January 20, 2025 • 24 mins
This episode encourages parents to shift their focus from rigid parenting styles to a more reflective, emotion-centered approach. We discuss the pressures of perfectionism, the importance of self-awareness, and how embracing the idea of "good enough" can transform parenting experiences.
• Exploring the pressures of positive and conscious parenting
• Emphasizing emotional awareness and self-regulation
• Addressing perfectionism in parenting and its impacts
• Promoting reflection as a tool for growth and understanding
• Introducing the new structure of the Reflective Parent Club program
• Encouraging parents to define what "good enough" means for them
• Calling for compassion and flexibility in parenting practices
Watch this on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/PbnlJ7IUkR4
Search for a past podcast episode or guest:
https://curiousneuron.com/podcast/
Want to join The Reflective Parent Club?
If you are ready to learn healthy emotional coping skills and to get support on. how to teach your child these skills, join below or book a call with me below:
https://curiousneuron.com/reflective-parent-club/
Book a call with me:
https://calendly.com/curious_neuron/intro-chat-for-1-1-coaching
FREE WORKBOOK: Why do I feel triggered by my child's emotions and behaviours?
https://tremendous-hustler-7333.kit.com/f9fd208c09
FREE ACTIVITY FOR KIDS: Help! My emotions are confusing to me!
https://tremendous-hustler-7333.kit.com/c6701d059a
Please leave a rating for our podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Email me at info@curiousneuron.com and I will send you our most popular guide called Meltdown Mountain.
Join me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/curious_neuron/
Join our Facebook group called Reflective Parenting:
...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, my dear friend , welcome back to another
episode of the Curious Neuronpodcast.
My name is Cindy Huffington andI am your host.
I am a mom of three fromMontreal, canada, and I have a
PhD in neuroscience.
My goal through Curious Neuronis to help you become more
self-aware and to learn emotionregulation skills so that you
can know when you feel triggeredwith your child and learn how
(00:22):
to speak to yourself in a waythat calms yourself.
It decreases the emotional orthe emotions around that moment
and helps everybody feel morecalm and connected, and I'm
doing this by sharing thescience with you.
Today's a solo episode, and ifyou are a parent that follows
positive parenting any type ofparenting, conscious parenting,
(00:43):
but mostly the term positiveparenting then this episode is
for you.
I had a moment when I had thissort of aha moment and
realization of why so manyparents are struggling and are
feeling stressed.
I shared, I think many monthsago now, that there was a study
that had come out that parentsthat follow positive parenting
(01:04):
are more stressed, and a lot ofit has to do with emotional
suppression.
So we're going to dig into thattoday and I'm going to share
the moment that I had where Irealized why, what's the
connection between all of this,and so I'm really excited to
share all of this with you.
First, if you haven't done soyet, please take a moment to
rate the podcast and review itno-transcript.
(01:50):
And that's why Curious Neuronwas born through my belief that
science shouldn't be behind thispaywall or not translated in a
way that all of us couldunderstand, and so I'm excited
that they believe in that too.
You can follow Curious Neuronon Instagram, curious underscore
Neuron, or on Facebook, curiousNeuron.
We have a Facebook page as well, called the Reflective Parent.
(02:14):
You're going to notice, or youmight have noticed now, in the
past couple of months, there'sbeen a big shift in terms of how
I speak about Curious Neuron.
We, or my team and I I'm luckyto have some people that are
working with me you know, werealized that a lot of the
struggles that we have asparents is because we haven't
(02:36):
learned these emotion oremotional intelligence skills.
Reflective skills allow you tobuild that self-awareness, and I
wish I had this magic wand thatwould make all of the parenting
struggles go away and all thosechaotic moments, but I don't.
However, when we do become moreself-aware and learn how to
regulate our emotions,regardless of what's happening
(02:58):
in front of us.
We're not suppressing, we'reregulating our emotions.
We're setting boundaries if wehave to, and all of that leads
to lower stress and makes thingsfeel a bit easier.
And guess what?
As we are learning how to becomeself-aware and regulate our
emotions, our child sees whatwe're doing, sees how we're
modeling this, and so they learnhow to control their emotions
(03:20):
and cope with very uncomfortableemotions, and then the
relationship feels easier.
And then we start doing thiswith other people in our lives,
like our partners, and ratherthan feeling triggered in a
conflict, we self-regulate andwe ask questions, we say things
like I'm getting the feelingthat you're feeling this way, or
(03:42):
I am assuming what you meant bythis is that, am I correct?
And we don't lash out againbecause we're not as easily
triggered.
And it's not about digging intoour past.
It's truly about understandingour present and how we react and
why we react to certain things.
And so relationships all aroundus and even at work things feel
(04:02):
easier because Susie sayssomething and, rather than you
feeling triggered, you say, okay, that's a Susie thing, that's a
you thing, and so I'm good, ithas nothing to do with me.
We have so many thoughts thatrun in our minds.
We went through this inside theReflective Parent Club Thoughts
like catastrophizing thoughts.
When we personalize thoughtslike catastrophizing thoughts
(04:26):
when we personalize right, whenwe start labeling ourselves as a
bad parent, a stupid person weall do that in some moments, but
we worked on this inside theReflective Parent Club.
You're going to also notice ashift in the way that I speak of
the Reflective Parent Club.
Nothing has changed inside.
We are still meeting everysingle week for one hour.
I help you build self-awarenessskills by understanding.
(04:47):
You, share stories and I saywell, how about this perspective
or what was the thought goingin your mind?
And so we understand theconnection between our thoughts,
our emotions, our physicalsensations.
One of the parents had chronicpain and realized oh yeah, when
I'm having these ups or thesemoments when I feel more pain,
(05:11):
I'm less patient.
All of these lead to a behaviorthat we have as parents,
whether it's being less patient,less empathetic, less connected
to our child.
And if we could understandwhere we get stuck in that cycle
, then the behavior changes andthen the whole home environment
changes and things just feellighter rather than heavier.
But what's changing inside theReflective Parent Club is.
We've now eliminated themembership aspect of it.
It is no longer a monthlymembership, it is no longer a
(05:33):
yearly membership, it is athree-month program.
We are launching this week acourse that we've put together
that will walk you throughself-awareness, emotion
regulation skills, conflictresolution skills with your
partner and parenting skills,and so all of these are being
put together in a course thatyou can do at your own pace,
while coming to the calls everysingle Tuesday in order to talk
(05:55):
about where you're at, whereyou're stuck, what do you need
help with?
And I give you a new reflectionprompt every Tuesday because I
like to bring awareness tocertain things that you might
not think of, for example,unrealistic expectations that we
have for ourselves, ourchildren and our partners
sometimes, and people around us.
So we are having a blast insidethe club and I hope you can
(06:17):
join us.
The link is in the show notes.
You can join the ReflectiveParent Club.
I've left the sale from CyberMonday or Black Friday, whatever
one.
I've left it.
It's still there.
So for three months, ratherthan $79, it is still 50
something dollars, and it's just.
I'm leaving it there for awhile because I want parents to
(06:39):
see what it looks like insidethe club and you get a week free
to come and see what it lookslike, all right.
So, like I said, so I had a fewconversations.
I mean this summer I had 100conversations with parents and
what was interesting is thatmany parents spoke about this
idea of hyper-education.
It's not a term I just made itup, but this idea of as soon as
(07:02):
they become parents, or theyknow they're becoming a parent,
they jump into so many books,parenting books.
How do I do it?
What do I say to my child?
How to be the best parent thatI could be and I think I posted
about this or shared this atsome point.
I think we need to come back tointuition.
I think that as parents, it'sgreat to educate ourselves, and
(07:23):
a big part 80% of what CuriousNeuron is is education,
science-based education, highquality education on
curiousneuroncom and herethrough the podcast and the
guests that I bring.
But then there has to be a partwhere you sort of let go and
you figure it out on your own.
And the figuring out on yourown is almost like being a
scientist You're collecting dataabout yourself and you're
(07:44):
collecting data about your child, and the more you can
understand yourself andunderstand patterns, and
understand your child and theirpatterns the more you can know.
Okay, I need to try this.
Is this going to work?
You try it.
It didn't work.
Let me try something else, and Ithink that the parents that I
was speaking with this summerit's just that you see all the
(08:05):
posts, sometimes online, andeverybody talks about positive
parenting, conscious parenting,responsive parenting.
I've heard many different kindsand they all have.
I'm not trying to say they'renot great, but I think that the
problem is that we'vemisunderstood these types of
parentings as a society and thependulum has swung a little bit
(08:25):
too far towards nurturing ourchild's needs and being there
for them.
As a society I know because ofthe parents I speak with we've
forgotten to take care ofourselves as parents, that our
needs matter to the point thatwe feel so guilty for asking for
a moment to go take a walk.
We have needs and those don'tgo away, and right now I need a
(08:46):
moment.
I need to ask my partner, Ineed to tap out, or right now I
need I don't know I need to asksomebody for help.
I need to call a parent or anin-law and ask them to come here
so I can go do groceries inpeace.
(09:07):
There was a parent that I wasspeaking with last week and she
was saying that she got sometime over the holidays to run
some errands on her own and shesaid I felt really bad, but it
felt nice not to have to attendto anyone's needs and I don't
think there's anything wrongwith that.
I think taking the time tonotice that is self-care, and
(09:27):
taking the time to step out andsay I'm going to be a better
parent because I will be able tobetter manage my emotions when
I come back is fine, it's okay.
And you become a better versionof yourself in that moment when
you feel regulated and calm andnurtured and taken care of.
And so, with the positiveparenting movement that we've
seen, like I said at thebeginning, there's also been a
(09:49):
shift around the idea of ouremotions that we have to stay
calm.
For a child.
There's truth in that we are,in a sense, staying calm and
regulated, but it doesn't meanthat that's going to happen all
the time.
If we're hungry, if it's thatfour or five o'clock hour and
(10:10):
we're hungry and we just cameback from work and our kids are
hungry and they're whining andthey're complaining and we just
want to get things done and eat,and then they're not even happy
with what we made for dinner,obviously they're going to
trigger something in us and wemight lash out and feel bad
about it after.
But if we can just be moreself-aware and say, hey, that's
(10:31):
okay, cindy, you were hungry,it's fine, the moment has passed
now we don't have to get stuckin this sort of snowball effect
in our minds of puttingourselves down, feeling bad
about the moment and then thatfollows us into the evening.
And so if we can be more awareof our emotions, we could become
(10:52):
more, not just attuned.
We could become more not justattuned but flexible in how we
are managing and dealing withemotional situations.
Because as a parent, there arelots of emotional situations.
They're coming at us left andright and we've got to find ways
to manage that a little bitbetter.
Another thing I realized as Iwas talking to a parent who
(11:14):
seems to be very much of aperfectionist.
I don't know if you can relateto this.
This parent is a high achieverin work.
This parent wants to maintain agood looking house, a clean
house, a maintained house, andso everything is pristine.
And so when kids act out.
That's out of the box of whatperfection is.
(11:36):
And then, in the style ofparenting, when you lash out at
your child or scream or getreally frustrated and go towards
threats rather than stayingcalm, as the positive or
conscious parenting movement hassuggested, then, according to
the definition of that kind ofparenting, I'm making a box with
(11:57):
my hands.
If you're not in that boxanymore, you are no longer in
that box.
And so, for a parent who's aperfectionist, you have failed.
Every single time that you getout of that calmness, you have
failed, and that's a heavyburden to carry.
And that was my moment ofrealization last week, where I
heard a parent talking about howhard it is to stay calm and
(12:21):
that every time she yells, she'sfailed.
And so what happens is that youare leaving for work in the
morning and you've been withyour kids for an hour, an hour
and a half.
You've already failed threetimes because nobody wanted to
get dressed and so you failed.
And then you bring them toschool or to daycare and you're
driving yourself to work orwalking to work and you already
(12:43):
have on your mind that youfailed as a parent that morning.
It's a heavy burden, and sothat is why I realized this week
we really need to move awayfrom that.
It's time I realized this weekwe really need to move away from
that.
It's time it's done its work.
(13:06):
We're still using the guidinglight of authoritative parenting
, where we want to keep thewarmth and sensitivity, as well
as limits and boundaries.
Both are important in parenting.
But can't we just use that asour guiding light?
But it'll look different for meand it'll look different for
you in your home.
But if that's our guiding light, then whenever we are off, we
kind of bring ourselves backonto that path of ooh, today I
wasn't really warm andresponsive and so I need to be
(13:28):
mindful of that tomorrow.
Or I really let go of thelimits and boundaries.
This weekend it was a free forall, but we had a lot of fun.
Back to limits and boundarieson Monday.
How can we set ourselves up forsuccess rather than failure as
parents?
And I think that if we can dothat as parents, I think the
burden and the heaviness ofsticking to a type of parenting
(13:52):
would be lifted.
Also, I hear from so manyparents moms in particular that
argue with their spouse becausethe mom has read all of these
books that suggest positiveparenting or conscious parenting
or responsive parenting is thebest kind of parenting.
And so anything outside of thatbox which I'm drawing with my
(14:14):
fingers is considered badparenting.
And so when your partner, thatbox which I'm drawing with my
fingers is considered badparenting, and so when your
partner has their own versionthat might be a little bit more
authoritarian, without thedisrespect, shaming or neglect
or abuse no hitting, as long asit doesn't veer towards that
then that parent has failed.
If they raise their voice attheir child, they failed
(14:35):
according to the definition thatwe might have set for ourselves
.
If they give a consequence,they failed according to that
type of parenting.
What about if we're just tryingto figure out what works best?
What about if the mindset thatwe have as a parent is okay?
I tried timeouts.
(14:56):
It's not working, let's move onto the next.
I've tried, I don't know,disciplining my child in this
way where I threatened them.
They're still doing it.
It didn't work, let's move onto the next.
How do I balance the boundaryand the warmth?
Well, I've been giving a lot oflimits and boundaries and
(15:17):
consequences, but maybe I'm notvalidating my child's emotions
very well, and so let me trydoing that with the consequence.
Hey, I see a difference.
I don't know Whatever will workout for your house and your
family, but if we can have thesort of mindset that allows us
to test things out and not seeeverything as a failure, I think
(15:40):
just that in itself willalleviate so much stress on our
shoulders, such a heaviness ofconstant failure, that we will
be able to become attuned, diginto what feels best and what
feels right for us as families,as parents.
And just to go back to one morething the emotion part.
(16:01):
This is another moment that wasa second part of this big
moment that I had this week theemotion part, that warmth and
sensitivity that I have beenspeaking about for years now.
The warmth and sensitivity is areally important part.
It's a new part that ourparents did not know.
There was no mention of warmthand sensitivity towards a
(16:22):
child's needs, to the point thatI've received so many messages
during the past few years whereparents, moms and dads have
reached out to me and said youtalk about warmth and
sensitivity, but what does thismean?
What does this sound like?
What does this look like?
And that was my moment thisweek where I realized, with this
particular parent who wasalways seeing herself as failing
(16:44):
, especially when it came tobeing calm she would fail or
showing up for her child'semotional needs.
She was never raised in anenvironment where her emotional
needs were responded to or metwith warmth and sensitivity.
And so if you, like me, arelike the many parents that
(17:08):
didn't grow up in thisenvironment, what's happening
now is we are parents and we arebeing told to show up with
warmth and sensitivity towardsour child's emotional needs.
We have no idea what it lookslike, no idea.
Some of us might haveexperienced it, but many of us
have not.
And so now, in addition tofailing because we are lashing
(17:31):
out, because we never learnedhow to regulate our emotions, we
have not developedself-awareness of our triggers
Now, as parents, we are alsofailing at this positive
parenting, conscious parenting,responsive parenting, whatever
it is, because we don't know howto show up for our child.
We don't know what that lookslike, and for some of us it
becomes uncomfortable, and so wejust see it as constant failure
(17:56):
.
Especially for somebody who'svery much of a perfectionist,
this is really hard, and I wantyou to be mindful this week.
So I want you to step back thisweek and I'm going to give you
the same activity I gave thisprivate client, because I think
that there's space for all of usto do this kind of work.
And if you want to do more ofthis work, now that the
(18:16):
Reflective Parent Club is athree-month program, I would not
make it anything less if youwere to join for two weeks, one
month, even a month and a halfor two months.
I know that it is not enoughtime to see a change in behavior
, a change in habits and achange in noticing patterns.
It takes much more time thanthat, which is why I've made it
a three-month program.
So this particular client, thereflection prompt and thought
(18:38):
activity that I gave her, wasdefine what perfect parenting is
for you, or define your versionsorry, define your version of
parenting.
And so what was listed werethese you know, 15 or 20 moments
of perfection, that creatingperfect moments for my child,
making sure I'm always calm forthem, not yelling at them or not
(19:01):
being so mean to them inmoments when I'm tired.
Then, once you've written thisdown, so this should be your
perfect moment, that should bethe left column.
The right column is what isgood enough.
What is good enough?
Because if your perfect idea ofparenting is not yelling at
(19:22):
your child is good enough, the80-20 rule which it should be,
by the way is good enough,saying, well, I'm going to do my
best, but I'm going to showmyself self-compassion in
moments when I'm tired, or I hada really stressful day, or we
had a really chaotic evening andI'm exhausted and I just need
to take a break.
(19:42):
Is it going to be okay the nextday when my child wants to do
something and I'm too tired, I'mlike, no, not today, but maybe
tomorrow.
Or am I going to feel guiltythat I said no?
I think that if we could becomemore compassionate and more
self-aware, we're going to catchthese moments and realize that
it's not always perfect andthat's part of parenting.
(20:04):
But what is your definition ofgood enough?
I want you to see it on paper.
I had done this a few monthsago with our parents inside the
Reflective Parent Club, where itwas about tasks, right, and the
sort of schedule that we putfor ourselves on weekends and we
want to clean the entire house,meal prep and do all the
(20:25):
activities with our kids andhave connection time and go to
soccer and go to and you see,the list goes on right.
However, what I wanted parentsto reflect on is what's a good
enough weekend?
Where's the downtime?
What do you need?
What do your kids need?
What is there too much of?
And so we're doing the samething in terms of our parenting
style.
Now I want you to take the weekto notice moments when you are
(20:48):
hard on yourself because of theparenting style you are choosing
to follow, and if thisdefinition that you've placed,
or this box that you've created,that is the parenting style
that you are following, if thatis leading to more stress and
feelings of failure and morepressure on yourself, then this
is the week, my friend.
This is the week that we stepout and we say, hey, okay, cindy
(21:12):
, you can follow this kind ofparenting, but you've placed too
many boundaries andrestrictions on yourself and you
need a little bit more freedom.
We need to make mistakes,because with those mistakes, we
are going to learn what theneeds are of our child or what
works for us as well.
But if we don't make thosemistakes, then we don't know
what's best, and so we need toallow ourselves to make mistakes
(21:35):
, and then we have to catchourselves in those mistakes, and
when we catch ourselves.
Then we start collecting alittle bit of data.
Okay, I did this with my child.
I yelled at bedtime.
It didn't work, but I was tiredand so I think I need to I
don't know take 10 minutes rightbefore bedtime to unwind.
Maybe not scrolling, maybesomething more nurturing to
yourself.
(21:55):
Maybe it's taking a moment tosip that hot tea and chilling
with your kids, instead ofputting certain pressures on
yourself.
Maybe, rather than doing thedishes, it's sitting on the
couch and playing Uno with yourkids for 10-15 minutes.
In our home, the number one gameis Monopoly Deal.
It's the card game of Monopolyand it's fast and it's really
(22:17):
fun.
And we play as a family andit's easy.
My five-year-old doesn't read,but there are images on it so he
could remember what some imagesare and what they mean.
And we play together and it'sreally fun.
So we have different ways ofconnecting connecting and
disconnecting from everythingelse that's going on, because
sometimes we know, okay, we needto go to bed, but if I push it
(22:38):
just 10 minutes in order toconnect with my child, I know
that's what they need today.
I could be strict on theboundary of the bedtime or I can
take the time to connect.
I need to connect with them andthey need to connect with me,
and so this is the kind ofparenting I'm hoping that I
could kind of bring awareness toin the next year, in 2025.
(22:59):
I call it reflective parenting,where it's just literally the
skills of pausing and reflecting, and if we can do that as a
society and as parents, I thinkthat we could make parenting a
little bit easier.
I hope you are part of theCurious Neuron newsletter.
If not, you can also download afreebie from me in the show
notes.
It's a reflective parent kit,your starter kit.
(23:23):
What does that look like?
What do I want to bringawareness to?
What reflection prompts can youstart with?
Get the freebie and see if thataligns with you and your kind
of parenting, and take the timethis week again to write down
what is your idea of perfectparenting and then what is the
good enough.
I hope you all have a beautifuland wonderful week.
(23:45):
Don't forget, if you liked thisepisode or you think it could
help somebody that's reallyputting pressure on themselves,
send it to them, share it withthem, share it on social media
tag Curious Neuron.
Help us grow as a community andput the word out there that
reflective parenting, in ouropinion, in my opinion is the
way for us to become moreresilient as parents, more
(24:06):
confident, and that competenceMost parents that come into the
Reflective Parent Club have lowcompetence, meaning that they
don't think they have the skills.
That, my friend, is a story foranother time.
I'm going to talk about thatbecause it's another reason why
I think we have to move awayfrom this idea of positive
parenting and just think aboutbuilding the right skills, which
(24:27):
is again why I built theReflective Parent Club.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
I hope again that you have abeautiful and wonderful week.
I will see you next Monday.
Bye.
Hello, my dear friend , welcome back to another
episode of the Curious Neuronpodcast.
My name is Cindy Huffington andI am your host.
I am a mom of three fromMontreal, canada, and I have a
PhD in neuroscience.
My goal through Curious Neuronis to help you become more
self-aware and to learn emotionregulation skills so that you
can know when you feel triggeredwith your child and learn how
(00:22):
to speak to yourself in a waythat calms yourself.
It decreases the emotional orthe emotions around that moment
and helps everybody feel morecalm and connected, and I'm
doing this by sharing thescience with you.
Today's a solo episode, and ifyou are a parent that follows
positive parenting any type ofparenting, conscious parenting,
(00:43):
but mostly the term positiveparenting then this episode is
for you.
I had a moment when I had thissort of aha moment and
realization of why so manyparents are struggling and are
feeling stressed.
I shared, I think many monthsago now, that there was a study
that had come out that parentsthat follow positive parenting
(01:04):
are more stressed, and a lot ofit has to do with emotional
suppression.
So we're going to dig into thattoday and I'm going to share
the moment that I had where Irealized why, what's the
connection between all of this,and so I'm really excited to
share all of this with you.
First, if you haven't done soyet, please take a moment to
rate the podcast and review itno-transcript.
(01:50):
And that's why Curious Neuronwas born through my belief that
science shouldn't be behind thispaywall or not translated in a
way that all of us couldunderstand, and so I'm excited
that they believe in that too.
You can follow Curious Neuronon Instagram, curious underscore
Neuron, or on Facebook, curiousNeuron.
We have a Facebook page as well, called the Reflective Parent.
(02:14):
You're going to notice, or youmight have noticed now, in the
past couple of months, there'sbeen a big shift in terms of how
I speak about Curious Neuron.
We, or my team and I I'm luckyto have some people that are
working with me you know, werealized that a lot of the
struggles that we have asparents is because we haven't
(02:36):
learned these emotion oremotional intelligence skills.
Reflective skills allow you tobuild that self-awareness, and I
wish I had this magic wand thatwould make all of the parenting
struggles go away and all thosechaotic moments, but I don't.
However, when we do become moreself-aware and learn how to
regulate our emotions,regardless of what's happening
(02:58):
in front of us.
We're not suppressing, we'reregulating our emotions.
We're setting boundaries if wehave to, and all of that leads
to lower stress and makes thingsfeel a bit easier.
And guess what?
As we are learning how to becomeself-aware and regulate our
emotions, our child sees whatwe're doing, sees how we're
modeling this, and so they learnhow to control their emotions
(03:20):
and cope with very uncomfortableemotions, and then the
relationship feels easier.
And then we start doing thiswith other people in our lives,
like our partners, and ratherthan feeling triggered in a
conflict, we self-regulate andwe ask questions, we say things
like I'm getting the feelingthat you're feeling this way, or
(03:42):
I am assuming what you meant bythis is that, am I correct?
And we don't lash out againbecause we're not as easily
triggered.
And it's not about digging intoour past.
It's truly about understandingour present and how we react and
why we react to certain things.
And so relationships all aroundus and even at work things feel
(04:02):
easier because Susie sayssomething and, rather than you
feeling triggered, you say, okay, that's a Susie thing, that's a
you thing, and so I'm good, ithas nothing to do with me.
We have so many thoughts thatrun in our minds.
We went through this inside theReflective Parent Club Thoughts
like catastrophizing thoughts.
When we personalize thoughtslike catastrophizing thoughts
(04:26):
when we personalize right, whenwe start labeling ourselves as a
bad parent, a stupid person weall do that in some moments, but
we worked on this inside theReflective Parent Club.
You're going to also notice ashift in the way that I speak of
the Reflective Parent Club.
Nothing has changed inside.
We are still meeting everysingle week for one hour.
I help you build self-awarenessskills by understanding.
(04:47):
You, share stories and I saywell, how about this perspective
or what was the thought goingin your mind?
And so we understand theconnection between our thoughts,
our emotions, our physicalsensations.
One of the parents had chronicpain and realized oh yeah, when
I'm having these ups or thesemoments when I feel more pain,
(05:11):
I'm less patient.
All of these lead to a behaviorthat we have as parents,
whether it's being less patient,less empathetic, less connected
to our child.
And if we could understandwhere we get stuck in that cycle
, then the behavior changes andthen the whole home environment
changes and things just feellighter rather than heavier.
But what's changing inside theReflective Parent Club is.
We've now eliminated themembership aspect of it.
It is no longer a monthlymembership, it is no longer a
(05:33):
yearly membership, it is athree-month program.
We are launching this week acourse that we've put together
that will walk you throughself-awareness, emotion
regulation skills, conflictresolution skills with your
partner and parenting skills,and so all of these are being
put together in a course thatyou can do at your own pace,
while coming to the calls everysingle Tuesday in order to talk
(05:55):
about where you're at, whereyou're stuck, what do you need
help with?
And I give you a new reflectionprompt every Tuesday because I
like to bring awareness tocertain things that you might
not think of, for example,unrealistic expectations that we
have for ourselves, ourchildren and our partners
sometimes, and people around us.
So we are having a blast insidethe club and I hope you can
(06:17):
join us.
The link is in the show notes.
You can join the ReflectiveParent Club.
I've left the sale from CyberMonday or Black Friday, whatever
one.
I've left it.
It's still there.
So for three months, ratherthan $79, it is still 50
something dollars, and it's just.
I'm leaving it there for awhile because I want parents to
(06:39):
see what it looks like insidethe club and you get a week free
to come and see what it lookslike, all right.
So, like I said, so I had a fewconversations.
I mean this summer I had 100conversations with parents and
what was interesting is thatmany parents spoke about this
idea of hyper-education.
It's not a term I just made itup, but this idea of as soon as
(07:02):
they become parents, or theyknow they're becoming a parent,
they jump into so many books,parenting books.
How do I do it?
What do I say to my child?
How to be the best parent thatI could be and I think I posted
about this or shared this atsome point.
I think we need to come back tointuition.
I think that as parents, it'sgreat to educate ourselves, and
(07:23):
a big part 80% of what CuriousNeuron is is education,
science-based education, highquality education on
curiousneuroncom and herethrough the podcast and the
guests that I bring.
But then there has to be a partwhere you sort of let go and
you figure it out on your own.
And the figuring out on yourown is almost like being a
scientist You're collecting dataabout yourself and you're
(07:44):
collecting data about your child, and the more you can
understand yourself andunderstand patterns, and
understand your child and theirpatterns the more you can know.
Okay, I need to try this.
Is this going to work?
You try it.
It didn't work.
Let me try something else, and Ithink that the parents that I
was speaking with this summerit's just that you see all the
(08:05):
posts, sometimes online, andeverybody talks about positive
parenting, conscious parenting,responsive parenting.
I've heard many different kindsand they all have.
I'm not trying to say they'renot great, but I think that the
problem is that we'vemisunderstood these types of
parentings as a society and thependulum has swung a little bit
(08:25):
too far towards nurturing ourchild's needs and being there
for them.
As a society I know because ofthe parents I speak with we've
forgotten to take care ofourselves as parents, that our
needs matter to the point thatwe feel so guilty for asking for
a moment to go take a walk.
We have needs and those don'tgo away, and right now I need a
(08:46):
moment.
I need to ask my partner, Ineed to tap out, or right now I
need I don't know I need to asksomebody for help.
I need to call a parent or anin-law and ask them to come here
so I can go do groceries inpeace.
(09:07):
There was a parent that I wasspeaking with last week and she
was saying that she got sometime over the holidays to run
some errands on her own and shesaid I felt really bad, but it
felt nice not to have to attendto anyone's needs and I don't
think there's anything wrongwith that.
I think taking the time tonotice that is self-care, and
(09:27):
taking the time to step out andsay I'm going to be a better
parent because I will be able tobetter manage my emotions when
I come back is fine, it's okay.
And you become a better versionof yourself in that moment when
you feel regulated and calm andnurtured and taken care of.
And so, with the positiveparenting movement that we've
seen, like I said at thebeginning, there's also been a
(09:49):
shift around the idea of ouremotions that we have to stay
calm.
For a child.
There's truth in that we are,in a sense, staying calm and
regulated, but it doesn't meanthat that's going to happen all
the time.
If we're hungry, if it's thatfour or five o'clock hour and
(10:10):
we're hungry and we just cameback from work and our kids are
hungry and they're whining andthey're complaining and we just
want to get things done and eat,and then they're not even happy
with what we made for dinner,obviously they're going to
trigger something in us and wemight lash out and feel bad
about it after.
But if we can just be moreself-aware and say, hey, that's
(10:31):
okay, cindy, you were hungry,it's fine, the moment has passed
now we don't have to get stuckin this sort of snowball effect
in our minds of puttingourselves down, feeling bad
about the moment and then thatfollows us into the evening.
And so if we can be more awareof our emotions, we could become
(10:52):
more, not just attuned.
We could become more not justattuned but flexible in how we
are managing and dealing withemotional situations.
Because as a parent, there arelots of emotional situations.
They're coming at us left andright and we've got to find ways
to manage that a little bitbetter.
Another thing I realized as Iwas talking to a parent who
(11:14):
seems to be very much of aperfectionist.
I don't know if you can relateto this.
This parent is a high achieverin work.
This parent wants to maintain agood looking house, a clean
house, a maintained house, andso everything is pristine.
And so when kids act out.
That's out of the box of whatperfection is.
(11:36):
And then, in the style ofparenting, when you lash out at
your child or scream or getreally frustrated and go towards
threats rather than stayingcalm, as the positive or
conscious parenting movement hassuggested, then, according to
the definition of that kind ofparenting, I'm making a box with
(11:57):
my hands.
If you're not in that boxanymore, you are no longer in
that box.
And so, for a parent who's aperfectionist, you have failed.
Every single time that you getout of that calmness, you have
failed, and that's a heavyburden to carry.
And that was my moment ofrealization last week, where I
heard a parent talking about howhard it is to stay calm and
(12:21):
that every time she yells, she'sfailed.
And so what happens is that youare leaving for work in the
morning and you've been withyour kids for an hour, an hour
and a half.
You've already failed threetimes because nobody wanted to
get dressed and so you failed.
And then you bring them toschool or to daycare and you're
driving yourself to work orwalking to work and you already
(12:43):
have on your mind that youfailed as a parent that morning.
It's a heavy burden, and sothat is why I realized this week
we really need to move awayfrom that.
It's time I realized this weekwe really need to move away from
that.
It's time it's done its work.
(13:06):
We're still using the guidinglight of authoritative parenting
, where we want to keep thewarmth and sensitivity, as well
as limits and boundaries.
Both are important in parenting.
But can't we just use that asour guiding light?
But it'll look different for meand it'll look different for
you in your home.
But if that's our guiding light, then whenever we are off, we
kind of bring ourselves backonto that path of ooh, today I
wasn't really warm andresponsive and so I need to be
(13:28):
mindful of that tomorrow.
Or I really let go of thelimits and boundaries.
This weekend it was a free forall, but we had a lot of fun.
Back to limits and boundarieson Monday.
How can we set ourselves up forsuccess rather than failure as
parents?
And I think that if we can dothat as parents, I think the
burden and the heaviness ofsticking to a type of parenting
(13:52):
would be lifted.
Also, I hear from so manyparents moms in particular that
argue with their spouse becausethe mom has read all of these
books that suggest positiveparenting or conscious parenting
or responsive parenting is thebest kind of parenting.
And so anything outside of thatbox which I'm drawing with my
(14:14):
fingers is considered badparenting.
And so when your partner, thatbox which I'm drawing with my
fingers is considered badparenting, and so when your
partner has their own versionthat might be a little bit more
authoritarian, without thedisrespect, shaming or neglect
or abuse no hitting, as long asit doesn't veer towards that
then that parent has failed.
If they raise their voice attheir child, they failed
(14:35):
according to the definition thatwe might have set for ourselves
.
If they give a consequence,they failed according to that
type of parenting.
What about if we're just tryingto figure out what works best?
What about if the mindset thatwe have as a parent is okay?
I tried timeouts.
(14:56):
It's not working, let's move onto the next.
I've tried, I don't know,disciplining my child in this
way where I threatened them.
They're still doing it.
It didn't work, let's move onto the next.
How do I balance the boundaryand the warmth?
Well, I've been giving a lot oflimits and boundaries and
(15:17):
consequences, but maybe I'm notvalidating my child's emotions
very well, and so let me trydoing that with the consequence.
Hey, I see a difference.
I don't know Whatever will workout for your house and your
family, but if we can have thesort of mindset that allows us
to test things out and not seeeverything as a failure, I think
(15:40):
just that in itself willalleviate so much stress on our
shoulders, such a heaviness ofconstant failure, that we will
be able to become attuned, diginto what feels best and what
feels right for us as families,as parents.
And just to go back to one morething the emotion part.
(16:01):
This is another moment that wasa second part of this big
moment that I had this week theemotion part, that warmth and
sensitivity that I have beenspeaking about for years now.
The warmth and sensitivity is areally important part.
It's a new part that ourparents did not know.
There was no mention of warmthand sensitivity towards a
(16:22):
child's needs, to the point thatI've received so many messages
during the past few years whereparents, moms and dads have
reached out to me and said youtalk about warmth and
sensitivity, but what does thismean?
What does this sound like?
What does this look like?
And that was my moment thisweek where I realized, with this
particular parent who wasalways seeing herself as failing
(16:44):
, especially when it came tobeing calm she would fail or
showing up for her child'semotional needs.
She was never raised in anenvironment where her emotional
needs were responded to or metwith warmth and sensitivity.
And so if you, like me, arelike the many parents that
(17:08):
didn't grow up in thisenvironment, what's happening
now is we are parents and we arebeing told to show up with
warmth and sensitivity towardsour child's emotional needs.
We have no idea what it lookslike, no idea.
Some of us might haveexperienced it, but many of us
have not.
And so now, in addition tofailing because we are lashing
(17:31):
out, because we never learnedhow to regulate our emotions, we
have not developedself-awareness of our triggers
Now, as parents, we are alsofailing at this positive
parenting, conscious parenting,responsive parenting, whatever
it is, because we don't know howto show up for our child.
We don't know what that lookslike, and for some of us it
becomes uncomfortable, and so wejust see it as constant failure
(17:56):
.
Especially for somebody who'svery much of a perfectionist,
this is really hard, and I wantyou to be mindful this week.
So I want you to step back thisweek and I'm going to give you
the same activity I gave thisprivate client, because I think
that there's space for all of usto do this kind of work.
And if you want to do more ofthis work, now that the
(18:16):
Reflective Parent Club is athree-month program, I would not
make it anything less if youwere to join for two weeks, one
month, even a month and a halfor two months.
I know that it is not enoughtime to see a change in behavior
, a change in habits and achange in noticing patterns.
It takes much more time thanthat, which is why I've made it
a three-month program.
So this particular client, thereflection prompt and thought
(18:38):
activity that I gave her, wasdefine what perfect parenting is
for you, or define your versionsorry, define your version of
parenting.
And so what was listed werethese you know, 15 or 20 moments
of perfection, that creatingperfect moments for my child,
making sure I'm always calm forthem, not yelling at them or not
(19:01):
being so mean to them inmoments when I'm tired.
Then, once you've written thisdown, so this should be your
perfect moment, that should bethe left column.
The right column is what isgood enough.
What is good enough?
Because if your perfect idea ofparenting is not yelling at
(19:22):
your child is good enough, the80-20 rule which it should be,
by the way is good enough,saying, well, I'm going to do my
best, but I'm going to showmyself self-compassion in
moments when I'm tired, or I hada really stressful day, or we
had a really chaotic evening andI'm exhausted and I just need
to take a break.
(19:42):
Is it going to be okay the nextday when my child wants to do
something and I'm too tired, I'mlike, no, not today, but maybe
tomorrow.
Or am I going to feel guiltythat I said no?
I think that if we could becomemore compassionate and more
self-aware, we're going to catchthese moments and realize that
it's not always perfect andthat's part of parenting.
(20:04):
But what is your definition ofgood enough?
I want you to see it on paper.
I had done this a few monthsago with our parents inside the
Reflective Parent Club, where itwas about tasks, right, and the
sort of schedule that we putfor ourselves on weekends and we
want to clean the entire house,meal prep and do all the
(20:25):
activities with our kids andhave connection time and go to
soccer and go to and you see,the list goes on right.
However, what I wanted parentsto reflect on is what's a good
enough weekend?
Where's the downtime?
What do you need?
What do your kids need?
What is there too much of?
And so we're doing the samething in terms of our parenting
style.
Now I want you to take the weekto notice moments when you are
(20:48):
hard on yourself because of theparenting style you are choosing
to follow, and if thisdefinition that you've placed,
or this box that you've created,that is the parenting style
that you are following, if thatis leading to more stress and
feelings of failure and morepressure on yourself, then this
is the week, my friend.
This is the week that we stepout and we say, hey, okay, cindy
(21:12):
, you can follow this kind ofparenting, but you've placed too
many boundaries andrestrictions on yourself and you
need a little bit more freedom.
We need to make mistakes,because with those mistakes, we
are going to learn what theneeds are of our child or what
works for us as well.
But if we don't make thosemistakes, then we don't know
what's best, and so we need toallow ourselves to make mistakes
(21:35):
, and then we have to catchourselves in those mistakes, and
when we catch ourselves.
Then we start collecting alittle bit of data.
Okay, I did this with my child.
I yelled at bedtime.
It didn't work, but I was tiredand so I think I need to I
don't know take 10 minutes rightbefore bedtime to unwind.
Maybe not scrolling, maybesomething more nurturing to
yourself.
(21:55):
Maybe it's taking a moment tosip that hot tea and chilling
with your kids, instead ofputting certain pressures on
yourself.
Maybe, rather than doing thedishes, it's sitting on the
couch and playing Uno with yourkids for 10-15 minutes.
In our home, the number one gameis Monopoly Deal.
It's the card game of Monopolyand it's fast and it's really
(22:17):
fun.
And we play as a family andit's easy.
My five-year-old doesn't read,but there are images on it so he
could remember what some imagesare and what they mean.
And we play together and it'sreally fun.
So we have different ways ofconnecting connecting and
disconnecting from everythingelse that's going on, because
sometimes we know, okay, we needto go to bed, but if I push it
(22:38):
just 10 minutes in order toconnect with my child, I know
that's what they need today.
I could be strict on theboundary of the bedtime or I can
take the time to connect.
I need to connect with them andthey need to connect with me,
and so this is the kind ofparenting I'm hoping that I
could kind of bring awareness toin the next year, in 2025.
(22:59):
I call it reflective parenting,where it's just literally the
skills of pausing and reflecting, and if we can do that as a
society and as parents, I thinkthat we could make parenting a
little bit easier.
I hope you are part of theCurious Neuron newsletter.
If not, you can also download afreebie from me in the show
notes.
It's a reflective parent kit,your starter kit.
(23:23):
What does that look like?
What do I want to bringawareness to?
What reflection prompts can youstart with?
Get the freebie and see if thataligns with you and your kind
of parenting, and take the timethis week again to write down
what is your idea of perfectparenting and then what is the
good enough.
I hope you all have a beautifuland wonderful week.
(23:45):
Don't forget, if you liked thisepisode or you think it could
help somebody that's reallyputting pressure on themselves,
send it to them, share it withthem, share it on social media
tag Curious Neuron.
Help us grow as a community andput the word out there that
reflective parenting, in ouropinion, in my opinion is the
way for us to become moreresilient as parents, more
(24:06):
confident, and that competenceMost parents that come into the
Reflective Parent Club have lowcompetence, meaning that they
don't think they have the skills.
That, my friend, is a story foranother time.
I'm going to talk about thatbecause it's another reason why
I think we have to move awayfrom this idea of positive
parenting and just think aboutbuilding the right skills, which
(24:27):
is again why I built theReflective Parent Club.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
I hope again that you have abeautiful and wonderful week.
I will see you next Monday.
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com