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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.
We are so glad that you are here.
Good morning Scott.
How are you this morning?
Good morning.
I'm well.
And yourself?
I'm also well.
It's a little chilly for me outside in our Canadian.
Winters.
I mean it's not bad compared to I feel like winters growing up.
Yeah, that's true.
I guess it could be a lot snowier.
It's only minus nine Celsius this morning.
Only minus nine.
Wow, it's not terrible.
Not my favorite
Although, you know what I told you about being in the winter.
Tell me again, because I'm sure everyone is desperate to hear what you have to say about this.
Oh, I've been telling Scott how I've been having these thoughts about winter and it
how winter is actually this profound season where I think I used to always hate it and I still kinda do, but I'm trying to reframe the way that I see it where
it's actually okay for our bodies to stay indoors and be cozy and have warm beverages and cozier foods and just kind of
hibernate for lack of a better word and focus on rest and time with family in the winter.
And I would keep thinking about, okay, well maybe there's some wisdom in that.
instead of just comparing it to summer, 'cause if all year long was the busyness of summer, then maybe we'd miss the time to rest.
So I'm really trying to reframe winter so that we can continue to live in Canada and I can continue to be okay with the chilly winters that we have here.
There's something there.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Do you wish we lived somewhere that it never got cold?
I don't wonder that all the time.
I feel like in a way, yes.
because I love the warmth.
But also I do feel like there would be something I would miss about the cozy days kind of sitting in our house and having the snowfall outside or knowing it's cold outside and you're all kind of bundled up in your sweater in the house.
Like
I do feel like there's something I would miss about that if we moved away from here.
Mm-hmm.
But in the very same time, I could lay on a beach in the sun all year.
So it doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna lay on a beach if you live somewhere warm.
No, I know.
But
I could go for a beach right about now.
How about you?
You could never go for a beach.
No.
There's almost no part of me that could ever go for a beach.
I don't like the feeling of sand.
Tell me you're highly sensitive without telling me you're highly sensitive.
It just gets everything.
Can't deal with the texture.
I don't mind walking through it, but I hate the aftermath of it because it gets in everything.
That is not relevant to today's discussion, which I think we should get to.
So over the holidays you posted something
Apparently it was controversial.
I read through it, it didn't seem that bad to me.
I mean the comments didn't seem terrible, but you said you received a lot of DMs
So we wanted to add some more nuance to the discussion around that post.
Yeah.
So maybe to start you can read it out.
Yeah.
And then after that we have a gentle discussion about it.
Well a gentle discussion.
Yep.
I knew you would like that.
I do.
Okay, here's the post.
Years ago, I was in the parking lot of Shoppers Drug Mart, that's a pharmacy.
A mom in the car beside me was yelling at her kids.
She didn't see me getting my kids out of the van, but we could all hear her.
She was yelling, calling her kids brats, and telling them to shut their mouths and listen when she went into the store.
My daughter squeezed my hand tight as she heard the other mom yelling.
I walked into the store with my kids.
A few minutes later, I saw the mom and her kids walk into the store.
The kids' eyes were red from crying, and the mom looked exhausted too.
The mom had a question for the cashier at the checkout behind me.
I overheard the cashier ask her, how's your day going?
In a cheery voice, the mom said, It's going great.
The kids and I are just getting a few things and then we're going home.
As soon as we were back outside, she started getting angry at her kids again.
I made eye contact with her, and then the kids.
And then I said, Some days are hard.
They're just little.
I wasn't sure what else to say.
Later, I thought back to the interaction I witnessed.
It struck me how the mom went from yelling when she thought no one was listening to being kind and cheery when she knew there was others around.
We yell in private.
Why?
Because we know our kids will continue needing us, loving us, and being dependent on us.
Even when we are angry in public, we can usually control our anger enough to stay calm because it's not acceptable to yell
I've thought of this interaction every time I've been tempted to yell at my kids.
I try to imagine that standing in their room with me is a smiling cashier asking me how my day is.
How would I respond to my kids in public?
They deserve the same respect in private.
I often also think of the mom who is yelling
I wish I could have talked to her, asked her what was going on in her life that was making it so hard to stay calm.
I wish I could have told her she wasn't alone.
Underneath her anger was probably a mom having a really hard time herself
I truly believe that no parent wants to yell at their kids.
We yell because we are triggered by something our kids are doing, we don't know how else to cope with our emotions, or we desperately need support.
And as parents, it's our responsibility to learn how to cope with our anger in a different way.
Yelling doesn't help our kids and it only leads to more challenges in your home.
The end.
What's the word you want to say right now?
Profound.
Yeah, there it is.
There it is.
And here's why I shared that story.
Okay.
Because it's true.
That story happened and I still remember where I was standing when it all happened.
And it really has stuck with me, not in a way that I thought this mom was a terrible mom, but in the way that she was able to change her demeanor and kind of control that anger as soon as she knew that the cashier was there
Mm-hmm.
And like who hasn't been there?
I've been there.
You know, I've been there grumpy with my kids in the car and then I get in the store, people are like, How are you?
I'm like, oh, it's good.
Meanwhile, you're like
I know I was just grumpy with my kids five minutes ago.
You're not gonna share that with everyone.
But it really Especially some random person.
Yeah, you're not gonna tell them that's not likely.
No, I was just yelling at my kids in the car.
But it really did stick with me in the fact that when you can go from screaming and yelling and being so angry to knowing someone's watching you and kind of reining that in, it has helped me with the kids because
I feel like that's true for so many parents.
How many times are we on better behavior as parents when we know someone else is there, like a friend is over?
Is that not
Because we're worried about getting kicked out of let's say the tribe and quote unquote the tribe.
Yeah.
Because that's ingrained in humans.
Yeah, it's ingrained in who we are, right?
We want to be socially accepted.
But then when there isn't that other adult around or that other person who might be judging you.
we can let loose and kind of let go of that, which I think is also natural.
But I guess the point that I was trying to make with the post and that I still think about is
Is that fair to our kids?
Right.
Right.
I think that's a fair question.
Like you grew up and you were yelled at.
Yeah.
And your family was also There's a lot of arguing.
Known for arguing and like just overall kind of
not being super content.
Yep.
And uh I'm not saying they're like that now, but that's what it was like then.
And in my specific household
It was the situation where everything outside to everyone else looked kind of nice, but internally it was a shitshow.
Maybe that's part of why that shopper story really stuck with me.
Maybe without even realizing it, I was thinking a little bit about your house, where when you were out in public it was all good and fine, and then as soon as you were alone it was
Screaming and yelling and and getting angry and abuse and all of those kind of things.
So maybe that's why specifically that story really stuck with me and I kind of grounded myself in it, being like, I don't want to be that parent
That's one way in public and a different way in private, right?
Yep.
Especially having a business surrounded by supporting parents.
How terrible would it be if one day my kids grow up and they go public and they're like, you know what?
Yeah, my mom helped everybody but Didn't help us.
Didn't help us.
I mean that's a pretty typical thing for a lot of Well that does happen to a lot of psychologists and a lot of people who are
Very good at teaching this information you talk to their kids and their kids are like, yeah, that wasn't actually what it was like in the house.
Yeah
You know, so I think that that's why specifically that story was so powerful for me because I think I saw it play out in real time
And probably without even realizing it, made me think of your childhood.
That could be.
Right?
And so let's talk about that.
So that's your childhood.
I just want to reiterate once more.
Like I'm not a yeller.
No.
But people assume I think that you probably would be or that yelling would be a struggle for you because of everything that you went through.
You know what, honestly, I feel like if I wasn't with you
Maybe I would have been like that.
I don't know.
It's hard to say, but probably more than likely would have.
But because of you and being interested in
And trying to tear down all the things that you were telling me originally.
I feel like that's what helped.
But even like when our oldest was
young and she would have tantrums, yeah, I would get upset, but I would never yell at her.
So what goes through your head?
So let's say our kid is having a tantrum, they're yelling and they're screaming.
You're highly sensitive, like that's a lot for you.
It can feel overwhelming.
What are you doing in that moment to help yourself?
not yell and lose your cool at your kids stay calm.
Yeah, I honestly do think about them being little.
And I think the difference is much more drastic for me because
I'm six foot three or a hundred and ninety-one centimeters and two hundred and fifteen pounds, like almost a hundred kilograms.
Like I'm a I'm a big guy
So these children are tiny compared to me.
Yeah.
Right?
So w I'm typically thinking it wouldn't be fair for me to get so enraged with them that I'd start yelling because they're way smaller than me.
And I think you might have posted about you've probably posted about this many times, but you one time said to me, just look I look at their hands and their feet.
I have a post coming out about that today, actually.
Oh, nice.
I look at their little hands.
And that has honestly helped me.
That's been a big help because again my hands are huge compared to theirs.
So I'll hold them and hold their hand in mine and
my hand and fully envelops theirs and yeah, I think that has helped a lot.
Just realizing how small they are.
Yeah.
It's not really fair for me.
to be overly upset with with them about things.
Yeah.
I think that's such a good one.
Holding their little hands when they get upset and remembering that they're little.
Yeah.
Again, I wanna say it is not like I don't get annoyed with them though.
Oh yeah.
That's human.
Yeah.
We're gonna do another episode on the annoying behaviors that toddlers do.
But if that's one of the main comments that people were saying, like oh
Scott's the cycle breaker and he's probably the one yelling.
The reality is I don't I don't yell.
I've yelled less than I can count on one hand
I wonder if part of you not yelling too is have having that experience of being yelled at as a kid and knowing how that felt or impacted you.
Do you think that that makes a difference in the way that you parent?
I don't know, actually.
I mean, I want to say yes, but have I like we've talked about this on other other episodes before where I feel as though I'm willing to throw every single preconception out the window
because I don't necessarily trust that what I saw was the best growing up, right?
So I'm willing to throw all that out the window if I see there's actually a better way.
Mm-hmm.
So in that way I think I had this conversation with a friend too and
I said to him, it's easier for me, I think, to relearn things, mostly because I'm I'm like, I need to start with a
a completely fresh slate at this point anyway.
Yeah.
So it's a lot more work maybe.
But I I don't know.
I don't know that I like specifically thought that.
That's what I was wondering for you.
Like as
someone who is doing things totally different.
If it's like, oh, it's easy not easier, but you've already committed to yourself, like, I don't want to do anything that I had growing up.
And if you had a lot of yelling, you're like, I know I I already know I don't want to do that.
So then when the triggers come up or something like that, that's not even an option in your head.
Yeah.
So I mean if you ask the question that way, yes.
But that's because I kind of I wanted to throw everything out the window.
Yeah
And I mean that's not to say I had ideas, so even the idea of like punishing children for doing wrong things.
that made sense to me, so then I was gonna continue with that.
But that didn't mean I was going to spank like I was spanked.
But I thought, oh, timeouts probably are good and all these different things.
But you changed my mind on that.
You helped me understand that actually wasn't the best way to help kids.
Yeah.
Without really thinking about it, yes.
I thought about the fact that I didn't want to yell
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
I think about the parent who's listening to this and being like, okay, great for you guys.
You both are not yellers.
Yeah.
We also keep each other accountable.
Like I will keep you accountable and you do the same for me.
Yeah.
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 unsafe.
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.
up sooner and we want that for our family for Scott and I but also for you so check the course out at nurturefirst.
Uh
com/slash body safety and to save 10% use the code RobotUnicorn and just full disclosure here we are the creators of this course and we're so
Proud of it.
So one thing that we do is if either of us looks like they're gonna lose, they're cool.
And
Like I think that there's like a spectrum of losing your cool, so maybe we don't yell, but like we both said we definitely both get grumpy and irritated with the kids and maybe don't talk the way that we want to talk.
Right.
Even this morning I had I can't remember what was going on, but like two kids were on my lab and they're all climbing all over me and I was getting very highly irritated by the situation.
Uh I get very annoyed when they're like climbing on me and then
all of a sudden the one kid elbows me in the stomach and I just like stop it you know naughty yelling but just like stop get off me guys I'm done and I remember you just kind of looked over you're like Jess
I'm like, yeah, okay.
You're right, you're right, you're right.
They're just little.
I just I have to set the boundary that they have to get off me.
They just love you so much that they want to climb all over you.
So we will
hold each other accountable for the way that we talk to the kids.
Yeah.
And so sometimes it's in the moment and sometimes it is saying something like, they're just little, right?
Like they're just little, they're having a hard time.
Sometimes it's swapping off.
There's been times where let's say you've been really irritated by the kids and I can tell and then I'm getting irritated by you because you're irritated by the kids.
So I'm like, Scott, just go downstairs.
I got this.
Yeah.
And you'll just go downstairs for a little while.
Yeah, we'll do that for each other.
Let's say if at bedtime it's like the kids are just not listening and not doing what we're we're saying and we're getting irritated
It usually doesn't make it better.
It typically doesn't make the kids do the thing that we want them to do if we're irritated with them.
Yeah.
So then we often will swap off and that seems to help.
That definitely seems to help.
So I think if you have a partner, someone that you're co-parenting with, having a word or like something that you do to help you kind of swap off if you feel like you're gonna lose your cool, that can be really helpful
And talking about that when you're both calm so that you know that you're open to like to the support.
I remember talking to a friend about this once and she was like, I just felt that if I was the one starting, her son was having huge tantrums, huge meltdowns
If I was the one helping him that I couldn't leave.
So then I would stay with him and he's having the huge meltdown.
And then I start to get very agitated in my own body
And I start to feel like I'm gonna yell, but I feel like I have to stay.
And then eventually I yell and then it just gets worse.
I was like, okay, well what if you didn't stay?
What if you swapped out?
And she was like, huh, yeah, I guess that's a good idea.
So she started swapping out and all of a sudden then her and her husband could both keep their cool, right?
So I think that's a really good
thing to help with yelling.
Something that I find helpful, you talked about their littleness, is imagining that their yells just kind of bounce off me.
Like you know I love a visualization.
So that doesn't work for me.
I figured it wouldn't
But for a lot of parents, I think it does help.
Like imagining that their yells are coming at you, you just have some kind of reflective shield and the shield is just like bouncing off you.
I find that helpful, especially as someone who is deeply compassionate, like you said, and empathetic.
I feel like I can take a lot of things to heart and it can feel like personally offensive or overwhelming or overstimulating.
So when I just imagine the yells are just bouncing off me
Do you really take personal offense to anything that kids do?
Not anymore, but I feel like I used to.
Or like okay, personal offense might not be the best word, but I used to feel like this is not a metaphor, but I'll go here.
I used to feel like if our toddler, our oldest, was having a tantrum, it was like a fire that I had to put out and I was the firefighter.
And I had to get that fire out as soon as humanly possible.
And so when she started like being on fire, having these tantrums, I would feel like I need to do whatever I can to get this to stop, right
And so her yells and her cries, maybe they wouldn't be like personally offensive, but I feel like they'd have to be this like very, very quick call to action, like distract her, get her
Food, do this, do that, and like it would make my body move so fast that I would end up joining into her chaos and have a hard time staying calm, right?
So now when I just imagine that I can be slow in my movements to them if they're having a tantrum.
Yeah, that doesn't really sound like offense though.
Like you're not taking offense to what they're saying.
No, that's more like
They're trying to hurt your feelings, in my opinion.
Oh yeah.
No, not that they're trying to hurt my feelings, but more like It's your duty to make sure it it ends.
Yeah, I get that.
Yeah, so then you're on high alert trying to stop that tantrum.
But now I move a lot slower.
I just sit next to them for a little bit.
I take my time.
I just imagine the I would say I struggle with that still.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's fair
Yeah.
Yeah, you might still be in kind of that firefighter mode sometimes.
I feel like because of how I grew up, I always was planning things out and trying to fix problems in my life and so that's likely why I just
I feel the need, the compulsion almost to fix when so often the answer to our kids' problems isn't fixing it, it's just being there.
Doesn't actually
Yeah, that would be fixing it.
And I think I am getting better at it, but it's still it is a compulsion for me to want to fix their
tantrums or fix their sadness.
Yeah, exactly.
So that helps me.
Just imagining that they're bouncing off me.
I don't need to be the firefighter.
I could just come in and just sit next to them and
Yeah, sure, maybe they still need like a stack or they still need to go to bed, but I don't have to be so quick.
Yeah.
That helps me a lot.
Well, and even
Like this past week, our one daughter was sleepwalking, ended up sleepwalking into the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, that's where I found her, and had to like hold her up because she was sleeping.
And she was peeing and I only realized after that she still had her pants on and was peeing through her pants.
As the cutest thing, 'cause she's so little and she was fully asleep, didn't even remember it the next day.
Mm-hmm.
But
Those kind of things help me realize that they're still so little.
They're still so innocent, and any anger or annoyance I have with them is likely kind of unwarranted
Yeah.
There's something really helpful that a follower actually told us at our Vancouver meetup.
And she said in her head, she always differentiates between this is my child and this is three.
And she said it really would help.
Like sometimes her child would be screaming and yelling and having a major tantrum.
She'd be like, this is three.
Like this is my kid just being three years old.
Yep.
This is what three year olds are meant to do.
There's nothing wrong with my kid
And this won't be their personality forever, you know.
At three my job is just to help them through it.
And then when their child is their most calm, most centered kind of version of themselves, but
This is my child's truest self.
Like this is actually them.
I'm seeing little glimpses of them, but I can't base who I believe they are on the way that they act when they're three.
Yeah.
And I've been finding that helpful even with our own kids.
I'm like, oh, she's two.
So she's just being two right now.
And then when she's being her most rested, satiated version of herself, like, okay, I'm seeing little glimpses of who you're gonna become
Yeah.
And that's this person right now.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
I I think that's a little bit simplified, but I get what you're saying.
Sometimes the simplified tools though, maybe not for you.
But for a lot of people are very helpful.
Yeah, but then you get a post like this and people get upset and it's simplified.
It's not
Right.
So true.
True.
So in terms of cycle breaking, right?
So people are asking me a lot about, well, we want to hear from Scott, because he's the actual cycle breaker.
It's all easy for you because
You've had parents who accepted your feelings and a side note on that is it's not always easy for me.
I still am tired, I still get dysregulated, I still lose my cool, but it is easier because I don't have to go through all these obstacles
to be calm, right?
Like the roots of calmness are there.
So for you as someone who the roots of calmness are not necessarily there, what has helped you the most or things that have helped you the most?
in your healing journey to kind of get to the parent that you are today?
Uh visualizing who I would ideally like to be as a parent, I think is the biggest one.
And I think it helps because I have you, I'm married to you, so then
I get to see a lot of the ways you react.
And then also me being competitive, I will read up on like parenting methods and then try and
one up you a little bit in certain situations.
Be like, see, I did it right, Jess.
But I would say the biggest thing is visualizing the parent that I want to be and understanding that of course it's not always gonna be
I don't know, this feels like the most cliche or broken record type thing to say, but it's not always gonna be easy.
And it's not possible to always be that ideal
type of parent.
But if I'm constantly visualizing this is the parent I want to be and making steps towards that, it'll just become easier over time.
Especially as the they get older too.
You I don't know.
I found it to be
Easier as they all get older.
Yeah, when you're not in the thick of pardom and you know, all those sleepless nights and stuff like that, it definitely is easier to.
That's an exercise actually we have in our parenting little kids course is visualizing the parent that you want to be.
Oh really?
Because I think so many parents say, Well, I've always yelled, so I'm just gonna be a yelling parent, you know?
Or my dad yelled and my mom yelled, so I just feel like that's all I can ever be.
And we get stuck on this current vision of what we believe to be true about ourselves and what we believe that we can't change.
And so in the course, I get parents to think about
Five years, ten years, fifteen years, and then even thirty years down the road.
Imagine yourself.
And imagine yourself with your kids
And imagine what you want your kids to say about who you were as a parent.
Write that down, right?
Like write down three words that you want your kids to someday say.
when they look back about their childhood.
Who were you to them?
And then focus on that.
Like even put those three words on your fridge and remind yourself every day.
You know, I want my kids to someday say I was curious with them, I was kind, I was compassionate, or I was silly, or I was whatever it is that you want.
Yeah.
I was funnier than that, you know.
We're always fighting about who's funnier.
But write down those words, have them on your fridge, look at them every single day, and try and
start to imagine that just because you were yelled at as a kid, it doesn't mean that you're gonna necessarily repeat that cycle.
But if we have this self-fulfilling prophecy of, well our parents yelled and my grandparents yelled, everyone was a yeller, so I'm gonna be a yeller, that is likely going to come true.
Right.
So we we want to have that different vision in in our minds.
So actually the fact that you said that is quite funny because that is one of my favorite exercises in the entire parenting little kids course is
Yeah.
Just that envisioning of something different.
The other thing I was gonna say for you and for everyone is I think that there's two reasons why we usually get really triggered by something.
And so the one reason is like it reminds us of an old wound or of something that we weren't allowed to express when we were kids or something that we would have been yelled at at for when we were kids.
And the other reason that we get really triggered and yell a lot is we're just dysregulated
Yeah.
Like we're hungry, we're tired, it's a sensory nightmare in our house.
Things are messy and cluttered, or we're already dysregulated because there's stress at work or stress somewhere else.
Right.
And so a lot of people will say, wait, I'm not a cycle breaker, but I still yell all the time.
So then maybe you tune in with the dysregulated part.
You know, what's making you so dysregulated?
Yep.
Now, do you think it's a little bit easier for me, only because we have three daughters?
So I don't have a son.
I like I don't know
It's hard for me to say, but I would imagine if what you're saying is true, then if we were to have had a son, it might have been more triggering for me
And maybe some of those traits would have come out more like or it might have been more likely for them to come out?
Yes.
I totally wonder that a lot because Is that
We don't have actually a research thing though?
Like is that uh I mean, I don't know about the what the research says on that, but what I do know from just my clinical practice is that often when
you have a child same gender as you and going through the same types of things that you used to go through.
So even like our daughter and her friendship struggles right now, like that triggers a lot in me.
So when you have a child the same age as you're going through the same things, things will be triggered up.
And so whether that's fair.
'Cause her friendship related, like the things that she talks about related to friendship.
They're not things that I can relate to really from growing up, so then it feels.
You don't know how
Whatever the struggles are in friendship feels so you're not so triggered by it 'cause it doesn't bring up an emotion or a feeling in you.
No, because I feel like for me at least, boys growing up
If you were mad at each other, you would just fight on the playground.
Right.
And then you'd kind of be done with it.
But it's seems like that's not quite the same as what our oldest daughter now being a little bit older goes through.
Yeah.
So if you had a boy that was fighting on the playground, maybe that would bring up feelings in you.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, possibly.
And I do think that sometimes our children trigger our own insecurities.
So if there's certain things that you are insecure about or hadn't healed or hadn't thought about yet, like that might be brought up in you and your own child
Right.
So it is important to think about the stories that you're telling yourself about your children's behavior because sometimes that is why we yell, we get angry, right?
Because
you and I when we see our kids like the friendship struggle, right?
I have a story in my head of like, this is gonna be terrible, she's gonna hate grade school, it's gonna be awful, she's gonna be lonely, she's gonna feel like no one likes her, she's gonna feel unlovable, like all those things that I felt
Whereas you don't have that story because that didn't happen to you in the same way.
Yeah, I mean it was I was not popular, that's for sure, and especially in grade school.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's a completely different set of struggles that she faces compared to what I did.
So I yeah, it's not like in my mind I'm telling myself a story.
similar to what I grew up with for her because I just don't think that that's how it's going to be for her.
Yeah.
So if you could give a word of advice or encouragement to a cycle breaking parent who is struggling with yelling
wants to do things different, doesn't know where to start, what kind of advice might you Well, I can only speak from my own experience, but I think the biggest thing is well, two things.
Like we already talked about.
One is visualizing who I want to be as a parent.
I think that has helped.
A lot.
So for instance, let's say in in terms of yelling, like that was never really a question in my mind that I was gonna yell.
I knew that I was definitely not going to spank or anything like that.
And I've tried to remain open-minded about like what works best and especially what works best for building the relationship with our daughters.
Mm-hmm.
And then I think in the times where I'm inclined to be annoyed or grumpy with them, I am, especially lately, just looking at their hands, their little hands and holding their hands in mine.
And
Then I don't know for whatever reason especially the past like six months I've found that I just look at them like our two-year-old during her tantrums and just think she's the cutest thing ever
Yeah.
Like, oh yeah, this is the biggest thing in the world for you right now.
Mm-hmm.
And it's very cute to me.
Those are the main things
Yeah, I think those are good things.
And I I think for any parent who's stuck in yelling and just be mindful of the label that you put on yourself, right?
I think sometimes we can just write ourselves off, be like, well, I'm a yeller
Just like my mom, just like my dad.
And is that a thing that people do?
Yeah, I've heard that from a lot of people.
And even like in defending their yelling, right?
Well, it's just how I am.
That's how my whole family is.
We're all yellers.
Yeah
Right.
Truthfully, you shouldn't be yelling at children.
They're so much smaller than you.
I don't know.
It seems like an unfair advantage for a parent to do that.
Yeah.
It's like a lot of things.
It's unfair advantage for parents to think that spanking or yelling is okay.
And maybe it's easier for me to say that because I'm so much bigger than them, because I'm a big guy, it's easier for me to think that way
But yeah, I just I feel like it's an unfair advantage.
And if that's the case, then you should be prepared.
Like me as a child, I would have fought back.
Yeah, and then we see more power struggles and and then parents get angry.
I think that because it's only fair.
And I call that the punishment cycle, right?
Like
We yell at our kid to punish them or we s we spank them, we send them to timeout.
Okay, well now they learn I'm bad or whatever and now there's a power struggle, so now they get
do something else to get them in trouble and then we punish them again and blah blah blah blah like just keeps going on.
So we want to start a new cycle, right?
So I think both are true.
Like we want to give the message that yelling at your kids is not going to be productive for you.
It's not going to set up the relationship that you want for your children.
And you're probably still going to yell at your kids sometimes, right?
Good parents sometimes lose their cool.
Like that's just a fact.
That happens.
You're gonna be human.
So when that does happen, remember their littleness after.
Let that guilt that you feel don't
beat yourself up forever about it, but be like, guilt tells me that I acted in a way that doesn't align with my values.
And when that happens, it's a messenger.
Let's think about the guilt and not just be like moms or dads can't ever feel guilt.
So guilt actually can be helpful to us.
We should feel guilt sometimes.
Guilt can be a helpful thing.
So let's take the guilt that we feel and be like, I'm gonna go apologize to my child.
I'm not gonna let them just assume that I'm happy with them because the concept of an hour has passed.
Yeah, that and that repair is one of the most
profound, truly, things that we can do with our kids.
And times when I have lost my cool.
I know I lost my cool probably the most two different seasons of my life.
One when you were travelling all the time and I was alone with a toddler trying to work and take care of her.
Two, after we had our third baby and life was a hot mess.
I repaired so often during those seasons.
And sometimes that's what you have to do.
You just go back, you apologize, you say sorry, and you keep trying to better yourself so that eventually you're not yelling so much.
So I want to leave parents with that too, right?
Like repair is powerful.
It shows kids even how to apologize when they make mistakes too.
And
it's okay for them to know that you're human and I think about you as a child and so many kids who probably didn't hear I'm sorry after being yelled at and how impactful that would have been.
Yeah, for sure.
So I think that's kind of a nice message to leave people with
Yep, definitely.
Give yourself a hug and know that we're proud of you for trying to break the cycle if that's you and if you're more like me who you still lose your cool, but you maybe you didn't go through the trauma, but you're still losing your cool sometimes, like I see you too and
Parenting is hard.
And they are little.
Just like I said in the post.
Both things are true.
I don't think life was meant to be easy, so parenting is kind of a big part of life.
There's a lot of parents in the world.
Yeah, so thanks for listening.
I hope you found it helpful.
Please let us know.
And we can always do more on yelling if you want us to circle back to this topic.
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