Episode 220: How to Heal Intergenerational Trauma for the Next Generation with Judy Wilkins-Smith
/Welcome to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast! Dr. Laura Froyen welcomes Judy Wilkins-Smith, author of The Hidden Power in Your DNA, to discuss how understanding our ancestral patterns can help us parent from a place of awareness and intention.
Here are some of the topics we covered:
How a deeper understanding family dynamics and intergenerational trauma fosters healing and growth
Recognizing and shifting from parenting based on past wounds to a more intentional and healing-centered approach
Setting boundaries to maintain healthy parent-child roles and break cycles
Transforming inherited emotional patterns to foster healing, growth, and possibilities for both parents and children
How to support children in understanding and processing their inherited family history
Shifting perspectives on our parents by understanding their own background and traumas
Creating balanced family patterns by setting boundaries with compassion and awareness
To learn more about Judy, visit her website judywilkins-smith.com and follow her on Instagram @judywilkinssmith, Facebook @judywilkinssmith, LinkedIn @judywilkinssmith and Youtube @judywilkinssmith.
Resources:
Remember, understanding where we come from empowers us to parent with greater awareness, intention, and compassion—both for ourselves and for our children.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. 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 Doctor Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of the Balanced Parent podcast, we are going to be having a really dynamic and exciting conversation about how to use some of our ancestral patterns to parent from the best place possible. I'm really excited about this topic. So many of you are looking to undo intergenerational harm that's been done. You're looking to change the way that you parent looking to maybe do things differently than how your parents did it. And the author that I have here today is going to help us learn to see patterns, ones that are harmful, and then maybe some that are beneficial so that we can actually move towards. Feeling in a way that honours our past and moves forward with a sense of adventure and connection. So, Judy Wilkins-Smith, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you. Will you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Judy: Well, first of all, I'm so excited to be here with you. So thank you for having me. So what do I do? I am a systemic work and constellations facilitator, in addition to being an executive coach. So I get to see it all. I get to see the families, and I get to see what kind of leaders they become. And I do a lot of that in 3D. So what that looks like is, if I have a, a live event, if you bring me something that you want to work with, we will choose representatives for the different parts of what you want to work with. And it is, it's not just posturing. It's not psycho drama. It's literally allowing you to see the patterns that exist in your system in 3D. And that, that starts to make connections, because the minute you see it and hear it, and listen to your own conversations with what's going on, you begin to get that multi-sensory connected experience. So you have a full body experience of what's really going on. Instead of trying to solve it in your brain, we take it and put it out in front of you. And you get to then see, so if I change this bit, what would it look like over here? So it's, it's really playing with your life in 3D.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, I really like that. You know, when my clients, I do something similar where like I teach about triangles, and triangles are a very basic pattern of communication and interaction within families. That often are not very functional, right? And so we can see when we are close to one person, the other person feels left out. And if we make shifts, then there's a change in the other one. And so I, I love even thinking about that from a bigger perspective. I'm curious if you can share with our listeners, an example or, you know, somebody that you've worked with recently, you know, obviously being protecting their privacy, but just to kind of bring that to life for us.
Judy: So, I'm gonna go with the person, and, yeah, I have permission to, to share what I share, and I'll share kind of very generically anyway. But I, I look at our origins and who we are and how they affect us. And I had someone who came in and she said to me, I want to do a piece of work, but I want to do it with my back to the group. And I went, oh, okay. She said, yes, because I don't want them to see me because I'm really not worthy. And I said, okay, wait, what does what not worthy look like? Well, I really, really want to belong in my family, and I don't. And I really want to belong. I mean, my parents are, are super stoic, and my brother fits right in because he is too And I'm bubbly and I'm loving, and, and I don't fit in, and I really want to fit in with them. And I said, Do you have family of your own? She said, Yes, I'm married. I have children. What do you like with that family? Lovely. It's amazing, but I want my parents. And it's amazing how often, even though we may be angry with them, we want our parents. She wanted her parents. And she said, you know, all they ever give me are just little drops of love. Just little drops of love. And I pay particular attention when I'm working with people to their feelings, their actions, and their words language because we're tackling on ourselves all day long.
So I said to her, okay, so, so little drops of love. Yes. Just little drops of love. So I said, tell me about your parents. And she said, Well, they were Holocaust survivors, and, and, she goes on about her brother. And I said, stop, stop. So you're telling me they're stoic. They show no emotion. You're very, you show emotion. And she said, Yes. I said, in, in the holocaust, what would have happened if they did show emotion? She said, Oh, they could have been killed. So I said to her, but do you understand that they gave you little drops of love? In other words, they gave you the little bits that they could said, Yes. I said, look what you turned it into. You turned it into so much love in the family. And she went, So you mean I belong? And I said, Yeah, you belong. And, and it was a huge shift for her. And I think all too often, we look at prior generations and we go, I don't belong. I'm never going to do it like my mother did it or my father did it. They were awful. I don't want that for me. And then, as I said to you earlier, we start to parent from the wound. In other words, I will never do it like. Instead of saying, thank you, because of you, I know to do it differently. thank you.
Laura: Yeah, let's just even hold that out. Instead of saying, I will never do it like you saying, you showed me how I can do it differently.
Judy: Absolutely. And that's a huge gift.
Laura: And I, I just wanna be super clear for our listeners too, because some of our listeners have sustained very real trauma at the hands of their parents. And, and so I know, but I just want to make sure everyone knows, Judy, that you're not saying that any of that was okay or that we deserved any of that, or that we needed it, but it's about shifting your, the angle from which you look at it, right? Of course, it wasn't okay. We didn't need it to happen that way in order to learn this lesson, and at the same time, it did happen. We can't change that. And so now, how are we gonna look forward?
Judy: You cannot change it, but how can you use it?
Laura: Yes, how can we use it?
Judy: That's it. So no, you can't change it. I've worked with people who've had awful things happen to them. But I see them develop into two branches. One that says, I'm bitter, I'm angry. I will distance myself from that parent forever. I hate them. What they did was terrible. And then I see the others who go, okay. It was terrible. It was, I'm angry. What was my mother like with her mother? What was her mother like with her mother? And suddenly, they start to get a picture of how did this happen to me.
Laura: Yeah.
Judy: And that's a very different way of looking at it. And then I'll, I will have generations where we've had generations of mothers who either weren't there for their children or fathers, or they, they beat their children, which is a whole other discussion because what that means in one generation, it doesn't in the next.
Laura: Yeah.
Judy: And, suddenly, when, when we're talking, they begin to see the context. And context is everything. When they see that my mother was beaten, my grandmother was beaten to within an inch of her life, and suddenly I realised that my mother yelled at me, but she never beat me. There's already been a shift. And then I'm the next link that goes, Well, I don't even have to yell at my kids. I can actually take all of what happened. And be the change agent. I'm the one who gets to make a little bit of magic. And so, so even when you had the most awful things happen to you, you're the one who, if you choose. Gets to make a little bit of magic. And, you know, I think of that often because my father, when he was 7, his father walked out on them.
And he then became the, the surrogate spouse, for want of a better word, the man of the house. But he always said that when he had us as children, that was when he got to be a child and grow up. So he regrew himself. And I watched him, he would play with us. And he would just about be in tears because with the joy of being a kid but then growing up and he could hold both spaces. And, yeah, I'm watching your face. And yeah, this is what happens. It's, you don't have to suffer. You don't have to be stuck. You get to grow your kids and you in phenomenal ways. And you get maybe to have compassion for a parent. who didn't know any better and couldn't do any better.
Laura: Yeah. And actually, maybe did the best that they could.
Judy: Absolutely. I had a, a gentleman who came to one of my classes, and he said to me, How can a son like me hate his mother so much? And he called her a couple of terrible names. And I said to him, Let's, let's go and look at your mom. Talk to me about your mom. Talk to me about your mom as a kid and growing up. And he said, Oh, well, she was the eldest of 5 kids. And when she was 7, she used to go down to the, the bar every month. At the end of the month, and the, the bar, the barman who she knew at 7, would give her her father's check. Because the money would come in at the end of the month. He'd go to go and drink it all. The barman would take the check and give it to her. She need to go to take it to her mom so they could cash it. Her mom was depressed. She would do the grocery shopping. I said, Mark, let's put a representative up over there for a 5 year, at least a 7 year old who has to do that kind of thing in bare feet, because there wasn't enough money for shoes. Please tell me how much you hate her now. And he just sobbed. And he said, I've never looked at her that way. No. She never got to have the chance that you did. And she never got, she never got to cry like you did. She had to man up and be that person. And we don't always look at our parents that way. We also don't look at some of the courage that we've had to have. When parents have, have not been easily available or haven't been there the ways that we wish parents were available. But you can be the parent you wished you had. And that begins a very different journey.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, I really like that, I like everything that you're saying. And I'm 100% positive it resonates with the people who are listening. I, I keep having these, this visual of, of your dad, being so happy, being able to play, being able to have a childhood that he never got to have.
Judy: Right.
Laura: And I think what resonates for me is, you know, a lot of what we talk about here is doing some of that inner child work and doing it in the here and now with your kids, allowing yourself to be,, re-parented in the moment as you are parenting better towards your own children. I wanted to circle back to this, this idea of how we sometimes end up parenting from the wound, and what the alternative is. And like, how do we go about doing that? I, obviously, I know we have, you know, 30, 40 minutes together and you can't tell me all of the things. But like, what are, what are some like uh the steps we can take to even be aware that if we are parenting from that wounded place as opposed to Attempting to heal that wound and, and moving is shifting. Like, what is the alternative to parenting from the wound?
Judy: Yeah. So, the first thing to understand is that is to get that you're parenting from the wound. If you had a parent and you said, I will never, ever, ever do it like that, you're parenting from the wound. You're going to go there. What you're missing is, you have a parent with many parts. So the first thing you want to do for you is to say, what exactly do I not want to repeat? To, to hate the parent completely never serves you, because your parent is the source of all of the clues to a life that you could have. They, they have all of those clues. And you want to choose for yourself. What are the good pieces that I will take? What are the pieces I want to set down?
Laura: Okay.
Judy: Yeah. So that's, that's a really good first one, because if you don't, you're going to overindex. Then you will see that parent is completely bad. And here's the problem. You're going to repeat it. And you're going to pass that DNA on to your kids to repeat, because you don't just inherit physical DNA, you inherit emotional DNA. And your emotional DNA is what you're looking to change, and you can. So I had a client, and this is all illustrated perfectly. I had a client who came and he said, I hate my father. He's an SRB. I will never speak to him, and I will never parent that way. I will not acknowledge my father's place in my life or in my system. Well, that's a little difficult, cause your dad is your dad, whether you like it or not, that is your dad. And he, he was insistent. And eventually, what I did was I said to him, how many children do you have? 2 sons? I said, great. Can you, pick representatives for each of those 2 sons? And so he picked representatives, and we put them behind him, and he was facing his father. And I said, now turn around and tell your sons which one of them you're condemning to repeat the pattern, because you're going to. And he turned, snapped back around, and he said to his father, We need to talk. It's recognising that your parent was also once a child. And who was the parent as a child? Sometimes a very hurting child. You can't do anything about that, but you don't have to repeat that. Because if you If you don't look at that, you stand the chance of being that parent or repeating that parent as you grow up as a parent. And I promise you, you will get to a stage where you look at it and go, I open my mouth and out comes my mother.
Laura: I think we've all had that moment where our mom's or her dad's voice just pops out of our mouth, you know?
Judy: So, so that, that's the those are the two ones that you want to look at. The other thing is, don't look at your children and say, I will save you from the life that I had. It's not their business. That was your life. Their life is what you can give to them. Instead of trying to save them from the life you had, be responsible for creating a life that they can have.
Laura: Oh. Well, hold on. I just have to pull it out there. So It is not our job to save our children from the life we've had. It's our job to create the possibilities for the life they're going to have.
Judy: Exactly right.
Laura: Yes. Listen, pause it and relisten if you need to, so you can write it down.
Judy: And that's really, it's really important because it gives you an adventure and it pulls you out of being a victim of what happened. And into beginning to, to master an adventure that's really good. So you, you do not want to come at your kids with All of your anger and all of your sadness and keep trying to save them. Your kids will not pick up the being saved. They will pick up the anger and the sadness, and one of them is going to take it on because quite unconsciously they'll go, my poor mom is so sad, or my poor mom is so wounded. Mom, in so that you don't have to do it alone, I'll share it. And now you've just involved the next generation. You don't want to do that. If you are instead responsible for an adventure they can have, guess what? You're growing you and you're growing them. Now you're not parenting from the wound. You're actually, and you'll find yourself more gracious, more compassionate, more understanding. And you may even in this generation, learn that no is a really acceptable full sentence that your children need to understand. I have a lot of now generation who say, we don't say no to our children because it excludes the possibilities.
Laura: Yeah.
Judy: You need to say no sometimes so that they also understand a framework. Because if you give them a framework, they get to know what's inside that framework, what's outside, and how they can grow through it. If you give them nothing, they have nothing. They're very confused. In fact, I have a lot of parents who go, I don't know what it is with my kids. The nicer I am, the more they escalate. They are asking you to fulfil your role as a parent and quit trying to be the oldest kid.
Laura: Yeah. Absolutely.
Judy: Don't do that.
Laura: Right. So it's about finding that balance of being compassionate and understanding while holding the boundaries and holding the responsibility of being the grown-up, of being the parent within the home. Even when kids push back against that, holding that that position in the family is important.
Judy: It's super important because if you don't, one of your children will fill your place. If mom can't hold her position, one of the kids will suddenly step in and try and be mom. And now you've done them an awful disservice because they're mothering you instead of the other way around. And you cause confusion. So you don't want to do that the other thing, of course, is if, and then we have lots of single moms and single dads, don't make your kid a surrogate spouse.
Laura: Yes.
Judy: Please.
Laura: Yes, 100%.
Judy: Let them be a kid. Your job is to be the parent. Their job is to be the kid. There is another piece with that. Yes, your job is to be the parent. Yes, their job is to be the kid. That doesn't mean they get to be horrible. You need to understand that this is a two-way relationship. There are expectations on their side, but there are expectations on your side, too. You're not there to be abused twice around. So don't do that. If you allow your kids to do that, you're not teaching them how to be in the world and how to be kind and compassionate and understand their place in the world. They have no idea. They will just push, and eventually, you've got the tail wagging the dog, and they're not happy either.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, I'm loving these, these things. And so I just wanted to sum up for our listeners. The, the first step I almost see like an exercise, sitting down with a journal, and just if you have that relationship with one or both of your parents, I'm never going to be like them. I'm never gonna do that. Sitting down and being very specific about what it is made with a piece of paper. I like to take, I love it, you know, the like standard printer paper, fold it in half when I'm making lists and you know, lengthwise. And then on one side, what I wouldn't want, and then on the other side, what I do want to take away from my parent, cause, you know, I have a complicated relationship with my dad, and at the same time, I know I could fill in an entire page of all his positive traits, right?
Judy: Absolutely.
Laura: And then the piece, the next, kind of the next step after that. I just lost my train of thought. Can you?
Judy: It's fine. So what you do is you make the, what can I take? What do I want to leave? Right? What you want to leave, you, you literally tear the piece of paper in half and go and put it on the opposite side of the room. Just do that. It's, you're getting that embodied experience of it. You can put the site that's it. You can put it on the opposite side of the room, and you can say to them, that belongs with you. I choose to do that bit differently. And then write down what it is that you want to do differently. Because otherwise, you're, you're just going to, you're going to waddle around in Neverland. Write down what your adventure looks like. And then here's, here's your piece. But you've also got what I want to keep. Because even if all you can write down is they gave me life. That is something. And I have had clients like that. Adoptees especially. I don't know my parents. They just gave me life. Yes, they gave you life. Keep that. It's a good plan. But what is it that you want to put down? I want to stop the anxiety, whatever it looks like, put that down. But take something from them. Because for as long as you do that, you allow the link intergenerationally to continue, which means you will get curious enough to go looking at your lineage, not just to see where you belong, but also to understand the events that may have shaped your grandparents, your parents. And are threatening to shape you unless you shift. Very important to have access to that.
Laura: Okay. And so I think the other question I have then is, oh, I just, I also wanted to just bring up and highlight again this, this idea of approaching our kids and their and their lives from a place of creating possibilities and adventure for them, as opposed to saving them from the life that we were forced to have. I really like that distinction a lot. I very much appreciate it, Judy, because I think that a lot of us go into parenthood thinking, I just don't want to damage my kids the way I was damaged. Right? And you are, you are shifting that to have a very different perspective on how can I create as much possibility for my child, you know, as opposed to limiting them with this very small, narrow, I don't want you to have this, you know, versus, I want you to have what you need. This big expansive place.
Judy: Yes, there's another exercise that goes with that, that I would strongly recommend. Sit down and write because of my parents, I am.
Laura: Oh, okay. Yes.
Judy: And then, so what do I want to shift in that? And what do I want to acknowledge? Sometimes what I want to shift is I am sad. Sometimes what I want to acknowledge is I am strong. So really start reframing those pieces for yourself, because you're going to find that this is a growing piece for you.
Laura: Yeah. Okay. Good. And when we see, when we, you know, so I do want to eventually get to your book, which I very much enjoyed. And I know that our listeners are interested in things like epigenetics and the way some of this is, you know, kind of, transferred across the generations, physically, emotionally if we are seeing, if we look back, you know, perhaps we even do our genealogy and we look at these patterns that stretch through the generations of our families if we're lucky enough to have access to that information. And we and we see those patterns like is what we're talking about how you start shifting them so often we we want like what do I do now that I see it, right? And so this is, that's what we're talking about, right?
Judy: Yes, yes, you're the change agent. So when you see it, that's the pattern that wants to stop. And you go, okay, I got you. So I want to stop the depression in, in all of the, of the women, or the anxiety in all of the women. Okay. That's the pattern that wants to stop. What's the pattern that wants to start? Because you're it. So, so you look at that and go, I would love to be happy. I would love to not be depressed anymore. What do I need to do about that? You may have to go and see a physician who says, hey, let's do a reset for you and put you on these meds. You're the courage that the system is looking for. So you're the one who says, I'm gonna go and turn this around. Well, when you start to turn it around and suddenly you're happier, You're less anxious.
Guess what happens for your kids. They look at mom and go oh mom's happier. I can be happier, too. I understand this pattern. So they're mimicking your pattern. So with your changing and swinging it around, not only are you changing your children's emotional DNA, but you're changing with respect. You're changing the DNA that came from there. You're giving it a place of respect or acknowledgement, and now you're the one who's changing that. And yes, you know what, if you don't have your, if you don't have access to that, go spit in a bottle. You're going to get, you come from Eastern Europe, you come from this place. Then go and have a look at what are the big events in Eastern Europe that may be still affecting me now. And how am I changing that? Because the one thing you have is choice. You always have a choice.
Laura: Okay. So I, I feel you've used the term emotional DNA a couple times, and just, I, you know, I would love to get a kind of a, a working definition of what you mean by that.
Judy: So emotional DNA is your pattern of thoughts, feelings, and actions. And you inherit that as much as you do your physical DNA. The difference being you can do something about your emotional DNA, which, by the way, can then affect your physical DNA. We know that. You're living by the, the, biology of stress hormones, not great. When you start to shift that, you're no longer eating your body with those stress hormones. You're actually supporting your body with the dopamines and the, the hormones of love and whatever you want to call them. So you're literally changing your life, you're changing their lives. And you're looking at that and going, you know what? If I wasn't me exactly the way that I am, and I didn't have exactly the parents that I have, I didn't get to have this adventure. So again, who you are and who you become and how good you become is still with thanks to your parents, because they're the ones who created that place for you to be you.
Laura: Got it. Yeah. Oh I Yes, and I love the respect and the gratitude that you're giving to previous generations. I think it's really important if we want to move forward. In change from a from a good place from a compassionate place. I feel like it's really hard to heal when the wound is still raw and pushing it away. I feel like keeps the wound open as opposed to acknowledging it, being respectful and compassionate, and then choosing actively a different path.
Judy: I always invite people I work with to go to the wound. And then let's work at the wound and see how it shifts. Now tell me how you're feeling.
Laura: Yeah.
Judy: You're still down there, or have we come up a step or two? And how does that feel?
Laura: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I feel curious about how to support our kids in in some of this. So, just as an example, my two daughters are great grandchildren of holocaust survivors.
Judy: Right.
Laura: Yes and in a myriad of other traumas along the way, right? And so I, and I feel curious about if we start seeing these thought patterns, right, that are handed down, you know, cognitive distortions, and, and we see them in ourselves and then we start seeing them in our kids. Like, what can we be doing in real time in the here and now on changing some of those things for ourselves and for them.
Judy: So, Jewish, right?
Laura: My, no, so my husband's grandparents were catholic resistance fighters and Auschwitz.
Judy: Wow. So, okay, that's, that's quite a big one. I mean, that's a big one. What you want to start with the kids is, do you know that in our family, we're incredibly brave. We're incredibly good at standing up for the right sort of things. Yeah, it's cost people along the way, but it's brought us to amazing places. So it's really getting them to see the Holocaust had those effects. I always say to people, when they say, you don't understand the suffering that our forefathers went through, and that we carry. Yes, but you don't understand the promise that you carry. And that's what you've got to focus on. You're the promise. You're the ones who stand up and say, I'd like you to see what became of my great grandfather's children. This is who we are. We are incredible. And yeah, I'm watching again as I'm talking to you. They're, they're incredible. You're incredible. Your husband is incredible. Have you turned around and looked at them and at, at your forefathers and said, Thank you, because of you, us.
Laura: Yeah, you know, okay, so my audience knows that I met like a big crier, so I do cry at times on this podcast.
Judy: Okay.
Laura: My audience also knows that I have a complicated relationship with my mother-in-law. Whoa, of course, is the, the conduit through all this came through. And I think about how just just how like rageously proud of her son she is, my husband. Yeah, you just I don't know. How can you helped me see her in a different way.
Judy: Yeah, exactly that, because she, you just said something. She is outrageously proud of her son. Could you be outrageously proud of his mother?
Laura: I mean.
Judy: And her origins. And oh my goodness, there is a story.
Laura: Oh, there's a huge story there, she's amazing. She left communist Poland at 16, thinking she would never get back cause she won a lottery to get a visa to the US. I mean, she's amazing, amazing person. And I, I just feel like I haven't viewed all of her, so I really appreciate that in that invitation to see her as a whole person. With a story as opposed to how some of her more challenging characteristics impact my life.
Judy: Of course. And, and they are there. That goes back to that little piece of paper, doesn't it? That's what I want. And here's what I don't. You have an amazing story, and it lives in my children. And my children are the ones who will also show like we do. Not just the gratitude, but look, look at what you produce because of the courage and the resilience. Look, look what we are. Look who we are. Because of you.
Laura: Yeah, oh, that's beautiful. You know, I think a lot of the people that I work with have a lot of disagreements with their parents or their in-laws because they are doing things differently. They are disciplining in a way that it's very foreign to lots of, you know, the older generation. And I think a lot of those folks, that the grandparents, gosh, I think that they would love to be met from a place of this type of compassion, compassionate humility is kind of just awareness of I, we are able to parent our kids this way because of things you went through.
Judy: That's the biggest thing is exactly that. If you look at it, if you look at the generations before, they've all had wars and things to contend with. Less so now, which, which means that they can parent differently. But being parented the way they were often kept them safe.
Laura: Just kept them safe.
Judy: And they don't understand that. Often kept them, I think many grand, I listened to many grandparents saying, I'm dying to go and say something. I'm not allowed to. I'm not allowed to say no, and I'm not allowed to parent the way that I know. And I wonder where the space is for their hearts to be there. There are, I will tell you, there are a lot of very heartbroken grandparents.
Laura: I know. Yeah, absolutely there are.
Judy: Yeah. And this generation's not seeing it. And if they don't, they will be the generation who has the biggest heartache, because their children are going to do the same. And they're going to go, why we gave you everything. If you don't understand the connections, you're going to fall.
Laura: And those, and those, if we are creating a new pattern, we better be dang sure that it's one we want to see repeated, right? So if we are creating a pattern of really firm boundaries with no wiggle room and no compassion, and no ability to to see the whole person, and we end up cutting off, are we prepared to see that? That same level of boundary setting happened, where we're on the receiving end of it, you know, it's a really interesting question, you know, it's, it's something that I think, I, gosh, I feel for the struggle of the parents so much because they are so deeply invested in this role. The parents who are listening to this podcast and other podcasts are, oh man, they are deeply invested in their kids, and at the same time, you know, I, so there has to be a balance, right? There has to be a balance of being able to be protective of your kids, of allowing for that space of potential and possibility and adventure for them, right? And at the same time, I just really appreciate this invitation that you've given us today to really see the whole picture, to see the whole person and see how we can make room. For that in our story moving forward.
Judy: Yeah, how do we make room for the generation before us who is the ones who are really dying to be grandparents and aren't allowed. They're excluded because bear in mind, you're creating a pattern that's going to expand and repeat. So you too will be excluded. So when you look at the pain in your parents' eyes, you're looking at your future. Be very careful.
Laura: Oh, that is a tough pill to swallow, Judy.
Judy: Yep. And also, the, the other invitation is the fact that you can parent your children a little less strictly comes because of your parents who have to. Don't forget that.
Laura: I think that is a really important thing that the type of parenting that I teach on this podcast is a privileged position, like people, you, you cannot do this type of parenting in all settings and in all points in history. You would not have been able to, right? And so we, we do owe a lot to previous generations to get us here to this point where we have the level of security, you know, have the level of, you know, just human needs being met on such a broad level that we can then attend to these more nuanced levels of, of parenting.
Judy: Very, very lucky. And, and if you, it's not even lucky. It's thanks to the work of those who came here. But then use it wisely. Be really cognizant of using it wisely. And also no boundaries for kids. Teaches them, does not teach them that everything's possible. It doesn't. It teaches them confusion.
Laura: Right? We all have to have boundaries, even just for ourselves, even if you're living alone by yourself and never interact with anyone, you still have to have boundaries with yourself. You have to put your phone away, you have to go to bed, you have to feed yourself, you have to give you know, like those are all boundaries, right?
Judy: They are. I think we get confused between boundaries and possibilities. We're scared that if we put in any boundaries, we kill the possibilities. That's not true. If you put in boundaries, people know, here's the framework. And, and once I understand this game, I can build on this game. But if they have no framework, they have no game.
Laura: And I can make it my own, right? So once I understand this framework, then I can then I know how I want to shift it, and I know how I want to make it. And I know how to move in other places that I need to.
Judy: Yeah. Exactly. I think the other thing that frightens me is, is I see, I don't even know what you would call and even think it's helicopter parents who give their children so much that they completely disable their children. And I've worked with some of them, the children go, well. I don't know what to do with my life. I mean, I have everything, so what am I doing now? They've never been taught. The one basic thing, and that is that life is an adventure, and it's yours. We just give them everything and they're lost. Life is an adventure, and it's yours. But you've got to start creating the goals. You've got to start creating the wants. And I would like to see that created for kids from Tiny. What is it that you want to do today? How far did you get? What did that feel like? What is it that you'd like to do when you're 6 or 7? So we're starting to teach them to move in the direction of, of purpose. And the purpose has always got to be bigger than where you are now, because otherwise you're going to have couch potatoes.
Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. Oh I love those conversations with my kids. We have conversations like that all the time, and they're so lovely and beautiful, and they shift and they change and I think there's nothing better than, you know, my youngest has always been a kind of a person who finds herself in existential crisis. She's always, I mean, gosh, she started questioning like the origin of man at 5 and like, you know, so she's 9 now. We spent like 30 minutes talking about what her purpose is and will her purpose change and how will she find out what it is and you know.
Judy: She's already linked to your holocaust people. She's the one who senses that there's purpose. She's linked to the ones who had purpose. So what is her version of purpose? Where they had to struggle and, and it was dangerous? What is her opportunity to be great and happy? And to give that story that started back then, the most amazing next chapter. You're wow. At 9 years old, that's a wow. She needs vision boards and done boards. You know, vision boards and done boards. Vision board is, you'll know, the board is every time something happens, take it off and migrate it to the other board because you can see what you're accomplishing.
Laura: Oh, fun. That sounds like a really fun exercise to do. Gosh, you know, I've never even done a vision board for myself. Maybe that would be fun to do, just even as a family.
Judy: It's so fun as a family, because you're going to look at, oh my goodness, we did that, we did that. Take it off. Let's see what the new dreams are. That keeps you growing and growing and growing.
Laura: Okay. Oh, gosh, you know, my kids are homesick from school today, like, they're not super sick, so maybe we can even do this today or tomorrow if they're feeling better but not ready to go to school. I love this, Judy. Thank you so much.
Judy: You're so welcome.
Laura: Oh my gosh, I, so I have a feeling that our listeners are gonna want to know where they can find you and learn more from you. Will you tell us?
Judy: Absolutely. So they can find me on Instagram, Spotify, Facebook, YouTube, any of the, basically, any of the places where there is media, you'll find me. They can also find me at judwilkinssmith.com. And you'll see my events for the year. I've got two events this year that are gonna go up. One will be probably in July, the other one will be at the end of October at Disney World and oh yeah, and that's 4 days of deep, interactive, looking at your patterns, seeing what you want to do. In fact, I think it's gonna be called or titled Ignite the Spark. So, so what is it that you need to ignite to have your adventure as a parent, as an individual, as a, whatever it is? What is it that you need to move your adventure forward because you're part of one, but you're the change agent.
Laura: I love that. Yeah, I call, you know, I call my parents that I work with, inflexion points. They're the, the point where the, the story changes. I love that.
Judy: Yes.
Laura: Yes. Thank you, Judy, so much. It's been such fun to be with you.
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 shout out 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!