Episode 92: How to Use Logical Consequences with Wendy Snyder
/In this week's episodes on The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to talk about getting into a healthy mindset with two of the biggest issues parents face: Discipline and Food!
For the first episode, I’m bringing in a friend and a colleague, Wendy Snyder of the Fresh Start Family Podcast. She is a Positive Parenting educator, family coach, and advocate. She is also certified in Redirecting Children's Behavior & The Joy of Parenting Program.
Here is a summary of our discussion:
Ways to tell we slipped into the punishment mindset
Firm boundaries and good limits (without punitive measures)
Logical consequences that work and connect us to our child
Natural consequence vs. logical consequence
Tips in communicating our change of parenting style (and apologizing for the past)
To know more about logical consequences, follow Wendy on social media and visit her website.
Instagram: @freshstartwendy
Facebook: Fresh Start Family
Website: www.freshstartfamilyonline.com
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic overwhelm. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do; not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level--all delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast we're going to be talking about a topic that I think you're really going to love. It's one that I get asked about a lot. So we're going to be talking about how to move away from a punishment mindset and embrace more respectful, related and reasonable discipline.
So I think there's a big misconception that you know respectful, positive parenting is permissive and it is not and so we're going to bust that myth today and help you figure out how to actually have limits and boundaries that are respectful and empathetic and compassionate and that work for your family.
And to help me have that conversation I'm bringing in a guest and colleague, Wendy, Snyder of the Fresh Start Family Podcast and so we're going to have this conversation. I'm really excited to have her here Wendy, welcome to the Balanced Parent Podcast and why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Wendy: Thank you, Thank you so much for having me Laura, it's just so great to meet. I've admired your work for a long time and I'm just really excited to be here. So yes, I'm Wendy Snyder, I'm the founder of Fresh Start Family. We are a digital education company where we help families all over the world expand their parenting toolkit, I like to say.
So they are truly a choice with how they raise their young little human souls and they feel confident in a way that they can do it with confidence and with firm kindness. Connection, confidence, and with firm kindness. So really finding that middle ground between that too firm and too kind, which really too kind never exist, but you know the permissive side of things and doing things like too heavy handed.
So a lot of parents have trouble finding that middle ground, so that's what we specialize in. And I just love being an educator of this work and as you mentioned, I also have a podcast called the Fresh Start Family Show.
So yeah, it's my jam to encourage families and I love it. I just, I love love, love being able to expand our parenting toolkit so we can really do things by choice instead of just relying on a lot of the hand me down parenting tactics that most of us inherited, right?
Laura: Yeah. Okay, so let's jump in right there because I think lots of us came up in families where more punitive punishment minded measures were used on us and we know we don't really want to do that. We want to do something different with our own families.
So we don't have a lot of models for what that is and it's easy to slip back into it. The thinking like, well they need to learn a lesson here. So what is a punishment mindset? Just kind of what and how can we tell if we've slipped into it?
Wendy: Yes, Well it is so common and it is so I don't like to use the word heart. I've actually taken the word hard out of my language and it's been so fun over the last year to purposely replace it with other words, but it is such a journey to replace a punishment mindset with a compassionate, disciplined mindset and gosh.
I mean you empower your community and your listeners so much with the ability to have grace on yourself and to be able to give yourself some time, right? Because it can take awhile. It's such a knee jerk reaction type of thing because I think a lot of it just has to do with limiting beliefs we believed from a very young age and it's kind of this idea that where do we get the notion that in order to make children behave better, we must first make them feel worse. But many of us who grew up, you know, with parents who loved us so much and they just didn't have more tools in their tool belt.
So they really thought that you, you do have to make a child feel worse in order to make them behave better. And so we kind of started adapting and thinking that was the way from an early age too. So then we become adults and realize, gosh, we do have another option and we don't want to believe in that myth. We don't want to have that, that scarcity thought or whatever it is and it can be really a journey to shift out of it.
So a punishment mindset to me is the idea of thinking that a child has to pay the price or that there has to be some type of pain or shame inflicted in order for them to really learn the lesson. And I like to think of punishment is really rooted in the past. So if you were to just do a quick google punishment comes up with words like retribution, making sure the price is paid or someone is like doing their time, things like that. Whereas when we shift into discipline, it's more future based.
So punishment is about the past, in my opinion and discipline is about the future and looking at it, Yeah, What do you want to build for your kids instead of teaching them or telling them what they did wrong? It's like, here's what we want for you and here's how you do it. So instead of like the stop it, which is the punishment mindset, it's the how to, which is the discipline mindset.
Laura: Oh, that's beautiful. So I don't know about you but I feel like I've seen a lot, you know in my own growth and work and in the families that I work with as they are releasing a punishment mindset that they also have to release a control and obedience mindset. Have you seen that too?
Wendy: Heck yes, yes. The idea like that there needs to be instant obedience, right? That's something that I think Jax is up so much as humans because in my work, it's like, you know, I see mistakes as opportunities to learn. A lot of times that is the best way we learn as human beings, as kids, as business owners, right?
I mean I love your thing you did the other day on social where you were talking about the the like the encouraging voice that we all have inside and then the discouraging voice inside and that's like comes up with me all the time in business, I'll make a mistake or something and right away it will be like, oh my gosh, you're such an idiot, why did you do that? That was a waste of money or you did that wrong and you have to retrain yourself to be able to listen to the other side, which is, this is just an opportunity to learn mistakes are great chances for that.
And a lot of human beings, especially kids they learn by doing, especially are kinesthetic kids who are always the ones who are moving, jumping, kicking, hitting like all those things they actually learn by doing. To become more comfortable with the idea of a failure so to speak or a mistake not being the end of the world, but just an opportunity to redirect a child teach an important life lesson show unconditional love and you can do all that by holding strong boundaries.
Laura: I think that that's the thing that a lot of people have difficulty believing when they're new to this world. Can you dig into that a little bit? So how can you have firm boundaries and good limits and all at the same time not use punitive measures like, “What does it actually look like in practice?”.
Wendy: Yes. So one of my favorite things that I teach my students inside of my bonfire support program is what I call like a Cookie Formula Sandwich. I don't know why, but I picture a cookie with like icing in the middle. That was my favorite cookie when I was little from the mall, I grew up in on the east coast in Maryland. But I like to say you know the boundaries hug it. So it's like we definitely need to be firm with our kids.
They need to see us with confidence around our boundaries and our limits and that's a whole journey in itself, right to have that confidence. But when you show up with confidence of like, “I am not okay with you hitting your sister.”. Your shoulders are back, you are firm, you are confident that in our home we do not hit, we do not use our hands to solve problems and then you the middle of the little cookie sandwiches connection and mentorship.
So it's like it's that feeding into that child's belonging, that sense of belonging or that need to belong which is you're not an alien. I can see why you're so mad. I know your sister sometimes it's in your stuff. I get you you're not alone and here's how I'm going to mentor you and you're gonna learn, you need to learn, I will help you learn how to express what you want or share how you're feeling with your sister or tell her to get back out of your room, I will be there with you connection and mentorship and then it's and I will not allow you to hit your sister.
So we all need to take a calming break but that's kind of an idea of like what the approach looks like. It's like firmness but that its connection and it's teaching combined with a lot of self regulation and calming which is what I find for my parents, the parents I work with, that's a huge part of where we spend our time is just the parents developing the self regulation to be able to show up in that capacity in the first part but then we come in with like what are the actual tools and that's what we teach the four R's which is when it comes to logical consequences which is part of what we teach inside of our compassionate discipline toolkit we like to call it.
The four R’s is when you use you know a strategy or a tool with a kid when it comes to disciplining you want to make sure it's related, it's respectful, it teaches responsibility and it's reasonable. So a lot of parents like right away you'll know if you're in a punishment mindset if it has nothing to do with it. So big sister hits little sister and right away they get their ipad taken away like what does that mean?
That's just about control, that's just about feeling like in order to feel powerful, you have to dominate over your kids or there's a whole bunch behind it, but that's actually not going to teach a child self regulation around her hands to herself when she's PO-ed at her sister. So that's just one example within there we have a few different favorites. Role plays is one of my favorites with kids actually like sitting down especially with littles and having puppets or with my little guy, used to be matchbox cars.
Like if you got in trouble for talking in class, we'd line up the matchbox cars and we practice all right. So when you're at an assembly or so and so we actually a lot of times do it the way he got in trouble. And I'd ask him, how did you feel? What did the teacher say? Like, you know, were you embarrassed? What do you want to do tomorrow? Like how do you want, how do you want the day to go and then you redo it with the puppets or the role plays or the legos because kids learn so well through play. They love play.
So that's one idea and then redos as one of my student’s little girl called it rewinds where you actually like stop your kids and you're like, whoa, I'm not okay with you saying that to me. So let's back up and we're going to try that again. Again, connection, empathy, firm boundaries. I love you and I don't think you really meant to say you hate me. I think what you meant to say is you feel really mad right now or you feel hurt.
So I'm gonna give you an opportunity to try that again. We're gonna do a redo and and in the middle you might need to go do some self calming because not everybody can learn when they're in like a freak out mode but redos are spectacular for leaving new imprints on the brain. So instead of dropping your kids off for school and everyone's like mad at one another and you're like get out, we'll talk about this later.
You do a quick redo and they walk into their day with a fresh imprint on their brain with you asking for what you want and showing what you want. Those are just two examples of what logical consequences that are firm and kind can look like.
Laura: Yeah, I love those. And those are really careful teaching moments too. I think that logical consequences I think that the related and the reasonable peace and the respectful piece, what was the other R? Sorry. Related, reasonable, respectful
Wendy: teaches responsibility
Laura: And responsibility. Yeah. So I mean like I'm thinking about, you know for younger kids who like if a mom or dad finds their kid drawing on the wall, you know a great logical consequences that crayons get put up high until mom can actively supervise like that's a beautiful logical consequence.
Wendy: Yes. And you frame it as we're taking a break, we're going to take a break until we develop the skill set around this and you take responsibility for not having the time to teach it yet, right? Like that's a big thing I love to empower parents with is like the responsibility portion. Is it? I know it sure seems like it, but it's really not all their fault a lot of time.
Yeah, maybe they're modeled it or we just haven't taken the time to like teach them the self control lesson and sometimes they just are curious and they mess up, but I like that language of, let's, we're going to take a break. Not all right, that's it you're done no more crowns for you--crayons. I said crowns.
Laura: that's totally fine. I agree so much and I love that framing the responsibility, like recognizing where our responsibility lies. Like if we don't want permanent marker on our floors, we don't leave permanent marker accessible. And you know, I mean in those like, so there's lots of different ways to stay a limit around those things, but just saying like, oh! I see you're having a lot of fun drawing with those crayons, I can't let you draw on the wall and I can't supervise you right now.
So I'm gonna put the crayons away just temporarily until I can be with you and then there's also this piece of like recognizing the underlying need that they are communicating to you that drawing vertically like while you're standing. And those big arm movements on a wall, that is a thing that kids need to do. That's a gross motor movement that they need access to. So there's lots of ways that kids can get that without messing up your paint job on your wall. Although not all parents care about those things too.
And that's the other thing like I think is so important is that we get to choose what our limits are. Not all parents care about art on the walls or they might, you might redirect a kid to be like this. You can't draw on your walls, the walls in the living room if you need to draw on walls then go into your bedroom. You know like those are some parents are fine with those things. I guess we get to choose our boundaries and our limits.
Wendy: Yeah. And the drawing on the wall is a great example. I mean we could go like so deep into this, I love this subject so much but another logical consequence is that they have to clean it up, they have to help you know, so they figure out, you know, they might like crayons for me that I love those magic erasers that you know maybe they have to do a few jobs around the house and they have to save up a little bit of money to contribute to the $2 purchase the next time you go to the grocery store of the magic erasers which work really well on crayons and then they help you, they help you clean up.
But lot like again it's it's related and they're actually learning the responsibility piece. So if you make a mess you clean it up. It's just so clean when you're teaching your kids that way. And it's such a journey to get out of the freak out point because a lot of times like I have clients who they've been, they've been working with me for a long time and they'll still, you know, eight months later be like, what is this piece of me that just when I yell or when I see the crayons around the wall.
It's like I feel like I have to make sure they know how upset I am and it's just something we get to shake overtime if we're willing because you can let a child know that you're not happy and you don't need to scare or intimidate them or feel like you have to create an unsafe environment in your home.
Laura: Right. And teaching the healthy boundary of emotional responsibility that we're responsible for our own emotions when this. “Yes, I'm frustrated and it's my job to take care of it. It's not your job to fix that for me”. So important. Yeah. Okay.
So something that I see a lot and I've never been able been able to really have this conversation on the podcast before, but I see people mix up natural consequences and logical consequences. Can we just clear the air a little bit on those? Do you have a way that you teach parents the difference between a natural consequence and the logical consequence?
Wendy: Yes. So natural consequence is when you don't have to intervene and life does the trick, which is always going to be the best way. So whenever we can, so this is when we resist the helicopter parenting and we actually like, we always say, you don't want your child to get hurt for sure.
And like if you've asked them to put on their shoes 50,000 times to scooter and they're finally comes a time when they stub their toe a little bit, that stubbing of the toe is actually going to teach them way more than your nagging threatening bribing and all the things to put the shoes on. So yeah, so, natural consequences again is always our first go to if we can, but you have to have the courage to allow your children to fail and then not rub it in their face. So it looks like instead of saying, well, see I told you that's what happens, that's what happens when you mess with your brother.
That's what happens when you pull the dog's tail? No, I told you so it has to be like, ah the dog just bit, you looks like it hurt. What did you learn from that? And I just actually wrote about this yesterday on instagram like what different choice can you make tomorrow? Not a better choice but a different choice, like, what different choice can you make tomorrow so you don't get bit by the dog? You know, just about last week in our membership we had a real life example of a perfect natural consequence that was intense but it was good.
One little boy whose whose family is really diligently working hard to end painful generational cycles in their home. But they have reactivity going on and it is deep and this little guy, man, what a journey he's on. I love this kid so much, but he's eight now and he was at the pool and they were his friends were like playing pretend dunk, you know, I hate that game in the pool.
And he got so mad that he came out of the pool and he said F you to one of his friends and later like he went to knock on the door the next day to play and the mom was like you can't play with my kid. So the mom didn't have to do anything even though it didn't didn't quite unroll as cleanly as it should’ve because it became a pretty dramatic in their home. But that is an example of a natural consequence because your child messes up and he's not allowed to play with another little boy for a while and you get to support him through those really intense feelings and help him learn the self regulation skills.
So when he gets angry at someone trying to dunk him, which please child do get angry, don't let someone act like act like they're gonna drown you for fun. Speak up for yourself and let me teach you how to do it in a way where you're not going to lose friends over it, but mom doesn't have to intervene.
You don't have to double down on the--whereas logical consequences is when you do need to step in and you're supporting your child to learn the lesson because life is not necessarily going to be able to do it just instantly.
Laura: Yeah, I think that's something that's so important. And so you know, important I guess to highlight and to understand is that there's not always a logical consequence available for every scenario. There's not always a logical consequence that we're willing to tolerate. Like the or sorry, a natural consequence that we're willing to tolerate.
Like the natural consequence of a kid consistently running out into traffic is that that kid is going to get hurt. We could not let that happen. The logical consequence is that if you've got a runner, that runner is holding hands, that runner is strapped into a stroller, that runner is strapped on your body. You know, there's, those are the logical consequences there, you know, and then there's also natural consequences that take too long for young brains to remember and tie together, you know,
Wendy: Like the cavity.
Laura: Yes, a cavity. Exactly. My favorite example of a natural consequence in my house--we used to do bedtime snacks with my little ones as they were weaning from nursing. And so my youngest was about to, she just finished weaning and she was having a banana. Her bedtime snack most nights she was eating a banana we would be reading, should eat the banana and she just drop it off the side of the chair.
And every night, you know, it was a situation of like we can't just throw the banana on the floor, let's pick it up, let's throw it into the trash. You know, every night looks the good logical consequences. But one night I forgot that she had done it. She ate it quickly. We read a long story, I forgot that it was on the floor and we have hardwood floors. And so she popped up to go brush your teeth running out boom foot on the banana.
And it was like watching a cartoon, it was the whole like, you know, and I would never, it was never, it wasn't on purpose. It was a complete accident. Yeah. That child has never, ever forgotten to throw away any trash ever. You know, and I was four years ago, she still like whenever she finishes anything up, she hops into the trash, it goes, she's never forgotten it ever.
Wendy: It's such a beautiful example Laura because as parents, we have so much power whether that turns into like that's what happens when you make a mistake, that's what happens to you. And lots of us got that message when we were young, right? And it's like you go up to an adult and you're wondering why, like it's so hard to take risk in your business or with life for a conversation and you're like just the fear gets instilled young from like you better not mess up.
You know, when you're when you have this beautiful knowledge that we have access to today and you realize that you can just come beside a child and say, gosh, that looks like it was hard for you. What kind of different decision can you make tomorrow because you've got this and let me help you take care of you. What do you need to take care of yourself? Do you need an ice pack for your head? Thank God you didn't break a bone. I mean it's beautiful.
Laura: And like, I don't even know that it even has to be that overt even for some kids. Some kids do need help making those conclusions, but for some kids it just is a wow, that was scary qhat happened? Like I slipped mama Yeah, you slept, you slipped on the banana peel, I throw it away like and that's it just it like yeah.
I get up and throw it away and it was over, you know, and it doesn't have to be complicated and I think one of the things that really these natural consequences help us do is to do take heaviness and weight out of our relationship that we don't have our relationship does not have to bear the brunt of like negative learning.
Right? So the example from your community, her that child got to experience compassion and support from their parent. Their relationship did not need the burden of an extra punishment or an extra, you know, you said that word, we're losing screen time like they didn't that relationship didn't need any extra burden at that point in time.
Wendy: It didn't and in my experience that's what allows children to actually learn it because when you bring in the extra double dose shame get introduced and as soon as shame gets introduced, it freezes us as human beings and then you have whether it's a child or a parent, they're not able to make a different decision tomorrow because they're stuck in shame. Like what's wrong with me?
I'm so stupid, people hate me, No one likes me and it just like jacks up our system. So that family is a perfect example of like they are not going to give up, they didn't quite nail it on the head that day. They turned into a big power struggle and all these things and I'm so passionate about coming back and supporting families and saying, yeah, you can when your child makes a big mistake out in the world and there's a possibility the natural consequence might be there.
You can support them and you can help them through like the really intense emotions they might have around it because this little boy had like a flipped out about it and he wanted his mom to like go over there and make them play with him. I mean, he's really working hard to develop his self regulation skills just like his mom and dad are.
It's just some kids can like, you know, there's big emotions involved and I think the more practice you have, you can support them because it's not always so pretty and in a box of like, you know, a lot of times there's a lot of emotions involved and there's they're learning, they're still learning, but the more we can come beside them and make it about, what are they learning? We're here to support them. And that's that's how it works, is like really can be clean.
Laura: Yeah. And it doesn't have to be perfect. I think that that's something I just want to say like over and over again, you are allowed to be human, You're allowed to screw it up. It's never too late to walk something back to like there are plenty of times where I catch myself three minutes too late in a punitive mindset too, right? I'm like, Oh man, you know what that was a threat. I'm sorry. That's not what I want to do with you girls.
Let's give me a second. Okay, all right. This is what we're going to do. We're not going to do that. We're not going to, you know, that didn't feel good, that didn't feel good to you. It didn't feel good to me. That's not how I want to show up with you guys. It's never too late and it's never done.
Especially like you are saying some of your families are in doing big multi generational patterns. They're really doing a lot of healing for, not just for themselves or for their immediate family but for their entire lineage. A lot of healing happens in parenting and I think we've got to be really patient with ourselves.
Wendy: Yes. I mean it's literally like I have a tendency to get really intense about it, but I don't care. I mean when parents step into this and like really show up, it just lights me up because it is like big stuff. I just had my neighbor yesterday. She lost her best friend three years ago to a domestic abuse situation where both of them lost their life.
The husband came in and took her life and then took his own and I was just thinking about like how many families are never able to break that rage cycle-- that rage, right? Like that's just one example of like when a family shows up to do things different, especially when it comes to punishment. Like it's like literally changing the world.
I just think of like that same family of like this little boy has experienced really intense rage in his life and so has his parents and I just get to support them. We all get just like you and I are, it's like to support families who are like, I'm going to change this, like the buck stops here, like we're going to learn what to do with anger and we're going to learn how to process it effectively.
We're going to be in this together, we're never going to give up on one another and sometimes it's going to be really messy and we're going to keep starting fresh as many times as we need to, we can do this, we're together and we're just gonna keep learning.
But I just that story like was like, man, there's a lot of people who don't get that opportunity so what a blessing it is when you do hear this message and you do say yes and you do say yeah, I've got some stuff going on that I want to change. I don't want to react to my kids anymore like that.
Laura: It's so brave. I don't know about you, but I feel constantly just, so just in awe of the parents I get to work with you. They're so brave, they're so brave, so willing to look at themselves, even when it's hard, you know man, I just uh we're so lucky. Sorry listeners. I think you're amazing. We're just gushing for a second about how wonderful you are. My dear, beautiful listeners.
Wendy: Yes, I agree, Laura, it's just such an honor right to empower families and support them.
Laura: And I think about this like we're doing this to like, I think that it's so important. I don't know for me, it's really important that my community know that just because I teach this does not mean I get it right all the 100% of the time, you know, that's why compassion for yourself is just as important as compassion for your kids.
Wendy: Yeah, me too. I mean every time I mess up I'm like dang it, I got to go till the bonfire. Like just last week I came into my weekly support group and I was like, so I slammed the door today and like, and I like hit the gas, like aggressively in my sequoia after the kids were like fighting and we didn't get juice and that was more of a comical one. I can like laugh at myself now and I just always share with people.
But I mean I've written articles about how I've left bruises on my little boy's arm once and it still to this day, never like never feels good to tell you, keep telling people that, but it's important that I wrote about it and people were like, thank you and that was my easy going one. All my stories are about my strong-willed, beautiful little girl who's 13 now.
And Holy smokes like I have another article on the night I threw a book at her. Thank God it was soft cover and she did not get hurt, but yeah, I think that's so important when you are spending time with an educator or an encourager is that I just think it helps people when they realize you don't have to be perfect.
Everyone's on a journey and everyone has different things are working on, but you just have to have the bravery and the courage to show up and you get to decide what needs to change in your life. Painful generational cycles you want to break because it's not always about squeezing wrist too tight or shaming kids.
Like sometimes it's about just never being able to speak up for yourself. Like your mom never could or to never like in our home, peaceful conflict resolution did not exist. Like there were big blowups, there were big fights and then the next morning it was like, hi do you want syrup on your pancakes and it was like, no one's going to talk about this? Like, that to me is another generational cycle.
You know, it's like, well we can do it differently with our kids. We can have a rough moment and then take responsibility show up with humility, do redos, repair relationships, make amends and then do the work that we need to do to make a different choice tomorrow and then that trickles down to the next generation and the next generation.
Laura: Absolutely. Can I ask you a quick question about, I do get asked a lot from families who have, you know, are moving away from punitive measures, are moving away from hitting or spanking or timeouts, you know, they're yelling, they're stepping into more respectful and compassionate parenting.
And one of their big questions is how do I explain the changes that I'm making to my kids and how do I apologize for the past? How do I make it right?
Wendy: Yeah.
Laura: You have anything for those families?
Wendy: Yes, you make it right by keep showing up with an open heart to learn and grow and I believe that kids learn just as much from what we get so called right then like, so like just as much from the things we do that we then change and take a responsibility for as like the times when we're like, oh we nailed it or we always set that limit and followed through with respect or whatever.
So what you're teaching a small human when you say, hey look, I want to show you where I messed up and how I realized I'm not okay with that and I'm taking responsibility and I'm actually possibly even dropping to my knees and I'm telling you that like I'm going to change, I'm showing up. This is what was done to me in my home and I'm not gonna do it anymore. Thank God I found a new teacher and I want to introduce you to her.
This is Miss Laura or this is Miss Wendy. I listen to them every week and I spend time with them and they're teaching me how I'm going to teach you without hitting you and so I need your help and we're going to learn together because I believe we are learning together. Like I always say to families that our kids are often our greatest teachers. My daughter has been my greatest teacher in life, one of them, and we're learning this together and it's gonna be amazing.
So that's kind of how I encourage people to show up. Show them the books you're reading, show them the courses you've invested in, show them how to push play on the podcast when you put your earbuds in calm air buds. My kids are like “Mom, they’re airpods”, but like show them like, this is Mrs Laura's face, this is who I listen to each week, she's helping me love myself, even though I've made mistakes with you in the past.
But that teaches a child so much. It's more about the like you're not damaged goods just because you spent five years spanking your kid. Like it's so much more important that you show your child what it looks like to learn a new way and pivot and be willing to do that. So those are some thoughts about that.
But the thing is, parents need to know is that sometimes it does, it can get tricky and when you're moving out of it, because if a child has been used to external control methods and they haven't been controlled themselves a lot of times, they will start like either kind of freaking out a little bit and pushing pushing pushing even harder to get you to have that response because they're used to it. It's like an unhealthy dance that as soon as you break away from the dance, they're like, wait a second, you're supposed to now come in and yell at me and then you're supposed to threaten me.
And then if I don't listen, you're gonna make me listen by smacking me or whatever. And when you say, no, we're not doing that anymore. I refuse. I have a podcast episode called The Old Way is Dead and it's like, I believe parents, you have to look at it is like it's just no longer an option. It's 100% out. It can be tricky.
And sometimes kids will flare up a little bit more just to keep pushing and testing and you have to remain, stay the course and then with support and then you come out of it just so strong. So just know that families that you know, it's important that you have a support system.
Laura: Absolutely. I think something you alluded too much earlier that I feel like it's a good time to circle back to it. What about that self regulation piece? So if we grew up in homes where we were obedience punishment control was used on us, we likely didn't have a lot of opportunity to develop our own self regulation, right?
And so now we're giving kids the opportunity to develop those things by leaving those methods behind, but we also have ourselves to look after. And so do you have any recommendations for parents who are looking to gain those skills as well. So that they can get the space to parent their kids differently?
Wendy: Yes. So I think there's tactical things and then there's mind set things, right? So it's like, I always like to envision the like neuro pathway being formed by like actually walking through a forest and like you come to the fork in the road or whatever and you're like, okay, there's the path that gets you to the river where I want to go for afternoon swim in the sun--that path sure looks easy. Like it's pruned, it's open.
I know how to get there. It's like a seems like a straight shot this one over here though. I've heard there's like waterfalls and there's like all these amazing things and there's like deer on the way, like bunnies and like beauty just like exotic flowers and it takes you there too, but it's kind of unknown and I'm going to have to prune the way that I like to envision, like that's what you're doing when you're choosing the new way of self regulation and self control, especially if it was, it was not modeled to you.
So when someone triggers you and you are like, now I'm gonna take a deep breath, put my hand on. I mean we teach all these tactical things like pause buttons and heart connectors. You take a deep breath, you find a healthy intention. We teach families to make like calming bags where they have calming bags, their kids have calming bags; teaching to walk outside all these things, but like when you do that and it feels so weird, it feels permissive.
It feels weak like you're just going to let your child spit on you. Well when you're developing self regulation, you might need to walk in that backyard for four minutes and for that four minutes you're going to feel so permissive because you're literally going through the forest and there's like precursor, it's just, it can just be painful in the beginning.
So you just have to have this mindset of by the time I prune the path and every time you do it, you get a little bit more confident that you can come back in five minutes to a child who is made a big mistake or had this big emotional outburst and for that four minutes you just successfully taught what self-control looks like.
So it's things like you're calming your own self nervous system which is good for our bodies. It is not healthy for us to have hearts coming out of our chest and heart palpitations and all these things. So you're taking care of yourself, but then you're also teaching your child like you can be strong, firm and kind and not be okay with someone spitting on you or hitting you or saying something unkind or even like simple things it can like I have a neighbor who was like we had to start spanking our kid because he was like rolling his eyes and that's blatant disrespect. So like some families are like whoa you can't just walk away or self calm when a child rolls his eyes. So that is the only way to teach a child how to self regulate and self calm.
Laura: is by modeling it.
Wendy: It is. To me it's the only way.
Laura: Yeah, you know what, you know and what you see kids are learning from us in that way.
Wendy: Yeah, it is a journey when you are triggered and but the cool thing is as kids, they just give us all these opportunities. like the same thing happens with our neighbors and our colleagues or things but like our kids just give us all of our opportunities to practice the self calming is actually like the biggest thing we teach and a compassionate discipline toolkit. It's the number one thing I make sure parents understand: Has to be what they work on 1st.
Laura: Always, it has to be, it has to be first because otherwise you're just going to go down that path that's so deeply ingrained in you. You're just gonna get sucked right back into it.
Wendy: Yes and it's so strong if you can just remember, like how strong it is like it is just not, it's just a myth that it's weak because later is always the best time to teach when emotions are heightened. Nobody can be a teacher, no one can be a learner just doesn't work well. So the teaching needs to come when the brain is like stable, right?
Laura: When the brain is in a state where it can learn. Yeah, and that goes for both people. The brain that is doing the learning and the brain that is doing the teaching; they both need to be in a nice synced up calm space where they can both be available to each other. Like both of the brains need to be calm.
Wendy: Yeah but in that midterm while you're doing it you just have to think of your favorite mentor or think of this conversation and just maybe have some affirmations or something I am statement of like, what actually makes you strong because culture will tell you that strength is when you puff up on a kid and put your finger in their face and make sure that they know they are not allowed to talk to you or else there'll be a big, that's what culture will tell you strength is and it's actually not strength.
True power comes in influencing and motivating a child through connection and all those things that doesn't come through just overpowering because you're bigger and you can take away more and scare them into complying.
Laura: Thank you, Wendy, for this conversation. This was beautiful and lovely and I so appreciate it. Why don't you make sure everybody knows where they can find you on social media so they can follow you-- and this is something too that I feel so called to say and I think you probably join me in this is that these tools, what we're talking about here are something that I want all parents to have access to and to learn and I don't care who they learn it with. So it sounds like you've got a membership in courses, so do I, I don't care who you take the courses with, go to.
If Wendy is speaking to you, go take her courses. You know if if you want to take them with me, take them with me, I don't--go to find the teacher that resonates with you that is going to hold the space for you that you need to step into these changes. So and with that spirit in mind Wendy, where can they find you if their hearts are calling them to work with you.
Wendy: Thank you, Laura. The best way I say is right away, just grab a free guide that I have. I love love love supporting families with strong-willed kids. My little strong-willed, amazing little girl like I said, I found this work when she was three--she is now 13 and I just get so fired up to help parents really see these kids in a light where they can have joy and peace by raising these amazing human souls. So you can grab that free guide to Raising Strong-willed Kids with Integrity over on the website. But it's fresh startfamilyonline.com/strong-willed-kids. That's the best place to start. And then I'm @freshstartwendy on Instagram and I'm the Fresh Start Family show over on Itunes or wherever you listen to Podcasts.
Laura: Awesome. Well thank you so much, Wendy. This was such a good, heart warming, kind of life-affirming conversation so I really appreciated it.
Wendy: Well, thank you for having me. You are such a light Lord. I'm so grateful for the work you're doing in the world. Thanks for being a light spreader and thanks for having me.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from.
And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shoutout um and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.
All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!