Episode 179: How Acceptance Can Transform Your Parenting with Andee Martineau
/In this podcast episode, we dive into how acceptance transforms parenting. Our guest, Andee Martineau, a mom of 6, the author of the book “Connect Method Parenting”, and the creator of Connect Method Parenting: a breakthrough parenting framework that leverages connection as the primary mechanism for influencing children.
In this episode, Andee and I discuss the following:
How to stop yelling and communicate effectively
Why bribes and ultimatums do not work
Concept of acceptance and alternative approaches to handling difficult situations
Six acceptance questions from the Connect Method Parenting book
How to practice acceptance while holding boundaries and limits
To connect directly with Andee, you can email her at andee@expandedlife.com, her website connectmethodparenting.com, Instagram @andeemartineau, Facebook page Connect Method Parenting and her podcast Connect Method Parenting.
Resources:
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. I'm Doctor Laura Froyen and I host The Balanced Parent Podcast. And I'm so excited to be talking about this topic with, with you Andee. So my background is I have a PHD in Human Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy. And I really love coming alongside families and helping them parent in the way that feels really good to them, really aligned with their values and focus on connection. And I feel like you're the same. And do you want to get a little bit about you?
Andee: I will, I'm so excited for this conversation that because as we were chatting before we hit record, you know, there's like we were like, what do we want to talk? There's so many things we could talk about. And the, and the cool thing is how aligned we are on our purpose and mission. So I'll just briefly introduce, I'm so excited that we're gonna get this on both of our podcasts. But my name is Andee Martineau and I have six kids and I'm very passionate about sharing an approach to parenting that's based in developmental psychology, that's based in attachment theory that honors emotions and just really helps us understand what it takes to be in a relationship with our child. And with our ourselves, to be honest, where our nervous systems are regulated and our kids are more open to what we have to say to the feed. We have, I have lots of teenagers and adult kids now. And so that's important all throughout. But especially as they're getting to be more independent to have that relationship and so of honesty, of openness. So I'm so excited we're going to talk about some of the, like the things we're going to dive in today are going to be really pertinent. If you are in a, if you're, if you're parenting and you're feeling resistance and you're feeling a lot of frustration, we both understand. We both get you and, and we're going to dive into that because that's something that can be really hard as a parent. So, yeah.
Laura: Andee so I, I'm sure you hear the same thing, but I hear from parents all the time that they, they really want to be respectful, compassionate, conscious parents and they want their kids to, to listen to them, they want to feel heard and respected themselves as, as adults and, and it's really hard. It's, it's so easy to say you're committed to something and then the putting it into practice is, is so much different because, you know, you're dealing with another human being. And one of the things that I think the you can tell me if you've experienced it too, that the kind of the peaceful parenting and respectful parenting world, it gives this impression that peaceful parents are respectful parents are, are always this kind of even keel, you know, they have this sweet voice. Oh my darling. You know, and in my experience, lots of parents think that they're regulating and in reality, they're stuffing. they're kind of gritting their teeth through the hard moments. They're kind of white knuckling it through and they're not actually regulating their nervous systems and learning how. Okay, so how do I actually deal with the, the moments that are challenging and hearts that I don't yell. And when we, when we were white knuckle through it, we eventually hit that threshold where we revert to our old patterns, the patterns that were uploaded into our, our nervous system. When we were younger, we start yelling, our mom's voice falls out of our mouths, you know, like, so I guess that I'm so excited to talk about that with you. So like, that's my theory that my not yelling is so hard is because we are resist. We are in resistance so much. What do you think about that?
Andee: To the emotions, exactly. Well, if your nervous system is activated and you're trying to put on the calm parent front, there's a huge disconnect and I've had, I've even had people tell me no, no, no, I didn't raise my voice. I like was smiling and I said, well, how did you feel? I rate annoyed, frustrated and I, and I, I totally get it because I've completely been there before where I'm trying so hard to be the parent. I want to be not understanding that I can't hide my internal fury, you know, like I'm trying to, but my kids map it.
Laura: They are kids know they can see it .
Andee: exactly. I mean, you hear mirror neurons, you know, that are sending out this, I think of it as a radio signal saying I'm really upset inside. You know, and, and even though the, the facade might be a what I like to call stretchy smile, which is us doing our best. The kids feel the emotion that's being transmitted and they pick it up with their mirror neurons and, and you can't hide it. So I love talking about really what's the, what's the core issue? You know, it's like if an apple tree wasn't producing apples, we would look at the roots, we wouldn't look at the and we would treat the roots and water, fertilizer, you know, that kind of thing. We wouldn't look at the fruit and say let's put some ointment on the apple that's not gonna cause the change, right? That's not really the problem. And so I think going to the emotions, going to the nervous system and seeing what's happening, that's how you get to a place where you are showing up more intentionally.
And I, and I loved your point of, you know, portraying an image of just this sweet, calm, which I'm as you can hear by my, in my intensity in my voice. I I'm a very intense person. So like that was really, I wanted that so bad. I had a couple of friends that felt like they could just, you know, never raise their voice above a whisper hardly. And I thought that was amazing and that I tried to be that for a while. That's not me. And if that is you, that's amazing. But regardless of how we are accepting who we are accepting our emotional capacity, and it's not about necessarily always being perfect or even not, you know, even if we show up in a way where we, we do let some of that frustration get out. It's about learning how to process and take care of what was at the root of it. So you can do better next time.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, because Andee, we parents are humans, we get to be human. You know, and I think that sometimes we, we think we have to strip our humanity away in order to be these perfect respectful parents and, and that's not real and that's not what our kids want. Either. Our kids want real authentic connection. Of course, they shouldn't be burdened with our kind of emotions. Of course, we need to be taking care of ourselves, going to our friends, a partner, a therapist if we need to do some, some work. But they need to know, they need to know there needs to be congruence between what we are expressing on the outside and the kind of what they're picking up and they can tell when we're faking it, they really can, you know, and they're, you know, from an attachment perspective, a biological perspective, they're primed to always kind of be on the lookout for what's going on with mom because that's how they survive. You know, that's, you know, it's a, I mean, that is just biology or human animal nature and, and so being congruent and being authentic is really important. So I thinking about then this, the parents who are in these moments where they're feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, they feel like their kids aren't listening and they've tried to be nice and they feel like the only thing they can do at that moment in time is to do what they, what we know works in the short term, threats, bribes, punishments, time outs, you know, those things do work in the short term.
Andee: They do.
Laura: they do, they get compliance when that's what we're looking for. They don't work in the long term. There's, you know, 4060 years of like solid research telling us that they don't work in the long run, but they do work in the immediate moment. What do we, what is the I mean? You know, you use that word acceptance. I feel like that's the first step. Well, first step is awareness that something's happening, right? We always talk about that, right. First step is awareness, okay? We're aware, I guarantee the parents listening, they're aware, something's happening. What is it? And, and lots of us, I know for me personally, just as an example to tell a personal story. I was on vacation for my 40th birthday. We were in Florida and we were, oh, thank you. Oh, I feel so excited about being in my forties. I.
Andee: Me too. I love my forties.
Laura: I'm so excited about it. I feel like I'm like at this level where I can just like, be me. I don't know. I just, I'm loving. Okay, I've been in my forties for like a week, but I really love it.
Andee: Welcome to the forties.
Laura: Anyway, we were, we were at a beach in Florida that is just really famous for seashells. And one of my daughters found a really nice big seashell and my other daughter did not. And there were all of these feelings about it. This was on my birthday and I had so much resistance to what was happening for both of my kids. I had one kid who was super excited wanting to call grandma and grandpa tell her about the se and the other kid who was losing it. I never find anything, you know, just had the whole negative narrative going. And then I was in my own mind having my own negative narrative and it really made me think about your book and you have these six acceptance questions. So let's just, can we talk about those for a few minutes or like just about what acceptance is? Why resistance was so painful for me? Why it caused a lot of problems and what I could have done instead.
Andee: Yeah. Oh, goodness. I, I could tell my own version of that story.
Laura: We all have them. Right.
Andee: Yes. Well, and I just, before I go into the question, I just want to say, being willing to say, hey, I'm a human and I feel the same emotions as everybody else feels like II, I think with parenting sometimes we feel shameful or because there's so much pressure to get it perfect that we're afraid to admit that we aren't getting it right all the time. So I love that we're sharing authentically because hopefully it will help other people also be willing to share and realize there's nothing wrong. If you resist.
Laura: There's something quite right about about this. We're, we're human. It's happening for a reason and it makes sense that all of this is happening for us. I think that there are people who like learn about peaceful parenting and respectful parenting and are like, oh, that makes sense like and are done and go on their merry way. That is not my truth. That is not, this is like, I'm so lucky I get to do this for my job because it's a daily like reaffirmation of the work I'm doing. But anyway. Yes, okay.
Andee: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I love that we're being vulnerable and that's the first that's allows the awareness that then allows us to go into the next step, which is one of the next steps, which is acceptance, which is a process to me of regulating our nervous system. So I think when we're in resistance, we're in that fight or fly, that's the typically the terms we call it. There's fawn freeze, you know, there's the other ones, but like we're in this nervous system, activated place and from the, from that place, we're going to try to do the tug of war, do the fix it, do the.
Laura: The thought is this should not be happening. That's the thought that comes in my mind. This should not be happening. She should not be doing this. I should not be feeling this like, like just like I just start, this should not be happening. Everything.
Andee: Yeah. And when you, when you have the word should I it's, I'm so aware of that word now and I'm like, wait, it's like ding, ding, ding, like, let me look at that a little bit more because I need to inspect if that is act and most of the time it's not helpful. But this like when I'm using the word should, it's usually not helpful. So I'm so glad you said that. So that some version of this should not be happening. They should know better. I, you know.
Laura: they should be able to do this by now.
Andee: Yeah. My kids shouldn't be fighting or having, you know, problems with the, you know, you.
Laura: She should be happy for her sister. She shouldn’t be bragging.
Andee: Exactly. I shouldn't be so frustrated, you know, I should be handling this.
Laura: I should accept her emotions.
Andee: Right. Or if I was a better mom, you know, I should be able to prevent this from happening or whatever, right? We have all of these.
Laura: and so those are all resistance, right?
Andee: Yes. Examples of resistance. And when you go into resistance, you go into an activated nervous system. And I love just saying it's your nervous system, there's nothing wrong with you. Of course, you want to protect yourself. This is survival. This is how humans have survived. We just think that the girls having the seashell dilemma is life or death. Like that's what our brain thinks and it's not a tiger about to eat us. It's really not.
Laura: Can we just dig into to the narrative there that happens for so many of us because it's not even about for protecting ourselves. I for me, when I know I get triggered in a certain way, it's about a fear of my kids becoming unlovable. And it is deeply important as a human animal parent that our kids be lovable and acceptable in society because we know that that's what keeps them safe. That is a like a human imperative. It's written into our DNA. We cannot help it, right? That it's there that our nervous system reacts to that fear of they're doing something that's going to get them rejected, that's going to cause them to lose love. And so it just makes sense that that would be cause a reaction within us. Right?
Andee: Yes. Yeah. And I wanted to say that because that if you have that awareness that this is fine, this makes sense. Of course, my nervous system is reacting this way. Of course, my girls nervous systems are reacting this way and you that is leading you into acceptance, right? Because now what I'm doing instead of fighting against the reality that I have in that moment, I'm saying, okay, I can at least accept where I am. I'm not trying to change anything at this moment, right? I'm just saying this is my reality.
Laura: This is reality.
Andee: This is reality, right? And, and the only like we, when we fight against reality, we lose 100% of the time. Like there is no way in the moment when it's happening. And I'm not saying, talking about five minutes before or five minutes after in the moment when the girls are having the thing about the seashell and I could, I could share my own version, but then you share, we'll just use it. So you here. Yeah. And you're having your experience. It's like this is the best we can all do right now. This is what's happening. This is what our nervous systems are doing. And if you can go into that versus I should be different, my girl should be different and you're just either upset at yourself or upset at the girls or both. And all right, like this is ruining my birthday. This is not how I want to feel. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. They're gonna live there. It's almost like I was because I have my exact version of this, you know, like, you know, my brain likes to catastrophize like they're, they're not gonna share, they're not gonna be cooperative, they're not gonna have friends, they're not gonna rest the success, blah, blah, blah, like I'm going 20 years in the future.
Laura: And so that's one thing that acceptance does is it pulls you back into the here and now this moment, can I ask you a question? So I feel like acceptance gets a bad rap in a lot of places. It feels like it's a kind of a, well, we're just, it, it feels like inaction. It feels like we're just gonna let this happen because it's happening and we're letting it happen. Feels kind of like the walking all over the doormat type of vibe. And it's not that it's actually quite an active process to be radically accepting of someone or of a situation. And it doesn't mean that we think those things are all okay, either, you know, in this circumstance when my kids weren't hurting each other. But if there was a, a hit or something that happened, it, of course it wouldn't be okay. That one kid hit the other kid.
Andee: Right.
Laura: It's still reality. It's still what happened.
Andee: It’s still the truth.
Laura: Its still the truth.
Andee: You can either accept it or not, right? It's still like, am I going to accept it and use my and how my nervous system start to calm down so I can use my prefrontal cortex and make wise decisions or am I going to stay in resistance and wish things were different which causes my thinking brain to turn off. And I go, you know, straight into reactionary mode, which I'm not proud of. And I love what you brought up with acceptance. They've heard the same exact thing. They think it's passive and they think acceptance means condoning and it's not, it's not, I'm not saying, oh yeah, I'm so glad they're fighting and I'm so glad. No, no, no, no. You know, it's not that at all. So acceptance just means seeing what's happening in front of you and saying this is what is.
Laura: This is what is. You have some questions in your book. Your book is called Connect Method Parenting. And you have some questions in it that I really liked because I feel like sometimes people are, you know, when we get the advice to just accept what's happening, accept what is we don't actually get any information. Okay, so like, what does that look like? And how please and I really love the questions that are in your book. Can we go over them a little bit?
Andee: Yeah, let's go through them. Yeah. So the first one and in my book, I'm telling about a scenario and then I use the questions to kind of walk through the process I went through. So I guess I will just apply them to the situation you, they're universal, they're universal. So how does what? And then I said he is saying, make perfect sense to him but like what she's doing, how I'm feeling, you know, like you, how does it make sense to your, let's start with your children. So how does, how does what they're saying and doing make perfect sense to them?
Laura: Oh my gosh. I mean, it makes perfect sense that my one child who found the seashell would be really excited about it would, you know, it was really lovely specimen. It was the biggest one we found our whole trip. Basically, it was something we'd been talking about for months leading up. Of course, she was going to be excited about that and she had no ill intentions in being excited. She was just fully embodying her own emotional experience. And for my other child, same, we had been talking about this trip for a long time thinking about whether we would find a big seashell or not. She desperately wanted to find one and her sister found one instead. And of course, she felt jealous. Of course, she felt sad. Of course, she wondered if there was something that she was doing wrong because she didn't find it because she was right there, too. You know, I mean, of course she was having, it makes so much sense. She was having all of those negative thoughts and it makes so much sense that I would be having the thoughts that I was having, too. It makes so much sense that I would feel frustrated and annoyed and wish my kids could just let it go. I wish that one didn't have to be quite so exuberant and, you know, that the other one didn't have to, you know, be quite so sad. Like, of course, that all makes sense that I would feel that way because it was, you know, it, we feel our kids stuff too. We often take that stuff on even when we know it's theirs and yeah. So, I mean, that makes some, I mean, just even saying those things, I feel so much better.
Andee: Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah, it gives us perspective on all the, all the things going on in the moment and the next couple of questions you've already answered. Like I, I talk about why they feel there were two children involved in mine too. So it's like, what did he feel? What did she feel? So that's what the next couple are and you already answered all of those.
Laura: So the next couple questions. So just to read them are what are their words or actions telling me? Yeah, I love, I love that question. So, I mean, those two questions are something I do kind of automatically at this point for myself. So I think what's important for our listeners to know is that this doesn't stop. There is not some magical time, at least not for me. And so, you know, where I won't have to do this, I will be doing this work for the rest of my life. And I've come to accept that.
Andee: I mean, to what you're saying, like anytime you're going to train to run a marathon, you'd have to train to run the mar if you're going to run marathon after marathon, right? You can't just stop training just because you did it once. Right. Life long work.
Laura: Yes. It's lifelong work. And so like those two things, those first two questions are really good habits for me. By right by now when I start feeling that kind of this regulated panicky feeling of like this is not happening the way I thought I was going to, I know to ask myself those two questions, their habit. But I love your next question. So the next, your next one is, what's the best thing I can do right now for them and me, and that is a question on that beach that morning. I did not ask myself that question.
Andee: Yeah, I didn't think you could. What would you say now?
Laura: what the best thing that would have been like the best thing for me to do, would it have been for me to walk ahead? And regulate myself, breathe, you know. So the ocean is a mindful place for me. There's something about the repetition, the sound, the rhythm of the waves and stuff that is really good for my nervous system. The best thing for me to do in that moment would have been to kind of say, all right, I'm going to walk this way for a few minutes by myself. Go do that, get drop into the present moment, get into my body, get back into regulation while my husband who does not get triggered by this sort of thing dealt with the kids. That's what the best thing I should have done. I did not do that, but I wish I had.
Andee: Well. And the reason I wanted to ask is because even if you discover that in hindsight, every time we have that awareness, it helps you next time it will serve you to have the awareness. So I love that always, I'll always regulate ourselves if we can safety first, you know, separate us if there's safety issues and then yeah, take care of ourselves. I love that so good. Yeah. Do you want to read the next one?
Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And so the next two questions are, what am I making this mean about me and why and what am I making this mean about them and why those questions are really helpful. I find those questions challenging for lots of people to answer. Do you find the same thing Andee?
Andee: I do, I do. I, I found it challenging for me to answer at first too when I started really having the, the ability to even answer the questions. It was like, oh my gosh. Yeah. So what is the most challenging part that you find with people when you're asking them those questions or when? Yeah, that's coming up.
Laura: I think for the folks that I talked to, the story has been playing in the background of their mind kind of subconsciously for so long that they're not aware of it. And these stories, you know, what am I making this mean? There's usually a a consistent narrative, the circumstances might change, the characters might change. But the story is kind of the same, I'm a mess up, you know, like I'm a mess up. I don't do anything, right. You know, there's some kind of consistency to the narrative and we're so used to that kind of that narrative being in the background. It's this background noise that we just don't even notice anymore. And so learning to quiet and tune into it. It is hard, you know, but I, I think the way I asked my clients often is, what are you telling yourself? You know, what are you saying to yourself? What are, what are the thoughts that are rolling through your head? The storm of thoughts that are just flowing in your brain, what are they saying? And once I can get a client to start saying those things out loud. That's when we find the narrative. What about you, Andee?
Andee: So powerful. Yeah, I love it. It's super similar to what you're saying. It, it's fascinating because sometimes it's not that the story is inaccessible. They've just never realized.
Laura: That it's happening.
Andee: That it's happening just like what you were saying. It's, it's surprising to them how negative and I will say for most women, they don't have a problem making it some feel something terrible about themselves. They're really comfortable being a failure and having like a beating themselves up, which is really a whole another topic we could talk about. But you know, like women are a lot of women are hard on themselves. They think that's necessary or even useful. But when they and I, I don't think either of those are the case like it's not necessary or useful or helpful. But what's interesting is when they realize what they're making it mean about their kids that their kids are a failure, that their kids are rude or mean. And we start to talk about it, they realize how they do not want to have that story about their children. And that even if they feel like they have the evidence for it, they want to entangle that and they want to believe something different because when you start to talk and you have the awareness you, you want to create something new. And when we start to see like if I am believing this child is rude, for instance, that's what I'm, that's the filter I'm looking through.
So I'm gonna keep finding evidence for that in my life. And so I want to clean it up. And so once we start untangling and unpacking the not just the story but the impact it's having on their life and the impact it's going to continue to have on them. They wanna, they wanna let it go. So that's my experience and super powerful questions. I find myself asking myself this often like, what am I making that mean about them? And is that and is it true? And can I know it's true? And what if it's not true? What if it's just that because I'd love to say what if it's just that their nervous system is activated? What if they're just struggling today? What if the truth is they're just having a lot of her emotions that haven't filtered through and it's just coming out as an attack on me because I'm a safe person to purge like when you start to see it from that perspective, it's like, oh, I can release this, judge this judgmental story I have about them and now I have compassion.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And so I like asking what could also be true. You know.
Andee: That's good. That's really good.
Laura: I think, you know, so I have the joy of getting to run a play group on Mondays. With babies. It's so much fun. And one of the moms was there with her three year old and her three month old and the three year old was helping me clean up. The other kids were all a little young to be really helping with the clean up. But the three year old was helping and he kept, you know, listen to the language. I'm about to use. He kept snatching toys away from the babies to put into my play bin box. Listen to that language snatching. That's the lens. That's the interpretation. It looked like he was doing those things and the mom was so anxious about it. I don't know why he's doing that. He shouldn't take from the babies. And I'm I and I was like, wait, hold on. Let's just everybody take a second to reframe.
What's happening for the sweet three year old. This three year old saw me, his teacher doing clean up and wanted to help this child is being helpful. He is not snatching anything. He's helping these children release the toys and put them in the box, you know, and I mean, and not like meant like that lens shift is super important. And I feel like that's what acceptance does. It helps us step into a place where we can shift our lenses, culture, society. They gave us these lenses to look at our children through, to look at ourselves through. And we don't, we don't have to keep them on. Right? And acceptance allows us to see the lens like to have it come in focus like, oh why I'm wearing that lens again. Let's take this off and remember which ones I'm choosing to see my kids through. You know what I mean?
Andee: Beautiful. I love that example. It's I could just, yes, exactly what you said. It's so, it's so true that the lens effects and it affects how we see things and it's not personal like the mom was interpreting it that way just because of the lens she was wearing it. There was nothing like all she has.
Laura: There was nothing wrong with her either.
Andee: Nothing wrong with her. No, she was the child.
Laura: She's a conscious aware mom who wants her child to be perceived well, in this setting, it was one of her, you know, like second times coming, you know, so she's kind of new, she wanted the community of parents to think well of her. I mean, all good things, all things that make sense and they, and they impact us. They impact how we show up with our kids and, and they're not going anywhere, they're going to be there. Culture is going to be there. We're all swimming around in this culture soup and it's not our fault and it's not going anywhere. We just, it's just our job to be aware of it.
Andee: So good.
Laura: And raise kids who are aware of it too. What's beautiful about a process like this is that this is also something that you can start modeling for your kids and give your kids the opportunity to start practicing these things too.
Andee: Yeah, exactly. So good. And there's, there are questions. I, I used to have a three by five card in my back pocket because I'm in my forties. So I didn't always have my cell phone handy and we had cell phones but they weren't smart cell phones, you know, and I'd have my questions right now, you know. So if I started to feel the resistance, I had my little questions. Okay, what do I, you know, and I would go through similar questions to these to help, to help me navigate tricky situations. And you're right on like it helps the kids see how to handle situations, you know, and how to, how to respond. I, I also love that if at the end of the questions, you're not ready to fully accept that you still want to have a little bit of resistance, that's okay too, just to consciously do it and give yourself enough space and time and permission to allow your nervous system to regulate when it's ready, you can't force the process. So I love this just takes as much time as so even accepting the resistance that I might have the residue of it, you know, it, it just takes the amount of time that it takes. And it's beautiful to even just be able to say no, I can't accept this right now, but I'm working on it. I can accept the fact that I'm working on it and I'm still resisting. That's beautiful too. That's beautiful too.
Laura: Okay, so I feel like when you say that, like I can't accept this, there's this phrase in parenting that we, we hurt ourselves, this is unacceptable behavior. And so I feel like the need to kind of pull that up as a contrast like the, you know, I'm thinking about like, okay, so siblings hitting each other. Yes, we don't, we don't want them hitting each other. So what are you, what do you mean? Like when you say, can I accept this? Are you saying can I, you're not like let's really piece out the condone and the accept, can we really like pull that apart?
Andee: Yeah. Yeah.
Laura: Sorry, I was really talking with my hand. Listen,
Andee: I love it. I love it. I I talked to Yeah. So specifically when I said I can't accept that I was not talking about the behavior necessarily of the kids. I was talking specifically of the introspective question of like, am I able to fully release the resistance I have about this situation? I totally, so I wanted to make sure, but I love that you brought this up, this idea of like a fully like I like unacceptable behavior, right? Like this is unacceptable behavior and understanding the difference like the behavior is just information. Do you agree? Like the behavior is just, and, and tell me if I'm not answering your question correctly and maybe you can read. But I love, like, it's just information, telling me what's going on internally. So that's why I, if you can separate the behavior from the child, like it, it's not because sometimes we label like they're rude or they're, you know, there's, they're doing this behavior and it means this about the child then, yeah, it gets really complicated because now like it's one and the same, but it's like the behavior is information. It's like an SOS signal saying I'm in trouble in here. Can you help me? I'm being really kind because I'm completely dysregulated and I'm really upset and I don't know how to do. I don't know what to do. And that helps me. I don't know, share what share, what helps you. But I just Yeah.
Laura: Yeah. No, I, I totally agree with you. I have a, a mentor uh Ross Green who teaches collaborative and proactive solutions, a model of collaborative problem solving. And he talks about behavior as a symptom and not the root cause I really like that framework. And it's exactly what you're saying. It's information just like when a person has the flu, you know, influenza, they might get a fever, that's a symptom. The fever is not the illness, the fever is not the root cause we might treat the fever by giving you Tylenol or another, you know, fever suppressant or anti-inflammatory, but that won't treat influenza, right? And so we're talking about getting to the root cause and separating those things just like when a child is dysregulated and hitting their sibling, you know, the, the Tylenol, the ibuprofen in the moment is getting in between them saying I can't let you hit your sister, you know, let me help you get your body safe, you know, sweet sister, let me help you get your body safe.
You know, that's treating the thing and then it's all what's underneath is the pro is kind of what you're asking folks to accept the, you know, and so I think that that really piecing that apart is really helpful where no one is asking you to accept your child hitting your other child, right? What we're asking you to accept that they have things going on under the surface that is leading to the hitting and of course we can't, you know, we can't let the hitting happen. We have to be working on giving other, you know, outlets for anger or frustration, other ways of expressing those things. But the underlying anger, frustration, disregulation, tiredness. Those are the things that we can accept that. That's where the kid is and then we can move towards supporting them. Does that, is that what you mean?
Andee: Yes, 100%. Yeah. You said it beautifully. And I love, I love using the Tylenol analogy, just the surface versus underneath. And it, it's beautiful because that's, that I feel like is the thing that if more conversations or we had about that, like we were because we need to, we just, it's just an understanding. We just need to understand what we're accepting and that we're not just passive, it's very active actually. You know, like you were saying at the beginning, it's a very active process of accepting the human, the person while, while setting a limit on the behavior to create safety to it's necessary. I always say limits, create safety. They can create boundaries and clarity around what is allowed and what's not allowed in a situation. But they aren't necessarily the thing that's going to create healing or significant intrinsic long term change. But we need both, right? You, you absolutely need both tools. So having the right awareness of what we're talking about is super important so that people can, can integrate it into their life and not feel like they're just letting their kids run wild and they have no boundaries.
Laura: I mean, and so one of the things too that I think is really important to highlight is that on the outside, it can look exactly the same if you have a parent, you know, two parents, both with two kids and they're hitting each other. They, those two parents can do the exact same thing get in the middle, separate, you know, make sure that nobody's body is getting hurt. But the energy of the one who's accepting, oh, my, you know, my kid is really disregulated. They haven't had their snack yet. Who's kind of acknowledging all of those things is drastically different than the energy of the one who's saying, gosh, my kid is just in this hitting phase. He's a hitter. I never thought I'd raise a hitter. You know, like the, the energy, the mindset is really different even though the actions might look exactly the same on the surface. Do you know what I mean?
Andee: Exactly. Yeah, I, I talk about the fuel, right? We want clean, clean fuel versus, you know, if you put dirty fuel into your car, it's gonna, it might get you where you wanna go, but it's not gonna be as helpful for the, for the longevity of the car, you know. And so it's exactly what you're saying and it goes back to that, the mirror neurons and sending out those messages and the mapping that our kids do. Yeah. It, it definitely makes a difference. The beliefs behind the emotions and the beliefs behind the actions we take. They matter.
Laura: And it feels better to us. I was just talking with a parent about how she's, you know, she came into my membership community because she's realized that the, the respectful parenting kind of tactics that have gotten her to age five are starting to not feel good anymore. Because her child's getting bigger, getting stronger, she's having to use a little bit more force and it's just she's learning, she needs new strategies and because it does, it, the like it feels different to come in from a place of, oh, I see you with compassion and grace. I see you're having a hard time and I can't let you hit your sister. And so I'm coming in here and moving you away versus you. I need to get control of my child. This is unacceptable behavior. You can't do this, you know, like just the, the, the love that comes out of our hands when we lovingly move a child away versus the frustration and the tension in our fingers as we frustrate, you know, and we've all probably, you know, had moments where we've maybe been too frustrated and should have gone and taken a breath instead of interacting, you know. But do you know what I'm saying? Like it just feels different to us too. There's a qualitative difference.
Andee: and it feels so different to the child. Yeah. There, there's a safety if, if we want them to want, I, I always use, want to listen to us. It's, it's one thing to get a child to listen to you. You can do that through force, you can do that through manipulation. You can do that lots of ways. But to get them to want to listen to you, I believe and I'd love to have you comment on this? This is my belief is that I believe that requires a regulated nervous system, a, a clear compassionate understanding of what's actually going on with the child space for them to be messy. For us to be able to create a relationship that's so trusting and, and strong that we can in the same scenario, both say, I unconditionally love and accept you and nothing you can do would ever change that. And this behavior is, is I'm going to put a limit on this behavior. It's not something we're going to do right now. And to be able to communicate both messages simultaneously allows the attachment to stay strong, them to not react to our activated nervous system. Because that's often what's happening is we're, we're one of the parties is, is reaction, you know, having an activated nervous system. So the natural tendency is we react in kind and then we just, you know, the tug of war ensues and from there.
But when we refuse to engage in the tug of war, they might be so activated and so frustrated and so disappointed by something or what the child is. And if we can show up and what you're describing is a regulated nervous system because we have the correct understanding of developmentally what's going on with them emotionally, what's going on with them. And I'm sending out a signal of love and acceptance while setting a limit like that changes everything. And now they get the opportunity to respond to us in that scenario. And so many parents I've worked with will come back and say you will not believe this. And I'm, I'm so cute. They're like, you will not believe this. But the other night my child was doing XYZ and all I did was I just set the limit and I sat with them in the chair and within five minutes like it was done and they cried, you know, they had felt their emotions fully through and I call it the mad to sad trip like they resist and they, then they get sad and they surrender and they complete the emotional cycle, right?
They, they, the child's back to regulated the chi the the the parent is regulated and then what happens is the capacity for love and attachment and trust. I feel like you get double the return on those scenarios because I think if the child can trust you when they're at their worst, then, then their nervous system says this is a really safe person, you can bring them anything and they will be there for you. And that just, it changes, it's just this ripple effect. It changes the experience for everyone involved. And it's, it really feels like magic because we've been taught, it's what we do and it's what we say and it's really what we feel and what we think that then generates the do and the say but, you know, like that's what matters and then, but like you said, it could look on the outside, the exact same, but on the inside it is, there's no similarities between what's going on. Yeah.
Laura: And, and like you said, the child's experience of it is radically different. I think that was a beautiful explanation. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Andee: You’re so welcome.
Laura: Oh I really love this conversation.
Andee: Me, too. Yeah.
Laura: I want to make sure that folks are able, you know, folks listening to my podcast are able to find yours and vice versa.
Andee: Mine, yours.
Laura: So my podcast is the balanced parents. You can listen anywhere you get your podcast. I love to have, you know, anybody who's listening to Andee’s podcast, you'll feel right at home.
Andee: You're gonna love her. Yeah, you're gonna love that one.
Laura: Yeah. And what about you, Andee?
Andee: So mine is connect method parenting. I tried to keep it super simple. Same name as my book. Yeah. And, and did know if you're listening to this on my podcast feed, you're gonna love, you're gonna love all the stuff that, that you're gonna hear over on the other podcast on, on Laura's podcast. So, yeah, I feel like we have the same, the same purpose mission to go out and help, help get this information out to parents. And I,yeah.
Laura: I so agree. It's really lovely finding colleagues. This is, I don't know how you feel, but working online like this can feel quite lonely at times I miss my colleagues in academia. That's the one thing about academia about being a professor that I really miss is being able to just, like, walk down the hall and geek out about child development with someone. So it's really nice to, to get to connect with you, Andee. And I hope we can do this again.
Andee: Oh, me too. We'll have to do a few more. I feel like we could have gone down a few other rabbit holes but we tried to keep it to acceptance, but I hope we did and I think we go some of those other things that I was tempted, but I'm like, stay on the train. I know it was really lovely and I, and I feel the same way. It's, it's beautiful to collaborate online with someone who's like minded and shared mission and, and really, I think what we both want is just to empower more parents to feel like they are capable of, of bringing this kind of parenting into their home and to feel how amazing it feels, even though it might feel a little scary at first.
Laura: And I mean, and it's no joke. It's hard work. It's intense. You know, it's, it's hard work but it's good work and it feels, it feels so good to know that you're doing it. And I, I think, you know, a lot of us are hoping that if we do this work now our kids will have less work to do, they'll have their own work, but maybe a little bit less.
Andee: Maybe a little less because of us.
Laura: Yes, hopefully.
Andee: Yeah. Life brings it all. So they get, they get their own experience right?
Laura: They’ll get their own experience, right?
Andee: Yeah.
Laura: Andee thank you again.
Andee: Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you too. This is so wonderful.
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.
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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!