March 17, 2022 • 32 mins
A huge part of healing is how we’re raising our kids. Who would have thought we could find healing in a relationship with these tiny humans? But that's one of the powerful messages from Alicia's conversation with Dr. Laura Markham in this episode of The Real Heal. Our kids aren’t our therapists, but how we learn to manage our emotions and create empathy for ourselves allows our children to bloom into the best version of themselves. If you’re a parent, have little ones on the way, or have children you help care for, this episode is a must listen.
To dig deeper into this episode’s topic and resources, visit thekindlife.com
Learn more about Dr. Laura Markham and gain some valuable parenting tips at her website ahaparenting.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
What is it really gonna take to heal ourselves, our communities,
and our planet. I'm Alicia Silverstone, and this is the
real heal. Hi there, I am. I'm really excited to
share this with you. Oh my god, the conversation I
(00:25):
just had. You know, a huge part of healing is
how we are raising our kids. And I wrote The
Kind Mama because I believe so strongly in nurturing through
kindness and gentleness the kids who are becoming our future generations.
So Dr Laura is the perfect person to talk to
(00:45):
about this. Dr Markham is a clinical psychologist and the
founding editor of ah parenting dot com, which supports parents
to create a more peaceful home, happy, responsible, considerate kids.
Dr Markham's relationship based parenting model, which she calls peaceful Parenting,
(01:07):
is research based and parent tested. She's the author of
three books on this topic, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, Peaceful Parent,
Happy Siblings, How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends
for Life, and has helped thousands of families find transformative
solutions to everything from separation, anxiety and sleep problems to
(01:28):
sas talk and cell phones. I don't want to spoil
it for you. I left this conversation, feeling so refreshed
and so hopeful, and I know you will too, So
without further ado, let's get into the real heel. Welcome,
(01:49):
Dr Markham. I'm so excited to be speaking with you.
We've never met before, but I was lucky enough to
have you write three blogs from my website for the
kind life dot com. And I believe that your your
entire philosophy is about making this world a better place
and um supporting the parents. So I want to dive
(02:11):
into all of that. I feel like we are healing
ourselves through our commitment to our kids, and I feel
like we are doing great acts of activism through our
children by making these really bright warriors. But I wanted
to start with where this all began for you, in
terms of why did you start studying psychology in the
(02:34):
first place? What made you interested in that? You know,
I always love children from the time I was young,
and I always was interested in psychology. I started reading
psychology as a teenager, but I would say that it
is when I had my first child that I realized
(02:54):
that our society's relationship with children is not a very
healthy one. We don't actually do a very good job
raising kids. We don't value kids, and therefore we often
don't value women who we see as doing the child raising.
That's part of what is wrong with our society. When
you say the healing that we need to do, imagine
(03:15):
a world where all children grew up knowing they mattered,
and where all children learned to express what they needed
and wanted without attacking the other person. Those two things
alone would make a tremendous difference and how humans related
to each other right and at every level, in marriages,
in businesses, in government, between countries. So I got into
(03:40):
it because I have my first child, and I saw
that the people around me we're doing the very best
they could to parent, but had no support and no information. Really,
you know, you have to get a driver's license, but
to have a child, you don't have to do anything. Yeah,
that beautifully says how you see this as active is
um and healing for all that if we could just
(04:03):
start with the babies, if those babies were loved and
cared for, what they would be able to do and
how the world would perform in such a better place
Because all the bad things that are happening is are
because people who were not loved little babies, you know,
they were not cared for and they're acting out right.
For me, I knew that yelling was not something that
(04:24):
I liked. I don't like being yelled at. It doesn't
feel good. But I wonder you speak about yelling and
I see it with friends who they say, I don't
know why my kids are always yelling, and I'm like, well,
because you yell at them, you know. And um, that
seems really obvious to some, but to most of the world,
(04:44):
it's just not even in their consciousness that that we
wouldn't talk to our children that way, or we wouldn't
want to be talked to that way. And so I
love how I've been listening to you talk about, you know,
respect for your child and honoring your child. But what
I heard you say is that we just don't want
to be yelling at our children. And I'm wondering why
(05:05):
do you think people, where does it come from? Really
well meaning, loving parents who adore their children yell at
their kids and try to control their children, And um,
I'm wondering why you think that is and how you
figured that out. Well, first of all, you said people
who are kind, gentle, wonderful, people who end up yelling
at their kids. You know, we all at our best
(05:27):
wouldn't yell at anyone, right, because we would be emotionally
generous at our best to anyone. And even if something
happened that we didn't think was ideal, we would be
able to handle it better because we would, at our
best be compassionate and loving. Right. We all would aspire
to be that way one of the time. But that
(05:47):
is not what it's like to be human. When you're human,
the human mind is always evaluating and judging and comparing
and scrambling for safety and security, and emotions come from
that mind. Every time we have a thought, it triggers emotions.
So we are constantly, you know, being washed over by emotions.
(06:08):
And when you have children, they trigger you more than
someone else does because there are a reflection of you,
or at least we think that the truth is. If
we are to judge a parent, which isn't a great
idea to begin with. If you're judging, though, you can
judge by how the parent responds to the child, right,
not what the child does right. The child is the child,
(06:30):
But what happens in our culture is not that. What
happens in our culture as parents feel judge, parents feel
on the defensive, and they have this emotional reaction to
what their child is doing. No, don't run into the street.
You could be killed. No, don't hit your sister. No,
don't take your cup of juice and dump it on
(06:50):
the couch. You know, um, all the things that we
would be screaming no at our child about all day long,
and there are many of them. Right, we have a
big sational reaction to it. And what happens for humans
when we have an emotional reaction is we're afraid at
that moment, Right, we're afraid the juice is going to
ruin the couch, the sister is going to be hurt,
(07:12):
the kid is going to get hit by a car.
We're afraid. And when we're afraid, what do we do.
We're humans. That means we're mammals. That means we go
in to fight, flight or freeze. That's it. So when
there's an emergency, we're going to fight flight or freeze.
You might freeze if your kid is headed for the street,
more likely you're going to go into fight mode and
you're gonna be barreling after them. Certainly, when your kid
(07:34):
hits his sister, you're gonna be barreling after him and
grabbing him away from her so he doesn't hit her, right,
And when the juice goes all over your new couch,
you're gonna be grabbing your kid off the couch too,
so you're in fight mode. Well, when you're in fight mode,
what you're aiming at looks like the enemy, even if
it's your child, So of course you're yelling. You don't
(07:54):
see your child as your beloved child who you held
to your when you when your child was born and
you put into your heart. You know, you're not seeing that.
You're seeing this person who's doing this terrible thing to
your daughter, or you know, who's just wrecked the new couch.
We stop seeing our child as in an emotionally generous way.
We start we go into fight mode, and we want
(08:17):
to vanquish the enemy, and that's why we yell, yeah, gosh,
where do we begin to heal that? And I would
think that you have a lot to say about this
in terms of putting yourself first and um making sure
that your well is all filled up, that you are
getting the therapy that you need if you're having these
(08:37):
reactions to your children, how you want to put yourself first,
and how if your emotional state is not I'm gonna
read this quote for you because it's gonna be better
than how I'm going to butcher it. Oh, your number
one job as a parent, after assuring the safety of
your children is to manage your own emotions. And I
think that that is really profound and important. And how
(09:00):
does one do that for people who are going and
how do they identify that they may be doing this? Go? Oh,
I react in an emotional way when I'm not I'm
not managing myself. I'm acting like a child too in
a sense. You know, you have to recognize that you're
the adult and there's a child in front of you
that's having feelings, and you're going to have feelings too,
(09:21):
for sure, and both of you are allowed to have feelings,
it's just you're the adults, so your feelings have to
be managed better. And so how does one get there?
I think one gets there from you know, the therapy
that you need to heal, the self care. I think
you talk a lot about self care and how I
can remember times where you go where there's no time
(09:42):
to go pee, there's no time to pee, and should
I drink water. I don't I can don't have time
to drink water. You know that. But if we don't
do those things were spent and empty, and so anything
you can help share with someone about what are the
steps if I've recognized I have now announceding that I
might have this problem them where I'm I'm yelling or
I'm not taking care of my emotions around my child?
(10:04):
How do I fix this? What are my steps to take? Well?
One thing is that we know just beating up on
yourself doesn't work. Feeling terribly guilty and wretched about it
and I'm going to do better. I'm going to do better.
It doesn't work by itself. You have to give yourself
more support. This is true for children. You know, yelling
(10:26):
at your kids doesn't actually change their behavior. What changes
their behavior is giving them more support to meet your expectations.
And that support could be emotional support, it could be
physical support. There's all kinds of things in any given
situation that could be supportive for your child to meet
your expectations and so for yourself for you to be
(10:47):
the parent you want to be. Let's consider the kinds
of support that would be helpful. So one thing is
get enough sleep. Most mothers I know and many dads
don't get enough sleep. They say, up late at night,
they're on Instagram whatever, And in fact, the next morning
when a kid wakes them up, they're just dragging themselves
(11:07):
out of bed and they're starting from a deficit. So
start there, get enough sleep. Then throughout the day, notice
what your needs are. It's not sustainable to never bee,
It's not sustainable to never get a drink of water.
It's not sustainable to never have five minutes to yourself,
you know, So figuring out what you need and adding
(11:28):
your needs to the list. Every mother I know is
constantly juggling a list that is like, okay, fill out
the forms for school. Oh see if the little one's
up from her nap yet, I think she should be,
you know, starting to stir, Oh, get dinner started. You know,
there's there's a constant list of things that you have
to remember to do, and if you're not on that list,
(11:49):
that's not sustainable. You have to add your own needs
to that list. They don't supersede anyone else's needs. But
they also can't come last all the time, because we
know that what's last usually drops off a list. Right,
So there's that, and you mentioned therapy. A lot of
people think that therapy is something that you only do
if you had a major trauma, whenever as a child
(12:11):
or later. But in fact, we all benefit from learning
how to notice what we're thinking, notice what we're feeling,
and learn how to work with that constructively. You know,
I say there's a slippery slope, and anyone will go
over that slope and be sliding down onto the low
road if you don't pay attention. So our job is
(12:32):
to stay away from the edge. And what does it
take to stay away from the edge. Well, it takes
noticing if I've spent my day walking around in a
snit about I'm the only one who ever picks up
around here? How come the kids never help? How come
my children are such spoiled brats. I've broken my kids.
You know, if if I'm walking around in this negative
(12:53):
frame of mind, I call that gathering kindling. You get
enough kindling, you're going to have a firestorm. So our
job is to otis when we start to get into
that negativity. Our job is to notice when we have
a power struggle over and over again about the bathtime
or the bedtime or whatever it is, and then to
do some problem solving around it. What would it take
(13:14):
to make that time of day work more easily? Right, So,
I think there's so many things we can do to
support ourselves, and that's our job. It is one of
our jobs as parents to give ourselves the support we
need or we can't be the emotionally generous parent that
our child deserves. You were talking about sleep, and sleep
(13:49):
I think is really truly the most important thing that
we all neglect and we all forget, and it's it
takes a lot of practice. I have to practice it
every day. So what I've been practicing doing is going
to bed and you know, stopping all electronics at nine
and when I walk around the home, savoring that quiet,
maybe you take a bath, maybe you clean your room,
(14:11):
you know, maybe you put a mask on. It feels
like I've gone to Hawaii. You know. It's just so
it feels so indulgent, but it is so critical because
it also gives you time to really think. And then
when you get those eight hours sleep and you wake up,
you're so refreshed. And so what I've been talking about,
(14:33):
and like I wrote this book called The Kind Mama,
A long time ago that book. For me, the main
thing is I want to savor every morsel of my
baby's being. Right, There's no doubt it is challenging and
exhausting to be present with someone in that kind of
way where you really are all for them. In my case,
I believe that is plant based food, not eating um sugar,
(14:55):
you know, staying away from caffeine, trying to eat whole foods,
you know, as much as you possibly can, so that
your body is your organs are resting at night and
not working so hard that when you wake up you're
so exhausted and you haven't gotten a good nights sleep
because you had to get them p like four times,
or you got up at three o'clock in the morning
because your your body is going, I need to detox
(15:16):
from what you had yesterday, you know. And then that
allows me to be the most present mom so that
I can savor every morsel of that little munchkin's being.
And I wonder what you think of that. I think
that parents especially have an obligation to take care of
themselves physically so that they can be there and be present.
(15:36):
Your whole podcast is about healing and how we heal
and certainly our diet heals us, but I'm wondering about
our mental diet and our emotional diet and how those
work to heal us as parents. So if every thought
we have is you know, they're fleeting, there are so
many in their ten thousand a day, right that come through,
(15:57):
And many of those thoughts are not positives. Many of
those thoughts are judging thoughts. We judge ourselves, we judge
our child, we judge other people. And for the healing
that we all need to do, the more awareness we
can have of our thought diet, the better. And I
want to encourage that person, but all of us, especially
(16:20):
all of us parents, to notice our thought life and
become our own best friend, become our own parent in
a way. Right, You're we talked about being present with
our little munchkins, to be really fully present with them.
It's really helpful if we can be present with ourselves,
then be compassionate towards ourselves. It's like, okay, so I
(16:42):
ate three cookies, I ate ten cookies, whatever I ate.
You know, it's gonna be okay. I'm gonna live. I'd
like to make a different choice next time, you know,
I yelled at my kid, I didn't get enough sleep
the night before. I'm going to give myself support to
do something different tomorrow. You don't have to be perfect,
just key putting one ft in front of the other
and increase your ratio of good moments to bad moments
(17:05):
and eventually you get where you want to go. So, Laura,
will you tell us what this peaceful parenting is? Peaceful
parenting doesn't mean you're peaceful all the time, because no
one is. It's an aspiration. But what peaceful parenting does
mean is we don't take our stuff out on our kids,
(17:29):
and when we do self regulate, we have a more
peaceful home, less drama, more love. So that's the first
precept of peaceful parenting is it's all about our own
self regulation, and to do that, of course we also
have to do self care. But there are two other
really important big ideas in peaceful parenting. So the first
(17:50):
is self regulation, the second is connection. They are all
kinds of ways to build connection. Simply empathizing whatever your
child says, and it could be a pause set of emotion,
it could be a negative emotion. Feeling seen, feeling understood
builds connection and builds your child's sense of self worth.
And the third big idea in peaceful parenting is what
(18:12):
I call coaching. So instead of trying to control our child,
seeing them as an alien force or or a thing
to be controlled, no, don't do that. Instead of trying
to control, reminding ourselves that this is our beloved child
and our responsibility is to coach that child to be
(18:33):
their best self. We're not assuming this child would do
everything right. In fact, it's a child's job to exhibit
childish behavior. So our job is to coach them to
be their best selves. And that means, first of all,
we don't step in and control them and do it
for them, but we do set up the environment as
much as possible so the child can thrive. And that
(18:54):
means so we empathize and we listen, and when the
child has gotten it off their chest, when they feel
that they have expressed it. The remarkable thing about emotions
is there a message. When the emotion is experienced, that's
the message, and the emotion changes. And when we're emotion
coaching the child and we acknowledge what they're upset about,
(19:16):
if we allow them to have that, they go through
a whole bunch of emotions and then they sort of
get to the bottom. Sometimes they get tearful, sometimes they don't,
and then they're done. Usually they're done and they're ready
to go off and play and they're done. So, you know,
we have three big ideas and peaceful parenting. One is
regulate your own emotions and do whatever you need to
(19:36):
do to support yourself to do that. Two is connect
with your child, because that's the only way you ever
have influence with another human being. And three is to
coach your child, both by setting up the environment so
they can thrive, but also giving them the emotional support
they need so they can work through the feelings that
drive behavior. And that is peaceful parenting in a nutshell.
(20:15):
I think that when we set the intention to see
our child exactly as they are, without our ideas about
who they should be, or what we want them to become,
or what we want them to study, or how successful
we want them to be, and we just allow them
to be. And they don't need to be like us,
and they don't need to be like anything. They just are.
(20:36):
We learned so much from them. They are our teachers.
Bear he's getting a little older, and last night he
was he undid all the dishwasher, and he put all
the dishes away, and he cleaned the table off, and
then he was helping me bring some things upstairs, and
he had an expectation and I didn't know he had
an expectation. So we got into this bump where he
(20:57):
said to me. I could tell that he was upset,
and I didn't know what he was upset about. And
so I said, baby, what is it? Are you mad
at mommy? And he said, I'm not ready to talk
about it. I said, okay, let me know when you're
ready to talk about it. And it was because I
didn't give him this reward. He thought that by doing
that he was going to get to watch TV. And
I said to him, well, there, you did all that
(21:18):
because you love our family and you love helping and
because we're part of a family and we do these
things together, and there doesn't need to be a reward.
You know that your your life, you're always rewarded. You're
always getting yummy, great things that you know there will
be a reward around the corner for just being, not
because you did something. It's not an exchange like that
in this house, and it never has been. Where is
(21:40):
this coming from? And he went to take a bath
and I walked in there and I sat down. I said,
are you ready to tell me why you're upset with mommy?
And he said, I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed because I thought
that this was how it was going to go. And
I said, oh, I totally understand. I completely understand that
that's how you thought it was going to go. Anyway,
we had a very nice little conversation about it, and
(22:02):
then it all evaporated instantly. We were we got sped together.
I read to him, we snuggled, we're laughing. Everything is
back to normal because he was heard. But for a
minute there, it was a bump. It felt like I
had a little teenager. I was like, Wow, there's this
little teenage boy walking around the house mad at me
for something. This is interesting. I think what happened with
(22:24):
you is that you created enough safety that he was
able to share his feelings, and then you validated the
feelings so he didn't feel like he was bad or
wrong for having the expectation and for having the feeling
of disappointment. You understood why he had it, even though
it wasn't shared, you know, and so he got past it.
(22:47):
I think when you know no matter what the bump is.
When we can create the safety for the child to
share that with us, and when we can empathize with it,
we can validate it and say, yeah, I see why
you fell that where no wonder you felt disappointed? Right,
then you get through it. And I want to say
about preteens and teens, puberty supposedly starts at twelve, but
(23:11):
it starts earlier and earlier, and we know that the
brain completely rewires it's hormones. Of course, we feel the hormones,
and there are major changes over a four year period
that as the young person transforms from a child to
an adult. So that's a four year period of rapid
physical change, which can be overwhelming to them and to
(23:33):
us because as they're changing so quickly, we're like, oh
my goodness, where do my cuddly little guy go? And
who's this hulking you know, stranger here standing here. And
in addition to the physical changes, there's a lot of
mental change that goes on. So as the rewiring of
the brain happens, what happens is the parts of the
(23:54):
brain that are used a lot, the neural pathways and
the synapses, the connections that are used a lot get
mile and did so there you can have really faster
like super highways, really fast thought, and some stuff gets
pruned away altogether that really wasn't being used. So the patterns,
whatever patterns the kid is in, sort of get set.
That's who they are, right and it allows the brain
(24:15):
to be a much more efficient thinking machine. It also
gives kids ability for more introspection. It gives them the
ability to see other people's perspectives a lot. But in
the beginning, when they're younger, starting to go through this process,
there's a lot of turmoil. I have two kids in
their twenties, so I'll just say what I've observed is
(24:37):
that when you raise children this way, when they feel heard,
when they feel respected, they don't have to push you
away to be themselves. As a result, all of that
whole element of them having to act out and push
you away is gone. They still want to say, oh, well,
I'm going to be this way and that's different than
you are, you know, and that's fine. They can make
their music choices and their fashion choices, and their political
(24:59):
choices and diet choices, their food choices and try new
things and be different from us and think outside the box.
That's all fine. If you've parented this way respectfully, you
can let them be themselves and therefore they don't have
to push you away. So the connection that you have
with your son is going to be just fine, even
though there will be more bobs, you know, you know,
(25:22):
through their early teen years. We talked about in the
beginning how raising babies more consciously is a form of
activism and that in a sense, this is for world peace, right,
This is the greatest act to create kind, compassionate, good
communicators who are loved, little love warriors right, who know
(25:44):
themselves and can ask for what they need and for
what they want, and are confident and happy in their skin,
and are sure of themselves and kind and loving and respectful.
So we imagine what would the world look like if
that was how old children were. And of course that
is a big, big ask that we are dreaming of.
(26:06):
But I imagine this is your dream as well. Do
you want to talk a little bit about that, the
act of this world peace event that we're trying to create. Well,
my first book, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, I quoted in
the beginning of the book Charles Rison, who says, one
generation full of deeply loving parents would change the brain
(26:31):
of the next generation and with that the world. And
I think that's what we're doing. We're growing the next
generation in our homes. Those are the people who will
grow up to populate the world. And it's not just emotions,
it's also how we're wired. It's the brain that actually changes.
When a baby is responded to, they become securely attached.
(26:56):
It's about our responsiveness. And when they are securely attached
and feel secure in the world, and they continue to
feel seen and heard and listen to, they are more
able to regulate their emotions. And that doesn't mean, I
want to say again that we're not setting limits. You know,
we're not raising young people to run rough shod over everybody.
(27:17):
We're raising young people who actually are more able to
regulate their emotions. They're more able to empathize with other
people because they've been empathized with and therefore all those
gaps that we need to bridge right now on our
culture have more chance of being bridged because you're raising
humans who are more able to listen to each other
(27:38):
and to hear each other. And humans have lots that
is tearing us apart right now. But the more we're
able to notice our own thought processes and our own
emotions and show up in a loving, compassionate way with
other people, the more loving and compassion in it our
(28:00):
society will be. Even when we have differences to work
out in problems to solve, and we will. We have
many problems to solve right now, but we have a
better chance at solving those problems if we have humans
who can treat each other respectfully. And that's what happens
when you raise children with respect. It's exciting to me
every day to keep growing and deepening my connection with
(28:23):
my kid and being as responsible and awake parent as
I can. But I imagine if I was just starting
for the first time, it would be really exciting. What
an opportunity to get deep into yourself and heal yourself,
to have this chance to fix whatever it is that
has been harming you or hurting you over the years,
and make your child the excuse for loving yourself right
(28:47):
in the face of you. I am going to fix
myself so that I do not hurt you, and I
put forth a magical being that will take care of
the world and with love, and that we can do
that for ourselves. I think it's so exciting. I asked
my sort of audience what questions, what things they struggle
(29:07):
with the absolute most, as being a parent, And I
don't know if these will be the same things that
you get asked, but you can tell me what the
most is for you. But what people were talking about
was the line between being their parents and being their friend,
and that was a question if you want to answer
that one, or about patients, like how to create and
(29:28):
cultivate more patients, and then the mom guilt, those three
things which I think you've kind of touched on some
of this, but if you want to say anything about
those to my to my audience, that would probably be helpful.
I'd say patients is the number one thing for all parents,
and the way to cultivate patients is to support yourself more.
You can only give what you have inside. I would
(29:49):
say the mom guilt is you owe it to your
child to take care of you, which we talked about
a lot in the beginning, and if you don't do that,
you're short change your child. Do you want to give
your child the best of yourself or what's the rest
of you? You know, the rest of you, whatever is
left no you want to give them the best of yourself.
And I would say the line between parent and friends this,
(30:11):
you can be both. You can be both. My daughter
and I. You know, she's now twenty five, and we
had heart to hearts her whole growing up and throughout
high school and everything. And I'm not saying she told
me everything. I think there were things she didn't tell me,
But she and I talked a lot and we had
what I would call a real friendship. So you know,
(30:32):
you're always going to be your child's parent, even after
you die. When they think of their parents, you're the parent, right,
So it's your job to be the parent, and that
means that you need to be looking at what's best
for your child. It's not actually ever a fully equal relationship.
And your job as a parent is to gradually, over
(30:55):
the years pull back and let them stand on their
own two feet more and more so they can interface
with the world knowing you've got their back, but you're
not in front of them being a snowplow. Right, You're
responsible to be the grown up because your kid is
not the grown up. They're a fourteen or a sixteen
year old, They're not a grown up, and it's always
your job to be the grown up, no matter what exactly. Well,
(31:17):
this has been amazing talking to you. I mean just
so lovely. I'm really grateful for your time and your
expertise and the love and passion that you're putting into
the world. We need you, so I'm so so grateful
that you are this force out there, and I know
that you're helping so many families and so many people
to make little and huge changes in their lives that
(31:40):
can allow a happy, harmonious, peaceful home. So thank you,
thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm delighted to have
had a chance to talk with you today. To dig
deeper into this episodes topic and resources, visit the kind
Life dot com. The Real Hell is an I Heart
(32:03):
Radio production made in partnership with Frequency Media. I'm your host.
Alicia Silverstone from I Heart Radio are managing producer. Is
Lindsay Hoffman from Frequency Media. Michelle Corey is our executive producer.
Jordan's Rizzieri is our producer, and Moani Leonard and Laura
Boyman are our associate producers. Sydney Evans is our dialogue editor,
(32:27):
and Claire bit of Gary Curtis is our mixer and
sound designer. This podcast is available on the I Heart
Radio app, Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, and wherever podcasts
are found.
What is it really gonna take to heal ourselves, our communities,
and our planet. I'm Alicia Silverstone, and this is the
real heal. Hi there, I am. I'm really excited to
share this with you. Oh my god, the conversation I
(00:25):
just had. You know, a huge part of healing is
how we are raising our kids. And I wrote The
Kind Mama because I believe so strongly in nurturing through
kindness and gentleness the kids who are becoming our future generations.
So Dr Laura is the perfect person to talk to
(00:45):
about this. Dr Markham is a clinical psychologist and the
founding editor of ah parenting dot com, which supports parents
to create a more peaceful home, happy, responsible, considerate kids.
Dr Markham's relationship based parenting model, which she calls peaceful Parenting,
(01:07):
is research based and parent tested. She's the author of
three books on this topic, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, Peaceful Parent,
Happy Siblings, How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends
for Life, and has helped thousands of families find transformative
solutions to everything from separation, anxiety and sleep problems to
(01:28):
sas talk and cell phones. I don't want to spoil
it for you. I left this conversation, feeling so refreshed
and so hopeful, and I know you will too, So
without further ado, let's get into the real heel. Welcome,
(01:49):
Dr Markham. I'm so excited to be speaking with you.
We've never met before, but I was lucky enough to
have you write three blogs from my website for the
kind life dot com. And I believe that your your
entire philosophy is about making this world a better place
and um supporting the parents. So I want to dive
(02:11):
into all of that. I feel like we are healing
ourselves through our commitment to our kids, and I feel
like we are doing great acts of activism through our
children by making these really bright warriors. But I wanted
to start with where this all began for you, in
terms of why did you start studying psychology in the
(02:34):
first place? What made you interested in that? You know,
I always love children from the time I was young,
and I always was interested in psychology. I started reading
psychology as a teenager, but I would say that it
is when I had my first child that I realized
(02:54):
that our society's relationship with children is not a very
healthy one. We don't actually do a very good job
raising kids. We don't value kids, and therefore we often
don't value women who we see as doing the child raising.
That's part of what is wrong with our society. When
you say the healing that we need to do, imagine
(03:15):
a world where all children grew up knowing they mattered,
and where all children learned to express what they needed
and wanted without attacking the other person. Those two things
alone would make a tremendous difference and how humans related
to each other right and at every level, in marriages,
in businesses, in government, between countries. So I got into
(03:40):
it because I have my first child, and I saw
that the people around me we're doing the very best
they could to parent, but had no support and no information. Really,
you know, you have to get a driver's license, but
to have a child, you don't have to do anything. Yeah,
that beautifully says how you see this as active is
um and healing for all that if we could just
(04:03):
start with the babies, if those babies were loved and
cared for, what they would be able to do and
how the world would perform in such a better place
Because all the bad things that are happening is are
because people who were not loved little babies, you know,
they were not cared for and they're acting out right.
For me, I knew that yelling was not something that
(04:24):
I liked. I don't like being yelled at. It doesn't
feel good. But I wonder you speak about yelling and
I see it with friends who they say, I don't
know why my kids are always yelling, and I'm like, well,
because you yell at them, you know. And um, that
seems really obvious to some, but to most of the world,
(04:44):
it's just not even in their consciousness that that we
wouldn't talk to our children that way, or we wouldn't
want to be talked to that way. And so I
love how I've been listening to you talk about, you know,
respect for your child and honoring your child. But what
I heard you say is that we just don't want
to be yelling at our children. And I'm wondering why
(05:05):
do you think people, where does it come from? Really
well meaning, loving parents who adore their children yell at
their kids and try to control their children, And um,
I'm wondering why you think that is and how you
figured that out. Well, first of all, you said people
who are kind, gentle, wonderful, people who end up yelling
at their kids. You know, we all at our best
(05:27):
wouldn't yell at anyone, right, because we would be emotionally
generous at our best to anyone. And even if something
happened that we didn't think was ideal, we would be
able to handle it better because we would, at our
best be compassionate and loving. Right. We all would aspire
to be that way one of the time. But that
(05:47):
is not what it's like to be human. When you're human,
the human mind is always evaluating and judging and comparing
and scrambling for safety and security, and emotions come from
that mind. Every time we have a thought, it triggers emotions.
So we are constantly, you know, being washed over by emotions.
(06:08):
And when you have children, they trigger you more than
someone else does because there are a reflection of you,
or at least we think that the truth is. If
we are to judge a parent, which isn't a great
idea to begin with. If you're judging, though, you can
judge by how the parent responds to the child, right,
not what the child does right. The child is the child,
(06:30):
But what happens in our culture is not that. What
happens in our culture as parents feel judge, parents feel
on the defensive, and they have this emotional reaction to
what their child is doing. No, don't run into the street.
You could be killed. No, don't hit your sister. No,
don't take your cup of juice and dump it on
(06:50):
the couch. You know, um, all the things that we
would be screaming no at our child about all day long,
and there are many of them. Right, we have a
big sational reaction to it. And what happens for humans
when we have an emotional reaction is we're afraid at
that moment, Right, we're afraid the juice is going to
ruin the couch, the sister is going to be hurt,
(07:12):
the kid is going to get hit by a car.
We're afraid. And when we're afraid, what do we do.
We're humans. That means we're mammals. That means we go
in to fight, flight or freeze. That's it. So when
there's an emergency, we're going to fight flight or freeze.
You might freeze if your kid is headed for the street,
more likely you're going to go into fight mode and
you're gonna be barreling after them. Certainly, when your kid
(07:34):
hits his sister, you're gonna be barreling after him and
grabbing him away from her so he doesn't hit her, right,
And when the juice goes all over your new couch,
you're gonna be grabbing your kid off the couch too,
so you're in fight mode. Well, when you're in fight mode,
what you're aiming at looks like the enemy, even if
it's your child, So of course you're yelling. You don't
(07:54):
see your child as your beloved child who you held
to your when you when your child was born and
you put into your heart. You know, you're not seeing that.
You're seeing this person who's doing this terrible thing to
your daughter, or you know, who's just wrecked the new couch.
We stop seeing our child as in an emotionally generous way.
We start we go into fight mode, and we want
(08:17):
to vanquish the enemy, and that's why we yell, yeah, gosh,
where do we begin to heal that? And I would
think that you have a lot to say about this
in terms of putting yourself first and um making sure
that your well is all filled up, that you are
getting the therapy that you need if you're having these
(08:37):
reactions to your children, how you want to put yourself first,
and how if your emotional state is not I'm gonna
read this quote for you because it's gonna be better
than how I'm going to butcher it. Oh, your number
one job as a parent, after assuring the safety of
your children is to manage your own emotions. And I
think that that is really profound and important. And how
(09:00):
does one do that for people who are going and
how do they identify that they may be doing this? Go? Oh,
I react in an emotional way when I'm not I'm
not managing myself. I'm acting like a child too in
a sense. You know, you have to recognize that you're
the adult and there's a child in front of you
that's having feelings, and you're going to have feelings too,
(09:21):
for sure, and both of you are allowed to have feelings,
it's just you're the adults, so your feelings have to
be managed better. And so how does one get there?
I think one gets there from you know, the therapy
that you need to heal, the self care. I think
you talk a lot about self care and how I
can remember times where you go where there's no time
(09:42):
to go pee, there's no time to pee, and should
I drink water. I don't I can don't have time
to drink water. You know that. But if we don't
do those things were spent and empty, and so anything
you can help share with someone about what are the
steps if I've recognized I have now announceding that I
might have this problem them where I'm I'm yelling or
I'm not taking care of my emotions around my child?
(10:04):
How do I fix this? What are my steps to take? Well?
One thing is that we know just beating up on
yourself doesn't work. Feeling terribly guilty and wretched about it
and I'm going to do better. I'm going to do better.
It doesn't work by itself. You have to give yourself
more support. This is true for children. You know, yelling
(10:26):
at your kids doesn't actually change their behavior. What changes
their behavior is giving them more support to meet your expectations.
And that support could be emotional support, it could be
physical support. There's all kinds of things in any given
situation that could be supportive for your child to meet
your expectations and so for yourself for you to be
(10:47):
the parent you want to be. Let's consider the kinds
of support that would be helpful. So one thing is
get enough sleep. Most mothers I know and many dads
don't get enough sleep. They say, up late at night,
they're on Instagram whatever, And in fact, the next morning
when a kid wakes them up, they're just dragging themselves
(11:07):
out of bed and they're starting from a deficit. So
start there, get enough sleep. Then throughout the day, notice
what your needs are. It's not sustainable to never bee,
It's not sustainable to never get a drink of water.
It's not sustainable to never have five minutes to yourself,
you know, So figuring out what you need and adding
(11:28):
your needs to the list. Every mother I know is
constantly juggling a list that is like, okay, fill out
the forms for school. Oh see if the little one's
up from her nap yet, I think she should be,
you know, starting to stir, Oh, get dinner started. You know,
there's there's a constant list of things that you have
to remember to do, and if you're not on that list,
(11:49):
that's not sustainable. You have to add your own needs
to that list. They don't supersede anyone else's needs. But
they also can't come last all the time, because we
know that what's last usually drops off a list. Right,
So there's that, and you mentioned therapy. A lot of
people think that therapy is something that you only do
if you had a major trauma, whenever as a child
(12:11):
or later. But in fact, we all benefit from learning
how to notice what we're thinking, notice what we're feeling,
and learn how to work with that constructively. You know,
I say there's a slippery slope, and anyone will go
over that slope and be sliding down onto the low
road if you don't pay attention. So our job is
(12:32):
to stay away from the edge. And what does it
take to stay away from the edge. Well, it takes
noticing if I've spent my day walking around in a
snit about I'm the only one who ever picks up
around here? How come the kids never help? How come
my children are such spoiled brats. I've broken my kids.
You know, if if I'm walking around in this negative
(12:53):
frame of mind, I call that gathering kindling. You get
enough kindling, you're going to have a firestorm. So our
job is to otis when we start to get into
that negativity. Our job is to notice when we have
a power struggle over and over again about the bathtime
or the bedtime or whatever it is, and then to
do some problem solving around it. What would it take
(13:14):
to make that time of day work more easily? Right, So,
I think there's so many things we can do to
support ourselves, and that's our job. It is one of
our jobs as parents to give ourselves the support we
need or we can't be the emotionally generous parent that
our child deserves. You were talking about sleep, and sleep
(13:49):
I think is really truly the most important thing that
we all neglect and we all forget, and it's it
takes a lot of practice. I have to practice it
every day. So what I've been practicing doing is going
to bed and you know, stopping all electronics at nine
and when I walk around the home, savoring that quiet,
maybe you take a bath, maybe you clean your room,
(14:11):
you know, maybe you put a mask on. It feels
like I've gone to Hawaii. You know. It's just so
it feels so indulgent, but it is so critical because
it also gives you time to really think. And then
when you get those eight hours sleep and you wake up,
you're so refreshed. And so what I've been talking about,
(14:33):
and like I wrote this book called The Kind Mama,
A long time ago that book. For me, the main
thing is I want to savor every morsel of my
baby's being. Right, There's no doubt it is challenging and
exhausting to be present with someone in that kind of
way where you really are all for them. In my case,
I believe that is plant based food, not eating um sugar,
(14:55):
you know, staying away from caffeine, trying to eat whole foods,
you know, as much as you possibly can, so that
your body is your organs are resting at night and
not working so hard that when you wake up you're
so exhausted and you haven't gotten a good nights sleep
because you had to get them p like four times,
or you got up at three o'clock in the morning
because your your body is going, I need to detox
(15:16):
from what you had yesterday, you know. And then that
allows me to be the most present mom so that
I can savor every morsel of that little munchkin's being.
And I wonder what you think of that. I think
that parents especially have an obligation to take care of
themselves physically so that they can be there and be present.
(15:36):
Your whole podcast is about healing and how we heal
and certainly our diet heals us, but I'm wondering about
our mental diet and our emotional diet and how those
work to heal us as parents. So if every thought
we have is you know, they're fleeting, there are so
many in their ten thousand a day, right that come through,
(15:57):
And many of those thoughts are not positives. Many of
those thoughts are judging thoughts. We judge ourselves, we judge
our child, we judge other people. And for the healing
that we all need to do, the more awareness we
can have of our thought diet, the better. And I
want to encourage that person, but all of us, especially
(16:20):
all of us parents, to notice our thought life and
become our own best friend, become our own parent in
a way. Right, You're we talked about being present with
our little munchkins, to be really fully present with them.
It's really helpful if we can be present with ourselves,
then be compassionate towards ourselves. It's like, okay, so I
(16:42):
ate three cookies, I ate ten cookies, whatever I ate.
You know, it's gonna be okay. I'm gonna live. I'd
like to make a different choice next time, you know,
I yelled at my kid, I didn't get enough sleep
the night before. I'm going to give myself support to
do something different tomorrow. You don't have to be perfect,
just key putting one ft in front of the other
and increase your ratio of good moments to bad moments
(17:05):
and eventually you get where you want to go. So, Laura,
will you tell us what this peaceful parenting is? Peaceful
parenting doesn't mean you're peaceful all the time, because no
one is. It's an aspiration. But what peaceful parenting does
mean is we don't take our stuff out on our kids,
(17:29):
and when we do self regulate, we have a more
peaceful home, less drama, more love. So that's the first
precept of peaceful parenting is it's all about our own
self regulation, and to do that, of course we also
have to do self care. But there are two other
really important big ideas in peaceful parenting. So the first
(17:50):
is self regulation, the second is connection. They are all
kinds of ways to build connection. Simply empathizing whatever your
child says, and it could be a pause set of emotion,
it could be a negative emotion. Feeling seen, feeling understood
builds connection and builds your child's sense of self worth.
And the third big idea in peaceful parenting is what
(18:12):
I call coaching. So instead of trying to control our child,
seeing them as an alien force or or a thing
to be controlled, no, don't do that. Instead of trying
to control, reminding ourselves that this is our beloved child
and our responsibility is to coach that child to be
(18:33):
their best self. We're not assuming this child would do
everything right. In fact, it's a child's job to exhibit
childish behavior. So our job is to coach them to
be their best selves. And that means, first of all,
we don't step in and control them and do it
for them, but we do set up the environment as
much as possible so the child can thrive. And that
(18:54):
means so we empathize and we listen, and when the
child has gotten it off their chest, when they feel
that they have expressed it. The remarkable thing about emotions
is there a message. When the emotion is experienced, that's
the message, and the emotion changes. And when we're emotion
coaching the child and we acknowledge what they're upset about,
(19:16):
if we allow them to have that, they go through
a whole bunch of emotions and then they sort of
get to the bottom. Sometimes they get tearful, sometimes they don't,
and then they're done. Usually they're done and they're ready
to go off and play and they're done. So, you know,
we have three big ideas and peaceful parenting. One is
regulate your own emotions and do whatever you need to
(19:36):
do to support yourself to do that. Two is connect
with your child, because that's the only way you ever
have influence with another human being. And three is to
coach your child, both by setting up the environment so
they can thrive, but also giving them the emotional support
they need so they can work through the feelings that
drive behavior. And that is peaceful parenting in a nutshell.
(20:15):
I think that when we set the intention to see
our child exactly as they are, without our ideas about
who they should be, or what we want them to become,
or what we want them to study, or how successful
we want them to be, and we just allow them
to be. And they don't need to be like us,
and they don't need to be like anything. They just are.
(20:36):
We learned so much from them. They are our teachers.
Bear he's getting a little older, and last night he
was he undid all the dishwasher, and he put all
the dishes away, and he cleaned the table off, and
then he was helping me bring some things upstairs, and
he had an expectation and I didn't know he had
an expectation. So we got into this bump where he
(20:57):
said to me. I could tell that he was upset,
and I didn't know what he was upset about. And
so I said, baby, what is it? Are you mad
at mommy? And he said, I'm not ready to talk
about it. I said, okay, let me know when you're
ready to talk about it. And it was because I
didn't give him this reward. He thought that by doing
that he was going to get to watch TV. And
I said to him, well, there, you did all that
(21:18):
because you love our family and you love helping and
because we're part of a family and we do these
things together, and there doesn't need to be a reward.
You know that your your life, you're always rewarded. You're
always getting yummy, great things that you know there will
be a reward around the corner for just being, not
because you did something. It's not an exchange like that
in this house, and it never has been. Where is
(21:40):
this coming from? And he went to take a bath
and I walked in there and I sat down. I said,
are you ready to tell me why you're upset with mommy?
And he said, I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed because I thought
that this was how it was going to go. And
I said, oh, I totally understand. I completely understand that
that's how you thought it was going to go. Anyway,
we had a very nice little conversation about it, and
(22:02):
then it all evaporated instantly. We were we got sped together.
I read to him, we snuggled, we're laughing. Everything is
back to normal because he was heard. But for a
minute there, it was a bump. It felt like I
had a little teenager. I was like, Wow, there's this
little teenage boy walking around the house mad at me
for something. This is interesting. I think what happened with
(22:24):
you is that you created enough safety that he was
able to share his feelings, and then you validated the
feelings so he didn't feel like he was bad or
wrong for having the expectation and for having the feeling
of disappointment. You understood why he had it, even though
it wasn't shared, you know, and so he got past it.
(22:47):
I think when you know no matter what the bump is.
When we can create the safety for the child to
share that with us, and when we can empathize with it,
we can validate it and say, yeah, I see why
you fell that where no wonder you felt disappointed? Right,
then you get through it. And I want to say
about preteens and teens, puberty supposedly starts at twelve, but
(23:11):
it starts earlier and earlier, and we know that the
brain completely rewires it's hormones. Of course, we feel the hormones,
and there are major changes over a four year period
that as the young person transforms from a child to
an adult. So that's a four year period of rapid
physical change, which can be overwhelming to them and to
(23:33):
us because as they're changing so quickly, we're like, oh
my goodness, where do my cuddly little guy go? And
who's this hulking you know, stranger here standing here. And
in addition to the physical changes, there's a lot of
mental change that goes on. So as the rewiring of
the brain happens, what happens is the parts of the
(23:54):
brain that are used a lot, the neural pathways and
the synapses, the connections that are used a lot get
mile and did so there you can have really faster
like super highways, really fast thought, and some stuff gets
pruned away altogether that really wasn't being used. So the patterns,
whatever patterns the kid is in, sort of get set.
That's who they are, right and it allows the brain
(24:15):
to be a much more efficient thinking machine. It also
gives kids ability for more introspection. It gives them the
ability to see other people's perspectives a lot. But in
the beginning, when they're younger, starting to go through this process,
there's a lot of turmoil. I have two kids in
their twenties, so I'll just say what I've observed is
(24:37):
that when you raise children this way, when they feel heard,
when they feel respected, they don't have to push you
away to be themselves. As a result, all of that
whole element of them having to act out and push
you away is gone. They still want to say, oh, well,
I'm going to be this way and that's different than
you are, you know, and that's fine. They can make
their music choices and their fashion choices, and their political
(24:59):
choices and diet choices, their food choices and try new
things and be different from us and think outside the box.
That's all fine. If you've parented this way respectfully, you
can let them be themselves and therefore they don't have
to push you away. So the connection that you have
with your son is going to be just fine, even
though there will be more bobs, you know, you know,
(25:22):
through their early teen years. We talked about in the
beginning how raising babies more consciously is a form of
activism and that in a sense, this is for world peace, right,
This is the greatest act to create kind, compassionate, good
communicators who are loved, little love warriors right, who know
(25:44):
themselves and can ask for what they need and for
what they want, and are confident and happy in their skin,
and are sure of themselves and kind and loving and respectful.
So we imagine what would the world look like if
that was how old children were. And of course that
is a big, big ask that we are dreaming of.
(26:06):
But I imagine this is your dream as well. Do
you want to talk a little bit about that, the
act of this world peace event that we're trying to create. Well,
my first book, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, I quoted in
the beginning of the book Charles Rison, who says, one
generation full of deeply loving parents would change the brain
(26:31):
of the next generation and with that the world. And
I think that's what we're doing. We're growing the next
generation in our homes. Those are the people who will
grow up to populate the world. And it's not just emotions,
it's also how we're wired. It's the brain that actually changes.
When a baby is responded to, they become securely attached.
(26:56):
It's about our responsiveness. And when they are securely attached
and feel secure in the world, and they continue to
feel seen and heard and listen to, they are more
able to regulate their emotions. And that doesn't mean, I
want to say again that we're not setting limits. You know,
we're not raising young people to run rough shod over everybody.
(27:17):
We're raising young people who actually are more able to
regulate their emotions. They're more able to empathize with other
people because they've been empathized with and therefore all those
gaps that we need to bridge right now on our
culture have more chance of being bridged because you're raising
humans who are more able to listen to each other
(27:38):
and to hear each other. And humans have lots that
is tearing us apart right now. But the more we're
able to notice our own thought processes and our own
emotions and show up in a loving, compassionate way with
other people, the more loving and compassion in it our
(28:00):
society will be. Even when we have differences to work
out in problems to solve, and we will. We have
many problems to solve right now, but we have a
better chance at solving those problems if we have humans
who can treat each other respectfully. And that's what happens
when you raise children with respect. It's exciting to me
every day to keep growing and deepening my connection with
(28:23):
my kid and being as responsible and awake parent as
I can. But I imagine if I was just starting
for the first time, it would be really exciting. What
an opportunity to get deep into yourself and heal yourself,
to have this chance to fix whatever it is that
has been harming you or hurting you over the years,
and make your child the excuse for loving yourself right
(28:47):
in the face of you. I am going to fix
myself so that I do not hurt you, and I
put forth a magical being that will take care of
the world and with love, and that we can do
that for ourselves. I think it's so exciting. I asked
my sort of audience what questions, what things they struggle
(29:07):
with the absolute most, as being a parent, And I
don't know if these will be the same things that
you get asked, but you can tell me what the
most is for you. But what people were talking about
was the line between being their parents and being their friend,
and that was a question if you want to answer
that one, or about patients, like how to create and
(29:28):
cultivate more patients, and then the mom guilt, those three
things which I think you've kind of touched on some
of this, but if you want to say anything about
those to my to my audience, that would probably be helpful.
I'd say patients is the number one thing for all parents,
and the way to cultivate patients is to support yourself more.
You can only give what you have inside. I would
(29:49):
say the mom guilt is you owe it to your
child to take care of you, which we talked about
a lot in the beginning, and if you don't do that,
you're short change your child. Do you want to give
your child the best of yourself or what's the rest
of you? You know, the rest of you, whatever is
left no you want to give them the best of yourself.
And I would say the line between parent and friends this,
(30:11):
you can be both. You can be both. My daughter
and I. You know, she's now twenty five, and we
had heart to hearts her whole growing up and throughout
high school and everything. And I'm not saying she told
me everything. I think there were things she didn't tell me,
But she and I talked a lot and we had
what I would call a real friendship. So you know,
(30:32):
you're always going to be your child's parent, even after
you die. When they think of their parents, you're the parent, right,
So it's your job to be the parent, and that
means that you need to be looking at what's best
for your child. It's not actually ever a fully equal relationship.
And your job as a parent is to gradually, over
(30:55):
the years pull back and let them stand on their
own two feet more and more so they can interface
with the world knowing you've got their back, but you're
not in front of them being a snowplow. Right, You're
responsible to be the grown up because your kid is
not the grown up. They're a fourteen or a sixteen
year old, They're not a grown up, and it's always
your job to be the grown up, no matter what exactly. Well,
(31:17):
this has been amazing talking to you. I mean just
so lovely. I'm really grateful for your time and your
expertise and the love and passion that you're putting into
the world. We need you, so I'm so so grateful
that you are this force out there, and I know
that you're helping so many families and so many people
to make little and huge changes in their lives that
(31:40):
can allow a happy, harmonious, peaceful home. So thank you,
thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm delighted to have
had a chance to talk with you today. To dig
deeper into this episodes topic and resources, visit the kind
Life dot com. The Real Hell is an I Heart
(32:03):
Radio production made in partnership with Frequency Media. I'm your host.
Alicia Silverstone from I Heart Radio are managing producer. Is
Lindsay Hoffman from Frequency Media. Michelle Corey is our executive producer.
Jordan's Rizzieri is our producer, and Moani Leonard and Laura
Boyman are our associate producers. Sydney Evans is our dialogue editor,
(32:27):
and Claire bit of Gary Curtis is our mixer and
sound designer. This podcast is available on the I Heart
Radio app, Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, and wherever podcasts
are found.
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