April 24, 2025 • 34 mins
Imagine transforming your relationship with your children overnight, simply by shifting your perspective on their "misbehavior." In this eye-opening conversation with three-time TEDx speaker Katherine Sellery, founder of the Conscious Parenting Revolution, we explore how our expectations of perfection sabotage the very connections we hope to build.
Katherine reveals a powerful reframe: What if we viewed behavioral challenges just like spelling mistakes, not as defiance but as developmental learning opportunities? When a child misspells a word, we don't punish them; we teach them. Yet with emotional regulation and behavior, many parents expect mastery from children still developing these complex skills.
Through vivid examples and practical techniques like the "magic eight" exercise for emotional regulation, Katherine demonstrates how moving from punishment to guidance eliminates the toxic cycle of retaliation, rebellion, and resistance that accounts for 75% of behavioral disruptions in families. She challenges the dangerous emphasis on obedience and compliance, instead advocating for teaching consideration, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence.
Most powerfully, Katherine helps us understand that children are whole people from birth—not empty vessels to fill but teachers who trigger our own growth opportunities. When your child says "no" to your request, they're saying "yes" to something internally important. This shift in understanding transforms power struggles into collaborative problem-solving.
Whether you're struggling with a defiant toddler or seeking a deeper connection with your teen, this conversation offers transformative tools for building trust through conscious communication.
Download Katherine's free Amazon bestselling book "Seven Strategies to Keep Your Relationship with Your Kids from Hitting the Boiling Point" at freeparentingbook.com and begin your own parenting revolution today.
https://consciousparentingrevolution.com/
Grab the Healthy Sustainable Weekly Rhythm Guide for Busy Moms ► ► https://aliesehalcomb.com/weeklyrhythms
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Peaceful
Mompreneur.
I'm excited to introduce myguest, catherine Sellery.
She is a three-time TEDxspeaker, founder of the
Conscious Parenting Revolutionand a trusted voice for parents,
educators and leaders seekingto create more connected,
respectful and empoweredrelationships at home and in the
(00:24):
workplace.
With over two decades ofexperience teaching the tools
that build trust and dismantlepower struggles, catherine is
here to shift the conversationaround how we communicate, lead
and live.
Catherine, thank you so muchfor joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
So great to be here.
Thank you so much, I'mdelighted.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Absolutely so.
Today we are going to betalking all about letting go of
perfectionism and building trustin your family and your team.
And I know that's a tall orderletting go of perfectionists.
I am not a perfectionistnecessarily, but I know a lot of
them and I know how hard thatstruggle is to be able to let
(01:05):
other people in and to let youhelp them Right.
So let's start from thebeginning.
Why is this important to youand how did you start teaching
it?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, no, I mean, I was just kind of chuckling there
.
I mean I guess you could sayI'm a recovering perfectionist.
I mean, it's so depending onyour nature, I guess, depending
on the household that you growup in and the influences around
you, we get the message that wehave to be perfect, and so I
think it's one of the mostcommon problems in society right
(01:36):
now.
Actually, you know, itunderpins, I think, self-esteem
issues is that there's thissomething inside that was told
and conditioned to think thatmistakes were not okay and that
oftentimes, you know, I guessfor me one of the distinctions I
make when I'm doing mytrainings is I help people
(01:56):
understand that while someonecould make a spelling mistake,
it would never occur to you topunish them for that, because
our expectation is that theywould never know how to spell
words.
They have to learn, and sothat's fine.
I mean, if you're havingtrouble spelling, obviously we
need to teach you how to spell,and so there's an expectation
(02:18):
around that that gives us a lotof space when people make that
mistake.
But with children and behavior,we seem to have a different
expectation.
It's not as though we look atthat like a spelling mistake.
It's as if they should haveknown, or that they should be
masters of their emotionalrealms and that the
(02:40):
developmental expectations couldpotentially be way off base
around what is normal mistaking,if you will and so, therefore,
there's an impression that kidsget that they shouldn't have
been like that.
When we adopt rewards andpunishments to respond to
behavioral mistakes rather thanoh, this is just like spelling,
(03:05):
there's no reason that theyshould be perfectionist and have
mastered their emotional realmat this age, or often we see it
quite late in life, where peopleare still working to manage
those big feelings, but aperfectionist will respond by
coming down hard if they don'tlearn.
Though you know, if I don'tteach them, they won't learn,
and so, as a result, we moveinto this land of creating an
(03:28):
impression that it's not OK tomake mistakes.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Right, yeah, that makes perfect sense.
So, from that, how do we changethe way we think?
Right, you're absolutely right,as of at least in America, the
only society I've ever lived in.
Right, we are very much, youknow.
We're told like you teach yourchildren this way and I've never
even thought about it like as amistake, like a spelling
(03:56):
mistake, right?
So how do we change our thoughtprocess to be able to
understand that they're just notthere yet and that we have to.
You know, teach them.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Education is very helpful, and I spent 35 years in
Hong Kong and so a lot of mytrainings were expat communities
.
Whether it was the Hong KongChinese or other Chinese
communities that were living inHong Kong, whether it's mainland
Taiwan and then, of course,pretty much every nationality,
it's a very expat community.
(04:22):
So what I've learned is thatit's not really about
nationality that this mindset isso prevalent it exists
everywhere that I think all ofus, as humanity, have grown up
with a system that just needs areboot.
You know, there, historically,is a negative view of children,
and the underpinnings of thenegative view of children and
(04:44):
the underpinnings of thenegative view of children we see
it in, you know Dickens and alot of you know the writings is
that when children makebehavioral mistakes, there is
this mindset of they've got tolearn, and when children make
mistakes that are moredevelopmentally understood, like
spelling mistakes, there isn't.
(05:04):
So this is a really big pointthat I like to bring up in my
work is that we have thisnegative mindset around children
, that they're out to get us,that they should have known
better, and the only way toovercome it is to become
conscious of it.
That's what we call theconscious parenting revolution
(05:25):
is that we can revolutionize ourapproach to children's
behavioral mistakes by becomingaware of the negative bias
against children's behavioralmistakes.
So the idea that children weresupposed to be seen and not
heard, or they're supposed tobehave, they're not supposed to
ever have an opinion or aperspective.
It's as though we believechildren are not entitled to
(05:48):
have a standing until maybe acertain age.
So I call it ageism and it'sthe type of ageism that we don't
talk a lot about.
My daughter knew a lot about itAt five.
She could say to me, mom, thatwoman would never have spoken to
you like this so she could pickup on adults who had a a
(06:10):
demeaning perspective towardchildren.
Like you shouldn't speak up.
You're not entitled to havefeelings and needs.
That's disrespectful for you tohave a feeling and a need and
not just mirror mine or not'renot going to do as you're told.
You're supposed to be obedientand compliant.
Well, obedience and complianceis not learning.
Consideration Children and allhuman beings, I would like to
(06:32):
say it would be important to usthat they learn to be
considerate of other people'sfeelings and needs, other
people's preferences To be ableto speak about.
Hey, you know, I noticed thatyou really prefer for things to
be done this way, I waswondering if you'd be willing to
consider them being doneanother way.
Hard for a child to have thatconversation with an adult when
(06:52):
the adult looks at the child asthat's sass.
Do as you're told, don't talkback to me.
That's disrespectful.
Go to your room.
If you've got that tape runningin your head that children
should just be obedient andcompliant and not have
perspectives, then unfortunately, children learn that they don't
matter and then they get hellbent on becoming perfectionists
(07:16):
to be able to matter.
Because if I could just bebetter, if I could just do
perfect, I would then be worthyof love and belonging.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
So where would you say thatthere, like there has to be some
sort of balance, right?
Like we want your children tolearn, there is a place for
obedience and there is a placefor listening, but also a place
for learning how to be a wholeperson and with emotions and
running, like doing that.
So what?
How does someone balance thetwo?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Is there?
Well, I think that when we lookat children developmentally, as
long as our expectations arerealistic and this is where I've
noticed that people are reallynot tuned in to what's
appropriate for a two-year-old,a three-year-old, a
four-year-old, a five-year-old,a six-year-old so this is where
developmental charts becomereally helpful and for us to be
able to go yeah, of course, myexpectations for my two-year-old
are out of line.
So there are some guidingprinciples.
(08:13):
If you can't play nicely, youcan't play.
And then, really, I guess youcould say what the question then
becomes is how do we teach howto play?
Is it go to your room?
Is it a spanking?
Is it a?
What is?
What is the response to themistake?
I think that's what you'regetting at.
Yeah, so when looking at theresponse to the mistake, we can
(08:34):
look at authoritarian response,which would probably be
something like go to your roomor you're grounded or whatever,
maybe even a naughty corner.
I'm not really sure, but apreference to that would be hey,
you know, we're going to workon this impulse control and we
(08:55):
can't hit other kids and wedon't grab.
So you come over here and sitwith me and let's do something
together.
We could do a little artproject or we could read a book,
and when you calm down and youfeel like you're able to commend
yourself again and play in thegroup, then you go back and play
.
So it's not punitive, it'seducational, it's supporting and
(09:17):
what we call co-regulating.
So if you have a little childwho's out of regulation and
dysregulated in their emotionalrealm, it who's out of
regulation and dysregulated intheir emotional realm it's not
because they want to be, it'sbecause they don't have the
standing internally to be ableto regulate their emotions.
So we help them, we co-regulate, but we don't punish them for
being children, right, we haveto understand that.
Well, this is child.
This is what childhood is about.
(09:39):
It's learning how to regulateyour emotions.
It's recognizing when you're ina group and playing with other
kids.
We need to know how to playwell together and it's not
acceptable to not play okay withother kids to hit, to kick, to
pull, and so we take them out ofa group, sit them down and we
say hey, you know we can't playlike that and sit with me, let's
(10:04):
do something fun together,let's do a little breathing, and
there are some exercises that Ilike to help parents do with
their little ones to get them toget back into command of
themselves.
And then it's really helpful tosay you know that was really
hard for you when you wanted tojoin the group and they wouldn't
let you and you had that bigfeeling come up if something was
not okay about that, becauseyou really wanted to play with
(10:26):
them too.
There's always a story behindit.
You really wanted to play withthat toy.
It made you so mad when theperson who owned it, didn't want
to share it.
And it's really hard to acceptthe fact that people have agency
over whether they want to sharetheir toys or not.
And as hard as that might befor us when we really want to do
what we want to do, whensomebody else whose toy it is
(10:48):
decides that they want to playwith it, it's really hard to be
okay with their no, isn't it?
Sometimes no's are hard to dealwith, so we make them into
teachable moments and we supportthem with the big feelings that
are coming up.
How could you be with thatfeeling in a different way?
So we start to educate themabout emotional resiliency,
overcoming big feelings,conflict resolution,
collaborative problem solving.
(11:08):
There are millions of skilldeficits that your two-year-old
has, your three-year-old, yourfour-year-old.
So we start to support themwith that and so that they can
learn the skills.
But obedience and compliance isdangerous.
I mean the last thing we wantto do is teach obedience and
compliance.
We want to teach consideration,conflict resolution,
(11:28):
collaboration, problem solving,assertiveness.
I mean millions of skills otherthan obedience and compliance.
That's the most dangerous thingyou could teach anyone between
who to be obedient to.
Anyone in power will becomesomeone that they feel they have
to kowtow to, and we don't wantthem kowtowing to people with
(11:48):
dangerous intentions the most.
I mean.
The largest study on childsexual abuse proves this without
question no, okay, yeah, um, soI like what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I've been reading recently about like, when you're
given the example of likesitting down with the child like
I have a two-year-old, sothat's usually what I'm thinking
about.
Right, and so in like talk,when he has any kind of feelings
, big feelings, instead oftelling him he's okay or it's
not a big deal or any of thosethings, letting him know that I
understand, like I hear him,like he's allowed to have those
(12:22):
feelings, right, like I know youwanted to play with it, I know
you wanted to do that, I knowyou wanted to do these things.
It is amazing how much justtelling them that I understand,
that he wants to do somethingtotally I mean, I'm not letting
him do it like we can't do thosethings right now, you know no,
I don't have to raise childrenwho are inconsiderate, and we
need to guide them.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
This is why my training is called the guidance
approach.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Okay, so can you talk a little bit more about that
Like?
So in your training you talkabout you have tools and things
that you teach.
Can you give us some examplesof things like more so than
you've already done, that wecould use?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
practically Sure, absolutely so, depending on the
age of the child.
We're, you know, if we'retalking about a two year old, I
mean, they're just.
You know, they're just.
They just got their littlelearning wheels on right,
they're just going out there andthey're gonna have big feelings
about a lot of stuff, probablyevery no they ever hear.
(13:16):
They're going to have a bigfeeling around, but I like what
you said and it's certainly inthe toolbox is to be able to
reflect back to them.
You know it's reallydisappointing when you want
something so much and you can'thave it.
That's so hard I get why you'rehaving such a big feeling
around that.
You know.
Would you like to breathethrough with me?
Right, so we can do a breathethrough.
(13:36):
One of the things that I do iswe call it the magic eight, and
I don't sure if you're going tobe showing the recording or just
the.
You will, okay, so it's really.
You know, people can do thiswith me.
You just take your fingers andput them in the middle of your
forehead, above your nose, andthen you just make an eight
around your eyes.
You can go in whicheverdirection you want and you can
(13:58):
play around with how soft or howmuch pressure, and you can also
change the direction.
And as you're doing that, whatyou're actually doing is you're
breaking through that left andright brain and bringing them
together and you'll find thatyou actually naturally take a
breath and so you're reallysupporting your entire nervous
(14:21):
system, which is what happensright when kids get the big
feelings.
What they're doing is they'rein their frontal lobes and we
need them to take a deep breathand to be able to relax and get
out of the amygdala and to beable to, you know, recover.
And so once they're recovered,that's when you can say to them
you know, if you want to go backand try again, go back and try
(14:44):
again.
And here's an opportunity foryou to, depending on how verbal
or not verbal they are, whatyou're basically helping them do
, by reflecting back to them howdisappointing it is, is you're
giving them the vocabulary to beable to know that that word
matched that feeling inside ofdisappointment.
(15:05):
And you know that's a prettylong, big word, but you might
start to hear your little guy go.
I'm disappointed, becausethere's something called name it
to tame it.
So the more that we have thewords to name the experience
that we're having internally,the more it feels acknowledged,
seen and heard and understood byme, the one voicing it.
(15:26):
If I don't have those words andpre-verbal kids get really
upset and verbal kids withlimited vocabularies get really
upset.
Part of upsetness and the roadto recovery is having the words
to name it.
So mad, sad, I mean.
We start with the simple one.
You know disappointed is kindof big, so you could just be in
(15:47):
the mad sad land initially andgetting to that point where I
can begin to have conversationswith my child.
We don't look at the momentwhen they're upset as a
teachable moment.
So we don't teach when kids arecrying and we don't teach.
You know that's not when youlecture and you know try to
(16:09):
teach them the value of sharing.
We wait until they've recoveredor we use the moments when
everything is fine as ourmoments for sharing ideas and
topics that we want to instillin them the values that we think
are important around,potentially something like
sharing.
You know, and everybody has adifferent viewpoint on sharing.
(16:30):
My perspective is that childrenget to choose what toys they
want to share, just like I getto choose if I'm going to share
my jewelry and clothing and carand all of the things that
belong to me.
They also have some agencyaround choosing it.
So not everybody sees it thatway.
They believe that you have tocreate forced compliance and
(16:52):
make people learn this valuewhere actually the value is
instilled internally and theresearch shows that when you
(17:16):
allow children to have thatagency, eventually there comes
within just like kids will learnhow to read and write and walk
and all the rest of it there isan internal impulse toward the
joy of sharing and if it comesat the right time, then it's not
just something that's sociallyprescribed, it's actually
heartfelt.
The difference is really quiteradical.
To allow that to emerge but toforce it, you're going to
probably end up in the land ofretaliation, rebellion and
resistance.
So one of the reasons that wedon't want to go into the land
(17:42):
of obedience and compliance, inthe land of rewards and
punishments, is that itactivates the three R's.
So Dr Thomas Gordon if you knowof him or not, he was nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize threetimes on his research around
activating retaliation,rebellion and resistance by
using power over andcompliance-based parenting
approaches.
So what happens is you have oneproblem and then you come down
(18:04):
hard on it.
Let's say that you want yourchild to clean up the table, and
so you ask them to put theirdishes away, and they completely
ignore you and so you're like,all right, right, maybe you go
into the one, two, three magicland.
So you you know, all right, one,two, if you don't do this, you
know.
And then you start your threatsand so you go into that
(18:26):
territory.
Well, what's going to happen isthat, say, you come down hard,
all right, that's it Fine.
Go to your room.
So they run up the stairs Ihate mommy and they slam the
door.
So now you've activated what wecall the secondary problem by
how you handle the primary issue.
So retaliation, rebellion andresistance account for 75
percent of behavioraldisruptions.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
OK, yeah, I can see that and, like I said, like we
only have a two year old, but Ican definitely see that already,
right, sure, so if we can justlike do it in a different way
and like figure something out,we it's always better, right?
And and I think, oh, I don'tknow, I'm not like obviously not
(19:09):
a parenting expert.
You know a lot of stuff, butlike I have found that most of
the problems are my problem he'stwo I can't expect my
two-year-old to be able tohandle everything right, and so
if we're, if things areescalating, it's because I
escalated them, and so that wejust have to, you know, work
(19:31):
through whatever issues that wegot going on, right so thankful.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
But, yeah, you're absolutely right, it is so much
about I have a problem becausemy expectations of my
two-year-old are way off base.
Yeah, and that's my mind and mythoughts about the situation
that are actually activating myown emotional response.
I triggered myself, right, yeah, I wasn't triggered by anything
outside of me.
(19:56):
He's doing two perfectly right,yeah, too.
Perfectly Right, yeah,absolutely perfectly.
He's doing exactly what he'ssupposed to be doing growing and
developing and acting out andhaving big feelings.
And you know, he's thebeginning of the road.
I'm the one who's impatient orhas expectations that this
(20:17):
shouldn't be happening.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
That's exactly right, yeah, and so I really liked
what you said earlier too, abouthow helping them with their
vocabulary so that they canexplain things better to you,
make everybody's life easier,your life better, their life
better, and we all want to beheard, right?
No matter what age you are.
We want to.
We want people to know how wefeel, especially if we're
feeling bad, and so I think Ifeel like I got this revelation,
(20:45):
or whatever, from CharlotteMason.
You know what I'm talking about.
She was an educator in the1800s and she talks about how
whole people.
It's big in the homeschoolmovement.
They're whole people as theywere born, like when they were
born.
They're not becoming people.
They're not vessels to befilled.
They are people.
And so she came at such a timewhere people were definitely
(21:07):
looking down on children and shehad a completely different
outlook on them and I just loveher philosophy.
It's beautiful.
I don't know that much about it.
Maybe she said something crazyat some point, but for the most
part, I really like her, and sowhat you're saying reminds me in
part of what she talks about,so I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, actually I talk about the same thing.
I mean, they are whole people.
I look at them actually as ourteachers.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, I mean our children come to us and they're
they're.
The example I use is theyreally are Yoda.
They really are Yoda andthey're here to give us an
opportunity to have empathy,compassion, understanding, to be
able to see them as these richteachers that they are, because
(21:55):
they will bring everything upOur past.
I call it transgenerationaltrauma.
Whatever the trauma was in yourfamily lineage about being seen
and not heard, and I meaneverything will be triggered by
your children.
And every time, if you'resomebody who thinks that other
people make you feel, if youblame your feelings on other
people and aren't responsiblefor the feelings that arise,
(22:17):
then you're going to say theymade you feel that way and then
you're going to make themresponsible for your feelings
and therefore they need to bepunished on account of how they
made you feel.
But of course, it's all a lie.
Nobody made you feel that way.
There's nothing outside of youthat is responsible or has the
power to be in control of myfeelings, but they do trigger us
(22:39):
.
They activate things, as doesthe rest of the world.
So if we've confused havingsomeone catalyze an experience
that I'm having as if theycaused it, then we move down the
road of victim-ledconsciousness, and kids often
end up in that land.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, on this podcast we talk a lot about radical
ownership and radical surrender,and so we have to own the
things that are ours and not beresponsible for things outside
of us, and I feel like that's alot of what you're talking about
.
No one makes us feel a way awayand we can't make other people
feel another way, right?
So we own ours and we let themhave theirs, and you know we
(23:18):
work together and figure thingsout, but that's a big thing
exactly totally in alignmentwith you on that, and so one of
my teachers was MarshallRosenberg.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Are you familiar with Marshall?
No, the founder of the Centerfor Nonviolent Communication and
the father of restorativejustice in America's prison
system.
He's passed away, but I wasfortunate enough to train with
him.
He's a very powerful influencearound NBC.
So nonviolent communication andunderstanding emotional
development.
So he would say emotionaldevelopment stage one was
(23:47):
slavery, where you feel thatsomeone else is responsible for
your feelings and needs, and soyou are enslaving them right to
take care of your feelings andneeds, or you might be the one
enslaving someone else andduping them into believing that
they're responsible for how youfeel, and often children get
(24:08):
enslaved in that way and made tobelieve that they make mommy
happy, that they make mommy sad,as if anyone has the power to
make mommy happy or sad, and soit is emotional and obviously
abusive to put that on any humanbeing.
So he talks about emotionalslavery as stage one, and then
he talks about emotionalobnoxiousness being the next
(24:28):
stage, where we become obnoxious, once we realize that we've
fallen prey to this, and so wesay things like you know, well,
that's, don't put that on me,you know, I have nothing to do
with that.
You know, that's all about you.
And he said.
Then we finally moved toemotional liberation, which is
(24:51):
I'm not responsible for how youfeel, but I care about you.
I see you're having some reallybig feelings right now.
So, you know, whenever you wantto talk about it, let's sit
down and talk, because howyou're feeling, although I'm not
responsible for it, I careabout you, and if you're having
a hard time, I care about thattoo.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
So those are the three stages, and I think the
liberation stage is when we getto be with each other and be
responsible for our own feelingsand needs and yet be able to
demonstrate the caring yeah,absolutely, and I feel like I
would imagine that's where wereally want to be as parents,
right Liberated from them, likeletting them control our not
(25:30):
letting they're not controllingour emotions, but letting them
dictate how we feel becausewe've allowed them to.
But caring about them and beingable to stay stable, Right,
that's what we want.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
That is totally good, yeah, no, that's exactly where
we want to go and it'sno-transcript In general,
struggling with this idea ofseparation and individuation.
So my work really acknowledgesthat separation and
(26:04):
individuation is often notallowed in families.
Children are not allowed toseparate and have an
individuated experience from thecaretaker because you know, I
said X, you're supposed to do X,but this person has a response
(26:25):
to it that is obviously thatthey're not on board with X, and
so when that happens, it's likeokay, I mean, I get that,
you're having your ownexperience.
And so I like to say when theysay no to you, what are they
saying yes to internally?
Okay.
So, okay, what is your childsaying yes to internally?
What's going on for?
What is your child saying yesto internally?
What's going on for them?
Well, I don't want to get upand leave the table.
Going back to my originalexample, you know you want me to
(26:48):
clean up the dishes and puteverything away, but I'm not
done yet and I'm having a reallygood time here.
And you know, I know you wantto set the table and have me
clear everything off, but, but I, I'm still really enjoying what
I'm doing.
Oh, I get it.
So then you have to reframeinternally in your own head of
this isn't sass?
(27:09):
It's not acting out, it's nottalking back, it's not being
disrespectful.
You can remove all the judgmentand you can recognize that,
okay, they're having troubledoing my directive and also
staying connected to what wasgoing on inside of them.
So now at least I understandthat this is about.
How do I integrate the outervoice with my inner sense of
(27:32):
things?
So then you have a differentconversation around, all right,
well, I see that you're having areally good time and I get that
.
You know you'd like to keepeverything just the way it is.
I got a problem, though.
It's time for dinner and I needto set the table.
What can we do about this?
And that may result in avariety of different outcomes,
(28:02):
because they may have ideas.
Well, can't we eat, you know,outside on the porch?
Or maybe we could eat over here, you know?
And it's like that's an idea,never even thought about that
and I get to decide am I okaywith that or not okay with that?
But at least it gives mesomething to take into
consideration yeah, absolutelyso.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Um, let's talk about that example a little bit more,
right, so that that child seemslike they're a little bit older,
right?
If you have four or five orfive, yeah, yeah, I could see
that.
So what would you do if thesituation was even younger,
right?
So my, let's say, two year old,three year old, they just are
like no man, I'm not cleaningthis up.
Like they're not.
(28:43):
They're not to a point, as faras I can tell, they're not
having a conversation like thatwith you.
And so how do you acknowledgethe fact that they have feelings
and they don't want to clean up, but still like they're?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
not going to get me done.
Just suggest to go outside.
So what I would do is I wouldsay I get it.
Cleaning up is such so boringand it's so much more fun to go
out there and I really want youto go out there too and play on
the swings.
However, let's figure out howcan we can do this, and usually
what it comes down to is let letme do it with you.
Yeah.
(29:17):
Right, and so it really is aboutmodeling the behavior that you
want to see, helping them alongby doing it collaboratively yeah
, as opposed to making you knowa punishment out of bad behavior
or whatever.
So, yeah, I mean that wouldreally be you.
You know, building anddeveloping good habits.
Part of that good habit iscleaning up after yourself, yeah
(29:38):
, right, and we know.
I don't know if you read CharlesDuhigg's book on, you know the
power of habit, but he reallydeep dives into habits and
what's required to build habits.
And the joy of building reallygood habits is that it, once
it's a habit, you don't thinkabout it anymore, it doesn't
take any energy, it's just like.
This is what I do.
So you can do that with all ofthose things that you want your
(30:00):
kids to develop good habits.
Be willing to do it with them,show them exactly what to do,
work with them to do.
Eventually, as they grow up,they get so used to doing it
that they just start to do itthemselves and you will wake up
and go oh my God, they just didit.
I didn't have to say a word.
So part of the guidanceapproach is what we call
(30:23):
self-started behavioral change.
So do I want to have externallystarted behavioral change or
self-started behavioral change?
Do I want children to beself-motivated or do I believe
in external motivation?
We live in a society that'sbased in rewards and punishments
, which is based in the ideathat you change people's
behavior by what you do to them,rather than creating the
(30:45):
circumstances to support them towant to do the right thing.
So self motivation is when theychoose to pick up the toys
because that's what they want todo or it's become a habit.
They get up out of bed.
They make the bed becausethat's become a habit.
They get up out of bed.
They make the bed becausethat's become a habit.
They get up and brush theirteeth that's the habit.
They pack their bag.
There are so many of thesethings that can just become good
(31:09):
habits.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Absolutely, and I teach that a lot.
It's about creating rhythm,routines, and so you're not
always thinking about it andyour kids already know right.
So we do this after alreadyknow right.
So we do this after we do this,we do this after we do that.
So nobody is like fighting.
There's no fighting aboutbrushing your teeth.
We just go brush our teethafter breakfast and so, um,
that's been very, very helpfulfor us.
(31:33):
Um and so oh yeah and I likethat thing, the things you're
talking about, about the habits,like they don't have to be a
struggle because you startedthem.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
And I mean initially you're doing it with them, yeah,
and as long as you're there,chances are, they're fine.
I mean you know they'll startdoing what you're doing and then
they go out and play, yeah, andit's just not a big hullabaloo
because they develop the habit.
Yes, yeah, absolutelyno-transcript give her yeah, I
(32:26):
mean 75 of 75 of behavioraldisruptions are retaliation,
rebellion and resistance.
So that's whenever anyone comesto me, the first thing I always
lean into is am I hearing oneof the R's?
And of course, if it's 75% ofthe time that the behavioral
(32:46):
disruption and the breakdownshave to do with the three R's,
then one of the R's is probablypresent, if not all of them.
I mean I have people say to meall the time oh God, I've got
all three, so you've got theretaliation, the rebellion, the
resistance.
So that's actually.
I mean we don't want it, butit's the easiest thing to change
.
You can eliminate all of that bymoving to a guidance approach.
That's all you have to do isstop doing rewards and
(33:08):
punishments and instead, whenyou have the behavioral
disruptions that you need toaddress, you address them from a
guidance approach, which is thethings that we've been talking
about Leaning in seeing a no toyou as a yes to something inside
of themselves, perceiving theresistance as not disrespectful
or punishable offenses, but thatthere's something going on
(33:30):
internally that they have theirheart set on and they're having
a hard time figuring out how todo that.
And this outer voices thing.
I mean we didn't go.
We don't have enough time totalk about the difference
between request language, demandlanguage.
I mean, there are so manypieces to this.
I have a whole model around,you know, peeling the onion in
terms of looking at any onedisruptive behavior and kind of
(33:52):
going through to assess it.
So there could be other thingshappening aside from just the
three R's, but most of the timeit's the three R's and we're
looking at skills deficits, justbuilding skills.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Okay, that's wonderful.
So where can people find you,catherine?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Conscious Parenting Revolution is the website and if
they want to go tofreeparentingbookcom, my Amazon
bestseller, seven strategies tokeep your relationship with your
kids from hitting the boilingpoint.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
I give that away so they can go grab that perfect,
okay, and so both of those linkswill be in the description of
this video.
And, um, katherine, thank youso much for being here with us.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
This was lovely, so nice to meet you, and I feel
we're really aligned.
I think so.
Yeah, I really appreciate that.
Yeah, thank you for your work.
Thank you so much, thank you.
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Peaceful
Mompreneur.
I'm excited to introduce myguest, catherine Sellery.
She is a three-time TEDxspeaker, founder of the
Conscious Parenting Revolutionand a trusted voice for parents,
educators and leaders seekingto create more connected,
respectful and empoweredrelationships at home and in the
(00:24):
workplace.
With over two decades ofexperience teaching the tools
that build trust and dismantlepower struggles, catherine is
here to shift the conversationaround how we communicate, lead
and live.
Catherine, thank you so muchfor joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
So great to be here.
Thank you so much, I'mdelighted.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Absolutely so.
Today we are going to betalking all about letting go of
perfectionism and building trustin your family and your team.
And I know that's a tall orderletting go of perfectionists.
I am not a perfectionistnecessarily, but I know a lot of
them and I know how hard thatstruggle is to be able to let
(01:05):
other people in and to let youhelp them Right.
So let's start from thebeginning.
Why is this important to youand how did you start teaching
it?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, no, I mean, I was just kind of chuckling there
.
I mean I guess you could sayI'm a recovering perfectionist.
I mean, it's so depending onyour nature, I guess, depending
on the household that you growup in and the influences around
you, we get the message that wehave to be perfect, and so I
think it's one of the mostcommon problems in society right
(01:36):
now.
Actually, you know, itunderpins, I think, self-esteem
issues is that there's thissomething inside that was told
and conditioned to think thatmistakes were not okay and that
oftentimes, you know, I guessfor me one of the distinctions I
make when I'm doing mytrainings is I help people
(01:56):
understand that while someonecould make a spelling mistake,
it would never occur to you topunish them for that, because
our expectation is that theywould never know how to spell
words.
They have to learn, and sothat's fine.
I mean, if you're havingtrouble spelling, obviously we
need to teach you how to spell,and so there's an expectation
(02:18):
around that that gives us a lotof space when people make that
mistake.
But with children and behavior,we seem to have a different
expectation.
It's not as though we look atthat like a spelling mistake.
It's as if they should haveknown, or that they should be
masters of their emotionalrealms and that the
(02:40):
developmental expectations couldpotentially be way off base
around what is normal mistaking,if you will and so, therefore,
there's an impression that kidsget that they shouldn't have
been like that.
When we adopt rewards andpunishments to respond to
behavioral mistakes rather thanoh, this is just like spelling,
(03:05):
there's no reason that theyshould be perfectionist and have
mastered their emotional realmat this age, or often we see it
quite late in life, where peopleare still working to manage
those big feelings, but aperfectionist will respond by
coming down hard if they don'tlearn.
Though you know, if I don'tteach them, they won't learn,
and so, as a result, we moveinto this land of creating an
(03:28):
impression that it's not OK tomake mistakes.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Right, yeah, that makes perfect sense.
So, from that, how do we changethe way we think?
Right, you're absolutely right,as of at least in America, the
only society I've ever lived in.
Right, we are very much, youknow.
We're told like you teach yourchildren this way and I've never
even thought about it like as amistake, like a spelling
(03:56):
mistake, right?
So how do we change our thoughtprocess to be able to
understand that they're just notthere yet and that we have to.
You know, teach them.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Education is very helpful, and I spent 35 years in
Hong Kong and so a lot of mytrainings were expat communities
.
Whether it was the Hong KongChinese or other Chinese
communities that were living inHong Kong, whether it's mainland
Taiwan and then, of course,pretty much every nationality,
it's a very expat community.
(04:22):
So what I've learned is thatit's not really about
nationality that this mindset isso prevalent it exists
everywhere that I think all ofus, as humanity, have grown up
with a system that just needs areboot.
You know, there, historically,is a negative view of children,
and the underpinnings of thenegative view of children and
(04:44):
the underpinnings of thenegative view of children we see
it in, you know Dickens and alot of you know the writings is
that when children makebehavioral mistakes, there is
this mindset of they've got tolearn, and when children make
mistakes that are moredevelopmentally understood, like
spelling mistakes, there isn't.
(05:04):
So this is a really big pointthat I like to bring up in my
work is that we have thisnegative mindset around children
, that they're out to get us,that they should have known
better, and the only way toovercome it is to become
conscious of it.
That's what we call theconscious parenting revolution
(05:25):
is that we can revolutionize ourapproach to children's
behavioral mistakes by becomingaware of the negative bias
against children's behavioralmistakes.
So the idea that children weresupposed to be seen and not
heard, or they're supposed tobehave, they're not supposed to
ever have an opinion or aperspective.
It's as though we believechildren are not entitled to
(05:48):
have a standing until maybe acertain age.
So I call it ageism and it'sthe type of ageism that we don't
talk a lot about.
My daughter knew a lot about itAt five.
She could say to me, mom, thatwoman would never have spoken to
you like this so she could pickup on adults who had a a
(06:10):
demeaning perspective towardchildren.
Like you shouldn't speak up.
You're not entitled to havefeelings and needs.
That's disrespectful for you tohave a feeling and a need and
not just mirror mine or not'renot going to do as you're told.
You're supposed to be obedientand compliant.
Well, obedience and complianceis not learning.
Consideration Children and allhuman beings, I would like to
(06:32):
say it would be important to usthat they learn to be
considerate of other people'sfeelings and needs, other
people's preferences To be ableto speak about.
Hey, you know, I noticed thatyou really prefer for things to
be done this way, I waswondering if you'd be willing to
consider them being doneanother way.
Hard for a child to have thatconversation with an adult when
(06:52):
the adult looks at the child asthat's sass.
Do as you're told, don't talkback to me.
That's disrespectful.
Go to your room.
If you've got that tape runningin your head that children
should just be obedient andcompliant and not have
perspectives, then unfortunately, children learn that they don't
matter and then they get hellbent on becoming perfectionists
(07:16):
to be able to matter.
Because if I could just bebetter, if I could just do
perfect, I would then be worthyof love and belonging.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
So where would you say thatthere, like there has to be some
sort of balance, right?
Like we want your children tolearn, there is a place for
obedience and there is a placefor listening, but also a place
for learning how to be a wholeperson and with emotions and
running, like doing that.
So what?
How does someone balance thetwo?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Is there?
Well, I think that when we lookat children developmentally, as
long as our expectations arerealistic and this is where I've
noticed that people are reallynot tuned in to what's
appropriate for a two-year-old,a three-year-old, a
four-year-old, a five-year-old,a six-year-old so this is where
developmental charts becomereally helpful and for us to be
able to go yeah, of course, myexpectations for my two-year-old
are out of line.
So there are some guidingprinciples.
(08:13):
If you can't play nicely, youcan't play.
And then, really, I guess youcould say what the question then
becomes is how do we teach howto play?
Is it go to your room?
Is it a spanking?
Is it a?
What is?
What is the response to themistake?
I think that's what you'regetting at.
Yeah, so when looking at theresponse to the mistake, we can
(08:34):
look at authoritarian response,which would probably be
something like go to your roomor you're grounded or whatever,
maybe even a naughty corner.
I'm not really sure, but apreference to that would be hey,
you know, we're going to workon this impulse control and we
(08:55):
can't hit other kids and wedon't grab.
So you come over here and sitwith me and let's do something
together.
We could do a little artproject or we could read a book,
and when you calm down and youfeel like you're able to commend
yourself again and play in thegroup, then you go back and play
.
So it's not punitive, it'seducational, it's supporting and
(09:17):
what we call co-regulating.
So if you have a little childwho's out of regulation and
dysregulated in their emotionalrealm, it who's out of
regulation and dysregulated intheir emotional realm it's not
because they want to be, it'sbecause they don't have the
standing internally to be ableto regulate their emotions.
So we help them, we co-regulate, but we don't punish them for
being children, right, we haveto understand that.
Well, this is child.
This is what childhood is about.
(09:39):
It's learning how to regulateyour emotions.
It's recognizing when you're ina group and playing with other
kids.
We need to know how to playwell together and it's not
acceptable to not play okay withother kids to hit, to kick, to
pull, and so we take them out ofa group, sit them down and we
say hey, you know we can't playlike that and sit with me, let's
(10:04):
do something fun together,let's do a little breathing, and
there are some exercises that Ilike to help parents do with
their little ones to get them toget back into command of
themselves.
And then it's really helpful tosay you know that was really
hard for you when you wanted tojoin the group and they wouldn't
let you and you had that bigfeeling come up if something was
not okay about that, becauseyou really wanted to play with
(10:26):
them too.
There's always a story behindit.
You really wanted to play withthat toy.
It made you so mad when theperson who owned it, didn't want
to share it.
And it's really hard to acceptthe fact that people have agency
over whether they want to sharetheir toys or not.
And as hard as that might befor us when we really want to do
what we want to do, whensomebody else whose toy it is
(10:48):
decides that they want to playwith it, it's really hard to be
okay with their no, isn't it?
Sometimes no's are hard to dealwith, so we make them into
teachable moments and we supportthem with the big feelings that
are coming up.
How could you be with thatfeeling in a different way?
So we start to educate themabout emotional resiliency,
overcoming big feelings,conflict resolution,
collaborative problem solving.
(11:08):
There are millions of skilldeficits that your two-year-old
has, your three-year-old, yourfour-year-old.
So we start to support themwith that and so that they can
learn the skills.
But obedience and compliance isdangerous.
I mean the last thing we wantto do is teach obedience and
compliance.
We want to teach consideration,conflict resolution,
(11:28):
collaboration, problem solving,assertiveness.
I mean millions of skills otherthan obedience and compliance.
That's the most dangerous thingyou could teach anyone between
who to be obedient to.
Anyone in power will becomesomeone that they feel they have
to kowtow to, and we don't wantthem kowtowing to people with
(11:48):
dangerous intentions the most.
I mean.
The largest study on childsexual abuse proves this without
question no, okay, yeah, um, soI like what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I've been reading recently about like, when you're
given the example of likesitting down with the child like
I have a two-year-old, sothat's usually what I'm thinking
about.
Right, and so in like talk,when he has any kind of feelings
, big feelings, instead oftelling him he's okay or it's
not a big deal or any of thosethings, letting him know that I
understand, like I hear him,like he's allowed to have those
(12:22):
feelings, right, like I know youwanted to play with it, I know
you wanted to do that, I knowyou wanted to do these things.
It is amazing how much justtelling them that I understand,
that he wants to do somethingtotally I mean, I'm not letting
him do it like we can't do thosethings right now, you know no,
I don't have to raise childrenwho are inconsiderate, and we
need to guide them.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
This is why my training is called the guidance
approach.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Okay, so can you talk a little bit more about that
Like?
So in your training you talkabout you have tools and things
that you teach.
Can you give us some examplesof things like more so than
you've already done, that wecould use?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
practically Sure, absolutely so, depending on the
age of the child.
We're, you know, if we'retalking about a two year old, I
mean, they're just.
You know, they're just.
They just got their littlelearning wheels on right,
they're just going out there andthey're gonna have big feelings
about a lot of stuff, probablyevery no they ever hear.
(13:16):
They're going to have a bigfeeling around, but I like what
you said and it's certainly inthe toolbox is to be able to
reflect back to them.
You know it's reallydisappointing when you want
something so much and you can'thave it.
That's so hard I get why you'rehaving such a big feeling
around that.
You know.
Would you like to breathethrough with me?
Right, so we can do a breathethrough.
(13:36):
One of the things that I do iswe call it the magic eight, and
I don't sure if you're going tobe showing the recording or just
the.
You will, okay, so it's really.
You know, people can do thiswith me.
You just take your fingers andput them in the middle of your
forehead, above your nose, andthen you just make an eight
around your eyes.
You can go in whicheverdirection you want and you can
(13:58):
play around with how soft or howmuch pressure, and you can also
change the direction.
And as you're doing that, whatyou're actually doing is you're
breaking through that left andright brain and bringing them
together and you'll find thatyou actually naturally take a
breath and so you're reallysupporting your entire nervous
(14:21):
system, which is what happensright when kids get the big
feelings.
What they're doing is they'rein their frontal lobes and we
need them to take a deep breathand to be able to relax and get
out of the amygdala and to beable to, you know, recover.
And so once they're recovered,that's when you can say to them
you know, if you want to go backand try again, go back and try
(14:44):
again.
And here's an opportunity foryou to, depending on how verbal
or not verbal they are, whatyou're basically helping them do
, by reflecting back to them howdisappointing it is, is you're
giving them the vocabulary to beable to know that that word
matched that feeling inside ofdisappointment.
(15:05):
And you know that's a prettylong, big word, but you might
start to hear your little guy go.
I'm disappointed, becausethere's something called name it
to tame it.
So the more that we have thewords to name the experience
that we're having internally,the more it feels acknowledged,
seen and heard and understood byme, the one voicing it.
(15:26):
If I don't have those words andpre-verbal kids get really
upset and verbal kids withlimited vocabularies get really
upset.
Part of upsetness and the roadto recovery is having the words
to name it.
So mad, sad, I mean.
We start with the simple one.
You know disappointed is kindof big, so you could just be in
(15:47):
the mad sad land initially andgetting to that point where I
can begin to have conversationswith my child.
We don't look at the momentwhen they're upset as a
teachable moment.
So we don't teach when kids arecrying and we don't teach.
You know that's not when youlecture and you know try to
(16:09):
teach them the value of sharing.
We wait until they've recoveredor we use the moments when
everything is fine as ourmoments for sharing ideas and
topics that we want to instillin them the values that we think
are important around,potentially something like
sharing.
You know, and everybody has adifferent viewpoint on sharing.
(16:30):
My perspective is that childrenget to choose what toys they
want to share, just like I getto choose if I'm going to share
my jewelry and clothing and carand all of the things that
belong to me.
They also have some agencyaround choosing it.
So not everybody sees it thatway.
They believe that you have tocreate forced compliance and
(16:52):
make people learn this valuewhere actually the value is
instilled internally and theresearch shows that when you
(17:16):
allow children to have thatagency, eventually there comes
within just like kids will learnhow to read and write and walk
and all the rest of it there isan internal impulse toward the
joy of sharing and if it comesat the right time, then it's not
just something that's sociallyprescribed, it's actually
heartfelt.
The difference is really quiteradical.
To allow that to emerge but toforce it, you're going to
probably end up in the land ofretaliation, rebellion and
resistance.
So one of the reasons that wedon't want to go into the land
(17:42):
of obedience and compliance, inthe land of rewards and
punishments, is that itactivates the three R's.
So Dr Thomas Gordon if you knowof him or not, he was nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize threetimes on his research around
activating retaliation,rebellion and resistance by
using power over andcompliance-based parenting
approaches.
So what happens is you have oneproblem and then you come down
(18:04):
hard on it.
Let's say that you want yourchild to clean up the table, and
so you ask them to put theirdishes away, and they completely
ignore you and so you're like,all right, right, maybe you go
into the one, two, three magicland.
So you you know, all right, one,two, if you don't do this, you
know.
And then you start your threatsand so you go into that
(18:26):
territory.
Well, what's going to happen isthat, say, you come down hard,
all right, that's it Fine.
Go to your room.
So they run up the stairs Ihate mommy and they slam the
door.
So now you've activated what wecall the secondary problem by
how you handle the primary issue.
So retaliation, rebellion andresistance account for 75
percent of behavioraldisruptions.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
OK, yeah, I can see that and, like I said, like we
only have a two year old, but Ican definitely see that already,
right, sure, so if we can justlike do it in a different way
and like figure something out,we it's always better, right?
And and I think, oh, I don'tknow, I'm not like obviously not
(19:09):
a parenting expert.
You know a lot of stuff, butlike I have found that most of
the problems are my problem he'stwo I can't expect my
two-year-old to be able tohandle everything right, and so
if we're, if things areescalating, it's because I
escalated them, and so that wejust have to, you know, work
(19:31):
through whatever issues that wegot going on, right so thankful.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
But, yeah, you're absolutely right, it is so much
about I have a problem becausemy expectations of my
two-year-old are way off base.
Yeah, and that's my mind and mythoughts about the situation
that are actually activating myown emotional response.
I triggered myself, right, yeah, I wasn't triggered by anything
outside of me.
(19:56):
He's doing two perfectly right,yeah, too.
Perfectly Right, yeah,absolutely perfectly.
He's doing exactly what he'ssupposed to be doing growing and
developing and acting out andhaving big feelings.
And you know, he's thebeginning of the road.
I'm the one who's impatient orhas expectations that this
(20:17):
shouldn't be happening.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
That's exactly right, yeah, and so I really liked
what you said earlier too, abouthow helping them with their
vocabulary so that they canexplain things better to you,
make everybody's life easier,your life better, their life
better, and we all want to beheard, right?
No matter what age you are.
We want to.
We want people to know how wefeel, especially if we're
feeling bad, and so I think Ifeel like I got this revelation,
(20:45):
or whatever, from CharlotteMason.
You know what I'm talking about.
She was an educator in the1800s and she talks about how
whole people.
It's big in the homeschoolmovement.
They're whole people as theywere born, like when they were
born.
They're not becoming people.
They're not vessels to befilled.
They are people.
And so she came at such a timewhere people were definitely
(21:07):
looking down on children and shehad a completely different
outlook on them and I just loveher philosophy.
It's beautiful.
I don't know that much about it.
Maybe she said something crazyat some point, but for the most
part, I really like her, and sowhat you're saying reminds me in
part of what she talks about,so I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, actually I talk about the same thing.
I mean, they are whole people.
I look at them actually as ourteachers.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, I mean our children come to us and they're
they're.
The example I use is theyreally are Yoda.
They really are Yoda andthey're here to give us an
opportunity to have empathy,compassion, understanding, to be
able to see them as these richteachers that they are, because
(21:55):
they will bring everything upOur past.
I call it transgenerationaltrauma.
Whatever the trauma was in yourfamily lineage about being seen
and not heard, and I meaneverything will be triggered by
your children.
And every time, if you'resomebody who thinks that other
people make you feel, if youblame your feelings on other
people and aren't responsiblefor the feelings that arise,
(22:17):
then you're going to say theymade you feel that way and then
you're going to make themresponsible for your feelings
and therefore they need to bepunished on account of how they
made you feel.
But of course, it's all a lie.
Nobody made you feel that way.
There's nothing outside of youthat is responsible or has the
power to be in control of myfeelings, but they do trigger us
(22:39):
.
They activate things, as doesthe rest of the world.
So if we've confused havingsomeone catalyze an experience
that I'm having as if theycaused it, then we move down the
road of victim-ledconsciousness, and kids often
end up in that land.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, on this podcast we talk a lot about radical
ownership and radical surrender,and so we have to own the
things that are ours and not beresponsible for things outside
of us, and I feel like that's alot of what you're talking about
.
No one makes us feel a way awayand we can't make other people
feel another way, right?
So we own ours and we let themhave theirs, and you know we
(23:18):
work together and figure thingsout, but that's a big thing
exactly totally in alignmentwith you on that, and so one of
my teachers was MarshallRosenberg.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Are you familiar with Marshall?
No, the founder of the Centerfor Nonviolent Communication and
the father of restorativejustice in America's prison
system.
He's passed away, but I wasfortunate enough to train with
him.
He's a very powerful influencearound NBC.
So nonviolent communication andunderstanding emotional
development.
So he would say emotionaldevelopment stage one was
(23:47):
slavery, where you feel thatsomeone else is responsible for
your feelings and needs, and soyou are enslaving them right to
take care of your feelings andneeds, or you might be the one
enslaving someone else andduping them into believing that
they're responsible for how youfeel, and often children get
(24:08):
enslaved in that way and made tobelieve that they make mommy
happy, that they make mommy sad,as if anyone has the power to
make mommy happy or sad, and soit is emotional and obviously
abusive to put that on any humanbeing.
So he talks about emotionalslavery as stage one, and then
he talks about emotionalobnoxiousness being the next
(24:28):
stage, where we become obnoxious, once we realize that we've
fallen prey to this, and so wesay things like you know, well,
that's, don't put that on me,you know, I have nothing to do
with that.
You know, that's all about you.
And he said.
Then we finally moved toemotional liberation, which is
(24:51):
I'm not responsible for how youfeel, but I care about you.
I see you're having some reallybig feelings right now.
So, you know, whenever you wantto talk about it, let's sit
down and talk, because howyou're feeling, although I'm not
responsible for it, I careabout you, and if you're having
a hard time, I care about thattoo.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
So those are the three stages, and I think the
liberation stage is when we getto be with each other and be
responsible for our own feelingsand needs and yet be able to
demonstrate the caring yeah,absolutely, and I feel like I
would imagine that's where wereally want to be as parents,
right Liberated from them, likeletting them control our not
(25:30):
letting they're not controllingour emotions, but letting them
dictate how we feel becausewe've allowed them to.
But caring about them and beingable to stay stable, Right,
that's what we want.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
That is totally good, yeah, no, that's exactly where
we want to go and it'sno-transcript In general,
struggling with this idea ofseparation and individuation.
So my work really acknowledgesthat separation and
(26:04):
individuation is often notallowed in families.
Children are not allowed toseparate and have an
individuated experience from thecaretaker because you know, I
said X, you're supposed to do X,but this person has a response
(26:25):
to it that is obviously thatthey're not on board with X, and
so when that happens, it's likeokay, I mean, I get that,
you're having your ownexperience.
And so I like to say when theysay no to you, what are they
saying yes to internally?
Okay.
So, okay, what is your childsaying yes to internally?
What's going on for?
What is your child saying yesto internally?
What's going on for them?
Well, I don't want to get upand leave the table.
Going back to my originalexample, you know you want me to
(26:48):
clean up the dishes and puteverything away, but I'm not
done yet and I'm having a reallygood time here.
And you know, I know you wantto set the table and have me
clear everything off, but, but I, I'm still really enjoying what
I'm doing.
Oh, I get it.
So then you have to reframeinternally in your own head of
this isn't sass?
(27:09):
It's not acting out, it's nottalking back, it's not being
disrespectful.
You can remove all the judgmentand you can recognize that,
okay, they're having troubledoing my directive and also
staying connected to what wasgoing on inside of them.
So now at least I understandthat this is about.
How do I integrate the outervoice with my inner sense of
(27:32):
things?
So then you have a differentconversation around, all right,
well, I see that you're having areally good time and I get that
.
You know you'd like to keepeverything just the way it is.
I got a problem, though.
It's time for dinner and I needto set the table.
What can we do about this?
And that may result in avariety of different outcomes,
(28:02):
because they may have ideas.
Well, can't we eat, you know,outside on the porch?
Or maybe we could eat over here, you know?
And it's like that's an idea,never even thought about that
and I get to decide am I okaywith that or not okay with that?
But at least it gives mesomething to take into
consideration yeah, absolutelyso.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Um, let's talk about that example a little bit more,
right, so that that child seemslike they're a little bit older,
right?
If you have four or five orfive, yeah, yeah, I could see
that.
So what would you do if thesituation was even younger,
right?
So my, let's say, two year old,three year old, they just are
like no man, I'm not cleaningthis up.
Like they're not.
(28:43):
They're not to a point, as faras I can tell, they're not
having a conversation like thatwith you.
And so how do you acknowledgethe fact that they have feelings
and they don't want to clean up, but still like they're?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
not going to get me done.
Just suggest to go outside.
So what I would do is I wouldsay I get it.
Cleaning up is such so boringand it's so much more fun to go
out there and I really want youto go out there too and play on
the swings.
However, let's figure out howcan we can do this, and usually
what it comes down to is let letme do it with you.
Yeah.
(29:17):
Right, and so it really is aboutmodeling the behavior that you
want to see, helping them alongby doing it collaboratively yeah
, as opposed to making you knowa punishment out of bad behavior
or whatever.
So, yeah, I mean that wouldreally be you.
You know, building anddeveloping good habits.
Part of that good habit iscleaning up after yourself, yeah
(29:38):
, right, and we know.
I don't know if you read CharlesDuhigg's book on, you know the
power of habit, but he reallydeep dives into habits and
what's required to build habits.
And the joy of building reallygood habits is that it, once
it's a habit, you don't thinkabout it anymore, it doesn't
take any energy, it's just like.
This is what I do.
So you can do that with all ofthose things that you want your
(30:00):
kids to develop good habits.
Be willing to do it with them,show them exactly what to do,
work with them to do.
Eventually, as they grow up,they get so used to doing it
that they just start to do itthemselves and you will wake up
and go oh my God, they just didit.
I didn't have to say a word.
So part of the guidanceapproach is what we call
(30:23):
self-started behavioral change.
So do I want to have externallystarted behavioral change or
self-started behavioral change?
Do I want children to beself-motivated or do I believe
in external motivation?
We live in a society that'sbased in rewards and punishments
, which is based in the ideathat you change people's
behavior by what you do to them,rather than creating the
(30:45):
circumstances to support them towant to do the right thing.
So self motivation is when theychoose to pick up the toys
because that's what they want todo or it's become a habit.
They get up out of bed.
They make the bed becausethat's become a habit.
They get up out of bed.
They make the bed becausethat's become a habit.
They get up and brush theirteeth that's the habit.
They pack their bag.
There are so many of thesethings that can just become good
(31:09):
habits.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Absolutely, and I teach that a lot.
It's about creating rhythm,routines, and so you're not
always thinking about it andyour kids already know right.
So we do this after alreadyknow right.
So we do this after we do this,we do this after we do that.
So nobody is like fighting.
There's no fighting aboutbrushing your teeth.
We just go brush our teethafter breakfast and so, um,
that's been very, very helpfulfor us.
(31:33):
Um and so oh yeah and I likethat thing, the things you're
talking about, about the habits,like they don't have to be a
struggle because you startedthem.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
And I mean initially you're doing it with them, yeah,
and as long as you're there,chances are, they're fine.
I mean you know they'll startdoing what you're doing and then
they go out and play, yeah, andit's just not a big hullabaloo
because they develop the habit.
Yes, yeah, absolutelyno-transcript give her yeah, I
(32:26):
mean 75 of 75 of behavioraldisruptions are retaliation,
rebellion and resistance.
So that's whenever anyone comesto me, the first thing I always
lean into is am I hearing oneof the R's?
And of course, if it's 75% ofthe time that the behavioral
(32:46):
disruption and the breakdownshave to do with the three R's,
then one of the R's is probablypresent, if not all of them.
I mean I have people say to meall the time oh God, I've got
all three, so you've got theretaliation, the rebellion, the
resistance.
So that's actually.
I mean we don't want it, butit's the easiest thing to change
.
You can eliminate all of that bymoving to a guidance approach.
That's all you have to do isstop doing rewards and
(33:08):
punishments and instead, whenyou have the behavioral
disruptions that you need toaddress, you address them from a
guidance approach, which is thethings that we've been talking
about Leaning in seeing a no toyou as a yes to something inside
of themselves, perceiving theresistance as not disrespectful
or punishable offenses, but thatthere's something going on
(33:30):
internally that they have theirheart set on and they're having
a hard time figuring out how todo that.
And this outer voices thing.
I mean we didn't go.
We don't have enough time totalk about the difference
between request language, demandlanguage.
I mean, there are so manypieces to this.
I have a whole model around,you know, peeling the onion in
terms of looking at any onedisruptive behavior and kind of
(33:52):
going through to assess it.
So there could be other thingshappening aside from just the
three R's, but most of the timeit's the three R's and we're
looking at skills deficits, justbuilding skills.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Okay, that's wonderful.
So where can people find you,catherine?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Conscious Parenting Revolution is the website and if
they want to go tofreeparentingbookcom, my Amazon
bestseller, seven strategies tokeep your relationship with your
kids from hitting the boilingpoint.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
I give that away so they can go grab that perfect,
okay, and so both of those linkswill be in the description of
this video.
And, um, katherine, thank youso much for being here with us.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
This was lovely, so nice to meet you, and I feel
we're really aligned.
I think so.
Yeah, I really appreciate that.
Yeah, thank you for your work.
Thank you so much, thank you.
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