Episode 229: Healing Your Attachment for More Resilient Parenting with Dr. Judy Ho
/Welcome to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast. This week, I am joined by the brilliant Dr. Judy Ho to explore the powerful topic of reparenting and healing your attachment style. In this heartfelt and informative conversation, we’ll dive into Dr. Judy’s new book, The New Rules of Attachment, and discuss how early life experiences shape our inner narratives, relationships, and parenting practices.
Here are the key takeaways:
How to heal attachment wounds to improve parenting
Identifying and shifting inherited parenting patterns with self-compassion and awareness
Using inner child and reparenting work to foster self-compassion by understanding past survival strategies
Practicing reparenting through recognizing needs and setting healthy boundaries
Supporting parenting partners in understanding, respecting, and compromising on different approaches
Healing parent relationships through forgiveness, compassion, and self-reparenting
Reflecting on upbringing to break cycles and cultivate compassionate, intentional, relationship-focused parenting today
Resources:
To discover more about Dr. Judy Ho, check out her website at drjudyho.com and follow her on Instagram @judyho, Facebook @judyho, LinkedIn @judyho and YouTube @judyho.
Remember, healing your attachment wounds with self-compassion and reparenting helps you break old patterns and create healthier, more connected parenting relationships. But it takes time! Be patient and kind to yourself in the process!
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 week's episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be digging into The New Rules of Attachment, a wonderful book that, I'm so excited to share with you. I have guest, Dr. Judy Ho with me, and what we're really going to be digging into on this is how you can go through the process of re-parenting yourself so that you can heal your own attachment style and hopefully in the process, become a more present, resilient and resourceful parent for your own kiddos. So, Dr. Judy Ho, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you here. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do, and then we'll dive in.
Judy: Well, hi, Doctor Laura. I'm so excited to be here and love your work. And I think that you're providing an amazing service for parents, especially, but honestly, just for everybody who's interested in healing and strengthening their mental health. I am a licensed and board certified clinical and forensic neuropsychologist. I'm also a tenured faculty member at Pepperdine University. I have a private practice, and I write books and conduct research and a topic that has been really of interest to me over the last decade is how our early experiences shape our decisions, what we think about ourselves, and ultimately what we believe we can achieve in this life. And I think that when I was first in training, I thought a lot about the here and now strategy, so important to kind of solve the problems that are happening now, but what I noticed with my patients is that they kept coming back, finding themselves in the same cycle over and over again, and I think it's because sometimes the past. is still with us, and we have to be able to resolve that. And that's when I became really interested in attachment work. And then when I proposed this book, and started pitching it to publishers, it was so interesting because also once I forget exactly the sequence of events, but I believe, I had the idea to write the book. I pitched. I believe I got a publishing deal, and then I found out I was pregnant. So now I have a 3 year old toddler, and so it's been very interesting to write the book, during my pregnancy into, into like the first year of my baby's life, with no sleep, but also like, also experiencing it so viscerally on a personal level. About attachment.
Laura: So being able to talk and write and be thinking about it so much in the process of actually literally building that attachment with your daughter. How powerful. You know, a lot of the families that I work with are deeply invested in helping their, their children develop secure attachment relationships with themselves. Lots of us are attachment nerds or junkies. We are really kind of into learning about the. science of it. And I guess one of the things that I think a lot about for these families is they, they want to know what to do. They want to know what they can be doing to make things good and right and well for their kids. And they're so afraid of messing it up.
And I think oftentimes that fear comes from their are their own experiences growing up, right? And there's some reluctance to go back in time. I don't know if that is true for you, but and that you've seen with your clients, but sometimes they there seems almost as if like there's a wall or a dam that they've put things behind. They wanna take a look at it. They want to move forward and look into the here and now. And I think that it can be really intimidating to think about opening up the doors to that closet they've closed, or the kind of chipping away at that dam that they've, they've built. I'm kind of curious about, can you tell us, I don't know, some, some words of encouragement or why it's so important to be looking a little bit to the past? Maybe not in a scary or overwhelming way, but just dipping a toe into it.
Judy: Yeah, I think that the most important thing to recognize is that of course we don't have to be trapped by our past, and just because we're looking doesn't mean that it has to be scary like you said, you know, it's kind of those monsters under the bed where once you look under the bed, it's actually not so scary. It's it's kind of that analogy, but I also understand why people don't want to do it, you know, it's like, well, my past is, you know, hurtful. My past was painful, and I just want to move on, but it does shape our self concept. It shapes the way that we talk to ourselves. Yeah, digging up on that. So, you know, attachment theory is all about these crucial bonds that happen very early in our lives that provide templates for how we navigate the world. And I think a big part of that is as you're learning and soaking up all this information, you're coming into the world and you're just essentially you're being that needs to integrate that social feedback so that you can ensure your own survival.
Based on those bonds and the quality of them, you're gonna walk away with different survival tactics, and sometimes those survival tactics in the moment might help you to solve that particular issue or situation, but over time they can actually wreak havoc on the way that you respond as your world is changing, right? So as you get become an adult. You do have a lot more agency and, and things and people do shift around you, but those early ideas, they're really cemented in a subconscious part of your brain, because at that time, that was your first contact with whether or not someone cares about you, or if you express that you need something, is somebody gonna come to your aid and how and when. And those things really have essentially almost a priority in your memory bank rather than the other information that comes later because our brains tend to prioritize kind of synthesizing things from the environment that already confirm an existing idea.
Laura: Right, so even it affects not even just how we respond, but to how we make sense of the things that are happening around us, right? That provides a lens through which we view the world and that colors the how we interpret events that happen to us. Yeah, it's almost as if like, our parents uploaded an operating system into, you know, onto us when we were little, and we need an update as we age, when circumstances change. Yeah, and things that were helpful are no longer so helpful. So if we're in that place, and we're noticing some patterns, or maybe noticing our mom's voices falling out of our mouths, even though we said we would never say those things. What can we do if we're noticing some of those patterns that meet, or some of those, kind of strategies that we do automatically, and we know aren't really helpful, but we're still doing them. What can we do when we notice those?
Judy: Well, first, I think just having compassion for yourself because clearly even if you make a parenting mistake, 99.9% of us, we are trying to do our best, but sometimes things come up, sometimes we have our own triggers, and then also the way that we saw our parents cope with certain things, you know, we may just adopt that when we're under stress, and it's almost like there's a shortcut in your brain, it just goes to past experience as opposed to maybe what's more thoughtful in the moment. So I would say like have compassion for yourself cause I feel like the number one thing that parents do, when they make a mistake is they're so hard on themselves. One mistake is not gonna like ruin your child's attachment, you know, we all are making mistakes all the time and we're learning, so I feel like when you notice something, you know, really think about.
You know, what happened right before you noticed this action you wish you didn't do. So it's kind of like what I tell my patients to rewind the tape, like rewind the tape back up to right before you did this action, or had this feeling, and what was happening at the time? What thought were you having? And usually people will find that there's an interpretation of the situation that caused them to act that way. One example is maybe you yell at your child and you didn't mean to yell at your child, but it just kind of came out, and you realize that the thought that you had right before you yelled was like, my child doesn't respect me, you know, and when you really think about it, perhaps you've had some past experiences where you felt disrespected, you felt unheard, and whether or not your child was actually doing that.
It just triggered something in you and that's why you had an emotional reaction. And so I think once you know those things, you're able to have a bit more of a thoughtful process of, okay, well, that is a trigger of mine. So the next time something like this happens, what can I do instead? Then you can problem solve it for the next time. And so I think that it's really just about being able to and self improve because what is the scariest thing I think for people is when they feel like they're out of control with their own feelings and actions. And actually, we are able to control a lot of it, but it does take rewinding the tape to find out what it was that set off that pattern of events.
Laura: Yeah, I really like that and I like the I don't know, it's comforting to know that the work, this work doesn't have to be perfect and doesn't have to be done perfectly in the moment, that actually we're gonna miss things. We're gonna make the mistake and then have to rewind, take a look at it, where did that come from, do a little bit of work. We won't be catching ourselves in the moment every time, right?
Judy: Right. Exactly. And that's okay. You know, I think that that's You have to expect that because sometimes people have this idea that they're just gonna catch things right away if they're in therapy or working on themselves, like, nope, you know, you're still going, things are still gonna happen. You just have better awareness and you have a better coping skill set than you would have otherwise.
Laura: Yeah. So I feel kind of curious about. The kind of the inner child work that is an aspect of this. I love that reparenting and inner child work is becoming more mainstream and more talked about. I feel like they've really been having a moment in these past few years, which is so good. I don't know about for you, but I found that they allow for so much more self compassion. And I'm working with my clients are on this work for myself, when I'm able to see the, the thing that's not so adaptive now, that's maladaptive now, through the lens of the earlier person who it was helpful for, it allows me to be just so much more compassionate with that part of my self that's still kind of reacting from a scared or protective place. I feel curious if you have any, I don't know, any exercises or, you know, things we can be thinking about to to help us understand what these things that we do now that aren't helpful, where they came from, why they were there and how they were helpful initially.
Judy: Yeah, it's a really, really good question, and I think that if you really think about viewing your childhood in those early years, and those early memories you have, and thinking about how all of that is framed around the ultimate goal, which is survival. It will help you to understand why you adopted certain ideas in the first place. And I do have an attachment quiz that is on my website that people can take if you're not 100% sure, which attachment style feels like it is most emblematic of your behavior patterns at this time. I will also say that we don't all fit into one of 4 boxes, and most people I work with have a combined attachment style, you know, they may have maybe an anxious attachment style in certain situations, but a secure style in other situations, right? So I think that that's also worth mentioning. But, you know, when you take that quiz, it also gives you some hints as to, well, why did I respond this way when my mom said that I shouldn't cry, and she said that over and over again, like, what, why did I respond in the way that I did, and I think that the question really lies on, you know, what do you need to do to keep surviving. So like, as a child, we have to keep our caregivers near us, whether that's your parents or an extended family member, whoever was taking care of you on a day to day basis.
And so if you get the message over and over again in this example from a parent that says, stop crying, don't cry, why are you upset? You start to learn that in order to keep that parent close to you and to keep them approving of you, you shouldn't say those things anymore, even if you feel that way, you know, so you have to cry in secret or you don't talk about your emotions and you shut that part off. Well, as an adult, you're much more likely to shut off. People have emotion reactions or want to have emotional conversations because it's igniting a very primordial part of you that's like, oh my gosh, I can't do this because it might actually mean my survival, right? And it's not. That you're making that connection in the moment, if you haven't done the work, but there's something about it that makes you want to run away from that kind of emotional experience or like to have those deeper conversations.
You may not be able to explain why, but if you think about the past and you think about the fact that you had to do whatever it took to survive and to survive as a child, you have to keep people who are adults around you who can take care of you, because we can survive on our own. That's the way we're built as a human being. And then it makes sense, like, oh, that's why I shut this part off because I needed to make sure that my mom would still take care of me, and she just seemed so disapproving every time I cried or had a negative emotional expression.
Laura: And being able to say to yourself, that makes sense, is such a relief, right? Like that phrase, like that makes sense. Oh my gosh, the, the wash of relief that I can't even see like on my clients, like, flood like just floods them. Like that makes complete sense to me. Offering that to ourselves is so powerful. I feel really curious too then, when we find those things, those moments in time where we had needs that went unmet as a child, where we, you know, wished for something different, something that we didn't get and maybe have never found in a relationship ever. And we've been looking our whole lives. What can we do about that in the here and now? How can we go about finally getting that need met?
Judy: Well, I think that that's what reparenting work is all about, and I will say that earlier on in my career, when I heard of reparenting, I was like, well, what is that? That's some kind of woohoo concept, kind of like inner child work. What's that? Of course now I've learned that both things are very important. But I think that sometimes people are turned off by it because they're like, well, what does reparenting really mean? It feels a little bit like it's ambiguous or maybe they have those same biases that I did earlier in my career, but I think reparenting is a very practical strategy. It's a practical set of strategies and it's really just about your adult self understanding that. There's a part of you that has some unmet needs from childhood, and re-parenting just simply means as an adult because you have more agency and skills, you can meet those needs now, especially if you find that those unmet needs are causing problems in your current life, like.
That you're lashing out more and having more emotional reactions and having a hard time engaging in deeper relationships or that, you know, you don't believe in yourself because there's always that little voice that says you're not good enough. You know, if you notice these types of things, they're clearly affecting your life now, and re-parenting will help you to get those unmet needs. Taken care of so that you can be the best version of yourself, right? It's not about being like a perfect person. It's just about being a better version of yourself today than maybe yesterday or the day before, right? And that's what I think self-development is all about. And so I think reparenting can be so practical and simple and I recently gave a TED talk about this and gave a few strategies that people can start to embark on if they want to try reparenting, and some of it is not things that you haven't heard, it's just really understanding that that's a method of reparenting.
So for example, prioritizing self-care is a form of reparenting. Putting down healthy boundaries with the people in your life. That's a form of reparenting, validating your own emotions and saying that it's okay if you feel this way. You don't have to know how to explain it, and there doesn't have to really even be a reason for it. If that's the way that you feel, that's valid and it's okay. You know, those are very simple and concrete strategies of reparenting that people don't realize that that is a form of reparenting when they're doing it, but it can make such a profound difference if you do these types of things every single day of your life.
Laura: Absolutely. Oh my gosh, one of the things, one of the ways I reparent myself on a regular basis is through limits on my phone and having set hours where it's turned on and off, set places where it can be charged, like it does not enter my bedroom. You know, like having those limits, that's, that is actively being a good mom to myself, you know, so that I can take care of myself and get the rest that I need. I think it can be used to in those really challenging moments with our kiddos. Like, as a child, I was a highly emotional little one. Lots of big feelings, not super welcome in my family, and my kind of stoic family who likes, you know, soft, sensitive, happy emotions, but not so much the hard negative stuff, right? So, I mean, as a kid, I remember being alone in my room, crying, thinking, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna do this to my kids, right?
I happen to get two kids who, because they know all of their feelings are welcome in our home, actually prefer to be alone with their feelings. They know they can talk to me about them anytime they want, but it was really difficult when they were little, when they were 3 or 4, and they'd run away and slam the door and tell me to go away. And little Laura inside of me was like, no, we can't leave them alone. We promise we would never do that. And so reparenting for me looks like sitting outside my kid's door and talking to little Laura, reassuring, yep, I know they're not actually being left alone and made to be alone. They want this, they're choosing this. I'm meeting their needs right now. You know, by giving them a space. And so sometimes it's just that self talk. And, and I don't know, for me, recognizing that this, these little parts of us are here and present with us a lot of the time. And if we're not aware of them, they'll drive the ship. And I want to be the person driving the ship, you know, right?
Judy: Right. And I really appreciate that. Personal example you shared, because I think so many of us, and actually, I had an upbringing that was very similar to yours in that, you know, stoicism was definitely valued in my family. And it was easier, I think, for my family to understand that, as opposed to bigger emotions. And so, with my son, it's interesting because I basically I'm like, it's all right, like whatever emotions you want to have, that's totally fine with me. My husband's family, there was a lot of emotions in his family, but I think my husband was. It kind of felt like he always had to keep on an even keel because everybody else in his family was up and down. Yeah, right. So then it's interesting to kind of see how we pair it because I can see that for him, he's trying to have my son calm down. And I'm like, you should express yourself as much as you want.
And so sometimes we get into these very interesting parenting discussions where he's like, that's too much, you know, like, that's too much emotion. Like I'm like, no, but it's good, like, it's good that he feels safe to do that. I want him to feel safe to do that, you know, so we have these very interesting discussions because for him what feels safe. is very different than for me being through all of the work that I've done on myself and obviously being in this profession, valuing now like bigger emotional expression, but I feel like maybe before I did the work, him and I might have been more similar just because of our upbringings, even though they came from different places, we probably would have had a more similar view on children's expression of emotions, but I think because I've been through my own journey, you know, now I'm just like, you should let him have any emotion he wants, you know, so maybe there's a slight overcorrection, but I also feel like I would rather err on that side, given my own reflections than like. Making him feel like he's caged in, you know.
Laura: Yeah. And you know, Dr. Judy, I feel like you're bringing up a really good piece too that there is this interplay in a family between if you we've got two parents, both parents, and their backgrounds, and I mean, your husband's story makes complete sense to me that there would be some discomfort, that to cope with an up and down environment, he's looking for a steady even keel. You know, and would value that, and would want to see that for his child. That makes complete sense. And so, I mean, it's even like, so, you know, a lot of the families who listen to this podcast, it's, you know, the mom who's listening or the kind of the designated parenting learner who's listening to this podcast. I actually think your book would be a really great book for the other partner to read.
Sometimes the books that, that I, you know, that I get to talk to so many great authors. Sometimes I want my listener reading the book, and I think that they should read this book too. But this is one of those books that having the partner read and disseminate the information could be really, really helpful too, just because they would be doing that work of filtering the information that you have in this book through their own experiences and be able then to explain. To their partner, this is why this is so triggering for me, and I understand now why it's not a trigger for you. And then how can we work together as a family to come to, you know, to a decision on how we're going to move forward with it.
Judy: Yeah, and it's such a good point because, you know, sometimes we are just at different places of their development. Most oftentimes, you know, partners are. And so it's like, it's not so much about making them see that your way is the best way because in their view, your way is not the best way, but it's more like, well, how can we have a little bit of compromise and knowing that a little bit of balance is fine and that your child is probably gonna turn out great, you know. So I think just you know, you know, even for myself, having these conversations with, with my husband, you know. Sometimes there is a bit of a compromise where it's like, I think he should just be able to have whatever emotions he wants to have, but if my husband's like, I really want you to calm down, I don't want you to cry right now. I sometimes won't interfere with that. On occasion, I'll just let him say that because I know that that's an important part to validate my husband's parenting decision. I'll only intervene if I feel like, okay, well, now it's a little too much, you know, but if I feel like, but it's not, nothing's gonna, it's not gonna ruin your child because one parent is saying, hey, please stop crying. I don't want you to cry anymore. I don't like it when you cry, and other parent saying it's okay to cry, like, it's okay that there's a little bit of a slight difference.
Laura: Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're saying that. Yeah, I 100% agree. The idea that we all have to be on the same page, I don't, I don't think we, I don't think.
Judy: It's not possible, right? Like how you do it?
Laura: We're two different people, right? Being on the same team, that I think we can do. And understanding that everybody on a team has different roles and different ways of going about achieving similar goals, right? You know, but yeah, I don't think we have to be the same. And I don't think it, you know, our kids are going to have individual relationships. They're building. Individual attachment relationships with each of their caregivers, which is good, good for them to have practice with different people, with different approaches, to build varied and resilient skill sets, right?
Judy: Yeah, exactly. And I think that that's why it's so important, you know, to listen to your partner instead of having an emotional reactions. I think a lot of times we might, we'll be like, well, how could you do that? That's not good for our child, but realize that like, they also care for your child, your child too, and but they're coming from a different experience of what might be good for them. And so just even having empathy for a different viewpoint. And you know, like we were just talking about Doctor Laura, we all grew up so differently, so, you know, they're trying to integrate their own experiences and most of us, I think, as parents, we're trying to be the best parents that we can, you know, that doesn't mean that we're always succeeding at that, but I think that for the most part, most parents are trying to do their best most of the time. And so if you can give your partner the benefit of the doubt, I feel like that's a big part of it.
Laura: Yeah, assuming the best is a very good starting point, right? And understanding too that like, most likely you have very similar goals for your kids and your ideas about how to achieve that goal might be very different based on your experiences.
Judy: Exactly.
Laura: I really, really love that. I'm curious about some of the work that we do as conscious and respectful parents. And, looking back and thinking about our relationships with our parents as we move forward into parenting our own kids, it can make us want to do some work with, with our parents if we're lucky enough to still have them in our lives, right? And if we're lucky enough to have them be willing to step into the arena with us, you know, so my mom has been willing and eager to step into that arena with me and our friendship is so beautiful. My dad, less so, but I've been doing some attachment work with for myself on some of my stories and stuff with him. And I just recently, like the past few days, come to a much more peaceful place, but it hasn't involved him at all. And I'm kind of curious if you can talk to our listener about how we can do some of that work with our parents, both if we've got one who's willing to step into that arena, and if we've got one who for whatever reason is unavailable, including maybe they've already passed.
Judy: Yeah, I think that, and thank you so much for sharing your beautiful story about your different relationship with your parents and how you've been able to heal, despite having differences in terms of how much they're willing to approach any kind of work. And I think that that is probably very common that people are gonna go to their parents, and I think that sometimes when you're doing healing work, then you start to make sense of things and, you know, you. All at first it feels refreshing to have an explanation and sometimes when we approach our parents at first, it may not actually be with the most healing tone lame, right, there could be a blame issue or like you just have emotional reaction like you always do this ever since I was a kid, you know, and so that kind of stuff can come up and, you know, have compassion for yourself if it does cause that's totally normal, but also your parents are probably not gonna want to engage with you if that's your, that's your tone about the whole thing, and they're gonna immediately be in a defensive stance. If they feel like doing the self-development work with you, it's gonna mean like having to take all this responsibility for all their mistakes. Well, they're not gonna want to do that for the most part. Most people will not want to do that and spend their hour that way in therapy.
Laura: Cause it's hard, it's hard work.
Judy: Yeah, so I think if you can align with them and say I just want our relationship to be better, like I wanna have a better relationship with you, so that it doesn't feel like it's gonna be just you know, you, blaming them for a whole session and talking about all the things that they did wrong. And I think the other piece of it too is like assuming best intentions for the most part is gonna apply for most parents. I mean, of course, there's the 1 to 2% of parents who are just outrightly abusive and they know that they're being abusive and they do it anyway. But most parents are not like that. And so they are trying to deal with it the best they can, and they have their own wounds and they have their own traumas and all the things that they carried from their parents in the way that they were raised. And so I think if you can approach it as we're on the same team, I want to improve our relationship.
And also generally viewing it as, you know what, they probably did the best that they could. Like the mistakes that they made, they, they weren't trying to hurt me on purpose, even if they did. You know, if you can have that kind of sentiment going in, I think that that might make a parent more willing to do the work with you. And knowing also that it's an interaction, right, especially as adults, like, you know, you're gonna have different personality traits in the way you communicate, and sometimes the way you communicate might be triggering to your parent too. So like, just also owning, owning that that is a piece of the puzzle too, I think helps. I think the other pieces, if you have parents who are not willing to do the work or they're already not here on this earth, there's still a chance to heal, and so much of it has to do with your relationship with yourself and trying to give them forgiveness if you feel like they deserve it, and also just to take lessons from it. I think that that's a way to heal. So like, you know, for me, I think you know, being able to almost like pardon your parent that can't do the work with you or won't do it for some of the things that they did that hurt you can be very helpful because anger really only destroys you. It doesn't destroy anybody but you.
So holding on to that's not useful. So like being able to forgive them for some of their conduct, it doesn't mean that you have to forgive them for everything, but like kind of providing a lens of understanding too about their behaviors like. You know, this was not ideal, but I think I know why they did this, you know, making sense of it yourself and I think the other pieces are thinking about what you could learn from that. So like, there's certainly things that my parents did during my childhood that I don't want to repeat with my son, you know. I'm not doing it to to hold it over their heads and to think that I'm better than them. I don't think that. But that allows me to have a more healing space in my interactions with them, like, okay, well, but you know what, this was a valuable lesson. Like now I know what I don't want to do as a parent myself, and that has helped me immensely. And also I think the last thing is just knowing I can reparent myself. Like you don't have to rely on them to do the work if they're not willing or want to.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love that, and I, you know, I think a lot of grandparents experience this generation who's doing things differently, almost as if we are parenting at them, like we're respectful parenting. You know, in this almost critical way, like we're doing things differently. And I think that there's room for almost just within ourselves, an energy change of they did it that way, that's what they know, and when we do know better, we do better, like Maya Angelou says, and now we're doing better and having just that energy shift of this has nothing actually to do with you, mom and dad. This actually has everything to do with the relationship I want with my child. Thank you for teaching me what, what I need to do, you know? And what I don't know, I'm learning through, you know, books like yours and podcasts like this, you know, cause some we can't, we can only know what we know, right? You know, and some of us come into parenting only knowing what we don't want to do, and it's okay to then dive in to figuring out the other options that are available to us.
Judy: Right, absolutely. And there's always time to make changes now, you know, so capitalizing on your present, and like, what can I do now? Like you said, it has everything to do with what I want to impart my child with. And if there is any intergenerational trauma, it can stop with you, right? So I think that that's a really important goal.
Laura: Absolutely. Something, an exercise that I've been finding really helpful for for me and for my, for my clients that I work with is letter writing, and not just letter writing in the here and now, but letter writing to the past. So embodying my younger self and writing. Or writing a letter for my younger self, like almost like dictating it, you know, if you could have, what would you want your dad to know, and then writing a response from that parent in that moment of time, right? So with what we know of what they had going on. So there were times that were really challenging in my family. And now as an adult, I recognize that my dad was working 3 jobs. He was never around because he was setting us up for intergenerational wealth, you know, like that was what was happening that he was doing.
That was his drive in that moment, and there were consequences for us and there were gifts that came with it, you know, and being able to, I don't know, have some compassion and some understanding that like, you know, I think probably your 3 year old doesn't realize at this point in time that you are a full human being with a rich textured story, you know, and I think sometimes we think of our parents that way too, you know, that my parents are 75 now. They've lived 75 years on this earth. They've been married for 55 of those, you know, think about, like, just they've had a rich textured life before I came in, while I was growing. They had their own stuff going on, you know.
Judy: Yeah, yeah, definitely, and your story about your family and their focus is very similar in many ways to mine, my parents, as well as myself and my sister were all immigrants. And so there's definitely a certain interest and a drive of like, we have to establish ourselves both for survival and also like you said, to like try to build up for the future.
Laura: Make the sacrifice worth it.
Judy: Of course. But, you know, when I was, when I was younger, and, you know, and sometimes even now, like when certain things I think hit a chord. Like, I'm a little, I'm a little angry that they weren't around as much, you know, but they were both working 2 to 3 jobs. It's like, well, they had to do it so that we would be able to have what we have and to be able to be set up in a way where when I went to college, even though I worked my way all throughout college and I had jobs in high school, like, I always knew I had a security net. Like if anything happened, I could just call my parents and say, okay, like, I'm in a financial bind, like, can you help me out?
And I know that they would, you know, like a lot of people don't have that financial security net. It's like, well, if you somehow get fired or like some big thing comes up. You literally like, you'll just have to deal with it yourself, you know, I knew that like if I, you know, and this happened a couple times it was like, oh my gosh, I need to replace my tires. I don't have extra money. I'm a college student working a bunch of jobs. And, but I knew I could call my parents and say, can I borrow a few $100 cause I need to replace my tires, right? Whereas other people, it's like, well, I guess can't replace tires, gotta walk or take the bus or just like I didn't have to do that. Like that's a certain level of comfortability that they.
Laura: And security, right? We think about, yeah, attachment security, and there's different types of security. It reminds me of an exercise you have in your book that I really like that I'm definitely going to use with my clients. I hope that that's okay. But here it is, so. Taking a piece of paper and folding it in half or writing a line down the middle, and on one side, writing what I had plenty of as a child and what I wish I had more of as a child. Oh my gosh, what a powerful exercise to do. I highly recommend listener, my sweet listeners to pause and take a minute to do that because it's, it's a really a powerful exercise, and I also like how in the book you caution against opening the door to blaming, but more coming from this a place of acknowledging what is.
Judy: Yes, I really think that sometimes we want to go to blame only because at first, if that feels like a powerful emotion, and once you feel like you can explain something. That energy can be very aggressive at first, like, oh my gosh, like, now I understand why I think the way I do, we're like, why I can't trust people in my relationships and you wanna and you want to assign that blame, but the reason for this exercise, and I'm so glad that you pointed it out, is that when you're able to also appreciate the good things, yeah, there's a balance. It's like, of course, there's some things that you didn't like. Most people will say that. But what was it that you did like? You know, what were the things that were helpful? And I would say too, you know, with my parents, they really instilled values in about hard work and really, you know, fighting for, you know, the things that you really want and not giving up. And I'm very thankful to them for that because it's something I never had to think of really. It's not like a skill I had to develop consciously. It's like watching them, so I was like that all my life.
Laura: And it was the air you breathed growing up.
Judy: Yeah, yeah, and it's like, oh I took that so much for granted, and then sometimes I talk to other friends or my patients and it's like they, they, they don't quite have that. They might have other things, but they don't have that and that's the struggle for them. I'm like, well, thank goodness I've never had to struggle on that piece, you know, so.
Laura: Yeah, I think finding that gift in in our stories is so so important. I also think it would be interesting to think about those questions. What do you have an abundance of and what do you want more of? As questions we can consider alongside our kids too. Like, there's this piece of it that like, We're so scared to solicit feedback from our kids, right? And we get the feedback whether we want it or not, if we are raising these kids to not feel shy about telling us what they think and feel. But asking them, you know, what do you have more than enough of when it comes, you know, to being in our family, and what do you want more of?
You know, I seeking that feedback and then making adjustments if you can, or explaining why you can't, is wonderful, a good conversation to have with your kiddos, especially as they age, and so my kids are approaching teenager them, and they will start having relationships that have nothing to do with me, right? So already a friendship drama is happening for my 12 year old, and, you know, I mean, it's happening. It's there. She's a, you know, she's a 12 year old girl, autistic. You know, there's lots of stuff to navigate. And, yeah, and so I mean even giving her a good model of what a resilient relationship looks like. Are those skills she can take with her into her friendships, whether I know anything about her using them or not, you know.
Judy: Right. Yeah, and I think that that is such a great, you know, healthy way to approach it because there's gonna just be change all the time.
Laura: Always, yeah.
Judy: So you're never gonna have, you know, when you feel like you've got something handled, something else is gonna come up. So just being able to be willing to stay flexible and, you know, to learn from your own experiences and also just cherish every moment, honestly, I mean, right now my toddler is 3, so he, I'm his person, you know. An amazing age. And I, you know, my husband and I, we are older parents. And so, you know, right now we're experiencing this at a time where we've established our careers and we don't have to worry as much about that piece as if we would have if we had our child earlier. And so there's some pros and cons that come with that. You know, we're older parents, we have less energy, like, you know, to keep up with the toddler. But also, I feel like I'm in a place where I'm able to integrate and spend more time with him, but also integrate some of the things that I've learned about what kind of parent I want to be over the years. And it's, and it's helpful. But still, there's gonna be things where you're like, oh man, I wish I handled that differently, or I wish I didn't have to feel that way. And, you know, you can't protect them forever. And part of it is letting them make their own decisions and, and being there just to let them know that you are there if they need you and that's really the most important thing I think that most children are looking for.
Laura: I think so too. I think it's important for us as parents to realize not only are we going to make mistakes, but even when we handle things perfectly, there are going to be things that land wrong on our kids. There's going to be things that our kids, you know, in 20 years, they're gonna make this list, and there's gonna be things on there that were like, what you needed that. I had no idea. And then we just have to be humble and compassionate with ourselves and willing to listen to them. It's a beautiful circle, right? Like all what that what what you're talking about in this book, every generation has to do it. It's a lovely invitation. Thank you, Doctor Judy Ho for sharing your work and putting it out into the world. Will you make sure my listeners can find you, if they wanted to grab your book or listen to you on other podcasts?
Judy: Yeah, absolutely, Doctor Laura. Thank you so much for what you shared as well and all your insights. I've learned a lot from our conversation and thanks for just sharing this work in general, you know, how we can be better parents, but also just better versions of ourselves through doing some healing work. You guys can find me at social media Doctor Judy Ho or you can go to doctorjudyho.com, where I have a newsletter and you can sign up for free resources that I delivered to your inbox every week.
Laura: Oh, thank you so much for being with us.
Judy: Thank you so much. I love this conversation. I appreciate it.
Laura: Me too.
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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!