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Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn, hosted by my parents, Jess and Scott.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
For those that don't know, currently working on a book and
The first version of the manuscript is almost done and I'm hoping to finish it today, but I'm feeling kinda doubtful that's gonna happen.
You're pretty close.
Time is ticking, so we'll see.
But hopefully finish.
I mean you're still ahead of schedule, technically, so.
Yeah.
But I was really I feel like I have it in me.
I'm like I really just want to have it done.
Yeah.
I mean by the time this episode is released.
Hopefully it'll be off and
Yeah, you'll have other things on your mind and you won't be worrying about that for a while.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what I'm hoping.
But I'm very excited about the book.
I think you are too.
I mean to be fair, I have not read it yet.
You have not let me
Read it at this point.
Well you can.
You can start now.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh yeah, okay.
I mean the first half is done at least.
And maybe when you're done, like you're gonna present it to your editor and everything, maybe I can do it.
Once you feel like okay, I'm good
Now.
But I think if I give it to you, you can give me feedback and then the editor will give me feedback, then I can use both of them.
Yep.
Because I know you'll have helpful pieces of advice for it.
Think we can print it off so I can write my notes on it.
Yeah, that's what I want to do.
That would be good
Anyways, I'm sure people don't care about this as much as we do.
Yeah, I know.
Well, it's good to just remind everyone that there is a book coming, but it's such a long
process of writing it.
So I mean from the release of this episode, it'll probably be Yeah, it'll be about a year after this episode's release.
That's it official though or not yet?
Unofficially official
Yeah, okay.
So we don't know.
Unless I give the manuscript and they're like, mm.
Start over.
So in other words, we have no idea.
In other words, we don't know.
So that's very helpful for you.
Yeah.
It'll be quite different, I think.
Based on what you have told me about it, it sounds quite different from what exists out there.
Which is fun.
It is a parenting book.
But it is gonna be written in a way that people haven't seen.
And I'm really excited about that.
And I think that's why it's taken oh my goodness, I've been working on this thing for so long.
Yeah, I mean you already started working on it before we
tried to find publishers for it, right?
So some of my favorite chapters that I have in there are stories.
We're written probably four years ago.
So it's been a really Yeah probably around the time when we started talking about the concept
And what's funny is I feel like it kind of went exactly back to the concept.
You kind of changed it for a time and then we you sort of brought it all the way back to what we had talked about.
Remember when we were camping, going on that long walk while the kids were playing.
Yeah, but it's just it's exactly that, but even so much better.
Anyway, just I'm excited about it.
And honestly, it talks a lot.
Segue about what we're gonna talk about today.
Does it?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
I guess that makes sense.
Well my question for you today.
I mean reality is this was your question that you wanted to talk about.
And you asked that I didn't prepare too much for our conversation.
As much so we can have a better conversation.
So today's more about opinion rather than factual, evidence-based, like whatever you say is factual and evidence-based, but it's more opinion from me.
It's more of like a a thought piece.
Yeah.
I wanted people to listen to this episode and think about it and then have some time to think about it in your own life and see what your thoughts are
Right?
Like I wanna get people's opinions on this.
I just think it's a really important conversation to have.
So the question is, do you think we've swung too far in parenting in either direction?
So either too far into the permissive, letting our kids do whatever they want.
They know it's right for them, so just let them do their thing.
Or have we swung in the opposite direction and are going towards the
much more harsh, let's say traditional older school style of parenting.
So yeah, what are your thoughts on that?
Do you think we've swung too far in either direction?
I think that there is a trend.
And I mean we've talked about this on the podcast so many times about the black and whites.
People love to think in a black and white kind of mindset.
And it's really hard to think about the gray area.
And I think that that is something that I am seeing a lot of in parenting, where it's either like, okay, we're trying this approach and it it's punishment free, let's say, but it is teetering on the side of permissive parenting.
And then when that doesn't work, it's like, well, I tried that and it doesn't work.
Then we swing back to so then we have to go back to full-out punishments.
So I think I am seeing that those extremes on both sides.
Can I ask?
Where are you actually seeing that though?
Let me give you two areas.
First, I would say even online.
I used to do post about boundaries
let's say when we started out and people would be like yeah okay this is great thank you you've given me a script on like how to set a boundary with my child when they're hitting and like people were really excited to get a script
For a boundary.
Now, like there's been times where I've shared a post like things we're strict about in our home or boundaries that I've set today.
And the pushback I get on those posts is so much more than I've ever had
Pushback in terms of like you're too strict.
Too strict.
Yeah.
Like I hear from people online, so one of our boundaries at home is that we like to eat at the dinner table
And we don't allow our kids to eat in their rooms or even in our like living room unless it's like a family movie night when that's a special time.
And so I've said that before.
Like we have the pretty strict boundary that food is in the kitchen or at the dining table.
And the pushback
that I get from saying something like that from parents.
Really?
Yeah.
Or I've said sometimes I will go to get a coffee and I will say to the kids, no, you're not getting a hot chocolate today.
It's just a coffee for the parents
And the pushback that I'll get on saying something like that.
Well, like that's not fair to your kids.
You know, how dare you go through a drive-thru and not get them something?
I remember that one so clear, like the pushback I got from that
And so that's where I would say I'm seeing it a lot online in ways I did not used to when this was kind of new information that I was sharing to people.
Then it was like, oh thank you for giving me something to say instead of trying to bribe them or threaten them or tell them to just be quiet when they're asking me for things and I don't want to give it to them.
So and then the along those lines, I see that in my practice a little bit too, where parents will come in very afraid of like even their child's meltdowns, right?
Like, hey, Jess.
Okay, but if I have to hold that boundary it means they're gonna cry.
Like I don't want my kid to cry.
So what can I do so that they don't cry?
And that
For me, in my perspective as a therapist and our entire approach is the tears are okay.
This is not about avoiding the tears.
But I think a lot of parents are really afraid to let their kids get there.
And so I think that's where we've swung and it becomes permissive
Because we feel like our job is to keep our kids happy all the time when that's not actually our responsibility as parents.
But then when that doesn't work
Because it doesn't, because you can't walk on eggshells around your kids all the time.
And eventually as a parent, when you try and take that approach and walk on eggshells, eventually you explode and lose your
cool and then you end up threatening them or yelling at them anyway.
That's the pattern I see.
Then people are like, well this doesn't work.
And so I'm seeing that also as well where
There's been a whole bunch of very big news sites who've written these articles on like gentle parenting gone wrong or whatever like that's the approach that they call it.
And it's actually
permissive parenting.
And then there's a resurgence of people being like, see we have to get back to that old school punishments because kids are too soft and da-da-da.
So I see both sides.
And I'm curious your opinion on that.
Yeah, I wonder for you if the reason you think the pendulum swings to such extremes is because it's on social media.
Social media is filled with extremes and it's full disclosure, I did look into some research mostly on the idea of binary thinking and thinking everything is black and white, good or bad.
and not seeing nuance.
And social media is optimized to show us that because that's what gets the most engagement.
So for you, I mean you try to post with more nuance than most people
would.
But I feel like because our platform now is, let's say, reaching almost three million on Instagram, there's a bit of confirmation bias just because there's more people following you now.
And it's not just like the most niche little group that's following you anymore.
It's a pretty wide audience that couldn't include anyone, right?
So I think part of it maybe you seeing the extremes is because
social media kind of it feeds off of extremes a bit.
So then people will reach out and they'll feel like they can say these things to you.
Like how dare you?
Because
Whatever, you have a big account, so you have no feelings.
Yeah, of course, immediately.
But also then people coming into your practice likely are probably f also hearing about you on social media too.
So then you're kind of getting all the same type of people coming to see you and talk to you.
So I feel like you might see the extremes more than what I think exists out in the world.
Yeah, I think you're totally right on that.
And I thought that that research that you found was really interesting actually on social media.
But I will say the other thing I hear about a lot in my personal life from just people that I know, teachers, is
this blaming of permissive parenting for the way that kids are struggling in schools and because you know that is true like kids are struggling in school right now we hear about it all the time.
I hear about it from teachers all the time.
And I do think that we might see the pendulum swing back a little bit to harsher parenting methods just because I think that quote unquote gentle parenting, which actually is permissive parenting, like the more you
talk to these teachers and kind of figure out what is actually going on at home.
It's just a lack of actual discipline happening is really becoming one of the scapegoats, I think, for why kids are struggling so much.
So I I will say I hear about that also in my personal life quite a bit as like kind of like the reason why people think that kids are struggling so much.
Yeah, and maybe the way people are teaching quote unquote gentle parenting is causing some issues.
Like it there's nothing I feel like
You can't discount the fact that there's possibly some truth to that.
I think that there is actually truth to it.
Mind you
I think there's a whole lot more.
And we've talked about this at length in other episodes too.
But it's hard to like just take this one piece of the puzzle, right?
Because that's not the only reason kids are struggling.
that are at play here.
There's increased screen use.
Like never in history before have we had devices that command so much of our time and attention and are incredibly addictive and we want to be on there as much as possible.
And
You can't expect children to know how to handle that on their own.
They're of course it's gonna affect them th with that too.
And I mean you've talked about before also kids are getting less and less playtime in school and have to do more and more academic work.
when the reality is at their age they should probably be doing the opposite of that.
Yeah.
So I feel like yeah, there and there's many more issues.
And you know what I think the underlying kind of issue with all of these things is like we're seeing children, childhood as something to be fixed.
Right.
So I think even let's say with permissive parenting, let's just take that 'cause that's what we're talking about right now.
I think what often happens is parents are like
Like, I don't want my child to be unhappy.
Like I don't want to have to deal with these unhappy feelings that I I actually want them to be happy all the time because I grew up with harsh parenting or whatever, right?
Can we stop using the labels like
Gentle parenting, permissive parenting, harsh parenting, whatever, all that.
Just because I think if I were listening to this, I would sort of check out as soon as I hear these terms.
We're talking about being too permissive as a parent.
Okay, I see what you're saying.
Or being too harsh as a parent, or being, let's say, that strong leader.
as a parent, right?
So I think let's go back to that question.
Do we feel like we're being too permissive as a society?
Or too harsh.
Or too harsh.
I think that's the actual question, right?
And are we finding that we're we maybe used to be more harsh?
And now we're being more permissive.
And are we worried that we're gonna go back to being harsh?
Like that's kind of what we're trying to say, right?
Yep.
And what I think is that yes, we have moved into maybe more of a permissive
type of approach.
And there's so many reasons, right?
The screens, like you said, parents are burnt out and exhausted.
Parents are working a lot.
They don't have the family support.
So sometimes you don't even have the capacity to hold a boundary and, you know, talk to your kid and coach them through these things because being that strong leader actually takes a lot of work.
an intention and sometimes that's really hard.
And then I think the screens too, like the screens can really distract kids.
They can go on there when they're feeling sad.
I had a child recently tell me that they love being online and playing Roblox because they don't have to feel worried or tired or sad or angry when they're doing that.
Right.
So they literally have the awareness to say pretty much that they can feel numb when they do that.
So there's just so many factors going on and I think
One of the ones, and this is what I was getting at before, is that parents really want to keep their kids happy.
And sometimes that means we're kind of walking on eggshells around them, and we've done episodes on how I struggle with that too
And I think that can turn into being more permissive sometimes because then our kids can stay happy.
And I think that that's a struggle, especially when you were raised with really harsh
Parents.
Yeah, there is actually research that I found on that where especially let's say Gen Xers who were raised w in much more hostile or harsh environments, they are reacting to that by doing the exact opposite.
Yeah
Exactly.
Which is also not helpful.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week our daughter asked Scott a truly
kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan.
And he said to our daughter, thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from
our new body safety and consent course at Nurture First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me, so Jess.
If you listen to this podcast, you know me.
I'm a child therapist and a mom of three and I have taught body safety and consent education for years.
This course takes all my years of experience teaching this education and gives you calm, age-appropriate language for body parts, consent, and boundaries.
You'll learn how to teach your kids that no means no, you'll learn how to teach them to read facial cues, you'll talk about safe and unspeakable.
Safe touch, and you'll even teach them about their uh oh feeling.
There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff, like tickling that goes too far, and even the difference between a secret and a surprise.
We made this course at Nurture First because research shows that body safety education helps kids speak
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And just full disclosure here, we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it.
There's a metaphor I have in the book that actually you taught to me that I think is really profound.
And it's this idea that, you know, when you're learning to drive, like you want to keep your eyes focused on where you want to go.
But if you
put focus your eyes on like the things that you don't want to drive into, like you'll end up kind of driving into those things.
And I think that that is often what happens in parenting
Right?
Like we focus so hard on what we don't want to do that we end up doing that same thing, but just in a different way.
Yeah
And I have this example as well that I've been really thinking about, which is let's say with the screens, right?
So let's say you grew up and your parents always said, Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, you know, be a big boy, toughen up.
that kind of thing.
And so you learned not to cry, not to be too emotional.
And then you have your own child and you're like, I'm not gonna do that with them.
And so you don't punish them and you aren't cruel to them in that way.
But when they are really sad, you don't really know what else to do and you want them to become happy again.
So you say, here, you know, take the tablet, play a game, and you know that it's gonna cheer them up.
Yeah.
But over time, because every time they've become sad, now you're offering them the tablet, you're actually giving them the same message that you got, which is, I can't handle your tears, you know.
And distract yourself, do something else so that you don't feel so sad.
So it's a different way of conveying the message, but then the message ends up being the same
And I think that's a lot of what we're seeing when we can't hold those boundaries and show up as that strong and effective leader and it comes out maybe in a more permissive way than a more harsh way, but the impact can actually be really similar.
Yep.
I think that makes sense.
I've been thinking about that a lot because I see that like I see obviously the impact of the harsh parenting is talked about a lot, but the impact of when we are really permissive all the time and we
don't feel comfortable allowing your child to have emotions, there is an impact to that as well.
And I think even though the intention is keeping your child happy all the time, I think these are very good parents who have
incredible uh intentions for their children, but we do have to be able to be that strong leader who allows tears and can set boundaries and have the rules in the home.
Well do you think parents believe that if they let their child have tears that they're
Essentially being mean to them for allowing that or being cruel and therefore only if you are cruel your child will cry
And you know that, hey, you know you're going through the drive-thru and you're getting a coffee for yourself, you could very easily.
You can afford to get them hot chocolate.
It's not like you can't
So why would you bother making them upset about n and not get it for them?
I mean obviously there's a point of that that can be true
Right.
And sometimes do you want to give your child a special treat and that's fine.
And that's what you're saying.
Like it's not black and white, like, hey, you have to hold the same boundary every single time, no matter what.
Right.
But I I think that it's easy for parents to have this story that plays through their mind, which is if I could make my child happy in this moment, why would I take that opportunity away from them?
and allow them to be disappointed or sad or angry at me when I can just kind of go above and beyond and make sure that they're happy.
Yeah.
And I think it makes sense when you think about it.
But then when you think deeper, and I this is what I talk to parents about a lot actually is
But if you never give your child a chance to feel disappointed or to feel sad or to feel like kind of the hardships that do come up in day-to-day life circumstances, then you don't
Give them the experience of understanding how to cope with that feeling with you there who can coach them and support them through it.
Yeah
And I do think that that becomes an issue, especially when kids get into school age and above, and then they no longer have the tools needed to cope with disappointment or futility or like any difficult situations in life
And that is a problem.
Yeah, you're not really setting them up to be resilient to real life.
Yeah.
And I get you want to
protect your child from the biggest issues in the world.
But they're going to face more and more as they get older.
And as adults we realize this.
So I feel like there's definitely a way to balance being
Like, of course you're not gonna be cruel and purposefully make your child cry for no reason.
Yeah.
But if there's a good reason, like, okay, we
We have to be done watching TV now.
It's you had you watched her show, you know that that's the plan, and then after that we have dinner and just letting them watch like in this is the way I think about it, just letting them watch their show again is not really teaching them, hey
As a family, like it's not only about you either.
It's about everyone in our family unit.
We're all ready to have dinner now.
We have to turn this off so that you can join us and we can all start dinner together.
Mm-hmm.
I think that's a really important lesson too when you can hold those boundaries is helping your child understand it's not just all about them.
Yeah.
Right?
Like when a whole family walks on eggshells around one child or multiple children
You were really also giving the lesson that like the world revolves around you and your emotions and your emotions run the home.
And I feel like that is a lot of responsibility for a child.
You know, it seems like they want that responsibility because their emotions are so big.
But at the same time, it's a lot of responsibility for a child to be like, my emotions are what control what happens in this home.
Right.
That's not really something that we want to give to our children either.
I think a lot about this.
Like when the tendency was maybe towards being more harsh, the kind of thought process is the kids need to learn a lesson.
Right.
Like I feel like many of us grew up with
Oh, a kid just needs to learn a lesson, you know.
But the lessons that being harsh would teach were not really ones that we want to teach our kids, right?
Which is like fear me so you behave kind of thing.
But the idea that in everyday life
There is hard things that pop up for a child, even if it's as small as like, you know, I can't have what I want for dinner.
And those are the lessons that we want to teach our kids.
how to cope with.
We don't have to add in lessons.
Life has enough lessons of its own, just living it.
For sure.
Exactly.
You just have to use the the natural lessons that come up in a day and help your child learn how to deal with them.
But if every single time one of those natural lessons presents itself, like your child wants to have lucky charms for dinner and not
the soup that you're having as a family, you know?
And if every time you say, Okay, well, I want you to be happy and so let me get you this lucky charms that you really want, we don't actually give our child a chance to learn how to cope with the lessons that happen in everyday life
And then they get older and they get into everyday life and they don't have you there to switch things around every time that they are upset with something and they don't know how to function and it's really difficult.
And I do think that that is something that we're seeing, and I hear a lot from teachers right now.
I don't think that's an intentional thing that parents are doing.
I think maybe it is an overcorrection.
Maybe it is a distraction.
Maybe it is parents are too burnt out to like hold those boundaries.
Like whatever it is, there's lots of reasons.
I mean to be honest, I can see the burnt out thing because especially with everything that's going on in the world right now, people are stressed
Everyone's stressed out about everything.
And even like when I get stressed parents in, I say it's not like you have to hold the boundary around every single thing.
Right, but just have those things that you're like, okay, this is what we're gonna hold firm to, and this is where we're gonna show up as the leader.
And then if there's certain things that you're like, I just don't have the capacity to hold that one, that's fine
But let your child at least feel some consistency with you in where your boundaries are gonna be.
And at first it's harder and they push back more, but eventually, even like us, like with
Sitting at the dinner table for food, right?
We didn't always have that boundary.
Like I remember the kids used to walk around with bare paws and I get furious 'cause there's just these
I have celiac, so there's just these gluten crumbs all over the house and I'd be like, what are you guys trying to poison me?
You know, I'd be so frustrated.
So we decided
We're just gonna eat at the table.
That way we don't have to worry about cleaning crumbs up everywhere.
Well at first that was tricky.
It's not like the kids necessarily wanted to eat at the table for every single snack and every single meal
But eventually as we continue to hold the boundary and bring them back to the table and remind them, it's just become a way of life.
And it's really not even like
Friends will come over and be like, how do you have white furniture with kids?
Like we have some white chairs.
We're like, oh they don't they don't eat on the white furniture.
What do you mean it's just like
that's just a boundary that we have.
And they see the kids and they just go to the table to eat.
They remind their friends to eat there.
And so I think for parents too, it's like if you haven't been holding those, it feels really overwhelming at first because there are tears
But I like to remind them don't be afraid of the tears.
Like kids have to cry.
And if we really do want to help them, then we want to teach them that it's okay to cry
And we don't want to distract them or keep them happy all the time, every time that they're sad, because they have to learn how to be sad.
That is a lesson of life.
And that's where it's differs from that kind of harsh
way of dealing with kids where we say like don't cry, stop crying, like you shouldn't be sad about this.
Then the more passive way, which is like, oh you're sad, okay, here, like let me give you what you want.
It's the balance and like coming in and being that strong, confident leader that says
This is tough for you.
I hear that.
You don't want this and this is what it is.
It's okay to be sad about that though.
It's tough when things aren't what you want.
And then your child learns how to deal with tough things in life
Yeah, as long as you're guiding them through it.
Yeah, it's the coat it's the coaching, it's the guiding and and not fearing and not walking on eggshells around your kids, even though I know
It's tough.
Like, man, we have a three and a half year old and we've done a whole episode on that.
Sometimes you do want to walk on eggshells since you're like, I just don't want to deal with it.
Yeah, I think we talked about recently in one maybe it was the time just before.
But you should definitely listen to that because that was a bit of an emotional episode for me and just uh Oh, is that that one?
Okay.
Yeah, it's uh I think sometimes you have to.
with certain people, right?
Like we can get grumpy as well.
And then I feel like people walk on eggshells with either one of us and same with like in that situation I think our three and a half year old was was sick.
So she was
extra temperamental.
So then we just had to be a little bit more generous with her.
But then you kind of get back right back into things.
So again it's
I think what is hard to convey on social media, and I think the way you see things on social media is probably
pretty polarizing in terms of parenting.
I'm sure you see people on either extreme.
The reality is in the studies that I did find on this, most people
kind of agree in the middle on these topics.
So there's a normal distribution.
Most people are kind of like, we kind of agree this is the right way of doing things.
We agree on this topic, but they think because
It's the loud extremes that are typically getting out there the most.
And they're the least nuanced typically.
Well, no, they are the least nuanced, because they're having a hard time seeing the
opposite extreme.
That's what you're seeing most of.
Yeah, and you know what?
Back to my point of like if I post something about a strict boundary, I think it's very hard for people to hold in mind.
Hey, let's look at her entire feed.
Right?
They're just looking at that one post and they're like, man, she sounds like a no-fun, terrible, full of rules mom.
Like who would want to live in her home?
They don't see the very next post that's a nice story about, you know, tickling my daughter's back until she falls asleep in bed, right?
But that is social media
to what you're saying, right?
Where it's like you see one thing, you react to that.
But it's very difficult to look at the whole picture.
It's literally why we wanted to start this podcast.
why we wanted to write a book because you just can't convey it in the same way in short form.
Yeah, definitely not.
And perhaps that is part of this
overcorrection that we're kind of talking about where if I'm a parent, even for our posts, you might just read a few posts and they're all on validating feelings and really talking your kids through things.
But those posts don't talk about boundaries and you're like, okay, so that's what it is then.
So I'm gonna just do that.
But I haven't read anything else.
Meanwhile, there are probably I can't remember how many, but I think there's
close to 3,000 posts you can scroll through and then over 3,000.
Yeah are we over 3,000?
Yeah.
Okay.
So it would be easier to take one post off the feed and be like, okay, I'm gonna live
This way as a parent, but you don't look at everything else, then yeah, you're missing the whole picture.
one or the other end of the extreme that you're not looking at their feed to see what they believe.
Honestly it's what I am more talking about is the articles that are coming out.
Oh, like news articles.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
That's more so.
Like I don't really look at other people's content, to be honest.
So it's more that I'm getting sent articles from like different various
large news sources being like just they are saying this and they're saying everyone's permissive and they're blaming it on this and they're saying we need more punishments, but they don't know anything about the actual like effective style of parenting.
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about
But I think this is a good conversation in terms of just centering yourself again and being like, there is so much nuance there and really what it is about
being that strong, confident leader that can show up for your kids, right?
And to know that sometimes that looks like before you leave the house and you know you're gonna go through a drive-thru and you're gonna get a coffee and you say to your kids
Hey, today I'm just getting a coffee for me.
You know, it's not always about everybody getting their fancy drink every single time.
Like I'm just getting myself a coffee and then we're on our way for groceries.
Right.
And then sometimes it might say like, hey guys, let's have a special treat this morning.
Let's stop, let's go in, let's have a little snack, and let's sit together and that would be so fun.
Sometimes it's about your child is in the grocery store parking lot and they're screaming and crying and they don't want to go in and you're like, you know what?
It's unrealistic
for me to think that this is gonna go well because you just had a whole day at daycare and you're 18 months old and I'm expecting you to go to a grocery store at the busiest time of day.
We're gonna go home, we're gonna order groceries online.
And sometimes it's about I have to go in and get milk
Like it just is what it is.
Let's go in.
I know you don't like it.
That's the nuance that I think is really hard to talk about.
It's not about flip-flopping all the time.
It's about reading the situation and like having those conversations with your child as well
Yeah, right.
And you might have to have those conversations after when they're feeling better.
They're more well rested or they've had their snack or whatever.
Yeah, like a hundred percent there's been times let's say we have
a sick kid at home and we have to go into the pharmacy for a minute and quickly get some medication, but the child who's with me absolutely has no interest in that.
But I also have a child with a raging fever at home who I have to get some medication for.
So you have to do the thing your child doesn't want to do.
You can't say, oh well, you don't want this, so then I'll bring you home.
And like it just doesn't work
And then later when they're calm, you have a conversation about it and say, look, your sister was really sick, and that's why we had to go in today.
And they know that that wasn't very fun for you, didn't want to do that after school
So I don't know, hopefully that helps people just to know that there is some nuance to it all.
And hopefully, I mean people have listened to enough of these episodes to realize that
That's how we are.
We try to balance things.
And I mean your approach, the methods that you teach parents, I don't think they're very complicated to understand.
It just people have to kind of
If you're tired and busy and yeah, you don't have a lot of time, it's easy to switch into that binary thinking like everything's black and white or I have to label it I'm specifically this type of parent
Mm-hmm.
And understand the nuance in life in general.
I think about a friend of mine who teeters well not teeth, she is.
very type A kind of personality.
And she would sometimes take something I'd say and be like, okay, you have to s you have to hold your boundary, right?
But then feel so stuck on holding the boundary.
And once she's realized halfway through that the boundaries actually makes no sense at all
She's be like, well, I have to hold the boundary and continue to hold it and then have like hours and hours longs of meltdowns, right?
And her and I had that conversation too of like
Sometimes you have to also read your child and read the situation and be like, oh, I made a mistake with this bound.
Like this isn't actually not something I need to hold right now.
And it's okay to go back on it.
And she was like
Yeah, but like what does that teach them?
And I'm like, yeah, but all the other times where you do hold the boundary and it makes sense and it's valid.
Yeah.
This one time that you're holding the boundary that they lunches at
one and it's eleven thirty and they're starving and they're gonna be hangry like crying until one if you don't give them some food.
It just doesn't make sense and it's okay to say that.
And that was like very difficult for her because she likes the rules
She's like, give me that structure, give me the rules, like I want to live by that, but real life parenting doesn't always look that way.
Yeah.
Being too rule-oriented doesn't work when life is much more organic.
I feel like there's so many times we've looked at each other like we might be midway through holding something and we look at each other and we're like, okay, like maybe we should just feed them.
Or maybe we should just you know.
Or one of us is holding a bat and the other one's like, does that really make sense right now?
I think what it has done, especially in our oldest and now a little bit in our middle
daughter as well.
But they are willing to question the decisions that we are making, let's say for them.
And honestly, it feels like, at least, it started to help them have this method of
problem solving.
So they can think through like, yeah, but this doesn't make sense.
And they can push back a little bit and then they know, hey, we're we are actually receptive to that.
And if what they're saying makes sense, then we'll change our boundary because
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, okay.
You know, I didn't think of that.
That makes sense.
Exactly.
And so then they have that critical thinking.
Yeah, I feel like because of that it's taught critical thinking.
Now, again
in order to make sure people don't think of this in too black and white a manner.
I think if you do that too often where you set a boundary and then decide, oh you know what?
Doesn't matter.
And you do that then they're not gonna trust your leaders.
Then they're not gonna trust that you've actually know what you're doing at all.
Exactly.
So it's like on occasion that might happen.
Yeah, again, I think it's when it's logical.
When it's logical to change your mind on something, then you should.
I'd say to parents too, like take a pause for a moment before you decide to set a boundary if you can, and like ask yourself, is this actually realistic?
I find that when I do that, because like my instinct would be like, da da da, here's the new rule, right?
But if I take a minute to pause and I'm like, okay, Jess, that's actually totally not realistic or fair.
then I can actually say something that I can hold.
So it's like saying to parents, like set boundaries that you're actually willing to hold and that you can and that's realistic.
I mean, that's the ideal world.
Okay.
Well I don't know that we answered the question, but I think we had the discussion we needed to have.
Yeah.
Hopefully it was valuable to people listening.
I got across what I wanted to say.
Sure.
Like when I originally gave you that question, which was basically just wanting to add a lot of nuance into a discussion that I don't think has enough nuance in it.
And I think that
these kind of conversations are going to be what saves us from going flip-flopping all the time, you know, veering towards being permissive, veering towards being harsh, kind of like, you know, I think
when we can actually have real conversations about what it actually looks like to be that confident and strong leader for our kids, that is when parents will feel empowered to be that person.
Yeah.
But if it's always like you were talking about like a labeling and you're either this or you're that, that's where it gets really tough, I think.
Well, thank you all.
And honestly, like we said at the very beginning, this is kind of like an opinion
Peace and so we want to get your thoughts on it as well.
And yeah, leave us a comment or send us an email.
It's in the show notes, so
Take a look at that if you uh want to send us an email.
We try and read all of them.
We don't necessarily respond to all of them, but a lot of our episodes are also based on emails that we receive.
Yeah, we love your feedback.
Yeah.
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