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In this raw and insightful episode, we sit down with our close friend Tryphena for a deep dive into the realities of parenting, friendship, and personal growth. Tryphena is Jess's dear friend, a former educator, a mom of 2, as well as an Indian woman married to a French Canadian man. She opens up about the challenges of raising her neurodivergent son.
Jess and Tryphena also explore the power of healing their inner voice. They discuss how your inner critic might be the voice of a caregiver or parent.
Through her experiences, Tryphena shares the importance of reparenting oneself and healing childhood wounds, especially when faced with triggering situations as a parent. She discusses her journey of cultural identity, from assimilation to embracing her heritage, and how she supports her biracial children in developing a healthy sense of self.
Throughout the conversation, the theme of vulnerability and authenticity in friendships emerges, and we reflect on what makes our friendship with Tryphena so special—the ability to have deep, real conversations without judgement.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating the messy but rewarding journey of parenting, self-discovery, and personal growth. Tryphena's story is one of resilience, adaptation, and the power of embracing one's true self, offering inspiration and comfort to exhausted parents everywhere.
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids printable activities at Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/] using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
Learn more about the Solving Bedtime Battles course here [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/solving-bedtime-battles/].
Credits:
Editing by The Pod Cabin [https://thepodcabin.com/]
Artwork by Wallflower Studio [https://www.wallflowerstudio.co/]
Production by Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/]
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.
We are so glad that you are here.
As always, let's start the show with a question from Scott.
Alright, you have a question for me?
Yes.
Okay.
I'm nervous.
Are you?
Why?
Scott never tells me the questions before he asks me, so I don't know what's coming.
I have no idea.
The big question is
Why do you like Trifina so much?
Oh, that is a good question.
I know why I like Trifena so much.
Okay, well let's bring it back.
I think we talk about this in the episode a little bit, but the first time I met Trifina, we had a mutual connection.
And this connection had been telling us for probably months, oh you guys need to get together, you'd really get along
And we were just we both had little kids at home and we were just busy.
So finally you were away.
You were traveling all the time during this era of our lives.
Like halfway.
So I was alone with our daughter a lot
Finally I was like, you know what?
Yeah, I need a friend.
I'll go to Trifina's house and we'll just see how this is.
And I go there and it's all perfectly clean and decorated and I'm like, oh my goodness.
Wait, really?
Yeah.
She had the house clean.
There's a veggie tray out and she was really worried to have me over.
Like she wanted to put on a good show for me.
And what I loved about her was by five minutes in, we were talking about like our deepest trauma.
We're talking about our birth stories.
Like we just had this instant connection, which is hard to find in a friend, where you just instantly feel so safe.
And like you can just share anything with that person.
So within a few minutes, we're just talking about all these things that it's like you can't just talk to anybody about these things.
And there's just this feeling of safeness with her.
And then of course our daughters are the same age, so they were playing and they were having a really fun time.
And I could see tries
defenses that were up because she wants to present herself as someone who you'd want to be friends with.
But as she felt safe with me and I felt safe with her, the defenses kind of came down.
And by the end we had the kids watching Paw Patrol and there was just
Cheerios all over the floor and dissolved into chaos.
It dissolved into chaos.
This beautiful chaos that we both live in as parents.
Like her and I are both not the moms to make
full gourmet meals.
So we're just not the kind of parent.
Not the most planful.
Yeah, exactly.
We both kind of thrive in the chaos that is parenting.
And I think we could really relate on that.
So I think why do I like Trifina so much
She makes me feel really safe when I talk to her.
I feel like I can talk to her about anything from religion to inner child healing to
our marriage and you and I have had great conversations with her and her husband about difficult things.
And I also feel like we can have fun and just be silly together too and live in this chaos.
Why do you like Trifena so much?
Well, I feel like in general, like for the two of us and Mark and Trey Fina, there's like a mutual respect for one another and I like the fact that when you're talking to them you feel like the defenses aren't up.
The ego is not causing us to
have to say things that aren't quite true just to make us look a little bit better, like we can be fully upfront and honest.
There's a mutual feeling of safety and there's no judgment.
And just let me go there.
Two other things.
The the vulnerability.
Yeah.
I think with a lot of our friends, and Scott and I are very privileged to have
quite a few close friends.
And I think the the biggest factor that allows us to have these friendships is vulnerability.
Yep.
And I think there's a safeness because
we are already vulnerable online to the world.
So people know that we're open having these kind of deeper conversations and just being real about who we are.
And I think when we're vulnerable and authentic and truly ourselves in a friendship, it makes the friends
also feel like they can be open and vulnerable with us.
And I think that brings a sense of safety and authenticity to the friendship.
That's really pretty cool.
It seems like almost every single time we hang out with
couple friends.
We dive into trauma or parenting issues that we're struggling with or
Whatever it it's like a real conversation.
It's not surface level.
I also think neither of us know how to do small talk.
Yeah, I know.
I hate small talk.
Yeah.
That's the worst.
That was my least favorite part of being
a sales engineer was the small talk meeting new customers, going to trade shows and just it was so exhausting.
Smalltalk is probably one of the most exhausting things and I think that's why we really like
Trifina and Mark and so many of our other good friends because we don't have to do the whole small talk thing.
We can just get right into it.
How was your week?
Oh, it was terrible.
Oh, okay.
Tell me more.
Why was it terrible?
And we can just get right into it.
And I think there is something so powerful, and I know it's really hard to find friendships as adults.
I think in the last
maybe five, six years, we've really established some beautiful friendships.
But I think we've had seasons.
And I remember when I first became a mom and I was actually running Our Mama Village at the time, which nurtured first the name was Our Mama Village before.
And I hadn't met Chrissy yet, who Chrissy is my good mom friend as well.
And none of my other friends had had kids.
And I remember running our mom a village and being like, yeah.
I'm writing this page for mom and I feel so connected to moms online, but I don't really have any moms in my own life.
And I don't really have any mom friends that I can relate to in my own life
So a way of me starting the page at the time, our Mama Village, was to actually just have some connections with other moms who could say that they got it and understood what I was going through.
And I remember feeling pretty lonely in that season.
Like none of my friends have kids yet.
No one really gets what I'm going through.
Yeah, definitely.
And then I was gone a lot.
Yeah, you traveled a lot.
And I think my outlet of having that online page where I connected with moms actually saved me in a way.
Because I was getting stories from moms being like, no, I'm going through this too, Jess.
Like you're not alone
And that really helped.
And then over time I met another one of our friends who is a really good friend and we actually met because
Scott's cousin bought a couch off of them on Kijiji, which is like a an online sales.
Buy and sell.
Buy and sell.
And then Scott's cousin connected us and then she's also one of our good friends.
So you can find friends in all sorts of random places.
Another one of our friends we met because her child didn't have a diaper and she had a newborn and she asked me if we had a diaper in wipes at our child's school and we just ended up becoming friends
So I think my encouragement to anyone who feels like they don't have parent friends is there's lots of random places we can make friends and any friendship that we've actually made
has come because of intention, right?
Yeah, definitely.
For example, that couch scenario, Scott's cousin reaches out to me, hey, I just bought a couch off this Khajiji from this girl who is also a therapist and has a kid the same age as you and lives in the same town.
You should reach out
and intentionally taking that step to reach out is how I made that friend.
Which I think sometimes we feel like friendships just kinda have to fall in our lap or we have to have been friends with them forever.
But I know a lot of the friends that I have or we have
It's you intentionally going out for a beer with with your buddy and making that time and you're really good at that actually.
Yeah, I try to
To go back to Trifina, what we do that works.
Yeah, we went off on a little tangent about friendship.
But I do think it's a topic that we can all relate to because we need togetherness, we need community.
And even if that looks like seeing a friend once a month
that outlet to talk to someone who gets it and who's going through something similar is really powerful.
For Try and I, I know what we do is audio message.
And so she'll send me like three audio messages.
Jess, I just thought about this.
What about
you know, r religion and this and this and this and there'll always be like the deepest thoughts that she's ever had.
And then I'll listen and four days later when I finally have a minute I will audio message her back
And so it doesn't look perfect.
It's not like we're constantly texting every single day.
But those messages, those little touch points, I think.
Well even every four days is pretty good.
Every four day yeah, every four days is pretty good.
Yeah, and that's increased I think in the in the last few years where we've really deepened our friendship, but friendship in this season can look totally different and
I'm really excited for everyone to hear from Trife Unit today.
She has a lot of really important things to say.
And I think we can both agree this conversation has really stuck with us ever since we had this podcast with her.
Yeah, definitely.
You got into a lot with her on this podcast, I think.
It's quite interesting and she you can tell she thinks about everything very deeply.
Which is what we love about her also.
Oh, another thing we love about Tri.
Alright, so without further introduction, let's get into it.
So how has the back to school transition been?
Because I'm actually so curious.
I feel like every time I talk, you're just like it's been a hot mess.
But yeah, what's how's it been going?
Every time you talk to me, it's a hot mess over here
Well that's what you're saying.
I don't know if it's actually a hot mess, but I think it's a hot mess.
Okay, so I have two kids.
They're both in different schools.
this year.
My oldest had like a really bad autistic burnout last year and didn't go to school for two and a half months.
So he's going to school this year, which is a win.
We're like, oh, we're going into a building.
and leaving our bed.
These are huge wins, but it just means that any time like it takes all of his minimal capacity.
So mornings and evenings are complete shit shows.
And
Yeah, there's just a lot of screens and a lot of downtime.
Like really, it's about school for him.
Right.
For my youngest, our daughter.
Oh my gosh.
So she is going so she's at her own school, which is kind of fun.
We get to bike together in the morning and she's going.
Four days in, her teacher had a family emergency and is no longer there.
So they have yet to find a teacher, which I completely understand this happens, but this is just the chaos of transition.
Her emotions are through
the roof.
She's like such a strong, fierce child, and I just absolutely love that about her.
I'm wondering, like when you see Kaya as a kid, like were you like that when you were a kid?
Like were you like more like a Kaya or were you more
Quiet, like what were you like?
Oh, it's such a good question.
Okay.
So it's funny, I don't think I was like Kaya, but I think I wanted to be like Kaya.
I think it's still true in my life.
I look at Kaya and I'm like, I want to be you when I grow up.
Like
She's so good at advocating for herself, at like voicing her opinions.
Even the other day she I was like, hi, can we clean your room together?
Because I was feeling stressed by it.
And she looks at me and she's like
You are trying to make me do what is safe for your body and not what is safe for my body.
No thank you.
I was like, Arh
Kidding me?
Like can you chill for five seconds?
But no.
Okay, so I grew up in a different space where I like it was like a loving home, but obviously like an Indian household
And the value wasn't on like agency and autonomy.
The value was on listening to the people in authority over you.
And
So I think I was really good at playing like the good girl role and then just being like really resentful versus Kaya is really good at advocating for herself, which I'm still like very much learning in my life, which is wild.
Yeah, I feel like that's really interesting.
Like so often, and I find this with our oldest too, right?
Like she is so much like me, but maybe more like the me that I would have been if
I wasn't so worried about being that good girl and and all of that kind of stuff.
Like she's a lot more vocal and assertive and confident.
Yeah, all those things.
We've talked about that at length.
Where she's just she's all the things that we wish we were like when we were kids.
Yeah.
And it's amazing because you've instilled all of that in her, right?
You've given her that space for her voice and her agency.
And she's able to do that.
Is there anything else that you see when you see, okay, well she's who maybe I could have been if my parents were able to validate my feelings or understand or what else are you feeling when you're seeing that with her?
So it's really this is the hard part.
I you know who like
the whole dichotomy of you can feel more than one emotion at the same time.
I can feel pride and I can also feel like it's triggering.
We've talked a lot about this about how parenting is being a big journey of having to reparent ourselves
And I think there's a part where I feel sad for Little Try for not being able to, you know, vocalized on the thing that Kaya is able to.
I also there's times when so especially because of what our last year has looked like with burnout and all of that, some of times Kaya's emotions are her yelling and there has to be space for her to express what she's feeling in a kind way.
That that's a whole other conversation.
But
I get really triggered by it sometimes because sometimes her emotions are, you're the worst, you're stupid, you don't care about me, da-da-da-da.
And from her little six-year-old perspective, like
she's seen her brother get more attention this year.
So to her it feels like no one cares about her.
So oh my gosh, I'm giving you all I'm all over the place.
I apologize.
So we we are a mixed household.
I am an Indian woman.
My husband is French Canadian
my daughter is mixed, but in the winter can very much pass as a little white girl.
So when she's yelling at me, like little try, like little brown try is like losing her ship because little white girl's yelling at her
And so I think it's really like there's a triggering part to me when I see her step into her power and like her authority where I feel
sad and then I feel attacked and then I feel like I'm not good enough.
Really, it's this whole mess.
This is what therapy is for.
This is like Yeah.
There's something that's so what I love about you and why we're such good friends is is your
So reflective.
I feel like you take those pieces and you think, okay, well Kaya's yelling at me.
Like, what is that saying about me?
Like, why am I getting so triggered?
And I think the
the fact that you can see that that is little try who feels like when you were little, when you were Kaya's age, like were you getting yelled at by like is it your parents?
Is that what you're feeling?
Is it other kids at school?
For sure my parents
And not like I think it's just how they were taught to communicate themselves, but also like feeling like one of the only kids of color in my spaces and then feeling left out.
I think when she yells at me, it makes me feel like an outsider in my own family, which is
It's my own stuff that I have to work on.
But I think it's my journey of like my own insecurities and validations that it really triggered.
Yeah, no, that's really interesting to feel like the outsider in your own family.
This is not where I thought the conversation would go.
Oh my god.
This is why I love talking to you.
Yeah.
No, it isn't.
I love it
Yeah.
No, I just feel like everything you say I'm always so interested and to feel like the outsider in your family and because of the way Kaya's yelling.
Like I I can see that and I feel like this last year, I mean you guys have been through so much with
Gray's diagnosis and the burnout in school and and all of those things that sometimes even having her yell or it's just like one more thing can also be super overstimulating and just
isolating to you and I know you and Mark have been through so much this year with all of that.
How do you balance like letting her have that autonomy and that space?
to have the voice that you didn't have and that you wish that you had, and also being like, okay, but you can't just yell, I hate you, to me all the time because you don't actually he love me.
She's so interesting because she's a different like I parent her very different than I parent Gray intentionally and unintentionally because
She needs to like say what she's gonna say and she goes to her room.
You can't talk to her, and she'll come out ten minutes later and she's like, I'm really sorry.
Like she has her own introspection and she comes back and apologizes, but you cannot rush it
I feel like I've told you this even from the time she was two.
It's like, hey Kaya, we need to talk about your behavior.
Okay, before bed.
And literally she'll drag it out till 10 30 at night and be like, okay, now I'm ready to talk.
Yeah.
And she knows she knows when she's ready to talk, or if she's she's too in her own emotions or she's too overstimulated.
So I'm learning with her.
I really need to give her that space
And it takes a lot of control on my part because I realize I'm a very verbal processor just in my own life.
And so to be like, okay, I actually can't process this with you right now.
I need to wait till you're ready.
And when she is ready, it's the best conversation.
Right.
It's just you cannot do it in the moment with her.
Yeah, and I I agree.
I feel like she's been like that from the start.
For you, I will kinda want to go back to you're talking about growing up in an Indian family and your parents.
Now, are your parents immigrants?
My parents both immigrated to Canada.
Okay, how old were they when they immigrated?
Like both like early thirties.
My dad came here first for school and then went back and got married and my mom came here right after they were married.
Like I don't know how she did it where she marries someone new and moves to a new country.
It's it's wild
Did they know each other?
Like did they date before they were married?
It was an arranged marriage.
Like they knew of each other.
They'd run in similar communities.
But yeah, it was it was an arranged marriage.
And how long after they got married did they have you're the oldest, right?
I am the oldest.
I think it was oh my gosh, I think it was like four years.
So my mom had five miscarriages
for me.
Oh.
And it's like a yeah.
And one topic.
And at that point you actually remove a tube, right?
So it was just it was a whole like they had a whole journey of
of infertility before.
Wow.
So for your parents, like arranged marriage, new country, five miscarriages, and then they
they had you.
Like that's quite the journey even before having a new baby.
Absolutely.
And like just like the trauma they had to endure and all of that and just the hardship and significant.
Alright, it's that time of the show where we hear from our sponsor.
Oh wait, that's us.
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So growing up in an Indian family, I mean, I know your parents make delicious food because you've had it and it's amazing.
But tell me
What's the culture like?
You've talked a lot to me personally about how it was very strict and a certain kind of image of like being the good girl that was really important and valuable.
But what other kind of cultural pieces
Did they bring in from India?
Yeah, okay, so it's funny that you're like you've eaten their food because that is very much how they show love to this day.
Anytime they show up, they show up with food.
And like that is how you know an Indian parrot loves you.
It's like I'm not gonna apologize
I'm gonna show up in your room with a plate of like cut fruit.
Like that's my that's my thing.
Okay, so it it was an Indian Christian household.
And I think there's like
There's no like one monolithic cultural way of how it's gonna play out.
But I think in our home, like for sure, it was strict.
It was like the navigation of like they're navigating a new culture and
how they raise kids in a culture that's not like what they have experienced, what's the norm has been to them.
And I think too okay, so here's like
I don't know.
As much as I am an Indian woman, I am not an expert on Indian culture, right?
But um if I think of like whether it was explicitly said or inadvertently, it was just like a subconscious thing.
There was an idea that your parents are like mini deities, mini gods in your life, right?
And you don't question the mini-god in your life.
And I don't know if part of that is just like aspects of like Indian culture and reincarnation and like, you know, Hinduism where like your parents are genuinely perceived as mini deities.
So it's like God, your parents, and then you.
But then that played into just even our faith experience, like a Christian Indian home, where it was like, if my parents
said something that a must be coming from God.
Like my parents are never wrong.
Even when they're wrong, they're right.
So
I think what it was like for me was it was just a space where I didn't know that I could make my own decisions or how to make my own decisions.
But I would constantly be bumping up against their decisions because they never aligned with my own values
And instead of having a like a paradigm of like, oh, it's okay to have different perspectives, it was very like your preferences more were moralized.
So oh
Like you don't want to do this and we want you to do this, so therefore you are a bad person.
Versus, oh, like Trafina just has a different way of doing things
So that makes sense.
Yeah, so it's very it's their way, like their rules, what they say.
Absolutely.
That's almost like, yeah, that's the god.
That's
a message from God or that's just the authority figure that you want to listen to.
And then if you have a different opinion, whether it's like small or big, it's inherently wrong because it's not coming from the parent.
That's exactly it.
And it's complicated, right?
It's complicated when your choices then become like moralized or you like you throw a faith perspective on there and it's like, well, you are going against like the god of the universe.
It's like, oh my goodness
it just it hits differently as a child.
Yeah, I know this is something that we've talked a lot about because I know faith has I mean, still is, but has always been a big part of your life, just
going growing up in a Christian Indian home as well.
And now I know we've talked a lot about this like deconstructing and looking at it differently as you grow up.
So
As a child, how did you view like faith, God, the world?
Like what was that view like then kind of compared to your journey as you've gotten older?
And this is like
Let me just ask you like the biggest questions and That's like oh my goodness What do I say
Wow.
Okay, so I think as a child I believed what I was told, like right off the bat, right?
Like we were part of a really hyper conservative space.
to the point where it's like you don't wear makeup, you don't play with Barbies, like all that stuff.
And I remember like seeing kids on the schoolyard playing with Barbies and going up to them being like, you can't do that.
Don't you know that makes you bad.
And just like I really vehemently like I took in what was taught to me because whether we call it indoctrination or not, it was like it's when you're one and two and three, like what you hear, like I didn't have gift of critical thinking at that point
I see that in in our kids too, right?
Like basically anything you teach a child, if it's coming from their parent who they respect, they're gonna believe it.
So I can see that for you, and I know like in our own experiences too.
Like if you're growing up
in that kind of culture, you're just believing everything that your parents say and you're taking that as as words.
So then when a child is playing with Barbies, you're like, no, like my parent says that that's
bad, like that's a bad thing to do.
And then you start to feel worried about other people when you see that happening.
Like I can picture that for little Bry and and and for us too.
Yeah, it's exactly it, right?
And then I think as I got older, there were a lot more questions.
I also like I went to school for sociology and it was like the first time that I was like, oh, there are other systems and structures at play and I'm not just losing my mind.
Like
Some of these things like one plus one, even though I've been taught equals two, doesn't line up to me.
Or even just this idea of like, so even within I think the Christian faith and so many different faith traditions, there are lots of different perspectives on things.
And I think even just to have the realization that it is okay to have different opinions became a really big deal to me.
I was like, oh.
You can you can have your own values.
I don't know.
Do you think the first time that you recognize that?
I know for me when I first went to university, that was kind of the first time and I think I was in a bunch of classes that I was like, oh dang, like maybe I don't always have to
think the same things that I grew up believing or maybe I can do some things different.
And that doesn't mean that I think everything about my childhood is wrong or bad, but it was the first time that I started reflecting and thinking of things a little bit differently
And I know that at the time, and I know my parents will probably listen to this podcast too, but at the time it did cause some some conflict between my parents and I, right?
Because there'd be things that
I was like, no, like I actually think it's okay to let's say go shopping on a Sunday or something like that.
So that was a different view and then that was something that we had to work through and and kinda talk about.
Do you think going to university was that like the f
first time or did that happen earlier that you were really like, oh maybe there are things that I want to do different and maybe there's a piece of that that's okay.
Yeah.
Like honestly I think for me
It was like middle school where I just I started to realize that my values were very different than my family's, whether it's like shopping on a Sunday and actually being like, I don't, I don't think that is as bad as I'm being told that it is, right?
But I think up until university I thought I was a bad person for thinking the thoughts I had, for disagreeing with people.
It was like, oh well, you must be inherently evil somehow.
Try, you've like totally lost your way.
Whatever that means
And I think going to university was really helpful for me and just freeing to be like, oh, there are lots of different opinions and values and they're all held in a high regard
Right.
Like to kind of go back to what you're talking about, because I think a lot of parents that I talked to on Nurtured First feel this way too.
And I think they struggle with their own kids, right?
Because I think that they grew up with this feeling of
Well, if I do this then I'm a bad person inherently.
And I I think what you said there, I just didn't want to skip over that because I think that that's such a big feeling that a lot of us still as parents
struggle with right if I do this am I bad and then on the flip side if my child talks back to me like when I was the parents think like when I was a kid if I talked back to my parent like that like I would have been yelled at I would have been sent to my room
So then their automatic thought is when their child does that, like, do I have a bad kid?
How did you or are you still, I guess, kind of working through those thoughts?
Because I know that that's not something that you just quickly kind of work through if if that's the worldview that you were raised with.
So that is definitely something I'm still s like it's still very much like a growth process in my own life.
And I don't know, like whether you're part of a faith community that has like an idea of people being inherently bad or I think it's also just we live in a very polarized
world where we have like moralized preferences where it's like, oh, you parent this way, you're a bad parent.
You parent this way, you're a good parent, right?
Like, and so
I struggle with this.
I think it took me a long time to embrace myself that I wasn't inherently bad and evil.
And then even with my children, I think that was part of having kids.
Where it was like, oh my goodness, I have this incredibly delightful, beautiful little human and they are good.
Like
If like I believe in a higher power and so to me, I'm like, oh, they're made in the image of God.
They're beautiful.
They're full of joy.
They're full of love.
They're full of delight
versus this idea that at least I had been taught where it's like, oh, you know your like your kids are horrible and they're evil because look, look at how quickly they can lie and lying is bad, right?
Like look at how quickly you asked them if like they stole the cookie and they're gonna say no.
And instead it's been this really big reframe of like, no, if my kids are being dishonest or if they're quote unquote talking back or
they're yelling about their emotions.
That's actually like developmentally.
That is where they should be.
They should be learning personal autonomy.
They should be learning they can push boundaries.
And if they don't have the chance to do that then, then they're gonna grow up like and there's gonna be serious like
stunting and their attachment and their own like bodily securities and so I'm like it's been such a good reframe but sorry go on
Yeah.
Well two I have two things about that.
One, I was just gonna call on Scott's perspective here.
So he also grew up in a home where, yeah, if you talk back to your parents, you're bad, like you know, the parents are kind of like the highest authority and and he'd get in trouble a lot as a kid.
And I remember like we always talk about this one conversation that we had when our oldest was a toddler and she started having tantrums and stuff like that
And Scott was kind of saying, well, how do we respond?
Like, do can we just let her have these tantrums?
Like, you know, like you kind of have this perspective when you grow up like that that now my kid is
It's bad.
And anyway, we had this whole discussion.
I remember it exactly where we were, hey Scott.
Like driving in the car.
Actually close to where I grew up
The timing of it all like obviously wasn't planned and
It was really cool 'cause we just happened to be on a drive, just happened to be driving past where he grew up and we have were having this discussion and I was explaining to him
At the time, like he now he's an expert in all this, but he didn't know about developmentally appropriate expectations and the fact that kids are really supposed to have tantrums.
It's a part of how they develop and grow and learn about the world and stuff like that
And I just remember I feel like in that drive, your perspective on kids and yourself and everything just totally changed and correct me if I'm wrong there.
Yes, definitely.
I mean I think it's been drilled into especially our community.
I'm sure Trifina you can probably relate to that, but it's kind of drilled into you that you have to obey your parents or your grandparents or anyone who's older than you, essentially.
And I think that's where that idea came from that our oldest daughter, she's having tantrums or she's talking back or whatever it was.
And I had at the time I would say
very little understanding of the development of children and what makes sense for them to be able to do to experience their world.
Their life like actually grow and develop and develop
Much better habits than let's say we would've, or much better uh ways of attaching or dealing with others.
'Cause I mean I would still say it
For myself, I still have to work on that.
And you see already that our two oldest daughters are I would say they're often better than me at doing that.
They're amazing.
They are amazing at regulating.
Like it honestly blows us away.
Don't put pressure on them to do that.
They just I feel like it's just day in, day out.
The way we have been raising them, I think, is very different from how we were raised.
And it's allowed for them to actually experience those things, name those emotions.
understand other people's perspectives and then that's allowed them to develop those skills much, much faster than we would have.
Yeah.
Me.
But I would say both of us.
Both of us, totally.
And we're both just very different temperament kids.
But I think for you and it's like what Tri was saying
the idea of changing the perspective to like this child is bad and this child is inherently like evil and bad to this
Child is inherently good.
And then that's the second point Tri I was gonna bring up.
I said I had two.
The second one is something I learned from you and Mark very soon after we started being friends.
And I think it was you and I think I heard you saying this to Kaya's like, I know you're good, Kaya.
You are a good kid and and you're just struggling right now.
And you don't want to hit
Gray.
And I remember you using that language with her.
And it really it always stuck with me.
And I always used that with the girls because I loved how you would always name first.
Like
You're good and you don't want to hurt your brother, but you are.
It's hard to control your body.
And I love that language.
And I think for me, and I know for a lot of people who follow nurtured first, like
Starting with that language has made a huge difference.
So anyway, I learned that from you guys and I feel like you guys are so good at that.
Thanks, Jess.
We try.
It's this interesting thing of identity, right?
You know how like they talk about your inner voice and your inner critic is often actually your parents' voice in your head.
And I mean I don't know what
the sciences around that.
But I just realized for my kids, I'm like, they're not meaning, like you're right, they it's hard to control your body.
They're not showing up being aggressive intentionally.
And it's my job, it's my delight as their parent to mirror back to them who they actually are
And I get to show them that they are good and they are loving and they're creative and just remind them that that's actually how I see them.
I don't just see them
as someone who has lost control of their emotions or whatever it is.
And so yeah, I don't know.
We try.
I love that and then I love the idea too of yeah, when they're older and
they lose their cool or something happens.
It's like that doesn't mean that they're this inherently bad or evil person.
Like they can use those words themselves, right?
Like I'm a good person, but I had a hard day today and now I'm gonna repair that.
So
That's what I we try and do with the girls too.
Like we want them to have that language and we want them to have that inner voice from the city.
Yeah, and they're good at it.
It's cute.
Like this past summer our oldest daughter that was in like a triathlon and she I'm sorry, what?
Yeah, we were camping and they had like a triathlon there and she was biking and she was way behind everyone.
She's like, that's okay.
It's how I learn
It's like sometimes you have to make mistakes or sometimes you have to lose.
I lost
her so much.
Yeah.
I think that's her temperament too.
She has like a very calm demeanor as well.
And they'll always like come out with these wise things.
We're like
Wow, we have a lot to learn from you too.
She's so wise.
You can hear her repeating back to us what we've been saying to her.
Yeah.
It's like those are the things that we've taught her.
Like let's say I'm teaching her how to play Mario Kart
I mean she's much better now, but she was terrible when she started.
And she was like, that's okay.
She like keeps falling off, falls off the circuit a hundred times.
But that's okay.
That's how I learn.
I get better.
Oh, I love that so much.
It's beautiful to hear her even articulate it back in her own language, because you know she's actually internalized it when she can bring it up on her own in her own like moments.
Yeah, it's not just she's not just like reiterating a script.
It's her own variation of it.
Yeah, I know.
I do love that.
Definitely.
And I hope that she continues to have that as her internal voice.
Going forward.
Because I feel like that's so much more powerful than let's say my internal voice is you made a mistake, you screwed up.
It's maybe a little bit different in my head, but
Basically, you need to fix this.
Otherwise you're not very smart.
Yeah.
That's everything.
It's wild how we make a mistake and it calls our entire identity into question, right?
It's like you're not very smart versus Scott, you're one of like the smartest people I know.
But it's like yet that entire identity gets called into question.
Sorry, Jess, not taking away from your brilliance as well.
No, I'm with you, Scott's on the screen.
I didn't realize the podcast was going to be all about uh pumping Scott's tires here.
Talk about how great Scott is, his amazing 3D printing.
No, but also like I remember years ago I was working with a therapist.
So I'm at I was a teacher by profession at that point, and I was late to a job.
And I remember driving there and like my heart racing and like my palms sweating.
And it wasn't like, oh my goodness, I'm gonna be late.
It's like, oh my goodness, Trefina, you are the worst person ever.
How could you be so stupid?
You're so lazy, you have no time management, everybody's gonna hate you.
And like my internal dialogue was a mess.
I'm debriefing this with my counselor, and she's like, you know, that's not typical for your internal dialogue to go to
I'm a horrible person.
It should be, hey, I made a mistake and it's okay.
People are still gonna see that I'm human.
And just understanding that, like, you know, that line, mistakes are proof that I'm trying.
Like that
has been such a groundbreaking line for me just to be like, oh, it's okay to make mistakes.
It's okay to mess it up.
It's actually just
a picture of growth versus I am a horrible person and I have failed at life.
Yeah.
I I feel like that's so much of those messages that you grow up hearing and and I know Scott struggles with that too.
My parents were very compassionate people.
And so I feel like when I see
Scott and I in relationship or when I hear your stories, like I feel like I have more of that programming of self-compassion and I'm able to give it to myself.
Like I'm still critical of myself, obviously.
I think a lot of that is also I like
things to be done well and at a high standard and that was my parents too, but I am more prone to self-compassion where I see that in you or I see that in Scott where it's like
Oh, if I make a mistake, then that must mean I'm terrible.
Or if I don't do this right, or someone's mad at me, that must mean that I'm a bad person.
And
So for you, like I know therapy's been a part of your process, but how do you handle that now?
Like if you have that internal critic kind of coming up when you're seeing the kids or you're dealing with something work-wise, like do you have
A specific mantra or like something that you tell yourself that helps?
So I was literally like having to write like journal it out before I got on this like Zoom call 'cause I'm like
I am a smart person.
I can put together sentences like me being myself is enough, which I know is it sounds, you know, trite and silly.
But part of it is I actually just need to think as I'm going to speak over my children that they are good.
I need to remind myself that.
And so like, yeah, I will often remind myself that I am enough and I am good.
And I am loved.
And I found especially in moments with parenting, when parenting is really hard, I have a hard time, just in the whole way of like, oh, I'm late.
I must be a bad person.
Which let's be honest, I am late a hundred percent of the time.
So I don't know why that's when we gotta let go, yeah.
But if when my kid is in a hard place, especially like around the burnout or
the anger or the physicality of that, it is really hard for me to not go to I am a bad parent and I am a bad person in my children's dysregulated moments.
And so I've had to realize, especially when my kids are dysregulated, the first person I need to take care of is little tries.
You'll often see me with my child who's dysregulated.
And it's like I have one hand on them and one hand on my heart.
I'm like, all right, little try, you're okay.
You're safe.
You're not a bad person.
And I'm like, I'm sure I look bad
shit like just wild but it is realizing that I get deeply triggered when they're dysregulated and I have to first take care of myself.
Yeah I love that visual of like hand on your heart.
That's what I would always say to my clients too like hand on your heart
And I would always tell clients, and maybe you've learned this one too, is like remind yourself, remind little version of yourself, like, okay, I'm trying.
I'm in my kitchen, I'm in my own house, like I'm grown, I'm like whatever, I'm this year's old.
And just like bringing yourself back to the present because your body does take you back to being that little kid who's being yelled at or who's being told they're not enough or
At least getting those messages.
So I love that you do that too.
It's like that grounding.
Like I'm in my thirties.
I'm in my kitchen.
I'm safe.
Like this is my house.
And then that can help you cope with your child's emotions because the little you isn't as triggered.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, it's so good.
I love like that ground egg.
Yeah.
I feel like you've talked a lot about kind of the burnout.
I don't know if you're open to sharing that journey a little bit because I know this last year especially has been really triggering and hard, especially with Gray's diagnosis and
Yeah, I'm wondering if you're willing to kind of talk a little bit about what that burnout when you talk about burnout this year, what does that look like?
Yeah.
Okay, so our oldest
has like an ASD ADHD diagnosis with like a PDA profile, which is a lot of words.
So he's like pretty much autistic, um has ADHD, and PDA is like pathological demand avoidance.
which is like really high anxiety where any demand is just really hard.
So it's like, hey, we need to brush our teeth.
Seems like one demand, but actually it's like I need to take the covers off.
I need to put my feet on the ground.
I need to turn on the tap.
I need to
like all of those steps are demands that feel like the biggest thing in the world.
So he is like the most incredible little human, but school has been really hard the last five years.
And so he is like high masking.
So most people at school would not know that he is autistic because he quote unquote like holds his shit together and comes home and absolutely loses it.
And he hit a point last year.
where he couldn't do that anymore.
And actually like that's really beautiful.
He like he needed to be a more congruent and whole person for him
But his teacher left at the end of the year unexpectedly to him and he just couldn't that was too much transition.
And so he was in bed and he couldn't get out or get up.
And it had already been building that last year, like I I messaged you at nauseam as we were trying to work through just getting the diagnosis for his own benefit, but it was just it manifested in a lot of violence.
And he is like the sweetest little boy
But he would get so dysregulated that he would just beat up on me.
And he's he's like almost bigger than me now, right?
He's stronger than me.
There's not a lot I can do
And then he would come out of this moment of dysregulation.
He'd be like, Oh my gosh, mama, I'm so sorry.
Are you okay?
And it was it was his way of communicating how done he was.
So we had seen the signs leading up to the burnout.
Anyway, so then we hit end of April and he no longer was able to go to school or do any of the things.
And it took a while for him to rebuild his capacity.
And it's still hard, like last week and we went out on Saturday.
And Sunday he's like, I can't do anything.
I can't go to church.
I'm like, okay, well let's get like let's go to there's a new South Indian restaurant in Guelph.
I'm like, let's go there.
He's like, I can't move.
And so it's also him learning to articulate what his body can and cannot handle
Yeah, I think it's it's so good to share like those real moments because I mean those are the messages that I hear from parents all the time, like even you messaging me while it was happening, right?
And I think those are the things that people don't really talk about.
And they like to hear like the end story of like, yeah, now he has the words and he can talk about it and he's in a
school that's better and blah blah blah.
But I think it's really good to hear like the messy part.
Like the part that's like this is what it's like to be in the process of having a child who's getting diagnosed with
autism and PDA and ADHD and that for you guys happened a bit later even than like how old was he when he was diagnosed?
He was seven when he was diagnosed.
Yeah.
And part of it was like it was COVID, right?
We were seeing lots happening.
We had an OT in place.
But the school wouldn't necessarily see it when you're doing online learning or whatever if it looks like, right?
Yeah, and I hear that I'm hearing that more and more of
kids who kind of got missed in that COVID time when they weren't in school and they were home and the parents are like, okay, there's a lot of behaviors going on, there's a lot of stuff, but is that just my child can't really do the online learning thing?
So for you, I mean, we've talked about like those messages that you're hearing as a child of like you have to be good, you have to listen, you have to listen to authority
And then we're talking about little tribe being triggered when they're yelling at you.
And then we're going into this idea of like now your son, who Gray, like we love Gray.
He is so sweet.
He is like I just remember meeting him when he was super little and
Yeah, he's just he's so sweet.
And so you're going into the sister child and and they're beating up on you and you have all this internal dialogue like going on in your own head.
Like how are you kind of coping or not coping, I guess, in those moments?
I think there's moments when I definitely wasn't coping and I'm on the floor crying and like being like hit with the shoe or whatever it is.
And there's other moments where I myself am more regulated and able to like speak truth over myself.
I think it's been really helpful.
Like just kinda we were talking about even with Scott, you had that m like aha moment of like, oh wait, and now I understand child development in the same way understanding like neurodivergence.
And like all behavior is communication and my kid is not vindictive.
My kid is trying to communicate what he is not able to say out loud.
And then also we had to really shift
our parenting, which has been this really so when we go back and we talk about this idea of being inherently bad and as a child feeling like my like I didn't have space for critical thinking.
I realized there was a control element in that, right?
It's like, well, we're gonna control our children until they grow up and they do well in life.
And as much as I told and thought that I was told everyone and thought I was practicing a parenting style
that gave kids autonomy and gave them agency.
There was still a lot of control in it.
It was like, okay, I still think inherently that you can't make the best decisions for yourself.
And I know that he's only he's eight now.
But I had to learn to trust that he actually knew what he needed.
So the days that he was saying he couldn't get out of bed, it was like everyone was like, Well, you gotta pick him up and you gotta drag him to school.
That did not help.
I really had to switch the thinking to be like, no, my kid actually, like his body knows.
And if I'm saying that I need to learn as an adult to trust my body
I need to learn to trust that my kid knows what his body needs.
And it's been wild because it's been what, three, four months of just him having zero capacity?
But then there are days as he began to heal over the summer
Or he'd be like, hey mama, can we go do this?
Hey mama, do you know that I love you?
Hey mama, can you clip my nails?
Like little things that I'm like, oh when you have space to make these decisions on your own, you actually can
But you knew that you needed to not.
So I think for me to answer your question, it was so many things.
Because it's still hard.
Like let's be honest.
Even though we have better systems in place, every day is still really hard.
It is still very triggering.
I need to do a lot of work constantly with little try.
and adult try to remind myself that I am okay.
And it's been a huge parenting shift in our home of actually just trusting Gray.
And it's been wild to see.
And I mean it's a little ridiculous.
This morning for breakfast he's like
He had told us in June, he's like, Snickers bars make me feel safe.
Snickers bars are not the most nutritious things in the world.
Was he anxious this morning?
Yes.
Did he need a Snickers bar for breakfast?
He carried one with him to school.
But you know what?
He walked out the door dressed and confident and I was like, okay, I don't know, but this is this is what your body needs right now.
You know what?
Like so much of what you're saying when I was working with autistic kids, like that is exactly what we'd be coaching parents through too.
Like I remember a parent and the child pizza, cold pizza in the morning made him feel safe
And he rebalized the same thing to his parent.
And the parent came to me and was like, but like I'm a bad parent if I feed my kid cold pizza for breakfast.
Like that's not a nutritional breakfast.
And then with the period, I remember we really had to unpack that.
Well, first off, like why are you bad for feeding him cold pizza?
Like let's let's unpack that message.
And then once we kind of unpack that and it's like, okay, messages about food as a child, like there's just so much deeper things going on, right?
So messages about food as a child is that pizza's not breakfast.
And if I want pizza for breakfast, I get yelled at because that's dinner.
So okay, let's let's unpack that.
And then once we unpack that, it's like, okay, and so if once in a while when your child's having a hard morning, they need to have cold pizza for breakfast, does that make you a bad parent?
And so we kind of got to a place it's like, no
If my child needs cold pizza, that's a comfort food and that's gonna help them get to school and set the morning off on a really positive note because they have control over that.
Like that's okay.
And that's not you being permissive or a bad parent.
Like that's actually a Snickers bar for breakfast may be the best parenting choice you can make in that morning.
And so I love that example because I remember like doing that work with so many parents and being like, that's okay.
And I love that Greg and like
I mean stickers bar a comfort for me too.
Like I love that you can speak that.
All for the sticker spars.
It's so true, right?
And it's like
What are these arbitrary rules that make us good or bad parents?
It's like your kid had pizza, your kid had food in their body.
Do you think part of that is like
Other parents will see Gray with a Snickers bar and then you're concerned of what they're gonna think of you for sending him with Snickers bar or any of that?
A hundred percent
That's what I would feel is like other people think.
Yeah.
Oh my goodness.
I am terrified of how the world perceives our parenting because people think it's very permissive or whatever.
And
Like even okay, so right now, safe foods for Gray, other than his Snickers bar, is like a bag of Cheetos and a bag of Lay's for lunch.
He'll have breakfast and you'll have dinner at home.
lunch, it has to be packaged because you know what?
It's he knows it's consistent.
He knows it's going to taste the same every time.
An apple could be mushy or hard.
Like you know what I mean?
There's no you actually can't guarantee it'll be the same.
And I've had this like, I felt like I needed to email his teacher and give her a whole like thing on just so you know Gray's only gonna get packaged food for lunch.
And I'm like, why do I feel the need to justify myself to someone when I'm doing what's best for my child
But we have such a culture of we're very judgmental out of like how other people parent.
And I definitely
I re So this is another thing.
Growing up in a home or in a faith community, I realized I expected people to mirror back to me that I was a good person.
So it was like, oh try, like you're such a good little girl.
Versus and so I so much of my value came in what other people said versus like an inherent self-worth.
And I definitely worry how people are gonna judge my parenting.
Looks incredibly ratchet to the world.
Also, like, can I just be honest?
Like, I'm sending a little brown boy into like a very white community
who only eats Snickers, Lays, and Cheetos.
You know what I mean?
Like that Yeah.
Well I was gonna ask you about that.
Because I know that that like moving to Guelph where you live now, like that was a big thing for you from Toronto, right?
It's like
Yeah.
Now not only is he the boy that's getting Snickers and whatever in his lunch, but you're also worried about like the race dynamic and like how do you have that conversation or do you or I know you do, but like how does that look like
when you talk to him about that.
Oh my goodness.
It's so complicated.
Like we've been having the race conversation since they were little, right?
And I like I said earlier, my daughter can pass as white and so one is lighter, one is darker.
And I think I told you like at four he had asked the question, like, do you think people love Kaya more because she's lighter?
Right?
And so we've definitely
It's not just he's not just a brown boy, he's a mixed brown boy.
And so his this hyphenated identity I can't even fully understand for him.
And I think he's had to find agency over it, right?
Like I remember
a few years ago in kindergarten they were talking about skin tones and so he was one of the only children of color in his class and so his teacher had pointed that out to like celebrate his his like
Beautiful brown skin.
And he was like, no, excuse me.
I am not brown.
I am caramel macchiato.
I'm like, you sound like the bougie.
We have had the conversation.
So, okay, in the height of like his dysregulation pre-burnout, like it was really violent
There were times when we needed to call for intervention or were really close to calling for intervention.
And the fear of having to call a person in authority, it's like calling
the police, right?
And I'm calling authority on a little brown boy.
Like it doesn't feel good in my body.
It doesn't feel safe to him.
And I think I carry a lot of fear of him being dysregulated in public and how the world will view him
Mark and I talk about it a lot.
Like we've talked to the kids about it.
I really don't want to put additional fear on them, but just also here's like the realities of life in child appropriate language.
But yeah, I think I carry a lot more fear about it than Mark does.
For example, right now.
Anything fitted is uncomfortable on Grayson's body.
So it's very sensory friendly clothing.
It's very baggy shorts.
He wears my Nike slides because they're two sizes too big and it just feels comfortable.
Yeah.
But to me, I'm like, I'm sending a little brown boy into the world who is dressed in the most ridiculous way.
I know the judgments that get made.
Right?
So I just I don't know, I'm not answering your question.
I think it's just something I just definitely wrestle with.
And it's just always there.
I don't have like a proper succinct answer.
How I deal with it.
I think your answer is like the exact answer that makes sense.
Like I feel like because there is not one right way.
There's having the conversation which you have with him.
And talking about it with Mark and like trying to figure it out, but also not letting that hold you back.
Like you're not saying, Well, no, you have to wear fitted
Close because of this reason.
But I think it's really important it's a really important piece of the conversation that I think isn't talked about enough and like that's not a perspective I can really bring.
So I'm I'm so thankful for you for sharing that.
I mean I I love Gray, I love the caramel macchiato comment.
Like the bougie child.
It's you're right.
It is like it's his clever like
I am white and I am brown and this this right now makes sense to me.
Like, okay.
And I think something that I've observed that you're just so good at with your kids is just having those conversations openly.
Like
You're not waiting for them to figure out that they're the one child who's brown in the school.
Like you're having that conversation with them ahead of time.
And also
allowing them to feel really confident in that fact too, because you have that conversation and yet you're not trying to like hide that or make them ashamed of that part of themselves, which I think is good.
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When you grew up, and I know you grew up in Toronto, so maybe it was a little different.
Like did your parents have those kind of conversations with Little Try, or is that something that you are kind of learning yourself how to have with your kids, like for the first time?
I think I'm learning how to have
them.
I don't think they intentionally didn't have them.
So I think with the immigrant experience, and this is not like a hundred percent our story, but first gen, so immigrant generation, there's a lot of assimilation.
Second generation, there's a lot of like I am not Indian at all.
I'm not owning any of this culture.
And then the next generation, so my children are very like, I will own this culture.
This is me, I'm swinging back and I want to learn what was like taken away from me.
Would you say that that's accurate for yourself?
That you've kind of
Not rejected, but like you don't take on too many of the Indian traditions or cultural norms or any of that?
I think a hundred percent.
So I grew up
in a space where it's like, okay, so if you're cooking curry, every window's open, incense is burning, every candle is burning, because you don't want to smell like curry.
You don't want to smell like the Indian person.
Right.
And I and I get it.
Like curry smells amazing, not always on your clothes.
But even like growing up it was like, okay, so how can I fit into the spaces that I am in which were
Quite white, even though I I was in like Scarborough and Rexdale, like very multicultural parts of Toronto, it's still a colonized identity of like even if you're brown in Toronto, there's a lot of whiteness in that.
It's very pervasive.
Uh but it's been so interesting having the kids because as I've really desired to impart like a healthy like Indian heritage in them and French Canadian heritage in them.
I've had to then embrace Indian customs and cultures that I haven't done in the past, whether it's like acknowledging the language more or the kids like are obsessed with Bollywood.
Kaya took buryani for lunch today.
Like they have the ability to be free about their culture and not hide things that I didn't because I was like, Oh, I'm not gonna be the one taking Indian food to school because it's gonna make me look weird versus
they're able to own their identity a lot more than I was.
Yeah, that's so interesting.
So I feel like yeah, maybe you went through this this time in your life where it's like and I feel like a lot of
kids are like that with their parents, like I don't want to be like them.
I'm different.
I'm not gonna go to school smelling like curry.
Like I I don't want to be the Indian kid at school.
And now
you see your own kids and like that's the reparenting piece too where it's like, well I don't want you to go to school and be ashamed of who you are, your culture and then there's this piece of like
you have to kind of heal also that version of yourself to say, well, what am I interested in?
Like is there pieces of my culture like that I do want to take away or learn more about?
Or
And that is a healing but also a difficult journey as well that I know like you've been on and I think many immigrant families
Go through that too.
Absolutely.
There's like your own like intentional and unintentional like decolonizing process, and then there's grief of what you feel like you missed out on.
And I remember like growing up, whether it was articulated or not
the white way was the right way, right?
It's like, oh, well, you know, we do things in a like a silly I you know what's I don't know if that's completely true, but it was just
I remember very much feeling like I wanted to be white because that would solve all of the problems.
I would not be like the outsider.
I wouldn't be different.
And I think
Even though I had a very diverse group of friends, we had a very white identity.
And so it was like it was a lot of
grief and healing and like just actually forgiving myself in the process.
And actually in some ways moving to Guelph was one of the best gifts.
Like it was hard.
We've talked a lot about this, Jess, after like George Floyd was murdered.
Sorry, I'm like having all the conversations on your podcast.
It's good.
It was hard being in a predominantly white space where it felt like people were waking up to racism.
But it was also like such a good awakening to me of like, I can't hide my cultural identity anymore.
Like obviously I go into a room and you know I'm brown.
But it was a call to embracing who I am for myself.
I'm just realizing that
Mark jokes about all the time.
He's like, I feel like I've been married to five different people in the reality of like we're constantly evolving and growing.
And so I'm not the same woman I was when we started dating.
And there are going to be different parts of myself that I'm going to embrace
And thank goodness for that, right?
Like I always say that to Scott.
Like we started dating, we were so young.
Yeah, we did.
If I think to myself, like, yeah, I've changed, like I'm glad.
I am happy that I've changed and evolved and
learned and I think same for you, Scott.
I mean that also I feel like we both have definitely changed quite a bit and several times.
And I I think a big theme of our conversation today too is being a parent and how much that does or can
make you reflect and change and want to do things different.
I know for me, there's so many things that I reflected on after having our oldest that I would never have really
thought about before and and those things have changed me and the way that we discipline and Scott I mean for you huge so I'm just so glad try that we could have this conversation today.
It was so good
Let's head over to Coffee Time where Scott and I share some of our reflections from this amazing conversation.
Alright, that was a pretty long discussion.
That was super interesting.
interesting though.
I found the discussion with Trifina to be incredibly interesting.
Again, she thinks about things very deeply.
So we covered
a lot in that episode.
There's some things that you and I we really can't relate to in her journey as a parent.
So with that being said, like what do you hope people are gonna take away from this discussion with Trifena?
I know you're gonna laugh at this as the response.
Because this is just the most classic just thing to say.
But curiosity is a theme.
Of course.
Of course.
Always.
Getting curious.
Always.
But curiosity was a theme when I was re-listening to the episode right before we recorded this, I just noticed in everything that we talked about from her son's challenges that she's been having.
the reparenting stuff we talked about, the inner child work.
There's this curiosity in Trifena about her own life experiences, the things that she's been through.
And also in the way that she approaches her kids and her friendships, that I think really makes her stand out and that's why we can have these deeper discussions because she's just curious.
And I think if we can take that same curiosity approach to our own children and to ourselves, like, huh, I wonder why I'm getting so triggered in this situation.
Or I wonder why I'm viewing this child in this specific way.
Or why do I hold this belief?
Like where did this belief come from?
Just because I was taught it by my parents, does that make it true to me?
I think having that curiosity about life
just helps us be people who can be reflective and critical thinkers and the parents that we want to be.
So for me that was the takeaway that I had from the episode and something that's really stuck with me.
I can see that
Now, just to be a skeptic here for a second, being a parent is incredibly busy
There's hundreds of things you have to do or think of in a day.
And so you saying that, that honestly sounds a little bit tiring to me.
Like I'm already tired.
So then to add deep introspection to my life and to think so deeply when I feel like I'm not getting enough sleep.
I'm not able to do enough at work.
I feel like I'm forgetting all the things that I have to give my kids to bring to school with them.
So how can someone realistically when they're so busy and tired, like I guess, first of all, does it ever get better?
And second, okay, if it's like this
And it's this busy, how can I add that into my life without me feeling even more tired?
I think that's a really good question.
And you're asking, how do I fit curiosity into my life?
Well, I'm thinking about a story of myself this morning.
Yep.
So I hurt my foot.
That's a whole other story for another podcast.
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen this whole thing.
Long story short, I do this whole post.
Oh, I'm trying to add fun and playfulness back into my life.
Next post.
Uh yeah, I was doing a dance workout and it fell on my ankle and now it really hurts.
So anyway, it's been this big thing that my ankle has been very, very sore.
Might be broken.
Might be broken.
We're not sure.
Still waiting on results.
And I haven't been sleeping well because of it.
So last night I ended up sleeping in the guest bed, propped my foot up all night long.
Just I couldn't really sleep.
So I woke up this morning and I was so tired.
We didn't have coffee
in the house and then the kids are totally melting down and I have a choice.
Like do I just enter into this chaos with them and be like, you guys are bad, you're not listening to me.
I'm so tired.
I can't handle this
That is work, right?
That's work that I would have to do to get frustrated and angry at them for having meltdowns.
And that would take time and effort to do.
Curiosity is also work, but either way we're doing work
So I just took a moment and literally have one kid sitting on my hurt foot.
I have another kid pulling on my other leg.
And I have my oldest crying, holding her raccoon in the corner because she's so overwhelmed by her sister.
So everybody's melting down.
And in that moment, I decide I'm gonna be curious about what's going on.
And so I get on the level of the two little girls and I give them hugs and I say, what's happening?
And they say, I don't want you to go back to work and
I'm gonna miss you today.
And that moment of pause and curiosity helps me understand they're worried about separation and I'm gonna go to work again today and that's really tricky for them and then I can help them with that.
If I didn't get curious, I'd also still have
To deal with the emotions, maybe I'm sending them to timeout, the naughty chair, it's still work.
So either way you're doing work.
So I guess to answer your question
Yes, curiosity feels like more work to a parent, but also we're doing work either way.
So I guess it's how do you want to spend your time?
I kind of see the like reacting.
to a situation, it's for your brain the path of least resistance though.
Yes.
Right?
It's like the automatic response
to a situation that your body thinks is basically something is attacking you or something is not necessarily unsafe, but yeah, it's your brain's automatic response.
So it's the path of least resistance for your brain to do that.
So being curious is more of like you have to be intentional about it.
So that goes back to my question again about
How do you actually bring that into your life?
How can you build that as a habit of getting curious constantly so that it becomes less work even when you are tired?
This is actually a conversation Trefina and I had and I will always remember it was like probably three years ago.
We were talking about how when our kids yell at us it was super triggering.
And I was telling her how our body can't really differentiate, like yet, at that point until we train it, between a true attack on us and our kids yelling at us.
Right.
Our fight or flight response is is activated in the same way.
So your body is basically thinking, I have to respond as if I'm getting attacked by someone or something, especially if you grew up in trauma and when someone yelled at you it actually was like an attack and you actually had to protect yourself and preserve yourself.
So
That's why your first instinct is gonna be, how can I protect myself in that situation when your kids are yelling and you're gonna yell back or you're gonna get really angry or you're gonna run away and shut your kids out
Because that is what your body wants to do to preserve you.
And so to work against that instinct is really hard because it is programmed and it's deeply conditioned in us.
What I would say to parents is practicing when you're calm is the number one thing that you can do.
So trying to be curious for the first time in a moment when your toddler is screaming, I hate you at you, is going to be very difficult
But if you can practice being curious in a moment when your kids are sleeping and you're just gonna journal about one thing that happened that day, one meltdown that happened and how you felt about it and why it was so difficult for you
and why you think it might have been hard for your kid.
Those tiny moments where you can be intentional about reflecting on what happened is what will help you eventually be able to reflect.
in the moment like what I was just talking about.
Yeah.
Okay.
I think that makes sense.
That's probably gonna be easier said than done for a lot of parents, especially with I would say for us like younger kids.
Yeah.
'Cause you you can see as our kids are getting older, it'll be easier for us to have that moment, have that time to do it.
But when you're even the first year postpartum, maybe even longer, I mean, let's be real, you were exhausted.
Oh
And I know I yelled at the kids more in that season of life because I also didn't have I wasn't sleeping well.
I had the hormones going on.
There were so many people who needed me.
I was also sad and struggling with my own emotions.
So it was really hard to be like, oh, let's be curious.
It was hard and now it's easy for me.
I feel like now it's like my first response.
Yeah, right.
What about for you?
Do you still find it pretty difficult or do you find that that's your first response now?
It depends on the situation.
So I would say
In general, if I'm well rested, yeah, no problem.
But I need my sleep.
Yeah.
Like that's known to all of us in the family.
Even the kids know.
Sometimes I am a little bit more grumpy because I did not get enough sleep.
Yeah.
So I try to be actively getting my rest that I need when I'm well rested, which I would say is getting better over time.
As the kids are getting older, I'm getting more rest.
then yeah, it's not a problem for me to that's my first response.
But like even this weekend, I didn't sleep that well the one night and you were gone because you were at the hospital for for your ankle.
Yeah.
I was more grumpy than normal, so that's how I responded to them during that day.
Not all the entire time, but it was just more often I was not as curious about things and more just grumpy.
So what you just did there is incredibly important because what you just did is reflected on why you had a grumpy day.
And you were able to actually reflect on I was grumpy on Sunday, but it actually had nothing to do with the kids.
The kids were just being kids.
It had everything to do with the kids.
They were no different than normal.
Yeah, they were no different than normal, but you were different than normal because
I was gone, so you're home alone with the channel.
Oh, and it was the time change.
That probably was a big that had a big part to play.
The dang time change is really uh impacting us with these kids.
Yep
The time changed, the kids were grumpier because they lost sleep.
You didn't sleep well the night before.
Like there was just a bunch of factors that made you grumpy.
But the fact that you can now pause
reflect on what happened that day and see that actually had everything to do with you not having the tools within yourself to act the way that you want to as a parent, that is what I'm talking about.
Yeah
For sure.
This episode was very interesting.
I enjoyed listening to the conversation between you and Trifia.
I think other people will as well
Yeah, I hope everybody gets as much out of this episode as we did.
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode
episode, we are glad that you are here.
If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review.
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Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.