Dads, have you ever wondered what’s going on inside your children's minds? Would you like to know what they’re thinking? If you had a chance to learn ways to strengthen your child’s mental health, to help them feel safe, loved and confident would you take that opportunity? That chance is now on this episode. My guest is Psychotherapist, Keynote Speaker and Parent Coach Nicole Runyon.

To learn more about Nicole Runyon or book a discovery call visit:

https://nicolerunyon.com/

To connect with Nicole Runyon on social media visit:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolerunyonlmsw/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igenerationmentalhealth/

Special thanks to InGenius Prep for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. To learn more about InGenius Prep or to claim your free consultation, visit: https://ingeniusprep.com/get-a-free-consultation/?utm_campaign=2024+Podcast+Email+Marketing&utm_content=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_medium=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_source=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_term=Fatherhood+Podcast

Special thanks to Zencastr for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. Use my special link https://zen.ai/CWHIjopqUnnp9xKhbWqscGp-61ATMClwZ1R8J5rm824WHQIJesasjKDm-vGxYtYJ to save 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan.

Transcription - Guarding Your Kid's Hearts and Minds

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Dads, have you ever wondered what's going on inside your children's minds?

Would you like to know what they're thinking?

If you had a chance to learn ways to strengthen your child's mental health to help them feel

safe, loved, and confident, would you take that opportunity?

That chance is now on this episode.

So don't go anywhere before we begin.

I'd like to thank our proud sponsor of this episode and the Fatherhood Challenge in Genius

Prep.

Genius Prep is the world's premier admissions consulting firm, proud to be officially

recognized as the country's top college admissions consultants, helping students prepare

for admissions to top schools through individualized educational programs that increase chances

of admission by up to 10 times.

Genius Prep students work with former admission officers to differentiate themselves from

other competitive students in three areas colleges evaluate students.

In academics, extracurricular activities, and personal characteristics.

Just this past admission cycle, Genius Prep students have secured 110 offers from Ivy

League schools, 268 offers from top 20 schools, and 904 offers from top 50 schools.

Genius Prep's student success lies within the fact that Genius Prep is an all-in-one consulting

firm offering every service a family needs, whether it be test prep, tailored candidacy,

building mentorship, academic mentorships, the leadership, and innovation lab, soft skills

courses, writing courses, and other customized programs to develop their application persona

to the most effective and authentic extent to share with colleges.

Just click on the link in the episode description to book a free strategy call with one of

Genius Prep's college experts.

Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere

to take great pride in their role and to challenge society to understand how important fathers

are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.

Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.

Greetings, everyone.

Thank you so much for joining me.

My guest is psychotherapist, keynote speaker, and parent coach, Nicole Rennian.

Nicole, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.

Thank you for having me.

I'm excited to talk about this.

Let's dive right in.

Nicole, let's start from the beginning of how you got into coaching parents and helping

them understand their child's mental health.

What's your own story?

Well, so my story starts when I was around 10 years old.

When I decided that I always loved children, I was one of the oldest in my family, my siblings

and my cousins.

And I had just really felt like I wanted to go into something that made a difference in

children's lives and helped them.

And psychology was just always an interest of mine.

And so I ended up having a private practice where I specialized in seeing children.

I've done that for about 21 years.

And in the last 10 years or so, I've noticed sort of a major shift with this generation

of kids.

And the shift was that I was seeing mental health cases in front of me with these very severe

symptoms with no root in any kind of trauma or any psychosocial issue that I could attach

it to.

And in my training, I was always taught to see the child in the context of their environment,

which for a child is their family or their community or their school.

And when I would do digging into these kids' lives, I would find that for the most part,

everything was intact.

I mean, sure, there were some things to work on.

Maybe some family dynamic stuff to work through.

But nothing that would warrant the symptoms that I was seeing.

And so I kind of started asking myself, what's happening with these kids?

And this was 10 years ago.

So nobody was talking about the effects of technology on child development.

That was at the time, the only thing I could pinpoint as to the reason why we were seeing

such severity in mental health cases.

And over the last 10 years, I've sort of developed more of an understanding and an idea

of what's all encompassing for them.

The technology is absolutely a big issue and as of fact, they're development, but the parenting

is also really struggling right now.

And so I decided that rather than pathologize the child and put them in the chair of the

mentally unhealthy person, I thought, you know, if I could just work with the parents,

I really think I can make a difference for these kids without even really having to see the

kids at all.

And it's, you know, really just been amazing.

The changes that I've seen in families so quickly since I've switched to coaching parents

rather than seeing children.

That's absolutely amazing being able to focus on the parents as the solution.

There is a really, really big gap that I see there.

Two sides of it.

Yes, I see one side of it with technology, stunting children in a way.

And I also see technology, stunting parents.

So there's a mental health crisis going on with kids.

It's been flooding the ER rooms.

What can dads do about it?

Dads are really key here and really important.

And the reason for that is because dads are usually typically very good at discipline and

boundaries and holding space for kids.

Dads are kind of the strengths and the strong pillar of the family.

And what I see a lot happening with the mental health crisis is kids are not getting what

they need in terms of structure and discipline.

So what I mean by that is there's too many choices.

And there's too much permissiveness.

And so that's creating a lot of anxiety for kids because it doesn't feel safe for them.

It may be what they want and they may resist the rules and the structure and the discipline,

but it's actually what they need.

And so dads really can provide that.

And it's not that moms can't.

It's that what I've seen in families is dads are really taking a backseat and it's often

because they don't know what their role is anymore.

It used to be, you know, I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to remember

the days when moms used to say, well, just wait till your father comes home.

You know, because dads were--

I do remember that.

Yeah, right?

Because dads were always sort of that kind of that strong disciplinarian.

And when I say discipline, I don't mean, you know, corporal punishment, not by any means.

Discipline has gotten a bad rap because of that because it used to be that.

But discipline can come in many forms and it can simply just be, here's the rule, here's

the boundary, you need to respect it or there will be a consequence.

And that's really what's missing in today's parenting.

You know, one thing that I noticed in families when I coach couples is that moms will often

say, well, I do it all, I don't get the help, I'm overwhelmed, I'm overburdened, and dads

will kind of chime in and say, well, I try and help, but it's never right.

And so I'm often trying to help moms allow dads to step in even if it's not the way that

you would want him to or exactly how you think he should just give him that autonomy

and that freedom to jump in when he sees FET because dads really need that confidence.

And that's a huge thing missing in families.

And it's affecting the kids.

Okay, I didn't expect you to go there and I'm so glad you did.

But you said that dads don't know their role very well anymore and I think you're absolutely

spot on with that.

I think that is so, so true.

And a lot of this has to do with different social pressures that are out there through the

media, which I don't know, may or may not be why you're saying it's been so destructive.

But there are these pressures that are out there, all these new narratives that are out

there and then dads are afraid of making mistakes or doing the wrong thing and so the safest

thing to do is nothing at all.

That's right.

And I think we're on the same page there as far as where this started because yes, I

think men are no longer allowed and society to be strong or, you know, to be like that

person that says, hey, no, this isn't okay.

And here's your consequence because you didn't do what you needed to do.

And that really has been a detriment to kids.

You know, we wonder why there's so much anxiety.

Anxiety comes from a lack of feeling and control.

So there's this inner chaos.

You don't feel like you trust yourself or you're confident enough to work through whatever

those feelings are.

So you try to control your outer world.

And kids are able to control their outer world now more than ever because parents are

allowing them to.

You know, a lot of parents will come to me and say, you know, the kids are ruling the roost

and we don't know, you know, we don't know what to do.

We don't know how to, how to reel them in.

You know, oftentimes one kid in the family, the scapegoated kid or the one that the parents

want to be in therapy, they'll be the one sort of controlling the whole family dynamic.

And I think we have this concept of, you know, toxic masculinity and men can't be men anymore.

And so yeah, they've taken a vaccine and they don't know what their role is because that is

their role.

So what are they really there for?

I'll often have dads and couples that I coach that will say, I don't even know that there's

a reason for me to be in this family.

I mean, it's that extreme for them because who are they or what are they if they're not

that sort of that pillar of strength?

I also see a flip side of that, which is mothers that are just flat out burnt out.

They're overworked.

They're overstretched on their time and everything and they don't have a father that's present

in the kids lives parenting equally putting in that same amount of work and the mothers are

doing all of the work.

The dads are checked out and somewhere they've gotten that message.

It does backfire.

There is an image out there that the mothers can do everything and they don't need men.

I think most of that might be for the best way to put it is a defense mechanism because

that may be the hand that has been dealt them and that's the circumstance that they find

themselves in for a variety of different reasons that that could possibly be.

But that isn't necessarily what we should be aiming for.

That isn't the goal.

That isn't the standard and that isn't what it should be.

I think a lot of mothers out there would actually like a little bit of help in parenting.

A hundred percent.

I'll tell you what, I think we as working mothers have been sold a bill of goods because

we were told, I mean, I'm Genox and all through my childhood.

I was told that you could have it all.

You could have the family and the career and it was definitely romanticized and looked

upon as the ideal.

And when I first got into it, having a career and a child, in my career, I was in private

practice.

So I peeled way back on the amount of clients that I was seeing when I had my first child

and even still, I was overwhelmed and overworked and overburdened.

So the reality of what I was told as a child was not happening.

I was a bit disillusioned by that.

And I think many women, my answer was to try and control everything.

My big wake-up call was when I had my second child, my kids are five years apart.

So when my second child came along, there was a huge adjustment because I had one child

for five years.

And I remember just being exhausted, of course, the new mom and trying to juggle everything

and my husband had made my oldest breakfast one morning because I was sleeping.

And I woke up and I went into the kitchen and I noticed he had used the wrong spoon to mix

the oatmeal, the wrong spoon, right?

And I had enough sense in my new mom's haze to not say a word because I knew that was

a me issue and I thought, wow, I guess I really am in need of a lot of control and I have some

work to do here because if I had given him a continue, I know I had given him that energy

before but if I had continued to give him that energy, I would have never gotten the help

I needed.

And I would never be in a place right now where I really feel like I have a partner because

I allowed it.

So this is what I think women need to start kind of understanding is we're not the victims

here.

But if it wasn't done to us, we sort of did it to ourselves.

Now it wasn't our fault because we were told we could have it all but now we need to recognize

guess what?

You can't have it all unless you have a partner that is willing to put the as much work

in as you are.

It's just nearly impossible unless we get even more technologically advanced and clone

ourselves, it's not going to happen.

I love the general generational component that you mentioned.

I'm also Gen X and we're known as the Lachkey kids and I remember my mom working all of

the time and a lot of times it seemed like I raised myself.

So I can only imagine that same image that that Gen X women especially have gotten.

The new message and the message that you're saying is that it doesn't have to be that

way and it shouldn't be that way.

That's right because what happened is the second wave of feminism told our mothers that they

should go to work and there was no conversation about one how that was going to affect the

family and two how the family was going to have to adjust to mom's going to work.

So what ended up happening is Gen X kids mainly got neglected and now us Gen X kids have

teenagers.

In that wound of neglect, we swung the pendulum too far into the other direction and us

Gen X working mothers over did it because we said, well, we don't want our kids to feel

our absence like we felt our mother's absence.

Uh-huh.

Yep, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's a detriment to Gen Z Gen X's children because they didn't get enough of that like

you said, like you learned how to rely on yourself.

They didn't get enough of that because the moms swung too far and while they were swinging,

they left the dads out because their example was that their dads weren't involved in their

lives.

Dads were very bewildered as well with that second wave of feminism.

They weren't used to that either.

They were used to being the providers, the ones that went to work every day and then suddenly

moms were in the workforce and they just continued to just go to work and, you know, not participate

in the family afterwards.

So there wasn't enough conversation around how to have both parents working.

And I think we're doing a little bit better now, but I can tell you, I see a ton of couples

with this issue where mom is overdoing it and she doesn't have to be because dad is

willing.

And this is what I love about dads.

They want to be there.

They just don't know how.

Let's change gears a little bit.

What are the top three things kids think about and want to know from their parents, but may

not ask verbally?

I think that kids want to know that parents are people.

I think today's kids are over-indulged and I think parents don't have enough boundaries.

I tell parents to share with your kids, hey, I'm a person too and I have needs.

And, you know, I think that kids should know about that.

They don't know to ask certainly, but parents need to be having those conversations.

I think kids also need to know that a boundary means love.

It doesn't mean you're mean or you want to hurt them or you don't want to make them happy.

And kids, thirdly, need to know that negative feelings are a part of life and discomfort is

a part of life.

And parents need to be able to be uncomfortable in themselves to hold the space and provide

their kids discomfort because that's life.

Is there a war between social media use or technology?

It feels like a war to me.

Yeah, I mean, it's a strong word, but it's also a very strong energy that is coming at

families today when it comes to technology and media and social media.

And the war is really about connection versus disconnection.

And that's inherently at the foundation of it.

And so, you know, parents and kids are always arguing about screen time and what's too much

and what's not appropriate and what is appropriate.

And at the end of the day, American families, well, I think this is global, so not just American

families, but families in general are disconnected, right?

I mean, like we said, everybody's working, everybody's exhausted, everybody's burdened and overworked.

And so families are just checking out at the end of the day, parents and kids.

And so I think if technology were taken out of the mix, at least even just intentionally

for some period of time during the day or night and families and families had a chance

to just be together and have silence and just talk or connect in some way, that we could

actually start to get somewhere with this issue.

Your husband is a girl, dad, correct?

Yeah, we have a boy and a girl.

How has he been a great role model to your daughter through your marriage?

Well, the first thing is what he's modeling for her with the way that he is a husband.

You know, he's a gentleman, he's loving, he's kind, he's very much a partner.

He cooks.

And he actually made me dinner on our second date and that was one of the things that really

got me.

I thought, wow, a man that can cook is a man I want to be with.

That's amazing.

And the other thing that he provides for her is just a really like strong, loving connection.

He adores her and she adores him.

And when he needs to, not as much as I would like, because I think she's a daddy's girl

and he's easy on her.

But when he needs to, he's got some good boundaries and is providing just like a very safe, loving,

you know, connection for her.

What about your son?

What kind of a message is your son getting from the father that he sees?

Similar to my daughter, he's seeing how his dad treats his wife and that's a really good

model for what we're trying to teach him.

And I think that seeing a man who is strong and vulnerable is really important.

And so my husband is able to express and communicate his feelings and get some emotional

sometimes.

And my son sees that, you know, boys have feelings too and it's okay to express and communicate

them because that doesn't mean you're weak.

In fact, there's a lot of strength in that.

What is your greatest accomplishment as a parent and what would you say is your husband's

greatest accomplishment?

I think for me, my ability to self-reflect and recognize what my issues are and how

that's affecting my parenting and not just be aware of it, but actually make changes

that I need to make is, you know, my biggest accomplishment because that's been the hardest

thing.

And I think same for my husband, you know, we've both done some really intense individual

work on ourselves and reflected inward and made sure that our awareness of ourselves

is reflected in our parenting.

And that's been a very hard, huge challenge and we didn't always do that.

So I think that, you know, it takes a lot of strength to at one point say, you know what,

this isn't working, I need to make a change.

And we both did that.

The whole inner work thing is a theme that seems to be coming up and many conversations

I've had with other guests and necessity for it.

I wish that I would have done what we call the inner work much earlier in my marriage

and much earlier in my parenting.

It would have saved a lot of grief along the along the way, but it's very, very difficult,

it's difficult if you're a guy just because of the stereotypes that are out there that's

bad enough, but just the image you have having to really go against your own ego and fight

those internal voices and this image of strength that you're trying to project for your family.

And you spoke of vulnerability about how your husband models that emotional vulnerability

both to you and in front of the kids as well, the years of inner work that you've done to

try to arrive at that place.

And I guess what I really want, fathers listening to know and understand is that doing

that very difficult inner work, asking those very difficult questions of yourself and sometimes

of each other, putting in that time and work is normal.

It should be normal.

And if you want to really be strong for your family, this is a powerful way to project

that strength because what it ultimately means is having a skill called self-control, emotional

self-control and control for how you interact with others.

And I think that is probably one of the most powerful ways you can do that.

And it seems like a juxtaposition to say the word emotional or the term emotional vulnerability

with the same term of self-control.

But when you look at it, when you are repressing whatever traumas, whatever you've gone through,

you're doing that because you ultimately don't have control over it.

And that is a desperate attempt to keep control over it by putting it somewhere else, keeping

it out of sight and just not dealing with it.

I mean, am I really far off the mark here?

No, you are so spot on. Wow, that was so well put.

And I think absolutely what men need to hear when it comes to this issue because control

is a huge thing, right?

And when you can internalize it and tell yourself that it's self-control and how you have

self-control is you learn how to express and communicate your feelings and that's a part

of it.

That can feel really good, I think, for a man.

That's really where it's at.

So I think when you say you wish you would have known this sooner, I think that a lot of

men are needing that message.

So whenever you figured it out and now that you figured it out, you're helping other men,

it doesn't so much matter, it's that you did figure it out because I think for men,

maybe they feel, oh, it's too late or, oh, I've already, my kids are older or maybe even some

that are grown, it's never too late.

I see men, my dad is a perfect example.

He was always that typical pillar of strength, never show emotion.

As he gets older, I have more and more, I should have deeper conversations with him.

He talks about things that happen to him when he was a child or when he was a young father

and I'm just so inspired by that, it doesn't matter that it took him decades to come around.

I'm just glad that he did.

I find that, at least for me, you go to opposite extremes when you don't have that true control.

One is you overreact to everything.

So you lash out an anger, your kids do something and your reaction is always explosive.

The opposite extreme is you don't react at all, which is what we were talking about earlier,

where dads just check out.

Having that true control where you're not running from the emotion but you're controlling

when and what and how you're dealing with that emotion.

We talked about in one episode of Funny Scenario where it's happened in this house where one

of the kids draws on the wall and you're already tired, you're busy, you don't need one more

thing to do and then there's this mess on the wall and you just want to explode at your

kids.

Being able to stop and understand very clearly that that's how you want to react and

being so aware of it that you can step outside of the emotion and choose to say I'm going

to stop and I want to say something so bad and so what I'm going to do instead is I'm going

to leave.

I'm going to go to the garage and work on the car or fix this or go mo or whatever and

I'm going to come back and think this through and then I'm going to come back and address

this.

I've calmed down a bit, had time to think about it, maybe spent some of that angry energy

on something else productive and gotten that physical exertion out, come back and address

it with a little more open-mindedness and things like that.

There are so many examples of how that can play out but it's that awareness when you're

that aware of what you're feeling to where you can choose and decide what you're going

to do with it, that to me is real control.

Oh, 100%.

That's probably the hardest thing really for anyone to do.

The most important thing for your kids because the message is going to get lost on them otherwise.

There's always an opportunity to learn and grow from something that they do or some mistake

they make but if you overreact then forget it, the message is gone.

They're not even going to hear you.

It's the hardest thing to do but the most important thing.

They see that.

They're not dumb at all.

They know you're mad at them.

It wouldn't be difficult for them to see in process that.

The next thing they're watching is what do you do with that and what an opportunity to

model that in a positive way for them?

Absolutely.

As you were saying that, I was thinking of even babies even know that.

I mean, I had a couple in my office recently and they always bring their baby with them and

she's starting to get into stuff.

She's moving around.

She's grabbing at things and so we always baby proof the office when they come in and we

had forgotten about one thing and she was about to touch it and she looked at me because

her parents, she was facing me.

Her parents were behind her and I thought, wow, isn't that something?

She knew that I was going to be somebody that said no.

No, don't touch that.

They know just inherently.

Like you said, they know when they feel you, they feel your energy.

They know when you're going to discipline them or they're looking to you to model that.

How can dads listening learn more about what you're doing or get coaching?

Sure.

So, I am on LinkedIn as Nicole Renyan and Instagram at I Generation Mental Health.

I have a website, knecolrenyan.com where you can go to my coaching page and there's a button

to book a discovery call if you're interested in working one on one.

Just to make things easier if you go to thefatherhachallenge.com, that's thefatherhachallenge.com.

If you go to this episode, look right below the episode description and I will have all

of the links that Nicole just mentioned posted there for your convenience.

As we close, what is your challenge to dads listening now?

My challenge is to, as painful as it is, to put yourself in a family dynamic you feel

left out of or that you don't have a place in, be uncomfortable and put yourself there and

work through it because you are so needed and so valued and your kids will thank you for

it someday.

Nicole, it has been absolutely an honor having you on the Fatherhood Challenge.

Thank you so much for everything that you've shared with us.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

It's been a lovely conversation.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge.

If you would like to contact us, listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned

in this program or find out more information about the Fatherhood Challenge.

Please visit thefatherhachallenge.com.

That's thefatherhachallenge.com.

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