in. We were actually really surprised because we bought the house in the wintertime and we didn't know what was under the snow. It's Wisconsin. So it was like two ft of snow and we were like, these are brass berries. We get raspberries. It was very exciting.

Mory: That's awesome.

Laura: Okay. Well, so are there other things though? So I mean, we've talked about this with younger kids. What about it as our kids get older as they age and move into the teen years and this really gets hard. Especially like you said before with social media. I mean The vanity metrics and social media and there's so much research coming out on what this does to teen girls especially look for that validation externally or is there anything that we can do to help girls through this?

Mory: Yeah, I'm not one of those moms that doesn't allow them on iPads and tries to keep them away. But I was limited. So my daughter who's 12 Is allowed on Tiktok only. She's asked for Snapchat and all these other ones I told her no, but Tiktok really is kind of the way she expresses. She's a performer. So she's constantly kind of performing. And one of the things we talk about because she brings it up a lot is, wow. You know, 500 people viewed this video, but only two people like this. And so instead of, first of all, I think our first instinct as parents is to try to make them feel better.

You know, it's like, no, it doesn't matter. You know, instead of all that noise, I will connect like make sure I look her in the eye and ask her does that make your video any less funny creative? Was your dancing that like, you know, let's actually try and really think about how do you still feel about this video? Do you like this video? And so it's about just again breaking that narrative with her right then and there and asking her again, how do you feel about this thing that you created?

But the second thing is, you know, I think that in the friendships as they get older calling things for what they are and if she's experiencing mean girl stuff to let her know that let her know that that's coming from someone else is hurt and it's mean and it's not okay. And you know, having more kind of radically honest conversations with her about what she's experiencing rather than trying to sugarcoat it or you know, make her feel like it's an anomaly.

But just to tell her the other thing I do is I tell her a lot about my own childhood a lot about what I was like in middle school for me and how I was bullied and who believe me and what that felt like. And what I wish I knew then that I know now. So I think it still goes back to the same three things, right? But it's just at a more transparent, more adult kind of way of speaking to them, right? It's not the baby language, but it's like, what do you really think about yourself right now or this thing that you made and what do you think the other person that was so terrible about it actually thinks about themselves that allows them to be terrible towards you.

And so it's like, again, it's the prospective setting and really helping her to have permission to love the things she loves and not look for other people to tell her it's okay to love those things. And to know, I always tell her when you raise your frequency, you will find people who will meet with them and if they're not at your frequency, you don't need them to drag you down, you're trying to fly. So you got to keep finding people that meet your frequency and you'll know in your gut what that feels like.

Laura: Oh, I love that. And it also, you know, I feel like you kind of touched on it and I just want to pull that out too. Is it sounds too like you're really teaching her to be a critical consumer of social media of what do these things actually mean? And I I sometimes even take that one step further with, especially with my coaching clients who have the tweens kids teaching them about algorithms and the psychology that is used on these platforms to get people to stay on the platforms and keep creating content and walk motivated to want you to stay on it and keep making things and why they might even want you to not get likes so that you keep you know this.

Yeah exactly. And so I have those conversations around things like you know the little toys that are at the checkout counter and how stores choose to put those there. So kids will ask their parents for them and their parents are already buying things that their psychology involved in that. And so having those critical consumption conversations early at age appropriate times. But as you get older around like are we going to let the algorithm trick us like that. We let the algorithm, some people who are writing codes and who spread it psychology book really do that to us.

Mory: I watched the social dilemma.

Laura: So good. Right?

Mory: And after I saw that all of our notifications went off every single device. No notifications are allowed because they really talked about how they measure how long it's been since you interact and they'll start hanging your phone and notifying you. And so it's like such an easy gateway to get you back in. So there's definitely a huge value in your teaching people about algorithms.

Laura: Yeah, I love it. That's awesome. Um Well I love this conversation. I feel like it was so lovely and varied. I so appreciate you sharing this information with me and with all of us really. I mean, and I just want to wrap up by bringing it back to that. We really practice what we and embodying what we want our kids to experience and take on for themselves is so important. I'm, I'm so glad you started there. I really appreciate that.

Mory: Thank you and being honest with them about how we're feeling about things. You know, I made a mistake and I, this person did this and I felt bad about that, you know, I'm really honest about stuff like that with them too. So they understand that it's not all peaches and of course all the time.

Laura: They need struggle modeled for them as well, you know, in with appropriate and healthy boundaries. Of course, yeah, absolutely. They need to see us being resilient. Yeah. Work Yeah. Well Mory, thank you so much for bringing this conversation.

Mory: So fast. I can talk for hours.

Laura: Yeah.

Mory: I really loved it.

Laura: It was awesome. It was really fun. I'm really glad that we had a chance to have this conversation and I want to make sure that folks know where they can find you. I know you have a couple of articles on this topic.

Mory: I do. So yeah, so follow me on Instagram, that's where everything goes @moryfontanez. I'm constantly sharing my writing and videos and things like that @moryfontanez and then, um, for my firm, it's 8 22 groups, which is our website, 822groups.com.

Laura: Awesome. Well Mory, thank you so much for being with us. It was a pleasure to talk to you.

Mory: Thank you so much. I love being here.

March 22, 2022

Episode 110: How Implementing Boundaries Can Improve any Relationship with Melissa Salmeron

March 22, 2022/ Laura Froyen

Did you ever feel forced to do something uncomfortable because you do not want to offend that person? Do you struggle with saying "no" even when you know you should? There is so much pressure on us as parents, especially the moms reading this, to be everything and do everything for everyone. And we know the answer is to set more boundaries, to actually say no when we need to so that we have more time and energy for the things that truly matter to us. But it's not actually that simple, is it? The art of saying no is complicated and often it's an inside job.

So, what is a healthy boundary and what is not? How can we set a personal boundary that would not come off as being arrogant or rude?

For this week's episode on The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to dig deep into healthy boundary setting and how it can improve any relationship that matters to us. And to help me in this conversation, I brought in my friend and colleague, Melissa Salmeron. She is a Certified Master Life Coach and helps other moms give themselves the space they need to defeat overwhelm, step into their power, and show up as their true selves through the power of the CARE Method. She will be helping us learn:

Boundaries: What they are and what they aren't
Purpose of setting a healthy boundary
How to set healthy boundaries

REMEMBER: If you find the podcast helpful, rating and reviewing on your favorite listening platform helps me land amazing guests and helps other struggling parents find this amazing community! Taking a few minutes to send your feedback really helps (and I read each and every one!) Thanks for your support!

To get more resources, do follow Melissa on her social media and visit her website.
Facebook: Melissa Salmeron
Instagram: @mrssalmeron
Website: www.melissasalmeron.com

TRANSCRIPT

Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic overwhelm. 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.

Laura: Hello, everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to dive deep into boundary setting. So we're going to be talking all about how setting healthy intentional boundaries can improve nearly any relationship. And to have this conversation, I'm bringing in my new friend and colleague, a wonderful guest, Melissa Salmeron. She is a master life coach and she helps moms give themselves the space they need to defeat overwhelm, step into their power, and show up as their true selves. And we're gonna just really kind of geek out about boundaries today. So Melissa, welcome to the show! I'm really excited for this conversation. Will you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Melissa: Yes and yayyy boundaries! So exciting!

First, Laura, thank you for having me. I think the conversations that you have around parenting are just so important and I just, I love your work. So I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

So, I am Melissa Salmeron and as she said, I am a master certified life coach and my passion is helping busy, overworked moms. Yes, work on defeating that - overwhelmed. So that they can live a life of more peace and calm. And I think now more than ever we need to be supporting moms. I mean all parents, yes, need support. But moms are near and dear to my heart as I am one and I have traveled down this road and we also often say “We teach what we need to learn”. And so, that is just a little bit about me.

And I wanted to share if it's okay, Laura, just this topic of boundaries, why also it's something I'm really passionate about.

I started this journey. I've always really wanted to know more about myself and understand, you know, why I am the way I am and always looked to improve myself. And I have three kids, so a ten year old, a seven year old and almost two year old. And around the time my second child was born, I realized that I needed some extra support because I found myself in this stage where I think a lot of moms do, where somewhere along the line I just completely lost myself. And it just sort of hit me like a ton of bricks that I really didn't know who I was and I needed to get control of that quickly because I wasn't showing up the mom that I wanted to be, as the wife that I wanted to be, as the co-worker, any of it really.

And so, I started seeing a therapist and she, one of the first things she asked me was, “Do you know anything about boundaries?”. And I'm like, not really. I mean, yes, but it's always been sort of confusing to me because I always really thought that to be really loving, you didn't want to draw. I thought of boundary it’s like this hard line in the sand, you know. And I just didn't think that that was, you know, the loving way that I wanted to show up.

And so, I started doing a lot of work with her around boundaries. And you know, I think a lot of people find themselves and you know, maybe they weren't taught the skill. I think boundaries, they are skill. I've been working on this for several years and you know, I'm not a master. I'll say that, yes. And we all come from like various backgrounds. But yeah, so I think this topic is, it's so good to really understand what a boundary is and what it is not.

Laura: Yeah. Can we dig in there a little bit? Because I feel like we have this, you know, we have this kind of general like “Yeah, boundaries are important.Yes, we need boundaries.” But what does it actually mean? What do they actually look like? What's a healthy boundary? What's not so healthy boundary? Can we dive in there?

Melissa: Yeah, let's do that for sure. So, personal boundary. It's a limit in a rule that we set for ourselves. So it's all about us and what we're willing to do and not do. And as I said, it's not a line in the sand, it's not a rule. And so this is not my imagery, but I love it so much.

It's kind of like if you think of the boundaries like this hula hoop that you put your, put around yourself, you know, it's defining where, it's like where you end and the other person begins. And a rule would be something that, you know, you're forcing on someone else or you're using fear or power to really control someone else,

Laura: Right.

Melissa: Which never feels good.

Laura: In the parenting world, I think about boundaries are about us and limit setting are about the child's behavior. So if we're thinking about setting boundaries with our kids, like a limit would be, “I can't let you run out into the street that's not safe. I got to keep you safe.” Whereas a boundary is “My back is hurting today and I can't be your jungle gym. I can't wrestle with you today.” That's a boundary. You know, the boundaries are about us and limit setting for kids is about them.

And hopefully we're only enacting limit setting, you know, in times where their safety is at stake or you know, we're really working hard not to infringe on their personal rights. Right? Another analogy that I love, it gets taught everywhere about boundaries is thinking about a boundary as the property line. So if you're a homeowner and you own your home, that your boundary is that property line. Right now, I don't know listener, if you can hear my neighbor is mowing their yard and if my neighbor were to come over and he's very particular, he takes great pride in how his yard is mown. He does, you know, the cross hatching, it's beautiful.

But if he were to come over and say to us, you know to his next door neighbor, say like “you also need to mow your yard in that cross hatch design.” You know, “you need to do X, Y and Z with your yard,” that would be him crossing into my property into my boundary. And that happens a lot in, you know, so it's easy to talk about it in terms of like concrete terms of like our property, our yard, but it's much harder, gets much… The lines are harder to see when it comes to other aspects of personal relationships, especially if we grew up in homes where there weren't clear boundaries and more where boundary setting wasn't modeled to us in a healthy way.

Can we talk a little bit about that then? So where? You know, again, it's easy to say like my neighbor doesn't get to come and tell me how, what color to paint my door. My dad doesn't get to come and tell me where I should plant flowers. It's so easy to talk about in like personal property. But what does that mean for us in terms of emotional boundaries or relational boundaries? Like, what do those?

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's important for us to understand that, you know, like we have certain rights and I didn't really get this myself for a really long time. It's like I am in so many ways like I have a right to be treated with respect, right? I have a right to say no without feeling guilty. Big one. That's such a big one. I think so many of us struggle with.

My needs, your needs are just as important as everyone else's. And you have a right to accept your mistakes and your failures. So I would get confused in the past around thinking I didn't do something, I didn't follow through. And so, to sort of like even the playing field, I need to let you do something that I don't really feel comfortable with because I let you down. Now, hearing that it makes no sense.

Laura: Oh no, but I can see why someone would think that though.

Melissa: Yes. But just because, you know, you've done something over here, doesn't change, you know what your limits are, what your personal limits are, right? Like that has nothing to do with the other basically like those are two separate things.

Laura: Yeah.

Melissa: And then, we don't have to meet other people's unreasonable expectations of us. So Laura, you mentioned earlier, like the example of the mother-in-law gets such a bad rap. But I'll just say my brother-in-law actually was giving me a hard time over the holidays. He was wanting me to stay out late for a party and my in-laws loved to stay up late and start their day late.

They're just on a completely different schedule than I am. And he tried, you know, every single enticement there possibly could have been to get me to stay and I was just like “No, you guys stay. Have a great time. I'll miss you and I'll see you tomorrow.” You know, like because I wasn't going to give in because I was going to throw my entire schedule for the next day and the kids and all of that, right? So just because someone really, really wants you to do something doesn't obligate you really, really have to do it.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's so empowering to find out where our lines are and to confidently state them so that we can actually be confident in our “no” and what feels good and it's not something that's like that we have to master perfectly. You know, it's a dance, it's figuring out process and there's room for imperfection. And there's room for getting it wrong too for realizing like, you know what? I kind of let someone push me into doing something that I didn't want to do.

What did I learn about this situation? How can I show up better for myself next time? Just like last night my parents had been away. They've been on a trip and my mom wanted to reconnect and chat and I really had had a long day. It's a long holiday weekend. We're recording this the day after Memorial Day. I've been working in my garden for three days straight. I was tired and I should have said “No.” I should have said, “you know what mom, I really, really want to connect with you. I really want to hear about your trip. I'm really excited. I can't do it tonight. I'm tired tonight. I want to stay home with my husband and sit on the deck and talk with him.”

That's what I want to do. That's what I wanted to do. I didn't. You know, I let myself be talked into going over there. Like if I were to, my mom doesn't usually listen to my podcast, but I think if she were to hear this, I think she would be surprised and sad and feel badly that I hadn't listened to me, to my own heart and set that boundary with her. I think that she would have wanted me to be honest with her and say that to her. And for whatever reason, I just didn't have a firm sense of where my line was at that moment in time when I said yes and I went over there and that's just a learning opportunity.

I've been practicing healthy boundaries actively and professionally, you know, for years. And I'm still just figuring those things out. So it doesn't mean like I failed or you know, let myself down. It's just a kind of a learning process of how can I have, you know, really healthy boundaries that prioritize my needs while staying connected to someone else. And I think you're, you've been talking a little bit about these hard lines in the sand and I think it's really important for people to know that, you know, that a healthy boundary is flexible, is compassionate, is kind and is caring and has the goal of keeping a relationship going those hard lines in the sand.

Really, really hard boundaries are just as unhealthy as really porous boundaries. Sometimes really firm hard line in the sand boundaries are necessary with someone who's consistently crossing our boundaries, who’s consistently pushing them. Sometimes we do need something that's much more firm and clear. Like cutting off for example. I know lots of our listeners have family members that they don't see anymore because there was too much boundary crossing.

That's a really hard boundary and I guarantee that the listeners who have done that don't always feel 100% good about that and wish it could have been different. But they had to to protect themselves. But I bet they wish they could have had more healthy flexible boundaries with someone so that they could stay in a relationship because that's what the boundary ultimately is, right? Is that what you, how you see the purpose of a boundary?

Melissa: Yes, absolutely. It's just protecting yourself and knowing yourself so you can show up in the relationship in the best possible way, right? And when you don't have boundaries, I did not realize I had so much pent up resentment. I'll just stay with my husband. You know, it was showing up and it was impacting our relationship.

So that's why, you know, I think they're just huge and when you start working on these things, you will, it's a byproduct of when you know yourself really well and you're able to found these are like an act of self love.
Laura: And compassion. Yeah.
Melissa: And compassion. And so, it could completely transform everything, every other relationship around you when you really clear on what those are. And I think what you said earlier about knowing yourself. It’s knowing your values.

Knowing what your values are. And then saying, “okay, well where my values being knocked up against.” Right? Really taking the time to examine that. And you know kind of being very self aware around that process of like, you know, “What is this making me feel? And what can I do about it?”

Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. I want to skip back to the resentment piece of it. I think you hit on something that is so important especially when it comes to boundaries. So if we are not self aware and haven't gone through this process of figuring out what is important to us, what matters to us, what our values are, and started figuring out how to set those boundaries, then we let people cross them. And oftentimes that happens kind of like under the surface, the other person doesn't always even know that it's happening. And then resentment builds, right?

So like when I first went over to my mom's last night, there was resentment bubbling under the surface. I was annoyed that I was there. I didn't want to be there. It was like impacting our interactions and I like I gave myself a little talking to in the moment. I was like you know what Laura, you're responsible for this. You didn't set the boundary. She didn't even know that there was this possibility of resentment brewing. She had no clue. She was completely unaware that all of this was happening within me. This was my lack of boundary, was what was creating the resentment, not her doing anything. It was my responsibility. If I didn't want to go there, it was my responsibility to deliver a boundary with kindness and compassion and not do it and to say no, that was my responsibility.

And so that resentment that was bubbling up that I was feeling towards my mom had no actual place there. Like it was completely unfair and I was putting a burden on our relationship that didn't need to be there and wouldn't have been had I set the boundary that was true and authentic for me. We really can get in our own way of having meaningful, authentic relationships. True, authentic connections.

When we have porous boundaries, you know? Okay, so then if people are realizing this, that there's resentment sprinkled in their relationships, that they are not setting their boundaries that they need, that they're not standing up for themselves, like, and showing up for themselves and the relationships in the way that they want to.

It seems to me like you're saying the very first step of learning how to set healthy boundaries is figuring out what they are by diving into.
Melissa: Absolutely.
Laura: Can you walk us through that process a little bit? So that the listeners can really start doing like I really like it when there's almost like journal prompts in…

Melissa: Oh man I should have brought some journal prompts.

Laura: They're already there. You already said them. You know, what's important to me? What are my values? You already said them. So are there other ones that we can be asking ourselves?

Melissa: Yeah, I mean I think categorizing if I like a lot of structure actually myself and so really asking your questions, yourself questions around your physical, your emotional, your spiritual, all of these different areas, right? Like what, what is okay with me and what is not okay with me is a great place to start. Maybe in each of these categories.

Sometimes we just don't stop and think about what is ok with me and what is not okay with me. We just sort of inherently have a feeling, right? But we don't necessarily know where that feeling came from because we maybe never sat down and taking the time to examine what is okay and what is not okay with me.

Laura: Yeah. And I really like how you broke it down into kind of sections like emotional boundaries. Physical boundaries. What was the other one that you?

Melissa: Spiritual boundaries.

Laura: Spiritual boundaries. Yeah, I also think too, that there's this place where we have to be really aware of what is ours to control and what is not ours to control. So, like I can set a boundary for how I want to be treated. But I cannot control how someone's gonna react to that boundary. That is not in my wheelhouse.

Melissa: That's the other thing. Actually, Laura, I mean, finding out that I was trying to control so many situations.

Laura: Yeah, right?

Melissa: But I was never going to be able to control. I'm never going to be able to control you know, the other person's thoughts, feelings, or actions and we know this, right? We so know this. We so know but yet it's still like and we just fall into the trap. I just think it's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking. And when you let that control piece go, oh my goodness. It is just so free. Like all I have to worry about is myself and what is and isn't okay with me and that's it. And then, I get to decide based on the other person's behavior.

You know, whether I will allow that. You know, whether or not that's a deal breaker for me, as you mentioned earlier about, you know, sometimes we have people who are reading a book recently, I think terry cole in her book all some boundary destroyers. And it's unfortunate, you know. But sometimes relationships just have to end because even all the boundaries in the world we put in place, some people are just not going to be willing to accept those. And that's their choice, right? That has nothing to do with us.

Laura: Yeah. And so you're tapping into some of the boundaries that we set with ourselves too on what we're willing to take on situating what someone else's stuff and what's our stuff and really setting firm boundaries for our self, that we are not going to let someone else's poor boundaries or someone else's stuff impact us. I think it is so important, those boundaries that we set with ourselves, that we are going to not let someone else change us.

You know, so my mother in law is a lovely person, wonderful, has so many strength for some reason. She does get under my skin. And sometimes when I'm around her, it is very hard to be myself. Because there's this part of me that just this, like, 13 year old, like, “you can't tell me what to do.”

Part of me just wants to push back, and I have to be really kind and compassionate with myself in those moments, and at the same time, that boundary has to be with me, with my inner teenager. You know, my mother-in-law does not get to dictate how I show up in this world.

My mother-in-law does not, you know, whatever energy she brings into the house, and it's not intentional, it's just this dynamic that's there, it's just there. There's acceptance there that can't control it. It's there. My only thing I can control is my reaction to it.

And that's a boundary too. You were mentioning before that giving up that control is very freeing and it's also incredibly empowering. When we start giving up our power to someone else, and hold those healthy boundaries, it can feel very empowering. Have you experienced that too?

Melissa: Oh yeah, definitely. It's what you said earlier, just taking that responsibility just for myself, right? And only having to worry about myself and just really focusing in on that and just letting go. It's like but the, it's just like the self respect I guess, you know, just giving myself permission to be okay with saying what I want and leaving it at that, right? And just being able to leave it at that really, because for so long that I struggled with.

Okay yes, I said my boundary, but then I would give her things where “ooh, should I take it back?” You know? It's you know, sort of backtrack on that, you know, I guess I'm thinking of just like that dance of learning how to set it right, learning how to set that boundary at the beginning.

Laura: So I feel like we've been kind of talking about boundaries in the theoretical sense, can we get really practical? So like what does it figure it out our values, where the lines are, what's important, what matters to us, what the deal breakers are, then how do we go about actually implementing and setting those boundaries with the people we love? What does that sound like?

Melissa: Yeah, I think being assertive is really, really important. So what's really clear, the difference between, you know, how we're going to implement the boundary. So in the past, I'll give you an example. My husband is a pack rat. He just loves to cover every single surface of our house. And so in the past, you know, pre-boundary setting me would have been like, “you need to clean up this clutter, it's an absolute disaster. I can't function like this.”
Whereas, that's a very reactive state versus being assertive and using an “I” statement like “I need, you know, the house, this space to be clutter free,” can't be the entire house and our house would have to compromise. But I need these spaces to be clutter free. You know, it's really stating what you need first and then, when you make that really clear and giving them a chance to respond with what they are willing to do versus you know, getting into this situation where it's blaming, then let’s say making it all about what they're doing, not what you need.

Laura: That's taking responsibility piece. So identifying what your actual needs are and the why’s too. So being able to say, you know, so when I walk into a room and every surface is cluttered, it really makes it hard for me to concentrate. It raises my anxiety level. I would really love to work with you to figure out some way we could have some of the surfaces be clear, you know? Or what is your thought on it without blame without shame. And really positioning as a, you’re recognizing like this is my stuff. Like I'm understanding that not everybody has the same reaction to a cluttered surface. This is my reaction to it. Here is the reaction. Can we work together to figure this out, right?

Melissa: Exactly. And the feelings are very important. As you said, Laura, like, because for so long I wasn't very comfortable sharing my feelings just because I thought my spouse wasn't going to care about what my feelings were. It was a story that I made up in my mind.

Laura: Yeah, I think we often have those stories from our childhood because it seemed as if our parents didn't care and then we're in a very familiar feeling, loving relationship and we make the conclusion that other people won't care too.

Melissa: Yeah. So I would come up with an approach of just do it, just get it done. And it was sort of like a petty tyrant, right? But when you really start opening up and having conversations about why, why it matters to you, and makes you, can make a tremendous difference, I think. And then the second thing I'll say is just, you know, is so important, learning how to say no when you don't want to do something many of us just say yes out of habit.

Laura: Or to avoid a conflict or…

Melissa: Or to avoid a conflict.

Laura:Or avoid disappointing someone.

Melissa: Or to look good, you know? Yes, I'll bake the brownies for the PTA and you know, I have zero time to do that. So it really is okay to say no. And I'm always practicing saying no without an explanation. That's too wise. No.

Laura: What does that sound like that? Like that pinged a little bit of anxiety in me. I can't. There's not a word for that like, but it totally did. It was like you guys can't see me, but I keep making the same thing. But what does no without an explanation sound like? This is groundbreaking.

Melissa: You know, “Thank you for thinking of me. Unfortunately, I will not be able to do X, Y, Z.” Or just “No, I can't make it.” Simple as that. It is like in the beginning and sometimes, you know via text message, I find myself like going into the explanation and I'm like…..

Laura: Delete. Delete. Delete.

Melissa: Yes, yes. It’s okay. And I've got, I've got a friend who does a really great job of just modeling that too. Or she'll just say “thanks for thinking of me, maybe next time,” you know, or “that won't work for me.” I don't use that one as often. That one doesn't feel.

Laura: It's uncomfortable for you.

Melissa: Yeah, that one doesn't feel as comfortable for me. But there are plenty of ways to say no that I've even read. Of course they're not coming top of mind. It doesn't have to be like “no, period,” if that doesn't feel right to you. But sometimes it can't just be “no, period,” right?

Laura: Yeah. I do like the sandwiching approach that you were modeling. The sandwich, you sandwich the “No” with two positives.
Thank you so much for thinking of me.
That's not going to work out this time.
Feel free to circle back.

You know, or…

You know, I do want to support your effort, this is the way I'm available to support.

You know this or you know, or thanks so much for reaching out. I would love to spend more time with you.

I'm not available this weekend.

I look forward to catching up. Are you available to do X, Y and Z, that's within your boundary? So I like sandwiching a lot.

Melissa: Yes, so I had the opportunity to help my son out with some boundary setting recently.

Laura: Ooh I love that.

Melissa: Oh my goodness. It was like, “oh man, I really want to jump in and just save you here.” But I know that it's not the right thing to do. But he had a friend that kept stopping by unannounced and it really wasn't someone who he wanted to play with and he was getting very angry. And I was like, well we did some role playing and it was like I gave him a couple of different options and he's such a sweet kid. He's like, you know, I don't want to like say, you know, I'll play later because I probably don't want to play later.

You know, like we had a lot of back and forth around that. And so he was able to practice and he was able to nip it in the bud and then this is, this is someone he goes to school with as well. But he was even uncomfortable with the situation that happened at school and he let the little boy know, the friend know. But he went until the teacher, like when he couldn't handle it himself. It was such a proud mom moment to see him be able to really stand in what was comfortable for him because you see it on our kids, right? Where because they don't have that emotional regulation. He was just seething in anger every time this kid showed up. But not really wanting to say anything initially.

Laura: Because it's a tricky thing. This is the thing like we teach our kids from a very young age to not be exclusive right to include, include, include everybody is your friend. And it's really not teaching the best boundaries, right, when they're little. And so then, they get to be older and they know they're not supposed to not be friends with everybody.

We have personal preferences. There are people that just we don't jive with, that we don't want to spend time with and that's okay. So I mean part, like part of me wants parents be teaching kids this all along to check in with your internal compass. Is this a person you enjoy spending time with? And then, how do we set that boundary if they're not in a kind and loving way? You know, in a way that is respectful. Can I ask you like what was the final like way that your son delivered this boundary that you ended up role playing? Do you remember what the final… you wanted to use?

Melissa: I let him do it himself. So I think he, I think he chose to say, hey man, that's, I think he wanted to play baseball with him quite a bit. “I really just don't feel like it today.” I think was one of them he used and I think that he also… I did see it takes some time. It was a couple of drop drop and so I think he tried a couple of them. I think he said let's just play at school was one of them. And so I mean they were all very kind. You know, they weren't like eventually in the beginning that they weren't always kind of, you know, like just coming over here.

Laura: It's a skill like, like you're saying at the very beginning, it's a skill that needs to be practiced. You know, it's funny like as a kid, my mom was always willing to be kind of the bad guy and help me set boundaries by setting them for me. And I always really appreciated that as a kid who had a hard time hurting other people's feelings, who was nervous to stand up for myself in certain circumstances. For example, like I've always needed to go to bed early even as a teenager, I was like “nine o'clock lights out” and I always had friends who wanted to stay up and talk on the phone and I just, I couldn't manage to set that boundary myself.

And so my mom, like we would have a signal and she would yell, “Laura, get off the phone,” you know. And I think it's lovely to have someone who has your back, who you can depend on to help you with those things. But I also do wish she had coached me more in like what you did with your son and how to confidently set that boundary for yourself. I do think that that would have made boundary setting in my, you know, late teens and early college twenties, that would have made things a lot easier. I think you're setting yourself up for a lot of success, there's a balance that needs to be there, right?

Melissa: Absolutely. But that's the goal, right? The absolute goal is just to help him in situations because there's going to be a lot of situations coming down the line where, you know, we're not there.

Laura: Yeah, and he needs those skills. So these are low stakes moment where you're there to support him so that he can have those skills in high stakes moments, like when it's the choice to get into the car with a friend who's been drinking for example, like you want him to have healthy boundaries there, like, “no man, let's call an Uber,” you know? You want him to be able to confidently set those boundaries.

Melissa: Yes, absolutely. Oh my goodness, someone cringing thing about the teenage years,

Laura: They're coming for all of us. We need to lay the foundation now, like it's good stuff, you know? I think like, I really am glad that we circled into this conversation with our kids too, because this is part of, you know, part of what we believe here is that kids learn through modeling. So if we've been consistently setting healthy boundaries in front of our kids for ourselves, their whole lives, they will have information and resources about boundaries and then once they start getting into more and more situations, we can coach them and support them in figuring it out.

I think that balance though is really key. Like they need to know we’re there. Like, for example, like when my girls are at a party, like I want them to know, like I will be the bad guy for them. Like I will be the, you know, like that they can be like, “oh my mom, she's such a make believe.” Like that is fine with me, you know, if that's what they need. I have a feeling, I have one very, like, very good boundary setting daughter. My older one. I don't think that she's going to need that so much. I think she's going to be very confident in delivering her boundaries, but my other one might need a little bit more support.

Melissa: Yeah, but I think that I've heard you talk about this before, just the generational impact, right? You know, I learned boundaries in my thirties and you know, they don't, they don't have to go through so much of their life without having these skills. To me, that's just everything.

Laura: It's everything. Yeah, it's absolutely, it's…So these boundaries are good for us, but they're good for our kids and they're good for our entire lineage, right? So that future generations, it's beautiful work. Thank you Melissa so much for this conversation about boundaries. I feel like this was really helpful and I hope that it was good for you too.

Melissa: Oh yes. Thank you for having me. I've been having your reflections back on some of this is really helpful for me as well. So just a great conversation. I so appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Laura: Absolutely! Well, thank you for coming. I want to make sure that everybody knows where to find you. Do you want to drop your socials every, all the links of course will be in the show notes. But sometimes listeners like to hear out loud where to find people.

Melissa: Yeah. So I hang out mostly on Facebook and my um you can find me under Melissa Salmeron Coaching and there's a link to my group, which is where I like to have a lot of conversations and that sort of safe space with moms. And I also have a website, it's melissasalmeron.com. And yes, if you don't know how to spell it…
Laura: I will put that in the show notes.

Melissa: But yeah, this are the places to find me.

Laura: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and experiences and your stories. It was really lovely to get to meet you and talk with you.

Melissa: Thank you, Laura.

Alright, that's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!

March 15, 2022

Episode 109: Challenging Behaviors Re-Imagined with Dr. Mona Delahooke

March 15, 2022/ Laura Froyen

I am so excited for today's episode on The Balanced Parent Podcast because our guest is one of my favorite authors. She's got a great book that you may already have read: Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children’s Behavioral Challenges. Plus a brand new book we are going to be discussing that will radically change the way you approach your child's challenging behaviors! Her work has transformed the lives of so many children and families, including my own, and I am so excited to share what I have learned from her with you!

I know learning to understand our kid's challenging behaviors can be really difficult as there's so much for us to uncover. And so for this episode, we will be figuring out how to see beyond our kids' challenging behaviors and really dig deep and understand what's going on for them, the underlying reasons for why they are the way they are, and how to support them more fully. To help us, Dr. Mona Delahooke has joined me in this conversation. She is a licensed clinical psychologist with more than thirty years of experience caring for children and their families. She is a senior faculty member of the Profectum Foundation and a member of the American Psychological Association. She is a frequent speaker, trainer, and consultant to parents, organizations, schools, and public agencies.

Here is an summary of our conversation:

The importance of looking beyond our children’s behaviors
Difference between stress behavior and intentional misbehavior (This is IT!)
The importance of knowing our child's nervous system
Co-regulation: Why is it important? And how to do it?
Advice on raising resilient kiddos

To get more resources, follow Dr. Delahooke on social media and visit her website.

Instagram: @monadelahooke

Twitter: @monadelahooke

Facebook Page: Mona Delahooke, Phd

Website: monadelahooke.com

Dr. Mona's new book BRAIN-BODY PARENTING: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids is on-sale today!

GRAB A COPY HERE

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.

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this episode of The Balanced Parent podcast, we are going to be figuring out how to see beyond our kids' challenging behaviors and figure out what's really going on for them and how to help them and to guide us in. This conversation is one of my favorite writers. Her name is Dr. Mona Delahooke. She's got a great book Beyond Behaviors and she's got a new book coming out called Brain-Body Parenting that is going to change the way we see our children and see ourselves and see our role as parents. So Mona, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so excited to talk to you.

Mona: Oh, I am equally as excited Laura. I'm just thrilled to be here so much to talk about.

Laura: Oh, there is so much to talk about. Right before we were hitting the record, I mentioned to Mona that this book was the next one that I was going to ask my husband to read because we've got a kiddo in our lives who can be quite reactive, you can have kind of some big challenging behaviors seemingly out of the blue. And I know that this book will help him understand her in a way that I do because of my background and training, but he doesn't have that background and training.

And I think that, that's one thing one of that is so important about your book is that most of us don't have this kind of basic knowledge of our nervous systems and what's going on kind of under the surface, not just for kids, but for ourselves too. I just so appreciate that you bring that to this book in a way that parents can actually learn and then see visually happening in their kids lives with their kids.

Mona: Thank you so much for that affirmation because it's kind of the lens that I wish I would have had looking back on myself as a young mother who struggled so much and who couldn't find anybody to tell me that there was different lens other than pathology in myself or my child or my own dark thoughts that I wasn't a good enough parent, you know, and why am I losing it? So, thank you for that. It's a great joy for me to talk about it in this end of my life where I've got grown children and I've seen clients in my office for three decades now I can speak with confidence and I'm so grateful if this can help one parent at a time, feel more compassion for themselves, then my day is good.

Laura: Oh! What a mission to have. Right? Hmm, that's good stuff. Okay, so you hit on something there that I just want to pull out because I do think that when parents are dealing with struggles with their child, when their child is behaving in a way that they think might be somewhat developmentally appropriate, but also seems kind of extreme and that they don't really see other kids doing and we go to seek help for it often times either the kid gets blamed.

There's something wrong with the kid or we get blamed that there's something wrong with how we've been doing things. We don't have enough limits or boundaries, we’re pushovers, we’re permissive or we’re, you know, too strict, too harsh for those folks who are in that place, who are trying to figure out like what do I do with these kids? What do I do with myself? What would you say to them?

Mona: Yeah. Well, the first thing I would say to them is be prepared to get a lot of noise from the world about what's going on. You know, and it's well intentioned noise. I'm not saying that pediatricians and teachers and even those in our own field of psychology, Laura, aren't well intentioned, they are. But the training just really hasn't been updated. The lens by which we view behavioral challenges, has not been updated in the last Say 50-75 years. It's so true and that's because system change takes a long time.

But also the decade of the brain was not that long ago. So with compassion for the human beings who are trying to do the research, it hasn't translated for parents. And so parents suffer a lot. We suffer when I say we, you know, I had a child who had developmental differences and regulatory issues. And the only framework that I was given were like the DSM Diagnosis situation, like it could be X. Y or Z.

Which as you know, is very limited. And the demons in my head saying, you know, oh, my own dark childhood, maybe he's catching up with my children or genetics. All these things that I was taught in graduate school, right? But my story has a coda, it has a really wonderful piece to it and that was that about 30 years ago I had a colleague who was in the same position but she wanted to go into neuroscience studying neuroscience and she had twins who were struggling. And she contacted this neuroscientist named Dr. Stephen Porges who was actually doing research on the nervous system on the brain and body.

So I was introduced to a lens shift very early in my career and that changed my life over the years. Of course it took me quite a while to integrate it, to study it and to practice it to make sure I was able to say with confidence that there is a new way to view behavioral challenges other than through the lens of pathology or through the lens of self blame and that's basically what beyond behaviors was about.

A new lens that blends compassion with brain science so that you have the evidence that you need to say, oh wow, it's not because I'm a bad parent or I'm inconsistent in my discipline or I have to do a better sticker chart. It's about two nervous systems trying really hard to stay safe to survive and to make it through the day.

Laura: Yeah, I really love that. I love your emphasis that there's two nervous systems that play. I think so often as parents, we’re, are given the message that we really just need to focus on the child's nervous system but ours plays a big role in it too. So, okay, let me ask you a question then.

So when we think about kind of looking beyond children's behaviors or coming to understand that not all behaviors that a child is kind of engaging in, particularly the ones that we classify as challenging or misbehaving are actually willful because I think that that's something that trips parents up a lot. Parents think, well, I know he can do this without having a tantrum. I know that she can, you know, she knows not to hit her sibling. So she must be choosing to do. So she must be choosing these bad behaviors. What do you say to that?

Mona: That is brilliant. And I get it. We're thinking, wait a second. They just did they were able to do it an hour ago. What's with the program and now they're flipping out, throwing things at their sibling. And to be honest, if it doesn't piss you off as a parent, then, you know, you're in the minority because that would be like, oh my gosh, you just did that. I know you can do it try harder. I know you can do it, try harder. Come on. All right.

Laura: So what's really happening then?

Mona: Here's one way of looking at it. We're not distinguishing between top down and bottom or body of behaviors and a little way of an easy way of thinking about that is that top down behaviors are all mediated by a child's effort and thinking about it. In other words, I'm choosing to slap my sibling right now and you're actually thinking about it through your brain. But not all behaviors are mediated. Not all behaviors are top down our culture doesn't know that yet. We really think of all behaviors as being a choice.

So there's something called the autonomic nervous system which is basically our brain and body connection we think of as a neural platform, a brain body based platform that launches behaviors. Sometimes in children oftentimes in toddlers. But even if sometimes as adults, we have behaviors launched their protective subconsciously to our bodies, but end up being very challenging. And for our children, we have to remember that the thresholds for our ability to control our behaviors float throughout the day and that is why your child may be able to comply with the task one hour and the next hour they can't because their platform has shifted towards a deficit and they are unable at that moment to control their behaviors.

Laura: And so, okay, so then how does a parent know when that's happening when the child's kind of platform has shifted when their capacity has narrowed to the point where they can't handle something that they could handle before?

Mona: That's the huge question and it's not always easy to distinguish. Let me just say that in our field the research, you know, some of the older research said that there are signatures on the face, for example, that you can tell what a child is feeling by looking at their facial expression. But actually that research has is being challenged very strongly by the work of neuroscience, some neuroscientists in affective neuroscience and how emotions are constructed. But let me just say that the way I found that's the most useful is that we look like clusters of markers, what we call physiological markers on your child's face and body.

And that way you'll know if the child's physiology is producing a shaky platform, what does that mean? For example, your child may have different ways of moving their body if they are throwing, kicking, hitting, screaming, foaming at the mouth if they're crying. If their voices really strained and whiny and loud and controlled. Those are some signs of a signature autonomic distress or of what we call the fight or flight response. Like the, I call it the red pathway. Is the child or am I in the red? Is there a rapid heart rate? Sometimes you can put your hand gently and maybe if the child looks you, if they're a little one on their chest or in their in their back and you can feel that heart rate just like racing.

That's one sign. We look at clusters, not just one because a child could have a racing heart because they're playing and having fun, right? And they're excited. But we look for signs of distress and what I call the red pathway and in the book and Beyond Behaviors. And in my new book, Brain-Body Parenting. I lay out all of those lists of things that we look for. So you can actually tabulate in your child if they're calm in their nervous system. If we could, if they're in the green, what we call it, the green pathway, meaning their body is common, alert, then we might say, okay, this child is being a scientist.

They're trying to test this limit and their physiology is supporting that. I go one way with my parenting, right? That's certainly happens as we all know because children are scientists there have to discover the limits of their own authority. That's fine. But if a child is out of control of their physiology, we go another way. And as I know, you know, because I've listened to some of your podcasts, compassion can lead the way of those directions. We can always be empathic and kind not that it's easy, we can tell ourselves like Ross Greene says, children do well if they can. I do believe that parents do well when they can. We just sometimes we can't.

Laura: Oh my gosh, I love parents so much. I have so much compassion for them for us. You know, for yes, you said something there that I just want to pull out that I feel like not very many people can say. You said they might be on the green pathway, you know, and testing the limits of their own, you know, autonomy and you said and that's fine. And I just want to like highlight because this lens shift is important.

Being able to see like this limit testing is not about defiance, it's not about disobedience, it's not about authority, it's not about them disrespecting you, it's about a biological developmental drive to figure out their world and like and when we can have a like and that's fine attitude about it, it releases it so much. I'm so glad you tease that out.

Mona: I'm so glad you tease that out because for some parents that could sound like almost trivializing it and let me say, yeah, the reason I said and that's fine is that I've seen it work out. I've worked with, you know now probably thousands of families either virtually or in person and then you see these testing behaviors and while they're happening in the moment, especially thinking about teenagers, like I'm thinking as a mom when I'm like, and that's fine. Yeah. How did I feel when my child, you know, snuck in a phone to school when cell phones were not allowed right?

And I get called at the moment and did not feel fine, but I can tell you now that I've gone through teenager hood with three children that these behaviors that humans do to test out their authority starting in toddlerhood thank goodness they have them because if they didn't they would never leave us and as hard as it seems or as sad as it seems when you have little children for your children to be independent and go to college if they want to or live on their own. The reason these behaviors are there is that they can survive on their own one day. So this parenting journey is one heck of an emotional trip. But when you see your child doing some of these behaviors that your neighbors or maybe even your own parents might be like oh my gosh what's happening?

Laura: They need a time out.

Mona: Yeah maybe you're not disciplining enough or if a teacher or an IEPT. Maybe again well intentioned lee says perhaps you're inconsistent with your discipline at home. You can tell yourself a different story that behaviors are adaptive and protective, we just have to understand them better.

Laura: Okay and so I feel like this is something that is really important to tease out and and then I want to ask about older kids. So when we say that behaviors are adaptive and protective and when we say that you know when some kids are having really challenging times there on this kind of red pathway in the fight or flight system, tell us a little bit more about how some of these challenging behaviors that we perceive as being challenging, hitting, kicking, spitting, you know, screaming, yelling, how we can start shifting to see them as adaptive and protective because I think that that's a key piece.

Mona: Yeah. And certainly I'm not talking about them being adaptive in the conventional sense, so functionally in our world, in a little preschool, when a child is hitting, that's not adaptive. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is from a neurodevelopmental perspective that they are adaptive to that child's nervous system. What does that mean? It means that through a process called your assumption that I talk about the new book and brain body parenting as our safety detector, it's our safety system detector kind of like a fire alarm for internally.

That's subconscious when that goes off inside a person's body. Whether whether it's a child or an adult, the body is instructed to move in ways, get the child back to feeling calm in human beings through our evolutionary history, that's through movement through movement, can be running away, could be hitting, shoving, it could be kind of hitting your or slapping your mama's face if you're a toddler and oh my gosh, that feels so horrible to us as parents were like, oh my gosh, you know, that's not good.

But what we think about is that this is protective to the child's nervous system and the child doesn't know it, the child's invisible to this, especially toddlers, right? They have their less mediated by their ability to explain themselves and more mediated by this nervous system adaptation to stress, which involves movement. So if you see your child fly off the handle, you can also think their nervous system has shifted into the red path. We get into the red, what I call the red the fight or flight response without their permission. And what we need to do is adaptive lee help them get back to green.

And how do we do that is through our relationship in human beings. We lend our nervous system to another nervous system, our child and we co regulate through our interactions and there are certain ways there's certain keys to unlock for each child. I don't believe in scripts because one script might work great for one kid and but you're often your tone of voice and that sends the child further into the red. So we develop our interactions to customize to each of our child's nervous systems and that is the basically the magic bullet is we customize our interactions to every child's nervous system.

Laura: I love this so much. I get asked for scripts all the time from parents. Yeah, we totally get it. We all want to know what to say. Please just tell us the right thing to do and say so we can be okay, totally understand those things. But the important, I think the piece that you really are highlighting here is that you and I don't know your kid is the one who knows you're the one who has your child and you are the ones with the true capacity for knowing.

Mona: That is absolutely right. And until our child is developmentally able to tell us right. Being able to talk about your internal world and let your parents know what you need is a huge social emotional acquisition. It's a milestone in the process. And so many it takes years and years.

Laura: So many of us are still working on that. Right.

Mona: Right. And that's why sometimes reasoning falls short. But the idea about co regulation affect our emotions through our relationship, basically the research is showing us that our emotional tone is more important than the words we say. And that's where parental self-care and balance and I love again your podcast because it's the balanced parent, a balanced parent. And one that is a little bit mindful. You don't have to be a yogi.

You don't have to do anything that's not you. But if you can observe yourself again, I think about like the stories I tell in brain body parenting or on myself. I was living in an out of body experience. There were times where I forgot to drink water during the day and I was you know like so disconnected from my body because I was so busy parenting and working that when we can self observe, why am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Where are my emotions right now? Am I red or green? Then we can be that co regulator. Research shows us the best thing for a nervous system in distress is the another nervous system who loves them and who is not in distress?

Laura: Mm hmm. Yeah.

Mona: And it's, it might sound like a lot of pressure but we have to take pressure off ourselves because there's so much redundancy in our system so we can ruptures are going to happen more often than repairs.

Laura: I love that part of your book. Listeners, I hope you do pick up her book, but there's an entire section that kind of describes the importance of rupture and repair and the reality that there will be more ruptures than kind of getting it spot on perfect. And that's okay.

Mona: And that's okay. We are not our children, our children from the moment they're born, they have a different brain and body than we do. And so we'll never know what it's like to live inside of them because we're not them. We love them beyond measure. And we love them more than we've probably ever loved anything in the world.

That's why I think in the scheme of things, repairs are so magical and we don't have to be perfect parents. We don't have to get it right. We can't get it right because we're not them. But what we can do is be keen observers of them and ourselves. And I hope my work will help move the ball forward away from generic parenting advice or what is good for a generic child to helping us figure out what's good for us and what's good for our own beautiful child, one child at a time.

Laura: Oh yes, I love that so much. I so agree with the observation thing. So in my community we spend the entire month of January which we're recording this at that point right now, where my community and I spend an entire month just learning how to be keen observers of our children in their play, a very deep dive into learning how to be non judgmental, present mindful observers, which is so important to what you're teaching in your book. It's a really important skill to build as a parent so that you can figure out what's going on.

Is my kid in the red zone or you know, in the red pathway, I love that you talk about that so much and being a keen observer of ourselves of our own internal states. I want to ask about older kids because that is something that as of my child moves into middle childhood, I have a nine year old, there is so much less out there for older kids. So I do want to move there, but I think before I do, I want to talk a little bit more about co regulation.

I do feel like it is a buzzword that we're hearing a lot and we're hearing about it in marital contexts and with friendships. And with with parenting and I kind of just, I wanna like no, like okay, so as a parent, what does co regulation literally look like in practice with my child when they're just regulated. So let's say just the common scenario. Kiddo is we set a limit there, it's put them onto the red pathway and they're hitting us. What does co-regulation look like in that moment?

Mona: It's the best question because I agree with you, co regulation is getting thrown around so much kind of like a buzzword and everyone's assuming. I think that I don't know what people are assuming about what it means, but some parents I've talked to think that it means just being nice or you know, and there's so many definitions but to me the definition of co regulation is it goes back down to very young developmental stage which continues throughout the lifespan and that is our role as a parent.

Is to help co regulate the physiological state of our child, of our baby, that's our sole role. What does that mean? It means paying attention, feeding the baby when they're hungry, attending to the crying baby or toddler giving attunement which is noticing. So if I had to say the steps of co regulation one the first step in the example you gave the child is just like freaking out. You know…

Laura: We've all been there.

Mona: We've all been there, so two letters, one word, so stop and observe, okay stop for a second and observe two things observe yourself in that moment because if you're nervous system has just gone red with your child, that's valuable information. Have so much compassion like okay stop and observe. I'm in the red, the child's in the red. We got a problem here. And so that little problem is for the moment, what can I do for myself in the moment?

We do take care of our nervous system first because we are the tool were the tool. Our ability to see a human in distress. If a child has just hit a sibling and you know they're a loving child, you know that that was a stress behavior and not an intentional purposeful bad behavior. We need to keep the child safe and then help them get back to green. So keeping the child safe would be making sure your values are projected. No no sweetheart. We, in our family, we do not hit our siblings and oh my sweetheart, how are we going to feel better right now? So we stop and observe and then we attend to that child's nervous system. If we're able to, if we're not we take a few breaths if you have a partner close by a co partner, you know, grab them.

Laura: In my community. We have little code words for when you need to tag and tag out for sure.

Mona: Love it. You love it. Tag somebody. Many parents are single parents or you are not with a person right? Then, you're really needing to pull for that self compassion and find a moment to get back to green because if you're in the red yourself, you likely will not be as effective for your child as if you're in control. So stop and observe and then check in with that child depending on where they are at. If they're up regulated. If their body is needing to move, then we really try to provide that some ability to move their body.

Not a good idea to force a child to sit down. If they're in the red, we really would like to allow the child to move about the room. Of course making sure they're safe, but letting them know that we see their distress. So if we're yelling and screaming at the child and saying that's really bad to hate your sibling. What I want parents to know is that that child as soon as they get back to green is going to feel remorseful and they're not gonna know why they hit their sibling if it truly was a stress reaction and we see this very often in neurodivergent children and in toddlers who are, you know, don't have the capacity yet.

And frankly, you know, a lot of humans, especially through this pandemic are on their knees with their regulations. We have to love and have compassion for those humans who can't control their behaviors right now because they're suffering too.

Laura: Yes. Oh my goodness, they are. You know, something that I do for myself when I'm find myself in the red zone, when my kids are in the red zone, I have a little thing that I say to myself that helps me. So I put my hand on my heart and I say, here I am, I am here. I am safe. I am loved just a few times to just kind of get myself back into my body.

I think that our you know, if that if we're in the red zone, then all our bodies really want to know is am I safe? Right? That's really what they want to know. Yes. You know, and for our kids to and what's beautiful. I think about that too, is that that's good modeling for them. You know.

Mona: It's beautiful or it's so beautiful. This recognition, the stopping and observing so that we can ground ourselves and not beat ourselves up. You know, because sometimes when your child does that, an automatic thought is I've taught them better than that or we might project in the future and think, what kind of person are you going to be in the world?

I have to train you not to be aggressive because then you'll do really bad at school and, you know, our minds go tell a story, of course they do what our child's behavior means. And we can start telling ourselves a news story, starting with ourselves.

Laura: And staying, you know, I found the stories that we tell ourselves are either way in the past, our way in the future. And by observing, we pull ourselves into the present moment where reality is actually happening versus, you know, those stories, you know?

Mona: Yeah, we totally do. And I'm hoping that this knowledge of the different types of behaviors that stress behaviors are qualitatively different than than purposeful misbehaviors that we can start to be more granular in our parenting techniques and use more specific techniques that are better for each issue and child and for each child's nervous system for each town. So it's about customizing our interactions and that is so exciting. That's really fun.

And yeah, it's also hard. I wanted to follow up on another thing that you said about this month for your community and we are not really trained, I think as parents and even as again as as professionals to just follow our child's lead and spend some time marveling at how they play because let's remind ourselves from birth to really, you know, it could be up to 10, I don't know, I played as a 10 year old, but let's say for sure, birth to seven or eight plays the natural language and if we can watch our children play and play with them that oh my goodness.

The research on that is again, it's in the book, You've probably read it, the research on play is through the roof. It's the natural best way to boost our relationship with our child, but also to boost our child's cognitive development, their social development, their emotional development. It's insanely powerful to learn how to play. And most of us don't know how or aren't comfortable with it and that's okay, there's support for that five minutes a day, it can be five minutes, it doesn't have to be all day and then, you know.

Laura: Oh, of course, no. You know, around here we love play and we recognize that parents don't always have the time or energy for it. But yes, five minutes. And, and when, you know how to play with a child, it's much easier than we think it has to be. I think we all think it has to be like we're like being really active and have art using our imaginations and our mental capacity and really when we step back and let the child lead, which is what really they need to have happen anyway.

You know, if they if we think about it from a therapy perspective, if we're sitting down with a therapist and the therapist is doing all the talking, we're not getting the best bang for our buck on that section, Right? And so when it comes to a play session with kids, if we're doing all the playing the kid is not getting the benefit right?

Mona: Absolutely. If you do it in a way that is actually fun for you and there is a way to learn how to do it. It's like you're also having fun both of you but we don't have to do the heavy lifting. In fact we don't recommend that parents don't do the heavy lifting bench following the child's lead. So anyway.

Laura: Absolutely. I had a podcast episode coming out on in January on that exact topic on stop doing the heavy lifting of the play, okay. We talked about this kind of scenario, we envisioned a young child completely on the Redpath hitting and what to do how to engage in co regulation. And I'd like to kind of bring this out to older kids. I think older kids are really struggling in this pandemic and they're not getting a lot of attention.

The parents of nine to kind of 18 year olds that I work with right now, Their kids are we're seeing a huge right like increase in anxiety, depression and ADHD. diagnoses right now and these are you know, manifesting in some big behavioral responses and these kids are bigger now. They're not three, they're not easy to kind of you know scoop up and kind of push put into a place that's safe to keep them safe.

They're big and so what are some of the advice or guidance you have for these parents of these big kids who are struggling. Like it's struggling. They're struggling like legitimately struggling right now.

Mona: Definitely struggling because they're legitimately suffering. So, let's think about just for a moment, like a context for us to understand what our older children that are, you know, think about 9-18, that age range of child is wanting developmentally are launching into the world of peers and launching into their own world.

This is the third year, beginning the third year of the pandemic. That ability to launch into the world has been thwarted. My idea is one of the reasons we're seeing increase such huge increases in depression and anxiety in that demographic is because developmentally they have been put in kind of these artificial cages.

Laura: I so agree, right? It's like, you know, it's like when your kids are learning to walk when they're babies or learning to crawl. Like my kids, both of them went through sleep regressions because they literally couldn't sleep because they would spend all night up on their hands and knees rocking and trying to crawl. You know, it's a developmental imperative for them. It is a development or biologically driven need. And I also agree that these older kids are being caged. They're being confined, confined.

Mona: So let's draw the analogy of the human nervous system and what is the nervous system do when it is sensing threat because it can't move. The symbolism of movement is like our children, we have been telling our children now that you can't move, you can't go back to high school, you're, you know, many of them didn't go back to college? Middle school is a huge movement away from parents and it's that first tentative one, right? And it's scary, but it's exhilarating at the same time.

So I think the upswing is definitely, it's a deal and it wasn't easy before that because teenager hood and seeking independence biologically for humans isn't necessarily easy for the parents. It's easier for the teenagers, but it's much less easy for these dear parents who adore our children and who have kind of maybe hovered over them more than our parents hovered over us or previous generations because of the way the world has progressed and we do have a situation. So the basic idea I think would be first of all co regulation happens throughout the lifespan.

So what does that mean? I think from a nonverbal and verbal perspective of our whole bodies, if a child is upset, suffering, struggling to try to withhold judgment and use our presence if we can just again stop and observe and say things like or slow down our bodies, be able to tolerate hearing that, that your child is suffering. And I know as a sensitive mom that was really hard for me because I wanted to fix it right away and I don't like to see my kids suffering, but to be able to just be there and say, this sucks, this is so hard honey.

I see that you are upset right now and I'm just wondering, is there anything I can do to that would support you at this moment or would you like just have some time to yourself? I think our presence is we can't underestimate the power of presence. And I think I remember in my life when when my teenagers were struggling, one of the most powerful things I did was kind of hang out in their room or hang out where they were. But without saying anything I was like, hey, I've got some papers here, I'm grading or I've got, you know, I'm working on something.

Can I just hang it, can I just sit here with you? Hang out and I think your music school and I just want to be there and sometimes they look at me like “what, that's weird”. But sooner or later sometimes it took days, Sometimes it took hours. We just like, hey, can I talk to you for a sec now? Taking locks, maybe going to grab a coffee or making coffee and tea, whatever. You know, presence really helps. And so that's one piece.

The other piece is to just try to be creative I think to help them help support, they're finding ways to be with their friends creative ways and to have a big band with maybe for the amount of time they want to spend online with friends because that is again, it's their natural instinct is really teenagers want to spend less time with us and more time with their peer group and that's what we call phyllo genetically adaptive, you know? So I wish I had really some, some ants of other answers. What have you found or is helping most with your kids with your older child?

Laura: Well, so I mean, I think as a therapist, we are well trained in cultivating silence and trusting our partner in the silence to come in and into the silent space and so learning how to tolerate a little bit of silent, creating that vacuum then that they will then kind of fill in trusting that they like, that's something that just naturally happen. So I love that you, I do that too. I will, if my daughter is in her room, I will say, hey honey, I want to do a little knitting.

Do you mind if I come in, you know, nick next to you while you're reading and then sooner or later we're chatting, we keep a journal together. I find that sometimes there are things that are hard to talk about and I know that this is helpful for lots of older kids too, who can't say the things that they want to say to their parents. And so, you know, for those of us who have younger kids are still kind of into it. If you start the practice now when they're younger than you'll have that journal to kind of fall back on when if things get rough.

I found with some of my older clients to that texting between parents and children often gets a little bit more of the nitty gritty and the honesty and two, there's something about that platform and using the notes app, having a shared notes because sometimes teens will be less likely to to text something because it feels very like in the moment like, oh my mom's gonna see this and then she's gonna come busting into my room but using a shared no app where you can almost like the journaling but digital,

Mona: You know that it's kind of a little bit like a google doc that you can update.

Laura: Exactly yeah, so those are nice little things to build connection, but I think that there's also room especially with their older children and in your book, I think you call it kind of this top down educating, starting to teach them about their brain and about what's going on for them and about why things maybe are harder, you know right now developmentally and kind of culturally sociologically because of what we're going through. Do you have any recommendations for how a parent can kind of start those conversations of teaching their children a little bit about their brain and about the different pathways.

Mona: Totally yes, it starts with modeling and I think we can model when they're younger. I encourage parents to model our internal process and the way we do this is that we actually start with modeling self awareness to our bodies? Because that's where emotions ultimately come from is from our physical bodies, not from our brain remember that our brain gets fed operating instructions from our bodies. And so, so when you're with your child, you know, something happens, like say you say you're driving and you're with your child in the car and all of a sudden a large fire truck and police cars zoom by and you didn't really see them. It was scary, like, oh my goodness, that was so loud.

Oh my goodness, wow! Or oh, my heart's beating a little fast. I'm glad they passed. And let me make sure there's no more cars coming. Take a breath. Okay, now, let me continue driving. I mean, so just like allowing children to see that we notice shifts in our body is really powerful. So modeling that and I have examples of happy. Yeah, for different age ranges. So modeling is is sets the table this future ability to self observe. And then the idea that we can also teach children about the fact that we have these nervous systems. And I don't usually use that word.

I, you know, I use the wording of our bodies give us information and sometimes it gives us information that makes us feel like we have to get away from something like that. We get maybe get really angry or agitated or want to hit something and there are ways that we can begin to notice that and then ask the child, have you ever felt that way? If you ever felt like so pissed off that your sibling or so upset and then have the child come up with a word for that? What might, what word do you have for that?

You can even let them know, what would you if you have a word for that? You know, when I get a blow up or a child might have and say, well, I feel like a firecracker, like, oh my goodness, firecracker, Yes. Tell me if you remember the last time you were felt that way your body was feeling that way. We don't just have, you know, one pathway. We have multiple pathways in the book. The newest, the latest research is also that in addition to those three main pathways, you know, you have your calm alert, which is the ventral vagal pathway, you have the fight or flight, you know, the red pathway and then the the the shutdown, the dorsal vagal would be the, what we call the blue pathway that research is showing that there are like overlapping pathways. So it's very complex.

But for for kids, we don't want to over simplified to the point that we're saying this is exactly what the science is, but more of here's how we can observe our body reacting to different things from our inside of our gut and from the outside world. Sometimes we have stomach aches right? And then or sometimes we have a rapid heart rate that sometimes we will hear or think about something that makes us feel upset and then other times there will be like we'll hear loud noises. Is that a gunshot? Is that a, you know, a car backfiring depending on our situations, we humans have different ways that our bodies and brains manage stress and helping our children come up with their own ways of understanding how their body is managing stress is what I talked about, I think in chapters seven and eight and nine in the book and I the only caveat is that I really think it's important to not teach too soon.

So for preschoolers for example, if we're, if we're busy teaching them about their brains and bodies, it kind of cuts into co regulation, which is really non verbal and not teaching, it's more relational. So the embodied experience of it starts first and then as our children age and coming to you know later childhood and teenager hood of course we can talk about our nervous systems.

Laura: Yeah, I like that you're mentioning that that it's the younger kids need to experience it, they need the modeling, they need the presence, they need experience of it and as kids get older and have more access to language and executive functioning, then they can start talking about it a little bit more that it's it's meta cognition is what we're talking about and that's something that is a very advanced skill.

Mona: Worry, it involves concept formation. Yes, that's an advanced skill so yeah, I don't know if you're trying to teach too soon, that's okay just you know that you know if it's it's not really taking taking hold in your child, there's a developmental reason why.

Laura: Okay we've talked longer than I expected to. I'm so sorry Dr. Delahooke, I did want to just you know because we're the balanced parent here and we do you have an entire chapter devoted to kind of taking care of your own self and how important that is. Do you have any just like little things? You know I, I know parents are sick of hearing about self care and were just sick of it but what are some like some things that we can do to take really good care of our nervous systems that are easy though, don't add more to the to do list.

Mona: Well I've started talking about micro moments of self care. Micro moments because some of the blog posts that I wrote about self care, like no one read because I think it was like oh no who has, I'm barely surviving. How can I even think about self care right?

Laura: I think we have to radically change the way we even think about self care at some point, you know?

Mona: But I'm not even sure that's the right word.

Laura: It isn't.

Mona: No it isn't but I think but in the moment let's say we've hit on it already is that awareness mixed with compassion. If we have awareness that's okay, that's kind of more generic mindfulness. But to me one of the best mental health studies I've done and deep dives I've done is with Dr. Krsiten Neff. I went to two week long workshops with her and Chris Germer and it was about and when you couple mindful awareness of the present moment with self compassion it's pretty powerful. It actually reduces your heart rate.

So some of the things I might do would be especially if I'm by myself is literally put my hand on my heart right and take a mindful moment and just like say to myself this is a difficult moment human beings struggle and I'm a human being and may I be gentle, may I be kind and sometimes I shorten that to may I be gentle to myself gentleness because for some reason us mommies and and many daddies are really hard on ourselves.

Laura: We are. We're so committed to being gentle parents and at the same time we enact on ourselves all the things that were done to us. You know we don't make that internal shift to be you know as we're cultivating a wise compassionate outer parent. I I hope that we are also working to cultivate a wise compassion in our parents too.

Mona: So in the moment, I do. I do have some mantras that I use and I guess some of the things that I do for myself now, I mean I do have the benefit of having not doing actual care for children. However I do have a super busy life is trying to get outside or either look up at the sky and I love looking at clouds because I envision the problems in my life as the clouds and me as the sky, like the greater perspective of the sky isn't going to take me down you know, but the clouds are gonna pass so I can feel like those are clouds and my children's problems and my issues are clouds that do pass are suffering shifts and changes. So getting outside for a few minutes a day grounding your feet taking some steps. It's really helped my mental health and it's great for for exercise to, to walk a little bit during the day. And some of the things that you can do.

Laura: Oh and there's so much research to back up the benefits of being in nature, to our nervous is so much.

Mona: So much. And if you're not, if you live in a city you can even find nature in a you know something growing out of the sidewalk, right little sprout of a weed coming out of the sidewalk can be beautiful because it's green and it's it's alive and sometimes we feel so alone if we reach out to other humans and also feel that sense of shared humanity and hopefully it will help.

Laura: Absolutely Mona. Thank you so much for this time and for your wisdom and for your work. I know that you have already changed the lives of thousands and thousands of parents. I hope that everybody listening gets your book. I'm planning to host a book club and my membership so we can go through it and really dig in and figure out how it all applies to our own kids.

Mona: That's so wonderful. Thank you.

Laura: Oh, it will be wonderful. I want you to know that we are also so grateful for your contribution to this world because it's it continues and like, you know, we went through our trainings at different points in the trajectory of kind of this field and I learned everything I know about this aspect of things after grad school. You know, it's it was just wasn't part, you know, all of my training was behavioralist and because you have to unlearn a lot.

Mona: We have to unlearn a lot and it's a pleasure to be with and amongst and talking to colleagues like you who are shifting the paradigm and helping support parents feel more compassion for themselves and for their kids. And so thank you again for having me on, I'm so grateful.

Laura: Oh my gosh, well, me too, thank you so much.

Laura: Oh my gosh, how awesome was that interview with Dr. Delahooke, I love her work. I think that she sees children and parents through this beautiful, compassionate and science based lens and I still appreciate the invitation to look beyond our kids misbehavior, challenging behaviors and start seeing them clearly now. I hope that you will all grab her book, brain body parenting. I of course don't benefit from that in any way. I just think it's a really great book. Um it has a real lot of really important information in it. Um but books like this can be a lot to navigate on your own sometimes.

And so I just wanted to invite you in if you're not already in my balancing new membership community, but we are going to be doing a book club with this book where we are having regular meetings to discuss and to figure out what does this mean for our individual children and how do I apply this in my family in a way that works for us.

And so if you are wanting to read this book once and support, just know that our book club is going to be starting for this. The book comes out on March 16, so we'll give you a little bit of time to get the book and I think we'll probably start the book club in April. So we'd love to have you join our book club in the Balancing U membership community. Alright, that's it for this episode. See you soon.

March 08, 2022

Episode 108: How to change your brain patterns to achieve your goals with Adele Spraggon

March 08, 2022/ Laura Froyen

I know that you are doing your best to improve on your parenting and I'm right there with you, doing the work myself and cheering you on! But when it comes to actually implementing all that you have learned up until now, it can be really difficult. And so, for this week's episode, we are going to learn how we can change our brain patterns to achieve our goals in parenting and in our lives.

To help me in this conversation, I have brought in, Adele Spraggon, a behavioral change expert and award-winning author. After decades of feeling stuck in patterns of procrastination, avoidance and quitting, all of which kept her from living her life to its greatest potential, Adele set out on a journey of discovery and learning. The result is the creation of her proprietary 4 Step Re-patterning Technique, which she delivers through a member portal called the Pattern Maker Hub. Today, She now works with thousands of people to help them attain high levels of happiness, peace of mind, prosperity, goal achievement, and life fulfillment.

Here is an overview of our discussion:

What awareness looks like when we realize we are reacting out of habit or old patterns
The root cause of procrastination or overwhelm
Brain pattern changes we can start implementing today to achieve our goals

To get more resources, follow Adele on social media and visit her website.

Instagram: @adelespraggon
Facebook Page: Adele Spraggon Repatternist
Website: www.adelespraggon.com

Grab a copy of her book Shift: 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment HERE.

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.

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen. And on this episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be learning and diving deep into how to change our brain patterns to achieve our goals and to have this conversation. I am going to bring in a behavioral change expert, Adele Spraggon, and we're going to have this conversation and we're going to apply it to things in our own personal lives, changes that we want to be making in our own behavior, but also the changes that we want to be making as parents. I'm really excited for this conversation.

I know lots of, you know exactly what you're supposed to be doing and your parenting and then when it comes to actually implementing it and actually having the interactions that you want to be having with your kids that can be really hard and we're going to dive deep into why that's so hard and how to actually make lasting change. So Adele, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I'm so excited for it. Will you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Adele: Oh, I'd love to Laura. So as you said, my name is Adele spray gun and I'm a behavioral change expert. Yes. I'm also, you could say, a thought leader. So you know, I've been in the personal development industry Laura for about 30 years now and in the beginning initially like everybody, I was using typical mindset techniques in order to apply what I was learning in personal development and I was teaching in this way too.

I was teaching mindset, I was teaching positive thinking and you know application and commitment and goal setting and all the typical things that we learned. But after about 10 years I started to realize something. I started to realize that my participants were not getting the results that they were hoping to get. So even though they knew what to do, they had a very difficult time applying what it is that they knew to do and I started to wonder why.

So I enrolled in university and I got to say Laura, I was exactly the same. I I had this terrible pattern of quitting and procrastinating and no matter how much mindset tools I kept applying, I couldn't break free of these patterns. So I applied to University and I went and I got my Masters in Humanities because I wanted to study how does this human brain think. And so I studied it from all different angles and I started to realize, oh hang on. Our brain runs on patterns. It doesn't run on thoughts or beliefs or anything like that, it is wired in a particular way.

And those patterns we adopt, I should say when were little, you know, and we're learning different things and we face different situations and each situation we face, our brain builds a pattern for that situation and then that's what we continue to use going on in life. And so I started to realize, oh, okay, the reason that my participants can't apply this mindset t tools and get where they want to go is because we're actually working on the wrong thing. We're starting with our thoughts and we need to be starting with the pattern itself.

Once we can change the pattern and upgrade it, then it's easy to take those actions right? So I did a deep dive into my own mind and I had a lot of background doing that because I was also a meditation facilitator, so I could observe my own mind very well and I noticed something surprising that is now only recently been backed up by neuroscience and that is that the action I was taking was actually occurring a fraction of a second before my conscious mind caught up to the fact that I was taking that action.

So I would say something, right, do something, be something, behave in a particular way. And then my mind would say, oh yeah, that is because and add the story on why I was doing that right. Once I uncovered that I went okay, now I know exactly what we need to do. And so I devised this method which is a four step method which dives deep into the pattern and changes the pattern and starts in the subconscious rather than in the conscious mind. And so yeah, just to sum up, that's what I do.

Laura: I love talking about this, this is something that actually talked about on the show before, that these patterns, these subconscious patterns are laid down in childhood and over time and because our brain loves efficiency, our brain doesn't like things to be, you know, cumbersome, It really wants to move fast, they rely on those patterns, the brain really relies on that a lot and so it can be really hard to become aware of our patterns, right?

So like where is the first step for someone who's just starting out and is in that place where they're realizing like they're reacting out of habit and out of a pattern and they're starting to become aware of it. What does that awareness look like?

Adele: Yeah. So you know, I'll start with an example because that might be the easiest way to understand how to start upgrading the patterns. I worked with one couple and they were really struggling to raise their Children and a lot of the conflicts between them were all around parenting issues. She herself was a coach and she very much wanted to be in support of the kids and be on their side.

And he was very much the disciplinarian who wanted everything to run efficiently. And so they batted heads often often often. And one of the things that really, really frustrated her was he, I couldn't stand at being late, I mean, so this is how bad it got dinner would be ready and he would go to the bottom of the stairs, never walk up the stairs, always stand at the bottom of the stairs screaming up the stairs, dinner's ready.

And if the kids didn't bolt out of their rooms, he would start screaming again and yelling again and yelling again until they got down there and this used to drive her crazy and even though he would promise he would say things like, yeah, yeah, I'll never do that again. And yeah, I understand. I know, I know I'm being a bad parent and all of this stuff, he couldn't stop this particular pattern of doing this. So I suggested to him, I said, okay, we're not gonna dig back into your childhood to figure out why you're doing this. That that's inefficient, okay, we're gonna start right from now and what it is that you're doing. I said to him, tell me how you feel when you think about those kids not coming down those stairs.

And he noticed his emotion was one of complete frustration, rage, anger. And I asked him, okay, so where is that in the body? Where are you feeling that? And he said, oh my gosh, like I, you know, I just want to clench my fists and just burst. And I said perfect, that is a pattern. So a pattern. What we need to know about patterns is that they're not just mental, their physical, emotional and mental at the same time, remember I said that my actions were coming before my conscious mind caught up. That's because my physical emotion is actually arising first within the pattern and then the mind is along for a ride, it comes in after that emotional reaction.

Laura: It's making sense of what we're doing with our bodies and

Adele: Yes

Laura: Yeah

Adele: Exactly, exactly. So when he was able to see that he could see, oh yeah, like I'm really not reacting to the kids, I'm reacting to my internal pattern. We started to flip that switch. So he used to think that that was the situation that was giving rise to those feelings, those reactions. What we did was we flip the switch and we said okay, the pattern is giving rise to the reaction. It's a rising internally, not based on what's going on outside.

And that had him able to start the process of removing that pattern because that's the first step that we need to do. It's not what should you do? That's the wrong question. What are you doing? And does it work? And if it doesn't work, we're just going to remove it, we're gonna get rid of that first before we even start to put anything else in the box.

Laura: Okay. Yes, now, so I really love this idea of situating the source of the pattern or the source of the problem within ourselves. It can be really hard and vulnerable to do, to recognize that this is coming from within us. I think that when our kids or our partners trigger us, it's much more comfortable to say there's something wrong with them. They're making me feel this way and they're triggering me.

But whenever we are triggered, the work is within us, right? So I love that you're really helping someone switch very compassionately to viewing them this issue without blame, shame, judgment or guilt, but just kind of very fact based this pattern starts in here, it starts inside, you know, regardless of what's happening outside, it's the locus of control where we have power to change is within us, right?

Adele: Yes, exactly. And one of the key things that I see is occurring in today's the world, I'm just going to say overarching world is we tend to judge a lot through, Is that the right thing to do? And the problem with that is it takes it out of context in the right situation that father screaming at his kids is absolutely correct, get out of the road right, you need to take that level of democratic, I'm taking charge, you know, do it now, right, That's absolutely correct. And when we take things out of context and we start to see is that right? Or is that wrong? It gets all screwed up in our heads, because now we gotta figure out what's the right thing to do instead of just asking, is this working, doesn't he? And there's no blame or shame and is this working? Is this actually accomplishing what I'm trying to accomplish?

Which in his case, when I asked him that he said no, because what I really want is to have my kids want to come down to the table and enjoy having dinner with me and want to be with me and he said, and frankly they're hiding in their rooms, like I can't even get them out of their rooms most of the time and when they do come, they come begrudgingly and they're rebelling and they're angry and he said no it's not working. So I said okay great, there's no blame or shame. Like you said right, there's nothing wrong here. Our job is just to remove what isn't working and you're right, that's such a gentle way of doing things.

Laura: okay. Yes. Absolutely. And I think that we're applying this to a parenting moment and absolutely one of the very first questions I asked parents when they start talking about kind of what they're doing and wanting to make changes is you know, is it working for you? Because if it's working there's not much, you know, I don't know that you need to change it, Like does it feel right?

Does it feel in alignment with what you want, how you want to be? Is it actually getting you the results you want? If the answer is yes, don't change it. And this comes up a lot for sleep with parents, parents who are worried about co-sleeping and sleeping with their you know bed sharing with their kids and they think they shouldn't and really it's all up down too if it's working. So I love this, how does this apply to other aspects of our life. So we've been talking a lot about parenting but what about you know things like you know being able to stay on top of what's going on in your home? Other things like, cause feelings of overwhelm and stress.

Adele: Yeah, perfect. I mean that it applies everywhere actually, because everything that we do is the result of a brain pattern, there isn't a single thing/action that we take that doesn't have an underlying brain pattern that is taking that action. And so if we're procrastinating, if we're overwhelmed, if we're being ineffective at work, I was quitting, I kept quitting business after business after business. I couldn't understand why and why is the wrong question, because the mind will always create a story of why, and it will always seem reasonable to the mind, we gotta stop asking why, it's just what am I doing and doesn't work? Right?

So, you know, in my pattern of quitting, I was consistently initially asking why and I always had an excuse, oh yeah, it was this business partner or oh yeah, the the idea wasn't good and over and over again, but when I stopped asking why and just started to ask does this work? I went, no, this isn't working for me at all. So let's address the underlying pattern, but I do need to go back to that question, Does it work? Because that is actually a very difficult question sometimes to answer. So let's ask it differently, Does it work for everybody involved? Does it work for my spouse? Doesn't work for the kids, it doesn't work for me, because he could easily have said, Yeah, it works.

The kids come down when he started to ask, does that work for the kids? He went, no. Is that working for my spouse? No, like we're constantly fighting. So because this conflict, it's not working somewhere, it's not working now. The beautiful thing about re patterning is we don't need to know the solution. That's going to be really tricky for your audience to understand. Okay, so let me back up, if you think of your brain as an iceberg, and at the bottom of the water are all your brain patterns, and at the top of the water is everything.

You do everything you feel everything you think flows out of one of those patterns or pattern gives rise to an action or behavior or belief. If we start looking for the solution, can you see how we just keep dipping into the same pattern box over and over again? Does that make sense? Okay, so if the solution was in your brain patterning as it is right now, you wouldn't have the problem and that's really important to understand. It's like the problem, The solution isn't in there.

So we keep scrambling around inside this pattern box trying to pull out the solution and we just keep pulling out problem after problem after problem because we don't have it. So we need to let go of the thought, how do I fix this? That's the wrong question. How do I remove this problem?

Laura: Okay, great. So you're reminding me of an analogy that I use for working with behaviorally challenging kids, You're the “how do I fix this?” Is it like treating a symptom? You're asking people to dig under and find the root cause and cure the underlying illness rather than trying to treat a symptom.

Adele: Exactly, exactly. Now, the beautiful thing is I'm going to give you something really amazing about this brain of ours, in the unconscious is stored everything that you have ever seen, heard, tasted smelled and touched in your lifetime. And you know this because if you come across the smell, did you ever notice that it takes you back to an incident in your childhood and you go, I forgot all about that. Okay. Or you know, so we're constantly in here, it's stored everything, but we need to get it into patterns and until we get it into patterns, we will not have the solution.

Now, why can't we tap into that vast warehouse within and pull out the solution? Right now? It's because, like you say, the brain is a little bit lazy and once it's created one of those neural pathways, it much prefers that we just stick with that. Right, okay, that'll do. So we need to first tease apart that neural pathway. As soon as we do though, your brain will not have an open pathway, just void of anything, just floating around the brain, it's immediately going to snap into a new channel and where is it going to go when it snaps into a news channel, it's gonna dip into that vast warehouse.

Hopefully I haven't lost you. But the point here is that we do have the solutions inside of us. We have a lot more, every human being on this planet who has reached adulthood has massive quantities of available knowledge, which is not yet in the form of knowledge trapped inside this vast warehouse yet, which is not plugged in. And as soon as we upgrade those patterns though, all of that past experience becomes fodder or grist for the mill, right, and it's from there that your brain is going to start creating solutions and so you know, let's go back to, to my couple and him yelling at the bottom of the stairs.

As soon as he upgraded that pattern, his brain teased apart that channel, snapped it into a new channel and boom, he suddenly became aware of why he was yelling at the bottom of the stairs. He had this flashback to his mother, constantly telling him you're late, you're late, you're late. And this anxiety that would build in him every time that clock was ticking and that's when he was reacting to but it was hidden from him until he upgraded the pattern.

So the first thing the new pattern showed him was why he was doing what he was doing, which was amazingly revealing for him. But the second thing that allowed him to do is it allowed him to totally relax because the new channel in the brain was not reacting in the same way it was now responding to the actual situation he was in which is the kids in the room.

Laura: Right? So I just want to even highlight, pull out a little bit there for in this scenario with your client, for our listeners when we're being yelled at as little children, our nervous systems are activated. It's a stressful situation that we're in when we're being yelled at by a caregiver. You know, you're late, you're late. That, you know, and we don't even have to have a specific memory of that happening.

But he was thrown into the same physiological state when so what you're saying is that there is this pattern around lateness that his body would get into. He's thrown into that physiological state that he didn't even necessarily understand or remember at the time for years he would be thrown into the state of stress of that kind of stress response system. His nervous system being activated in that same way.

That's what a trigger is. Right? That's what it is. That's what it does. It's a situation and external situation triggers within us of familiar physiological state that we then go and make sense of and try to deal with in some oftentimes in unhealthy ways. And so then what does he do then? Like in that moment where, so he's realized this physiological state that I'm experiencing right now in the moment with my kids when they're not coming to the dinner table has nothing to do with my kids and everything to do with just my body. Like what do you do next?

Adele: Yeah, great question. So let me put it this way, when you're in the situation, it's kind of a little bit too late because the information is already running but down that channel and it's hard to pull the train back, right? Okay, so what we do with repatterning is we don't wait for the situation. We imagine the kids not coming down for dinner and we notice what occurs in the body in that moment, inside our imagination. So now we're a little bit removed, were a little bit detached from the actual situation.

And that allows us to start removing that pattern in that place. So there's four steps to repatterning. The first step is just identify what is going on. What am I feeling? Where do I feel that in the body? And what am I thinking? As I think about that situation as I imagine myself in that situation. That's step one, identify. Step two is own it. Remember I said we're going to flip the switch, it's not actually happening out there, it's happening in you.

So we're just gonna flip that switch and own it as a pattern. The third step is to detachment, get into the body. Remember I said that the pattern is initiated in the body and the physical sensations that you're saying that physiological shift, it's occurring there. So we're not going to use this mind of ours at all. I like to say the conscious mind is the dumb cousin of the unconscious.

Okay, the subconscious. So let's get out of this thing because it's not really helping us. So we're going to use the body and with detachment, we're just going to observe that body as it does its thing as it that rage starts to build. We're just going to be very detached and just observe it. Now let me say something.

Laura: That's a beautiful use of mindfulness by the way, like...

Adele: Yes, non identified, you know, mindfulness. Beautiful.

Adele: Yes. Yes. Yes. And it's a state of surrender and surrender at the level of pattern is the most powerful thing. We can do surrender at the level of action behaviors, beliefs is giving up, Oh, I just can't do anything about this. I'm just going to throw in the white towel, right? But surrender. The level of pattern is something extremely powerful because it allows us to stop running that pattern and observed two different realities arising at the same time. The first reality is the reality of the pattern itself, That anger that they're late. They're disrespecting me, this is terrible. That's short, that's happening inside the brain that is a real reality and we don't make that wrong.

But the second reality is the reality of what's actually occurring in this current moment, which is nothing to do with the past and his mother and all of that stuff. It's it's the actual situation of based in this family, these kids, his relationship with his kids, his wife and that reality is hidden from the conscious mind, but available in the subconscious and when we surrender those two realities don't line up and the pattern just collapses and it's beautiful to watch because the person surprises themselves when they just don't react in the same way.

So he was just absolutely delighted the day that he just stopped yelling. He actually walked up the stairs, didn't even realize it because remember action is coming before thought walks up the stairs and knocked on the door, Dennis ready kids in this delightful voice and it shifted from that moment on and so yes, so that's step three, I got distracted and then step four is to then upgrade that pattern to create those new patterns that comes only after we've removed the existing ones.

Laura: Oh, it's beautiful. Okay, so listeners, you've had heard from lots of different guests teach lots of different ways to do this exact thing and there's lots of different terminology, but Adele you're getting really beautifully to your stripping away a lot of the jargon and really coming helping a parent come to understand that in the midst of a trigger, there's this, these two paths that are running in our brain, there's what we think is happening or what our body thinks is happening. The story that we're telling ourselves.

There's lots of different ways to talk about this, that people have heard that different experts use different jargon, you know, that there's this this interpretation, this story, there's this kind of parallel track and then there's reality of what's actually happening, and this is so applicable to almost all interactions that we have with whether it's with a partner, a child with your own parents, like we get caught up in these stories and these patterns and we just react out of habit becoming aware of, okay, so this is the what we think is happening or what our body thinks is happening, and then dropping into the present moment of what is actually happening, or my kids actually disrespecting me, you know, is my partner actually telling me that he doesn't care about me or love me, is my dad actually telling me that he thinks I'm incompetent, you know, is that actually what's happening right now, and most of the time it's not true.

Adele: And sometimes Laura it is true, but but again, we need to come back to our own patterns and not from a position to blame my shame, it's like, okay, what brought me here, what is allowing me to be disrespected, right? I mean, I have been in, in situations where yes, I have been in relationships where I was disrespected and when we just step back from, you know, I'm bad or there's something wrong with me and all of those things that we tend to throw on ourselves and instead just ask, okay, what patterns were running that got me here, right, and what do I need to remove in order to not react in this way in the future? That's super powerful because people transform some amazingly complicated and conflicted relationships by doing that by just owning Yeah, okay. I mean, I'm not enjoying the situation I'm in, but at least it's mine. At least I can own it there and that's powerful.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And then of course, just you know, the important caveat that that doesn't excuse abusive behavior.

Adele: Absolutely, yes, thank you for adding that.

Laura: But being able to step into empowered place so that you are able to respond rather than just react out of old habits. Yes, I know that most of the parents that I work with, that's what they want to be able to do in all of their relationships and in the relationship with themselves, they want to stop feeling like they are just reacting to what's happening to them and start feeling like they are more intentional and present that they are responsive in whatever situation that they are in, that there truly there and choosing for themselves, a response that is in alignment with what they truly believe about themselves and their family versus old patterns, old beliefs that were handed to them that weren't there choice.

Adele: Yes, absolutely. And, you know, one of the beautiful things about re-patterning is it also comes with this feeling of deep trust, as you're saying, the ability to trust yourself no, know in your heart that you are going to make the right choice for this situation. And that doesn't come from determining what that right action should be. Because that doesn't that takes it out of context, that takes it out of the actual situation. Everybody knows when they are repatterning, that they will respond ideally optimally, for the situation at hand.

How does that happen? Because past created patterns are actually responding to a different situation, a situation that occurred in the past. If we go back to my client, he was responding to his mother, he wasn't responding to the kids. And so that the situation with his mother kept actually overriding the situation that he was in today, when, you know how to upgrade those patterns though, you're actually responding in alignment with what's actually going on, what's actually happening in your situation.

And so, the peace of mind, the joy, the connection to what's actually going on is what the Buddhist masters have been calling enlightenment, and in a way that's the State, you know, Science today has said, our brains are wired for enlightened thought, right, dr Andrew Newberg, I don't know if you know him, but he has this great book called The Enlightened Brain and that's what he's he's uncovered through brain scanners, is our brain is actually wired to be in the moment.

We just have been educated to think that we've got to pull everything from the past and figure it all out. If we stop doing that, our brain will naturally align you. I mean, if you have the tools to do it, you need the proper techniques naturally align you with what's going on. And it's a beautiful space of pure trust, as you're saying.

Laura: Absolutely. And I think something else that a lot of parents that I speak to and interact with, I feel like they can't do this really powerful repatterning work because they don't have memories of their childhood.

They don't have active conscious memories of where those patterns came from, and I really appreciate a doll, you're bringing this method and so that we can hold it to the light and look at it for those families in particular who feel like they can't advance their parenting or their, you know, have healthy relationships because they don't remember where the patterns got started. I love that you're saying that you really don't need to I think in this example with the dad that we're we've been talking about. I don't even know that he would have needed to have have that memory resurfaced in order to do this powerful work. I see you shaking your head fingers.

Adele: Exactly. He did not. In fact, I always say insight is cheap. I know all about your childhood if you want, but I'll tell you most of the time your conscious mind is making it up anyway. So it doesn't really mean anything. I barely remembered any of my childhood until I started re patterning most of my childhood was blocked off for me. But like I said, it's stored in that there's a reason for that for most people remember their childhood.

Laura: There's a reason for that for most people remembering their childhood there's a reason.

Adele: Absolutely a lot of times it's trauma.

Laura: Your brain is so good at protecting you two. Right, right, good. I really believe in speaking love over our brains. Like our brains are just so beautiful, like, you know, good at protecting us, so good at serving us. We just have to know just how to harness them and put that put the brain to work for us. You know?

Adele: Absolutely. That this tool that we have in our head, it is truly remarkable.

Laura: It's magical. It is, it's beautiful.

Adele: Yeah, so I 100% agree with you. In fact, I always suggest don't go digging in the past trying to find the originating incident. Your brain would find something, but as I said, most of the time it just make something up and now, you know, okay, Laura, I'm going to say something and I hope I don't lose your listener notice how now you actually have two problems, you have the situation and your reaction today, and then you have the past situation that now needs to be corrected as well.

So now you're just adding another problem. Okay, so let's stop doing that. We're gonna stay right here now in this moment. I'm going to deal with it powerfully now in this moment. And if your mind remembers this, the originating situation is great, if it doesn't great, it makes no difference because you will be powerful in the moment.

Laura: I think that that's so important. I'm so glad that you said that because again, I know a lot of listeners are what if they do have memories, if they do have some understanding of where these patterns got started, of the trauma of their past, of really rough hard childhoods, they hang their growth and their progress on fixing or making up or forgiveness or some kind of mending of those old wounds.

They and they hang it and and again, like there, we've been talking a lot today about situating ourselves empowering ourselves and when we do that, when we make our future growth, our progress, our improvement dependent on someone else apologizing or recognizing or taking responsibility for what they did. We strip ourselves, I think of our power, I love what you're saying that that is unnecessary to go back there and get that whatever it is that we're seeking. I mean, it's fine to want, it makes sense to want it to desperately want it because at the end of the day, we all want our parents to love us unconditionally.

And it makes sense to want to go back and get that repaired. But sometimes we can't, sometimes it's unavailable and it's really important to separate those two things. You know, like yes, fine. That's something to think strive for and stuff. But don't hang your progress on it. Do you know what I don't I don't know. I feel like.

Adele: I oh, I totally get what you're saying and if I can use myself as an example, I used to wear my heart on my sleeve. I used to lead with it. It was like my coaches would be saying, Adele like go out there and be powerful and in my mind I would be thinking, no, you don't understand. You don't know what I've been through. You're asking too much for me. And at the time I so felt like that. I mean, I it was so much my reality.

And it was I think looking back reflecting back, I think it's because I was taught that I needed to fix that originating incident before I could go forward. And so I was consistently trying to work on the past rather than just looking into my future. And so, you know, part of the re patterning technique that I teach is it's okay. Like whatever you went through is in your vast warehouse and from there is where you're gonna get your power and I know that sometimes that is so painful, right? So painful.

But it is also the root of compassion and empathy and everything else that as human beings that brings us together. Because if we can if we have been through pain then we know pain and we know it whether it's in ourselves or in somebody else and it's from there that we can build those deep, deep connections when we know how to upgrade our brain patterns and stop allowing that past to affect us.

Laura: I so agree. And that's not to say that that's easy. Like it's not to say it can be incredibly hard and difficult and painful and take time to come to a place of acceptance that there's things in our past that are that we cannot change that will never be gone because it happens their reality. And at the same time, we don't have to be shackled to them. They don't have to drive our future.

Adele: They can actually be the source of a new future. If we know how to deal with it. If we are gentle with ourselves, if you never needed compassion, you don't know how to give compassion if you never needed to be heard, you never learn how to hear. And so yes, those pasts are painful, but they're also the source of everything that we care deeply about this world, which is love and connection and relationships.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely.

Adele: Like I said, you're gonna have to do a lot of it.

Laura: You're fine. Don't worry. It's okay. I mean, honestly, I I think sometimes it's good for people to hear that we don't always say things perfectly that there are hiccups and the times where we have to get our thoughts straight. So I think that that's okay. I don't mind modeling that for my audience. I think it's good for them to hear, you know, that we don't it's not always a picture perfect, perfectly delivered line, you know. Right. I've really enjoyed this conversation adult. Thank you for bringing your wisdom and experience and knowledge to our show to our community. I'm curious you have a book that teaches this is where folks can dive deeper too, right?

Adele: Yes.

Laura: And I'd love to learn from you more.

Adele: Absolutely. If anybody would like a free copy of my book, all I ask is that they pay for shipping. You can go to www.shift4steps That's the number four dot com. And there's a button there and there's also some free training on there too. If anybody wants to know more about repatterning and yeah, I'd love to send you an autographed copy and I'm here just to spread the word like there's a re patterning is so powerful and it brings so much peace and so much joy, I think that we all need it. So if you're, if you're a reader who wants a copy of my book, I would love to give it .

Laura: Awesome. Well thank you so much Adele. Thank you. I really, really appreciate it.

And if you're listening, grab a screen shot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

March 01, 2022

Episode 107: Supporting Yourself Through Hard Times with Tanisha of MedicalMomsofNICU

March 01, 2022/ Laura Froyen

For this week's episode on The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to talk about a topic that is a little bit different from what we have tackled before and is quite personal in my own parenting journey. Many of you know that while I was pregnant with my second daughter I got into a car accident that started me down a path that eventually lead me away from academia and into my work with you all. But something I rarely talk about is my first daughter's traumatic birth that resulted in a Neonatal Intensive Care stay. During both of these incredibly difficult moments I had to dig deep to figure out how to support myself and how to be fully present with my family. I struggled with my self worth, knowing what was right, and feeling like I was constantly failing. During both of these incredibly difficult moments I had to dig deep to figure out how to support myself and how to be fully present with my family.

It wasn't easy and at the time I felt incredibly alone.

I am speaking more about this experience TODAY in this online retreat, I'd love to have you join me!

I know now that my emotions and experience in response to these stressful situations were incredibly common and understandable and that I'm definitely not alone. And while you maybe haven't had these exact experiences or had a medically complex child, I know that there have likely been times, especially over these past two years, where things have felt very heavy and hard. And that's what I want to support you with in this week's episode with my guest Tanisha Burke-Wormley. She is a NICU mom of a medically complex child who supports moms all over the world as they move through the space of having to stay in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) with their child. Her son, Jaleel, is a NICU and Kidney Warrior who she helps conquer Chronic Kidney Stage 5 everyday as a Stay-at-home Medical Mom. She also has a healthy daughter, Jameela, that she gave birth to at home in October 2020 during the Covid pandemic.

She will be helping us learn:

Ways to support NICU Moms and Special Needs Moms
Self-care during difficult times
Staying present with our children despite life's challenges

To get more support, follow Tanisha on social media and join her Facebook community. She is a grad student and donates much of her time to these causes, so supporting her by giving her a follow or spreading the word to moms you know who need support is hugely appreciated!

Instagram: @medicalmomsofnicu
Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/MedicalMomsofNICU
Facebook Group: Medical Moms of NICU Group

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.

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen and today we're going to be talking about something that is a little bit different than what we've talked about before and is quite personal in my own parenting journey and to have this conversation and I've brought on a guest in a beautiful soul that I'm so excited to introduce you to, who supports moms all over this world as they move through spaces after having had a NICU stay with their little ones. So Tanisha Burke-Wormley, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you, can you tell us a little bit more about your story, who you are and how you support moms?

Tanisha: Yes, so thank you Dr. Laura for this opportunity. I appreciate you. I'm glad we were able to come together in Clubhouse, make this podcast happen. But for those who don't know me, Tanisha Burke-Wormley, I'm a proud NICU mom, especially mom to Chelios Jaleel. He's three now and he is a chronic kidney disease stage five warrior and marches Kidney Month for those who do not know.

So this is a blessing that I'm on this show, marches kidney month and national kidney month and he just received a kidney transplant on February 4th 2021 and now he's off dialysis. So our life has changed tremendously and we're just so thankful to God and based on his story, I was able to create a project, a professional project catered to NICU moms, but medical moms, because I found myself just having a lot of supplies, speedy tube supplies.

My son is a G2 baby and he's in Dallas is no longer on dialysis now, but he was on dialysis and then I had mass medication. So that's the reason why I came up with the medical moms of NICU mom and that community has grown tremendously and we're just so thankful in our own facebook is a private group for all of us connect and share our resources from our NICU experience.

Laura: Oh, Tanisha. Yeah. I think that's so amazing. You know, so my oldest daughter had a NICU stay. She had breathing difficulty use after birth and otherwise she was beautifully healthy. We were so fortunate. But the small NICU stay was so scary, so stressful, so traumatic. We had had an emergency c section. It was so hard and there was no support. I had nowhere to turn to. I was in grad school at the time.

My husband was too, it was so hard and I just wish I had had the support of a group of women who had been there. Who knew what it's like to not be able to room in with your baby to be floors away from your baby. And I had to go home with, I'm sure you did to, to go home without your baby. It's so hard. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about and how you got started? Cause I think you were in grad school to when you had your NICU experience. Will you tell me?

Tanisha: Yes. We both were strong for taking on grad school on top of the NICU stay. Like, let me tell you like I still have blown away. So congratulations to you dr lure for finishing your education. But I started out with my program when I was pregnant with Julia and everything looks smooth. 20 weeks. We did the anatomy skin.

And that's when things started to trickle out of control because they found that Jalil's kidneys were really massive out of the perimeter of normal. And what was happening was, you know, how you have amniotic fluid around the baby. Well, Jalil's flew was trapped into his kidneys and he had a block that caused damage to his kidneys and his lungs. And it was called lower urinary tract obstruction. And it's a rare, rare condition that some babies that are in the womb have and it can be terminal if not intervene.

And so we left from Arkansas. I thought to mention I'm from Arkansas, we left from Arkansas to go to Cincinnati Ohio for fetal care intervention. And I'm so full for Cincinnati Children's Hospital in this Samaritan Hospital because without their care and intervention, I know julie wouldn't have made it outside the womb alive. And so from there, I was still coordinating with my professors because they knew that this was an emergency situation and I was just letting them know. I really desire to finish this program. But right now my life is tumultuous, but the NICU stay not knowing when we're coming home.

And so they told me there's no deadlines, deadlines as you finish your project the end of the semester. Don't worry about the deadlines. And so that's how I was able to complete my degree while in the NICU. But I was pacing myself and really the reason why I did it because like, it was insane to do it because you're already stressed with the NICU, but it gave me an outlet because I love education. I've always been very passionate about education. I'm the first of my immediate family to earn my bachelor's and master's back to back.

So I really have a passion and it kept me from really focusing so much on the trauma Julia was going through and kind of put my attention elsewhere. And so that's the reason why I kept pushing forward.

Laura: Oh my gosh, wow. Well, congratulations. And pushing in that way and having, I think a purpose and a higher way of serving can be really helpful in those circumstances. I'm so glad you had a supportive advisors to who had your back and that's so wonderful.

Tanisha: I'm going to just withdraw completely and just picked it up later. But they knew that I was so close to finishing. They were like, no, we're going to keep you in the program. Just let us know updates on Jalil.

And so recently I was happy to let them know because they've been through this process with me since he was in my womb. I was like, you look at a kidney to look at a kid, you tell everybody in the kidney kidney. So they're like, overjoyed with us. So it's just been a blessing to share so great news with everyone that's been following him since he was In my womb at 20 weeks. And so.

Laura: Oh my God, Tanisia, I think you're highlighting something right here that is so crucial that we need support. We need support as moms, whether you've had a nick you stay or a traumatic birth or health challenges for yourself or for your kids, that is a universal truth that we are not meant to do this alone. And so I so admire that you're providing the support for, especially for these moms who have had specific challenges to face as they transition into motherhood. Can you speak a little bit what kind of support you've noticed that moms really need this time? And you know, statistically speaking, there's lots of people who are listening who have had these experiences and maybe didn't have a place to go. And so I'd love to know a little bit of, like if we know people who are in this space now how we can support them.

But also if we've been there perhaps in the past and we didn't have a chance to get the support that we needed what we can do now to kind of cope and recover because it's a lifelong process, I don't know, I still cry over my daughter's birth and NICU stay, sometimes it's eight, you know, so.

Tanisha: And then because the way I thought I was going to be okay, but I'm still healing. I didn't realize that I'm still in a place of healing from all that we've been through. But of course I would definitely say that my project was grad pacific and the reason why I was so grateful for the experience now that I look at it Jaleel’s journey, is that my professor and advisor? She was like, why don't you start?

Because I was in mass communications, that's my degree. You might want to do a project that's tailored twist NICU moms because you're in that road right now. And I know you're getting a lot of resources from the hospital. And so I was like, yes. So that's where the medical moms of NICU came about and really what I did was interview some of the moms that I connected to that had the same diagnosis as my son.

And I featured their story on Youtube and I was just doing questions Q. And A session of like what resources they bumped into and if their child didn't have the diagnosis as mine could, they briefly share what it was and how they could be a resource to another mom. And so I was just trying to connect us all together because I feel like if you can find someone who understands and you can reach out directly to them and get your answers quicker.

And so with that transpired to is a private group on facebook medical moms of NICU and I when I started that in 2019 doctor lawyer, I was just sending Nikki journals because that's not a NICU K leon George Eliot and she sells NICU mom diary journals. You can document little notes of your journal and your story because it's so, so much going on and sometimes we just need to let out how we're feeling. And so I started to collaborate with her to sponsor some moms to get that journal that she provides.

And then from there I started finding some other NICU moms with Children's books featuring there NICU experience and sending Children's books out to moms to kind of help them and their experience and inspire them. And then recently last year I went for a scholarship from the National Society of Leadership and Success and they blessed medical mom's NICU because of what we did small.

They bless us with $1000 responsive or moms. And so I told them all about mom care package. So it started to find some moms, different items that I knew they needed. Like for instance, you know when you're in the hospital didn't really give you like really good skin care products.

Laura: I've never had worse chapped lips than when I was in the NICU like, oh my gosh and all the hand washing my hands were so raw you have to do a full scrub like I want to put your baby.

Tanisha: Yeah. So I started to look around the company called brutti by roots and they make really oatmeal, Himalayas, seesaw scrubs and put that in the package along with the journal. Then we had some victoria's secret little smell goods and the tote and they gifted us a gift card because they saw what I was doing, victoria's secret.

I used to work there so I was just so happy that they were able to give us a little bit discount on those products and then I just put a little bit of love and they're just like letting them know like they have some essential oil where they can subscribe their body. So a lot of this stuff was just mind body and soul

Laura: You have loving on his mom's.

Tanisha: Loving on them because we pour so much in our NICU miracle that were depleted and we can't pour from an empty source.

Laura: No you cannot.

Tanisha: So that's what I really did. I was just pointing to and then another mom that I ran into on social media, her name's Charlotte and she has seven Children, seven and so she was like, I'm willing to give these mamas if they're willing to discount on my mommy meltdown session. So we had the mental aspect too. So I created like a self care package that was highlighting the mind body and soul healing that you desperately need when you're in a NICU experience just putting products to heal that area.

Laura: Oh my gosh, I love that, I don't know if you know this but there's research out there to that kids who've had nick, you stays tend to be more sensitive than other kids. More sensory sensitive and have more up and down emotions. And so that's something to that I like, you know, looking forward, I think that there needs to be a space for its wonderful. Of course they need support in the moment when they're in there.

But just having a community of like, okay, so now we're raising our babies, we're raising our babies who are different, have different needs, have different experiences, have different, you know, birth trauma trauma for us, but it's also trauma for them. NICU trauma is trauma for us. But for them to, I think it's so beautiful to have a space moms can stay connected and support each other through all those challenges that life with a baby who's needed more support is just as the truth of it.

Tanisha: Absolutely. And especially in this pandemic doctor, I know you imagine even with your work, a lot of the therapy because my son is delayed in ot speech physical therapy. We went to a facility before, Covid that was too hot. And so you're trying to learn how to do these therapy exercises virtually and do tele therapy.

Laura: With a three year old and oh, oh my gosh, so now you have to wear all those hats, right, We have to wear so many hats anyway. Oh yeah. Uh huh.

Tanisha: Yeah, it's like now everyone gets it because all the moms have to home school, you know, they're figuring it out. But it's just like you can find your community and I really, I just tell the NICU moms in my own community, like please please share whatever works for you.

Like there is no judgment if you decide to put your child in the developmental preschool while we're in the pandemic, I'm not judging you if you decide to do the virtual learning or the virtual telemedicine because your child is chronically ill or medically fragile. I'm not judging you but just show us the progress that they're making because I really want to shine light on the medical milestones because our Children have been through so much and it feels good to like feature little highlights of their story. I'm so glad that moms are doing that now because I didn't want it to be about just blue. I wanted two spotlights, The NICU miracles that have different journeys than his.

Laura: Okay, so I don't know if it's true for you, but I'm imagining for these moms who are getting to tell their story. I know storytelling for me is incredibly healing. Speaking to the story and so just the act of sharing a story I think can be healing and then hearing someone else's and you know, no matter your story is going to be different, but there will be pieces that resonate and here, I'll say that they too struggled with that. That that was hard to, can be so powerful.

Tanisha: Yes. Again, I found it to be very filling for all of us because before the pandemic, I was hosting zoom interviews and it was so saturated, right? Because we all have these stories and I was like one day I'm gonna get to a point where I can just do one on one interviews because I really went to spotlight everyone's story and really take a pause and really ask specific questions to their story so that when another mom comes in they can just go straight to that mom that's been through that journey.

And so I'm like in the process of rebranding medical models and make you because I really want the story to be really compelling and that's not brushed it so often. I don't know if you've seen this in your work Dr. Laura, but we tend to rush and said my son was in the nick use such in such days and he's been through all this living stuff and we don't really process it.

Laura: You're talking about something that's so common in the trauma world. We have almost like an elevator speech that we can talk about the details in a way that's almost cold in a self preservation sense because once we start to slow down and really connect to what we're saying. That's when the emotions come up, they well up within us and it's hard to stay composed. It's hard to stay, you know what we think we're supposed to look like when we're sharing our story.

But you know, so that elevator speech of course is crucial because people want to know and you have to have good boundaries with yourself. You have to keep be able to keep yourself safe, right? You have to be able to know like, okay, so I can be emotionally contained in this space, but it's also important to have a space where you can let those walls down a little bit. You can be a little softer and slower and more tender with yourself. That's where healing happens, processing it, you know?

Tanisha: And I've always been that way, like even before, you know, doing the work with the NICU Mom. I want to share the dark side that I was feeling of a journalist. I took pictures because I couldn't write what I was feeling.

But I did capture lots of videos and photos. So whoever is watching that's NICU Mom right now, that's loving your podcast, please. If you can just take pictures and videos. Because when you're in a place where you can process in journal is going to make it easier again in that moment and I'm just so thankful because I wasn't able to be present because so much was going on, it was like chaos.

Laura: You were in survival mode. Of course, you know, and it's also normal, you know, if you're on the other side of that now to have very few memories of it because when we're in trauma, when we're in survival mode, the parts of our brain that encode memories are turned off to protect us. You know, our brains are beautiful. And so like sometimes when I think back on it, it's very fuzzy and I'm so grateful that I took pictures.

We actually have a little book that sometimes my eight year old still wants to sit down and look through. She sits on my lap and she sometimes has very primal crying sessions while we look at it when she looks at this baby with all the wires coming out and connect with like that's me and I was crying for you and the nurses wouldn't let you come to me.

Like we do processing sessions me and my child together now because she holds that trauma in her just like I do and we have to craft a narrative. I think telling your story over and over and over again allows you to process and it also allows you to make meaning and make sense out of it. I think that's what you're doing. It's a beautiful gift you're giving.

Tanisha: Yes. And I didn't see that before. I'm glad that you're able to share the story of your eight year old and where she's come from because that's her story and she's owning it right now. Like so often as adults, we don't even own our trauma what we've been through. And so I think you're doing an awesome job just by sharing her story so that he can be self confident and walk into a purpose without any secrets.

You know and I appreciate you and that's what I'm intentionally doing for my son. Like his story is out there and I want him to own it. I don't want him to hide it from the world. I think it's inspiring. And yes as a mom you're trying to conceal some things that are delicate don't share but for the things that you know are very inspirational and can be motivating to another mom why not share it.

And when you were talking honestly it made me think about a year ago this mom reached out to me from instagram And because Lou two is so rare she saw Jill and she was pregnant at the same time as me and she was given no hope and she was like she's in United Kingdom by the way. And so it's an international damn.

And she reached out to me and she was like Tanisha, I'm so glad I found you will because they were giving me a grave news about my son and I was telling her about how Julia received a shot to kind of help that fluid that was building in him be released. And so she went and went to another medical facility and received the same services that we received here in the United States And long story short, she was able to get the shot for her son just like me and her son is alive. He's thriving. He's thriving.

And so she was just let me know his update recently. And I'm just like, I didn't know that we were going through this journey to save another mom, another mom, you know, and another mom.

Laura: And a baby in the whole life.

Tanisha: A whole life. And it's like they gave us three options. They said that Jalil be a still born, we could terminate At 20 weeks pregnant and want to do this is my first child. By the way, I had a miscarriage before him. So of course I'm not in that place to terminate. I'm already attacked your attachment. You get the pregnancy right? So at 20 weeks, you know, I'm not gonna tap out on that.

And then they were telling me that I could care full term. But the likelihood of him surviving is really low because his lungs were affected because he was getting no amniotic fluid to breathe in and out in and out, no practice.

But I was like, no, there's got to be my husband. I was numb. So my husband was like, there's got to be more options and I'm so thankful that he opened up his mouth because I was crying, my eyes out. I cannot profit what they were saying. And when he spoke up then immediately I went to work the next day and started calling these hospitals like can you see if we're willing to travel just to see what you can do.

Laura: It is the way you have catered for your child and yourself. It's beautiful.

Tanisha: Yes, we have to, we were given a NICU miracle for a reason. I didn't realize my strength into I end up in this journey. I'm like, oh my God, because I was very like when it came to I had really bad white cooked syndrome, scared of doctors. I was like, no, no, no. I never really wanted to ask questions or challenge what they were saying.

But Julia has grown me speak out loud if I'm seeing a care provider that's not attending to my son in a certain way change it and someone else because at the end of the day, your child is relying on you because my second speak right now he's developmental delayed, so I am his mouthpiece. And so he's relying on me and dad to be the voice that he needs right now.

And so it's not one of those possibilities to take lightly. And I just think that we know best as moms mama intuition when our child needs at the end of the day with the degree or no degree.

Laura: I agree so much, you know, it's easy for me, you know, like when I have to advocate for my kids and early childhood settings, I had to do this a little bit more because there were times where the care providers and I didn't align on things or they were looking at my daughter, you know, in a different way and I needed to advocate for her and it was so easy for me to come in and like plop my PhD in human development down and be like, nope, I know what I'm talking about, but I didn't need that. We have everything within us.

You know, we do, we have every right to be confident in because we know our kids best. We know how to listen to them and oh my gosh, I'm so glad that you have been able to really step into your power as Julio's mom. That's so beautiful.

Tanisha: Yes, that is a blessing because at first I was very fragile. The first wave of the Nikki journey, my husband was the one that was drily advocating until I got to the most face where I can get myself together because you know, you're going through those hormone drops after you have a child.

And when you have a child that's in the nick you unfortunately you don't get to bond the way you thought, like you were saying with all these cords and wires, how are you supposed to have that experience of skin and skin?

So I really was going through, you know, the baby blues syndrome, so to speak, and I was not able to really share what I needed to my husband's he saw that and it's really a precious thing that We're able to be one in marriage. Because I don't know if I have the strength in the beginning to really communicate what I needed for Jalil, but my husband being in tune with my needs, he was able to pick up where I didn't have the strength to and I got to a place where I could start being the one that was like, you call me before you do that, you call me.

Laura: Oh Tanisha. I think you're highlighting something that's so important to what you know. So I'm a couple therapist by training and you and your husband demonstrated there is turning in toward each other in a difficult time. And so, you know, so often when we face difficult circumstances, oftentimes, you know, partners that struggle, they turn away from each other and you really turned into each other. Do you have any, I don't know, tips for people who are in a hard time with or noticing like, oh, as a partnership, we're turning away from each other right now and how we can turn in and rely on each other and have a kind of, it's this is us against the world kind of mentality that it seems like your partner really had with you.

Tanisha: I would say the biggest tips that I've seen Dr. Laura and my own personal walk is just the fact to be vulnerable. Because even when we were at the care conference and they were telling us the what if, the possibilities, the risks and the benefits of conversation for my husband to be open and communicate how he felt.

I've seen his emotions like sometimes like men they hold it all in, right? In certain situations like that, I was able to see him in his grand moments and I just feel like we have to break down those walls of “I have to be strong”.

I can't show my emotions as a man or as a father that's hurting because this is his first child too, right? It's not just me. So I like for us to be in tune with each other and share how we're feeling from one day at a time, not so much, you know, looking at what the future holds, but taking it one day at a time and processing for the day.

Laura: Be present with each other, vulnerable. Yeah. In embracing that as strength, I think it's so important that especially, you know, you're a mom raising a little man, you know that we really have to redefine what it means to be a strong man and a strong man can be a soft man. You know.

Tanisha: You can cry. That has been one of those things that's hindered us from healing is not crying, a releasing moment.

Laura: It is. It's so beautiful. You can measure cortisol, a really big stress hormone in your tears, tears are one of the bigger bodies biggest healing mechanisms, tears and shaking. I don't know if you remember shaking after in that process but shaking is another just natural way our body releases stress. So shaking and crying do it all just cry did and

Tanisha: I think too because we process things a little different as when we love to talk and release and we find that and for my husband, he had a few friends that he reached out to during the process like it was all us together applaud the process of NICU was God and my husband and I. It was a trinity because at that time we were all feeling it and I was just like you know, you go to your space and you connect with your friends that you trust and then without me included because I know that you need that just like I need to reach out to somebody, NICU moms because I'm not feeling the best you get field, because if you get that field then you're able to talk to me instead of being disconnected. And I don't know what's going on with you because you're not communicating with me.

So I think to we have to also allow our husbands or our partners to reach out to those that they trust their friends just like we do with our friends and then once they got that grounded, healing from a male standpoint or from a father, a husband standpoint then they're able to come and connect with us as their wife and they're partner

Laura: So you're hitting on something that is just so incredibly wise that a marriage cannot hold all that we are, it cannot carry the weight of all of the burden of being a human who experiences pain. It can't hold it also. And yeah, you're so right. We've got to look for support and outlets outside of our marriage at times so that we can come to our partnership where we're not relying entirely on the other person for our own well being right.

Tanisha: Like that's the reason why you're counseling, right? Marriage relationships. This is the reason why there's so many counselors out their relationship because we can't just rely on each other and they will bring.

Laura: Yeah. Well Tanisha, I have loved this conversation. I think what you're doing is amazing. So if people wanted to find, I guarantee there are people who are listening right now who feel so inspired and want to support the moms that you work with or who have been in these places and either want to lend you know their story to your project or get support. Where can they find you, how can they get in touch with you?

Tanisha: The easiest way done everywhere is the guy on facebook Medical Moms of NICU type that into the search bar and you will find the page. But what I want them to look for is the group, the private group where they can connect several different moms and so if you go to medical moms of NICU and you go on the page, you click the group, you'll see the private group and all you have to do is ask a few questions really just to verify that your NICU mom or special needs mom and just briefly tell how long you were in the NICU and from there, we'll give you access to care, your story, your resources and you'll have the opportunity to get giveaways like we spoke about earlier.

So it's really a blessing. And on Instagram is the same way you can find us on Medical Moms of NICU and they can send out a DM if they have any questions about the facebook group. But if they want to connect with moms, definitely go to the facebook group first.

Laura: Okay. So yeah, absolutely. So I'll put the link to the Facebook group in the show notes here and then if there's anybody who's not a NICU mom but wants to support your work, they can get you, get in touch with you on Instagram.

Tanisha: DM on instagram. Thank you. So I appreciate the work that you're doing. I appreciate a conversation Dr. Laura. Like I said, you felt genuine when I communicated with you on Clubhouse and I'm just so thankful that we were able to make this happen and if you're listening as a NICU mom, I just want you to know, take it one day at a time. I know it sounds cliche, but if you just take it one day at a time you won't overstress and burn yourself out. And I know that the doctors are just telling you those risks because they have to tell you those risks. But it doesn't mean that your child is going to experience those risks. So stay faithful. Stay optimistic in the process.

Laura: Mm and you're not alone. You're not alone.

Tanisha: Yes. And there's a community out there waiting to hold you and embrace you and give you virtual. Oh, so just reach. I love it.

Laura: Okay, well thank you so much. Again, wow, you're a wonderful and a gift. Thank you for sharing your gift with us.

Tanisha: Thank you that the Lord for your work and I appreciate you for a lot of me just create a safe space to talk about this.

February 22, 2022

Episode 106: Making Meditation Accessible for Ourselves & Our Kids with Keli Carpenter

February 22, 2022/ Laura Froyen

First, I want to check in with you. How are you? I hope you are doing well and if there's anything that you would like help with, please do not hesitate to contact me (just hit comment!) or my assistant, Eugene through team@laurafroyen.com. We are always here for you and cheering you on!

For the past couple of episodes, we have been focusing a lot on mental health and how to overcome the many hurdles we are facing in our lives. And you've likely heard A LOT that meditation can be a powerful tool for mental health and wellbeing, right? Well if you're anything like me, when I first started dabbling in meditation it seemed like a tool that is "ideal" but not really "doable". And as a recovering perfectionist, if I can't do it "right" then I may as well not do it at all. Sound familiar, or is that just me??

I had to learn how to make meditation and mindfulness work FOR ME instead of it being yet another thing I was failing at. Here are some things that helped me get started:

- Giving myself permission to keep it short and sweet. Even 30 seconds was "enough"

- Inviting mindfulness into everyday moments, like washing the dishes or observing my kids play

- Offering loving kindness to myself and others during natural "downtime" like waiting in line or at a red light.

- Seeing it as an opportunity to model imperfect action to my kids

These practices have been instrumental in helping me be a more present, aware, and attuned mom AND have directly enabled me to be able to get the coveted "PAUSE" so I can respond rather than react when I'm triggered or overwhelmed.

If you're wanting to learn more about how mindfulness and meditation can help you as a parent, and maybe even your child when they are overwhelmed, you'll definitely want to check out this week's episode!

To help me in this conversation, I am joined by Keli Carpenter. She is a Chopra Center certified Transcendent Meditation (PSM®) instructor, Forgiveness Coach and Breathwork Practitioner, and a mother herself! Her commitment to maintaining her practice has allowed her to raise three beautiful children with mindfulness, overcome limiting self-concepts, and experience unity consciousness.

She will be helping us learn:

The impact of meditation on the different stages and ages of your family
How and when to introduce meditation to kids
The qualities of consciousness and their role in your ability to respond versus react
The five parts to emotional overwhelm and triggers and how to unravel them
How to build a safe emotional container and discover the gift in the center of your difficult feelings

To get more resources, follow Kelli on social media and visit her website.
Instagram: @theothersideofaverage
Facebook: www.facebook.com/theothersideofaverage
Website: theothersideofaverage.com

TRANSCRIPT:

Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic overwhelm. 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.

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen and we're back with another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast and I'm really excited to share this guest with you today. We're gonna be talking about mindfulness and meditation and how we can share these beautiful practices with our kids in a way that's supportive of them and of us.

So please welcome to the show, Keli Carpenter. She is a transcendent meditation teacher and a conscious healing coach and she's going to help us with this conversation. Keli, welcome to the show, why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Keli: Wonderful. Thank you, Laura. It's a pleasure to be here. My biggest passion is meditation that really for all of us coming back home to ourselves and the impact that that means for not only, you know, our own fulfillment in life, but for the impact that it has on our children.

And I was actually a child of meditation that started when I was six years old and I've also raised really three beautiful human beings. My children are 16, 18 and 21 with meditation and mindfulness as their foundations for life.

Laura: Amazing. Okay, I just feel really called to ask you this question because I say this phrase a lot and I don't know that we've ever defined it here on the show. This idea of coming home to yourself; I love that idea. It feels so good to me. What does that mean to you?

Keli: Good question. Well, you know, we have probably all experienced some sort of either prolonged stress, some sort of trauma in our life, some sort of difficult experience that has created fragments, fractures, you know, a disconnect

Laura: Cut off.

Keli: Yeah, exactly. And it really takes some specific tools, some space holding for us to, what I call, maybe make membership again. So to remember that wholeness. Because when we have those difficult situations, we kind of forget why we were here, we forget the innate gifts. And you know, for even some, I don't even feel like they knew they had the power.

Laura: Right. The trauma happened so early on that we don't even have a firm sense of who we are. Okay. So then I know one of the big goals for my listenership for my beautiful community here is that they really want. One of their biggest weights on their heart is that they want to prevent that from happening to their own kids.

They want their kids to come out of the childhood in their home with a sense of who they are, knowing deeply who they are and staying connected to who they are. And I'm guessing that meditation and mindfulness can help with this. So why don't we go in there? How can we share this with our kids? How can they support us with this big powerful goal as parents?

Keli: I'll talk a little bit about the three types of meditation, but in general, meditation is a practice of stillness because when we really come into the moment in silence in stillness, we get to reconnect again with that part of us that is bigger than the story, that's bigger than the trauma, that's bigger than our physical experience of the world.And mindfulness is really more the state of being or the quality of experience. We start developing mindfulness as a result of the practice of meditation.

So we develop that witnessing awareness, we see what, what is there to see instead of maybe what we want to see. And so the three types of meditation, there's observant, focused, and transcendent.

So observant meditation is we're just observing what is as it is without manipulation. So that could be mindfulness practices, sure everyone's heard of that or walking meditation where we're just walking and just really taking in the forest and nature. You know the sounds experience.

Focused meditation is we're focused on one thing. So it could be a candle meditation that could be even an audio. So we're focused on listening to the audio and that visualization that might be leading us to

Laura: This also focusing on the breath. Yes. Okay.

Keli: Yeah. So in observant, we could just observe the breath as it is without manipulation. In focused, we would be focused maybe on a particular breath pattern, so pranayama or, I'm a conscious connected breathwork facilitator and trainer. So you know, we're actually focused on a particular pattern of breath during that. and then there's transcendent. And transcendent is we're using the mind in just the right way with the use of a mantra. So it doesn't have a meaning, not English, it's used more for its vibrational qualities and ultimately it's just a tool for the mind.

You know, we've given so much emphasis on our cognitive intellectual status in the world and less on, you know when you think about children and we raised them right away, what does the cow say? What are your ABCs? You know, it's all on that. But how often do we teach them to listen within, check into their intuition to connect to that wholeness, that sense of self and to move through the world from there?

So we've given so much overuse to the mind that it's just a perfect tool and to disconnect the way that the power that we've given it, I guess. So if you think of the way thoughts work, we think of a thought we associate it with the fact separatism. That monkey mind is going and we're you know, off on ramblings in our head. And with transcendent meditation, it's like our mind can't grab hold of it and run with it because it doesn't have a meaning. So it just helps us settle the mind until we drop that much further into the body and access that place of stillness.

And if I was really to break down all three observant and focused, we start with the practice and we end with the practice. And with transcendent, we start with the practice but we transcend the practice.

Yeah. So that idea that you know, we just have this effortless repetition with the mantra but we end up because of the way that it, this really profound tool that it is, it just has a way of settling everything until we drop into more of that silent space.

So we might start, you know, might not even call it focused because we're focused on mantra, but really it's, we're transcending the practice. So we start on a walking meditation, we end, you know, if we start focused on a candle, we end focused on a candle and then with transcendent, we start with the mantra, but we transcend.

Laura: Okay, well I hear a lot of people thinking, you know, sometimes I hear my audience in my head asking questions and so I'm imagining lots of people are thinking about right now are like okay, yes, but Keli, when I try to meditate my mind just keeps rolling. You know, I can't stop the thoughts coming and I can never be perfectly still. So what would you say to that kind of question?

Keli: Well, two folds. The whole never be perfectly still is correct for everyone. I often say that, you know, we don't meditate for the experience in the meditation. We actually meditate for the other 23 hours in the day when we're more present, when we're more you know, engage when we feel more alive or creative intuitive, you know, those kinds of, there's more flow.

And then the other piece of that is that's what I hear the most as well. I can't meditate and you know, it's probably just an experience of ill-informed. There's something really important about having a teacher that can really navigate, you know, support, guide you through all of the experiences that might come up in meditation.

The one thing that I say for certain, I mean, my students hear me say it a number of times over and over again is you can't avoid that which you seek if you implement the practice.

So even if you start with that monkey mind that’s just going crazy, with the right tools, so you know, the right practice for you, you will settle that mind. You know, even just focus in our body and being present with that, with a consistent practice, the mind will settle. We just can't avoid the benefits of meditation. The only way we can actually, is to not meditate.

Laura: It’s to not do it. It's not just some means to an end; it's the means itself, it's the process.

Keli: Yeah, that's right.

Laura: Absolutely, for sure. Okay, many parents understand the benefits and even if they are like, well I can't do it myself, I want my kids to have the benefits. Right? And so how can we start that conversation with our kids? How can we introduce it to your kids? What are some of the benefits of various ages? Get us started.

Keli: Yeah, absolutely. And to frame this ahead of time, which I know I loved from actually listening to some of your podcasts, is that idea of perfection. And it's the lowest standard that we can hold for ourselves.

So as I go through the different stages and ages and the impact meditation, you know, has is to remember that it’s really about the journey. It's really about the learning, it's really about, yet the implementation and and the absolute flows and what we learn from those.

So in the prenatal stages, that's where it's really about our own inner connection. There's tapping into our own wisdom source, really connecting to our baby. I actually have had, it sounds really strange, we could do a whole separate podcast on this, but I've had blissful pain free childbirth from bringing that much presence to them. You know, really, again, that prenatal stage for you brings that trust, that is the birth, that, you know, there's a lot of fear that comes up for moms, that for women that are pregnant, fear of something–complications or different things.

So it really helps us connect in a whole new way to ourselves, our inner wisdom and our, you know, children. Then the 0 to 5, you know, I kind of break that down a little bit more at the 0 to 3 and then, you know, 3 to 5, but again, that's mostly about our wellness, you know. It's our presence, our patients, you know there's so much that's going on all the sleepless nights, you know, you know, the soy meatballs, you know. Everything that it means to be a new mom again, that's really forefront is our wellness and our inner connection.

Laura: The sense of like, am I going to screw up my baby? Am I doing this right? Yes.

Keli: Yeah. So you can imagine even just that you know if that chatter was settled, you know by half even the impact,

Laura: You could be different with your kids.

Keli: Yeah, exactly.

Laura: So I love how you're talking about right now that in this kind of 0 to 5 range especially or even the 0 to 3, that really it's about us. So when we talk about meditation with our kids really, when they're very young, we mean meditation with us and how that impacts how we are with our kids.

Keli: Absolutely. And I mean, how many of us had parents that weren't present? We completely know what

Laura: Everybody just put their hands up

Keli: Exactly. We know what that's like out there in the world. There's somebody in somebody's life who is not present. We know, we sense, we just feel what that feels like and so you know mostly it's for our own wellness but then you notice that impact.

So if we were really present, even just the act of, you know, breastfeeding and being, you know, extra present in that moment. It's just the impact that it has a sense of safety that it develops for our children is really quite profound.

Laura: Yeah. And no matter how you're feeling, not just with breastfeeding but bottle feeding too. Those are moments of you could drop fully into the present moment–put your phone away and be fully present.

And that, it's just something just super nerdy that I know about child development, that when babies are born their eyesight range is the perfect distance so that they, what's clear to them is your face when you're holding them in your arms in a feeding position, whether you're breastfeeding or bottle feeding doesn't matter. They are perfectly primed biologically to see your face and connect with you. So anyway, go ahead.

Keli: Yeah that just gives me like the truth bombs that this is like, just, you know that

Laura: Yeah, we are designed for each other.

Keli: Yeah, totally agree more. Yeah. And so that 3-5 age range is perfect where you can introduce the awareness of breath. You know if we're going to be you know ABCs and what does the cow say? Why not be implementing, you know, where they are with the breath? It's the first thing that people start shutting down when life is difficult so you can imagine other than swearing, what's the first thing that somebody does when they stub their toe? Yeah. It is hold our breath.

And that, if every single mom took this one thing away from this time today is that if you could, you know, teach your children to breathe into that stub toe, to breathe into that skinned knee, it has a massive impact on their life as a whole. That, you know, we're teaching them to turn towards and to be with and to bring presents to things that are difficult.

And you know, how would that be even for us as adults if you didn't try to numb, dissociate, you know, project, avoid things that were difficult that we turn towards and we learned how to be with them and receive the wisdom in them.

Laura: And this is so different and so radical. And of course it is, of course it makes sense that it is our instinct to turn away from pain. Of course it makes sense that we don't want it to be true, that our kids will suffer. You know, of course we don't want them to experience pain and it's the unavoidable truth of being human. And you know, it is instinct to say, oh, you know, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. But what you're offering is the opposite turning in. There it is.

Keli: And there's such an amazing, such a gift that all the shames, the pains, the hurts, they're not the gift, but there's a gift in the center of it when we learn the skills to unravel, to be with, to hold, to listen.

Laura: What is that gift?

Keli: Oh, it's unique for everyone. You know, that might be for some, different triggers that overwhelm, that might be, you know, a reclaiming of their innocence that maybe they lost at some point in their life.

Laura: Yeah, I love that. I think about all of my triggers. I'm so grateful for every time I get flooded or overwhelmed by something with my kids because it's a chance to be kind to myself. It is such a wise thing that my experience, my life is offering me just like, oh yes, here's a chance I can be kind, you know?

Keli: Yeah, beautiful. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so, and then we move into more of the 6-12 year range and this is where we have a really captive audience. This is where children can actually develop the practice of meditation in a whole new way.

Laura: I just want to say, I love that you're not talking about like sitting down and attempting to meditate with a five year old. That you're talking about bringing presents and mindful awareness and curiosity to these children as a matter of practice and in the context of a relationship. I think too often we get a message that we have to teach these skills and tools like as a checkbox to young kids and that's, I'm so glad that you're talking about it in this different way. Thank you for that. Okay, and then when they're older and they're ready.

Keli: Yeah, exactly. And then even when they're older and they're ready, there’s different; not every seven year old could sit for five minutes, but many seven year olds would. So how do we, it might be a more structured meditation practice but still unique to them because when they're older, you know, even much older, they will sit.

Being with them at every stage of it and one of the words that you chose when you were talking, you know when you're talking about the five year old is that word curiosity. As we know it from, you know, raising small children, you know at 5, they ask 40 questions a day and at 40, we ask 5. And it's usually the same ones like, what? You know, where's my keys? What do we have for dinner? So for all of us, do, you know, maintain that beautiful curiosity in life, you know, to question everything.

Laura: Yes, I will never stop saying that curiosity is a superpower to be cultivated and yes, context, I will never stop saying it, it's a superpower sometimes. And I'm some of my more skeptical, like especially dads would be like she's kind of lame for us, you know, she’s kind of silly for saying that, but it is, it's a superpower. I love it. I love curiosity, it’s the best thing in the world.

Keli: Yeah, I love that you brought that up. Wonderful. Yeah, so 6 to 12, this is where they can also answer deeper questions, different inquiry like, where is that emotion in my body? So you know, as a parent we can implement any of the three types of practice and you know, they can listen to guided audio meditations.

They can do, I mean I learned transcendent meditation at the age of six so we can implement any of the three as a more structured practice. Best to pick one or two, you know, that is kind of consistent, that could be a breath practice. It can be transcendent meditation, but where there is some sense of consistency or regularity or is it part of the routine?

Laura: Yeah, building it into the rhythm

Kelly: I wasn't asking to meditate at six; just meditating because I was told. I had my kids you know, either at least try everything on their plate or maybe on the days you didn't want her to go to their sports. You know, things. It's like, nope, we're going, you know, unless there was something really big.

So it's we really can without, you know, it's a fine line between making it a struggle and really difficult. So you navigate that and we set those kind of deals with those routines as a parent. So we have that ability.

Laura: I was going to ask you, what if your kid is resistant to some of these things like what do you do with their resistance? How do you meet them in their resistance?

Keli: Well, I think that's beautiful, just what you said, let's meet them in their resistance. And that again, that can look like breathing. It's hard because it would be different for between 6 and 12 and such a range in there. But I would say, you know, we meet them there.

Laura: Yeah, part of me is feeling like you know, there's a kind of instead of for some kids, a lot of my listenership has has at least one child who is maybe would be called strong willed or spirited or quite resistant to outside influence as a firm sense of who they are and their boundaries. Yes, I feel like that's more empowering to say than to say they're like a difficult child or challenging, but, you know, whatever label you put on it.

And so for me and with a practice like this, inviting them in, leaving it open, leaving them space, because when we push it, we back them into a corner and we don't give them any other option with their personality and temperament than to push back and resist.

So if we leave a kind of open, we invite them in this is what we're doing as a family right now, if you'd like to join us, okay, you know, and just leave that open, that consistent invitation and with no attachment and no meaning to what it will mean if they do or they don't

Keli: Yes, so important. And my oldest, you know, to be honest, was more like that. And at night I used to do a lot of just guiding again, just helping them live in their bodies. Again, it's like that, breathing into the toe, embodying being in our bodies, it just has such a profound impact. So it doesn't have to be in that really structured way where that invitation is open, but there's so many opportunities for us as a parent to invite an inquiry and remember that inquiry isn't so much about the need for the answer. It's actually about the inquiry itself is the most important piece.

So if we're helping them asking questions of them in reference to their body or their feelings or where things are, not so much that they have the answers if their strong willed and not really wanting to answer, that inquiry impacts them.

Laura: Just as an example. My almost six year old had a performance recently at school and she was very nervous and very reluctant to participate in it. And so we just did an inquiry, just curiosity with her. You know, as much as she needed to.

What's going on? What are you thinking about when you think about doing it? How does it feel in your body? Where do you feel the nervousness? What does it look like? What color is it? Was it telling you? What did it feel like to do this? Using her like all of that? And eventually she decided to perform. And she had a great time and she was so happy that she did. But it was two days of kind of near constant inquiry about it.

Keli: So what you were doing with that inquiry is you were helping her turn towards it.

Laura: And what's important for parents listening to know is that process, that practice, that skill of turning in and listening to yourself, listening to your internal compass, what your body is telling you, what your heart is telling you–that's the exact same process that is going to help her when she's at a party and someone brings out pot or she's with a partner and they're ready to do something she's not. Those are the exact skills we want them equipped with as they grow.

Keli: Absolutely! Hell yeah to that. And so let's talk about the teenager because they’re the difficult ones for, you know, we from the experience them and they're challenging for, you know, the teen and they're challenging for the parents.

You know, when you look at, kind of done a survey before with the number one fear of parents and you know, it's like high 90s, it's the fear of death, of losing them. But when I dug a little bit deeper into that fear in the younger years, it looks like death, like the physical aspects of losing them, but actually in the teen years, it's emotionally being disconnected from them.

There's a mor, yeah, and you know, it's that difficultness that can come in those years and if we have set them up with this ability to tune in this whole new level of conversation, not only with their own self, but then with us, it's amazing the tools that they have to make these difficult years, you know.

Instead of being lost, you know, they already know who they are and it's still going to be challenging, but there's a whole foundation that has been built and there's more opportunity or ability to meet future growth to meet life, you know, and navigate that. You know, maybe just adding in, you know, my kids are those ages, so 16, 18 and 21.

And it's really then that I, at this time, I mean, I've seen the impact all the way along with different scenarios that you go through being a family, raising three kids. But it's right now I love watching my three teens and how they support each other, how they meet life, and how they work through the processes. You know, one quick story. I, we’re running out of, starting

Laura: No, no, no, we love stories here, we love to see it in action for sure

Keli: I have so many stories about my kids, but, you know, my middle son; through these processes that I do with my kids it's like, you know, they lived through workshops over and over again.

My one son, 17, he was away on a ski weekend with some of his friends and something happened. I don't remember the details, but he was triggered and feeling a bit angry, you know, and then that's also some hurt, and because he's, you know, worked with his own emotions before, he knew that he just needed some time.

So, you know, he went somewhere kind of sat down, you know, just really checked and turned towards, you know, the anger and was with it and he came home and he had a grin from ear to ear and he was like, mom, I was able to just sit and love my anger, you know, I was able just to be with it and you know, he went on to have a great weekend.

But without these skills of being able to turn towards difficult emotions and to unravel some of the stories that we have attached to them, we all know where that could have gone. That anger could have been a bit more resentment, maybe some conflict over the weekend or you know, who knows what, you know, possibilities could have come from that trigger that arose for him, but he knew exactly what to do with it. And so I'm seeing them on their own, you know, really practice some of these

Laura: That’s so beautiful. As a mom to younger ones, I love thinking about what that might look like for me and for my kids as they move into the future. That's so beautiful.

Okay, so I just felt like everybody lean in when you're talking about your son having this moment where he sat and was present with his anger and grateful towards it. I think we were all kind of thinking about like, I have times as a parent where I'm overwhelmed by negative emotion, where I'm flooded by negative emotion, where I feel triggered by something that's going on with my kids.

And so many of us know here in this community that when our kids are pushing our buttons, the kind of, we are, our instinct is to focus on the person pushing the button, but in reality we need to focus on the button and the owner of the button. And so I feel like this would be just a really natural spot to dig in a little bit to kind of how do we go about, you know, when we are overwhelmed, slowing down so that we can respond rather than react from our trigger, like your son did.

Keli: The breath in that moment is, you know, such a powerful tool when you start really developing and noticing the difference between being present and not present. Again, it's just a skill that gets developed and when we have that skill and it's developed, we actually just naturally drop into presence when there's difficult things going on. You know what I mentioned, we see what is instead of what we want to see or

Laura: What we think we see or we've been conditioned to see. Absolutely.

Keli: So we just naturally, you know, tend to our garden and started to just trying to manage someone else's weeds. We, you know, breath is the biggest thing. And would it be okay right now to talk a little bit about the five parts? Let's do the emotional overwhelm because we can save that for another time where we can

Laura: No, no, no, let's get there now, it just feels good now.

Keli: Okay, so there's actually five parts to your triggers or our overwhelm that we're feeling. And the first is where it is in our body because our body is a storehouse of everything that's, you know, that's happening, that has happened. And it actually notices emotions long before we do. But typically we're so disconnected from our body that your body needs to shout to get our attention.

Then there's the actual emotion itself and emotions actually only take about 90 seconds to move through. So why do we hang onto emotions or grievances for 40 years? It's actually because of the narrative that's underneath it. The story, the meaning, the belief that's attached to it. But the emotion is there to be truly validated and felt and witnessed and held.

We just don't want to justify the narrative or the story because that's usually about somebody else. It's either, you know, it's all those projections, you know, that we have on things outside of ourselves or we're beating ourselves up on the inside or both. Right.

So, it's looking at the narrative and, you know, what's truer because we might have a statement like, you know, I can't do this or I'm not good enough or relationships are difficult or the world isn't safe. And there's so many different beliefs that we have that kind of run the show that we live our lives through.

So when we can pause in the moment, we could just really validate the emotion coming to our body, wherein my body am I holding that, not just be with it. And then inquire into that narrative–what thoughts, what beliefs, you know, what reoccurring stuff is going on?

Laura: That’s the story I'm telling myself. Am I making this mean about me or my child? Yeah.

Keli: Exactly. And then look at what's truer–still part of the narrative, but what's true or how can we reframe that?

Laura: Yeah. I also like what else could be true? What is also true? You know, creating space for multiplicity and truth? I think so often we think there's truth with a capital T but most of the time there's multiple truths available to us.

Keli: Absolutely. And that's why every time we inquire, it's more about the inquiry than the answer, because, you know, just unravels so many different layers to it.

Laura: Absolutely.

Keli: And then the next is a need. We have a true unmet need that because that trigger, that overwhelm is from an old wound. It's from an old fracture. It's from something, you know, deep within.

So when we inquire, what do I really need right now? It's amazing what arises. And when we can meet that need, so kind of the next one in reference to that, that need is, how can I meet it? What can I cultivate? What can I, you know, ask for? How can I need it? What happens is, well, not only do we feel build up because our needs are being met.

We take other people off the hook because lots of times when we project that outside of ourselves with these false expectations that somebody else will really be able to meet those. We take it, it comes in all kinds of forms–passive aggressive, manipulative sort of behaviors. We take other people off the hook and it frees the space actually for people to step up and support us in ways that we couldn't even imagine

Laura: Tell me more about this kind of, this letting other people off the hook. There's a piece for this sounds like a lot like kind of I'm taking responsibility for my own experience and my own emotions. Can you dig in just a smidge there?

Keli: Yeah. Well, I mean, what you said is correct. I mean, even the whole process in itself is taking responsibility. You know, our feelings are ours.

Laura: I think so many of us grew up in homes where we were made to be responsible for other people's feelings. And so then we think that that's what love is, that's what family is. And so then we go out and we seek partners who are going to expect that we're going to meet their emotional needs and they're going to meet our emotional needs and you know, and that's going to be what it is.

And you're inviting us into considering something different; that in order to have a true marriage where we feel supported by our family, where we feel supported by each other, we first have to meet our own needs, right?

Keli: Yes, absolutely. I love what you said about growing up in households where we were made to feel responsible for someone else's emotional well being or triggers or anything else. And as parents it’s truly what we want, you know, how we want to show up as parents is to be responsible for our own self and teach our children to be responsible for their own emotional experience of life and you know, when we do that, is just so any victim narrative because that's essentially a victim narrative locks in powerlessness.

And you know, there might be some people listening that had truly difficult situations that they were truly a victim and I run a program where I called Evolve Behind Your Story; it's a really deep process work. And one of the things about people have really deep victim narratives because something wrong truly did happen.

However, 2% or 1%of that victim narrative can you now claim because we all want to be free, we want to feel empowered instead of enslaved by the circumstance. So when any portion of that experience that we can really step into and take responsibility in a healthy way because we can overuse that word–responsibility–as well, but really truly take responsibility for it, we step more into our own empowerment.

Laura: Yeah. You know, so as a survivor myself there, this delicate balance and line to walk between kind of accepting what is, what happened–it's unchangeable and there's parts of the victim narrative for me that kind of that I can get sucked into and kind of wishing it had been different and if only it had been different, then I could be this way and that's simply not reality, that it is what it is and it's not going to change.

And so now I get to choose, I get to step fully into my power in moving forward and living my life with this piece that is a part, you know, and I get to decide what to do with it. I think that that's probably what you're

Keli: Yeah, absolutely. You know, if you look at you know anybody who's truly overcome, you know, I mean some of the world's most influential people have been through horrendous things. You know, let’s use Oprah as an example, you know, that level of influence, that level of success that she, you know, has in the impact that she has.

And there's like a similar theme for everyone that, you know, falls into that category and one is they've connected to the truth of who they are–that essence, that meditation and stillness we talk about. They've connected to the part of them that is beyond the story that's beyond the physical and they've integrated their story because she has some, you know, you know, large parts to her story in her past where she was quite victimized so, and traumatized.

So, you know, in a really broad sense of word, trauma means an event that happened that we couldn't make meaning of; we couldn't integrate, we didn't have the support, we didn't have the tools, we didn't have the ability to unravel truly the gift that's underneath it. There's, you know, the pain, the shame, you know

Laura: Right. Or we integrate it in a way that ultimately didn't serve us; doesn’t serve us currently

Keli: Absolutely, yeah, we created a meaning that was way overhear about it, what it meant about us, you know, what it meant about life

Laura:: And about the safety of the world.

Keli: Yes. Yeah.

Laura: Absolutely. For sure.

Keli: Which kind of brings us to the last–that five part of emotional overwhelm is the last one is the gift because there's always a gift on the other side. So when we can turn towards, when we can unravel that narrative, when we can meet our needs, we just step more empowered. We reclaim our innocence. We find more love in our life.

Laura: We can start listening internal wisdom. Yeah. And that's where responsiveness as a parent comes from. It’s you know, hopefully there will be times when you can do this in the moment where you catch yourself, but most of the time and this is new, you will be doing this retroactively, you know, where you're like, oh, I lost it, let's figure this out, let's get curious, let's step into inquiry with myself, you know, and it will get, you'll get better and better and better. That moment of awareness will come sooner and sooner and sooner. But it takes time, luckily we've got our whole lives, there's no rush.

I think lots of parents feel a lot of pressure and urgency as they are kind of awakened to how I'm doing this. I'm doing this parenting thing, I'm stewarding a life and it feels very big and very urgent and I just want everybody to know there is time–there’s time for you, there's time for your child, and there's time for your relationship with your child. You have your whole lives for it.

Keli: Yes, absolutely. It's one of the questions I've had as well, you know-is it too late? Has the damage been done? And, you know, I answered this one particular person with a question and it was, and I know that she has a difficult relationship with her parents.

And I said, think about it if your mom–I know you have a difficult relationship wit–all of a sudden, brought more presents, more awareness, more love to the table. How would that impact you as an adult? It's absolutely never, it's never too late at any, any stage that we bring more presence. You know, we all crave to be seen, to be heard, that presence. And so yeah, it's never, it's a journey. There's no perfection and it's just never too late to bring more consciousness into our lives

Laura: Beautifully said, I can't think of a better way to end and leave, leave my listeners for the day. Thank you, Keli. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your heart with us today. I really appreciate it.

Keli: Thank you. Thank you for, you know, having this podcast and supporting so many moms. It's parents, you know, families, it's such a soft spot in my heart.

Laura: Yeah, it's a gift and an honor and we thank you for walking alongside me as we do this thing together.

Keli: Thank you so much.

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout-out and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

February 15, 2022

Episode 105: Recovering from Adverse Childhood Experiences with Dr. Bre Gentile

February 15, 2022/ Laura Froyen

Mental health is as important as our physical health. And as parents, we need every bit of help regarding this matter because parenting is never easy when we are mentally exhausted. Not to mention, our wonderful children have a real knack for showing us know where we have healing to do, right? And so, we are going to talk about mental health and trauma informed practices and how understanding our pasts can help make our parenting a little bit easier.

To help me in that conversation, I have invited Dr. Bre Gentile. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology at Gonzaga University and has gone on to receive two master's degrees, one from Golden Gate University in Counseling and the second from Palo Alto University in Clinical Psychology, where she also got her PhD. Dr. Gentile has spent over 10 years working to improve outcomes for children, teens, and their caregivers working through her research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress. Her work with mental health providers, communities, and families has allowed her to develop a keen insight into the challenges of supporting resilience through trauma-informed practices.

Here's a summary of what we discussed:

Trauma informed practices and what it is
Adverse childhood experiences and their effects
How to recover from adverse childhood experiences if you have some
How we can determine if our children are having the same experiences
Getting the right help for mental health

To get more resources, visit Dr. Gentile's website www.drgslab.com.
You may also check:
www.stresshealth.org
centerforyouthwellness.org
www.theconfessproject.com

TRANSCRIPT

Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic overwhelm. 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.

Laura: Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about mental health and trauma-informed practices and how having a trauma-informed lens as we approach parenting can be really helpful for ourselves, making parenting a little bit easier and in working with our kids and to help me with this conversation, I'm bringing in a clinical psychologist, her name is Dr. Bre Gentile, we'll call her Dr. G and she is the director of product design at the Center for Youth Wellness in an expert in adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress. So I'm so happy to have Dr. G on the show. DR G, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Dr. Bre: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. So as you mentioned, I'm the product designer over at Center for Youth Wellness and I came to this place after being a bachelor's degree in psychology and continuing on to get my Masters and then my Ph.D. and myself as a psycho oncologist and then became super interested in mental health tank.

So I left the psychology world to do some tech work. I did some U.X hardware research with google and found myself really unfulfilled and ended up back into the nonprofit space where I'm at now with Center for Youth Wellness and really what I do there is I help our products and services become very trauma-informed and trauma conscious and we help families, communities, and providers such as pediatricians and other behavioral professionals with aces and toxic stress and resilience. So I'm really happy to be part of the conversation today.

Laura: I'm so glad that you're here. Okay, so can we just touch real quick on what you mean by trauma-informed practices like what does that mean to us?

Dr. Bre: So it really means making sure that you're thinking about not only the trauma or the toxic stress that your child has gone through, but also as a parent or a caregiver what you've gone through as well and bringing that to the conversation, whether it's with your teacher pediatrician, even your dentist.

I mean it's really interesting and you'll see as our conversation goes on, that toxic stress is really just a biological response. So it can come up in all different ways and all different places where you might not think that it would be important, but it actually is very important throughout your life span and throughout the different places that you show up.

So that's really what we mean by taking a trauma-informed lens is just remembering and acknowledging the stress and the events that you have gone through as a parent and also that your child may be going through as well.

Laura: I think that this piece of it is so important Dr. G especially as kids return to the classroom after this pandemic, I think it cannot be overstated that we have all kind of been through a collective trauma and having trauma-informed practices in the classroom is incredibly important. Don't you think?

Dr. Bre: it's a little discouraging at times when I hear conversations about getting back to the new normal and rushing into this new normal of getting back into the classroom and I just have to hope that, you know, our school counselors, our principals and our teachers are getting the training that they need to also acknowledge their own low level of trauma or toxic stress that they may have gone through, but also to look for signs in our kids and their students and how do they plan on addressing that and being proactive about it.

I think is going to be really important and not just waiting for some kid to show up in your office or for a behavioral outbursts to happen, but to really just outwardly address what just happened in this last year, year and a half or so, how that might be affecting them as kids and how it might be affecting their supportive adult as well. I think it's going to be really important.

Laura: Oh yes. That acknowledgement of our role in the kind of the systemic nature of these interactions is so important. So kids don't exist in a vacuum. Neither do teachers or parents or doctors or therapists. We have the relationships with each other and those exists in the space between two people and so two people are both bringing their own experiences and background and trauma and stress responses to interactions and acknowledging that I think is so important.

So I'm so glad that we're having this conversation. This is what the balance parent is all about, is contextualizing the parenting experience where we are looking at the whole child, but also the system that the child is embedded in an understanding that, you know, what's going on for the child can be isolated from what's going on with the parent. Right?

Dr. Bre: Right. Absolutely. Yeah, this system is huge. That's a really important key factor that you mentioned.

Laura: Yeah, Okay, so let's talk a little bit about adverse childhood experiences. I think most of my audience will have heard about these in looking back on their own childhood and thinking about if they've had trauma in their own lives, can we talk a little bit about adverse childhood experiences? Or ACEs are where that term came from and what some of the things you know, that come up when parents are looking back at their own upbringing.

Dr. Bre: So, the 10 original adverse childhood experiences, there's been a couple of them that have been added on since the 10 original are really divided up into three different categories. So, you've got abuse neglect and household instability. So I'll go through each category because there's experiences within the category.

So within abuse, you have physical abuse, emotional abuse, and of course sexual abuse, and then within neglect, you have, again, physical neglect and emotional neglect and within household instability, which I think is one of the ones that is really not obvious but has tremendous effect on our health outcomes, which is mental illness, incarcerated, relative mother treated violently substance abuse and then divorce.

So, those are the original 10 adverse childhood experiences. I think there's been a couple of studies that have added things like deportation anything around immigration and then a couple of things have been thought about about adding bullying. And I think that's probably maybe interpersonal violence may be also be added on, but discrimination is also one of those that we're thinking about adding to.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And so the research on ACEs then, what does it say about folks who have had 12 or more of these experiences in their childhood as they came up?

Dr. Bre: Yeah. So, you know, the science of ACEs has been pretty much going on since the original study of Feleti, but it's really grown and so the science of it, it's just been decades of scientific investigation. It's showing that, you know, adversity that we experience as children, it can affect us into our adulthood. So the challenges that children face in school life and ultimately in their health, they're often the symptoms of ACEs and toxic stress.

So, you know, I don't want to go too far without giving some good news, which is that the earlier we can identify that a child spirit is experiencing ACEs and toxic stress the sooner the children and families can be connected to the services that they need to prevent and to heal effects. So, You know, the landmark adverse childhood experience study that I mentioned was in 1998. And the idea is that one, I think it's about one is okay, right.

One is something that we probably all have. But when you get up to four, Such as emotional abuse, emotional neglect, mental illness and substance abuse, that's when we start to look at the risks and the risk factors, you know, again from that study, the idea is that aces are incredibly common. In fact, I think it's something about 67% had at least one ace.

But There are also 13% of that had four or more aces. And so the more aces that you have, the higher risk, um for chronic diseases as an adult, so you can be experiencing these aces as a child and you won't see the effect until you're an adult where you're three times at risk for heart disease or lung cancer. So things like that, that you might not see until you're older? And there's also, which is probably the most shocking result to me is there's a 20-year difference in life expectancy for children that have cases that were left unattended. 20.

Laura: That's heavy. So I feel like parents are, who are receiving this information right now are in the spot where they're like, do I have these are these, is this part of what makes things hard for me? Is this contributing to things that might be difficult?

And then how do I know if these are experiences that my child is having? So what is a good starting point for parents who are just starting to think about, like, oh, the things that she mentioned, I have those in my past for the parent, what do we do? And then we'll talk about the kid out later.

Dr. Bre: That sounds great. So I think the idea is the question is really as a caregiver's an adult, you're asking? Okay, what can I do? Right. So yes, we have the power to help our children. Absolutely. But we also need to think about what about my aces? What about my aces? So the first thing is to know, acknowledging did I go through some of these hard times as a child?

A lot of times we just thought it was just, you know, our error or it was just how things were done and it was just how our mom was or how our dad was. But really when you think about it, was it really how it just was or was there some really hard times that you want to recall may be disciplined. For example, this is a really big one may be disciplined. What was excessively harsh at home.

Maybe one of your parents drink too much or verbally abused your struggled with a drug addiction. So those are the types of aces that can cause toxic stress and put people at higher risk for the heart disease and the depression like I mentioned, I think what it brings up to me is, you know, in California, we have screening for ACEs at the pediatric level, but you can also find the ace quiz or the ace scale That you could take on your own to find out. Did I have one of these or more of these? 10 aces.

And so I think just taking that and taking stock in that and I highly recommend doing it with a licensed professional because it can bring up a lot of different things and we don't know the idea is not to re traumatize you but to give you some awareness and to give you some grounding in that, you know, these weren't just people just being people or eras being errors. These were actually really hard times that you went through that affect you as an adult.

Laura: Yeah, I think that's so important. I think so many of us. I want to say that like yeah, things were heard. Yeah. There were things about my upbringing that I wish had been different. Yeah, parents were harsh with me. Yeah, it was bad at this point in time, but other people had it worse. And so what should I, you know, what am I complaining about?

But I think really taking a good look at your upbringing and how it's affecting you in ways you may not even realize that the health implications that you're talking about are wild. They're astounding. So okay, now let's say then you're ready to start looking at it.

You're ready to start working on some of the stress maybe that you, this trauma response that you've been in perhaps your whole life, you're starting to want to look at that. How can you find a provider, a therapist who is informed, who is trauma informed and who will help you work through some of those things? Do you have any suggestions on how to find the right mental health care provider?

Dr. Bre: Yeah. The first place I would always look at is wherever you're getting your psychology or mental health tip, it's whether it's like, Psychology today or another forum that you use to start there because you can filter your results by trauma or PTSD. So, I think that that's really important to actually find a professional that has worked with trauma or PTSD.

And even though if you're thinking, I don't have PTSD, like you said, it wasn't that bad. Those therapists are going to know how to work with trauma and how to work with toxic stress. It doesn't have to be on the continuum over here. With PTSD can be on the other side of the continuum, that's just traumatic events happening. So I really highly recommend getting somebody that's actually specialized in trauma.

Laura: Oh, I so agree. Dr. G, I was just talking with a person who's in my balancing you membership. She was trying to find a therapist and she's, you know, seeing several over the past years and they've all just been terrible fits and done more harm than good for her.

And so I was giving her some search terms further, like what psychology today profiles and gave it that exact hip and she found someone on her first try who's a great fit who is trauma informed and just even having that search term trauma informed or searching for people who specialize in trauma recovery.

It makes all the difference because folks who are trained in those things that they have specialized training you know to and they have expertise and often times I don't know if your experience in the clinical world. When I was a practicing therapist, I was a specialist with trauma survivors. And there was a reason why those folks came to me because I was good at working with them.

So usually the people who specialized in it, they have some kind of gift with it too, you know where they know that they're good at it. They found out that this is something that they feel really passionately about and want to do. They're invested in it and then you get better care providers to.

Dr. Bre: Yeah, absolutely agree. And I think actually going with the search term of trauma informed over the search term parenting or family, I think you're gonna find yourself getting much better results because parenting with aces is a whole different realm than just your normal parenting stress. Right? So I think it's really important to bypass that parenting or family search term and go straight for the trauma.

Laura: I agree so much. Okay, it's so important you and I know what all the letters in the names and all of those things mean after people's names, but I think it's so important to be very, very clear and help people find the right care provider for them.

Thank you for that. It's so important. Okay, so then what about if perhaps there are people who are listening and thinking about their own family that they have now, their family of creation, the children that they are raising right now. And they're realizing that some of what they've got going on is perhaps contributing to their children's dress too.

Perhaps like a pediatrician would have something pop up on that screen. What do parents do if they're realizing that their kids right now are experiencing or have experienced earlier in their childhood, one of these adverse experiences?

Dr. Bre: Yeah, so again, I think that the important part is to first take a moment to realize that you have the power to help kids lead longer and healthier lives. A lot of times we may feel like if we're holding all of this trauma and we're realizing, gosh, I could be more calm if I only had this response system in track or I could, you know, not just completely freeze and shut down if I had, you know, this system in check.

And so I think the first thing is to just take a moment to realize that even though you went through these things and you're maybe parenting with your own aces, you still have the power to help your kids. So I think that the right kind of support like we talked about is really, really important in mitigating the impact of toxic stress.

But also I think that there's certain conversations that you can definitely have outside of your pediatric or outside of your licensed professional that you can have and most of those are going to be around what I call the seven domains of wellness. So we developed them at Center for Youth Wellness and those conversations are usually held within one of the domains which is the supportive relationship.

So if you find maybe one, maybe two, maybe it's six right? Supportive healthy relationships. Having the conversation about your own aces and your child's ACEs can really mitigate the effects and the impact of the toxic stress. So that's just one of the domains that I highly recommend taking a look at because that's one of the ones that you probably already have, you probably already have maybe at least one supportive relationship hopefully that you can use and utilize in that way.

Laura: Okay. Yeah. So tell me more about the seven domains of wellness. What are they and how can they support a family as they're moving through hard times.

Dr. Bre: Yeah, so the seven domains of wellness, our domains that we know mitigate the effects of toxic stress. And so the seven of them are supportive relationships, which I just mentioned, nutrition, sleep, exercise, mindfulness, mental health and nature. So I can go into each one of those really briefly that you can find a lot of this information on our website which is stresshealth.org.

So stresshealth.org. So supportive relationship like I said, is where we actually have a supportive relationship and it might not be your partner, it might be your best friend, it might be your child's mom, right? Or your child's friends, Mom, excuse me. So the idea is that we as parents can also use these domains of wellness and we can also encourage our children to use these domains of wellness.

So as the parent using supportive relationship, it's really seeking out that friend or that family member that you can have difficult conversations with and talk about stress for our kids that looks like them having a teacher or having hopefully maybe a parent, but we know, you know, as they get older, they may tend to not have those difficult conversations with you.

So a teacher, a coach, any of those will be a supportive relationship for your child and what that does is it allows them to have conversations that they don't have to hold and they can actually let that out so we can move on to nutrition.

Laura: Oh wait, hold on. I just wanted to highlight something. So when you were talking about the supportive relationships, I noticed that you were mentioning for relationships that your child would be having, that they would be with adults, but not with peers, and I think I wanted to just highlight the last thing there that you said is that they can have these kind of conversations where they don't have to hold it anymore.

I think that probably the reason why we're talking about relationships with adults, a child's relationship with an adult is so that I don't know that peers are not being burdened with heavy stuff. Is that kind of, am I on the right track?

Dr. Bre: Yeah, because the truth of the matter is, although we really want our children to have friends and be able to talk to their friends, their friends are not equipped to have a response to some of the stuff that may be going on. So while our friends are really great at normalizing what's going on and being like, oh, you know, Yeah, my dad does the same thing or my mom does the same thing, that's great.

But it doesn't have a great response because they're just not equipped to come and say that's a difficult situation. Why don't we talk about that a little bit deeper, Right? They don't have the active listening skills with reflective listening skills that adults do. So we do want them to have friends, but we also want there to be distinguished between a good friend and a supportive adult.

Laura: Good. I'm so glad that we kind of highlighted that a little bit more so there's a reason that there's a difference between these supportive relationships that you're mentioning here and paris Yes. Good. Okay.

Dr. Bre: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for making that distinguished to go ahead and move on to the nutrition then. And I always like to breakfast nutrition, but this is actually not necessarily about making sure you hit all of the food pyramid or you eat, you know, more vegetables really what nutrition is about when you're talking in terms of aces is actually something really simple like eating together as a family.

So, a consistent routine around being with safe and trusting adults during mealtime. It's a really important daily routine and it allows you to just set aside a specific time where you eat together, even the babies can eat together, but you're all around a family table and it doesn't have to be family, right? It doesn't, it can be mom, coach, grandma, auntie, it doesn't matter who's at the table, It's about the routine and about the coming together over a meal. That's really important with mitigating the toxic stress.

Also we talk about, you know, not having distractions, so avoiding screens and you know, phones, television, all that during mealtime, it's really tempting and we understand that if you ditch the distraction when you're just retelling the story to the kid that you matter, You matter, I'm here, I matter, I'm here, we're here together and that matters. So that's really important. I also think that it's super important about nutrition, specifically eating breakfast is really important. Obviously we, you know, we hear a lot of signs about that and of course the most colorful vegetables are always the most preferred ones.

But we know that you know, especially in San Francisco and the district that we serve, we know that getting fresh fruit and vegetables is not always possible. We serve Bayview, which is considered a food desert and so we understand that well it's nice to go to whole foods and get all the colorful vegetables you can get or go to a farmer's market and get fresh produce that is just not possible for everybody.

And we know for sure that in our black and brown communities, it's really difficult to have breakfast together because 11 parents are already out the door or we have parents who are working two different jobs and having dinner together isn't even a possibility. So one of the things I've always been thinking about is that the domains of wellness are really fixed right now for parents and families who have a general amount of resources, but how do we make those.

But for the lives of folks who are really low resource, maybe perhaps even living out of their car or you know, really suffering with homeless and food insecurity. So constantly thinking about that, but just want that to be shared that I'm well aware that it is not always a possibility to do these things.

Laura: Yes. Access and privilege are an incredibly important aspect of this conversation.

Dr. Bre: So sleep is our next one. And again, we know that you're supposed to have a certain amount of hours per sleep. And we know that largely our entire nation is not giving enough sleep. But the really important thing that I love to hone in on this because again, we know that there are folks and families who are sleeping 3, 4 to a room and getting good sleep and having a good mattress and all of this is just not possible. But if you can keep the bedtime and the wake up time consistent, that will help your brain and your body work better together. So it's not necessarily about getting the 8-12 hours of sleep for your teenager.

It's actually more important to say, you know, 10 o'clock is bedtime and 10 o'clock is wake up time no matter what, on the weekends, right? If it's a school night then maybe it's nine o'clock and You know, 7:00 or something. But as long as you have those consistent bedtimes and wake up times, it will help your body and your brain work better together.

The other thing that I know is really just kind of thrown at parents all the time, it's cutting back on screen time and we know it's really difficult. Sometimes it's our only time as a parent to just get, you know, a few minutes of social media time in or just something that really allows us to decompress. But the truth of the matter is it's just actually not decompressing us at all. It does the exact opposite.

So as much as you can model that for your kid, even if you end up using it right before you go to bed, if you can model it for your kid, you know, a couple of hours or maybe even like a half an hour is trying to start with before bedtime, they will see you doing that. And like I said, even if you end up going into your room and going right back on, that's fine. It's really just about modeling that that behavior is possible and then your children will know, okay, that's something possible. And I see mom and or dad or grandma grandpa doing it so I can do that. And then I think that the other one is that don't be afraid to seek support from a health care provider for your kids, right?

Like we're quick to do it as adults and saying like, I need help. I'm not sleeping while I have insomnia, but we don't want to do it for our kids. There's a lot of shaming and a lot of guilt that comes around parenting and sleep. I remember it from being a parent myself having an infant. It was like, oh, your kids not sleeping through the night yet.

Oh, you know, it's like I'm site, you know, so it's really okay to get help from a professional if you feel like your kid, especially if they're having frequent awakenings and it's not something that they will, you know, kind of go back to sleep, but it's, you know, frequent nightmares or night terrors or sleep walking. Any of that talk with your healthcare provider, there's really no shame in that.

Laura: Oh, I think that's so important. Especially with older kids. I think that we take such a behavioral approach to sleep with kids and that we think that it's when they're having trouble sleeping, that it's a choice that they are having rather as opposed to an indication that, you know, they might need support in some way to, you know, Yes.

Dr. Bre: That is such an important part to bring up because we do, we go, you know, from day one, we're reading sleep training books, right? It's something we can train them to do. But you know, we don't understand that there's a whole biological system. Yeah. Play behind all of this. And you know, more than likely our kids are not choosing to not go to bed.

Laura: Exactly. It was like adults. I'm in recovery from insomnia and people are like just sleep. Oh, thank you for that. Yeah, it's the same. Yeah, Exactly.

Dr. Bre: So that brings us to exercise and again, you know, we have so much around exercise that I hardly touch on exercise because there's just so much pressure already for adults to be active, you know, five times a week, 30 minutes minimum and then there's already so much pressure on our kids to be even more active than they already are. But I think the combination of the pressure on the two people on the adult and the child, it ends up just being like let's just throw that out the window, let's not even talk about that.

Laura: Instead of using the word exercise, I've started using the term joyful movement and that feels so much better to me .

Dr. Bre: I love that. I really love that idea. I think that that's great because then you get out and you're like ok this is you know, even if you're just going for a walk it's joyful, even if you're outside blowing bubbles like you don't have to be you know, exercising heart pounding, sweat dripping type of activity.

Laura: A dance party in your kitchen is lovely.

Dr. Bre: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, that's one of the things that I actually recommend a lot is doing a freeze dance. So you know dancing in your kitchen or in your front room and then you turn off the music and whoever freezes last loses that round. So I think it's really fun to do, especially if you have young children they get a really big kick out of you know adults not being able to stop on time.

Laura: I co signed that my kids love those.

Dr. Bre: totally, I love it too. So I don't want to touch too much on exercise other than the fact that we do know that daily physical activity or or joyful movement can counteract some of the key impacts of aces. So you know it's it's reducing of the stress hormone that's all that we care about is just lowering that cortisol level so that they're not stressed and then it helps strengthen their immune system.

So just thinking about, you know, a little bit of movement, joyful activities doesn't have to be outside. It can really just be jumping up and down or you know just something really that you wouldn't even think about as being exercised. So I don't like to harp too much on that one. We get enough of that as parents.

Laura: Yes, for sure.

Dr. Bre: So that brings me to mindfulness and again, you know mindfulness can be this like meditation practice and like no it's really really not about that. It's really about self regulation and that can be for adults and kids. So what I like to do is start with the adult because it's really difficult to explain this, tweak it and I know there are apps that do wonderful jobs at it and we're getting so much better at bringing this down to the child.

But for adults, if you can do this then you'll see that your child will actually mimic you even if they're older. I have a nine year old who's starting to mimic me when I do some of these self regulatory activities. I don't think it's just for kids who are still, you know, two eyes peering at you all the time. But what I like to do is if you're facing a challenging situation or you're really stressed out, just stop, stop for a moment and just ask yourself what am I feeling right now? It can be the worst feeling ever. And it doesn't even matter, don't judge yourself, don't lighten it down. You know, you're not publishing this on facebook or anywhere else.

Just ask yourself what am I feeling right now and then take a breath and then you just ask yourself again? Okay? My breathing too fast right now. Am I holding my breath? Can I even take a deep breath right now and then just observe? Right, so, okay, what else am I feeling in my body? What are my thoughts right now? And then by the time you get to the observation place you're like, okay, all right then you can kind of move forward right? And like, am I, am I okay with what happens next if I decide to yell at my kids?

Am I okay with that? Am I okay with grounding my kids? Am I okay with turning off the video games? Am I okay with leaving the house and going for a walk? So you just kind of ask yourself and decide what way you want to respond? So I think that that's a really cool way, you know? So again, you just stop you, ask yourself what you're feeling right now you talk to yourself about your breath, asking yourself if you're holding your breath, it's too fast. Can you even take a deep breath, ask what else you're feeling in your body or your thoughts and then ask yourself if you're okay with how you plan to proceed, am I okay with it?

Laura: I love that. And I think I really love the reframe two of mindfulness, simply a self regulation. I think that people get so freaked out by the term mindfulness and they think they are going to have to change into some other being, you know, but really what it is is just learning how to have healthy emotional regulation.

Dr. Bre: Yeah, absolutely, you can do this with your kid without having the like, you know, kind of calm app or headspace app script in your head and I think the biggest way to do it is really just changing that question usually like what's wrong, right or what's going on. But if you ask, how are you feeling? It kind of gets you as a parent in this mode and then it gets the kids to start thinking like I'm feeling really frustrated, you know?

And then that just opens up a dialog to just like, okay, I hear you, you know, So I think if we just ask that without giving too many things to parents because God knows we have so much already, but just to ask change that question instead of asking your child next time, what's wrong or what's going on, ask them, how are you feeling? And I think it will open up a totally different dialogue.

Laura: I love that too. Or even like asking out loud, how am I feeling? Take the pressure off the kid to some for some of the parents who listen, they have really explosive kiddos, kids who are have a really hard time even talking about their emotions. So even just a tense moment saying like, okay, let's slow down. I'm just going to take a second to check in with myself and model that overtly okay, how am I feeling right now?

I'm feeling really overwhelmed or I'm feeling really frustrated, I'm feeling really concerned that we're not going to get to the bus on time or I'm feeling really concerned because I'm making dinner and it's burning. But I also want to help my kiddo with homework, even narrating it out loud for yourself can be helpful too.

Dr. Bre: So I have two more domains for you, but the next one is mental health which we've already touched on, so that's just really brief of like, you know, getting to the right professionals, there's really, I know that there's still a lot again, especially in our black and brown communities here in San Francisco accessibility is an issue and there's all sorts of other trusting issues going on.

So to not think about mental health in the same sense as a four walls couch kind of area, right, so there's this really great thing that we're doing in Bayview which is training barbers to have difficult conversations so that you as a male who don't typically open up this, you can go get your haircut and you can sit there and you can talk about what's going on and your barber is now trauma informed so

Laura: Oh my gosh, that's alright saying it's amazing.

Dr. Bre: Yeah, the project is fantastic, I love what they're doing.

Laura: What is the name of that project? I have, you have to know more.

Dr. Bre: Totally, the project is called The Confess Project and I will connect you offline with the founder of it, he's amazing, they're actually coming on Wednesday to train our barbers here in San Francisco to have those difficult conversations, so thinking about the different places, you know, it might be a beauty salon, it might be the nail salon, it really you don't have to seek out this space in the traditional way that you're thinking about it, especially if you're in a black and brown body and especially if you're suffering with accessibility barriers.

Laura: So one of my best friends is a hair stylist and she has been talking with me about how her community is so overwhelmed with the pandemic stress that's coming in her doors and they're so unprepared, this is a great project. Fantastic! So I highly recommend checking them out indefinitely.

Dr. Bre: Happy to connect you guys. It's a really fantastic way to think about mental health.

Laura: Oh yes, I will. And it will link for everybody who's listening and is looking for amazing organization to support. I will be putting the link in the show notes too.

Dr. Bre: So our last domain is nature. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I need to be one of nature. It's really about getting outside as much as you possibly can, but we know that some neighborhoods aren't safe. Sometimes it's actually not possible to get outside for whatever reason. So even just looking at pictures of nature or listening to nature sounds, we'll do the same effect as lowering your cortisol levels.

So you know if your friend is out there going on to Costa Rica excursion, tell him or her to send some pictures. I have encouraged a lot of our teachers to put up a screen saver of a nature during class breaks. So it's just again just to start thinking about nature and what it might feel like and hear the sounds and smell the smells and all of that. It really just slows your body down and lowers your cortisol level. So it increases our resilience and we feel more refreshed as well. So it's a win win.Laura: Yes. Yeah. You know I have found that guided nature meditations where you visualize during a meditation where you visualize nature can also be quite effective at getting you some of the same effects of like nature bathing when you don't have access to it. Love it. Thank you so much Dr. G for this conversation, Understanding how stress and the accumulation of stress over the course of a lifetime can really impact us. And then the things that we can do to help ameliorate that stress are really helpful.

Dr. Bre: You're so welcome. Thank you for having me.

Laura: Absolutely. And so I want to make sure that people know where to find you. I know you have a website too. So we've talked about the Center for Youth Wellness, but what about your website? Drop it. I'll put it in the show notes, but sometimes people like to hear it out loud.

Dr. Bre: Yeah. Yeah. So my website to my personal work is called drgslab.com. So D R G S lab dot com, You can find out more about me there. And the work I'm doing outside of my center for youth on this work.

Laura: Well, you're doing amazing work and I feel so grateful to have had you on the show. Thank you so much.

Dr. Bre: Thank you. It's been great.

February 08, 2022

Episode 104: How to Release Negative Self-Talk for Yourself & Your Child with Dr. Anjani Amladi

February 08, 2022/ Laura Froyen

We all have an inner critic; this voice that ever so helpfully (but not always nicely!) tells us all the things we are doing wrong. And while sometimes we are aware of this inner negative voice, because they can be LOUD, sometimes these negative thought patterns are just kind of running in the background, outside of our conscious awareness. And it's hard to tell which is worse right? On the one hand, it can be exhausting to be beaten up from the inside all the time, but on the other hand, at least you're aware of it and can start working with the negative self-talk, right? When it's running in the background and you don't even know it's going on, it can still impact your mood and self-confidence, right?!

What's true for you? Which are you experiencing these days? Are you aware of your inner critic? Are you dialoguing with it? Let me know by hitting comment!

Now, I want you to know that there is a way to release yourself from the vicious habit of negative self-talk. While it is okay to honestly, and compassionately assess ourselves so that we can improve and move toward our goals, engaging in chronic negative self-talk isn't actually helpful. No one learns to do better by being made to feel worse, right?!

And so, if we can learn to free ourselves from this negative inner dialogue, we can not only move more confidently and compassionately toward our goals, but we can also model this for our children in a really powerful way (because they are always watching, right?). And if you've already noticed some negative self-talk cropping up with your kids, don't worry, I've got you covered there too!

That is why for this week's episode, I invited Dr. Anjani Amladi on the show! She is an adult and child/adolescent psychiatrist who takes a holistic approach to patient care. Dr. Amladi has an extensive experience treating a wide range of psychiatric diseases, including ADHD, OCD, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and other mental health issues. Her best-selling book, When the World Got Sick, focuses on guiding parents and children to discuss about the effects of COVID-19 and how to cope during this difficult period.

She will help us learn the following:

Negative self-talk: What it is and how to recognize it in ourselves and in our kids
How to reassure or comfort ourselves and our kids without dismissing the concerns and feelings
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: What it is and how it can help release negative self-talk

To get more resources, visit Dr. Amladi's website anjaniamladimd.com and follow her on Instagram @anjaniamladimd. And get a copy of her book When the World Got Sick HERE.

If you are struggling with how to comfort your kids with anxiety, this book might be for you: Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise Courageous and Independent Children

TRANSCRIPT

Laura: Hello, everybody. This is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of The Balance Parent Podcast, we're going to be digging pretty deep into negative self-talk when it happens in ourselves and in our kids and what to do about it.

And to help me out with this conversation, I'm bringing in a colleague, an amazing doctor who's going to help us have peace, all of this out and understand how we can help ourselves and our kids. So everybody please welcome Dr. Anjani Amladi to the show. I'm so happy to have you here. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself and what you do?

Anjani: Sure. So I am a Medical Doctor. So my specialty is actually Psychiatry. So I specialize in mental health and my subspecialty is actually mini-humans, so tiny humans. So I'm a Board Certified Adult Psychiatrist as well as a Board Certified Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and my, the vast majority of my practice is kiddos. So 99% of the folks that I see are under 18, but I do see adults too.

Laura: Cool. And are there any age groups that you find yourself working with more that you really like to focus in or any kind of, you know, diagnoses or specific areas that are your favorites.

Anjani: So I love the 20 something honestly. So transitional age youth and I also really like mini-humans, so 12 and under is probably my favorite age group to work with because there's so much fun and they keep you really young. But in general, the population that I probably specialize the most in is under 30.

Laura: Okay, so young adults and teens. Cool. And so going to be talking about negative self-talk and I'm kind of curious if you can just start us off telling us what that is. Can you give us just kind of like a baseline understanding of it? What it looks like? How to recognize it in ourselves and recognize it in our kids?

Anjani: Sure. And I think it's important to mention that negative self-talk is something that we often engage in quite a bit and a lot of times we don't even realize that we're doing it. So it's these kind of negative feedback loops when something happens or it doesn't turn out the way that we expect it to, and then we start associating that action or that outcome with who we are as people, who we are as individuals.

And we say things to and about ourselves that we would never say about other people that we care about. And I think that the difference is, we are attributing characteristics to ourselves that first start not accurate. Second are often not logical and third that we would never attribute to other people that we care about. So that's kind of the cycle that we're talking about when we talk about negative self talk.

Laura: Yeah. And one thing that I feel like it's so tricky about negative self-talk is because we're thinking it about ourselves; we believe it. So we’re so much more likely to actually believe it too, right?

Anjani: Right. It's all connected so that our thoughts or feelings or behaviors, they're all interconnected and any one of those elements can cause an increase or decrease in any of the other two pieces. So our thoughts have a huge impact on our behaviors and vice versa and they can also have a huge impact on our emotions.

And one of the main treatments that we use when we talk about when our thoughts are not quite accurate or not quite logical. They're called cognitive distortions, which means that we're thinking things and feeling things that may not necessarily be accurate. And the target treatment for those symptoms is actually called cognitive behavioral therapy. So you're working on changing your thoughts as well as your feelings as well as your emotions all in one therapy modality which is really neat and it's an evidence-based treatment that works really well for both adults and for kids.

Laura: Yeah, I love CBT. It's one of the most well-researched forms of therapy; great for anxiety and for depression. It's really lovely. And what's amazing is that like in my experience, parents can pretty quickly learn some of these techniques, use them with themselves and also teach them to their kids.

Anjani: Yes. And there is actually a book that came out, I can't remember if it was last year or the year before, but it was within the last couple years. It's called CBT for Parents of Anxious Children. So basically what it is, is parents who are basically quarterbacking, implementing cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to help anxious kids.

So it's helping yourself to help your kids which is a really, really cool concept of the book that I've read. I've recommended its appearance and they, the feedback that I have gotten is that when you learn to kind of manage your own anxiety, then it really helps your kid out to help manage their anxiety as well.

And it's the thing, negative self-talk, we often emulate what we see. So when as, so as parents when we're talking about our own negative self talk, how are we emulating that for our children and how can we change that?

Laura: Yeah, I really love that you're bringing this up because as a Systems Oriented Therapist, I have to see kids in there embedded in the systems that they're in. And you know, it's so important for everybody to understand that how we are with ourselves, absolutely influences how kids are with themselves. And that there's this transaction that happens between us and certainly not in any kind of blaming way, but just it is what it is because kids don't grow up in a vacuum. They grew up in a family, right?

Okay, so if we start noticing some negative self talk and kids like what are some of the things that you might see, seeing that crop up? I know like for me as a parent, I often started seeing that around three or four when they were learning to draw or write letters and start getting frustrated with themselves? Like I can't do this, that sort of thing. What about you? Are there other things that parents can be looking out for? Things that, or common things that you hear in your practice?

Anjani: Probably the most because kids spend most of their time in two places. One, at home and two, at school. So I would say the earliest you'll probably notice it is when kids start going to school, when they start having tasks and specifically new tasks that might be challenging for them that they're learning, is probably the first time that you'll see that kind of feedback loop.

The other place might be sports–and we're not doing a whole lot of that right now because of the pandemic, but that's another place that it can show up and then also in the household if their older siblings or other family members that look like they're having an easier time doing something that they have a difficult time with themselves. You can see it in those areas, but it's usually in the context of some type of challenge where they're really struggling and it's hard.

Laura: Yeah. Oh gosh, You just, you made me think of something as you were talking about that. It's almost as if like once we have a standard or I should like, you should do it this way, that's when kids start bumping up against that feeling of not being good enough or not being able to do it right, and that's such a tender thing.

I know as a parent like we all feel that in ourselves. It's hard to think about our kids feeling that way and I think for many of us our instinct is to be like no, no, no, you're a great drawer, you're so good at sports or you're learning, you're getting better every day. And to kind of move in that kind of I don't know, we want to reassure them, but I think sometimes that comes off as dismissive or downplaying their concerns. Do you have any suggestions for what we can do?

Anjani: Sure. The way that you talk about this is going to be different based on the age group, right? So for adolescents and young adults who are able to abstract, having more logical conversations and being able to kind of use abstract examples to kind of have that discussion about skill level and ability, you know, not equating to value in society or in your household or you know within your the construct of what it means to be successful.

But for younger kids, kind of reiterating the message that it's not about the product, it's about the journey. So if you're doing your best, that is more than good enough. So kind of making sure that we're not invalidating the way that they're feeling because the reality is that there, we cannot all be good at everything all the time and that's something that our kiddos are smart enough to realize and notice that although they might want to be good at everything all the time, it's not possible. Not just for them, but for anybody. So really focusing on this idea that as long as you're trying your best, your best is good enough.

Laura: Yeah, oh and introducing self compassion and self kindness as early as possible, right? You know, for parents who are noticing a lot of negative self-talk in their kids or are experiencing very heightened frustration or angry outbursts when a child is struggling, and they're wanting to get a handle on this and maybe wanting to start doing a little bit of the thought work that can help restructure some of those thoughts.

What are some things that a parent can do at home? I mean obviously I'll put the link to the book that you were mentioning in the show notes. I have a book too that I love for parents of anxious kids, but anyway, what are some of the things that, like where can we start?

Anjani: I think the easiest place and the best bang for your buck because when you're, I was really struggling, individual facetime is really, really important. It’s the fastest way to connect on a personal level and it allows children to not only be seen but also heard as well. So, one of the questions that I often ask families whose kiddos are struggling–having a lot of meltdowns, getting really frustrated, having a lot of outbursts is how much individual facetime are you actually spending with your kid?

And if we really think about one of the promises of therapy when kiddos come into the office and see us for therapy, what are we doing? We're spending complete and total undivided individual attention with the kiddo and they get to share what their day was like, how they're feeling, what's going on in their life. And if you really, really think about that and be really honest with ourselves about that, how often do we give our kids complete and total undivided individual attention? It’s rare.

One of the fastest ways to try to figure out what's going on and help kids feel seen and feel heard is just to sit down and do something–an activity for younger kids. It could be coloring, could be a walk in the park, it could be, you know, washing the dogs together. It could be all sorts of different things. And I think the important thing to remember that it's not a grand, it doesn't have to be a grand gesture.

Kids are very aware of things like financial strain or job stress. They just want to be seen and they just want to be heard and it doesn't take much to do that. Like if you're working and they want to sit down and color on your floor while you do that, great. Perfect.

If you want to go for a walk and just kind of hang out together and you know, what do you see, what are you hear? What are, what are you observing around you and how are you feeling? When you notice these things that make you happy, are always to kind of tap into those three spears to how they're thinking, how they're feeling and it will definitely affect how they behave. So I think that's, that's my one pitch if I can get that across this. If we can spend more individual time with our kiddos, you will get so much bang for your bucks there.

Laura: I think so too. It builds that connection. You know, everybody just wants to be seen and heard and feel like they matter to the people that they love. And it also, I think especially like if you're spending some time in play with them, it helps you get to know them. It helps you get to know what's important to them and what they're thinking about and we have to prioritize it too.

I really do agree with you there, that connection. Especially like if they've been at school all day reconnecting when they come home. And not just over the typical things, I think that sometimes parents try to stack dinner or bath time or reading and use that as their connection time and that's beautiful. But sometimes kids need just 5 or 10 minutes of your undivided attention. It's not a lot.

In other times, the people that I learned from in love, Magda Gerber calls it Wants-Nothing Time where nobody is doing anything other than being together, where you're just dropping into the present moment and they need it. They need that time with us. I love that.

Anjani: And it works. It really works. And what you'll find is it works in adult relationships too. So one of the things that we do in our out of the no phones rule at dinner because we were finding that our phone chime is on and it's like, oh let me check this one email and let me check this one text or let me into this one phone call.

And then with between myself and my husband; we're both very busy, we have full time jobs, we work a lot. We were realizing that we're, the quality time quote unquote that we're supposed to be spending with each other is completely eliminated by the fact that we're letting work invade our personal life. And I think that's also helped–a small example. There are other things that we do too, but small example of the things that I increase connection and just facetime, interpersonal relationships, not just with your children but with your partner as well.

Laura: I think that's so important. That's something that my partner and I when we notice we're getting a little like snippy with each other or feeling a little disconnected, we have a kind of a standard rule of, okay, so when we're noticing that this is going on, that means that our phones go into a drawer at the kids’ bedtime and they don't come out for an hour afterward. And that's, and it just, it takes care of the problem. It's just that one little shift.

I was also reading a study earlier this week where they asked teenagers about how their parents' phone and technology use affected them and what they actually wanted their parents to be doing, and the kids were pretty strong. They opinionated that they did not want their parents on their phones during transition time. So like leaving, picking up from school or during meal times, which was really interesting. Kids feel really strongly about this that they want their parents off their phones. They notice.

Anjani: Yeah. And it's interesting because the behavioral things that you see in younger kids and older kids and teens and young adults, there's a pattern right? There's some want or need that they have that isn't being filled or met in some way. And it causes these behaviors to come out because it's the fastest way to get recognized and seen and hurt.

So what we want to do is try to foster that connection and build those relationships in a more positive way so that we know how to calmly ask for the things that we need because as kids get older, what we want to teach them is you don't have to be in crisis. You don't have to have a meltdown to get your knees yet.

So how can we communicate what it is that we need and what it is that we want in a way that other people are much more likely to respond in a positive way as opposed to a negative way? And that's the whole point is we want our kids to feel connected. We want them to feel seen, we want them to feel heard, we want them to feel loved and know that they have the skills, an ability to ask for the things that they need in a positive way so that their response then in and of itself is positive as opposed to negative.

Laura: Oh, so beautifully sai., I have to tell you, is that I feel like I'm going to take a little tangent for just a moment if it's okay. I work with a lot of families whose kids are working with a psychiatrist and families really struggle to find a psychiatrist who shares that view that you just expressed so beautifully that all behaviors have an underlying need there be communicating.

You said it so beautifully and I, it's rare for me to hear that perspective coming from a medical professional and so I feel like probably people are listening and thinking like how do I get a psychiatrist for my kid like you? Do you have any tips on, that's a big thing trying to figure out who does that take your kid to? Like is there anything that we could be looking for?

I help people find therapists all the time and I have like the inside knowledge of like what the letters behind the names mean and you know what all the little specialty use mean. Do you have any tips for how to find a person who would be aligned with kind of disrespectful parenting approach that you're beautifully discussing?

Anjani: You know it's, that's a good question because I get asked that a lot and it's kind of hard to make a recommendation because of where people are geographically and where certain providers may be licensed.

I have found that people who post psychiatrist specifically with child and adolescent training, seem to be more open to the idea of like a Family Systems Model. It's not to say that adult psychiatrists don't, but we specifically enough training in a Family Systems Model and you don't know what you don't know, right? So if that's not part of your training as an adult psychiatrist, then having that training as a child and adolescent psychiatrist, it just allows for more of an open mind when it comes to family systems and things.

So my recommendation would probably be if you're looking, even if you're looking for somebody who kind of emulates that model. Looking for somebody who has a child and adolescent psychiatry training is really helpful because my whole 13 years of training, that's gotten me to practice as a fully functioning independent provider, I've always been told through that entire journey that if you want to be a good child psychiatrist, you have to be a good adult psychiatrist.

So making sure that you have a strong foundation in adults that you can then use to understand children and when you put those two things together, it kind of comes full both circle. So that would probably be my recommendation.

The other thing is that finding a psychiatrist or any doctor, it's a little bit like trying to figure out what your favorite ice cream is. You may have to try a few people before you kind of align with somebody that you feel comfortable with. And you know that as a therapist, that fit is a really big deal for reasons that are unknown to fit with one provider may not necessarily because for reasons that are beyond anybody's control and that's okay, you don't have to stick with somebody that's not a good fit for you if you don't feel like you align in a way that is helpful as far as moving forward for treatment.

So I've seen personally many patients who have been with the same provider, not just psychiatrist, but primary care doctors as well, pediatricians OB-GYN across the board that they haven't felt really heard them or haven't felt really seen by, sound familiar? Looking to switch journey provider until they find somebody that they really aligned with what they really like, and then everything just go so much smoother when you feel like you can work well together. Because if the relationship is difficult, if it's adversarial and it's not therapeutic, why would I stay?

Laura: Yes. Oh my gosh, thank you for saying that it's so important. Goodness of fit is just, it's so important. And you know, any I'm guessing any doctor any, certainly any therapist who knows their stuff knows how important goodness of fit is and is not going to be offended. They'll help you find like.

Anjani: Exactly

Laura: A good therapist will be like, yeah, it is so important and if it's not here, and we you know, I'm not serving you well, then we gotta find somebody who's right for you. This is, this is not about ego or and if if it is for that therapist, get out and get a different way. You know, if you know, if it's the ego is there, you got to find somebody else because you don't want that. You don't want ego getting in the way of your mental health, your well being.

Anjani: Well. Yeah, this is a conversation. Especially with teens for me, this is a conversation that I find myself having a lot. I generally try to have it with everybody that I've seen in my office that, you know, I'm not necessarily for everybody and that's okay. It's not your fault, it is not my fault. It's just the dynamic for whatever reason, the reasons that will be under control. It's just that's not happening. There isn't a connection and that's okay. What do you feel like you need? And do I know somebody that you know might fit those criteria for you?

So for example, I have a lot of young women who have a history of trauma, who come from male providers, is that I really enjoyed talking to them and seeing them. However, there are things that I want to talk about that I just can't talk about with a male provider, that's okay. So then you know, they go on to meet somebody not necessarily me, but other providers as well that they are much more comfortable with and then that's where the healing process starts. So you have to be comfortable, you have to have a good fit. And if it's not a good fit, there is no shame in moving on and trying to find somebody that is a better fit.

Laura: Yes, and I mean it all circles back to the relationship, right? So just like with our kids, we want our kids to have a good relationship if they have a provider. We want us to have a good relationship, we need that with our kids too. I love that you focused on that so much.

Okay, so yes, the relationship is so important. I do want to give some very practical little like things, a little like many things that parents can do with their kids in the midst of some negative self-talk.

So let's say that kid is drawing and they, you know, they have an idea in their mind of how they want to draw a dragon, for example, my kids are forever drawing dragons, and they didn't turn out right and they've thrown their pencil and just that I can't do it, what do we do?

Anjani: So I think having the discussion about what's happening right now. In that moment, they may not be able to have that discussion. So sitting down and being like well what happened, what's happening right now? And if they're in full meltdown, can pull it together long enough to have that conversation and take a break.

A lot of times, tantrums and behaviors tend to escalate when kids are already feeling overwhelmed, and then when you ask them one more thing is like I can't, I can't do one more thing, you know, stop asking me questions and things like that, you know how it does. So if we need to take a break, take a break.

Redirecting, doing something more fun, making sure that you know, they feel safe, and a lot of times you don't have to say anything, you can just be there. They, you know, I'm really sorry that your drawing didn't turn out the way that you wanted it to but let's try again later when you're feeling a little bit better than you are right now, it's as an example.

Laura: Yeah. And sometimes even just silence, right? Just it, or it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to? Or you had a picture in your mind and your hands can’t get it just right? That's hard. Yeah.

Okay. If you can circle back to it sounds like there's some piece of like getting in touch with reality, like what's really happening, you know, doing a little a few checks maybe of, you know, is it true that you can't draw? Are there never any pictures that you're satisfied with? You know, and doing some reality checking. I find to be helpful with some of my kids. Are there other little like, I don't know, CBT things that are easy to do with our kids?

Anjani: I think that's probably the one that I would go with. That's the one that I can think about the top of my head because it's quick, it's direct and it's in the moment. I think my suggestion would be trying to do things in real-time because in the course of that day, you know, you try to revisit things that make his upset. They may not even remember in that moment what they were upset about. That we kind of lost the opportunity to intervene in a CBT kind of minded approach.

So we want to do things in real-time in a way that's easy to understand and to help bring a sense of relief and ease. If we see that kids are escalating, then we stop or take a break.

Laura: Yeah. And we have to be careful to balance this so that it doesn't mean like they don't feel like we're dismissing their concerns, right? And so one thing that's helpful too I think is adding the word yet to it. Oh, you couldn't get that dragon right yet, you know, or you're working really hard on those pieces and they're just not right yet. You know, putting that in there or you're playing this game and you really wanted to get to that level and you haven't made it yet. So I feel like yet it's a good word. Just Yeah, like that. It's good.

Okay. And then what about with us? We all have negative self-talk that pops in from time to time. When we’re, we find ourselves stuck in the moment and stuck in one of those loops. What are some things that we can do to get ourselves out of it, particularly if we're in a heightened moment with our kids?

You know like today, for example, my kids were mad at me for not letting them crawl through the grass at a dog park that had lots of dog poop in it. You know, heaven forbid, I don't let them crawl through dog poop. You know, I was the bad guy in this scenario. They were really upset with me and in the midst of them being upset and man, like me working with their emotions, I was also upset within myself.

Like there was negative self-talk happening with me, cognitive distortions, things like, you know, I can never do anything right is one that flips through my head a lot that I remember very specifically where I know where that came from in my childhood. So in those moments when, who are flooded with our own thoughts, our kids are also upset. Like what do you have any tips for us?

Anjani: Yeah. You have to find a way to. you have to find a way to calm your nervous system. So we don't think, behave or react very well when we are in a fight or flight kind of mode. Our blood pressure's up, our adrenaline is pumping and we're ready to fight. Yeah.

Finding a way to calm ourselves down whether it's listening to music or taking a quick breath or you know, letting the kiddos sit in the car and then you, you know it’s hot obviously turn on the air conditioning, but take a take up the outside of the, you know.

If you're feeling like the last thing that I can do right now is get in the car with my kids and drive somewhere, then don't. Take a few breaths, grab a sip of water if you have something, and find a way to decrease your heart rate and decrease your blood pressure because you will function much better. You'll interact with your kids much better when you're calm. Nothing good ever happens when we get into discussions or disagreements or arguments when we're already riled up.

I do square breathing, but some people call it box breathing. So if you know, breathing in and then holding it and then breathing out and then holding it, and then just kind of repeating that square until you feel calm and it really helps.

I keep gum in my purse just in case. So if I need something really quick that's tactile to kind of distract me from, you know, whatever it is that's going on, mints work just as well. Making sure that I keep snacks in my purse, it's another thing because I often notice that I'm much shorter with not only with myself but with people that are around me if I'm hungry and also trying to get enough sleep too.

Making sure that we're taking care of ourselves, that we're putting ourselves in the best position to be able to be the best version of ourselves that we can be. Because we often, especially as women, I feel like we put everybody's needs ahead of ours, and then when we start unraveling, that's when things start going to show up in the best way.

And so we have to make sure that we're taking care of ourselves and it all just comes back to getting these feeling seen, feeling heard, feeling loved, being understood. Connection, connection, connection.

And that also means with ourselves, not just with each other as well. If we're feeling disconnected from ourselves, it's really difficult to have loving, caring, meaningful relationships if we're denying that, to our own folks.

Laura: Oh my gosh, I'm so glad that you said that. I think it's so important. The idea that we can cultivate a kind, compassionate inner dialogue with ourselves. You know, I think if we're engaging in negative self-talk, we can't just let it run. You know, cultivating a voice that can talk back to it. Not a cruel voice, not an unkind voice; a nice gentle voice that can slowly kind of be like, is that true?

So like the thought of like, you can't like God, I can't do anything right? Or I'm a terrible mom pops into my head. My like my kind voice is, huh? Yeah. You're feeling bad right now, but is that true? Just like so like, curious and gentle. Is that true? Are you actually a terrible mom? Mm What's the evidence for that? You know? Yeah. Just those little curious questions with yourself are so important.

Anjani: Yeah. And I think also in those moments when you're really feeling not so great is finding the exact opposite of that? So, in that example of how you, like feeling like a terrible mom on the flip side of that, what is something that I did really well today and what went really well today?

It may not have been much if it was a rough day, but what is one thing that you did well. And then a lot of times when we start thinking about the one thing that we did well, we started thinking about the bunch of other things that we did well or the things that went well. Even it's on some days, it doesn't seem like there's a lot. There's always something

Laura: I love that too. And our, you know, our brains really like what we can put them on a search mission and they will find things to confirm, you know what we think about ourselves. So if we're thinking I'm a terrible mom, they will go and find all of the evidence for being a terrible mom. But if we're thinking about, you know, we put them on the, on the job of searching for the evidence that we're a pretty great mom, they can find those things pretty easily. I love that.

That reminds me of a practice that I do with my family. Every day we ask, we go around the table at dinner and we share one thing that we did really well today, one mistake that we made and one way that we were kind to ourselves in the midst of the mistake. I feel like that helps in structuring, I don't even just like the idea that we make mistakes every single day and every single time we do, we can be kind to ourselves, you know, we don't have to beat ourselves up. Yeah.

Anjani: That's great. I love that.

Laura: It's something that my husband and I like if the kids aren’t into it, my husband and I will just do it too. Like we don't make the kids do it, but we certainly model it. I think you know, going back to how what we were talking about at the beginning, I think the way we talk to ourselves is incredibly important and we have to be modeling good self talk to our kids

Anjani: And I hope, and I want to reiterate that if you have an episode of one negative self-talk kind of experience and your kids see that you're not damaging your kids, for like, we do this all the time. It's about severity and it's about frequency.

So what we want to do is model a good positive self-talk and minimize negative self-talk. We want to decrease the severity and decrease the frequency of negative self-talk. If this is something that happens every once in a while, you're not damaging your kids for life, they're not going to pick up this habit and that's the only thing that they're going to be able to do.

It's about modeling the process as well of being kind to yourself. It's not about being 100% perfect. I'm never going to engage in negative self-talk. It's about putting in the effort and showing your kids that we are constantly adapting and overcoming difficult situations and that as adults, we make mistakes too and that we want to try to be better, not just for ourselves, but for our kids and our families too.

So I think that's something to really reiterate because I think unfortunately we often do a lot of parent shaming. Sometimes directly, but mostly indirectly I would say and this feeling of the perfect parent, you know, perfect provider, that it doesn't exist. We all make mistakes. Yeah.

Some days are better than others. And I think, I think that's something I really want to drive home is that when you're doing the best that you can and you're trying and giving it your all is more than enough because there is no such thing as a perfect parent or the perfect provider. A perfect person that doesn't exist.

Laura: It doesn't. And when we make those beautifully human imperfect errors, we get to model something really, really powerful for our kids. We get to circle back and say, you know, you heard me talking to myself earlier and I was not very kind and I sat myself down and we had a little chat about it and you know, next time when something like that happens, I'm going to say x, y and z to myself instead of what I said.

You know you can circle back and model 100%. None of us are perfect, we are all just doing our very best with what we know. And you only know what, you know until you know it, and then when you know better, you can do better, right?

Anjani: Yeah. And I think one of the things that kids are so amazing, that is reminding us that we don't have to be perfect either. I think that's something we, I feel like parents in general spend so much time trying to do everything exactly right, quote-unquote, perfect. Right?

And when you talk to kids, when you interact with kids and you ask them, you know what their idea of a perfect parent is, they'll say the cutest things like somebody who hangs out with me or somebody who reads me a story or somebody that I can tell things to when I'm having a difficult day.

You know, really beautifully human characteristics. And no, no kid that I've ever asked that of has said, you know, I will need my parents to be perfect 100% of the time and do this and do that. They just want you to be there.

Laura: Yeah, that's so powerful. It's so true too. There'sa, kids are so wise and so lovely and so good at being humans. I feel like we've got so much to learn from them.

Anjani: Yeah, they're pretty great and that's why I love my job because I think hanging out with kids all day every day is just such a cool reminder that we are imperfectly perfect.

Laura: Yeah, we're just and we're just fine. Just very wonderful just the way we are good.

Oh well thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom. I want to make sure that people can find you. Can you tell us the name of your website and I'll make sure to put it in the show notes. And are you on social media? Are you on Instagram?

Anjani: Yeah. So my Instagram is @anjaniamladimd and then my website where I do all my blogging and things like that is anjaniamladimd.com.

Laura: Okay, well I'll make sure that's all in the show notes. I'm so, it was such a lovely honor to get to talk to you about all of these things. Thank you so much.

Anjani: Yeah, thank you. That was really fun. I really enjoyed it.

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout-out and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family, and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

February 01, 2022

Episode 103: Helping Kids with ADHD with Arti Kumar-Jain

February 01, 2022/ Laura Froyen

How are you all doing? I hope the first month of 2022 went well for all of you!

Not too long ago, I released an episode about ADHD and how we can help children who are diagnosed with it. And I know that one episode is not enough to give you all the resources that you need. There is still so much more to learn and apply in our day-to-day routine, especially for those with kids who have it.

And that is why I'm bringing in Arti Kumar-Jain for this week's episode on The Balanced Parent Podcast. She is a parent-child family coach who focuses on providing support through deep empathy, care, and a space.

She will be teaching us:

How to manage our feelings with the ADHD diagnosis

How a child with ADHD wants to be viewed
Tips and strategies to make it easier to establish structure and routine around a child with ADHD (check my blog MORNING ROUTINE CHART for a sample visual routine calendar)

If you are in my BalancingU Membership, you also have access to training with Arti on Childhood Anxiety if you're looking to learn more from her.

And be sure to download my Rhythms Routines & Rituals Workbook to bring more connection, ease, and joy into your life.

To get more support and resources, follow Arti on social media and visit her website.
Instagram: @loveandlight4kidz
Facebook: Love & Light 4 Kidz LLC
Website: www.loveandlight4kidzllc.com

TRANSCRIPT

Laura: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to an episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast. And in this week's episode, we are going to be talking about kids with ADHD And how we as their parents can support them and to have this conversation I'm bringing in my friend and colleague who is the Founding Director of Love and Light for kids, Arti Kumar-Jain. Thank you so much for being here with me. Welcome to the podcast.

Arti: Hi Laura, thanks for having me.

Laura: So tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do.

Arti: Sure. So I am the Founding Director of Loving Life for Kids, which is a business that was started back two years ago to really help in the parent-child family module. But as it's building, I'm adding on a lot of newness to it, which is yoga and mindfulness is a big push right now in our organization. Also trying to make books accessible so I just became an independent consultant with Osborne and books and more so that we can really start helping to get literacy going in different areas.

Laura: Okay, cool. And I know you do a lot of educating uh kind of practitioners on different topics, like you've come into my Balance Parenting Community and given a talk on anxiety, but lots of your work is talking to actual practitioners and how we can support parents whose kids maybe have a new diagnosis, you know, anxiety or OCD Or ADHD and how then you can, the practitioners can help parents support their kids.

So now you get to speak to parents in this context. I'm so excited to have you help us out with this because a lot of, you know, the diagnosis rates for ADHD are going up. They are much higher now in the, during the pandemic. Even the rates of diagnosis have gone up for kiddos.

I want to support parents who are facing this diagnosis with their kiddos. Let's start us out talking about kind of how ADHD can manifest, how it can impact kids and families, and kind of some of the first things parents should do when they are suspecting or figuring out or finding out that their kids maybe have some ADHD going on for them.

Arti: So Laura, I always talk a lot about journaling in different areas, but especially with symptoms of any kind, I encourage parents to keep a journal if they have more than one child. Like almost like a… I don't call, like a medical journal almost, but one that they have all their pediatrician's appointments. They jot down notes they want to discuss with their pediatrician and just ways of writing down the time of day and some of the symptoms that they're seeing.

Those of us who have kind of also done some type of diet or nutrition program know that you're supposed to monitor what you're eating and how much and what time. It's the same thing with behavior. You can have different behaviors at different times and to really figure out like, so for instance, apparent who is seeing something; a seven-day log and they can just see are things happening around the same time.

When are they happening–morning, afternoon, or evening? Because those are going to be things that they're going to take into a mental health provider. Their mental health provider is going to ask one of these happenings during their intake and what ends up happening during an intake is there so many questions and then a parent can feel very overwhelmed.

You may not remember on the site, but if they take this journal and some of their questions, you really feel empowered. And the clinician also really values someone who has taken the time to sit down and reflect on their child's behavior in that lens. It also helps to create a really good systematic program to have. So I really encourage a for the parent to be documenting what they're seeing.

And Laura, the reason why I say in a journal is because then it's all in one place. It's also important to flip back and see what's happening because you know, we talk a lot in the field about antecedent behavior, which is like what happened right before that? Did Johnny have a fight with his sister or was it like Johnny had an explosion because he's hungry, right? Like you can look at all that data for a clinician that's trying to help.

And also back to the relationship with a pediatrician, you really want your pediatrician to be on board and understand. So if you have a well check coming up or even just to do a consult on the phone, you know, you can always call into the nurse’s line and start discussing and they document all of this stuff that's happening and that can go on the chart and the pediatrician can review.

So I highly recommend parents to start using that modality too, where they have things documented so that when they go in for the checkup or they're ready to have someone see them, then they have all this data collection like you were saying.

Very, very important because that is going to be a huge part of how that diagnosis is actually given is to figure out how long has this been happening, right? We typically need six months of behavior to usually classify it being as a disorder that is affecting impairment of functioning.

Laura: Okay. Yeah. And so this is something that I think like it's just good to take just a little pause to talk about here. So I have my Ph.D. in a therapy field, I know how to diagnose things like ADHD and anxiety in kids. And my feelings around diagnoses, lots of parents are nervous for their kids to be a label that they're going to carry with them their whole lives.

And so I just wanted to just give a little framing for how I think about diagnoses. Diagnoses are just helpful information that can give your child access to the services and support that they need and that's really how I feel about diagnoses. That they're not something bad, something that's going to hinder your kid. They're going to give your kids access to support, help them get the support that they need either in school or from you or and get you the support that you need to. How do you feel about diagnoses?

Arti: I mean, to be honest with, I can only imagine because when I used to work in a day treatment program, a lot of our kids did have ADHD, and even on the paperwork, it's hard to see as a clinician, right? But I can't imagine as a parent what it must feel like. But what I want to say to you as a parent is, it does help your whole community come together to provide care.

Because when ADHD diagnosis, right, or a label versus the way that a child who's on the spectrum, right? They're going to have ways of us intervening be different versus a child who actually has oppositional defiant disorder, right? Like, and those are just three classifications many more.

What I'm trying to say is that the interventions are different. I actually give the analogy of we don't treat diabetes. A child who has juvenile diabetes and a child who has basically obesity, let's say, or let's say there's another chronic condition that they have. You don't treat them the same way. The interventions aren't the same, right?

Laura: So, like obesity versus maybe sickle cell disease. Like those two things would be treated completely differently, right? And so a diagnosis can help us understand more about what's going on and meet a child where they are.

Arti: And more in all honesty in 2021, just to let the audience know–clinicians, the community, mental health community, and people at large don't look at mental diagnosis of the brain in the same way. Brain health is becoming the most sought after, looked at, these disorders because they are.

There's something happening neurobiologically in each one of these disorders, right? That the scans show it. Something is impairing functioning for our children and our adults and so this particular time period doesn't have as much shame blame that might have been 10 years ago of the stigma that we do have faced with ADHD.

Laura: This is a great time to be a parent in this way. And it's a beautiful opportunity to teach our children about the loving care that our bodies and brains deserve. Like this is a beautiful opportunity to be like, you've got a brain, you've got a body. We take care of our brains and our bodies. Like we take care of our souls, we take care of our spirits, we take care of our emotional health. This is just part of being human, you know.

And it's a beautiful opportunity to teach a kid young because many of these things and I think probably many parents who are listening right now, who kind of have some thoughts like perhaps I have some ADHD going on, wouldn't it have been so great or like in terms of like anxiety as an example.

I was an anxious kid. No one in my world knew I was anxious. No one thought to think about it. I didn't think about it and I didn't realize it until I was in college that I really had symptoms of anxiety most of my life. Wouldn't have been so great if as a child, someone had seen it and said like, you know, there are things we can do for this, this anxiety is going to be your lifelong friend that's gonna walk alongside you in the same with ADHD.

These things are part of us, they’re there, there are differences in how the brain works and there are things we can do to support and make life easier and more fulfilling and use the special powers that these things give us to our benefit.

Arti: Once there is diagnosis, then I highly always tell the parents to always go ahead and tell their child that they have been diagnosed with this because this is part of their lives, right? I think a lot of times we’re so afraid of telling our children the truth, but then explaining what it looks and what it feels like and how the support is going to happen.

And the mental health clinicians going to do it to write their relationship with that child, but the parent themselves the minute that they say, okay, this is what we're working with and now we know right now. We know what might be causing these meltdowns and these crashes to happen.

For a child to feel like, gosh, because our internal dialogue for that child is, what's wrong with me? Why can't I do anything right? Because they're also the ones who are getting in trouble, right? For not sitting still, fidgeting, doing things in school. So they're getting penalized in all of their domains.

They're also the ones even on a sports team that is getting penalized for oftentimes wandering and not listening to the coach. Then they're getting penalized in their home setting, then they're getting penalized and compared even in the home setting to a different sibling.

So, if you notice there's a lot of negative attention that has occurred for this child all the years up until that diagnosis, ends up happening is there's a sigh of relief to almost no, that, oh, my gosh, I actually. There's a reason that something's happening in my life for me and this diagnosis then for a child and a family can really provide that support that we're talking about.

Laura: Arti, when you said that, I felt my shoulders relax and I think it's not kids and the parents. I can imagine might just have just a sigh like, I'm not a bad kid I just have this going on or, and the parents too. Like I am not a completely ineffective, bad mom. Like it's just I got this going on and now I can learn the new tools that I need to, to support them, right?

Arti: So I had a parent last week. To me, she was sobbing on the phone big different diagnosis. But the fact is, she said for all of these years, I knew something was wrong and I kept telling him, but I wasn't heard and all these years that we've lost from my child has lost and I have lost. And my heart was like, and then Laura, you know where I went? This is happening across this country where we have so many families and so many children that are missing out because these parents inevitably know.

They feel it in their body, they feel it everywhere and that's one message I do want to tell you all as parents listening in–trust the gut. Because that parent gut and especially moms, like there's something that happens in the woman, they're doing that research, you know, like.

Laura: Or even moms where the baby didn't grow in your womb. There's still the gut.

Arti: Moms have the gut, foster moms have the gut because guess what? It's all relational. So yeah, fathers too. Dads know too.

Laura: Absolutely. So I think empowering you to trust your intuition, you know your kid and then advocating for your child too. You know, I think that so often parents are afraid to go into spaces like into a doctor's office or into a school setting where they feel like they're in a one-down position where they are in a position where the other person has more education and more power, but I just want to tell all the parents out there listening, you are the expert in your child. You know what's going on and you have powerful.

This is one of the things that you were talking about journaling, keeping a data journal that will help you feel more empowered, but you know your kid and you can stand up for them and advocate for them

Arti: And lower back to this journal idea, there's something about going in when you are nervous but going into a meeting with a pool or with a doctor, I'm telling you, I have done it myself when I'm feeling really nervous in a setting and I'm the patient or the. I'm telling you, going in with them and what they literally take you more seriously. I have seen it with my own two eyes so that empowerment tool for you, for parents I think is really helpful and it will reduce your own anxiety going in to feel like you're, you know, how to approach the situation.

Laura: Absolutely. Okay, so I want to kind of start, you know, we were talking for a second about kind of, what a child has been thinking. So I wanted to ask you so much of my work is getting into the headspace of a child, thinking about things from the perspective of the child. So I'm curious about, you know, a kid who's maybe just found out that they have ADHD or has been struggling for a long time. How do they want to be viewed? Like how do they want to be treated and viewed as they work through the struggles that are part of having ADHD?

Arti: Great question. I think it goes back to, we were talking about, how they have been so negatively viewed for so long. I think it's the acknowledgment of, every child wants to feel special and they haven't gotten a chance to feel special, right? So it's like the feeling of finally feeling, to be good because they don't feel good. They haven't been made to feel good.

Laura: It just breaks my heart.

Arti: We've talked a lot about behaviors and things that happen but a child who has ADHD gets doubly punished and penalized because they have these moments, right? They have these moments of feeling really almost like understood for a bit when their behavior’s like this. And then when they have some type of like reaction, they literally lose it to throw things. Then they're being penalized.

So it's like for them that child is always a pendulum, right? there. It's never just smooth sailing and very different. That's why we're not bringing up ADD today because these are two very much different ways of diagnosis and so with ADHD it's like a constant when you think of just like an, like literally.

That's where speaking of their love language is hugely important. And what I mean about love languages, like a lot of parents have a hard time. And the children to actually really go back to the basics of even giving that, those gentle like squeezes and hugs. And so I have found, even if you notice, even with your own children, when they have had some type of meltdown, even when they don't want that hug, when you just go behind, just say, I just want to give you a hug to support you and I hope that's okay with you. And even sometimes you will get a gentle acknowledgment by body language. You can literally feel a difference, right?

Laura: You know, you were saying just there. You were, you all can't see us, but Arti was using her hands up and down like making hand-like sound wave motions, you know. And I was thinking about like for all kids have things like that, where they feel the glow of our approval and then the darkness of our disappointment like that happens.

And so wouldn't it be quite lovely if all kids had this just this constant of our love reflected to them that no matter what you do, my love does not go up or down. So I think oftentimes parents think about this from a place of, you know, I want my kids to know that nothing they could do could ever make me love them any less, but they also need to know that nothing you could ever do would make me love you more.

My love is completely unrelated in every way to what you do. I love who you are, you know–so you get an A on your test, great! I'm happy for you, you seem so proud, but I don't love you anymore. You fail your test, uh bad, that must really be hard. I don't love you any less–that our love is constant. There is no wave to our love and it is a straight, solid dependable line. I think that all kids need that.

Arti: Absolutely. You said that all kids need it, especially, imagine what's happening, back to the constant in the ADHD brain, a child who has been, it's like constant, right? Like the right and the left are constantly going and it's actually an amazing thing when you look inside of an ADHD brain like it is amazing, but it's a lot of work.

What's happening is everything's firing all at the same time. So for you, Laura, to bring up the example of just constant love and this domain is really important. And you know, I often tell parents it's a struggle, but even at the end of the night, you can literally tell them at the end of the night and have that conversation with the courageous conversation of saying, you know, I may not have approached you really well when you have that meltdown or oh my God I would have my own feel.

Just be honest and relate after you've had some decompressed time. Use the power of the nighttime or whatever it is for you, but use your time after you've reflected–to have that honest, courageous conversation with your child and a child with ADHD like any child just wants to hear reflective parenting happening because they want to know that it's not always them in the wrong or you know.

Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. So I think this is all very beautiful but let's get really practical. What are some tips and strategies that can make it easier for families who are dealing with an ADHD diagnosis to establish some structure and routines that will help serve their child? So when we think about treating ADHD, there's this kind of classic, we're going to use medication to treat it.

And what I know what research is showing us more and more with most mental health diagnoses is that medication can play a lovely role of, you know, bringing stability but that, you know, other interventions, other supportive therapies really or what kind of take things to the next level.

So regardless of whether a parent has chosen to use medication to kind of even things out or help support their child, what are some things that parents can be doing at home at school to support their kiddos in their diagnosis and their symptoms.

Arti: Let's start with just getting ready for school. Many parents have already probably heard this, but I think we forget at any age, we need to have a visual schedule. And what I mean by visual is one that is designed by the child and the parent. Because oftentimes what ends up happening is we create these things and it's so fabulous and it's using Pinterest and whatnot, but the child's like, they were never included.

Laura: Yeah. So everybody listening, I do have a blog post with a video of my free program you can use to make one of these with your kids and when I made one for my daughter, she just sat beside me at the computer. She helped me pick out all the little icons. We broke down all of her getting ready routine and put it all on there and then printed it out for her. Yes, But so I do, I'll put that in the show notes. Everybody can go and watch that on how to make those routine charts in easy and free and fun way with your kids.

Arti: Laura, that's awesome because it is coming down to making sure that it is done together collaboratively. Otherwise, it turns into, remember this whole thing about this is a diagnosis that the child has gotten, but it is affecting the whole family but you really want to empower your child on how do they present within what's best. So back to creating co-collaboration of everything is really key.

Laura: It's their life. They're going to need these strategies and so we can't just be like, oh, here's a tool for your toolbox and not teach them how to use it. Do we want them to go to college and not be able to manage their class schedule because they've never learned how to sit down and make a plan? No, of course not.

Arti: And Laura, they do this a lot in classrooms but their child is not, they are someone who has the diagnosis of ADHD but it's still mainstream, which is, meaning they're spending a majority of the time still in the regular classroom. I would still tell the parents, go ahead and when you go school shopping, like get those colored highlighters because it's really important. A child who has ADHD, remember they almost, there's so many benefits too because they're right and left brain like I was telling before. It's actually working

Laura: I love talking about these benefits of these diagnoses. There’s benefits for sure.

Arti: There are benefits. It's almost like they have an extrasensory, like they are able to perceive their world like no other, right? Because they're able to take in and it is overwhelming. They're able to take everything. All of their five senses are so heightened. Their five senses are so powerful, but then again, how do we help to bring it in?

So simple example, but colored highlighters. And then because what happens is I had a lot of kids in my, in the classroom that were diagnosed with ADHD but they couldn't process, like break down things because everything was in black ink, right? Or like a pencil. So we literally would create boxes around subjects, right? It even taught me how to be a better teacher because, on our actual agenda grid, I learned how to use colors better.

That's the thing parents, you will learn to be a better parent. I'm telling you hundred percent, you learn to be a better parent when you have a child who has been diagnosed because you’d look at the world through their lens a little more and what you actually will start doing for yourself. Because as I've said, parents become better planners too at times when they start to map out their own days.

Letting them choose what's going to help them. Like we always have found that binders are helpful and even in kindergarten first grade for a child if they're diagnosed because the binder has everything in there. Okay, because otherwise have 20 different notebooks. Like it's just, it's too much to lose.

Laura: Like it's easy, too much to lose to keep track of.

Arti: Too much to lose, too much to sort, remember they're going rapid fire and then looking for things is like causing so much time and they're like you lost them, right? So you want to click with everything. You want to be quick and organized and efficient and actually again a great way to live, right efficiency.

Laura: I think something else too that I know that in the families that I've worked with that are working through an ADHD diagnosis is that even things that seem very simple to us as parents are often very very complex to every child but even more so for a child with ADHD.

So the simple task of brushing your teeth, for example, we think it's just one step–brush your teeth. It is not one step. There's lots of steps in brushing your teeth. And so for a child who's really struggling to get these basic self-care tasks done, sometimes they need to be broken down into very clear and manageable steps–I go into the bathroom. I put toothpaste on my toothbrush. I brush the top teeth. I brush the bottom teeth. I spit. I rinse my toothbrush and I wash out the sink and I put my toothbrush away.

You know, every little step because otherwise like, you know, parents walk in after a child who, you know, a young child or a child with ADHD, she brushes their teeth. There's toothpaste everywhere. There's you know, the toothbrush is on the, you know, in a puddle on the counter like it's, and that's not because they're a bad kid or because they're disorganized, it's just because there's lots of steps. Brushing your teeth is complicated.

Arti: Laura, it's true. Every task has lots of different steps–putting on clothes, buttoning your jeans–and that breakdown of the visual. Because here's the thing, I've noticed that parents after the age of seven or eight feel like the visuals don't need to have. We all do it, we just think that they know automaticity but the fact is for a child with ADHD or any of anyone we actually do need a lot of visuals.

Eighty to ninety percent, remember auditory and visual are huge fields for us, but visual actually is a strong strong suit to help a child to go and just process visually. Even if they can get in the habit you can even tell your child to read it out loud so that we know what is their primary modality.

Remember we have kinesthetic auditory-visual processing all over five, which is their strongest and then once we figure that out, that is the modality that the information is going to be processed for them.

Laura: We can even have things like, you know if we know that they're visual chore or visual kind of task list. If they're auditory, we can set Alexa to know and give it to, you know, put Alexa in the bathroom while brushing teeth. I think that you know like I don't know why I'm stuck on brushing teeth, but it's a very common struggle that I hear about a lot with from parents but for some kids brushing teeth is not stimulating enough. The bathroom isn't a stimulating enough environment, it's not enjoyable and pleasurable to be in there and so, of course, they avoid it, you know. So for many kids, they need a lot of stimulation in order to be able to focus too.

Arti: I'm glad you brought that up about music and Alexa. Even that you said Alexa giving reminders, a big focus now in the ADHD movement is talking about all of these different modalities and music is huge. And so playing, like, using music and you've heard people use music to do homework or whatnot but like it's really important.

The music is actually a real great piece to use with a child who's been diagnosed and then different types of music at different portions. And again, you could create a playlist with your child is what I always say to do because then you get to pick your music up and then if you're picking like something like really heavy hard-hitting music during work time and you can talk about what's really going to be good for your brain and then having a conversation around that.

Laura: And you can teach your kids to check-in too. So okay, so we're listening to the song, you really like the song, where do you feel it? What does it make your body want to do? Like you know what gets moving in your body, you know what, how does this music make you feel and which playlist should this go on? You know, this music is really making your body want to move, maybe this needs to be in our movement break playlist, you know.

And that's process of checking in, figuring out is this supportive of me? How can you support me to meet certain goals versus how would this detract from other goals that I have that checking in, that again is a lifelong process, a skill. We want our kids equipped to be able to do. All right.

Arti: Yes, the schematics. Another quick tip is: they say typically a 5 to 3 ratio, which means five minutes on task, let's say for doing homework and then taking a three-minute break. When I do tell parents that recommendation, I say try it for a week, but then you really have to gauge your child too. They're just giving an example of the 5, 5 on task, like doing our homework and 3 break, but then prepare ahead of time.

What do you want your, does the child want their break to look like because then right, if we're over-stimulating a behavior, doing an over stimulate activity to bring them back. All conversations you can have around it, but I have found that some kids need 10-3, right? Or it just depends. What they have found that 5-3 in the very beginning is a great number to use.

Laura: Yeah, I love this idea too that it's not set in stone and it's your individual child and it's collaborative. And I think sometimes too we need to listen to our kids and not, you know, sometimes it's hard for us to take off our adult lens of what we think learning or engagement or focus should look like and accept what it actually looks like for our kids.

I do a lot of sessions with parents and children where I'm helping the parents learn how to use problem-solving skills with their kids, collaborative problem-solving. Sometimes during those sessions, the parents are so set on your… come your child, you need to sit in front of the camera or the video screen, you need to sit here, we're going to sit here, we're going to it's going to look this certain way this what our idea of what focuses and we've all experienced this in school too.

Like I don't know if you remember this, but growing up, you know, like a good listener, you know, put your listening body on, you know, sitting up straight, feet on the floor. Like I've had some of my best problem-solving conversations with kids who are hanging upside down or the laying upside down on the back of the couch or are jumping on a trampoline. Those have been my best ones. They're so well regulated and such good problem solver.

Arti: And that's so true, Laura, and people can talk about their most creative if you look and that's the other thing I want to bring up. You can do the research with your child to show, like all of these masterminds that we consider masterminds, a lot of them had ADHD or symptoms of it because they basically had what are called overactive, calm, overactive, awesome brains.

Because what's happening is, you're coming up with phenomenal ideas like your example, it's absolutely true. And actually, as an adult, go back and look to when you have the most, best creative points, where are they happening? You know, are they happening in the middle of the night? I mean right, like are you literally sitting at your desk and you have the magical idea of how you're, of what you're going to present at your meeting. Like

Laura: Normally my mind comes when I'm sleeping. Like I wake up and like

Arti: Yes. If you talk to most parents and most adults and kids who we, that's a whole different discussion about reflective sleep for ADHD, what their sleep looks like because they have some really, they can actually sometimes vividly dream in a whole different way too.

Laura: Oh my gosh, ADHD sounds really cool. I really like the way that you think about it. You're, you all can't see her but her face just kind of lights up when she talks about how cool it is.

Arti: Because I have seen kids who have it when you approach it the right way and it's like any child. When every child gets a chance to be approached the right way by their family, by their community, by all the systems and also for those who have siblings. For the sibling to understand what's happening, can completely change the relationship between siblings too.

Laura: Yeah, I love that. You know, we're kind of wrapping up here, but are there last tips or advice for parents with more than one kid with siblings?

Arti: This is very hard for all of us to remember and I say us because when you do have more than one, the natural inclination is to compare. You have to literally turn, you literally have to have conversations with yourself about comparison shopping. It’s not a Walmart versus Target discussion. These are children. And if you get into that mindset, you have to literally develop a phrase, like stop talk to yourself. We talk to ourselves all the time. Come up with a dialogue and find out why are you comparing. Is it because your own anxiety is so high right now? Because you're really having a hard time dealing with your child? Okay, step back. Reflect.

With siblings, I used to love bibliotherapy There's some books out there for relationships and helping children in the sibling relationship, but I just say authentically just need to be really authentic with your own feelings and then the child, that the sibling also for them to have time with you to process their feelings because it's hugely important for them to have a space, those are going through a lot of themselves.

Laura: I so agree. I think having an environment of equity in your home too, as opposed to fairness. Lots of kids want things to be fair but when you have a kid who has some differences, things won't be fair. And so, you know, that is a situation that plays out a little bit in our house. My oldest has some differences from sensory needs and just needs a different approach at times.

And in our house, the culture is, everybody gets what they need and people need different things at different times. And so, you know, right now, this kiddo needs this and right, you know, some other time, this other kiddo might need this and it's not about comparison, but it's about recognizing the individual needs of each child and meeting each child where they are and each kid gets what I need.

Thank you so much for helping me with this conversation. I really, really appreciate it so much. Where can everybody go and find you and learn more?

Arti: Sure. So www.loveandlight4kidzlc.com

Laura: Yeah, I'll have that in the show notes to the link for that.

Arti: Yeah. And just remember at the end of the day, I always say if you lie at your, if you can lie down at the end of the day and know that you tried your best, it's a good day.

And if you have the time where you really are like, what could I have done differently? Then just reflect on that and try again, that's all.

Laura: Oh, I love that. Yes. A last little note of compassion and you know what, like even if it was a really hard day and you made lots of mistakes, you still likely were doing your very best in those moments with what you had at that time.

And so like no matter what, just like your love for your child is this constant line, this constant immovable line, so should your compassion for yourself. Your compassion for yourself should not be dependent on what you do, but dependent simply on your humanity. Love that. Thank you for that reminder.

Arti: We needed it to have a conversation about all of this forever. But just you just take a bit by bit, step by step and just love on your child. That's it.

Laura: Well, thank you so much for being with us today. We so appreciate it.

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout-out and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family, and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

January 25, 2022

Episode 102: How to Heal Our Own Wounds with Sonnet and Veronica

January 25, 2022/ Laura Froyen

One of my biggest fears as a parent is that I will pass down hurts, wounds, fears, and thought & behavioral patterns that have not served me well. That through my own unconsciousness and wounding that I will hurt my child in the same way that I was hurt. That they will worry about their worth. That they will struggle with not feeling good enough. That they will feel pressure to be anything other than the imperfect beings they are.

In the beginning I thought I could just study and muscle my way through this. That if I just read enough and applied what I learned that I would be fine. So I read allllll the books. I took diligent notes in my grad classes. I memorized the phases, did the workbooks, did all the things. And still.... (You know where this is going right??)

There were (and still are!) moments where all of that went out the window and my parents' voice fell from my mouth, with the very words I swore to myself that I would NEVER say to my kids. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I knew it wasn't how I wanted to show up, and yet, it felt unstoppable.

I know I'm not alone in this experience, right? If this happens for you, I'd love to hear from you, right now! I can't respond to everyone, but the act of telling your story, writing it down, saying ME TOO! Can help you feel not so alone, like we are in this together.

And while I can't give you all the answers in this email (I don't even have them all!) I CAN tell you what has helped me so much: Understanding that each an every time I get triggered, my brain and body are offering me an opportunity for my own healing. And it is only through attending to my OWN wounds, that I have any hope of not passing them down to my children.

This is at the heart of healing through our parenting. Our kids crack us open and shine a light on all of the healing we have to do, and it is up to us to head that call. We will absolutely make mistakes, and I know you may not want to hear it, but your kids likely WILL have their own work to do when they are grown up. But if you are with me in this journey, and I think you are, they at the very least won't have the SAME work, right? Because we will have done ours. That's all we can do. And it's enough.

And that is what we are going to focus on in this week's episode! I am so excited to introduce you to Sonnet and Veronica of Raising Children You Like and Conscious Mommy (two of my favorite Instagram accounts!). They are two friends who became mamas and started their motherhood journey together. Their mission is to help parents deepen their connection with their children by understanding their underlying needs and healing their old wounds in the process. And that's what they are going to bring in this conversation.

Here is a summary of our discussion:

The inner work we need to do as parents
How to heal from our past wounds and not pass it to our children
How to raise a child with empathy, resilience, and compassion

To get more support and resources, follow Raising Children You like (@raisingchildrenyoulike) and Conscious Mommy (@consciousmommy) on Instagram.

TRANSCRIPT

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this episode of The Balance Parent Podcast, we are going to be digging in to how the powerful and important work of healing your own wounds actually happens so that you can parent from a place of confidence and that's fully healed and not pass on your wounds, your stuff to your kids.

And to have this conversation with me. I brought in the creators of one of my favorite Instagram accounts,Raising Children You Like and the host of a beautiful podcast, Not Your Mother's Podcast. So we have a Sonnet and Veronica here and I'm gonna let them introduce themselves to you. Why don't you tell me a little bit more about who you are and what you do? And then we're going to dive into that good old wound healing stuff.

Sonnet: Thanks for having us. We're so excited. This is Sonnet and I'm one third of Raising Children You Like with Veronica and Brianna Kappa. And we started our podcast, Veronica and I, Not Your Mother's Podcast on a search to find the answers to the things that people weren't talking about.

We became new moms together and we just kept having this question of like why isn't anybody talking about this? Why isn't anybody talking about this? Why isn't anybody talking about this?

We sought out the experts and the people who were talking about it and we started interviewing them and asking them like actionable questions like what can we do to change this? What can we do to shift this in our life or you know, really give our listeners an action plan as well as ourselves.

And so one of our guests was Brianna Kappa and I was also taking a mommy and me class with her. She's a life marriage family therapist and infant mental health specialist and she just was talking about things that resounded so deeply to us, both of our background is in digital marketing and I'm a singer and songwriter also and she, we were like, let's create something together.

So toddler parenting course and platform to help support parents, everything from tantrums and discipline without yelling to really identifying and understanding the inner work that has to happen kind of in tandem with handling our children because we see our triggers come up and we often put those on our children. And what we want to do is examine them and look at them and heal them ourselves so we don't pass those on to our children.

Veronica: Yeah, it was great. And also just to add to it a little bit too is like, you know when you become a toddler parent, you start realizing, like, you know, you go onto Instagram and you start getting all these scripts and all these hacks and like, oh, you know what to say and you know how to say it. And because in the beginning you don't know what you're saying, you're like they're hitting and like, I don't know how to stop the hitting or I don't know what to say when they're having a meltdown and I don't want to and you're trying to be mindful, right?

Like there's like this whole like conscious parenting movement happening, but like what does that even mean? And so what we kept running into is that we kept saying the right things, but we were still upset about the behavior. So like how we were showing up was changing, but the inside of us wasn't changing. We were still upset, we were still triggered, we were still feeling like there is some more work to do.

And that's ultimately like why Raising Children You Like is much more different than a lot of the parenting courses out there because we go beyond the behavior and really identify and meet our own needs so we can not pass that down to our children.

Laura: Absolutely, I really do love and appreciate that. I think that there's almost these parallel tracks, right? So when you are first learning how to show up differently with your kids, parent differently, that's different than what you're seeing, different than what you experience, you do need some scripts.

But ultimately, I know for the folks that I work with, I don't want needing me to tell them what to do and say. I want them being able to tune in, turn inward, check with their inner compass and their inner wisdom and be confident that what they are choosing, they are actively and consciously choosing to do in their parenting is in alignment with what they truly believe and what they, with their core values and their goals for their kids.

And you can't do that if you haven't done the inner work because if you were checking in with yourself and you're checking in with all those wounds and you're reacting out of fears and worries and and hurt, then you can’t always trust yourself. You know what I mean?

Veronica: Yeah. Gosh, it's such a great way of putting it. If you check in with yourself and you check in with all your wounds, then you're getting the wrong answers because you're thinking like, well, it's my child's job to change here because you're checking in with an old limiting belief that says children should be, for example, like children should be, should obey at all times or like my child is out of control because they are crying and I need to get them to stop crying because they should be seen and not heard.

And so we get so triggered by this behavior and when we check-in, we think, well that's because they should be seen and not hurt. But when we dig a little bit deeper and we're like, why do we think that? Well, why are we so uncomfortable with my child having big emotions? You know, it's one thing to say, I don't like the behavior of hitting. It's not okay to hit, but it's okay to be upset. It's okay to be mad. It's okay to be sad. Why are we not making space for that?

And so when we look at what is coming up for us, it's hard to examine that. It's hard to look underneath and say, oh, maybe that's a false narrative there and really I wasn't given space as a child to have a big emotion or I wasn't taught that it's okay to take up space and be loud or ask questions.

And so how do I reframe that and rework that dialogue in my mind so that I can start making space and showing up for my child so that I can set the limit in a healthy way. Yes, we don't hit, but show me your anger in another way. Like let's talk about why you're mad or let's figure out another way to work through that rather than just shut it down.

Sonnet: And also just like teaching acceptance of all the feelings. Like it's okay to be angry. It's not okay to hit our bodies. You know, if you need some space and you can have some bubble space and also like teaching them that they don't have to be alone with their feelings. You know, we were all raised to be, go into your room and come out when you're ready because that message is, is like I can't handle your emotions so you need to go deal with these big scary feelings on your own.

And that's the way society is, right? Like we favor prisons over schools. Like you can just tell by the funding like follow the dollars. People would much rather just be put away than to actually teach them how we want them to be in society.

And that was another thing is like consequences, like, children need consequences. That's how they're going to learn, but it's like, well no, they learn by telling them what you expect. Like they're new to the world, you're just saying negative things like don't do this, don't do that. Like you're telling them what you don't want. And so they're kind of like, okay, well what do you want? You know, you're not telling me what you want and and so like what we love about this work is the reparenting process can happen in any relationship, right?

Like this is just human relationships. We're just seeing it from a parent-child perspectives with specifically toddlers and so it's applicable with so many people, but it's just great to see it from on the smaller scale of like children and parents because like that's where we're, that's where we're at, you know. And that's and if we can get them in this transformational time, we're really setting the foundation for when they do have bigger feelings and they do have bigger problems. They have the tools to know how to like check in with themselves and also like trust that a parent is going to be there and understand where they are emotionally.

Laura: I love that. I really do believe that our kids are really good at showing us where we have work to do. I think that sometimes in the conscious parenting world, it gets put on kids a lot like that they, you know that our kids are triggering us or that it's their job to be our teachers.

Like I feel like I hear that a lot that it's that our kids are our greatest teachers and sometimes it puts up to me too much responsibility on the child. The child is just being a child, they're just being themselves and when them and their selfness and their toddler -iness and their two -ness, or their three -ness, wakes stuff up inside of us or shines a light, you know, onto a shadowy bit for ourselves, or part of ourselves that we've cut off for the world has told us isn't lovable or acceptable.

It's not their job to shine that light, they just do. And it's our job to recognize when that's happening like in the moment and heed that call. Heed that call to healing that they are calling us to. You know what I mean?

Veronica: I love what you're saying.

Laura: Okay. And so then if that's, let's say we've got a toddler who triggers us all over the place, who's waking us up, showing us all of our shadowy bits, what do we do in that moment?

Veronica: I mean the first thing to do is just that awareness where we start getting, we take a moment, you take a breath, you get back into your body, you're like, okay, I'm being triggered right now because we often just react and we're not even aware that we are triggered.

We're just like I need to react to my child and start yelling, I start limit setting, I start telling them can't do rather than take a moment and and acknowledged and become aware that I'm being triggered right now by my child's behavior. And then start seeing how that feels in the body, and start bringing yourself back into your body. So we tend to leave our bodies in those experiences because we are feeling either like tiger mode, flight flight for free.

It's like our toddler is sending us into this experience where we all of a sudden have to fight tigers and we remind ourselves, one of the biggest things that helps me in my moments. It's just reminding myself my child is not a tiger. My child is a three year old toddler who is having her experience in the world and I can handle this and I can examine where I show up here.

So finding that self regulation. It starts with just getting back into your body and then we have some breathing exercises to help if you need to take a break if you have older children or your children are safe place and you can say, I see that you really need my help right now, mommy needs to go calm her body for a second. I'll be right back.

If your children are safe and you can leave. It is okay to step outside for a second and take a breath, come back and then you can lead in with behavior shifting the behavior, speaking to that, acknowledging their emotions, all of the things that we can go into more detail. But that first step is to just become aware that you're being triggered and to regulate your body and then handle the behavior once you're handled and then you start identifying. Later, you reflect. Why was I triggered? Why does that behavior, how come every time my child hits me or screams, I feel triggered?What is it about that behavior?

And in our course; we have a two part course. The second part takes the list, the audience member through identifying your triggers and undoing the work. Like where did it come from? How can I restructure it? What are those blocks there? Because most of the time they're there because it served a purpose in our life at some point, we'll mechanism, and it no longer is and it's something we don't pass on to our child as a surviving mechanism.

So how can we restructure it? Take down that block and build a bridge between ourselves and that child so that we have a connection rather than just like a, a wall where we no longer are connecting to our child. So we really take you through the work of that. Take you through building and creating boundaries with our whole set and hold method.

It starts with that moment of becoming aware, taking you out of the reaction and into the responding net from their growth

Sonnet: And that's the preventative piece, right? Like in order for you to access regulation, it's you you practice it when you are regulated and you practice it when you're not heated and you practice like the your self care. And we talk about self care so much, but it's not just like getting your nails and your hair done. It's like truly knowing that you're worth as a person deserves minutes to yourselves like throughout the day because a lot of times it's hard.

It's hard to put down the to-do list. It's hard to put down the expectations that we put on ourselves, that our partners put on ourselves, that our children put on ourselves. And it's like if you truly truly don't have the capacity to hold for others, like you're going to fall apart.

You're going to have those ruptured moments, you're going to feel guilty for not responding in the way that you knew that you like you knew how to but you didn't have the band with and you know. It's like all these pieces really come from a preventative standpoint.

So it's really about like just getting even together with your parenting partner--if you have one--weekly just to kind of talk about like the things that worked, the things that didn't, and then both of you scheduling some time to yourselves to do the things that you enjoy doing before you were a parent that bring you back to that whole person that you were before you just poured yourself into your children.

Because not only do you does that create the space for you to actually parent from a place of where you intend to, but it also models to them, like what it's like to be a whole person, like a true happy person that has all these areas in their life that are lit up with the things that make you passionate, that make you you, that make you unique, that make you interesting. You know, if you drop those things, it's not good.

Veronica: It's so exhausting to do that.

Laura: Totally is. It's so exhausting and we want to be modeling for our kids, right? So, I think one of the things I love about what the conversation that we're having is because we're talking about enacting in our generational change, right? So we are showing up differently in the moment with our kids than how we were shown up with, right?

So we are not using punitive measures. We're talking about connecting first. We're talking about guiding--discipline as guidance and teaching as opposed to punishment and consequences. So we're showing up differently so that they don't have things to unlearn. But we're also modeling just a more full, vibrant and fulfilling life too at the same time, and that's an important aspect that I think it's overlooked, like on the conscious parenting side of things.

This type of parenting that we're talking about, you know that you talk about on your podcast and I talked about a lot, it's more effortful. We have to be taking even more care of ourselves in order to be able to do it well, you know, to widen that window of tolerance and increase our capacity to stay calm.

Veronica: Yeah, because it's it's a lot easier just to be dormant, right? It's easier to be unaware. It's easier to react. It's easier to fall asleep at the wheel. But for you to show up consciously and aware that you're doing something and then having the capacity to unlearn and relearn like in the same moment, is so difficult. Because it's a new muscle, you know, but it's like, like any muscle, the more that you practice it, the easier it is to access.

And that's why it's important to do it when you're not triggered because like your best self, like after your period you're like, all right, I'm going to do all this stuff. I have all the energy and then when your period comes, you're like, I have no energy. You know, that's not the time to rebuild. It's the time to like think about all the things that didn't work.

And it's the same with when you're learning new things. It's like when you feel that energy to like propel you forward, like put your best foot forward and do everything that you want. So when it is time for you to access at those moments in the hard times you have that muscle already worked out.

Laura: Yes, I so agree. It's you know, the parenting this way is a marathon, right? Not a sprint and so we need to be training outside of the race.

Sonnet: I love what you said also just that, it is full on and we have to model the behavior ourselves, but we are raising ourselves in a new way and we get to show up for our children, but we're being such better people, you know, really healing our own wounds by digging into that work and not that you're not a better person if you don't do it, but you know, we're just pushing up against our edges to just keep growing and that's the kind of work that always lights me up. You know, it always is just like what else are we doing if we're not digging into that? So yes, it is more involved and it does require us getting uncomfortable.

But through that modeling of behavior, we are like, I just read something the other day that said, you know, I'm going to love my summer body because my daughter is watching and so we're all changing our narrative around just loving our bodies because we realize that our children have been watching just like we watched our children in this time we watched our parents and this generation, we're going to change that so that we have a different dialogue that's happening.

And that's just one of the very many aspects that we model the behavior, but you see how it it truly makes us happier and more round when we can increase that window of understanding.

And what I'm trying to say is just that we also benefit from it. You know, just as much as our Children do and as much as they get the skills of processing their emotions and don't take on our baggage, we are benefiting from this work as well because we are healing and showing up motivated to show up more whole.

Laura: Yeah. Sonnet, I think you're bringing up a really important point. I think so often for parents, in order to convince them to do this work, we have to convince them that it's good for their kids. They really won't do it for themselves. If we tell them like it's good for your kids, they'll do it. But I think you are really highlighting like it's good for your kids because it's good for you and it's okay also to do things that are just good--for you for the sole purpose that it's good for you.

I really like makeup and stuff. I have these really fancy nails on right now. You know, it brings me joy. These are solely for me, not like me and then they like what they cost, you know, it's like those little like gel strips that you can put on like 10 bucks that it costs a lot of money, and it but it was my time. It was my enjoyment. It was thinking about how they are looking when the sun catches the light on. You know, when they glitter catches the light of the sun on them, they bring me a little bit of joy. That's for me.

And it is so important to do those things. Not like and for people to know for people to hear like it's okay. Like that's not selfish. And yes, it does benefit your kids. Yes, my daughters are watching me do things just for my pleasure, just for my joy. They are watching and they're learning how to be a mom. They're learning how to be a woman. They're learning about their worthiness. And even if they weren't, I would still be worthy a little piece of joy, a little spot of pleasure in my life. Even if they weren't watching.

Veronica: I love that.

Laura: I mean that was your point. That's what you were saying, that like I really do think that, like we often do have to convince parents to do this work to invest in their growth for their kids. But really at the end of the day, you're worth it all on your own. I really appreciate that you bring that message forward.

Sonnet: I also am motivated by like tell me it's good for my kids and I'll get in there. You know, it's like the biggest motivating factor, but then when you get in there and you're like this is hard. You're like okay, but I deserve to be here too. Like, you know, this whole process is bringing something for all of us to the table.

Veronica: Well, even like when you are in that reflective time and you're thinking about why you respond to the way that you did or you know where these triggers are coming from, you visit those old wounds, right?

Like my mom, I grew up with a depressed mom. My dad died when I was four and I kept finding myself like when I fall asleep at the wheel, like, I find myself being like a depressed person and I'm just I'm not naturally, but like when it comes to parenting, like I found myself like with my eyebrows furrowed and kind of just like not as excited and not as spunky as I consider myself to be. And it was like I was replaying this like old tape of like moms are depressed, you know, like my my mom was depressed, so that means maybe I'm going to be a depressed mother.

And so it's not like until I really start examining that, like, oh wow, like I'm just passing that down unconsciously like I'm just not even thinking about what I'm doing or how I'm showing up because I'm playing this old narrative and that's where you know my worthiness comes in like no, I deserve to be a happy mother.

I deserve to be the mom that I know that I can be. I deserve to heal my--the pain of my own childhood and I get to be a mom and be able to write my own narrative because I can take the pieces from my past and build something new. I don't have to just carry the entire load.

Laura: Yes. And also, how? I know that there are people here who are listening right now who are like, yes, yes, this is like, and how do we do it? Like, so what, what does that look like in practice on a daily basis? I know that you both have toddlers. How old are your kids these days?

Sonnet: I have a two and a three year old.

Laura: You're in it, you are in it. Yes, I started working with parents when my kids were three and one and yeah, you know, they're eight and six now and I mean it's a different lot, you know, and the work looks different now with older kids. But for you two, what does that look like in the moment on a daily basis? What does healing old wounds actually look like? What does that mean?

Veronica: For me it's creating pockets in the day of like self worthiness and self acceptance. So like every morning, I wake up and I just start with gratitude. So it's like, I'm not, I'm already filling it up right? I'm just thankful.

Like if I wake up cranky, I just start with the little things like thank you for a roof over my head, food on the table, a healthy family. And kind of that kind of just gets the ball rolling and then I'll do a five minute meditation and then I'll journal just like any thoughts like good, bad ugly, like whatever they are just journal and then I work out because I need to because I'm just so crazy if I know if I don't work out.

And then like throughout the day I just, you know, I do everything that I need to get done, but when the girls are taking a bath, I'll give myself a facial massage and I'll tell myself like, I appreciate everything that I want to hear. Like everything that I expect like my partner to say or like things like that.

Like I would say like I appreciate you for making dinner today and doing the dishes immediately after and not, you know, not making another task for yourself. And I appreciate that you're so thoughtful of you with your friends and I'm so happy for you that you called your relative because you've been thinking about them and you actually took action.

So like I say all these things to myself that I want other people that I think that I expect other people to tell me like how they appreciate me and how like how I'm showing up and while I massage my face because I have a lot--my go to is anger when it comes to, like, being triggered.

And so I have a lot of stress in my jaw or my eyebrows get furrowed. So I kind of just like, bring attention to those spaces and kind of just like, massage them out and then give myself, like, a body massage and really just, like, words of affirmation. Just saying, like, I'm so proud of you for taking care of yourself, you know, and things like that, because it's all preventative. It's like the preventative piece.

Laura: But Veronica, what you're talking about is meeting your own emotional needs. So often we all, like, most of us grew up in a home where we were responsible for other people's emotional needs. And we never we had no one modeling the healthy aspect of taking responsibility for your own emotional needs.

And that's what you're doing. You're saying I need affirmation. I need to be shown appreciation and I, why put that in someone else's hands who I have no control over when I can offer that to myself? And it can feel good and I can believe it and it's soothing to me. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us. And modeling that for all of us. That's beautiful.

Veronica: Yeah, that's been probably the most transformative thing of it all because my expectations are just put on myself and I get to meet the need knowing that what I seek when I'm doing like attention-seeking behavior like good or bad. It's because I'm just like looking to be acknowledged and so now I can just acknowledge myself.

Laura: With that also does so like I can't help but take my marriage and family therapy lens. You know--that's one of the places where my background is. That also helps you have more authentic and grounded relationships with other people.

Because if we're looking for other people to meet those needs and we're not communicating those needs very clearly to them. If it's kind of just simmering under the surface, that's where resentment builds. That's where we start doing love tests; where we're saying like if they really loved me, they would know what I needed to hear them. They would know.

And it puts a lot of burden on relationships and by meeting your needs yourself. You are unburdening the other relationships in your life. It’s beautiful. Yeah, that's so true. Yeah, that's so true. What about for you, Sonnet?

Sonnet: One of the aspects for me has just been, I've spent a lot of time looking at my triggers or where, where things get sticky for me and for me it was around boundary work. Around holding boundaries for my child and also modeling healthy boundaries in my behavior and when I started kind of uncovering it, I kept coming up against this idea that like having setting boundaries meant that I didn't love them or that I was showing them that I didn't love you because I'm not just, I'm being too firm or that's how I am with other people by saying yes to everything.

So by really holding this container and what does that look like and being super clear this is what I need. And the more that I dug into it, the more I really was able to see. Like it's not just about the boundaries; it's about this messaging that somewhere along the way I was taught that just be a good girl and say yes and be like that's what, that's where you get your compliments, that's where you get your self worth, that's where people say, oh you're doing such a great job, you're such a good girl.

And so reprogramming that messaging, they're saying I am enough. Like I am worthy of the things that I need and if I need to take that time to give to myself, like I it's I'm worthy of that. By setting this boundary, it shows up not just in boundary work because that's like a big undercurrent that just really shows up in a lot of places.

But for boundaries, it's very clear because I'm working with the toddler and I need to set some boundaries and I need to hold those boundaries and I need to model to her what boundaries look like.

So that was like the first indicator and as I kept going deeper, I started seeing, you know, really like, my place was like you mentioned, you know, a lot of us were from that parentification place where I really took care of my parents or my mom and didn't have a dad.

And so how can I repair it myself now so that I can have that space and that understanding? And that it's not just about being a good girl and a yes, and you know, that boundaries actually mean I love you and that boundaries mean I care and that I can hold from boundaries and that I'm not my mother, you know?

So just all of that work comes up as used to keep digging and like, I'm sure I'm going to get two more layers, you know, next week. So it's not just like you're just healed. It's like you're healing as you're parenting your child and like, you guys are both doing this together and you don't just get to the end. You just keep going and you can’t keep them anymore.

Veronica: There is no end.

Sonnet: Yeah. Yeah, there's some reason in your mind, you're like, okay, I'm going to get this down and then we're going to be good. But then you're like, whoa, there's more there. That's so interesting. Again that, like, self affirmation really helps to and just becoming aware of the identifying like, oh, this is where I need to pause.

That pause is so big because it's like, oh, don't react. Pause. What's happening for me? What's going on in my body right now? Like what does the boundary sound like? What would a healthy boundary sound like here? Do I need to say, let me get back to you on that so that I can figure out what that healthy boundary looks like, you know, and then get back to that person and that's my,

Laura: What are my work is? What are my fears? Yeah. Okay. I know you all know this, but I love talking about reparenting. I think it's one of the most beautiful things we can do. I love the idea that we are growing up alongside our kids.

I hear from parents a lot that they wish that they had done this work before they were parents and I honestly don't, I mean, I think you can do some work before you’re a parent. But I really don't know that you can do the level of work that we're talking about until you have your partner-- your child there--to show you where the work is.

You know, I just don't think you can. I think it's I mean, I think you can do some, I think you can certainly be. I wish I had been more prepared for the level of work that I had to do. You know, but I do think our kids are really, really good at, you know, as they are growing up, you know, and I don't know about you, but I have found that at each age for my kids, they have shown me little parts of myself that have been wondering like, am I lovable? Am I worthy? I don't know.

So in the reparenting work, I I'm like reparenting myself at the ages that my kids are, you know. So especially like my just turned six year old and my eight year old, you know, they are at these ages, like a lot of my stuff, my work is at those ages for myself. And what's beautiful about reparenting is that your inner children, they don't know that you're grown up. They just feel like hurting six year old or hurting three year old, you know, that's all they vary.

The subconscious is very interesting in that way. I do have a question for you all. One thing that I get asked a lot by parents is how to do this work if you don't have specific memories from your childhood, like if you really don't remember what happened. You know it wasn't that great or you know, or maybe you have a general feeling of like it was a kind of a normal childhood, there wasn't anything really bad, but you don't have any specifics. Can you, do you feel like you can do this work, this healing work?

Sonnet: Yeah, because it starts with questions. So you just ask like why don't I have memories? And then like take the pause and then really just kind of like sit with that question until the answer comes because the answers do come, like your subconscious does show up eventually, but you have to ask the questions for you to be able to get the answer.

So I would say like if you're having blocked memories because it all lives in your body right? Like the body keeps the score. Like it's it's not gone forever, it's just gone for right now. And so if you just ask yourself, like I wonder what why I blocked that out of my memory and then just kind of sit with it and then just keep asking yourself and the answer will come and you just have to be ready for--you have to be ready for the answer because it's going to come and be like oh that's why that's why.

Veronica: We have this workbook that accompanies the part two of the course. So you go on a journey of exploring and asking these. We set it up so that it's like these progressive questions that you ask and explore and take that you know so little by little. It's not just maybe you're going to find the memory and it's just going to hit you. It might be like you just remember a feeling or then you you don't even have to be like, well I remember in fourth grade this exact thing happened.

It just might be all of a sudden you feel, you know, it starts unraveling and it might not be a specific memory, but then you start realizing like how you felt. Like I didn't feel safe as a child because I wasn't allowed to express my emotions and that might be what comes up for you. Or I was always put on time out or my mom always was mad when I got sad or just these kind of things might come up for you as you work through the workbook.

And so you don't even have to have like a clear memory of exactly when it happened as things start coming up for you and you start understanding what the messages are that you were receiving as a child. You start unraveling it.

Laura: I absolutely agree. And I think too, like some, some folks are justifiably nervous to dig up old memories. Too traumatic memories. And so I really do think like, we can, we can work on the this all in the here now--in the present moment.

What is the story that's here and now? And I think too, like, you know, for a lot of my own personal work, it's very vague. Somewhere along the way, I got the idea that you know, somewhere along the way, I got the message that I, you know, needed to be high achieving in order to have people approve of me. You know, or somewhere along the way, I got the, you know, the idea that if I make a mistake, it makes me unworthy of love. You know, just like those are the script that are there.

We don't have to, I mean most of the time it's not just one instance anyway. It was a pattern of responses that we got a feedback we got from the world.

Veronica: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I love just putting it back into the here and now where it doesn't feel this like scary. I have to identify like what happened in my life, but it's more of just like separating yourself from the messages that you've internalized as who you are and what you believe in saying.

But do I believe this? Like taking this out and saying that is, does this still serve me? Can I reshape this messaging that I have to be high achieving to be worthy, to be appreciated or can I change that? Do I want to hold on to that as or you know, just like taking out these messages and the here and now. I love that. And really identifying what are those because they're so close to us that we just have internalized them as who we are.

Laura: And our kids just happen to show us-- where they show us where those messages are.

Okay, so if people want to learn more from you and start diving into this work, where can they go to find out about this?

Veronica: Well you can always come over to our Instagram page. We share lots of free content. There are lots of tips, lots of information around all of this, and then our two-part parenting course, I believe you're going to have on your show notes.

So find out the link to it there and everything that you--the link will take you to a page that gives you some video ideas so you'll get little snippets of the course. You'll get to really see, try it on, see if it works for you. All the modules are there, all the information. I'm happy to talk about it here too, but that link will take you there to really dive in and digest if it's a good if it's a good fit for you and your parenting.

Laura: Beautiful. Thank you so much. Any last little things that you would like, that you really want the parents listening to know from either of you? Any last little

Veronica: I think just by being a listener of your podcast, you're already doing a great job. You're already a great parent, you know, just for you to be open to just listening to these conversations is enough to get you on the path. If you feel overwhelmed of like how to get started, the awareness piece is always the hardest because that's what prompts the action. So you're doing great.

Sonnet: Yeah. And I would just add to that just that our children--we’re exactly what our children need. So our journey alongside of them is exactly what they need and exactly what we need and I truly believe that our children--we have everything that they need for us and we're learning alongside of them.

Laura: Those are two beautiful perspectives to end with things.

Veronica: And it's and it's also it's never too late. It's never too late to start. You can always repair. You can always repair as long as you repair any mishaps that have happened like as long as you repair, you take responsibility for your part. Like that's all children need. They are very forgiving and they're more than willing to cooperate and so just always remember that.

Laura: Beautiful. Thank you so much you two. I really appreciate your time and your expertise. You're a gift to this world.

Sonnet: Thank you for having us.

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family, and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

January 18, 2022

Episode 101: Helping Kids Simplify for Better Quality Play with Allie Casazza

January 18, 2022/ Laura Froyen

Last November, I released an episode about how to move from the feeling of overwhelm to simplicity with intention and grace with Allie Casazza. And I heard from so many of you how much it resonated and helped you (I love it when that happens!).Thank you for sharing your experiences with me and how decluttering helped you find some clarity and peacefulness in your homes.

BUT a LOT of you expressed the need for specific support around decluttering with KIDS! One of the big questions that came up from that episode is how to declutter our kid's toys so that they too can find the simplicity they need to get deep into their play. And so, for this week's episode, I'm bringing back Allie (if you missed her episode on How to Move from Overwhelm to Simplicity with Intention & Grace, listen HERE).

She has a new book coming out designed specifically for KIDS (plus if you pre-order it comes with a free course, that her kids teach to your kids!! Love kids teaching kids!) and is going to share some of her secrets with us today! (Pre order here!)

Here is a summary of our discussion:

How to manage and declutter toys
Why simplifying can lead to deeper play
How to create an environment conducive for play

To get more support, follow Allie through her social media and website:

Instagram: @allie_thatsme

Facebook: www.facebook.com/alliecasazzablog

Website: alliecasazza.com

Listen to her podcast: The Purpose Show

Laura Froyen, PhD

Laura Froyen, PhD

Balanced Parent Podcast

Laura Froyen, PhD

Welcome to the home of The Balanced Parent Podcast!

Episode 119: No Longer Last on the List with Jo Bevilacqua

Episode 118: Healing the Mother Daughter Relationship with Ann Dillard

Episode 117: Five Steps for a More Confident Motherhood with Zelmira Crespi

Episode 116: Things We Don’t Talk About with Parent Mental Health with Amanda Gorman

Episode 115: Feel the Joy of a Healthy Couple Relationship with Erin and Stephen Mitchell

Bonus: Live Coaching: How to Finally Stop Using Bribes, Threats, & Control in Your Parenting

Episode 114: Perfection Culture in Parenthood & What to Do About It with Lindsay Adams

Episode 113: How to Support Your Kiddo With A New Sibling with Hannah & Kelty of Upbringing

Episode 112: A Curious and Collaborative Approach to Technology with Kids w/ Carrie Rogers-Whitehead

Episode 111: How to Help Our Kids Avoid External Validation with Mory Fontanez

Episode 110: How Implementing Boundaries Can Improve any Relationship with Melissa Salmeron

Episode 109: Challenging Behaviors Re-Imagined with Dr. Mona Delahooke

Episode 108: How to change your brain patterns to achieve your goals with Adele Spraggon

Episode 107: Supporting Yourself Through Hard Times with Tanisha of MedicalMomsofNICU

Episode 106: Making Meditation Accessible for Ourselves & Our Kids with Keli Carpenter

Episode 105: Recovering from Adverse Childhood Experiences with Dr. Bre Gentile

Episode 104: How to Release Negative Self-Talk for Yourself & Your Child with Dr. Anjani Amladi

Episode 103: Helping Kids with ADHD with Arti Kumar-Jain

Episode 102: How to Heal Our Own Wounds with Sonnet and Veronica

Episode 101: Helping Kids Simplify for Better Quality Play with Allie Casazza