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Fear vs. Love in Parenting: How to Regulate Your Emotions During Family Conflict
10 Plays5 hours ago
How can parents stay calm and regulate their emotions when reacting to teen conflict?
In this episode of The Positively Healthy Mom, we sit down with Stacey Greer, an ICF Professional Certified Coach, Master NLP Practitioner, relationship repair expert, and founder of The Upstream Method and the Family Peace Project.
This episode explores how parents can understand their own emotional triggers and nervous system baselines so they can move away from fear-based reactions and respond with love during teenage conflict. Moms of teens and young adults who want to de-escalate household arguments and build safer, more trusting relationships with their kids will benefit greatly from this conversation.
Key Conversations in This Episode:
- How unhealed childhood wounds and past experiences cause parents to overreact to teen behaviors like eye-rolling and door slamming.
- Identifying whether your reaction comes from a need to regain control out of fear or a desire to offer guidance out of love.
- Understanding the internal process that happens—from emotional triggers to nervous system reactions—before shouting or conflict escalates.
- Stacey introduces her mission to create safer, more compassionate homes and empower parents to become "peace builders".
Question Moms Of Teens Are Asking: How can I create an environment where my teenager feels comfortable telling me the truth?
Answer Discussed In This Episode: Teenagers feel safe being honest when parents regulate their own emotional reactions and refrain from withdrawing love or reacting with intense judgment when mistakes happen. By staying grounded in your nervous system baseline, you show your teen that love and connection are not at risk during tough conversations.
Meet Our Expert:
Stacey Greer is a relationship repair coach, speaker, bestselling author, ICF Professional Certified Coach, Master NLP Practitioner, and founder of The Upstream Method and the Family Peace Project. For over 15 years, she has guided parents and families through conflict, communication struggles, and emotional reactivity. Her mission is to help parents understand their inner process so they can create emotionally safe homes where love is stronger than fear, with a goal of impacting one million families through the Family Peace Project.
Guest Links:
Website: Stacey Greer Coaching (go visit the Family Peace Project tab on her site)
Instagram: @staceynicolegreer
LinkedIn: Stacey N. Greer
Connect With Your Host, Laura Ollinger
- Join my FREE Webinar: How To Go Back To School Without Freaking Out (for Teens)
- Instagram: @positivelyhealthycoaching
- Rate this podcast!
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
So when people come and see me, I'm listening to the patterns that have created kind of where they're at. I'm listening to their inner process. There's no one that can tell me a story about their childhood or about their life that I probably haven't heard yet.
00:00:20
Speaker
Welcome to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast. I'm your host, Laura Olinger, teen and young adult wellbeing coach and founder of Positively Healthy Coaching. I'm so excited to introduce you to my guest today, Stacey Greer, who is a relationship repair coach, speaker, bestselling author, and founder of The Upstream Method and The Family Peace Project. So welcome to the show. I'm super excited to have you, Stacey.
00:00:43
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me. i am like so super excited to be here. Good. Okay. So let's just jump right in and talk about family conflict. Okay.
00:00:57
Speaker
That is a big topic, especially parents with teens and young adults. Man, i mean, my house is generally pretty peaceful, but I feel like there has been a lot of conflict lately, especially with my daughter who's 18. And we're on the edge of she calls herself an
Parental Reactions and Childhood Experiences
00:01:14
Speaker
adult.
00:01:14
Speaker
And I say yes and adult with a little A, not a big A because you don't... right you're still under my house you're still in my care right i'm still your payment and so we still need to have this kind of collaboration in our relationship and it's not just you get to do whatever you want however right like there still has to be this form of um we're we're we're living together we're under a roof and we have to get along so how do you kind of like approach it when you start working with a family um as far as you know where people are coming from as far as the conflict and the communication
00:01:48
Speaker
Yeah, where people are coming from is such a great place to start because even like as a parent, you're not parenting in a way for no reason. Like you, when you were a child, had experiences and you gave those experiences meaning.
00:02:04
Speaker
And so now when your child does something, you're you're sometimes reacting from an old wound instead of what's happening in the moment. And so we learn throughout our whole lives how to read and how to write and how to build careers. But it's not very often that we're taught to understand ourselves. Like, how do we understand
Emotional Triggers and Nervous System Responses
00:02:30
Speaker
ourselves? And when we get to understand ourselves, so that's what my whole relationship repair work is about, is about helping the parent understand themselves and understand where their reaction is coming from, whether it's coming from a fear-based or from a love-based.
00:02:46
Speaker
evening Yeah, I love that because what most people don't really realize is that those are kind of the two core emotions. Yeah. Kind of every other emotion stems from there, like anger or stress or anxiety, overwhelm or all these things. yes um So can you talk about that? Because I love that topic.
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. So the the words that you just used is what I would call behaviors. So the anger, the yelling, the slamming doors, whether it's behavior from your child or behavior from the parent, from the mom, that is the last thing that happens as part of this bigger inner process that happens.
00:03:26
Speaker
So before behavior, we have a nervous system that is responding to what triggered us. We have emotional triggers um that are telling our nervous system how to respond. And so we also have an identity that we try to believe or try to protect. And we have beliefs that, you know, tell us whether or not something people are doing is true about us or not. So... When your child or your teenager walks away and rolls their eyes and slams the door, that's a behavior.
Parents' Reactions to Teens' Behaviors
00:04:04
Speaker
But how does the parent react to that? So they if a parent sees that behavior as something like, oh, my child needs guidance, so that reaction from the parent is coming from a place of love, Or is that parent thinking, I'm losing control and failing as a parent and a fear got, you know, injected in them and then they're responding from a place of I need to regain control. Mm-hmm. So how the parent reacts to their children's behavior, their teenager's behavior, is very reflective of the parent. And so I always encourage, and the work that I do with parents, is helping them go upstream and kind of find out what their core wounds are and how that's playing out in their parenting today.
00:04:55
Speaker
Oh, yes. I love it. I mean, yeah um you know, as moms, we're so kind of in the moment and on the go. And it's not normal to typically like reflect deeply on that. Like what is this insight and build that self-awareness yeah and then and piggybacking on that to that, get the, to the emotional regulation, which is what you work on mean yeah so much.
00:05:18
Speaker
And so what would be a starting point
Repairing Family Relationships
00:05:20
Speaker
for that? Like how would a mom kind of ask herself these questions? Yeah. Yeah, I think like a good question to ask is what meaning am I giving this moment? Am I giving this, like, am I here and present with my child's behavior? Is it true that they're being disrespectful?
00:05:43
Speaker
Or is it true that an old wound in me has been activated? And they'll be able to tell that by asking themselves, what meaning am I giving this moment?
00:05:53
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. I think that's so important. That's a question I ask my clients quite a bit. Okay. With, with teenagers, they're walking down the hallway at school and they pass somebody who gives them the stink eye and they think, oh, this person doesn't like me and there's drama and know they have beef with me, whatever that is. And so I, I typically ask that question, like, what meaning are you giving this? And those are the means that they fill in. What's like, could it be something else? Is it possible yeah that maybe that person just was checking their grades for a test and they looked up right when you happen to be walking by? um You know, is it possible that their teacher just yelled at them because they signed it for the fourth time? Is it possible they just got it? Well, they are not really supposed to have their phones in school, but yeah. You know, that they got some type of bad news or bad information or they got in a fight with their boyfriend or girlfriend. You're walking by. Right. And so it's like I love the idea of just like opening up someone's um kind of peripheral vision and understanding that there's often in fact, more often than that, it's a different explanation than to what we're giving it. And therefore, it's a different meaning. And therefore, we're doing kind of. Right. Or it's just like two different things that don't go together, but we're trying to make them go together. So um how else does this show up when you're working with, I mean, can you explain actually the type of work that you do with families? Is it primarily the mom? Is it the mom and dad? Is it with the kids? How does it work?
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, um as a relationship repair coach, I get all kinds of different dynamics. So I've worked a lot with parents. I've worked as far changing how they parent as well as on their relationship because I do believe that change in the home starts with the parents first. I ask the parents to go first before they expect their child to change. Or I've also done parent teenager repair coaching. And I've also done right now, I actually have lady who is in her 70s. And I'm also working with a couple of her daughters who are in their and 50s. Because they lost contact.
00:08:00
Speaker
because they lost contact One of them went into no contact. And so that bringing that relationship repair back. So any dynamic that is a relationship, um I have definitely worked with.
00:08:13
Speaker
um I remember working with this one lady and and her daughter was 15 years old. And it was really sad because she never really felt like she had a safe place to go. She was bullied at school and her mom and her lived with her grandma and she was bullied at home by her grandma And so it was really about empowering this a teenager to really pay attention to the meaning she was giving to that and seeing that her grandma and these people also have an inner upstream process that is happening up from their behavior, which does not, it never is used to excuse behavior. a lot of the work I do is let's be aware I'm feeling angry.
00:08:59
Speaker
I'm feeling stressed out. I'm feeling overwhelmed. And I take responsibility for that. So when you take responsibility for your own emotions, then you can communicate and show up more loving with your children or with your husband or whoever it might be. Mm-hmm.
00:09:17
Speaker
Okay. First of all, I have to flag the fact that you said that there was a grandma that was bullying. And I don't think that's a thing that you hear every day, but I think that's such a bringing it to people's awareness that a bully is not always who you think it is. It's not always the kid on the playground or, um you know, it's not always someone. In fact, it's usually, well, I think they've studies have shown it typically starts in the home. Yeah. Right. And then that's what sets up a person and to be that kind of victim Yes. And then they go out and they're in school and then they're getting bullied. Right. And so anyway, I just i just wanted to flag that because that's not something you do every day. And I love the idea um just that you are working with families in kind of the older years because so many that's like ah a big trend that I hear a lot of that people are going no
The Impact of Bullying and Empowerment
00:10:01
Speaker
contact. Right. When. Yes. Older family members just aren't respecting someone's boundaries or they're just not kind or whatever it is that they're doing. And they just choose to shut them out of their lives. um And so what kind of benefits do you see as far as like repairing that relationship and bringing these people back together? I mean, it's amazing. It doesn't just always impact the mom and the daughter.
00:10:23
Speaker
It impacts the daughter's children and impacts the whole family as a whole. It... And because with this family, I'm working with um three or four of them, they've all learned a new way to communicate. And they they have a family business together as well. So they're able to say, like, mom, i think you're going upstream a bit. and And walk alongside her, supporting and loving her while she's not at her best.
00:10:53
Speaker
Instead of taking it personally and being mad at her for not being her best. So they're really able to communicate and show up for each other in a different way than they ever have been throughout their whole
Family Peace Project Introduction
00:11:06
Speaker
entire lives. So it's it's it's an absolute beautiful thing to witness. That's amazing. And then they probably start to feel the fruits of their labor and start to feel that more positive, loving connection with each other. and so I'm sure there are many times where they slip back into their old patterns, but that's probably cool is they can catch themselves and be like, no, yeah right. And then move back into the, what they've learned. I mean, they always say, um,
00:11:30
Speaker
You know, when people know better, they do better. And so now that they work with you, they can do better. yeah i do want to circle back to something you said, because you talked about a safe place and being a parent being safe. And I know that that is your mission in the world. yes Tell us about your mission. Why is this important to you? And how are you living this out?
00:11:49
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for bringing that up. It has been something that's been on my mind for probably over 15 years. I think when I started coaching 15 years ago, I've always wanted to find a way to give back to the community and to give back to people. And, you know, it it was a seed that was planted and It's just been in there germinating until now. I finally have a way that I can give back. And it's called the Family Peace Project.
00:12:26
Speaker
yeah And what that is, is I um have on my website, the Family Peace Project website page. And people can go on there and become a peace builder. Wow. So they're a part of this mission, helping me in this mission. And as a peace builder, people are saying, I stand for more safety, more compassion, and more love in my own home and in my own communities.
00:12:56
Speaker
So when they sign up as a peace builder, that's their promise to themselves and to the dedication of the Family Peace Project. And for every 1,000 peace builders that I get, I'm going to be donating a workshop or training to people in need. And you can nominate people or organizations or schools on the Family Peace Project page as well. So yeah. The peace builders, anyone can really nominate somebody in need or like an organization or community that is in need of something like this.
00:13:30
Speaker
But becoming a peace builder, especially if you're part of the first 1000, you get to vote on who who we donate the workshop or the training to. So it's a pretty exciting. i haven't even, I'm launching it for the first time right here right now.
00:13:46
Speaker
Oh, wow. My friends, my family, i haven't told anyone about it. There's one peace builder right now and it's me. my gosh. Yeah. So I am like so excited about this project. I've been keeping it so close to my heart and making sure that it is exactly aligned with what I've always envisioned.
00:14:10
Speaker
um giving back to the communities and to the people. So this is it. This is breaking news. Yes. Well, thank you. I
Creating Safe Environments for Conversations
00:14:18
Speaker
feel honored that you, you know, shared for the first time here on the Positive Healthy Mom because um I know what it's like when you have something that's so important to you. yeah And, you know, it's very important just energetically and vibrationally to not I guess they would say dilute the energy by getting feedback or opinions from other people until, not that you necessarily need that, but but it's not until you're really ready to put it out there. And then thank you for allowing me to be the first witness to hear this. And and ah ah please, um I plan on being the second member of this event. So definitely I will be filling that out. And here's what I love about it. A, just kind of like the whole process of what you're doing. But secondly, of course, as a coach, what I look at as the idea of this creating an identity, right? If I call myself a peacemaker, yes I'm more likely to think like a peacemaker, feel like a peacemaker, act like a peacemaker, right? And so just kind of like the act itself yes is actually slightly transformational. just going on and and doing this and filling this out. And so what is the process once you go on? Like what what happens? Yeah. So once you sign up and become a peace builder, then you'll get an email telling ah kind of it gives you the declaration that you're promising to.
00:15:36
Speaker
I think which is really important because I wanted to give meaning. I didn't want people just to sign up to my website and get free resources and tools and stuff like that, too. I really want them to learn how to create safer places for their children. And that's what this is all about. Because, you know, when you...
00:15:58
Speaker
when you learn more about the inner process, so when you're parenting your children, your teenagers, your adult children with a little A, not a big a they're creating their own stories about themselves, about what love looks like and what belonging looks like and what connection looks like and stuff like that. So I think...
00:16:20
Speaker
The more we can introduce information to parents about creating that safe space means that your kids can bring mistakes to you and disappointment to you and honest conversations to you without...
00:16:35
Speaker
fearing that you will withdraw or that love is at risk for them.
Managing Emotions in Parenting
00:16:42
Speaker
So you know when your child makes a mistake or your teenager makes a mistake and you're just like unconsciously reacting That is having impact on your teenager. In that moment, they are realizing what love looks like, what being truthful means, what's safe about being truthful and what isn't safe about being truthful. And especially nowadays, teenagers have a lot more access to other places on the internet or at school or wherever they're hanging out.
00:17:16
Speaker
And sometimes those they think are their safest place, but they're not. And so we really want parents to be the safest place for their children.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yes. Well, I was wondering if while we're talking, if we could actually practice this a little bit, because it sounds so great, right? yeah And it's like, how do you get that into actual real life? Because there are so many triggers, right? So like literally day to day, there's triggers. And, you know, the idea that a teen could or a young adult can express themselves without, you know, fearing loss or fearing the relationship goes away or whatever that might be.
00:17:55
Speaker
um But also what I find in in the families that I work with is there's always this fear of judgment from their parents, right? So say I'm, you know, a teenager, I'm applying to colleges and I say, you know what, I'm really interested in becoming a Australian pottery maker. I don't even know if that's a thing. I'm just making something up, right?
00:18:18
Speaker
And so parents reaction, right? Like what? yeah why are we spending... $300,000 for you to go to college for you to make pottery in Australia. Like what? Yeah. So like what would be the ideal reaction to that, knowing that there has to be some boundaries because this is a very expensive way to learn pottery, right? So there's a boundary here.
00:18:39
Speaker
it's Without kind of shutting them down, how or do they feel safe and still left? Yeah, I mean, that's ah that's a great question. um i think the first place I start with with parents is their nervous system baseline. So what I try to do is I teach them what what pulls them off of their nervous system baseline because it's your nervous system that is creating that response. Yeah.
00:19:06
Speaker
So are you going into that fight, flight, fear or fawn, right? And so i I work with people to get them very familiar with feeling safe inside themselves. So what fear would that bring up for you? So the fear is spending money on pottery in Australia and that might not be the best thing.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:46
Speaker
So it's about getting the nervous system down. And so it goes, behavior is the external thing that people see. And then the one, the first internal process is nervous system. The one before that is emotional triggers. So you were triggered emotionally in this example, and then your nervous system responded. Yeah. And so I start my work with people at the nervous system because I can't get into beliefs and identity if their nervous system doesn't feel safe talking about it.
00:20:21
Speaker
And that happens quite a bit. So we learn to work with the nervous system first. And awareness is everything. So i know it parents do not have to be perfect. I'm angry, even though I know where my baseline is. There are still things that upset me and make me angry, but I'm doing so with awareness.
00:20:44
Speaker
And I'm aware that I'm being angry right now. So it's the the upstream method is really helping parents become aware that they are reacting or how are they responding. And with that awareness, then people have choice. Okay, I can choose to respond from this place of fear, possibly from an old wound, or i can choose to respond from my nervous system baseline and from a place of love. Yeah.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah. Does your teenager tend to freak out when the new school year's about to start? Well, here's the good news. They don't have to. Sign your teen up for my free webinar called How to Start the School Year Without Freaking Out.
00:21:26
Speaker
We will tackle time management, the skills to handle the stress and pressure of school, social life, social media, and the brain-body connection behind stress and focus. Sign them up. The link is in my show notes. They're gonna love it.
00:21:45
Speaker
And I kind of want to put it out there and maybe um see what you think of this. But I want to make sure the listeners don't think that if they are feeling angry about something, that that's wrong. Like, I don't want to, like, necessarily judge the emotion, but more take it as information. For me, when I say there's anger, it's either a boundary has been crossed or love has been lost. Some type of expectation hasn't been met. Yeah. Kind of like one of those things. And so maybe we take that as information. Then what we do? Like kind of go back to finding or reconnecting with our baseline. and And how do you walk people through that? Like going from, I feel angry.
00:22:22
Speaker
i understand where this is coming from now. I'm going to reconnect with my um baseline. Like how do you walk them through that? It's quite a process. um Right now I have a course that is a four session course. So over the over four sessions, we will find baseline. And I also want to point out too that when I'm coaching um my clients, when I get too excited, when I'm above my baseline and my excitement is so over the top, that I also need to remember to bring myself down to baseline because then if I'm too excited, I'm going to make the coaching about myself. Yes. And how exciting I am or how excited I am.
00:23:04
Speaker
So it's it's not whether you have bad feelings or good feelings. It's being aware of what you're feeling and how it's impacting your behavior.
Awareness and Choice in Parenting Approaches
00:23:13
Speaker
So sometimes when I'm coaching and I'm too excited, my behavior will change in the way that I'm starting to make this about me and how happy I am for them or whatever it is. And it's like, I'm just better when I'm calm and balanced and grounded. So it is, it's a work experience.
00:23:32
Speaker
um Going back to your question about how to walk kind of people through that process is it is just meeting people where they're at and showing them the process. I always say you bring the courage, I'll bring the process. So there there is a whole kind of map that I that i walk them through um in order to get down to their baseline and to to stay there, to know when they're pulled off and to and to come back. And again, there is never any judgment.
00:24:03
Speaker
on on my part ever. Like I have no judgment on on how people react or how they respond. I feel like my job is to bring awareness to their inner process and then they still get to choose whatever they want, right? There is no right or wrong.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yeah. I love that you said that too, because i find that people for some reason assume about me because my podcast is called the Positively Healthy Mom podcast, that I'm a coach, I work with teens and young adults, that somehow I am above them or different from them or separated from them in some way.
00:24:41
Speaker
And yes, I do have a lot of education and training in these areas, but that doesn't mean that I'm some perfect person. mom and going to judge them on ah on a client call. I always try to let people know, like for me, like there is no judgment from me. Like I'm here as your partner yeah to help you. And the thing that makes me really happy is when I see them making the progress and I see them making the change, but it's not about me thinking I'm better or that judging them. Right. I,
00:25:07
Speaker
I always just want to throw that out there because I do sometimes feel concerned that maybe there's like a misconception about me. When I'm a mom, I am just a mom. I am a regular mom. My kids do not want to be coached, nor do I think that's good for a parent-child relationship to coach them. um First of all, you have to have someone's permission to coach them. And most of the time... Any teen hearing from their mom does not want it coached, right? Like that's the whole point of having someone outside the family, like a neutral party. um So I would be the first person and um to hire a coach for my team. I'm not gonna take on that role. But there are like, you can see how there's like these mixed roles for me where I'm a mom, I'm also a coach for teens. And then I also am this mom on a podcast, right? And so it's like, it all kind of blends together. But I do just love the idea of like what you're saying is like,
00:25:53
Speaker
when people come to you, this is a safe environment. It's not about judgment because the truth is we all have triggers. Yes. all yes We all have ways that we were raised that didn't quite suit us, right? Like we all complain about our that the way our parents or or whoever were our caregivers raising us and that has affected
Understanding Universal Human Experiences
00:26:12
Speaker
us. And so the end of the day, we're all kind of on the same footing with that, right? And so um how can you speak to that a little bit deep Oh yeah, that, I mean...
00:26:21
Speaker
This is such, this is like my passion is the human story. We're all human beings and we're all living this human experience and we're all the same. So you might have had a different upbringing than me, but we still had experiences. We still gave those experiences meaning and we developed an identity from that.
00:26:45
Speaker
And then we we we developed beliefs that defend our our identity. So there's this whole inner process that is the exact same for every single person. So when people come to me with their stories, it's so different from other methodologies and stuff. So when people come and see me, I'm listening to the patterns that have created kind of where they're at. I'm listening to their inner process, right? There's no one that can tell me a story about their childhood or about their life that I probably haven't heard yet.
00:27:20
Speaker
And there's no place for judgment. It is like we are all human beings. And there's also no blame. There is absolutely no blame in the work that I do. It's for information like you were talking about earlier and for awareness of those things that happened. And, you know, my my company is called Stacey Greer Coaching and Training. So the work that I do is a lot of teaching and a lot of coaching. And so people are understanding the human inner process that.
00:27:52
Speaker
And how we work as humans, like I kind of started this podcast off with, is we were taught how to read. We were taught how to write. We were taught how to build careers. But we were never really taught um how to get to know ourselves and and understand ourselves. And I think that that's just so important. And and it's part of the bigger mission that i'm I'm trying to do right now.
Episode Conclusion
00:28:13
Speaker
It's beautiful. Yeah.
00:28:15
Speaker
I loved this conversation with Stacey Greer and trust me, this conversation gets even better. Make sure to tune in next week for part two, where we'll dive even deeper into our own childhood stories, breaking generational patterns and how healing our own inner process completely changes that dynamic with our teens. You won't want to miss it. So be sure to follow the show anywhere you get your podcast. So it'll show up for you next week.
00:28:41
Speaker
When you get a chance, please go to the show notes and click on the link ratethispodcast.com slash TPHmom to give my podcast a rating and review.
00:28:52
Speaker
And if this episode resonates with you, be sure to share it with your mom friends who are going through the same things. Be sure to tune in for next week's conversation. Until then, keep up the good work.