Harmony in the Home

When I was unconscious — I mean, before I began my inner work of mind management and conscious parenting — the kindness (or lack thereof) of my kids was a big trigger for me. David and I decided to find ways to quietly, anonymously do service to others in the outside world and even within the walls of our home in order to teach them how to have an attitude of kindness.

Now, don’t get me wrong, kindness is still very important to me! But I had an exacting standard of behavior for my kids that even I as an adult couldn’t adhere to. That’s nutty nuts! Perfectionism is one of the most pernicious traps parents can fall into. Mommy guilt is a double dip of not-fun, because you get upset that your kids aren’t doing the thing (whatever the thing is), and then you get upset at yourself for getting upset. That’s no bueno.

So anyway, back to random acts of kindness. The intention was to teach our kids to be kind, and that worked — but in the end, WE learned to be kind as well. And we had little accountability partners to remind us to show kindness. Children are always watching, for better or for worse!

In this episode, I’ll read some of your social media responses, which I hope will inspire you and other listeners to take action and try doing something kind for another person today. As you manifest grace and compassion towards other people outside your four walls, you will see the results within as well.

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I’ve noticed that there are two main groups into which all people fall in terms of handling tricky emotions: calzone people and Coke people. Allow me to explain.

First, there are calzone people, who hold in their emotions and suffer their grievances in silence until at last, all their metaphorical cheese and tomato sauce comes running out in a flood of tears. Then there are Coke people, who are like bottles of soda that keep getting shaken. Their fizzy agitation and anger is easily visible, and their anger ramps up to a show-stopping explosion. Chances are if you have multiple kids, you have at least one of each kind.

As always, we have a conundrum on our hands. How do we approach helping kids with different personalities process their emotions? Feeling my tricky emotions is hard for me, and I’m 46! I HAVE strategies to deal with feeling the feelings! And as we’ve talked about in prior episodes, our kids simply aren’t as far along as we are in this regard.

It’s illogical for us as parents to expect adult-like behavior out of our children, who are very much children in body, mind, and spirit. And it’s mission-critical that you approach your own tricky emotions with as much grace and compassion as you do when your kids manifest them. In this episode, I’ll help you suss out what kind of personality you have, talk to your kids and yourself about your emotions, and help you remember (as always) that it’s okay to feel those tricky emotions, whether you’re 4 or 46.

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Everybody knows this phrase: “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” We push this idea for children to say in order to not cede emotional control to a bully, but the simple truth is that words DO hurt. When I was an elementary school teacher and counselor, I did an exercise I call “toothpaste words” to demonstrate this principle. The origin escapes me, but I have used it many times. It goes something like this:

I had a funny-looking puppet and a paper heart representing the puppet’s emotions. I would have my students come up to the front of the classroom one by one to say mean things about the puppet’s glasses or dress and squeeze a little toothpaste from a tube onto the paper heart. Then, when everyone was finished, I would say, “okay, now we are going to fix those hurtful things by complimenting the puppet and we’ll put the toothpaste back in the tube!” Of course, it was impossible to put all the toothpaste back into the tube. Unkind words or actions leave a lasting mark in real life, too.

The primary application is to teach children empathy by helping them understand the ways in which their behavior affects other people. It’s an engaging visual presentation that you can refer to again and again; saying “those are toothpaste words” will elicit a stronger empathetic response than just saying “that’s naughty.” But your children may also call you out for your own toothpaste words and actions. If you are willing to set aside your own ego, you will learn from this experience as much as they do.

Before I dive in, a little thing that’s been on my mind recently. I’ve noticed that when I have a question or am looking for a solution to an issue in my life, it helps to sit in on a coaching session where a coach is assisting another parent with a similar difficulty. I’m thinking about setting up an online space where we can all meet together and learn from each other, and I’ll mention that in this episode. Let me know what you think! Now, on to the main event:

I often refer to various levels of emotion using a name borrowed from a children’s game, “red light green light.” “Green light” is status quo, “red light” is the red zone (whether sadness and sulking or anger and rage), and there’s a broad swath of in-between emotions I call “yellow light.”

In this episode, I’ll talk about some strategies I employ which have helped my children and students get from “yellow light” back into “green light.” I’ll talk about ways in which my children help ME go from “yellow light” to “green light.” Most importantly, I’ll talk about how we can help our children perceive, understand, and manage their own emotions. Everybody has to start from zero, and if you weren’t taught these things, it’s extra hard for you because you’re trying to learn and teach at the same time. But I know you can do it, because I have done it, and we are much more alike than you think!

Modeling and explaining healthy responses to emotional stimuli is important, and even more important is normalizing feeling all kinds of emotions. Emotionally healthy children are not always happy. This aspect of parenting is mission-critical: your children need to know that they are allowed to feel all the feelings, and nothing has gone wrong. And don’t worry. With practice, you’ll get there. I’m getting there too. We’re all in this together!

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Last week, I asked you all over social media: what are some traits of a toxic friendship or relationship? I got answers from “feeling drained all the time” to “feeling anxiety” to “thinking about the relationship takes away from family time.” A toxic interpersonal relationship in any form is a massive drain on body and spirit, and it’s often necessary to set boundaries for your own sanity.

This episode is about breaking up with a very specific toxic friend that almost all of us have. This friend is constantly by our side, demanding that we give them our attention. Our friend bothers us when we should be working, spending time with our family, or even sleeping! This friend is a massive vortex draining us of productivity, and we need to set some boundaries. So I’ll be teaching you how to break up with (some of you may have already guessed) your cell phone!

I felt like I had my cell phone usage habits under control - and then 2020 happened, and everything went to pieces! So I have a goal to crack down on this particular toxic friendship, and I’m inviting you to join me as together, we employ several strategies (which I’ll talk about in this episode) in order to relegate the phone to its proper position as a tool to be used, not a master to control us.

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Last week, we discussed what happens when our kids have big emotions. This week, we’ll talk about some examples from my life (that I share with my children’s permission) about how David and I helped our children work through strongly emotional moments. As you develop grace and compassion for your child, you will be easier on yourself, and vice-versa.

When your child feels a big emotion with a cause that seems inconsequential or petty to you, remember that they have to experience the whole range of human emotion for the first time, and sometimes feelings are overwhelming. Remember that this emotion is proportionate to their age and stage in development. Above all, remember that IT’S NOT PERSONAL, and your child is merely having a hard time, not giving you a hard time. Become a mentor, not a martyr.

This week, I’ll also share some strategies to practice during calm times that can help your child regain emotional control during a meltdown. Having big emotions, whether at age 2 or age 42, is hard. But we can do hard things. I am rooting for you! :)

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How do we help our children manage big emotions?

I recently helped Grady with homework. This boy is multiplying triple-digit numbers by triple digit numbers. I marveled at his skill with multiplication. It didn't come naturally to him; he had to learn by trial and error, and nobody got mad at him when he didn't know how to multiply big numbers.

Now, here's the parallel. Our children experience the exact same ENORMOUS gamut of human emotions we experience, and they don't have any strategies for dealing with their emotion. Imagine experiencing huge emotions, but not having the strategies you've developed in nearly 30 years of life! It would be BRUTAL. As parents, we have the opportunity and the duty to exercise grace and compassion as we teach our children how to manage big emotions.

Now, that's not to say we want to remove emotion! If you've read the book or seen either film of The Stepford Wives, you know about the perfect housewives of Stepford. We do not want that in our children. We want them to have emotions — ALL emotions — but we want them to be able to process their emotions in a healthy way. So hit play and let's dive in!

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This episode is a doozy. I want to start off by letting you know that I know how hard you are on yourself — because I used to be super hard on myself. I always said “I’m not good enough,” first with infertility and then with my struggles raising my kids. That translated into being super hard on them, and pretty hard on David as well. Not so good!

I discuss parents being hard on themselves as I do all approaches in parenting, with the sage words of Dr. Phil: “how is that working for you?” Chances are you aren’t happy and neither is your family. If that’s the case, maybe it’s time to try another approach.

Now, a lot of you received negative messages from your parents when you were growing up. Remember, those messages were not factually true. The way that your parents thought about themselves was projected onto you. Once you get that, once you break yourself of the cognitive distortion of “I’m not good enough” that warps your view of objective reality, then you can step into emotional adulthood. Then, you can say, “if my parents’ opinion of themselves was projected onto me, that means my opinion of myself today is what I'm going to project onto my kids!”

The way that you talk to your kids and your spouse is actually an insight into how you talk to yourself. When you clean up the way you talk to yourself, guess what happens? You clean up the way you talk to your family. I promise that as you dedicate time to listen to your mind, identify the thoughts of fear and lack, and gently remind your inner child that you are good enough, you will see that you have the grace and compassion you need for yourself. And as you love yourself, you will succeed as a spouse and as a parent.

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Looking back on my teaching experience, one thing that really worked well in the classroom was giving thoughtful compliments to the students. When I complimented my students, I always tried to make it about the character trait that I wanted to see more of from them. I also made a point of helping them recognize that doing good made them feel good on the inside.

Tony Robbins says, “energy flows where focus goes.” This is the key to observing and reacting to your children’s behavior. I have what I call the three Bs, which refer to children and the attention they receive from adults (mostly parents, but also teachers and others). If kids receive a message, whether verbal or nonverbal, they will go through a long-term process where they (1) be aware of it, (2) believe it, and (3) become it.

Now, if you're focusing on what your kids are doing wrong, which your brain will already do on its own without any mind management (and mind you, my brain goes there all the time!), then you’ll get a cycle of kids becoming aware that you perceive them as “wrong” or “bad,” believing it, and then becoming more “bad”! The implications of this are limitless. We should be laser-focusing on the good things children do and encouraging them to cultivate good traits.

What I try to help with you on this podcast is focusing on what they're doing right, versus what they're not doing right. Whatever you focus on, you're going to get more of that. It's true with anything, especially kids. As you focus on the good your children do and compliment them in a consistent manner, you will be able to help them cultivate their inner voice that enjoys being good and doing good.

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Why would you want to understand your parents?

I often say that you get two phases of participating in the parent-child relationship dynamic: once as the child, and once as the parent. On the first time around, we have a very simple view of the world and we soak up information and experiences, and that informs our experience the second time around. As we become conscious of our behavior as parents, we become conscious of the experiences that formed our parents, and vice versa.

Parents have an unfortunate habit of deriving their internal value from the behavior of their children, for example: “I am a good parent if my child is a straight-A student.” This is not a good mindset for many reasons, mainly because deriving internal value from external circumstances is a recipe for feeling like a failure, but also because by playing that game, you are failing to recognize the particular needs and individual spirit and agency of your child!

Now, a tangent. It’s worth noting that for many listeners, childhood was a source of pain at the hands of neglectful or abusive parents. First: this was NOT your fault in any way. You did no wrong and you did not deserve what you received, for it was their own feelings of lack and fear and unworthiness projected onto you.

Now, knowing this, it is helpful to understand their motivations for your own learning and development. Note that the word is “understand,” NOT condone nor forgive; accountability is a part of growing up.

But understanding the “why” behind hurtful and harmful behavior is key in order to become conscious of our own potential for traumatizing our children by reenacting those terrible things that shaped us. The key is leveling with our own ever-present potential for doing both good and bad in order to learn from our parents’ lives and thus avoid making their mistakes.

Now that you are in the adult role in the dynamic, the onus is upon you to take the steps that must be taken to grow and heal, and to be good to your child. Remember that parenthood has huge ups and downs. Many days will be B-minus days. But as you come to accept what is and make peace with yourself and the past, you will heal, you will feel like a better parent, and your children will be better because of it.

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