The Parenting Reframe

In today's solo minisode I’m talking all about strong-willed kids. I’ve been talking a lot about this in my emails and on my social media lately because I know it’s a topic that many parents struggle with. Strong-willed kids are the ones that I like to call fair fighters - they’re always keeping score and want to make sure everything is right in their world. But this can cause them to easily spiral out of control the second things don’t go their way. I want to share three key points that come up over and over again in one-on-one and group coaching in regards to strong willed kids.

If this episode resonates with you, consider signing up for my group coaching program all about raising strong willed kids and emotional regulation for kids and parents starting November 21! The link to register is in the Resources. 

Does Your Kid Value Approval or Power? 

• We set up an expectation and kids usually comply.
• Strong-willed kids don’t seek or value approval from authority or parents. It’s not important enough for them.
• Instead they value power but they don’t have the capacity to hold all of it. 
• They try to find out how much power they can have until they start to lose control.
• Strong-willed kids will then look for an anchor to keep them in a safe state when they start to lose control.

Explanations Don’t Work 

• We try to give kids the tools and the choices to understand why things are happening. 
• Explanations don’t deter a strong-willed kid from their actions.
• An explanation gives information but they are not lacking information. It may be a bigger issue of impulse control, tolerating frustration, sensory overload, or something else.
• If there is a lack of information, the next time they face something similar the outcome will be different. 
• Get to the root of what skills they need to develop to reduce the behavior you don’t want to see. 

Self Regulate Yourself

• It’s incredibly triggering for parents when a strong-willed kid is emotionally out of control. It’s important for the parent to self regulate themselves when the child is unable to.
• They are looking for someone to be calm in the storm.
• We have to create a really consistent, predictable structure through boundaries. 
• This structuring takes time and will take a while to set the expectations and make changes where needed. 
• Teaching them how to regulate their emotions is an important step to help your child foster their inner free spirit and communicate their needs and emotions.

Sign up for my Group Coaching Program starting November 21: stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/group-coaching-raising-strong-willed-kids-51n42

Joe Newman podcast episode: https://theparentingreframe.com/podcast-episodes/episode-49-a-raising-lions-q-a-with-joe-newman/

Sign up for a FREE 20 minute discovery call: https://stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/free-discovery-call-ck6qf

Be sure to sign up for my Substack newsletter for longer and more specialized parenting content: https://albiona.substack.com/ 

I hope you found this episode helpful; for more parenting tips, check out my website and blog for more information. https://theparentingreframe.com/

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe/

Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe 

I’m back with another solo episode and I’m giving you a recap of what I discussed in my latest workshop, Parenting on the Same Page. Many people struggle with conflict between their partners inside their homes on a day-to-day basis regarding parenting decisions. While they love and respect each other at the core, the heightened moments of emotion and stress can cause friction between two parents. I’m going to share with you the three tools you can implement today to help get back to parenting as a team.

All Feelings are Welcome. All Behaviors are Not

• What is the emotion or feeling your child is experiencing? 
• What is the behavior you don’t want to see? What is the behavior you do want to see?
• As you are calm and steady as the parent, you set clear boundaries for behavioral expectations.
• You need a game plan to address these situations and avoid reacting in an escalated way toward your child and each other. 
• How can you validate the feeling your child is experiencing while still holding your boundary? 
• How can you lean on each other in these stressful moments to help each other out?
• When you parent consistently on the same team, you will see a reduction of your child’s challenging behaviors.

Be Reflective of the Language You Use with Each Other

• Connect, don’t correct.
• Connective language is focused on yourself, your emotions, and your feelings, and finding a way to connect on a similar level with your partner.
• Have these discussions in moments of calm so you can both approach the conversation from a regulated place.

A Dysregulated Adult Cannot Help a Dysregulated Child

• If your immediate reaction is to become dysregulated when your child behaves a certain way, it will not help the situation. 
• You need to work through what the triggers are that cause you to feel dysregulated in stressful moments. 
• Using breathing and physical redirection can help you to calm down and pause. 
• Use PARR to become a more responsive parent.

- I have three one-on-one coaching spots left for 2024! If you sign up for coaching with me, I’m offering a free, 60 minute bonus session called “Optimizing Your Schedule” that helps you create a schedule that works for you and find your balance.

- Dr. Aliza Pressman, The 5 Principles of Parenting: https://draliza.com/ 

- Free Self Regulation Workshop download: https://stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/free-download-emotional-regulation-for-parents

Sign up for a FREE 20 minute discovery call: https://stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/free-discovery-call-ck6qf

Be sure to sign up for my Substack newsletter for longer and more specialized parenting content: https://albiona.substack.com/ 

I hope you found this episode helpful; for more parenting tips, check out my website and blog for more information. https://theparentingreframe.com/

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe/

Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe 

In this episode I have a conversation with my friend, Dr. Rebekah Diamond. She is a pediatrician and the author of two books: Eat, Sleep, Tantrum, Repeat and Parent Like a Pediatrician. Dr. Diamond bridges the worlds of being a pediatrician with being a parent. She adds a lot of great parental insight into many aspects of parenting from the rigid research to the wild west of the internet.  

Here’s what we talk about with Dr. Diamond: 

• Why the toddler phase is so challenging for so many parents on a daily basis in relation to the advice being given.
• Parenting advice can be helpful but you can take the pieces that feel good for your own parenting and leave the rest. 
• Parental efficacy, or parental confidence, will directly translate to positive parenting for your child. 
• Different parenting styles and how parents can create their own parenting philosophy to tune into what you and your child need.
• The reasons why toddlers have tantrums and how to navigate these emotional episodes using different strategies.
• Setting realistic and developmentally appropriate boundaries and consequences for toddlers. 
• Balancing rewards and external motivators to help toddlers learn about life skills.
• The importance of a consistent bedtime routine with toddlers and how to implement it in your home.
• Viewing parenting issues from the stance from whether or not there is an actual problem and determining if you need to take action.
• Why separation anxiety is developmentally normal in kids and how parents can work through their emotions related to it. 

Resources:

You can find Dr. Diamond on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parentlikeapediatrician/?hl=en

Parent Like a Pediatrician: https://www.amazon.com/Parent-Like-Pediatrician-Facts-None/dp/0806541636

Eat, Sleep, Tantrum, Repeat: https://www.amazon.com/Parent-Like-Pediatrician-Facts-None/dp/0806541636

Dr. Shefali podcast episode: https://theparentingreframe.com/podcast-episodes/episode-54-conscious-parenting-with-dr-shefali/

For more insight into parenting in today’s world, be sure to subscribe to my Substack: https://www.albiona.substack.com

And be sure to follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe for more parenting tips and advice.

In this solo episode, I want to talk to everyone about the ideas of stress and feeling like there’s never enough time. Part of what prompted this topic is the US Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, just issued an advisory on parents’ mental health and well-being, citing that many parents feel overwhelmed to the point of not being able to function throughout the day. While parenting can be stressful, there are things we can do to reduce those feelings and get back to feeling more balanced. I want to walk through my five self parenting tenets to get back to your emotional well being and find your inner peace whether you’re a parent who feels overwhelmed or you’re someone who feels like the day gets away from you and you could use some extra time.

Mastering the Pause

• Where are the moments of reactivity in your life?
• The more you pause, the less reactive you become and you can reflect on your fears surrounding your child’s behaviors.
• When you slow down, your child will also be able to slow down. 
• Overreacting in a moment usually escalates the situation rather than calming it down or stopping it.
• Pausing helps you stay calm and steady in a stressful moment. 

Practicing Stillness 

• Stillness does not mean sitting in meditation for a long time.
• It could be one minute of deep breathing, taking a few minutes to write in a journal, or taking a walk outside.
• When we practice stillness we are releasing our emotions and thoughts and giving it a space to go. 

Honoring Simplicity

• Try reframing your perspective to include gratitude when you feel stressed or overwhelmed. 
• Parenting is full of transient phases - what moment of joy are you missing out on by sitting in stress.
• How can you shift your schedule or routines to honor your needs rather than add to the irritation?

Embrace Change 

• Think about where you can embrace change to help take the pressure off of yourself. 
• There can be a lot of fear around change, but working through that fear can have wonderful outcomes. 

Trusting Your Intuition 

• The moment you’re in will get better. 
• Everything will always work out the way it’s supposed to work out.
• Release the feelings of doubt and trust what your intuition is saying.

FREE Workshop - Parenting YOURSELF: A personal process to Inner Peace

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 at 12pm EST

https://stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/free-workshop-parenting-yourself

Surgeon General’s Advisory on Parental Stress: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/08/28/us-surgeon-general-issues-advisory-mental-health-well-being-parents.html

Sign up for a FREE 20 minute discovery call: https://stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/free-discovery-call-ck6qf

Be sure to sign up for my Substack newsletter for longer and more specialized parenting content: https://albiona.substack.com/ 

I hope you found this episode helpful; for more parenting tips, check out my website and blog for more information. https://theparentingreframe.com/

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe/

Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe 

For the topic of this solo episode I polled my audience to see what you wanted to hear about and the answer was unanimous: how to make morning routines easier. The hustle and bustle of back to school season can cause a lot of stress for kids and parents alike. New routines and schedules can be challenging to adapt to but making some small changes can help your family’s morning routines run smoothly right from the start. I have some unconventional tools that I use in my parent coaching to help make your morning and evening routines run more smoothly that I’m excited to share with you. 

When our kids end up making us late: 

• Being late can be very triggering for parents.
• When our kids can perceive we are stressed, they end up more stressed as well. 
• Practice being late while keeping yourself calm.
• Say to yourself, “I am safe if I am late today.”
• When you let go of the control and the power struggle to get out the door, things become easier for both you and your kids. 

Put the autonomy back on your child: 

• This is for kids who waste time doing other things instead of progressing through the morning routine. 
• The idea was created by Joe Newman, author of Raising Lions.
• Using your timer or stopwatch, allot a specific number of minutes to a morning task. Any time that your child goes over that allotment is totaled up and taken away at the end of the day from their free time.
• Always present yourself as “team kid,” not as punitive or that this is a punishment. It’s an opportunity to learn and grow about cause and effect.
• The child’s behavior changes on the second or third day because they want their free time to be theirs. 

Find out what things you can let go: 

• Think about all the things that go wrong in the morning from start to finish and decide where you can let go and give them more autonomy. 
• When we give strong willed kids some independence, they enjoy the feeling that they matter.
• Giving them a specific task and asking them for help is a great way for them to feel important and get them invested in what you need them to do. 
• Let go of things that cause struggles like clothing or breakfast choices. 

Give yourself enough time: 

• Even if your morning routine is taking longer than normal, having extra time will allow you to feel more calm. 
• You can always shift the time you allot as routines get easier and more fluid throughout the year. 

My upcoming offerings: 

• Make sure you are signed up for my email list for a free workshop in September all about The Time Conundrum - the feeling we don’t have enough time. We will talk about ruminating on anxious thoughts and the stress of parenting to reframe the way we think about time. My email list will be the first to know about this workshop! 
• I have opened up spots for my self-parenting program where you’ll get to work one-on-one with me to discover what is in your way to get to where you want to be the most. I give you a step by step plan to know exactly what to do when you start to feel lost, confused, or need a reframe. Three spots are available in September. 

https://theparentingreframe.com/application/

• I’m still doing child-centered parent coaching and have two spots available in September. If you have trouble with tantrums, behavior issues, or other parenting challenges, reach out! 

https://stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/free-discovery-call-ck6qf

Joe Newman - Raising Lions: https://www.raisinglions.com/about-joe

I hope you found this episode helpful; for more parenting tips, check out my website and blog for more information. https://theparentingreframe.com/

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe/

Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe

In today’s episode I get to talk to my dear friend Lauryn Laszczak, someone I consider a soul sister and an incredible woman that has taught me so much. Lauryn (Laz-check) is a Female Founder and Somatic Business Coach for Women. It is her passion to help conscious leaders redefine what “success” looks and feels like by living a slow and intentional life. She's spent the past 14 years building businesses and guiding women into a deeper exploration of themselves and the impact they’re capable of having through their business and slow living. Lauryn lives a slow, intentional, and meaningful life in Metro Detroit, Michigan with her high school sweetheart turned husband, three children and one angel son.

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses infant loss and grief as Lauryn describes her journey through losing her son and learning to heal. 

Here’s what we talk about with Lauryn: 

• The duality of loving your children on Earth while allowing the space and grace to honor and grieve a child that has been lost. 
• How grief and joy can coexist in the same place at the same time and how the losses form who we are as individuals.
• Feelings of shame and guilt many women feel throughout their lives and the ways you can learn to move past those feelings.
• Giving yourself permission to be still and slow down to cultivate intentionality in your life.
• How small mindset shifts and moments of consistent changes can help us to find more love, fun, and freedom in our lives.
• Being still and slowing down can look different for everyone and might include movement, using your voice, or being in certain spaces to enter a place of calm.
• How slow living forces us to protect our energy and allows our children to match the state we are in.
• Modeling and communicating boundaries and needs to your children reinforces caring for yourself as well as teaching them important life lessons.

Resources:

You can find Lauryn on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iam_lauryn

And at her website: www.laurynlaszczak.com

For more insight into parenting in today’s world, be sure to subscribe to my Substack: https://www.albiona.substack.com

And be sure to follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe for more parenting tips and advice.

I have some really exciting updates to share with you in today’s episode! I’ve been considering new ways to help and serve this community. Most of my life has been working jobs that have been in service to others, as a teacher, a nanny, a speech and language pathologist, and now as a parenting coach. I am excited to tell you what has been happening in my life recently and a brand new coaching offering.  

Life Update:

• I recently stopped working my conventional 9-5 speech and language pathologist job to focus my energy full time on The Parenting Reframe.
• While I loved my time at Kaufman Children’s Center, I realized it was time to move forward and pursue coaching and writing.
• I am so grateful for my time there and for all the people who supported me along the way. I learned so much during my time at Kaufman and wish that everyone could experience a work environment like the one I was a part of for so many years.

A New Coaching Offering:

• I am excited to announce that I will now be offering life coaching sessions utilizing a parenting process. The process is very specific, and also the topic of my book, which includes 5 critical tenets of living a more peaceful life.
• These tenets are meant to help you with reparenting, healing, transforming, embarking on a new way of being, and so many other things.
• This life coaching looks at you as an individual and you do not need to be a parent to work with me as a life coach.
• In life coaching, I will give you the tools to address these challenges through the lens of parenting. Parenting is a life skill and you can use the processes of parenting to help you through many different life events.
• What are the ways we can parent ourselves back to a place of peace and joy?
• You can work with me in two ways: either in a one-time session for a singular burning question or over a longer period of time, where we can work to more deeply transform your life, by identifying the patterns and seeds that keep you stuck.
• I am only opening four spots for life coaching.
• You can book a free 20-minute discovery call to find out more about life coaching and if it’s a good fit for you: https://stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/free-life-coaching-discovery-call

5 Tenets to Return to a Place of Peace:

• How to Master the Pause: pausing can change the trajectory of your relationships, your perspective on things, and help you to be less reactive
• Practicing Stillness: meditation, breathwork, and finding ways to ground yourself help you practice stillness and quieting the noise.
• Honoring Simplicity: when you recognize what is most important physically and mentally everything gets more clear and you can find an easier way through.
• Embracing Change: honoring the idea that you need to keep growing, learning, and finding new arenas to challenge yourself.
• Trusting Your Intuition: when the other four tenets fall into place, you are more able to listen to your intuition and trust yourself.

Sign up for a FREE 20 minute discovery call to see if life coaching is right for you: https://stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/free-life-coaching-discovery-call

Be sure to sign up for my Substack newsletter for longer and more specialized parenting content: https://albiona.substack.com/ 

I hope you found this episode helpful; for more parenting tips, check out my website and blog for more information. https://theparentingreframe.com/

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe/

Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe 

I’m back with a solo episode for the first time in a little while and I’m talking about the three pieces of parenting advice that I am loving right now. Parenting advice can be tricky because something might really resonate with you at one moment in time, but a year later you can feel completely different about the whole thing. With that in mind, these are three things that have been on my mind in this present moment that I think are not only applicable to parenting but also in life. There is a lot about parenting and life advice that go hand in hand. The way we parent our kids has to be in alignment with the way we parent ourselves, parent through challenges, and parent over the course of ups and downs. Here are the three things I talk about in this episode: 

Slowing Down

• Creating awareness around the pattern of over filling your schedule and recognizing when it’s happening and why. 
• Being more intentional about saying yes to things.
• Slowing down forces you to look at your inner self and what your needs are rather than constantly serving others. 
• In parenting, slowing down allows us to be more thoughtful and present rather than emotional and reactive. 

Express Empathy Towards Your Kids 

• Empathy is the ability to sit with another and allow them to express their feeling or emotion without the desire to change it. 
• Wanting your kids to calm down or change their emotions is not helping them learn the life skill of regulation. 
• We don’t have to fix or change anything, we can just let it be. Being held by someone who is just listening and supporting is the most comforting thing.

Inviting Moments of Discomfort

• The real way you learn about ourselves is through struggle. When we are in uncomfortable moments we learn things like resilience and flexibility. 
• Uncomfortable moments build a foundation of self trust that is an incredible life skill. 
• You never know what leaning into discomfort might bring your way and what doors might open because of it. 
• Encouraging your kids to try something that will put them in a slightly uncomfortable situation helps them grow their confidence.

My article about slowing down in parenting: https://theeverymom.com/parenting-coach-wellness-advice/

Listen to the Dr. Shefali podcast episode here: https://theparentingreframe.com/podcast-episodes/episode-54-conscious-parenting-with-dr-shefali/

Elise Loehnen’s podcast episode with Nicole Avant: https://www.eliseloehnen.com/episodes/h1mjtwhv3bo2nddnd6ikmoj8ogsbzf-nkwfb-lpty8

Be sure to sign up for my Substack newsletter for longer and more specialized parenting content: https://albiona.substack.com/ 

I hope you found this episode helpful; for more parenting tips, check out my website and blog for more information. https://theparentingreframe.com/

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe/

Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe 

This episode was truly a pinch-me moment as I had the incredible opportunity to interview Dr. Shefali. Dr. Shefali is an international speaker, clinical psychologist, and author of seven books. She is the mind behind her two landmark books The Conscious Parent and The Awakened Family. She specializes in the integration of Western psychology and Eastern philosophy to give parents and families the best of both worlds. She is launching a brand new podcast called “Parenting & You with Dr. Shefali.” She coaches families live on each episode so what you are hearing is therapy in action. I learned so much during our conversation and I’m excited to share it with all of you.

Here’s what we talk about with Dr. Shefali: 

• The reasons behind choosing to talk with real parents in real time on her new podcast rather than speaking with experts.
• How to navigate the internal need to find all the “right answers” in parenting scenarios and shift to see how parents’ internal struggles are reflected onto their children.
• Tools for parents who struggle to regulate their own emotions in stressful parenting situations. 
• Recognizing what your personal triggers are in relation to your past experiences to create a more relaxed parenting experience. 
• Why some parenting advice or strategies might not immediately work for every child or family.
• Dr. Shefali’s perspective on how to respond and work with young children who have tantrums in the moment and how to stay regulated. 
• How to gain more cooperation from your children by building connections and partnerships with them.

Resources:

You can find Dr. Shefali on her Website - https://www.drshefali.com/

Parenting & You with Dr. Shefali Podcast: https://www.drshefali.com/podcast/

- Parenting Courses: 

Conscious Parenting 2.0 - https://courses.drshefali.com/thecp2method-full

Conscious Parenting Institute - https://institute.drshefali.com/

For more insight into parenting in today’s world, be sure to subscribe to my Substack: https://www.albiona.substack.com

And be sure to follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe for more parenting tips and advice.

In this episode, I had the chance to talk with the two authors of the Team Supercrew books, Julie Anne and Darren Penn. The Team Supercrew books provide a great roadmap for explaining emotions to kids that is age-appropriate and highly engaging. Team Supercrew was created when Julie Anne and Darren’s son was experiencing big emotions around age five. They sought out resources to help him grasp onto the concepts of emotional regulation. Eventually, they used their son’s love of reading and exploring to create the world of Team Supercrew and combined it with larger concepts to help kids understand the ways their emotions work. 

What we talk about with Julie Anne and Darren: 

• The method of writing used to create a story specifically for children to help them best understand different scenarios and emotions they will encounter.  
• How the illustrations on the page help a child pick up on subtle changes in character emotions and reactions throughout the story.
• How they came up with the first four book topics to help kids with the most prevalent challenges they face today. 
• Providing validation for a kid's emotions by naming the feeling and creating awareness about what causes these thoughts.
• Using the characters to show how the powers we all have within us can help us feel a sense of control in an uncontrollable world. 

Be on the lookout for Team Supercrew books 5-8 coming soon! 

You can learn more about Team Supercrew and buy their books on their website: https://www.teamsupercrew.com/

For more insight into parenting in today’s world, be sure to subscribe to my Substack: https://www.albiona.substack.com

And be sure to follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe for more parenting tips and advice.