July 23, 2025 • 14 mins
How would you feel if your child suddenly embodied everything about you - your self-talk, how you treat others, your entire essence? Would you be proud? This question serves as a powerful mirror for every parent's journey, forcing us to examine not just how we parent, but how we exist in the world.
The podcast explores several thought-provoking parenting paradoxes we rarely question. Why do we find it perfectly normal for adults to need sleep aids like weighted blankets or the comfort of a partner, yet label infants as "needy" when they require physical closeness to sleep? After spending nine months inside their mothers, we somehow expect these tiny humans to adapt immediately to sleeping alone in dark rooms. This cultural expectation stands in stark contrast to their biological needs for security and connection.
Finding the delicate balance between supporting our children and allowing them to develop problem-solving skills presents another parenting challenge. When should we step in during sibling conflicts, and when should we let them work things out? Personal experiences often color these decisions - my own childhood experiences with a sibling who damaged my self-esteem makes me particularly vigilant about certain dynamics between my children. Yet I recognize the importance of letting them develop their own conflict resolution skills.
The most meaningful indicator that we're doing something right comes when others comment on our children's behavior outside our presence. Those moments of positive feedback suggest that despite the daily struggles and second-guessing, something good is getting through. I'd love to hear how other parents navigate these challenges - how do you decide when to intervene versus when to step back? Share your thoughts and experiences through the link in the description.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Steel Versus Podcast.
This podcast was created forwomen, by women, to elevate
women's voices.
Hope everyone is having a greatsummer thus far.
Finally, in New Jersey we havesome decent weather, although
the pockets of rain are superannoying.
I'm going to sound like a bratfor a second, but I wanted to go
to the beach and it looked likeevery two hours it was going to
(00:20):
downpour and it did actually,and it was just kind of a pain
in the ass, but nevertheless itwas going to downpour and it did
actually, and it was just kindof a pain in the ass, but
nevertheless grateful for thesomewhat sunny weather that we
have at this point in time.
So I hope everyone's beengetting out and enjoying it.
I said to one of my mom friendsthe other day I feel like I'm
blinking and the summer iscoming to a close, like, yes,
things are better this summerCause I already told all of you
(00:41):
that kids are in camp and it isa little bit more pricey, but at
least you know I have my sanityand it's really making a world
of difference.
And it also makes me continueto reflect back on when I was
trying to carry everything on myshoulders all the time and
refused help and always feltlike I had to do everything and
that everything was a priorityand everything was always on my
(01:01):
shoulders.
And now that I've let go someof that control that I
desperately needed before, andnow that I've put some things to
the side and said, like youknow what, I do deserve to have
a break, or I do deserve to dothings by myself, um, yeah, my
sanity is a is a lot better.
I'm also, um, in like the goodphase of the month for me.
(01:24):
Um, I'm going to do a wholeepisode on the various phases
throughout the month for themenstrual cycle, because it
makes such a big difference tohow you feel in the moment,
especially for us ladies gettingin our 40s.
This is like prime time for usfor like lots of things.
We finally know who we are.
We're operating on a wholeother you know, functional level
, cognitively, but there's alsoa lot of physical things that
(01:45):
we're going through too too.
So there's there's a bit of abalance there imbalance, rather,
in some days, but um, so I'mgonna do a whole episode on that
.
Today's focus.
I wanted to talk about being aparent, and I'm still kind of in
honor of all my cousins thathave kids or just recently had
babies.
They're just starting out,starting the new phases of
infant toddler, little kid, bigkid.
(02:05):
You know, they're really at thebeginning stages and I'm at the
stage where I'm starting tojust second guess, like, have I
done this correctly?
And I'm not even.
I'm not done, you're never donebeing a parent.
But now I'm in the mindset of,like, I'm seeing some behaviors,
you know, that I don't love inmy kid kids and you know, I
wonder to myself, like, was itme?
Did I do something here totrigger this?
Was there too much yelling whenthey were little?
(02:27):
Or did I, you know, did I notacknowledge their feelings on
something?
So in my head, I'm consistentlynot criticizing, but
constructive, constructivelyreviewing things in my head,
because we can always do betterright now.
One of the reasons why thisthought stream had started was
because I saw this, um, thislittle snippet on Pinterest and
I actually flagged it because Iwanted to share with all of you.
(02:48):
And there's this keynotespeaker and he's a room full of
people and he's talking to allthe parents and he says, you
know, for the parents in theroom, if your child today, um,
you know, grew up right now andwas you in this moment and
talked to themselves, how youtalk to yourself and treated
people how you treat people, andjust showed up?
How you showed up and reallyembodied everything about you
(03:10):
and that's who they become,exactly how you are today?
Would you be proud of that?
Would you even want that?
And I said this to my husbandand we were kind of just both
reflecting on it a little bitand I'm happy to say that, with
that self-reflection, I feelpretty good about that.
I would feel good about it.
I would feel great about it.
Actually, if they could advancethat quickly right now and have
(03:30):
my brain in their head and how Italk to myself and how I treat
people and the very essence ofme in them, right in this moment
, I would be very proud and I'vebeen working very hard on this
on me as a human and especiallyafter having kids my children
along with my husband.
But my kids mostly pushed me tobe a better person, because I
(03:53):
kept reflecting to myself overthe years if you want your kids
to, you know, break generationaltrauma, or if you want them to,
you know, do better than youlike, then you actually have to
do better and show them that inthe moment, because you can
lecture your child over and overand over again, you know, for
(04:14):
example, you can tell your kidover and over and over again
cigarettes, kill, don't, don'tsmoke cigarettes.
It's a terrible habit, it'sawful for you, it's horrible,
it's horrible, it's horrible.
But if then you are yourself asmoker, your words are not going
to mean anything.
They're just going to see youractions.
And your actions do truly speakvolumes louder in words.
So just future thought.
If your child turned into youright in this moment and
(04:37):
embodied everything about you,would this be a proud moment for
you.
So just a little thoughtstarter there.
Now there's another one that Isaw that's a little bit
controversial.
So it's one of those like hottake kind of situations.
I'm going to read it direct andthen we can talk about it.
So the quote here on Pinterestsays it's crazy to me that it's
socially acceptable for adultsto cuddle their spouses to sleep
and use other sleep aids suchas eye masks, weighted blankets
(04:59):
or essential oils.
Yet tiny humans, who need thebiologically normal physical
closeness of a parent to be ableto fall asleep, are called
needy, spoiled or too dependent.
I've given this a great deal ofthought, because I was quite
often judged at the amount thatI had my kids on top of me, that
I was carrying my kids, and inmy mind I always rationalize it
(05:22):
as at some point they're notgoing to need mommy right.
At some point I can't pick themup, it's physically going to be
impossible, and I'm not pickingthem up because I'm swooned.
I'm picking them up because I'mtheir mother and if my child
comes to me and is crying, if Ican pick them up and it's safe
and it's, you know, even're oneof the very few countries that
doesn't, you know, doesn'treally promote like co-sleep,
(05:49):
you know, co-sleeping with yourkids.
Now, I never actually did thaton a regular, but if my kid was
scared or had nightmares orsomething, I pulled them into
bed with me.
Not a big deal.
I didn't do it consistentlybecause I just don't have I
didn't have that in me.
I just I didn't want that, wantthat.
But I will say this the firstfour years of my kids' lives I
actually was either sleeping inthe same room with them or very
(06:09):
close by, because they would getup so often that I found it
pointless to just go back to myroom, so I would literally sleep
in the room with them.
They slept great Every time Ihad to do that.
Now, did I like that?
No, not so much.
I wanted to be next to myhusband but at the same time
time you know that was more of alogistical issue with me, but
really, really think about this.
Like this tiny, tiny littlebundle has been inside of us.
(06:32):
It grew inside of me for ninemonths and as soon as it comes
out, I'm supposed to start sleeptraining and leaving it by
itself.
I still have a hard timewrapping my head around that now
.
Granted, I used to get sofrustrated because I just wanted
them to go to sleep, and I usedto get so angry because I had
other things I needed to do, butthat's really the key thing
there, right, I had other thingsI was trying to get to instead
(06:52):
of just focusing on my kid.
You know, there's so manythings that you can think back
on and think to yourself oh, Icould have done this differently
, or I wish I had gone adifferent way with this.
One thing that we can't evertake back is every single moment
with our kid.
You can't.
I mean, it applies across theboard, to older people and
everything.
But for the time, there's avery brief moment where you're
(07:14):
the focal point of your child,you're their whole world, you're
everything.
And it starts to slowly go awayas they get older.
And I say this now because mykids are getting older and I do
start to see it slowly goingaway.
I'm glad that I babied them.
I'm glad that they knew thatmommy was there and mommy was
always going to be there whenthey needed them.
Now, when they need me today,it shows up differently.
It's not the same as when theywere little and they would cry
(07:35):
at night and I'd have to getfrustrated and go in there and
give them a bottle, whatever.
Blah, blah, blah.
Now it shows up as mommy.
I have to talk to you.
Something happened, or mommy,or mommy I heard this phrase.
Can you tell me what it is?
I'm the person that they cometo now when they have a question
or if they need to be reassuredor if they want to talk
something out.
That's me.
So I think that there is aconnection there between me
(07:56):
being there and making sure thatthey always knew I was their
safe space, and now I am theirsafe space.
I hope it continues that way.
So it's kind of just like afood for thought.
I would be interested in hearingother people's opinions about,
you know, how we treat infantsand how we immediately think
they're, or act as if theyshould be, on their own once,
once they're born.
I still think it's.
It's kind of nuts, um, toexpect, you know, a little
(08:19):
little tiny baby who has no ideawhat's going on around it or
really can't articulate anything, to be totally fine with being
in a completely dark room byitself, probably cold.
You know, like it just doesn't.
It just doesn't make sense.
Like literally, logically, itdoesn't make sense.
But I'd be interested inhearing everyone's opinions on
it, because I know this is kindof a hot take.
People go back and forth again,like I mentioned, like the
(08:39):
co-sleeping thing, because I dohave some relatives that did
that and I don't know that I'mtotally on board with that
either because then at what agedo you cut the co-sleeping off?
And then wouldn't it be muchmore harder for them to get into
their beds and be comfortablein there?
Yeah, see I.
I mean, I go back and forth onthis, because now my kids are
big, there's no way I'd be ableto co-sleep with them.
I can't imagine that, like youknow.
So I don't know.
(09:00):
I'd be very interested inhearing other people's opinions
about this because I do verymuch feel like we in the United
States basically kind of aretold like, oh, just abandon your
young, and some of it is, likeyou know, we don't have a choice
because of work and whatever,and the finances now, the
economies, and, my God, in suchbad position for us middle class
folks and the lower incomepeople that it just it's getting
(09:23):
really difficult.
So I just just I'm curious tosee what everyone's opinions are
there now.
Third and final topic and thenI'll let everybody go is another
quote that I saw on here and Ican't read it because it was a
video, so it goes a little likepunchy, but essentially the
takeaway from the video is thatwe're raising mentally weak
children when we don't let themtroubleshoot on their own and we
(09:45):
don't allow them to thinkthrough and problem solve on
their own.
If we're consistently there forthem in terms of, you know,
stepping in and makingeverything okay, then we're not
allowing them to gain theconfidence and to gain the
really brain power I don't knowhow else to say that to figure
out their own problems brainpower I don't know how else to
(10:08):
say that to figure out their ownproblems.
I will say this the way that myhusband and I approach problem
solving with our kids is we willlisten.
So our kids fight all the time,just like everyone else's kids
that have siblings.
I mean it's like a free for allright, and so we'll listen.
And if we happen to hear likethe tone of voices starting to
change, we can tell when thingsare escalating, before they get
like to a fever pitch, and thenwe'll we'll wait a beat,
(10:28):
literally just a beat.
I mean you can tell whenthey're going to fix it and when
they're not.
Now, a lot of times when I dointerject, or when my husband
interjects, I mean it's becausewe're seeing something we really
don't want to say or we don'tlike and we have to course
correct.
Right, like I'm not againstcourse correcting, but I am pro
letting them figure some thingsout on their own.
Now I'll give an example, apersonal example here.
(10:50):
My oldest and one of the twinsare consistently butting heads
Like a lot, so much so that I'mlike hyper vigilant, and I'm not
sure if the reason why ittriggers me so badly is because
when I was growing up, my olderbrother was the same way with me
and nobody stepped in and Ithink my parents did what they
could.
But you know, I just distinctlyremember my older brother
(11:12):
terrorizing me and me hating himand I would be crying and my
self-esteem was horrible.
And you know, because he wasjust consistently making fun of
me and just consistently makingme feel bad and I really
internalized a lot of that.
And so I I suppose that I'mtriggered because of that,
because when I see my son doingit to one of my, my daughters, I
don't, I won't have that, Ijust won't have it.
(11:34):
I will not stand for it.
And I bring it very vocally tohis attention and to the twins
attention that if this continueson, you're gonna hate each
other for a while.
It's gonna happen.
And to my son, I consistently amletting him know if you
continue with this behavior,you're not.
You know, people are not goingto be want to hang out with you.
You cannot control everything,so it's something that's like an
(11:54):
ongoing process ofcommunication.
Now there's instances where Idon't interject.
There's times where I will justpull one of them aside and say
listen, hey, like you didn'thandle this quite right, you
might want to think about this.
There's a constant stream andflow of communication from
myself and my husband,constantly trying to make sure
they hear something, thatsomething gets through.
(12:16):
Now we know that some level,some, some knowledge is getting
to them, because we we've beentold from other people when our
children are out of the housethat like, oh, we love your kids
, we love your kids, your kidsare awesome, you're, you know
your kids really.
Oh, we love talking with them.
They're, they're a riot and I'mlike all right, like so I know
that there's something gettingin there.
(12:36):
I just don't know how much ofit.
I'll take a 25 at this point.
I just want to make surethey're okay and that they're
being respectful people whenthey leave this house.
But I am curious again what areyour thoughts?
You know, what do you thinkabout this?
If you're any kind of singleparent, two parent household,
whatever, I am very curious tounderstand how other parents are
handling this.
(12:56):
Are you stepping inconsistently when there's a
problem?
You know when, if your childhas a problem with somebody else
at school, how are you handlingthat?
You know, I'm curious aboutthat because we haven't had too
much of that just yet, but I doactually make it a point also to
make sure that if my child istalking about somebody that
they're friends with in school,that I get that parent's phone
number, because I find it mucheasier to be able to just reach
(13:19):
out to the parent directly tosay, hey, like I heard this,
this and this happened at school.
Do you happen to know anythingabout it?
And if you keep it casual andyou keep it, you know more.
On a hey, we're we're parentsin this together, like we're
both trying to figure stuff out.
Did you hear anything?
If you heard something, can youlet me know?
It takes a village, you know.
I just want to put that outthere too, and I am curious
about how other parents arehandling letting their kids
(13:40):
troubleshoot.
Are you letting them deal withstuff?
Are you stepping in all thetime?
I'd really be interested inhearing from you.
You can, in the description,message me directly and I'll get
it, which is pretty cool.
Somebody did it recently and Iwas very excited about it.
So please feel free to leveragethat to get to me and I'd be
happy to give you a shout out onthe next week and I can talk
about what you message about.
I hope you all enjoyed thisepisode.
I wanted to give you a coupleof thoughts that are there about
(14:02):
parenting.
See what everyone's thinking,what the vibe is.
I hope that you all are havinga wonderful summer, as I said,
and I will catch you on the nextone.
Take care.
This is Steel Versus Podcast.
This podcast was created forwomen, by women, to elevate
women's voices.
Hope everyone is having a greatsummer thus far.
Finally, in New Jersey we havesome decent weather, although
the pockets of rain are superannoying.
I'm going to sound like a bratfor a second, but I wanted to go
to the beach and it looked likeevery two hours it was going to
(00:20):
downpour and it did actually,and it was just kind of a pain
in the ass, but nevertheless itwas going to downpour and it did
actually, and it was just kindof a pain in the ass, but
nevertheless grateful for thesomewhat sunny weather that we
have at this point in time.
So I hope everyone's beengetting out and enjoying it.
I said to one of my mom friendsthe other day I feel like I'm
blinking and the summer iscoming to a close, like, yes,
things are better this summerCause I already told all of you
(00:41):
that kids are in camp and it isa little bit more pricey, but at
least you know I have my sanityand it's really making a world
of difference.
And it also makes me continueto reflect back on when I was
trying to carry everything on myshoulders all the time and
refused help and always feltlike I had to do everything and
that everything was a priorityand everything was always on my
(01:01):
shoulders.
And now that I've let go someof that control that I
desperately needed before, andnow that I've put some things to
the side and said, like youknow what, I do deserve to have
a break, or I do deserve to dothings by myself, um, yeah, my
sanity is a is a lot better.
I'm also, um, in like the goodphase of the month for me.
(01:24):
Um, I'm going to do a wholeepisode on the various phases
throughout the month for themenstrual cycle, because it
makes such a big difference tohow you feel in the moment,
especially for us ladies gettingin our 40s.
This is like prime time for usfor like lots of things.
We finally know who we are.
We're operating on a wholeother you know, functional level
, cognitively, but there's alsoa lot of physical things that
(01:45):
we're going through too too.
So there's there's a bit of abalance there imbalance, rather,
in some days, but um, so I'mgonna do a whole episode on that
.
Today's focus.
I wanted to talk about being aparent, and I'm still kind of in
honor of all my cousins thathave kids or just recently had
babies.
They're just starting out,starting the new phases of
infant toddler, little kid, bigkid.
(02:05):
You know, they're really at thebeginning stages and I'm at the
stage where I'm starting tojust second guess, like, have I
done this correctly?
And I'm not even.
I'm not done, you're never donebeing a parent.
But now I'm in the mindset of,like, I'm seeing some behaviors,
you know, that I don't love inmy kid kids and you know, I
wonder to myself, like, was itme?
Did I do something here totrigger this?
Was there too much yelling whenthey were little?
(02:27):
Or did I, you know, did I notacknowledge their feelings on
something?
So in my head, I'm consistentlynot criticizing, but
constructive, constructivelyreviewing things in my head,
because we can always do betterright now.
One of the reasons why thisthought stream had started was
because I saw this, um, thislittle snippet on Pinterest and
I actually flagged it because Iwanted to share with all of you.
(02:48):
And there's this keynotespeaker and he's a room full of
people and he's talking to allthe parents and he says, you
know, for the parents in theroom, if your child today, um,
you know, grew up right now andwas you in this moment and
talked to themselves, how youtalk to yourself and treated
people how you treat people, andjust showed up?
How you showed up and reallyembodied everything about you
(03:10):
and that's who they become,exactly how you are today?
Would you be proud of that?
Would you even want that?
And I said this to my husbandand we were kind of just both
reflecting on it a little bitand I'm happy to say that, with
that self-reflection, I feelpretty good about that.
I would feel good about it.
I would feel great about it.
Actually, if they could advancethat quickly right now and have
(03:30):
my brain in their head and how Italk to myself and how I treat
people and the very essence ofme in them, right in this moment
, I would be very proud and I'vebeen working very hard on this
on me as a human and especiallyafter having kids my children
along with my husband.
But my kids mostly pushed me tobe a better person, because I
(03:53):
kept reflecting to myself overthe years if you want your kids
to, you know, break generationaltrauma, or if you want them to,
you know, do better than youlike, then you actually have to
do better and show them that inthe moment, because you can
lecture your child over and overand over again, you know, for
(04:14):
example, you can tell your kidover and over and over again
cigarettes, kill, don't, don'tsmoke cigarettes.
It's a terrible habit, it'sawful for you, it's horrible,
it's horrible, it's horrible.
But if then you are yourself asmoker, your words are not going
to mean anything.
They're just going to see youractions.
And your actions do truly speakvolumes louder in words.
So just future thought.
If your child turned into youright in this moment and
(04:37):
embodied everything about you,would this be a proud moment for
you.
So just a little thoughtstarter there.
Now there's another one that Isaw that's a little bit
controversial.
So it's one of those like hottake kind of situations.
I'm going to read it direct andthen we can talk about it.
So the quote here on Pinterestsays it's crazy to me that it's
socially acceptable for adultsto cuddle their spouses to sleep
and use other sleep aids suchas eye masks, weighted blankets
(04:59):
or essential oils.
Yet tiny humans, who need thebiologically normal physical
closeness of a parent to be ableto fall asleep, are called
needy, spoiled or too dependent.
I've given this a great deal ofthought, because I was quite
often judged at the amount thatI had my kids on top of me, that
I was carrying my kids, and inmy mind I always rationalize it
(05:22):
as at some point they're notgoing to need mommy right.
At some point I can't pick themup, it's physically going to be
impossible, and I'm not pickingthem up because I'm swooned.
I'm picking them up because I'mtheir mother and if my child
comes to me and is crying, if Ican pick them up and it's safe
and it's, you know, even're oneof the very few countries that
doesn't, you know, doesn'treally promote like co-sleep,
(05:49):
you know, co-sleeping with yourkids.
Now, I never actually did thaton a regular, but if my kid was
scared or had nightmares orsomething, I pulled them into
bed with me.
Not a big deal.
I didn't do it consistentlybecause I just don't have I
didn't have that in me.
I just I didn't want that, wantthat.
But I will say this the firstfour years of my kids' lives I
actually was either sleeping inthe same room with them or very
(06:09):
close by, because they would getup so often that I found it
pointless to just go back to myroom, so I would literally sleep
in the room with them.
They slept great Every time Ihad to do that.
Now, did I like that?
No, not so much.
I wanted to be next to myhusband but at the same time
time you know that was more of alogistical issue with me, but
really, really think about this.
Like this tiny, tiny littlebundle has been inside of us.
(06:32):
It grew inside of me for ninemonths and as soon as it comes
out, I'm supposed to start sleeptraining and leaving it by
itself.
I still have a hard timewrapping my head around that now
.
Granted, I used to get sofrustrated because I just wanted
them to go to sleep, and I usedto get so angry because I had
other things I needed to do, butthat's really the key thing
there, right, I had other thingsI was trying to get to instead
(06:52):
of just focusing on my kid.
You know, there's so manythings that you can think back
on and think to yourself oh, Icould have done this differently
, or I wish I had gone adifferent way with this.
One thing that we can't evertake back is every single moment
with our kid.
You can't.
I mean, it applies across theboard, to older people and
everything.
But for the time, there's avery brief moment where you're
(07:14):
the focal point of your child,you're their whole world, you're
everything.
And it starts to slowly go awayas they get older.
And I say this now because mykids are getting older and I do
start to see it slowly goingaway.
I'm glad that I babied them.
I'm glad that they knew thatmommy was there and mommy was
always going to be there whenthey needed them.
Now, when they need me today,it shows up differently.
It's not the same as when theywere little and they would cry
(07:35):
at night and I'd have to getfrustrated and go in there and
give them a bottle, whatever.
Blah, blah, blah.
Now it shows up as mommy.
I have to talk to you.
Something happened, or mommy,or mommy I heard this phrase.
Can you tell me what it is?
I'm the person that they cometo now when they have a question
or if they need to be reassuredor if they want to talk
something out.
That's me.
So I think that there is aconnection there between me
(07:56):
being there and making sure thatthey always knew I was their
safe space, and now I am theirsafe space.
I hope it continues that way.
So it's kind of just like afood for thought.
I would be interested in hearingother people's opinions about,
you know, how we treat infantsand how we immediately think
they're, or act as if theyshould be, on their own once,
once they're born.
I still think it's.
It's kind of nuts, um, toexpect, you know, a little
(08:19):
little tiny baby who has no ideawhat's going on around it or
really can't articulate anything, to be totally fine with being
in a completely dark room byitself, probably cold.
You know, like it just doesn't.
It just doesn't make sense.
Like literally, logically, itdoesn't make sense.
But I'd be interested inhearing everyone's opinions on
it, because I know this is kindof a hot take.
People go back and forth again,like I mentioned, like the
(08:39):
co-sleeping thing, because I dohave some relatives that did
that and I don't know that I'mtotally on board with that
either because then at what agedo you cut the co-sleeping off?
And then wouldn't it be muchmore harder for them to get into
their beds and be comfortablein there?
Yeah, see I.
I mean, I go back and forth onthis, because now my kids are
big, there's no way I'd be ableto co-sleep with them.
I can't imagine that, like youknow.
So I don't know.
(09:00):
I'd be very interested inhearing other people's opinions
about this because I do verymuch feel like we in the United
States basically kind of aretold like, oh, just abandon your
young, and some of it is, likeyou know, we don't have a choice
because of work and whatever,and the finances now, the
economies, and, my God, in suchbad position for us middle class
folks and the lower incomepeople that it just it's getting
(09:23):
really difficult.
So I just just I'm curious tosee what everyone's opinions are
there now.
Third and final topic and thenI'll let everybody go is another
quote that I saw on here and Ican't read it because it was a
video, so it goes a little likepunchy, but essentially the
takeaway from the video is thatwe're raising mentally weak
children when we don't let themtroubleshoot on their own and we
(09:45):
don't allow them to thinkthrough and problem solve on
their own.
If we're consistently there forthem in terms of, you know,
stepping in and makingeverything okay, then we're not
allowing them to gain theconfidence and to gain the
really brain power I don't knowhow else to say that to figure
out their own problems brainpower I don't know how else to
(10:08):
say that to figure out their ownproblems.
I will say this the way that myhusband and I approach problem
solving with our kids is we willlisten.
So our kids fight all the time,just like everyone else's kids
that have siblings.
I mean it's like a free for allright, and so we'll listen.
And if we happen to hear likethe tone of voices starting to
change, we can tell when thingsare escalating, before they get
like to a fever pitch, and thenwe'll we'll wait a beat,
(10:28):
literally just a beat.
I mean you can tell whenthey're going to fix it and when
they're not.
Now, a lot of times when I dointerject, or when my husband
interjects, I mean it's becausewe're seeing something we really
don't want to say or we don'tlike and we have to course
correct.
Right, like I'm not againstcourse correcting, but I am pro
letting them figure some thingsout on their own.
Now I'll give an example, apersonal example here.
(10:50):
My oldest and one of the twinsare consistently butting heads
Like a lot, so much so that I'mlike hyper vigilant, and I'm not
sure if the reason why ittriggers me so badly is because
when I was growing up, my olderbrother was the same way with me
and nobody stepped in and Ithink my parents did what they
could.
But you know, I just distinctlyremember my older brother
(11:12):
terrorizing me and me hating himand I would be crying and my
self-esteem was horrible.
And you know, because he wasjust consistently making fun of
me and just consistently makingme feel bad and I really
internalized a lot of that.
And so I I suppose that I'mtriggered because of that,
because when I see my son doingit to one of my, my daughters, I
don't, I won't have that, Ijust won't have it.
(11:34):
I will not stand for it.
And I bring it very vocally tohis attention and to the twins
attention that if this continueson, you're gonna hate each
other for a while.
It's gonna happen.
And to my son, I consistently amletting him know if you
continue with this behavior,you're not.
You know, people are not goingto be want to hang out with you.
You cannot control everything,so it's something that's like an
(11:54):
ongoing process ofcommunication.
Now there's instances where Idon't interject.
There's times where I will justpull one of them aside and say
listen, hey, like you didn'thandle this quite right, you
might want to think about this.
There's a constant stream andflow of communication from
myself and my husband,constantly trying to make sure
they hear something, thatsomething gets through.
(12:16):
Now we know that some level,some, some knowledge is getting
to them, because we we've beentold from other people when our
children are out of the housethat like, oh, we love your kids
, we love your kids, your kidsare awesome, you're, you know
your kids really.
Oh, we love talking with them.
They're, they're a riot and I'mlike all right, like so I know
that there's something gettingin there.
(12:36):
I just don't know how much ofit.
I'll take a 25 at this point.
I just want to make surethey're okay and that they're
being respectful people whenthey leave this house.
But I am curious again what areyour thoughts?
You know, what do you thinkabout this?
If you're any kind of singleparent, two parent household,
whatever, I am very curious tounderstand how other parents are
handling this.
(12:56):
Are you stepping inconsistently when there's a
problem?
You know when, if your childhas a problem with somebody else
at school, how are you handlingthat?
You know, I'm curious aboutthat because we haven't had too
much of that just yet, but I doactually make it a point also to
make sure that if my child istalking about somebody that
they're friends with in school,that I get that parent's phone
number, because I find it mucheasier to be able to just reach
(13:19):
out to the parent directly tosay, hey, like I heard this,
this and this happened at school.
Do you happen to know anythingabout it?
And if you keep it casual andyou keep it, you know more.
On a hey, we're we're parentsin this together, like we're
both trying to figure stuff out.
Did you hear anything?
If you heard something, can youlet me know?
It takes a village, you know.
I just want to put that outthere too, and I am curious
about how other parents arehandling letting their kids
(13:40):
troubleshoot.
Are you letting them deal withstuff?
Are you stepping in all thetime?
I'd really be interested inhearing from you.
You can, in the description,message me directly and I'll get
it, which is pretty cool.
Somebody did it recently and Iwas very excited about it.
So please feel free to leveragethat to get to me and I'd be
happy to give you a shout out onthe next week and I can talk
about what you message about.
I hope you all enjoyed thisepisode.
I wanted to give you a coupleof thoughts that are there about
(14:02):
parenting.
See what everyone's thinking,what the vibe is.
I hope that you all are havinga wonderful summer, as I said,
and I will catch you on the nextone.
Take care.
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