Ep 001: What is Relational Parenting?

In this first episode, you learn about Jennie and Rick, where they came from, where they are now, and what exactly is Relational Parenting?

Show Notes

Hello new friend!  In this episode, my dad and I kick things off with who we are, how we got here, and what the hell is Relational Parenting?!

For more information on Relational Parent Coaching services, please visit www.jenniebee.co.

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Happy Parenting and Good Luck Out There!

Creators & Guests

Host

Jennifer Hayes

Host

Rick Hayes

Editor

Natalie Long

What is The Relational Parenting Podcast?

Welcome to the Relational Parenting Podcast! I’m Jennifer Hayes – a Parent Coach and 20 year Childcare Veteran. Each week I sit down with my own father (and cohost), Rick Hayes, and discuss the complicated issues that parents face today, as well as some of the oldest questions in the book. From the latest research and the framework of my Relational Parenting Method, we offer thought-provoking solutions to your deepest parenting struggles.
Relational Parenting is an evidence and experience based parenting method created by me - Jennie. After 20 years in the child care world, in every scenario you could possibly imagine, I realized one thing: EVERYONE was prioritizing the behavior and performance of a child over their emotional well-being. This frustrated me to no end and when I re-visited the latest research, I realized there was a better way. I started applying the principles I'd been learning in my own self-work, parent-child relationships, and partnerships, and I started gobbling up all the new research and books I could get my hands on. When I saw the results of putting these practices into play with the children I was taking care of - the difference in myself AND the kids I worked with was ASTOUNDING.
I am SO PROUD to be presenting Relational Parenting to the world. I can't wait to hear about your own journey. From Parents-to-be to the seasoned parenting veteran - there's something here for everyone!

the one thing that is the same across all of these situations is that we are
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more worried about a child's behavior and performance than we are about how
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emotionally secure they are welcome to the relational parenting podcast I'm
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Jennifer Hayes a parent coach and 20-year Child Care veteran each week I
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sit down with my own father Rick Hayes and discuss the complicated issues that parents face today as well as some of
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the oldest questions in the book from the latest research and the framework of my relational parenting method we offer
0:36
thought-provoking solutions to your deepest parenting struggles or in other words how to parent your kids without
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losing your mind or traumatizing theirs added bonuses include intergenerational
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wounding discussions and guest Child Care Experts you will also start taking your parenting questions in episode 5 so
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be sure to comment with your biggest questions or email me directly foreign
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jennyb dot Co let's get started hello everyone welcome to the relational
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parenting podcast I am so excited to introduce this podcast to the world I cannot tell you
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how long it has been in the works oscillating in my mind and my heart for so many years and in this very first
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episode you get to hear my dad and I find our footing in the podcast room
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with equipment we had lying around our houses and a sparkle in my eye we
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recorded this first episode we quickly figured out that we needed good equipment so don't worry episode 2 and
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Beyond look and sound amazing but in this episode we introduce ourselves why
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we are here and what the big deal is about relational parenting
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all right so hello everybody my name is Jennifer Hayes and I am here I'm a
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relational parenting coach and I this is the relational parenting podcast and I'm
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here with my co-host and father Rick Hayes
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um say hi hi everybody hi to everybody Charlie McCarthy so I am
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uh starting this podcast uh as a parenting coach because I want to be able to give information and make it
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accessible to anybody and everybody on multiple podcasting platforms and
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um yeah so here we are this is our first episode um in this first episode we're just
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going to talk a little bit about what the what the podcast is going to be who I am who my dad is why we're here
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um and how to find me all over the internet
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um so I started parent coaching
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last summer summer of 2021 happy New Year today is 2023. it's
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January 1st 2023. I didn't plan that that just happened
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um that we're recording the first episode today so started my company in the summer of
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2021 Jenny B coaching and uh I have been
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in child care for 20 years now I started as a teenager uh babysitting being a
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camp counselor um and then I eventually became a camp director at the local YMCA
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uh and then yeah I went to I'd forget
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Right started college in 2006
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and spent several Summers as a professional nanny in between
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and while I was working on my let's see working on my psychology degree after
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college moved to Colorado which is where I am coming to you from now my dad is I
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was raised in Illinois my dad is still in Illinois and I have lived in Colorado for
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over a decade now it's crazy so after college moved out here
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um I was a preschool teacher for three years I've been a professional nanny I've been working with uh in the
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Juvenile Detention Center as a behavioral counselor and
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let's see Sunday school teacher youth group leader I've worked with ages 0 to 21 for 20
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years and I've also studied them studied them in college for my psych degree and
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have been basically studying them my entire life so I decided um
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to put that to use to take the knowledge I've Acquired and put it out into the
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world and help you know help parents uh it's not something that we learn it's not
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something that we learn in school it's not something we're taught in college even it's not something it's not a major it's not anything it's just nature
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um but nature and nurture are not the same for everybody and not
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everybody learns how to be a good parent how to be in
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good relationship and to create safety and warmth in the home and
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go ahead healthy healthy this is where it came to mind right not everywhere all we're all from
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different households um and so as a nanny I realized that I
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was already parent coaching a lot of the time I was helping my families and collaborating as a third primary
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caregiver and um an attachment figure I was working
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with lots of young children and I was coaching on on uh sleep schedules and
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effective you know meeting the needs of toddlers effectively and what not just
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through my own experience and and what I studied in school and now you
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know I've been reading all the books and all the things uh the last few years and
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all the research and decided it was time to instead of
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helping one family at a time for a couple of years I could help lots of families
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um at the same time hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and thousands if I want to and that is that's what I want
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to do so we are here today to start spreading the
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knowledge and anyone who's listening to this I'm so grateful that you are here thank you for being here with us
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um and I'm gonna let my dad introduce himself a little bit and then we're gonna dive into
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relational parenting and what that is cool yeah it's a little combination of
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Hands-On we're we're kind of amateurs you're more professional at it than I am but just a love of kids and a desire to
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make the world a better place you know see if that we'll see if that is something that people want to listen to
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or not see if we can share hi I'm Rick I'm a dad of three two boys
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one girl one girl you could see they are all doing pretty well if I do say so
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myself I didn't do that all alone there's a there's a mother out there too and uh despite our their mother and I's
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difficulties these kids Jennifer turned out pretty good
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and is now wanting to wanting to spread wanting to spread the want to spread it
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around you know spread the blessing around a little bit I've been studying kids and uh my kids and others for a
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long time too this was always raising kids was my favorite thing how they
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how they work you know learning how they work and how to how to deal with them it was always a pretty conscious
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thing with me and uh it's more it's an avocation for me but I seem to I also
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have been through in addition to Parenting I've also been uh got on the
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school board uh got uh what else do I I got uh I was a karate Senpai where with
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partial responsibility for training young students a Sunday school teacher
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leader uh right now I'm professionally a leader of teams of software developers I
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like working with people of all ages I guess but I was especially fascinated with kids because it
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you know you you get them young you know the things we teach our kids when
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they're young are with them the rest of their life you know that's how parents screw their kids
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up or give them good tools to go on and uh like Jenny mentioned you know not
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everybody gets a good role model and I'm I certainly was not a magical role model
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but I tried to I worked pretty hard at being a decent role model at showing
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respect uh giving respect and having conversations with the kids we you know
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we're pretty open about talking about things and talking things through so I don't know if that's too rational or
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something that doesn't necessarily work with a two-year-old but as they were getting older I don't know I just loved
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raising kids working with kids in Sunday school and
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School in regular schools and just enjoy doing that I'm also interested my my background was
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in biology and philosophy college education and so I've always been interested in just people and cognition
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how they think and what motivates them and how that affects their behavior and
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so I'm just kind of a student of of people that way too it's interesting to watch people with different stresses and
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strains in their life and how they react and how to help you know so that's me well and I I when I came to
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you to ask you to do this podcast with me I
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told you that I had been doing some soul searching about how to
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how to put myself out there and that I was struggling with doing it in the way
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that a lot of entrepreneurs are doing it these days which is through social media
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posting and making reels and all of that and I'm not
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that's not something I enjoy um like once in a while but it's not
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something I enjoy and I was really struggling with getting putting myself out there and
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um I got really quiet and
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call it meditating or praying um I just listened and I got this image
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of me in this green chair in the corner of my office talking talking to a camera
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and a day or two later it became you on
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the other side and this memory of you know being a middle schooler Heist
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and high school or teenager having these long philosophical
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conversations in the car um we talked
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in other places in other situations but the car was always like the place where
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me and Dad had these like really deep exploratory conversations and I realized
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that that is something that I enjoy
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and that it would be a way to discuss
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complicated topics with multiple facets um you know nothing is black and white
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right or wrong and most if not all situations in life and in
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parenting have many ways to approach them approach
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those situations and so I thought that it would be beneficial to my audience as
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well for us to do some deep diving into parenting topics instead of little
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snippets on Instagram um so yeah so I called you and I asked you
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if you would be interested in doing something like this with me and you were
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pretty much a resounding yes very honored uh here we are so maybe that uh riding
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in cars kids right kids riding in cars what's the TV show comedians riding in cars getting coffee or something you
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know you kind of some something about riding in a car facilitates get like having a good
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conversation you know in the midst of being busy and Go in different different directions
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yeah well there's there's a there's an energy to it because you aren't
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it doesn't feel vulnerable when you don't have to look at each other and
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you're in a car and you don't like one person has something else to focus on
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which is driving and the road and the other person
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you know in this situation the child me didn't feel like I was being like
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interviewed or grilled about specific thing and you weren't just like looking at me and being like well how
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how's life how's this how's that what's this what's happening here and it's a it's a way to have our conversation
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that that is vulnerable without it being
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without it feeling so vulnerable without it feeling direct or something yeah yeah because there's very little eye contact
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in that situation um ideally yeah
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right and it's not like like in in certain kinds of
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conversations you want there to be like no distractions and have you know this but with your kid
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especially when your kid is older and seeking Independence and doesn't want to tell you every little thing about their life yeah that specific setting is kind
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of perfect um and now nowadays it might be more interrupted by cell phones
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um if your teenager has a cell phone or headphones but back then there's a new rule no cell phones in the car well but
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back then it was I just sat there and stared out the window or something you know there wasn't anything else I was
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doing earbuds I mean even back then like if you're in the car you just listened to the radio
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together wasn't as common for everyone to have their own thing going on in their head all the time
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yeah but um but yeah let's uh let's touch on
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relational parenting so I
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named what I do relational what I teach
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um relational parenting because you know there's there are all these
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terms out in the world and whether you've you've never heard of parent coaching
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and you and you didn't even know that there was help for parents um out there or you've been on all of
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the parents help accounts for years um
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I'm just going to talk a little bit about some of those terms and why I came down to relational parenting and why I
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think it's so foundational to everything else that happens in parenting
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um so there's so there's gentle parenting is a term uh
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authoritative parenting there's conscious parenting mindful parenting
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authentic parenting um peaceful parenting and that was actually
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the one peaceful parenting was one that I was when I first started my company that I was using that's the term I was
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using um but the reality
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is that these parenting isn't always peaceful families aren't always at peace
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and in fact if we were we wouldn't be human like the con natural conflict
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healthy conflict is is kind of what keeps the ball rolling in life it's
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it's it's what life is um they're it's a good theoretical ideal
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but you know life intervenes sometimes and things get wild and wooly yeah well
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maybe a better term would be non-violent parenting versus peaceful parenting
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there you go because then you're talking about what you you aren't gonna do to your child versus this idealistic
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rainbows and butterflies existence that isn't real either establish a baseline
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of activity yeah there are certain things we don't do yeah I'm on board with non-violent parenting
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so so relational parenting I will
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at some point share a pyramid that I created
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um that illustrates My Philosophy and that is
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that at the bottom of the pyramid if you picture picture a triangle right it's wider at the bottom thinner at the top
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and at the bottom is your foundation it's what you have to have and you have
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to build on top of the foundation in order to create um what the what we're talking about in
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this situation which is a successful healthy childhood and in order to build
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that at the bottom has to be that physical needs are being met right so we
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have to eat we have to sleep we have to be clean um and eliminate and be cleaned up after
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and uh we need we need physical closeness
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that's actually that's very important and um kind of the Maslow thing I mean
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there's certain things with which you can't really do without long term yeah well and so the base when you're when
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you have a child when you have a newborn a baby their primary needs that parents
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are worried about meeting is are they eating enough are they sleeping enough are they pooping enough are we keeping
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people clean um and then you know the holding and response being responsive to crying but
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the responsiveness isn't physical um that's the next that's the next layer
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up that we're gonna dig into a little bit more but being held is a physical need
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um by All Humans not just children well documented so then we move up from the
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base layer foundational layer of meeting uh child's physical needs and we move up
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the pyramid to uh relational needs and those are
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defined as emotional and mental health needs and this is the layer out of the
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four layers that I'm going to talk about this is the layer that gets neglected the most so this layer is
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um emotional and mental health and we this is where we are focusing on how
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responsive we are to our child from from birth so when the baby cries is the baby
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responded to and is the baby responded to gently kindly lovingly
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um this is where we are having conversations and explanations with our
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three-year-old our five-year-old our ten-year-old uh you know when a behavior happens how are
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we responding lovingly kindly maybe firmly but we're not reacting and with
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anger and yelling and like we are regulated
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we're not traumatizing them right or sharing our trauma
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um although you do you do I mean you do want kids to be teach kids to be competitive a little bit and and I guess
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to a degree different parents with different differ but uh
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because the world can be a tough place you want to prepare them for that too but for young kids especially they will
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learn that in other situations in life they'll want they'll pick Sports to play they'll pick you know maybe there can
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they'll be competitive in academics maybe they'll play School competitive yeah whatever
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you know whatever they end up being interested in the world will teach them how that the world is a cruel place
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zero to five years where you have little ones and they are just little emotions
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running around on legs and they have no clue what's going on every little thing that happens to them everything they see
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every day everything they touch everything they feel everything they eat everything is brand new to that baby and
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just explore from zero to five you are that child's entire world
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apparently you the parent and and if you are the one causing harm
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causing trauma causing anxiety causing shame causing guilt then that child will
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enter the world already traumatized and they will
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approach the world with fear instead of confidence and they will approach the world with with
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um doubt and scarcity and shame and they will they
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will treat other people the way that they have been treated and so
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I mean it's important for the entire childhood for these things for these practices
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these relational practices to be put in place but zero to five is like everybody
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has said for billions of years is those are crucial crucial years for the
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development of confidence you know feelings of safety love
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uh resilience um and that's actually where resilience
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comes from is the confidence that I am loved and I am a good person and I am worth it to be treated well and
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respected um if you raise a child to be talked
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down to to be disrespected to be guilt full of guilt and shame then they are
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never going to build the resilience to approach a hard world and so that's why
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that second layer so there's our we have our physical layer and then we have our relational emotional and mental health
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layer um and that is where relationship comes into play relationship skills uh is what
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is my is what is my primary teaching goal for
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the people that I coach and because underlying
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everything else that a child is going to encounter in their life is relationship skills how to
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be respectful how to be kind how to respond to difficult emotions how to self-regulate these are all how to
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co-regulate these are relationship skills and so I teach parents how to
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build a healthy relationship with their child in order to have a successful child
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um and that's the emotional intelligence thing right setting uh
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they tie Goldman ties eventual happiness long-term studies
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it's been a while since I read the book more to their that relationship thing the emotional
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intelligence rather than like IQ or other factors
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um you know that's a that's a real that's a real basic framework you're building and what
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you're what it seems now that I was not aware when I was Raising you guys helping raise you guys that you and your
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brothers um that you were setting expectations which you were talking about a minute ago is
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kind of like setting the expectations that a child has of how the World's Gonna treat them you know if you if you
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teach them if you berate them and uh guilt them and use other you know use
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negative ways like that too much to motivate them to behave or whatever then
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you're kind of teaching them unworthiness um and then that you know
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fear and wizard worthiness and that's just setting them up that's setting the wrong expectation for them to have of
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the world to have a positive relationship later I haven't really thought about that being a something you
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ought to watch when they're under five yeah well and it's you know the
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the studies were kind of like being done on relational
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the importance of relationship skills and it would be it you would be
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hard-pressed to find it called relationship skills um if you were to like go search uh a
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research database academic stuff yeah you can't you can't type in relational parenting and find a
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study relational parenting is a term that I
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that I deemed the definition of what all these studies
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are talking about um so when you talk about conscious parenting intentional parenting peaceful
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parenting and you look at what the studies are talking about with emotional health mental health and how the skills
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to build that when you look when you look at that you read it and you put it all together it's the exact same stuff
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that marriage counselors teach couples relationship skills and it's translating
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it from from two adults to an adult child
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relationship and specifically a parent-child relationship because there's and I mean in any adult child
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relationship there's a power Dynamic and so the stakes are are even higher
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um right because between two consenting adults who have theoretically equal
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power um but in a in a child adult relationship there's a power Dynamic at
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play so it becomes even more important to hone these relational skills so that
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you are not um causing harm and taking advantage of and
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taking away the autonomy and choice and like all these things we want our kids to grow up to have but we take it away
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from them in their childhood and then expect them to know how to do it when they turn it when they turn 18.
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yeah so yeah I just want to touch on a good point there too just that this may
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not be we may not be academic you know some of these terms are not going to be academic medical kind of terms this is
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stuff we've learned in our lives dealing with kids
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um that we're sharing with people you know to see see what sticks see what uh see what
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people can use well and a lot of it is gonna it's gonna be
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a lot of what I'm bringing is going to be straight from the new the newest literature the newest
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research um you know
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the biggest names in parenting right now gave her mate uh Janet Lansbury
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um Monica oh gosh her name her last name but these are people who carry you know
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phds in Psychology and have run the
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studies or have studied with um the thought leaders and scientists and
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psychologists behind all these parenting studies and and
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um yeah we'll get it we'll we'll do more on that I want to finish this pyramid so we
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have the physical needs we have the emotional mental needs
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which is what I'm calling the relationship layer and then we have the
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social and the um the academic so so we
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you know we build this this emotional and mental health in the brain and then
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our children become more capable of being social and greeting people and
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hugging people and going to school and having friends
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um but that like but that in so many houses and and places that I have worked
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and and been part of a family or been at a preschool or whatever it is
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this third layer becomes the goal and then academic above
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that so so being having social skills and then having cognitive prefrontal
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cortex abilities to learn and execute not math and science and reading those
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two things are often
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taken take priority after physical needs are
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met so my phys my kids physical needs are met and now it's time for preschool now it's time to make sure they have
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friends and they know how to share and they know how to um you know read and write and and all
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of those things and learn their ABCs and hold a pencil and
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play well with others yeah like and those those are important but they're
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not import more important than emotional mental health four layered pyramid
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is this second layer gets skipped over a lot in a lot of parenting Styles and
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the the research now is showing that that second layer being skipped is
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actually causing delays in these other two layers and especially into adulthood
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and relationship building and marriages Partnerships
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friendships what have you are being are highly affected by this lack of
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emotional and mental health that should have been built in those first five years and
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so that's that's kind of my purpose here
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is been I've been working with kids for 20
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years in so many different capacities in different socioeconomic situations from
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different backgrounds different cultures different ages different settings from a hundred and
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some kid grade school Camp all summer to one-on-one in a private home in Denver
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Colorado like you know and the one thing that is the same across all of these
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situations is that we are more worried about a child's behavior and performance
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than we are about how emotionally secure they are and
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so that's what I'm here to dispel that's what I'm here to
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talk about with you and explore um and that's what I'm here to teach
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people think about people that makes a lot of sense because we're kind of a lot of that stuff the Soft
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Stuff the internal stuff where most people are kind of left to their own to figure that
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out the emotional things and and it's real and it's a real enabling
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set of skills you know if you if you take uh you know there's always training
34:22
leading up to becoming a journeyman or whatever you know becoming an accomplished thing at work person at
34:29
work where if you skip if you got a four-year apprenticeship and you miss a year or two in the middle there well
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your third and fourth years are not going to go so well if you missed the second year it's you might get through
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you might get by but not as well as if you had the whole had the whole course
34:48
you know um why would this why would these skills be any different I like that I like that
34:54
pyramid that's right I don't think I've shared that with you before
35:00
I came up with alcohol not to have the whole I don't remember the whole thing I remember you talking about it but this
35:07
is the first time I've caught it all and it makes a lot of sense it's a good working model for parents to
35:13
keep in mind you know and to be map to be mindful of while you're dealing with kids I think it's a really great
35:19
illustration of of where to start and yeah the order the order of things you
35:26
know we're gonna do from after this introduction episode it's gonna be topical so each episode is going to be
35:33
based on a on a different parenting topic uh as we go forward and
35:40
so just some of the things that we're going to focus on here for anybody listening is is obviously relationship
35:48
skills so we'll pull apart and pick out a you know a different relationship skill to focus on for each episode we
35:56
will talk about like really common parenting questions things like nature versus nurture
36:03
um am I being too hard on my kid am I being too soft why won't they listen to me the first time why does my
36:09
eight-year-old have the attitude of a 17 year old um you know
36:15
addressing there's I mean there's thousands
36:20
upon thousands of little tiny micro situations that occur every single day
36:27
in anyone's household um and especially when you have kids and if you have multiple kids and each of
36:34
them with their own personalities and their own needs and their own emotional needs right because each kid is going to
36:40
be different and how it's complicated and fast-paced you know
36:46
well and how can you as the parent you know something
36:52
that's so important is that you are first regulated that you have
36:58
dealt with trauma or dealt with your childhood or dealt with whatever you experienced and so that you can regulate
37:05
yourself you have emotional health and you can then slow yourself down so you can slow
37:13
yourself down when your kids emotions are really big and really hard and
37:20
they're freaking out and they can't regulate like you have to be the regulator and
37:26
it's it's so difficult so we're gonna touch on those things we're going to
37:32
talk about that I jump in you trigger a thought on me
37:38
people are talking about regulating kids and you know forming personalities and
37:45
stuff but one thing that struck me when I was when I was parenting you guys was
37:52
um how much I learned being aware that kids are just sponges and
38:00
testing the fences all the time and testing your limits you know why don't
38:06
they listen to me the first time and it's a real chance for growth and to
38:12
discover things about yourself in order to help
38:17
your kids later on the whole relationship thing kind of goes two ways and don't you know
38:24
just to remind people don't think you're the master and of everything and it's
38:29
only one way be be aware be open that if
38:35
you haven't done this before that or had this kind of child before or or been in
38:40
this mood a kid with this mood in these circumstances you know it's very very uh it can be very complicated be be
38:49
open to how do I want to uh how do I want to play this what's the principle
38:54
I'm working with here and uh non-violence or not no trauma and and
39:00
how do I do this healthy and sometimes it'll set you back on your heels doing doing all this stuff that's just popped
39:07
into my head there sorry to interrupt go ahead no that's okay that's a really that's a really good point because
39:14
it's so true I always say that kids are sponges and mirrors so they will absorb
39:20
anything and everything they do they will watch you all they're doing all day every day is watching you and listening
39:26
to you and then they're gonna start reflecting back to you what you've been doing and that's right they'll use your
39:33
tricks on you yeah you're gonna see it in them and you're gonna think that they're little tyrants
39:40
is doing to you exactly what you've been walking around doing and they are doing
39:46
their job you learning to control the world around them you know with the tools you taught them the other thing I
39:52
say is that you parenting is the single most educational
39:58
experience that anyone will ever go through over anything else
40:04
parenting will teach you more about yourself than any other
40:09
experience Endeavor in the world will ever teach you your child will teach you more about
40:17
yourself than anything and that is not that is not easy that's not
40:29
choosing to have kids isn't just it's not just the natural urge to procreate
40:36
like we are creatures of seeking and learning and
40:42
growing and um and children help us with that and
40:47
like you said that the the relationship goes two ways like children are contributing to your relationship
40:54
they're they're contributing to your growth they're contributing they're doing their job as
41:01
the little tiny humans that they are and they have come to Earth to be and you
41:08
are their parent doing your job and but somewhere along the way
41:14
there became this hierarchical power Dynamic and that parents know it all and
41:22
have seen it all and they know how the world works I've earned my place in the world and
41:29
you're new here and you're gonna listen to me and you're gonna take my advice
41:34
and if you don't then you're disrespectful and it's a negative
41:41
consequence true and however it is that we got to this place in parenting and
41:47
how we raise children is irrelevant what matters is that you know there's there's
41:54
widespread knowledge that we need to shift how we're parenting if we want the
42:00
World to Change if we want the world to be a Kinder place a more inclusive place a more loving place a more joyful place
42:06
to live than we have to stop parenting our kids
42:12
to be traumatized and to create a traumatized world and I expect that yeah
42:19
I'm gonna share tools that parents can start using today you know each episode
42:27
there will be there will be tools that I share on how to address specific situations with your kids
42:34
um and we're going to talk about radical accountability so this is something
42:41
like that super passionate about in my own life
42:47
um it's actually been a subject the last few weeks or so in my household
42:56
and it's something I always am coming back to about radical accountability for
43:01
yourself uh so not only are we you know as parents are we
43:09
responsible for our children's health and safety but we are also
43:14
parents need to take radical accountability for
43:20
who they are and how they're contributing to who their child is how their child is
43:27
behaving and how they are showing up inside of that
43:32
relationship how they're treating their child because your kid comes out
43:38
with their own personality and they come out with their own you know
43:45
way of being their own Spirit their own personality and who they are there's no denying that each child is different
43:51
I've taken care of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of children in my life and not a single one of them is the same as
43:57
another and I've had to use different tactics every year every child every job
44:04
every interaction is different because each child is different and each
44:11
child's needs are different and each child is in a different situation um and this
44:17
radical accountability is that I show up to each of those children or I show up to each of those situations or I show up
44:24
to that child behaving a certain way or needing something from me as
44:32
a neutral presence versus
44:38
an ex and a neutral presence in the way in the way that I am accepting of
44:44
whatever's in front of me versus walking into that situation with that child with
44:50
those needs with expectations demands
44:56
requirements you have to walk you have to become a
45:03
person who can walk in
45:10
knowing that you can handle it knowing that you
45:16
have done the work yourself to regulate yourself and to walk in
45:21
accepting of exactly who and what that child is in that very moment and then
45:29
you can begin to address and meet the needs of the child
45:35
versus trying to force that child into whatever box you want them to fit in
45:41
yeah and yeah there's this toxic belief
45:48
in parenting and even even in it makes me cringe even
45:54
just hearing parents joke you know about
46:00
about their you know parents just riffing at a party about how their kids
46:05
are being little or whatever it is like yeah there's venting and there's being silly with your friends and things
46:12
that you would never like you don't actually mean like there's that but then there are actual situations that I have
46:18
heard I've ever heard or have been part of the conversation of parents just thinking like their kids behavior is
46:28
my kid's a little or my kid is so disrespectful today or my kid is this or my kid is that and I'm like you are
46:35
defining that for them they aren't labeled they're being a kid they're learning
46:42
about the world they're getting their needs met they're surviving a lot of
46:48
what a kid does is purely out of survival need and
46:55
so the right so radical accountability for how you are showing up inside of the relationship with your child and how you
47:02
are affecting them and their behavior and defining them and putting them in a
47:07
box and how that is is shaping that child's reality instead of just letting
47:12
the child's reality be what it is uh well and you take out the relational
47:18
part of things you're not getting the feedback from your kid kids two different kids in the
47:25
same situation may need different things you got to be you got to be aware of that
47:31
and it can be Dot and daunting being too too rules based I gotta figure I gotta
47:37
pick apart the idea of rules and principles I always tried to have good principles and then you can
47:45
walk up in front of any kid in any situation that you're familiar with that you've honed the principles you're
47:53
working with over I mean it's nobody's been in all situations right
47:58
um but then you can handle uh it makes you more resilient or it it
48:04
you can handle more situations and work towards this the common goal of
48:12
making kids healthy well not making them helping guiding them to become healthier
48:19
people to to deal with other situates all kinds of situations in healthy ways
48:26
um but it but you have to pay attention to where they're at or figure out where
48:33
they're at why are you having such a crappy day why are you being like this today you're not normally like this and
48:41
dig a little bit and then share your what was it you said earlier you know you have to share your
48:47
your your maturity your way you teach them you teach them basically by example how
48:54
to deal with that kind of situation um and it's okay if you have it's okay
49:01
if you don't know how but as long as you're aware that hey there's something we need to learn here and you know take
49:08
responsibility for okay I'm a little older than you I'll go first and you you
49:14
figure out the healthy response to a situation you've never been in before you just have to adhere to
49:20
you know be mindful of no we're not going to go violent no we're not just going to grab you by the you know I I
49:26
used to see parents in the store just grabbing their kids you know they were frustrated they were beyond their limits
49:32
and I always you know I'm probably lucky I didn't get shot you know I always want
49:37
to just go over and say knock that off you know this is not the answer
49:44
um which I guess is a judgmental thing but you know people you people are people you get upset you you don't think
49:51
straight when you're upset and uh you know learning learning to regulate
49:57
learn to teach your kid to regulate that goes a long way towards uh smoothing life out
50:04
anyway and that's that's not to say
50:09
like taking radical accountability doesn't mean that you're gonna You're Gonna Learn
50:15
these things you're gonna heal and then all of a sudden you're gonna be a
50:20
perfect parent that's never going to happen exactly Never Gonna taking radical accountability also means that
50:27
you are you are you take away the hierarchy this I've earned my place in
50:33
the world and you will respect me and you and you level the playing field and you come together and you say I've been
50:41
here a while here's what I know yeah here's how I see I see that you are
50:48
so frustrated and we've been out and about Christmas shopping for six hours and you haven't gotten your nap and you
50:57
need more than just a snack bar and you're over stimulated with the lights
51:03
and the noise and the whatever like you taking radical accountability is you
51:08
taking the role of teacher and someone with experience you haven't
51:14
earned your place in this world you have learned your place in this world and it is now
51:21
your responsibility with that knowledge and that power to teach this tiny human
51:27
who has no clue what the is going on and to see them and love them anyway and
51:35
then teach them and and radical accountability is that
51:42
radical accountability is also that up and coming back to your child and saying
51:48
I'm sorry and you don't deserve that and no one should ever talk to you like that and I'm that's the word that was popping
51:55
that's the word popping into my head is respect there's a certain aspect of
52:00
having respect for your child yeah respect as well as responsibility
52:07
or accountability yeah as they as soon as they come out of you that is a whole
52:14
human that you don't get to talk down to you don't get to manipulate you don't get to
52:21
Force like like you are taking away their human rights
52:29
there's a level of like of safety right that that requires intervention and you
52:38
know we'll dig into that on one of our episodes but outside of
52:44
grabbing them and move removing them from the street as a truck whizzes by
52:50
yes please please do that I'm infringing on your personal Liberty here a little
52:56
bit but please do that um but this you know if your child you
53:01
put a meal in front of your child and they eat what they want from that meal and then forcing them to sit at the table until they take two more bites of
53:07
whatever mm-hmm that's Force and
53:13
the reality is is children need to learn how to live in that situation they
53:19
need to learn how to listen to their bodies they need to learn how to you know and they also need to try new things so where you know so where's the
53:26
balance in that without forcing your child without manipulating your child into eating the broccoli right can you
53:31
just ask them like you would either an older child or an adult like
53:38
like if I just cooked if I just tried a new recipe and put it in front of my husband and he
53:44
you know was like this looks weird and I was like you know smells weird looks weird whatever you
53:51
just try it for me and and then he's like okay like I want to try this because you you know for whatever all
53:57
the reasons you tried and you did this new thing and he tries it and he doesn't like it I'm not gonna be like well you
54:02
can't get up from the table until you take at least three bites of that so what like why are we saying that to our
54:07
kids like our kids can our children need to listen to their bodies they need to listen to their brain's response to like
54:15
I don't like that um and exposing them to new things is our
54:22
job forcing them to do those new things
54:28
so how about the how about the rule of uh you don't get you can't decide you
54:33
don't like something until you've tried it I don't know about a number of bytes
54:40
for what you're remembering so that rule was but it's like you got to take a bite of broccoli or brussels sprouts before
54:46
you decide you don't like them because you never know well so this is where
54:52
actually depends on age too you kind of you kind of have to be upper depending on development because every child
54:58
develops at a different pace so some two-year-olds you could have that conversation some two-year-olds you
55:04
couldn't um yeah some days but there needs to be a conversation
55:11
about how we you know try new things and you can even give an example of how you
55:16
know if you say Mommy your daddy tried you know trying new things is scary I know that looks weird doesn't it that
55:23
looks like a what does that look like you pick up me like it kind of looks like a tiny tree do you think that we
55:28
eat trees and just like literally just say out loud the thoughts that you think they might be having and just making
55:35
this curious like conversation and just
55:41
saying those things out loud takes away the scariness of it and you can even be
55:46
like can I try can I try one and they'll be like yeah and I mean there's some kids I've actually done that and said
55:52
like could I try one and they'll be like no that's mine that's my food that was on my plate you know that's right
55:58
because you know I wasn't gonna like steal it I wasn't threatening them like oh I'm gonna eat because that's also the
56:06
whole that's another thing but um you get past the when it's just resistance
56:12
you know when it's not like it smells bad to me it's just like I don't want to right now well maybe the first time you
56:19
have that that Curiosity and that that silly conversation with them they still
56:24
refuse to put it in their mouth that's okay a few days later you're gonna make broccoli again and you're gonna put it
56:30
on their plate and you're gonna have that conversation again and someday your child is going to put broccoli in their
56:36
mouth yeah like power struggles you have to you
56:43
have to work uh let them listen to themselves make it as le as as less hard
56:50
and scary as you can until they feel ready to do it lower the resistance to it as much as
56:56
you can don't make it a power struggle power struggles are uh you know sometimes you need them sometimes you
57:02
need to snap them but snatch them out of the street but Power struggles is a rule are
57:07
less useful useful less useful the older the older a kid gets that's just where
57:13
you get for value I watch people and it's like oh man that kid's gonna Rebel one day because you're
57:19
just but here just make it do arbitrary things too much you know we're gonna
57:24
touch on all these difficult subjects we're going to have all these conversations and about the ins and outs of how to approach parenting
57:31
um but I also want to make sure that we are that the point of this is to
57:39
find or refined the joy and the excitement of what of
57:46
parenting because like you have been given this responsibility you have you have
57:52
created new people and you have either chosen to do that
57:58
on your own or with a partner and you are now
58:04
a guide and a teacher for this young kind of a sacred thing yeah it's not
58:09
extremely sacred and it's meant it's not meant to just be hard it's not meant to
58:15
just be this like self-reflective self-awareness growth
58:21
thing it's it's meant to be fun it's meant to be exciting it's meant to be full of joy and laughter and giggles and
58:28
tickles and silliness and fights and all of the things and ultimately what we're
58:35
trying to create here is a cohesive loving healthy family unit right and
58:41
then when your kids grow up and they choose to get their own Partners or have their own families your family and your
58:47
unit grows and that grows in a way that is sustainable and healthy and marriages
58:53
that last and families that Bond and that's how we change the world right
58:59
um and then lastly I just want to say that this is not a show to listen to do with your children uh I think I think
59:08
I've only dropped one F-bomb so far uh pretty good two I think maybe two but
59:15
it's not maybe two let's go back and watch I'm uh I'm
59:21
yeah I don't censor myself in that way I believe in using language uh
59:27
authentically and I do and I always have and I will um we're also gonna talk about topics
59:33
that young kids and even teenagers would not be ready for
59:39
um to just hear coming out of your phone or your radio so um we will be touching on topics like
59:47
abuse neglect mental health sex things like that and so if those are
59:52
conversations that your child is not ready for then they should not be listening to this podcast I just want to
59:58
put that out there for everyone to know and then yeah so we're gonna start with
1:00:06
we're gonna start obviously picking our own topics and and having these conversations we're going to do about an
1:00:12
hour every week but we would love to either hear in the comments or via email
1:00:19
what topics you guys want to hear about so we want to know what parents are
1:00:25
working on what stage you're in what questions you have what would what do you want to hear about
1:00:32
um what do you want to to get advice on uh and what do you want to hear us talk
1:00:38
about on here in the comments you know
1:00:43
we'd love to take your you know real-time concerns and answer as many of those as
1:00:51
we can for you so um so yeah once again my name is Jennifer Hayes uh you can find me at
1:00:58
Jenny underscore B13 that's b as in boy e e as in
1:01:07
bumblebee one three on Instagram I am on Tick Tock at parent coaching and you can
1:01:15
email me at Jenny j-e-n-n-i-e at jennyb.com
1:01:24
j-e-n-n-i-e-b-e-e dot c-o that's also my website
1:01:30
www.jennyb.com and if you are looking for some parent coaching some help some
1:01:37
one-on-one right now you can reach out to me via my website my email address or any of those other places I just listed
1:01:44
I will also list them in the show notes so you can go find those and you can reach out to me for parent coaching you
1:01:53
can submit topics to that email address and you can also go to my website and
1:01:58
sign up for my weekly email newsletter that I will be starting here in the next couple of weeks as well so you can get
1:02:05
weekly parenting tips and support from me as well directly to your inbox
1:02:13
and lastly I will be starting group coaching courses uh towards the end of
1:02:19
this month January so lots of ways that you can work with me or listen to free
1:02:27
content and up your parenting game
1:02:32
alright thanks Dad thank you we'll see you next time if
1:02:40
someone came to mind while you were listening to this episode or you are wishing you had a friend to digest it
1:02:46
with I would be so honored if you shared this link from this episode with them
1:02:52
I myself have always benefited from community and sharing and I truly believe that it takes a village to raise
1:03:01
a child our society has become so independent from one another and parenting these
1:03:08
days is often a lonely Journey but it doesn't have to be that way
1:03:13
that's why I'm here if you have been seeking a more intentional approach to
1:03:18
Parenting but you aren't sure where to start I would love to hear from you you
1:03:24
can find me and all of my offerings at www.jennyb.com
1:03:30
and come follow me on all major social media platforms it fills my heart to
1:03:36
hear your stories where you come from and your big goals for raising the Next
1:03:41
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