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Conscious Parentish: Sandwich Generation Parenting Is No Joke
66 Plays2 years ago
There are many different ways we parent. In Episode 7, Kiley and Nan talk shop on the importance of meeting people where they are, whether they are your child or your aging parent. Because when it comes to conscious parenting, there is no one way to do it.
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Transcript
Introduction to Everyday Mindful
00:00:02
Speaker
Hi, I'm Kylie Wyn Efron. And I'm Nan Cavanaugh, and welcome to Everyday Mindful, a space for real talk on weaving the magic of mindfulness into our daily lives. Let's dig in.
Navigating Seasonal Changes
00:00:20
Speaker
Hey, Kylie, how are you doing today? Hi, Nan. I'm doing good. I'm doing good. How about you?
00:00:27
Speaker
Um, I'm doing good. I'm doing, I'm doing all right. You know, I feel like it's been a really busy spring. I can't believe that. I should say spring winter Q1, busy Q1. I'm feeling it.
00:00:42
Speaker
Yeah, I already started I started planning the schedule like for my kids this summer camp vacations everything and I just realized it's going to be summer before we know it. It's going to come by so fast.
00:00:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like time really shifts the older you get. It's like the days are really short. Everything's really short. The days are really long. The years are really short. Is that the saying? I think that's the saying. That feels like accurate to me. Yeah. That feels accurate to me.
Understanding Conscious Parenting
00:01:16
Speaker
Well, and I feel like with summer coming up so quickly and as I started making plans today, I feel like
00:01:21
Speaker
today's episode's going to be really well timed because I am going to be really needing to channel my inner conscious parent this summer as the kids are out of school. I don't know about you. Yeah. Yeah. What do you mean by conscious parent? Let's talk about it. Conscious parenting. All right. Well, should we do our usual jam and start off with a definition? Yeah, sure. You want to share it? Yeah.
00:01:46
Speaker
Got child rearing philosophy that encourages parents to make mindful, emotionally intelligent decisions in raising their children. That feels like a lot to chew on. Yeah. I'm like actually just thinking about my own childhood right now and all the quote unquote emotionally intelligent decisions my parents made or did not make.
00:02:11
Speaker
I don't think that conscious parenting was a thing. More intuitive parenting. Exactly. Which is involved in conscious parenting, I guess. For sure. Definitely, definitely. All right. Well, let's start. What do you think conscious parenting, do you have your own definition of what conscious parenting is? And what do you think it requires of the parent?
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like it.
00:02:45
Speaker
It's really being mindful of the fact that your child is separate from you, connected, but separate. A complete separate energetic force in the world operating with its own tool set. And that it's really important to do some deep learning.
00:03:10
Speaker
not just from your child, but about your child in order to help support them in this to be frank and unfortunate, um, toxic world that they have to navigate. You know, I think that it really requires a lot of deep listening, watching, um, and acknowledging that
00:03:37
Speaker
Every child, even within a single family unit, is a completely different entity and requires a different set of skills to parent well for them to be healthy emotionally and physically.
Personal Journey in Conscious Parenting
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I don't think I even, considering I'm a pretty conscious person and mindfulness has been woven into my life for a long time,
00:04:05
Speaker
you know, fairly long time. I don't think as an early parent, I even thought about conscious parenting. I think in those early years, I didn't really see my children as that separate for me. I mean, of course, I understood intellectually that they were, but I was very focused on, you know, the different phases they go through, the different growth stages they go through. And how do we help them sleep? And how do we help them eat? And how do we help them potty train? And all of these things that
00:04:35
Speaker
I don't think I was challenged with the understanding that I was going to have to start parenting consciously until my oldest child reached an age where some issues started to present themselves. He had a medical condition.
00:04:54
Speaker
that at times could affect his behavior and affect his emotions. And I had to very quickly learn how to really figure it out. And I think it really came through this process of
00:05:13
Speaker
It's almost like I had to go through my own growth as a parent and realize that if I didn't start changing the way that I managed my emotions and how I helped him and helped him navigate things that
00:05:31
Speaker
that it was going to be very difficult and that there was no rule book per se for the process. And so around the age of like I'd say seven or eight is when I had to start really thinking about like, well, what is conscious parenting? And so because some of these like
00:05:48
Speaker
you know, the standard ways that I thought we were supposed to do things aren't necessarily working anymore where you have a role and a role is set and it's followed. And do you know what I mean? Like it just, and you know, he was, he's an amazing kid and was an amazing kid then too, but it, I was presented with this unique journey that I had to go on that honestly, in some ways I feel like has been more growth for me then. Yeah. Oh yeah.
00:06:15
Speaker
that really, and I think in those early years, conscious parenting, I mean, I guess there's ways you could look at early years of conscious parenting that you weave that in for sure. But I think for me, it really started to shine and stand out around grade school. That's when I had to really start changing my perspective on things as a parent.
Art Therapy & Emotional Growth
00:06:42
Speaker
It, it, it asked a lot of me when we, I remember we started doing an art therapy and the therapist gave me this book and the, almost the entire book was about what the parents are bringing to the table. Like basically there was very little in there about what you needed to do with your child and almost everything about what you needed to do with you, like with you as a parent, how you needed to speak, how you needed to engage.
00:07:05
Speaker
what you might be putting out there that they might be responding to. And I, you know, it's interesting when the therapist gave it to me, she was like, you know, I just want to, some people are really triggered by this book or some people are really upset by it, but I don't, I really embraced it. Like when I read it, I was like, oh, it just made so much sense to me that there was going to have to be a big shift in the way I thought about this child and really,
00:07:30
Speaker
allowing them to have the space, to have the emotions that they needed to have, and how I was going, if I was going to help him learn how to regulate these emotions and these stressors, I was going to have to be able to really do that myself as well. That the change started with me. And it definitely, I would say that that started me on my spiritual journey. That started me on all the work I do right now.
00:07:59
Speaker
I feel like that year where things was really, really intense for me, completely and totally changed my life. I would definitely say that my children have absolutely been my greatest mindfulness coaches that you could possibly ever ask for. Yeah, that's honestly the most unexpected thing about parenting for me is how much I have learned about myself through it.
00:08:28
Speaker
You know, my capacity for patience, capacity for exhaustion, capacity for love, capacity for surrender. Yeah.
Learning from Parenting Mistakes
00:08:41
Speaker
Yeah. Capacity for forgiveness for yourself. I don't mean forgiveness for my child. They don't need to be forgiven. I mean, myself, because it is a practice.
00:08:52
Speaker
Um, you really have to exercise and learn how to forgive yourself when forgive yourself when you do not necessarily react or respond or manage a situation and in the best way or, you know, in the way that you had desired learning how to use that as like a modeling moment in some way.
00:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, I know when I've made an obvious parenting mistake, I, you know, my kids are teenagers now and I'm at a place where I'm just honest with them. I'm just like, you know, your dad and I have never been parents before. We've made mistakes and we're going to make mistakes and we apologize for those mistakes and all we can do is learn from them and just very open and honest when
00:09:42
Speaker
You know, when we have done something that was hurtful or lost control and the siege, you know, that's one thing with kids, man, they really know how to push your buttons and then, but they're kids, you know, so you got to keep it together. But it's really hard when someone's really pushing those buttons to always keep it together. Um, I don't think it's possible to always keep it together. No, but I think we're, I don't know. I feel like the parents today.
00:10:08
Speaker
We have more guilt than our parents did. Oh my gosh, we also had more guilt. I don't know. Maybe we didn't. Maybe they had a lot of guilt. Because my mother now, my mother has Alzheimer's. And so she kind of reprocesses things over and over again. And she does. It's interesting. She says that to me often. She often says, oh, I wish I'm so sorry. I didn't do a better job. And I really wish I could have been a better mother to you. And it makes me so sad because that's not my reflection of her. My reflection of her is that she was deeply loving.
00:10:38
Speaker
But in her mind, she has a lot of guilt and shame about it. So I do think that guilt and shame has always existed for parents. I just think that
00:10:49
Speaker
also our culture's understanding of emotions and are the massive amount of information that's out all the time teaching you which way you should be parenting, apparently more than one way. But whoever you're talking to or whatever book you're reading or whatever article you're reading, there's only one way, like that way is the right way. And that is, guilt is something that I feel like is probably the most predominant emotion as a parent, guilt and fear.
00:11:20
Speaker
I would say the same. And I think it's important. We're talking about our relationship with our children, but people without children do a lot of parenting. They do a lot of mothering, whether it's providing guidance and nurturing relationships to friends, other family members. There's a lot of ways to be a parent in this world.
Balancing Life's Complex Decisions
00:11:46
Speaker
And I really do, from that conscious, mindful perspective,
00:11:52
Speaker
One thing that I think that can be applied to any, you know, deep relationship, nourishing relationship is
00:12:00
Speaker
is really acknowledging the temptation of projection, you know? And recognizing when you are trying to guide another person in your life, you really have to hone in on them and their own path and let your own, yeah, you're drawing from your own experience and wisdom to provide the guidance, but you really gotta be careful that you are, like you said,
00:12:30
Speaker
You know teen cave yourself is so important that you aren't projecting your own Your own way of doing things on another yeah, I think um, you know
00:12:43
Speaker
speaking from my own experience, I had a lot of fears when my son first started dealing with some of these issues. And of course I had a lot of fears for him. That's the number one, you have deep fears for them. But what I came to understand too is that a lot of the fears I also had were for myself as well.
00:13:04
Speaker
There were a lot of fears in my mind of, well, am I gonna be able to handle this? Am I gonna be able to do this? What's gonna happen? Like a lot of projecting of what are other people gonna think? How are we, you know, are we gonna be able to have other relationships, you know, with other parents and other kids? Like there was a lot that I was projecting onto that situation that were my own obstacles and my own demons to manage.
00:13:30
Speaker
and deal with, not really demons, but, you know, fears that I had. And I had to really come to terms with those and realize that, you know, I was projecting, I was projecting things onto him that wasn't his weight to bear, that, you know, that he had his own journey to go on. And that I had to learn how to really learn to heal those things on my own.
00:13:58
Speaker
If, um, I was going to be able to be fully emotionally available in the manner in which, you know, my children needed me to be, you know, and that's where like a lot of that deep growth came from as well as, um, you know, coming to, you know, terms with, I think what we think parenting is going to be like, and then what it actually looks like. And I agree with you. I do a lot of modeling with my parent, with my children as well too. You know, if I.
00:14:23
Speaker
do find myself yelling or screaming or reacting in a way that I'm trying to teach them not to do. I'm trying to teach them how to ... My younger son is much more like me. We're like really chill people until we're not, until we lose it. I'm really happy to work with him.
00:14:44
Speaker
on, like, well, what do we do when we get upset? You know, how do we create a pause between whatever is upsetting us and the reaction we have? You know, how do we create that pause between the stimuli and the response? And so I'll often find myself, like, if I am getting really upset, I'll say, you know what, I'm going to step back here and mommy's going to count to 10 because I'm getting really mad and I feel like I'm going to lose my temper and I don't want to do that. So I'm just going to take a few breaths for a minute.
00:15:11
Speaker
you know, and I'll literally just do that in front of them. Or if I do lose it, then going back and saying, listen.
00:15:17
Speaker
I'm really sorry that I lost my patience and this is how I'm feeling. You can model for them too that we don't always have the perfect responses to situations, that we are humans and we are going to be reactive at times. I feel like it allows them to have space to understand that they don't have to be perfect in their relationships, that they don't have to be perfect in all of their responses as well. Yeah.
00:15:47
Speaker
Do you feel like, I mean, I know you've shared that your mom has Alzheimer's. Um, you know, I've been thinking a lot about kind of parenting my parents in a way, you know, like how you kind of shift into a different role as a child, as your parents age. And just as, as a parent of small children, you have to make these big life decisions for your children.
00:16:13
Speaker
I know when I had to make the big decision about pulling my oldest child out of high school for her health issues, I had a lot of anxiety and fear about how this was going to shape the trajectory of her life, you know, getting into the college she wants to go to. And all the steps, you know, that you're taught that are necessary to have a successful, fruitful, financially secure life.
00:16:38
Speaker
I was recently talking to a friend of mine who is having to sell her family home to help support her mom who's in assisted living. And, you know, that having to make never having sold a home before having to make the decision, is this the best deal? Is this the best way to go about this? This is, you know, this is going to provide the funding for her to, you know, to live for the rest of her days.
00:17:05
Speaker
in how we have to make these big decisions for
Challenges of the Sandwich Generation
00:17:10
Speaker
our dependents, you know, regardless of whether or not our children or our parents and how to do that from a conscious place, particularly with, you know, parenting parents, I think is tough because you got all these weird roles that you already have with your parent that you play as a child, you know, talk about being triggered central.
00:17:32
Speaker
Well, and I, you know, listen, I had my children a little bit later. So, you know, I had my child, I think I had my Dylan. I had it 30A and Brody. I had it 41. So I'm in what they call the sandwich generation, which is that you have very young children and you're all of a sudden your parents need parenting. Yeah.
00:17:53
Speaker
And that is a real thing that is for sure. And so I do often feel a tremendous amount of pressure because I have to do both because I'm trying to parent younger children while I'm trying to essentially parent my mother who also has Alzheimer's. And I'm trying to manage my own grief with that situation, which is also really challenging because you have to go through a lot of anger.
00:18:21
Speaker
You have to go through a lot of grief. It's a struggle for me to see my mother's personality be so different. There's not much of a semblance of who she was there. And so that has been really, really challenging for me. I realized I was kind of shutting a part of myself off emotionally. I felt like even we would be together because it was just so, it was a lot to take on.
00:18:42
Speaker
Um, and then I, it was interesting. I listened to, um, Demi Moore recently talking about her ex-husband, Bruce Willis, who she's still very close with. And, um, the interviewer asked, um, Andy Cohen, he asked her, um, you know, how is she in the family managed or if she had any advice for people who were, you know, caregiving and in that manner she was. And she said to meet them where they are, to just try to meet them where they are. And I thought that was so.
00:19:12
Speaker
wise because that's actually what we do with our children. That's what we need to do with our children, right? Is meet them where they are. And it also reminded me in regards to my mother that I have to meet them where they are. If I'm constantly mourning where she used to be or what our relationship used to be, I can't be present with her right now. And it adds to the agitation and it adds to the stress of the situation.
00:19:39
Speaker
And I'm not perfect at that. I have good days and I have bad days with it. But I have had to learn too. I think one thing that conscious parenting really teaches you is that you have to take care
Self-Care in Parenting
00:19:50
Speaker
of yourself. Yeah.
00:19:51
Speaker
You can take care of these other people. There have been days where, you know, I'm at Target and one of my kids is having a meltdown and I'm exhausted and then my mother calls me having a meltdown and I've got somebody, you know, going off on me on the phone 15 times in a row. And there's been times where I just had to call her partner and be like,
00:20:10
Speaker
I can't do this right now. I need to take a beat. I need a moment to collect myself so I don't respond and have a little cry and calm myself down and then call back later and take care of it. So it's like leaning on the other people that you can for the support that you need and also just trying to meet them where they are because I think that we have to meet our children where they are as well.
00:20:33
Speaker
And I agree with you. I think the form of parenting that we do, it takes on a lot of different forms in our lifetime. It really, really does. It really does. And it takes a really different shape too, depending on the age that our children are at, you know, one of the things that I had to learn, you know, with, like I said, with my son's condition, you know, we had about from like eight to nine where things were really intense and really challenging. And then we had like a year or two.
00:21:03
Speaker
where we were kind of coasting and everything was great. And I thought like, oh, I've really got this covered and I really got this nailed down. And then, you know, we had another flare up and we had some issues. And then I literally, I mean, I just fell apart. I was like, I can't go down the spiral again. I can't do this again. And I had to really remind myself like,
00:21:22
Speaker
Parenting is an ongoing exercise in mindfulness. This is an ongoing thing. Children will go through waves of emotions. They will go through hormonal shifts. They will go through different chapters of their lives. And it's like learning how to ride those waves.
00:21:40
Speaker
with a bit more steadiness and a bit less reactivity. That's what I've had to really, and like also making peace with it. You know, I've had to make peace with this condition that my mother has. I'm still working on that, but I've also had to make peace with, you know, aspects of my children. And I do think that's a big part of the process too, is like the juggle that we have to go through as parents as,
00:22:10
Speaker
wanting to take care of them, wanting to support them, having them also be able to learn from their own mistakes and go through their own trials and tribulations because that is how we grow as human beings. That is what we're here to do. And also knowing how to take care of ourselves, like knowing how to like ride this rollercoaster in some steady way. It's not as up and down. We're not having the rapid drops. So often, you know, so often.
00:22:37
Speaker
I, um, when my, when I had, you know, I had two girls in my late twenties, they were both, they were less than two years apart. So that first like three year window with like a two, you know, a 21 month old and a newborn, that was a crazy year. And you're still a young woman yourself. Yeah, no, completely unqualified for the job. Um, you know yourself too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember.
00:23:05
Speaker
asking a friend of mine's mom who has like a doctorate in early childhood education and started this pioneering preschool in Sarasota, Florida, you know, what, what advice do you have? And you know, for someone like me coming through this, cause I really need it. Um, and she was like, you have to think of yourself as a pitcher of water. And if you don't keep yourself full as a pitcher, you have no water to pour out for anyone else.
00:23:32
Speaker
That's a nice analogy. Yeah. Like you really do have to take care of yourself in order to be able to do the deep listening and do the deep caring and have the patience and to have the, you know, honestly the bravery, you know, to, to make those tough decisions. Um, but it's hard because women aren't taught to take care of themselves first. Women aren't really, you know, it's always about,
00:24:00
Speaker
submission and putting everything else ahead of you. And if it wasn't modeled for you, if self-care wasn't modeled for you as a child, it's even tougher. And I think in order to really be a conscious parent, whether in any aspect of parenting, you have to be really mindful of your own emotional
00:24:30
Speaker
and physical well-being, because parenting young children is really physical. It is. It's physical and it's mental. Yeah. It's both, right? Yeah. It does take a lot, and I agree with you. I think that having some kind of self-care practice so that you do not feel so intensely depleted is really important, because especially as a mother, and fathers carry their own weights as well, but as I'm speaking from a mother,
00:25:01
Speaker
everybody needs something from you. Everybody needs your body. Everybody needs... I never even thought about the physical aspect of everybody in your household needing your body in some form. It shifts when the kids get older. They're not as touchy-feely, but when they're young, they're all of you. Don't touch me. That's what I hear a lot now.
00:25:24
Speaker
where I can't get them, I'm like, can I have some space? Yes, right. I remember that you long for those days, you long for them. I try to remind myself of that when I'm going to lose my mind because everyone's touching me all the time. But it is, it's very draining. And if you don't have
00:25:44
Speaker
a good sense of your own inner needs.
Respecting Children's Individuality
00:25:49
Speaker
And if you're not able to kind of have a good reflective, if you can't watch your own emotions with any distance, and without any understanding, it's very difficult to watch somebody else's emotions without getting caught up in them without any distance or understanding. Because I do think, you know,
00:26:08
Speaker
we do have to see our child as a whole and separate being from us, which means that they're going to have a different emotional temperament than us. They're going to have a different mental temperament, like the way that they work cognitively, the way they think about things, the way they process homework, the way they manage their relationships, how they self-regulate,
00:26:34
Speaker
Sometimes your child would be very similar to you. And actually sometimes I think when they're the most similar to you, it's the most triggering. But regardless, you know, you have to be able to kind of, at least I have found that I've had to learn how to observe them.
00:26:49
Speaker
So instead of trying to say like, okay, this is how it's gonna be. And this is just how it works. You are going to do your homework at this time and go to bed at this time and you will handle things this way and we will behave and we will be respectful. We will be all these things. All those rules don't really apply when somebody else's emotions are being taken into consideration. They're learning how to regulate those emotions. And so I've had to learn to really start to observe them
00:27:19
Speaker
to pay attention to like the way they tick. And so that I can also communicate with them in some way that they're going to hear me, that they're going to understand, and that I can potentially offer some solutions or help them in a moment in a way that will work for them. You know, it's like you can't force somebody to learn in a way that they don't learn.
00:27:39
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I, I think, I think the key thing is you can't force them without fear.
Blending Parenting Styles
00:27:44
Speaker
Like I feel like there was a lot of, um, you know, up until the whole like kind of conscious parenting paradigm became normative, you know, there's a real patriarchal mindset about parenting that involves structure, authority top down, and then fear to motivate all the things, you know,
00:28:10
Speaker
Like the idea that your kids should fear you. And I do think that sometimes there's a different language. I think that there is more of that traditional style of parenting where we talk more about discipline and we talk, it's more structure oriented, discipline oriented.
00:28:31
Speaker
There's a right way, there's a wrong way, and then there is more of this kind of modern conscious style of parenting that is a little bit more fluid. And you know, I weave in and out of them. I actually think there's merit to both. I think there's merit to both because I think structure is important. You know, I know like sometimes my husband and I will have very different styles. I was having this conversation with my girlfriend about
00:28:59
Speaker
her and her husband's different perspective on how a situation needed to be handled. And it's very similar to the same conversation I often have with my husband about how something should be handled. And I think that often we mean the same thing. We're just choosing a different word.
00:29:15
Speaker
So, you know, if my word is, well, let's explore consequences with them. Let's really explore, you know, the cause and effect of what their behavior is. And his word is discipline, you know, and I think they have different frequencies of actually what you bring to it. So I like, I do think words matter, but at the end of the day, we're saying the same things.
00:29:39
Speaker
I feel like we both kind of come in with these different styles sometimes and sometimes are needed in different moments. There's times where I need to really get into the nitty gritty of my kids emotions and what's going on with them and talk through it. And then there are times that
00:29:55
Speaker
They just need structure and they just need to understand that that's not acceptable. And so I do think that sometimes the best marriage is this marriage of blending conscious parenting
00:30:09
Speaker
with that more traditional style. I don't think, and a little bit like acceptance and mindfulness does not mean that you give up. Just because you accept the reality of a situation in a mindfulness practice does not mean you don't go after anything, you don't achieve anything. That's non-striving doesn't mean you don't get anywhere. I think it's kind of a similar principle to that, is that I think you have to be able to kind of ebb and flow
00:30:36
Speaker
in your style of parenting a little bit and I think that conscious parenting still can and should involve structure. But the idea is that potentially we're willing to bend that structure a bit if it's not working, if it's not effective and it's not productive because why do something if it's not effective.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yes, I can scare the hell out of my kid and have them really stay in line. And then when they're an adult, they're in therapy for the rest of their life because of the issues they have as a result of that.
00:31:10
Speaker
I can try to work with their energy a little bit and at least be open to observing when what I'm doing or what I'm putting in place is not. Yeah. You know, I was thinking a little about what you said about discipline and I think discipline is a word that, you know, discipline is when you put something in its place, you know, you're disciplining it where I think part of conscious parenting is creating boundaries and the expectation
00:31:40
Speaker
for the person to know what happens when they cross that boundary. And so the ownership is more on them making the decision and then versus them
00:31:57
Speaker
I don't know. I'm trying to say here, you know, it's more, it's, it puts more of the ownership on the decision making on them, but then sometimes your kids do shit. And before you even set the boundary, that's just wrong. And you've got to like fear God, like, you know, kid tries to run out into the middle of the street. Like that's when fear of God comes in and you're like,
00:32:15
Speaker
And that's when I get like, I'm going to scare the shit out of you right now. Cause you just scared the shit out of me and you need to know this is a scare the shit out of you situation. Cause you're trying to, cause I'm trying to keep them. I'm trying to keep them alive. You know, that's different. Well, I think you said boundaries and I think that is an excellent way of putting it because let's face it. Boundaries are healthy. Yeah. Boundaries are healthy boundaries are something that we say it's a structure and a little bit of a rule system that we set up to keep everybody emotionally safe.
00:32:44
Speaker
Useful with parenting parents, too. Yeah. And it is. And so in my opinion, a boundary 90% of the time is healthy. There are some unhealthy boundaries. We've talked about it in other episodes. If you're setting a boundary to avoid things, to avoid triggers, then that's not so healthy. But I think the majority of the time, if we're setting a boundary because it is going to keep everyone safe, it's going to keep people emotionally safe, physically safe,
00:33:13
Speaker
then that's important. And respectfully safe too, in the sense that we're being respectful towards one of people, towards our own sovereignty.
Establishing Healthy Boundaries
00:33:22
Speaker
So I think that the difference is that sometimes there's an old school mentality about parenting that's just more about, these are the rules and this is just how it is. And you just do it because I'm the parent and you're the kid and you have no say, kids should be seen and not heard, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? Like that kind of mentality,
00:33:43
Speaker
And I don't think that, like, I don't think in the long run that is very effective. I think you can be more conscious. I think you can raise a far more emotionally intelligent human being and become more emotionally intelligent along the way of yourself by balancing having the structure and having the boundaries set up in place so that they can learn and learn from their mistakes.
00:34:10
Speaker
but being mindful and being able to sit back, like put your ego aside and say, is this working? Is this effective? Because like you said earlier, you can have two different kids. They respond to things so differently. Both of my boys respond to things so differently. They respond to different disciplines differently. They just have a very different way of expressing their emotions. They have their own individual triggers. Yeah, my girls too. That they have. So I do think that
00:34:39
Speaker
There's really something to be said for having the awareness to reflect and to know when we need to be creative and when we need to bend a little bit and when we need to really allow open communication so that everybody can grow and then when to just, when sometimes we just need to, I hate to say, but lay down the law. Yeah, sometimes you gotta be a dictator.
00:35:03
Speaker
know, yeah, and set like a really and set a really clear boundary. Because that is they do have to learn that as well. I really I want to go back to what you said about meeting meeting people where they are, where they whether it's your child, whether it's your parent. I wanted to think about talk a little bit about curiosity and how curiosity can be a real tool
00:35:29
Speaker
in understanding how to meet someone where they are, you know, like really being curious about why a person is responding a certain way or acting a certain way or or even just curious about
00:35:46
Speaker
who they are at this moment. Like I know with my teenagers, they just like don't, you know, don't talk to me and I want to talk right now. So it's like, okay, I don't even know. I barely even talk to you today. Like I need to know what's going on in your life, even though I have a general idea, but still, you know, curious need to know your, you know, it's hard to do a temp check with someone if they aren't wanting to talk with you. And I think parents get more kind of protective over their lives as they age because they're protective of their independence. So they aren't,
00:36:15
Speaker
willing to share information that could be very helpful to know about what their health and wellbeing because they don't want to seem that they're compromised in any way. So you kind of have to figure out like, how do I get this information out of them without it seeing too obvious, you know? Um, like how do I be curious in a gentle way versus being like, tell me what's going on. I can tell that there's something wrong, you know?
00:36:42
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Well, I think you're talking about almost two different things. There's like using curiosity as an approach to how your communication style, which I think is a little bit like what you're talking about. And then I think there's also using, just being curious as to why they're acting the way they're acting in that moment, right? Because I think that, especially with like young kids who, I think teenagers and young kids are similar, but different. Like teenagers are actively choosing not to tell you how they are feeling and why they are feeling.
00:37:10
Speaker
on that way, and I think younger children don't often understand why they're feeling the way they're feeling or knowing how to grapple with the emotion they're experiencing. And so I think that if you're just looking at a behavior and you're seeing what looks like a fit or a temper tantrum or something like that, and if your reaction is, we don't act like that, just get up.
00:37:34
Speaker
Typically, it's not super effective. I didn't ever find that to be very effective because it doesn't stop the behavior in any way whatsoever. But if you can get a little curious as to why they are so upset or what is going on with them, it definitely helps you, A, it helps me respond more calmly if I understand a little bit more, if I just approach it. Becoming curious about something immediately always removes judgment. It just removes judgment.
00:38:02
Speaker
Like I say that to my students all the time, like when they're doing their meditation.
00:38:07
Speaker
It's like when these thoughts rise to the surface, just greet them with some curiosity, because there's no judgment present in curiosity, only interest. So a big part, and part of the reason why often we're so upset when our child is having a, let's say a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store is what does everybody think about me? What does everybody think about my child? I think a lot of people probably have that thought, or I can't handle this. What am I supposed to do? They get panicked because they don't know how to help them.
00:38:34
Speaker
So I think the more often we can get curious about why whatever behavior our child is exhibiting at any time, the better we are going to be at managing our own emotional response to it, potentially being creative about the solution, or just holding space for them too, because that's the other thing that I've had to learn. I am a fixer.
00:38:55
Speaker
My natural state is a glass half full. I was just, I don't know why I was born that way. Me too. Give me a problem. And the majority of the time I might have like a day where I sit around and sulk and then it's like, how am I going to solve this bit? Let's take this on. Give it to me. You got a problem? Let's figure that baby out. That's just the way my mind works.
00:39:19
Speaker
And that is not the way sometimes your children's mind works. And so I had to learn that I couldn't fix things for them, that they didn't necessarily want my solution. And it wasn't really helping them, that I just had to like let them feel their feelings, just let them just hold space for them to feel their feelings and be like, you know what, buddy, I'm really sorry that happened. And that's really a bummer. I'm really sorry that
00:39:44
Speaker
You felt that way when that kid did that, like just, you know, like commiserating with them a little bit. I don't think commiseration is the right word. Cause I feel that that's kind of negative, but, um, I don't know what is the right word for that? Just like holding space for them, just understanding, like, I think it's giving, like it's validating. That's what I'm worth kind of looking for. It's like validating the feeling they're having in that moment, regardless of whether you think they should have that feeling or not, you know?
Listening vs. Teaching in Parenting
00:40:09
Speaker
Like I had to, if, if my child came home and kind of talked about someone kind of being bullied them, you know, my immediate response is, well, let's get, this is how you handle that. Don't feel that way. Let's do this, you know, and that's not, it wasn't holding space for the emotions they were feeling around it. So I've had to really learn to be a little more curious about why and exploratory about why they're having the feelings they're having, what's going on, validating the feeling they're having.
00:40:35
Speaker
And then approaching the subject. And that was one of the biggest things I had to learn is that no child when they are freaking the fuck out are going to hear anything, any wisdom you have, anything, nothing, no lesson is going to see in there, nothing. So it's allowing them to have some space once they're calm, like just holding space for them and calming them down. That was one of the things I had to learn with one of my other sons too is like,
00:41:02
Speaker
If he was being reactive and getting upset when I would try like the timeout method and it wouldn't work with him. Whereas like my first time out method would work. And I just thought, Oh, this is perfect. It did not work with him. He felt like a caged animal. It would go wild. Like it would just get worse. And what I realized, what he needed more in that moment was for me just to hold him until he just like cried it out and calmed himself down.
00:41:27
Speaker
And if literally I met his aggression with a hug and love and just held him, he would just calm himself and like melt into my arms. He just needed love in that moment. And even though, yes, the behavior perhaps he was exhibiting in that moment on paper didn't look like you should get a hug. It would look like you should get a consequence. That's what he needed to calm himself. And then we could have a conversation about this is what we need to do next time, buddy. And this is why this, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever that issue is.
00:41:57
Speaker
And sorry, I feel like I've been saying blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah to this episode. It's just where I met mentally today. But I think that that really helps. Like learning when is the right time. And I think that's like really a big part of conscious parenting is understanding when is the right time for the lesson? When is the right time just for listening? You know, when is the right time for just holding space?
00:42:25
Speaker
And that's where I feel like the structure can be totally present. It's not that there's no structure present in conscious parenting. It's not that there are no consequences present in conscious parenting. It's understanding
00:42:36
Speaker
how to apply them in a manner that is going to be helpful, not just because you shouldn't disrespect me, so this is what you get. It's like, how can I actually help this situation? How can I put my ego aside as a parent and try to come at this from a different approach? Which is what we have to do in all our relationships, right? Yeah, it's true. Thinking about parenting, our parents, there's so many triggers and emotional responses.
00:43:03
Speaker
sometimes that you have to face in navigating a conversation with a parent and
00:43:09
Speaker
wreck, you know, just being mindful of taking the taking the pause. And like you said, like, maybe the solution to this conversation is not going to happen right now, because we are both feeling very triggered about something that probably is not even related to what we're talking about. And he has a deeper root. And we need to come back and
00:43:35
Speaker
come back and kind of reevaluate this conversation later. And a lot of times the parent isn't really thinking that way in my experience. Like, so it's really, it just goes back to, you know, recognizing that you, I say it to my kids all the time. Like you have no control over how other people react and respond. All you can do is control how you react and respond.
00:43:59
Speaker
Exactly. Well, think about your partner. I completely disagree with the notion of don't go to bed angry. Go to bed angry. Go to bed and calm down so you can wake up not so angry and re-approach the conversation from a place that's more neutral, from more neutrality. I've had to do that many times. If my husband and I are having an argument,
00:44:26
Speaker
we're not gonna, especially if it's close to bedtime, we're not gonna resolve it before we go to bed. Like if we're both really fired up on something, sometimes you need space. You need a minute, you need to take a beat to calm yourself a little bit and to get to more of a place of neutrality so that you can respond from there. So it can be more reasonable. And so that once again, your ego and your pain is not doing the conversation. It's not trying to then rewound somebody else. Yeah. And I think with parents in particular,
00:44:56
Speaker
Just like a child, you know, they're at a different developmental stage in life as they age, a whole different set of fears, a whole different set of insecurities, a whole different set of emotions around different situations than they would have had, you know, 10, 20 years before. And so it's important to be sensitive to that and meet them where they are and have some compassion in thinking about what they're dealing with as an aging person.
00:45:27
Speaker
I think also understanding where I do think really understanding certain doctors or parenting guides where you understand what stage of brain development your kids are at at different ages really helps because that's just information. It helps inform why they're behaving the way they're behaving. I think that can be really helpful. I think that parenting, what people don't talk about very much is that while it is a deeply beautiful process, it is a deeply painful
00:45:55
Speaker
process as well too.
Adapting to Children's Growth
00:45:57
Speaker
There's so much fear involved. And as the kids get older, their emotions, I always say like the problems don't go away. They just change. Like my friends with younger children, it's a lot of chaos and energy and lack of sleep. And they need you all the time. And then when you have older kids, they don't need you as much. There's not as much chaos. You're getting more sleep.
00:46:23
Speaker
But the sometimes the emotional problems, different dangers, different threats, you're having to navigate. Exactly. It's just, and I feel like those the problems just kind of they change, they morph. And, and so do our solutions, they have to morph with them. And I think, you know, I, what do you think about, do you think your children, like on an energetic level absorb your worries?
00:46:51
Speaker
Um, Oh, I think so. I think they definitely pick up on your worries, um, your fears, the whole nine yards. I think children are much more energy, energetically connected, um, to everything than adults are. They just haven't gathered, they haven't on that leathery force field yet. Their force field still pretty permeable. Um,
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah. And I really, um, I don't know. Sometimes I'm just honest, like when my kids rooms have teenagers, they can get real messy and I'm like, really want them to clean them up. But they're like, no, we kind of like it like this. And it like gives me such anxiety to know that they are living in this space that sometimes I'm just like, I'm sorry. You have to just do this for me because the anxiety I'm having thinking about you in this space right now,
00:47:51
Speaker
is not healthy for me. And so I know it's hard for you to not think about doing it for you because you're a teenager and that's kind of how you operate, but like my, it needs to be done. This is, you're doing this for me. Um, like, you know, I'm looking forward to that phase boundaries. I'm very bad at boundaries. Scotty's very good at boundaries, but he's not home a lot given his,
00:48:17
Speaker
work load. So you've got, you have to enforce the boundaries. I'm like the worst at creating boundaries and enforcing them. Um, it's like so much harder to enforce them. I mean, it gets easier once, cause once you set the boundary and you enforce it, then, then, then it's set. And I understand that it gets easier, but for me, I'm like, ah, it's just so much easier for me to do it. Or I don't want to get into a fight about it. The reason why I asked that is.
00:48:44
Speaker
Two reasons, one is that both my boys have a genetic abnormality that does not allow their body, it's called MTHFR, and it does not allow their body to process B vitamins. It needs to be methylized before it enters their body.
Healthy Diets & Social Norms
00:49:00
Speaker
And it also makes them highly sensitive to chemicals, certain processed foods, different things like that. And so what we eat is like this constant battle in our household because like my Amazon will not eat anything but like snacks, nothing else.
00:49:15
Speaker
And he is literally, I mean, the way he eats on a daily basis gives me tremendous, tremendous pain. I'm deeply worried about his health and worried about him getting diabetes. I can't seem to get, I can't make any headway on it. And I spend so much time worrying about food and food they're eating. And I'm a person who really cares about nutrition. I really believe that food is medicine. And it is, I mean, I'll find myself just packing their lunches. And I feel like I'm just like,
00:49:42
Speaker
I realize i'm like packing stress into the poison because it's required from american society exactly and i was on my friends that me.
00:49:55
Speaker
There's this woman named Diana Cooper who does a lot of work with angels and I'm gonna get real spiritual on you now. And she made this post that I thought it really struck me is that I believe that we all have an angelic team. We have a team of guides that support us and our children have that as well. And you can ask for their support. You can ask their guides to help protect them and you can ask them for
00:50:23
Speaker
new intuitive wisdom on how to best help your children as well. And one of the things that she said is that your children absorb the energy of your worries. And when you continue to worry, when you turn something over to their guides and then you continue to worry about it, you like literally get in the way of them supporting them. It's like you're shutting down the support and you're only worrying because you're a caring parent
00:50:48
Speaker
but at the end of the day, they're absorbing. And I think your children are more formidable. I think that they are more empathic. And so I thought, I don't know, it really resonated with me when I read that. Because I thought, wow, I spend so much time worrying about them. And I'm sure that is permeating their membranes, right? Like it's getting in some form. And I don't know, it really made me think about
00:51:18
Speaker
the usefulness or lack thereof of worrying, of how we shift those thoughts, how we shift the worries when they do come up. I don't know. I've just been thinking about this a lot, about something that I, so a cycle that I want to break that I think I am probably feeding by continuing the cycle of worrying. Yeah. Well, it goes back to, you know, what you said earlier about being curious and not
00:51:48
Speaker
internalizing thoughts, but noting them and being able to let go of those worries. And I do think that once you allow yourself to just take a loving distance, but just kind of recognizing that you can only do what you can do for another person,
00:52:16
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, that's really what like anxiety and worrying is, right? It's like it's a lack of control. It's that we feel out of control in the situation. And we think it's ruminating in our mind over and over again, that somehow that's going to make us more in control. But we're not in control.
00:52:31
Speaker
So it's like, if you can find a way to release that and find some, once again, find some acceptance from where you are right now, accepting where your children are right now. That doesn't mean that you're not going to make strides to make some improvement, but acceptance being so vital for us to maneuver the situation. And I think being aware of like what the emotion is that we're feeling in that moment. Like when we're really upset about what's going on,
00:53:00
Speaker
are we, is the reaction we're having because our child is truly in danger? Is that because something truly needs to happen immediately in this moment? Or is it that we feel out of control? Yeah. Yeah. That we don't know how to handle the situation. So if we know that and we can label our own, and that's where
00:53:18
Speaker
basically you have to do the healing work yourself.
External Pressures & Values
00:53:21
Speaker
If you don't create the mindfulness practice within yourself, if you don't learn how to become more aware of your own emotions and why you're feeling them and allow yourself to feel them, how are you going to help your children do the same thing? No, I think it's
00:53:35
Speaker
I think it's important. And I think, you know, just again, going back to that concept of meeting them where they are, you know, there's a lot of external forces that don't align with our value systems that we have to navigate on a daily basis. They have to navigate on a daily basis. And I think like being kind of, you want to be flexible, but also decisive and
00:53:58
Speaker
You know, just thinking about the junk food because of similar situation. I've got a child with gluten intolerance and lactose intolerance and a child with MTHFR variation.
00:54:08
Speaker
they tell people all the time, there's no food in our house. Like they tell their therapist this, like there's no food. And I'm like, I'm like, your dad's a chef. There's plenty of food. And I had a therapist be like, it sounds like you have an ingredient based household. And I'm like, yeah, guys, that's what we have. Whole foods, not a lot of processed foods. But you know, I, I, I decided I'm like, okay, like processed foods actually
00:54:34
Speaker
It was encouraged by I was like super into organic and whole food eating when they were a lot younger and I had a Therapist be like you need this the society they live in the culture of their lunch space at school requires for them if they want to be socially accepted to have
00:54:52
Speaker
some aspect of junk food in their lunchbox. There is trading that goes on. There's conversation that goes on. There's a social hierarchy. I'm like, listen to this. What? And they're like, yeah. You need to introduce more junk food into their world. And so I did. I deeply regret it. This is a body image counseling therapist, by the way. Wow. And so normalizing junk food. Yeah. And so from that perspective, though, I actually
00:55:21
Speaker
And like when you say that that's a body, it's like normalizing crack cocaine. Let's be calm. It's so addictive. Once we normalized it, it was a crazy floodgate that could never be shut again. It's all they wanted to eat.
00:55:35
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I think part of it though is I think, especially in that situation is what they're trying to do is stop making foods off limits because you're not going to crave them as much. If you don't make things off limits, the problem with that argument that I've always had, I mean, it wasn't like they couldn't eat organic potato chips. You know, it wasn't like I had organic Oreos. It wasn't like I was like, don't cook this for you. Um,
00:56:02
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. It's hard. I know. I go through the same thing because my doctor did bring up a really good point about the eating thing.
Realism in Parenting
00:56:10
Speaker
I was really stressed out. My biggest stresses are what happens at lunchtime because I can't get them to eat. A, they go to a kosher school, so that also limits things. They can't send meat. A lot of carbs. They have to do dairy lunches. One of them can't have dairy.
00:56:23
Speaker
And so I finally had to just come to terms, like my doctor was like, what are you feeding him? So I told him when I was feeding him in the morning, which was like, you know, organic, you know, farm fresh eggs with avocado oil, like whole grain cereal. I mean, it was a pretty good breakfast. It's a very good breakfast. And then at dinner, it was good as well.
00:56:40
Speaker
And she's like, don't worry about lunch. Don't worry about the snack. Meet them where they are. It's going to be OK. You're already doing better. And so sometimes having moments like that where it's once again meeting them where they are, understanding that all the other kids are eating Cheetos and all the other kids are eating Cheez-Its and all these things. So all I'm doing is, yeah, the orange foods. They're all eating this. So I'm trying to find more grace with that situation and find a little bit more
00:57:09
Speaker
ease with it. It is something that, and also once again, not to project my own fears around food because food has played such a huge part in my life because of my food sensitivities.
00:57:24
Speaker
a lot of fear around food that I have to heal. Well, it's like one of those things when you start learning about it, it's real hard to shut that Pandora's box.
Embracing Imperfect Parenting
00:57:32
Speaker
You're just like, it's really bad. And then to not feel, I think this is the other aspect of it, not allowing yourself to feel shamed by what you see other parents doing too. Like when you see other parents online making like the most incredible like sushi box lunches for your kids. I'm like other parents who go to Costco and stock up on like
00:57:54
Speaker
a wall of junk food that they fill their pantry with. I was thinking more from the state of perfectionism. See, for me, it's like the shame of not providing them the buffet and the guilt that they put on me all the time. Like, we have no junk food. And their friends come over and like, you guys have no food. And I'm like, there's plenty of food. Eat some fruits, eat some vegetables. There's chips in there. There's like two bags. I'm like, what do you want?
00:58:18
Speaker
You want Domino's pizza? My kids actually don't, unfortunately. They're like, we don't like the crappy pizza. I'm like, oh, so you want the gourmet pizza and the crappy fucking...
00:58:29
Speaker
Excuse my language. Potato chips. They wanted the, you know, Tavi at the age of eight wanted like a Bianca pizza with like some jokes and things like that. But what I mean too in general is just all things, not even just about food. There's a lot of stuff you can see on Instagram and see online that will make you feel really bad as a parent to make you feel like you're not doing it as well. Comparing yourself to other people.
00:58:55
Speaker
Comparing yourself as a parent too makes conscious parenting really challenging because you'll see this other mom who you think really looks like they've got their crap together and it's just doing everything perfectly. You don't know what's happening in their household and every household has chaos at it and every household at different ages.
00:59:12
Speaker
has a child that they are dealing with that is providing challenges for them. So I think part of it too is also just giving yourself a break and understanding that there's nothing wrong with you and there's nothing wrong with your household and there's nothing wrong with your children. Every household has their own scenarios to deal with, but chaos and emotions and disturbances exist in all of them. So it's like the not comparing yourself so much. So once again, that your ego is not getting as involved.
00:59:42
Speaker
And you can be, you can approach it from as conscious as a place as you possibly can, which is a constant practice. And some days we're good at it, and some days we're bad at it, and allowing space for that as well. I think that's a nice place to end. Allowing space for that. I think so too. It's okay to be bad at things, guys. It's okay to be bad at things. It's okay. It's okay. We have our good days and we have our bad days. Well, thanks, Kylie. Thanks, man. Till next week.
01:00:12
Speaker
Until next week.
Engage with Us on Social Media
01:00:16
Speaker
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