May 29, 2025 • 30 mins
🎙️ Episode 11: Worthiness<br><br>
In our newest episode—<strong>Worthiness</strong>—we’re continuing our journey through Brené Brown’s <a href="https://brenebrown.com/art/the-wholehearted-parenting-manifesto/">Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto</a>.<br><br>
📜 “I want you to engage with the world from a place of worthiness.”<br><br>
🌱 <strong>Worthiness</strong> = A grounded feeling and core belief that says, “I deserve to take up space in this world.”<br><br>
This one hits close to home.<br><br>
We have a child who is easygoing, adaptable, the family peacemaker. And yet—we’re learning that those same qualities can lead her to shrink. To accommodate. To keep the peace and stifle her wants.<br><br>
So this week we’re asking:<br>
How do we raise kids who believe they are worthy—without needing to be helpful, quiet, agreeable, or easy to love?<br>
How do we help them trust that it’s safe to rock the boat and still belong?<br><br>
🎧 In this episode, we talk about:<br>
- How worthiness differs from loved and lovable<br>
- Why adaptable ≠low need<br>
- The invisible ways some people learn to disappear—and how we as a family can support them in claiming space<br><br>
Each person in our family deserves to know they don’t have to earn their place. They belong—not because they’re easy or exceptional—but simply because they’re here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to The Most Important Thing.
I'm Danielle DeMarco Neufeld. And I'm Greg Neufeld, and
together we're exploring how ambitious busy families can
build culture at home. Because after all, family is the
most important thing. Hi, Greg.
Hey, Danielle, how's it going? It's going great, yes.
So today we are talking about worthiness, specifically from
(00:24):
the second paragraph of Brene Brown's Wholehearted Parenting
Manifesto. Would you like to read this
part? Sure.
It goes. I want you to engage with the
world from a place of worthiness.
You will learn that you are worthy of love and belonging and
joy every time you see me. Practice self compassion and
(00:45):
embrace my own imperfections. Beautiful.
So last episode we talked about loved and lovable and attempted
to distinguish between them. We talked about loved as a
feeling coming towards me, a feeling that someone is deeply
here for me and sees me, and then lovable as a feeling within
(01:08):
me, part of my identity where I believe I am worthy of love just
as I am. And so today we are introducing
1/3 similar but distinguishable concept of worthiness, which is
a grounded feeling and core belief that says I deserve to
(01:29):
take up space in this world. I think that lovable is at the
heart of worthiness, but that worthiness is more broad.
It says I deserve it all to havethe full human experience.
I'm worthy of love, belonging, and joy and everything else in
this world. I am here to claim my place,
(01:53):
starting with my place in my family.
And so today I want to talk about worthiness as a way of
engaging with the world. Yeah, I really love this
distinction because when we say I want my kids to feel loved, we
usually mean all three. And I think the hardest one to
(02:13):
show it's worthiness. Worthiness is less about
gestures. That's more tone, consistency
and space. Especially space.
Yeah, I keep coming back to thisidea of taking up space,
claiming your space, which is funny.
(02:34):
Every time I think about that, Ithink about the astronauts
planting the US flag on the moon.
We are here, right? I am here.
I am worthy of taking up space in this world, and I believe
that the most important thing about engaging with the world
from a place of worthiness is that each person in our family
deserves to know that they don'thave to earn their place.
(02:55):
It really comes down to belonging.
They know that they belong not because they're easygoing or
exceptional in some way, but simply because they're here and
that it is our job to show them that belonging holds steady even
when they make mistakes or have big feelings.
(03:16):
They have this inalienable rightto be here.
So in thinking about how to frame this episode and set the
context window, if you will, Greg, I started thinking about
worthiness in our family. And I would say that most of us
have a very strong sense, a verystrong sense of I deserve to
(03:39):
take up space in this world. I will admit I do not have a
problem here. Yeah, Nope.
Me either. And neither do Hunter or
Maverick or even Winston. Would you agree?
I would agree. Winston is our 8 year old
cockapoo, which I don't think we've mentioned him before, but
he is our first born love of ourlife who typically sits at our
(03:59):
feet while we are podcasting. That's right, he's here right
now. And he is also not afraid to
make himself known. No, he's not.
Yeah, but there's one person whoI think struggles with this a
bit, and that is our middle daughter, Jade.
Yeah, Jade. So let's talk about Jade for a
(04:23):
little bit. She's actually one of our
favorite things to talk about because she's magical.
Truly. She's silly and warm and playful
in a way that I admire so deeply.
You and I both say that she is our greatest inspiration.
She is. And her friends adore her.
The feedback that I get from Jade as a friend is unlike any
(04:46):
I've received for myself or for Hunter.
And I don't know about you, Greg, but I would imagine for
you too. It's not just because she's
goofy, but because she's so truly nice.
Yeah, she really is truly nice, and she's also really resilient.
After she gets hurt, she'll comeover, she'll get a hug, but then
she'll take that hug and say OK,I'm done now and go back better
(05:09):
than ever. And when she's alone, her joyful
determination is unparalleled. I have never seen another human
being, let alone a child, mastera skill like Jade.
When she was working on the monkey bars, she would do it so
many times that she literally had puncture wounds in both of
her palms from the wood at school.
But she would just get back up halfway through, fall down, get
(05:33):
back up with a huge smile on herface and go again for hours.
This girl would practice, and now she's a master, but she
still loves to do it. This.
I keep calling it joyful determination because I think
I'm a pretty determined person, but I would never call myself a
joyfully determined person. And that's that's a big part of
why I think she's such an inspiration.
(05:55):
I watch her and think this kid has so much to teach the world
already, but within our family dynamic, it's just different.
Her big sister Hunter and her little brother Maverick.
They're intense, they demand attention and there is no doubt
that they fill their space. But with Jade, you and I have to
look twice. We've had many a post bedtime
conversation about how do we make sure to not overlook Jade?
(06:20):
And so I think this conversation, framed with
worthiness and taking up space, will actually give us less
abstract, more concrete ideas for how to make sure that her
claim within this family is marked and is known.
(06:41):
Yeah, I'm guessing we're not alone here.
With parenting Hunter and Maverick, it's a very similar
playbook so far. But with Jade, it's hard to
notice some of the things that she definitely deeply feels
because she doesn't appear to bevisibly upset.
(07:04):
Instead, she's flexible. Yeah, so let's give some
examples. So almost every morning I find
her giving away the last bites of her breakfast to either her
brother or sister, both of whom constantly ask her if they can
finish her plate. Many mornings her older sister
wants to match with her, and I can tell that she doesn't
(07:27):
necessarily want to, but she will come downstairs in an
outfit matching Hunter just to make the conflict go away.
She doesn't complain, she just does it and I think that can be
a strength. Yeah, but flexibility can really
slide into invisibility and she shouldn't have to ask to be
(07:50):
seen. Yeah, that's so true.
And that's what I really wrestlewith as her mom.
I want her to, as Brené Brown says, engage with the world from
a place of worthiness, includingin our family.
And yet I don't want to force itupon her either.
So what I'm hoping that we can come to is a way to allow her to
(08:13):
step into the space that she is so worthy of without me or you
being another force in her life that gives her an opinion about
like, how to be worthy. Yeah.
It's tricky. It is.
And then the other aspect of this is when she acts out.
Yeah, with Hunter and Maverick, acting out is big and loud.
(08:35):
You know exactly what they're feeling.
But with Jade, it's like she's watching us the whole time.
She's much quieter. She's wondering and feeling out
if it's even OK to be upset. Yeah, it's almost like she's
ashamed of her own upset before it even fully arrives, like
she's half repressing the outburst as it happens.
(08:58):
And I don't know what's happening in her head, but what
I fear is happening is this seedof shame taking root of.
I'm only lovable when I'm good and I don't belong when I take
up too much space. Yeah, she tries to take up as
little space as possible when it's clear that she's done
(09:21):
something wrong. And we mean physically.
Covering her ears, backing. Into.
A corner. She'll lean up against a wall
she makes herself so small, which is so different than her
brother and sister who literallysuck the air out of the room and
are flailing, limbs screaming, kicking all over the place.
(09:42):
I think that these this probablydoes set the context window
pretty well, and I want her to see that worthiness doesn't come
from disappearing or pleasing, but that she can show up fully
just as she is and that we probably have to give her some
scaffolding to get there. So everybody, this is an episode
(10:03):
for the Jades out there. These highly adaptable, go with
the flow individuals who don't naturally take up a ton of
space. Maybe you have one of these
kids, or maybe it's your partner, or maybe it's you.
And today we're going to talk about how to support them and
engaging with the world from a place of worthiness because they
(10:24):
belong here too. They get to stake their claim
and make their mark on the world, even if it's in a
different manner than some of the rest of us.
I was thinking of only in the context of kids.
Yeah, well, I always want to putthis in the context of the whole
family because even though, you know, this is called the
Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto, it is as much about
(10:46):
re parenting yourself while you are growing little people as it
is about helping those little people.
Oh my God, yeah. Every every section that we're
covering has a desire for the child and a reflection of the
parent that the child will need to see in order for that child
to thrive. Yeah, so let's get into it.
(11:08):
Yeah, OK, great. So I did some research on this
topic and the most helpful cues for me come primarily from a
body of work from the 1970s on temperaments, specifically by
two researchers, Thomas and Chess.
They came up with something called temperament theory in
1977 where they identified 9 different temperament traits
that appear early in life and shape how children interact with
(11:31):
the world, and these are considered to be biologically
based and relatively stable throughout life.
So it turns out that adaptability is one of those
traits, and I hypothesize that unlike the rest of us, except
maybe you to some degree, Jade has a highly adaptable
temperament. Yeah, I would totally agree with
(11:51):
that. I think she's wired to adjust
and that's beautiful, but it also means that she is at times,
and probably very often, suppressing her own needs.
And unfortunately, that's because she can't.
Yeah. And so I think we need to look
at it in a different way. And thankfully, Thomas and Chess
(12:13):
identified that being adaptable does not equate to low need.
So kids that are high in adaptability tend to adjust to
changes in demands more easily, but it doesn't mean that they
don't have strong preferences orneeds.
It just means that they're more likely to suppress them.
Honestly, I get chills in my body when I think about this
(12:33):
because I think of Jade as someone who actually, when it
comes to her physical body, Jadehas a really strong sense of
what she needs. Not to get into it too deeply
today, but Jade has hypermobility and sensory
processing differences where shehas had a lot of pain and
(12:56):
discomfort throughout her life and she has learned what she
needs and to manage it really well.
This is a 5 year old who has a freezer in her room for ice
packs so that when she is in pain she can get them herself.
Yeah, so she's a freaking resilient kid and she handles.
You would never know, other thanthe fact that she's able to move
(13:19):
her legs and arms a bit more flexibly than.
She's quote UN quote double jointed, yes, but when and when
it even when it comes to things like eating, I think that she
has a much better full signal than all of the rest of us
actually. So what she really does, I think
the reason why I get chills is because she really does have
these preferences and know what she wants.
(13:42):
But in certain dynamics within our family, it seems as though
she is really suppressing them. OK, so that so two things that I
think are going on one is that she's highly adaptable and that
does not equate to low need. And then two, it's this idea
that actually comes from Brene Brown's shame resilience theory
(14:05):
that internalized shame often arises in quote good kids.
So somehow I think that she has encrypted this idea that love
and belonging in our family are contingent upon being easy or
good. And while I'm not going to blame
(14:28):
us too much because Hunter and Maverick have not encrypted that
at all, I do think I often lean hard on.
Thank you so much, Jade, for going with the flow.
Even in the way that I compliment her sometimes I tell
her that she's my gentle breeze,and she is, but I don't want her
(14:52):
to think that I wouldn't love her if she wasn't.
Yeah, it's a good notice. I don't think that she thinks
that way. I don't know.
I think I think that she may, but well, would you like to
share why you don't think she thinks that way?
I think her sense of self is getting stronger as she gets
older and as she sees other people love her just for who she
(15:15):
is, like her friends. I think in this family it's very
tough to get a word in edgewise with this personality.
But I see the way that other parents talk about how much
their kids love Jade, and I think that is not the message
that we've gotten about your other children.
(15:36):
It's true, but I think that family dynamics and your place
in your family of origin really have repercussions on your life,
even if you learn to be different outside of your
family. Like I think that the way that I
engage with the world outside ofmy family of origin dynamic is
very different than the dynamic that I currently have with my
(15:57):
family of origin. And so for me, that's not enough
good points for me. Knowing that she's doing great,
quote UN quote, with her friendsand her sense of self outside of
this family. That's helpful, but it's not
enough. I want to make sure that we have
space for her here too. Yeah, no.
So do I. So what do we do here?
Yeah, so just to finish the thought from Bernie Brown's
(16:19):
shame resilience theory, the idea is that or the implication
from the research is that parents must explicitly affirm
that big feelings and boundary setting don't break connection,
they actually strengthen it. OK, Yeah.
So with these two findings, I set out to talk with ChatGPT,
(16:41):
fed it. All of our research fed it the
things that I've noticed about Jade and asked it to come up
with some grounded and actionable experiments for us to
help her engage with the world from a place of worthiness,
starting with our family. So after some chatting, because
you know how it goes, iterate, iterate.
(17:04):
We came up with three primary takeaways.
Name the subtle nose. Give her a voice and language
and celebrate when she takes up space.
So should we get into those three?
Yeah, please. OK, great.
And at the outset, I just want to lay the foundation in by
saying that Jade's adaptability is not a problem.
(17:29):
It is a gift. And funny enough, being
adaptable is actually one of theprimary takeaways from our first
eight episodes that the family has to be adaptable.
That's right. So she can lead the way.
Oh my God, I wish she would teach that to the other two.
And me too. I'm getting better, but still.
So our work is not to change hernaturally flexible demeanor.
(17:50):
It's to protect her from going invisible inside of it.
OK, so number one, name the subtle nose.
Adoptable kids often don't wave a flag when something feels off,
but that just means that we needto tune in more intently.
I think that this is what you and I mean by when we say that
you have to look twice at Jade. And I think that there is some
(18:12):
specific language here that we can use to help make sure that
when we do pause and look at herdeeply, we are actually
nourishing this sense of coming into her own wants and needs and
taking up space. So 2 examples.
(18:32):
Instead of complimenting her forbeing so flexible, we can say
things like you're really good at going with the flow, but what
you like matters too. So rather than me just saying
again, it's play the tape all the way through.
Talk about the meaning instead of just making the statement.
(18:52):
So instead of me saying thank you Jade for being so flexible,
it's noticing that you are so flexible and acknowledging that
what you want matters too. And then the other aspect of
this is picking up on the quiet nose, picking up on the subtle
nose, which sometimes come out as a quiet yes.
(19:15):
So it's Jade. You said yes really quietly when
Hunter asked you if she could finish your pancake.
Are you sure that's what you want?
And I think this language is really important here because
it's not about are you OK with that, which is where I've leaned
on in the past. It is.
Is this what you want? It's a great shift.
(19:40):
It's like the I love you but versus I love you therefore.
I still have to work on the I love you but I'm trying.
Now this is cool. I think that there's a lot of
experimentation that people can do with just this one question.
Are you sure that's what you want?
You said yes really quietly, or I noticed that you weren't so
(20:01):
enthusiastic about that choice that we voted on.
Can you say more? I have a sad statement to make.
Do you know that last night before bed, Jade said to me,
Mommy, I didn't get to go for compliments and appreciation
last night at the family meetingat night, my heart fell and I
was like, I know that daddy complimented her, but I guess
(20:24):
what she but. She.
She didn't say anything. She didn't.
And then I realized that she's so right.
And she was like, I tried to saysomething.
Oh, breaks my heart you guys. She's like, I tried to say
something but you didn't hear me.
And granted, she was under the table at this point.
I know that I I heard her say itto you and my recollection was
(20:49):
that she was disengaged at that point, but I guess she wasn't.
She was just. Under the table, making herself
small. Yeah.
OK, we're going to do better. Yeah, honestly, have you ever
noticed with certain friends that you can communicate better
with them via text or e-mail then like phone or in person?
(21:11):
I want Jade to be able to communicate with us via in
person because that's all she's really got right now.
But if this is a situation that's coming up for you with
family members or you can also change the way that you connect
with people, I think the changing the connection to
giving people time to write and express themselves can be a
(21:33):
beautiful way to get their voiceheard.
And I've experienced this in my own life with some of my own
relationships with Jade and withour young children in general.
We definitely want to work on this so that they have this tool
in the toolkit. But if it's a little bit later
in life, you can see somebody just by changing the way that
you, that you interact with themand what the medium is.
(21:56):
I totally hear you. I would I absolutely 2nd that I
had a difficult conversation. This is a little bit of a
sidebar but I had a difficult conversation with a friend this
week who for months has not beenable to pick up the phone and
tell me how she feels. But when I prompted her via text
(22:16):
message she unleashed because itwas easier and I hope I did a
good job. I tried to just wait until she
was done until the messages cameand than just really try to
receive them in a different medium.
So it's a good point for adults.In the meantime, I think that
(22:37):
we're just going to have to. It's so funny because Jade's so
different than Hunter and Maverick.
They're sitting at the table, soengaged, pounding the table.
I shouldn't say so engaged. They are sitting at the table,
so present, making themselves known, pounding the table to
make their declarative statements.
And Jade, maybe we think she's not engaged because she's under
(23:01):
the table sucking her thumb, butshe's taking it all in and she's
wants her voice to be heard. It just looks different than the
rest of us. She's a remarkable child.
It's so fun having her as part of our family.
It really is. OK, so name the subtle nose.
(23:25):
Yeah, if we're not careful, invisibility can feel normal.
So we need to give her the explicit opportunity to engage
and give her the questions that she needs to voice, how she
feels as opposed to going with the flow.
Yeah, absolutely. So that's why #2 is give her
(23:45):
voice and language. I think that she needs some
tools, some gentle opt out phrases like I changed my mind
or I don't want that. That works for you, but not for
me to encourage her. And The thing is that she's
really great with language. We've done this with kindness
(24:05):
and respect, right? One says, when you have a
moment, will you please get my water better than Jade?
Nobody. So I think that she's really
open to us giving her language and then also to create low
pressure moments where she leads.
I was so happy to hear today when I said, Jade, would you
like to choose your pancake first?
(24:27):
Because they each have pancakes for breakfast and they all,
they're not always the same size.
Sometimes there's a little more pancake on one plate than the
other. And so today I don't think she
chose the most, but that's totally fine.
But she did choose first. So this idea of building the
muscle for self advocacy and staking her claim that she is
(24:48):
allowed to go first because before she'd be like no way, no,
I'm not going first, I'll go last, I'll go last.
Because she didn't want to causea fight.
She knew that the other two would have a problem with that.
And so it's not that she wants to be last, it's that she's
reading the room and deciding that it's not worth the
friction. That's right, nine eggs, 3
(25:08):
bananas, cinnamon and salt in the microwave for about 9
minutes. Girls make it every morning and
that's the kids breakfast. In case you were wondering, what
kind of pancakes are feeding ourchildren?
Sorry, it's in the microwave. I do like the idea of practicing
when the stakes are low. Even things like letting her
choose the music in the car, although I probably won't let
(25:31):
her do that. Or what game we play after a
family meeting, I will let her do that.
Definitely doesn't have to be a big moment to count.
Giving her little wins to boost her vocabulary, if you will, for
opportunities to speak up. I love it.
Cool, and then #3 celebrate whenshe takes up space.
It doesn't have to be this grandcelebration, obviously, because
(25:52):
the other two would not be thrilled with that.
But when she does finally say no, when her sister gets mad,
quietly, kindly validating her by saying I know that was hard,
I saw you speak up for yourself.Hunter doesn't have to like it.
Yeah, she is a member of this family and she deserves to have
(26:15):
a voice and we should celebrate her when she is doing the thing
that she's supposed to do. Yeah, I think it's very true.
And then when she acts out, I think it's very important that
we let her know that she is allowed to take up space and
rock the boat and she still belongs in this family.
(26:37):
I have a friend who gave me language.
She says to her kids, I can handle your big feelings.
I'm right here to make sure thatyou're safe and I'll be here
when you're ready to fill in theblank.
Tell me how you feel or what youneed or help you figure out what
you need. You are a good kid having a hard
(26:58):
time, and that's a Doctor Becky state.
That last one's a Doctor Becky statement.
You're a good kid having a hard time.
But this idea that I can handle your big feelings, and so can
you, I think is a really important one because so often
it feels like she's cutting herself off before she's allowed
to have them. Her biggest way of showing us
(27:21):
that she's disgruntled is makingthis God awful noise.
It's like this guttural noise. Primal Scream if you will, and.
But it's an internalized 1. Internalized one.
Yeah, she's, I we'll, we'll haveto figure out an experiment for
when she's already in it becauseI think so far the only thing
that we found is just letting her be or really engaging with
(27:44):
her when she's like that doesn'tgo anywhere.
No, it happened yesterday. She had an upset man with her
tennis coach and she came home. Of course, Hunter had to tell
you and me immediately as soon as it happened in front of Jade.
But she was ashamed. And that breaks my heart because
I feel like I really grew up with shame based parenting and I
just don't want to put that on our children.
(28:05):
But somehow she has internalizedthis shame based message.
And so I think we did an OK job yesterday just telling her,
Jade, we love you. Whatever happened, it's totally
OK. And we just let her be.
And then eventually she came into the kitchen and she said hi
(28:28):
mommy, right. And then I knew that she was
ready to meet me in the middle, which has been our new thing
where she moves forward and I meet for move forward to to have
a hug. It's.
Very sweet, so taking up space might rock the boat, but you
still belong. Yes.
So those are the three that I would like to suggest that we
(28:50):
experiment with to help her engage in our family from a
place of worthiness. Name the subtle nose, give her
language and celebrate it when she does take up space.
Yeah, I hope this is helpful fora lot of you out there.
Let us know. I would love to hear if you have
one member of your family or youhave multiple members of your
(29:12):
family that struggle with this. Because honestly, Jade is
different than the rest of us and I'm so grateful that she is.
And I'm really trying to figure out how to.
I think we both are really trying to figure out how to
parent her in a way that supports her.
We mess up all the time in parenting Hunter and Maverick,
(29:35):
but I feel like I know what theyneed with Jade, it is.
It's much more of uncharted territory for both of us.
Yeah, we see you, and we want for you to see you too.
I think she does see herself, she just doesn't.
She's just not as vote. It's like the whole idea of the
(29:57):
compliments and appreciation under the table.
I think we just have to look harder.
Look harder. I'm committed to looking.
Harder to looking harder. Great.
She's lucky to have us. Yeah.
And we are so lucky to have her.You're so lucky to have her.
Love you, goosey. Love you, goosey.
Hey guys, if you're still here, you're definitely our kind of
(30:18):
person. Thanks for spending this time
with us on The Most Important Thing.
If this episode resonated with you, we'd love for you to follow
us wherever you get your podcasts and share it with
someone else. Building family culture on
purpose.
Welcome to The Most Important Thing.
I'm Danielle DeMarco Neufeld. And I'm Greg Neufeld, and
together we're exploring how ambitious busy families can
build culture at home. Because after all, family is the
most important thing. Hi, Greg.
Hey, Danielle, how's it going? It's going great, yes.
So today we are talking about worthiness, specifically from
(00:24):
the second paragraph of Brene Brown's Wholehearted Parenting
Manifesto. Would you like to read this
part? Sure.
It goes. I want you to engage with the
world from a place of worthiness.
You will learn that you are worthy of love and belonging and
joy every time you see me. Practice self compassion and
(00:45):
embrace my own imperfections. Beautiful.
So last episode we talked about loved and lovable and attempted
to distinguish between them. We talked about loved as a
feeling coming towards me, a feeling that someone is deeply
here for me and sees me, and then lovable as a feeling within
(01:08):
me, part of my identity where I believe I am worthy of love just
as I am. And so today we are introducing
1/3 similar but distinguishable concept of worthiness, which is
a grounded feeling and core belief that says I deserve to
(01:29):
take up space in this world. I think that lovable is at the
heart of worthiness, but that worthiness is more broad.
It says I deserve it all to havethe full human experience.
I'm worthy of love, belonging, and joy and everything else in
this world. I am here to claim my place,
(01:53):
starting with my place in my family.
And so today I want to talk about worthiness as a way of
engaging with the world. Yeah, I really love this
distinction because when we say I want my kids to feel loved, we
usually mean all three. And I think the hardest one to
(02:13):
show it's worthiness. Worthiness is less about
gestures. That's more tone, consistency
and space. Especially space.
Yeah, I keep coming back to thisidea of taking up space,
claiming your space, which is funny.
(02:34):
Every time I think about that, Ithink about the astronauts
planting the US flag on the moon.
We are here, right? I am here.
I am worthy of taking up space in this world, and I believe
that the most important thing about engaging with the world
from a place of worthiness is that each person in our family
deserves to know that they don'thave to earn their place.
(02:55):
It really comes down to belonging.
They know that they belong not because they're easygoing or
exceptional in some way, but simply because they're here and
that it is our job to show them that belonging holds steady even
when they make mistakes or have big feelings.
(03:16):
They have this inalienable rightto be here.
So in thinking about how to frame this episode and set the
context window, if you will, Greg, I started thinking about
worthiness in our family. And I would say that most of us
have a very strong sense, a verystrong sense of I deserve to
(03:39):
take up space in this world. I will admit I do not have a
problem here. Yeah, Nope.
Me either. And neither do Hunter or
Maverick or even Winston. Would you agree?
I would agree. Winston is our 8 year old
cockapoo, which I don't think we've mentioned him before, but
he is our first born love of ourlife who typically sits at our
(03:59):
feet while we are podcasting. That's right, he's here right
now. And he is also not afraid to
make himself known. No, he's not.
Yeah, but there's one person whoI think struggles with this a
bit, and that is our middle daughter, Jade.
Yeah, Jade. So let's talk about Jade for a
(04:23):
little bit. She's actually one of our
favorite things to talk about because she's magical.
Truly. She's silly and warm and playful
in a way that I admire so deeply.
You and I both say that she is our greatest inspiration.
She is. And her friends adore her.
The feedback that I get from Jade as a friend is unlike any
(04:46):
I've received for myself or for Hunter.
And I don't know about you, Greg, but I would imagine for
you too. It's not just because she's
goofy, but because she's so truly nice.
Yeah, she really is truly nice, and she's also really resilient.
After she gets hurt, she'll comeover, she'll get a hug, but then
she'll take that hug and say OK,I'm done now and go back better
(05:09):
than ever. And when she's alone, her joyful
determination is unparalleled. I have never seen another human
being, let alone a child, mastera skill like Jade.
When she was working on the monkey bars, she would do it so
many times that she literally had puncture wounds in both of
her palms from the wood at school.
But she would just get back up halfway through, fall down, get
(05:33):
back up with a huge smile on herface and go again for hours.
This girl would practice, and now she's a master, but she
still loves to do it. This.
I keep calling it joyful determination because I think
I'm a pretty determined person, but I would never call myself a
joyfully determined person. And that's that's a big part of
why I think she's such an inspiration.
(05:55):
I watch her and think this kid has so much to teach the world
already, but within our family dynamic, it's just different.
Her big sister Hunter and her little brother Maverick.
They're intense, they demand attention and there is no doubt
that they fill their space. But with Jade, you and I have to
look twice. We've had many a post bedtime
conversation about how do we make sure to not overlook Jade?
(06:20):
And so I think this conversation, framed with
worthiness and taking up space, will actually give us less
abstract, more concrete ideas for how to make sure that her
claim within this family is marked and is known.
(06:41):
Yeah, I'm guessing we're not alone here.
With parenting Hunter and Maverick, it's a very similar
playbook so far. But with Jade, it's hard to
notice some of the things that she definitely deeply feels
because she doesn't appear to bevisibly upset.
(07:04):
Instead, she's flexible. Yeah, so let's give some
examples. So almost every morning I find
her giving away the last bites of her breakfast to either her
brother or sister, both of whom constantly ask her if they can
finish her plate. Many mornings her older sister
wants to match with her, and I can tell that she doesn't
(07:27):
necessarily want to, but she will come downstairs in an
outfit matching Hunter just to make the conflict go away.
She doesn't complain, she just does it and I think that can be
a strength. Yeah, but flexibility can really
slide into invisibility and she shouldn't have to ask to be
(07:50):
seen. Yeah, that's so true.
And that's what I really wrestlewith as her mom.
I want her to, as Brené Brown says, engage with the world from
a place of worthiness, includingin our family.
And yet I don't want to force itupon her either.
So what I'm hoping that we can come to is a way to allow her to
(08:13):
step into the space that she is so worthy of without me or you
being another force in her life that gives her an opinion about
like, how to be worthy. Yeah.
It's tricky. It is.
And then the other aspect of this is when she acts out.
Yeah, with Hunter and Maverick, acting out is big and loud.
(08:35):
You know exactly what they're feeling.
But with Jade, it's like she's watching us the whole time.
She's much quieter. She's wondering and feeling out
if it's even OK to be upset. Yeah, it's almost like she's
ashamed of her own upset before it even fully arrives, like
she's half repressing the outburst as it happens.
(08:58):
And I don't know what's happening in her head, but what
I fear is happening is this seedof shame taking root of.
I'm only lovable when I'm good and I don't belong when I take
up too much space. Yeah, she tries to take up as
little space as possible when it's clear that she's done
(09:21):
something wrong. And we mean physically.
Covering her ears, backing. Into.
A corner. She'll lean up against a wall
she makes herself so small, which is so different than her
brother and sister who literallysuck the air out of the room and
are flailing, limbs screaming, kicking all over the place.
(09:42):
I think that these this probablydoes set the context window
pretty well, and I want her to see that worthiness doesn't come
from disappearing or pleasing, but that she can show up fully
just as she is and that we probably have to give her some
scaffolding to get there. So everybody, this is an episode
(10:03):
for the Jades out there. These highly adaptable, go with
the flow individuals who don't naturally take up a ton of
space. Maybe you have one of these
kids, or maybe it's your partner, or maybe it's you.
And today we're going to talk about how to support them and
engaging with the world from a place of worthiness because they
(10:24):
belong here too. They get to stake their claim
and make their mark on the world, even if it's in a
different manner than some of the rest of us.
I was thinking of only in the context of kids.
Yeah, well, I always want to putthis in the context of the whole
family because even though, you know, this is called the
Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto, it is as much about
(10:46):
re parenting yourself while you are growing little people as it
is about helping those little people.
Oh my God, yeah. Every every section that we're
covering has a desire for the child and a reflection of the
parent that the child will need to see in order for that child
to thrive. Yeah, so let's get into it.
(11:08):
Yeah, OK, great. So I did some research on this
topic and the most helpful cues for me come primarily from a
body of work from the 1970s on temperaments, specifically by
two researchers, Thomas and Chess.
They came up with something called temperament theory in
1977 where they identified 9 different temperament traits
that appear early in life and shape how children interact with
(11:31):
the world, and these are considered to be biologically
based and relatively stable throughout life.
So it turns out that adaptability is one of those
traits, and I hypothesize that unlike the rest of us, except
maybe you to some degree, Jade has a highly adaptable
temperament. Yeah, I would totally agree with
(11:51):
that. I think she's wired to adjust
and that's beautiful, but it also means that she is at times,
and probably very often, suppressing her own needs.
And unfortunately, that's because she can't.
Yeah. And so I think we need to look
at it in a different way. And thankfully, Thomas and Chess
(12:13):
identified that being adaptable does not equate to low need.
So kids that are high in adaptability tend to adjust to
changes in demands more easily, but it doesn't mean that they
don't have strong preferences orneeds.
It just means that they're more likely to suppress them.
Honestly, I get chills in my body when I think about this
(12:33):
because I think of Jade as someone who actually, when it
comes to her physical body, Jadehas a really strong sense of
what she needs. Not to get into it too deeply
today, but Jade has hypermobility and sensory
processing differences where shehas had a lot of pain and
(12:56):
discomfort throughout her life and she has learned what she
needs and to manage it really well.
This is a 5 year old who has a freezer in her room for ice
packs so that when she is in pain she can get them herself.
Yeah, so she's a freaking resilient kid and she handles.
You would never know, other thanthe fact that she's able to move
(13:19):
her legs and arms a bit more flexibly than.
She's quote UN quote double jointed, yes, but when and when
it even when it comes to things like eating, I think that she
has a much better full signal than all of the rest of us
actually. So what she really does, I think
the reason why I get chills is because she really does have
these preferences and know what she wants.
(13:42):
But in certain dynamics within our family, it seems as though
she is really suppressing them. OK, so that so two things that I
think are going on one is that she's highly adaptable and that
does not equate to low need. And then two, it's this idea
that actually comes from Brene Brown's shame resilience theory
(14:05):
that internalized shame often arises in quote good kids.
So somehow I think that she has encrypted this idea that love
and belonging in our family are contingent upon being easy or
good. And while I'm not going to blame
(14:28):
us too much because Hunter and Maverick have not encrypted that
at all, I do think I often lean hard on.
Thank you so much, Jade, for going with the flow.
Even in the way that I compliment her sometimes I tell
her that she's my gentle breeze,and she is, but I don't want her
(14:52):
to think that I wouldn't love her if she wasn't.
Yeah, it's a good notice. I don't think that she thinks
that way. I don't know.
I think I think that she may, but well, would you like to
share why you don't think she thinks that way?
I think her sense of self is getting stronger as she gets
older and as she sees other people love her just for who she
(15:15):
is, like her friends. I think in this family it's very
tough to get a word in edgewise with this personality.
But I see the way that other parents talk about how much
their kids love Jade, and I think that is not the message
that we've gotten about your other children.
(15:36):
It's true, but I think that family dynamics and your place
in your family of origin really have repercussions on your life,
even if you learn to be different outside of your
family. Like I think that the way that I
engage with the world outside ofmy family of origin dynamic is
very different than the dynamic that I currently have with my
(15:57):
family of origin. And so for me, that's not enough
good points for me. Knowing that she's doing great,
quote UN quote, with her friendsand her sense of self outside of
this family. That's helpful, but it's not
enough. I want to make sure that we have
space for her here too. Yeah, no.
So do I. So what do we do here?
Yeah, so just to finish the thought from Bernie Brown's
(16:19):
shame resilience theory, the idea is that or the implication
from the research is that parents must explicitly affirm
that big feelings and boundary setting don't break connection,
they actually strengthen it. OK, Yeah.
So with these two findings, I set out to talk with ChatGPT,
(16:41):
fed it. All of our research fed it the
things that I've noticed about Jade and asked it to come up
with some grounded and actionable experiments for us to
help her engage with the world from a place of worthiness,
starting with our family. So after some chatting, because
you know how it goes, iterate, iterate.
(17:04):
We came up with three primary takeaways.
Name the subtle nose. Give her a voice and language
and celebrate when she takes up space.
So should we get into those three?
Yeah, please. OK, great.
And at the outset, I just want to lay the foundation in by
saying that Jade's adaptability is not a problem.
(17:29):
It is a gift. And funny enough, being
adaptable is actually one of theprimary takeaways from our first
eight episodes that the family has to be adaptable.
That's right. So she can lead the way.
Oh my God, I wish she would teach that to the other two.
And me too. I'm getting better, but still.
So our work is not to change hernaturally flexible demeanor.
(17:50):
It's to protect her from going invisible inside of it.
OK, so number one, name the subtle nose.
Adoptable kids often don't wave a flag when something feels off,
but that just means that we needto tune in more intently.
I think that this is what you and I mean by when we say that
you have to look twice at Jade. And I think that there is some
(18:12):
specific language here that we can use to help make sure that
when we do pause and look at herdeeply, we are actually
nourishing this sense of coming into her own wants and needs and
taking up space. So 2 examples.
(18:32):
Instead of complimenting her forbeing so flexible, we can say
things like you're really good at going with the flow, but what
you like matters too. So rather than me just saying
again, it's play the tape all the way through.
Talk about the meaning instead of just making the statement.
(18:52):
So instead of me saying thank you Jade for being so flexible,
it's noticing that you are so flexible and acknowledging that
what you want matters too. And then the other aspect of
this is picking up on the quiet nose, picking up on the subtle
nose, which sometimes come out as a quiet yes.
(19:15):
So it's Jade. You said yes really quietly when
Hunter asked you if she could finish your pancake.
Are you sure that's what you want?
And I think this language is really important here because
it's not about are you OK with that, which is where I've leaned
on in the past. It is.
Is this what you want? It's a great shift.
(19:40):
It's like the I love you but versus I love you therefore.
I still have to work on the I love you but I'm trying.
Now this is cool. I think that there's a lot of
experimentation that people can do with just this one question.
Are you sure that's what you want?
You said yes really quietly, or I noticed that you weren't so
(20:01):
enthusiastic about that choice that we voted on.
Can you say more? I have a sad statement to make.
Do you know that last night before bed, Jade said to me,
Mommy, I didn't get to go for compliments and appreciation
last night at the family meetingat night, my heart fell and I
was like, I know that daddy complimented her, but I guess
(20:24):
what she but. She.
She didn't say anything. She didn't.
And then I realized that she's so right.
And she was like, I tried to saysomething.
Oh, breaks my heart you guys. She's like, I tried to say
something but you didn't hear me.
And granted, she was under the table at this point.
I know that I I heard her say itto you and my recollection was
(20:49):
that she was disengaged at that point, but I guess she wasn't.
She was just. Under the table, making herself
small. Yeah.
OK, we're going to do better. Yeah, honestly, have you ever
noticed with certain friends that you can communicate better
with them via text or e-mail then like phone or in person?
(21:11):
I want Jade to be able to communicate with us via in
person because that's all she's really got right now.
But if this is a situation that's coming up for you with
family members or you can also change the way that you connect
with people, I think the changing the connection to
giving people time to write and express themselves can be a
(21:33):
beautiful way to get their voiceheard.
And I've experienced this in my own life with some of my own
relationships with Jade and withour young children in general.
We definitely want to work on this so that they have this tool
in the toolkit. But if it's a little bit later
in life, you can see somebody just by changing the way that
you, that you interact with themand what the medium is.
(21:56):
I totally hear you. I would I absolutely 2nd that I
had a difficult conversation. This is a little bit of a
sidebar but I had a difficult conversation with a friend this
week who for months has not beenable to pick up the phone and
tell me how she feels. But when I prompted her via text
(22:16):
message she unleashed because itwas easier and I hope I did a
good job. I tried to just wait until she
was done until the messages cameand than just really try to
receive them in a different medium.
So it's a good point for adults.In the meantime, I think that
(22:37):
we're just going to have to. It's so funny because Jade's so
different than Hunter and Maverick.
They're sitting at the table, soengaged, pounding the table.
I shouldn't say so engaged. They are sitting at the table,
so present, making themselves known, pounding the table to
make their declarative statements.
And Jade, maybe we think she's not engaged because she's under
(23:01):
the table sucking her thumb, butshe's taking it all in and she's
wants her voice to be heard. It just looks different than the
rest of us. She's a remarkable child.
It's so fun having her as part of our family.
It really is. OK, so name the subtle nose.
(23:25):
Yeah, if we're not careful, invisibility can feel normal.
So we need to give her the explicit opportunity to engage
and give her the questions that she needs to voice, how she
feels as opposed to going with the flow.
Yeah, absolutely. So that's why #2 is give her
(23:45):
voice and language. I think that she needs some
tools, some gentle opt out phrases like I changed my mind
or I don't want that. That works for you, but not for
me to encourage her. And The thing is that she's
really great with language. We've done this with kindness
(24:05):
and respect, right? One says, when you have a
moment, will you please get my water better than Jade?
Nobody. So I think that she's really
open to us giving her language and then also to create low
pressure moments where she leads.
I was so happy to hear today when I said, Jade, would you
like to choose your pancake first?
(24:27):
Because they each have pancakes for breakfast and they all,
they're not always the same size.
Sometimes there's a little more pancake on one plate than the
other. And so today I don't think she
chose the most, but that's totally fine.
But she did choose first. So this idea of building the
muscle for self advocacy and staking her claim that she is
(24:48):
allowed to go first because before she'd be like no way, no,
I'm not going first, I'll go last, I'll go last.
Because she didn't want to causea fight.
She knew that the other two would have a problem with that.
And so it's not that she wants to be last, it's that she's
reading the room and deciding that it's not worth the
friction. That's right, nine eggs, 3
(25:08):
bananas, cinnamon and salt in the microwave for about 9
minutes. Girls make it every morning and
that's the kids breakfast. In case you were wondering, what
kind of pancakes are feeding ourchildren?
Sorry, it's in the microwave. I do like the idea of practicing
when the stakes are low. Even things like letting her
choose the music in the car, although I probably won't let
(25:31):
her do that. Or what game we play after a
family meeting, I will let her do that.
Definitely doesn't have to be a big moment to count.
Giving her little wins to boost her vocabulary, if you will, for
opportunities to speak up. I love it.
Cool, and then #3 celebrate whenshe takes up space.
It doesn't have to be this grandcelebration, obviously, because
(25:52):
the other two would not be thrilled with that.
But when she does finally say no, when her sister gets mad,
quietly, kindly validating her by saying I know that was hard,
I saw you speak up for yourself.Hunter doesn't have to like it.
Yeah, she is a member of this family and she deserves to have
(26:15):
a voice and we should celebrate her when she is doing the thing
that she's supposed to do. Yeah, I think it's very true.
And then when she acts out, I think it's very important that
we let her know that she is allowed to take up space and
rock the boat and she still belongs in this family.
(26:37):
I have a friend who gave me language.
She says to her kids, I can handle your big feelings.
I'm right here to make sure thatyou're safe and I'll be here
when you're ready to fill in theblank.
Tell me how you feel or what youneed or help you figure out what
you need. You are a good kid having a hard
(26:58):
time, and that's a Doctor Becky state.
That last one's a Doctor Becky statement.
You're a good kid having a hard time.
But this idea that I can handle your big feelings, and so can
you, I think is a really important one because so often
it feels like she's cutting herself off before she's allowed
to have them. Her biggest way of showing us
(27:21):
that she's disgruntled is makingthis God awful noise.
It's like this guttural noise. Primal Scream if you will, and.
But it's an internalized 1. Internalized one.
Yeah, she's, I we'll, we'll haveto figure out an experiment for
when she's already in it becauseI think so far the only thing
that we found is just letting her be or really engaging with
(27:44):
her when she's like that doesn'tgo anywhere.
No, it happened yesterday. She had an upset man with her
tennis coach and she came home. Of course, Hunter had to tell
you and me immediately as soon as it happened in front of Jade.
But she was ashamed. And that breaks my heart because
I feel like I really grew up with shame based parenting and I
just don't want to put that on our children.
(28:05):
But somehow she has internalizedthis shame based message.
And so I think we did an OK job yesterday just telling her,
Jade, we love you. Whatever happened, it's totally
OK. And we just let her be.
And then eventually she came into the kitchen and she said hi
(28:28):
mommy, right. And then I knew that she was
ready to meet me in the middle, which has been our new thing
where she moves forward and I meet for move forward to to have
a hug. It's.
Very sweet, so taking up space might rock the boat, but you
still belong. Yes.
So those are the three that I would like to suggest that we
(28:50):
experiment with to help her engage in our family from a
place of worthiness. Name the subtle nose, give her
language and celebrate it when she does take up space.
Yeah, I hope this is helpful fora lot of you out there.
Let us know. I would love to hear if you have
one member of your family or youhave multiple members of your
(29:12):
family that struggle with this. Because honestly, Jade is
different than the rest of us and I'm so grateful that she is.
And I'm really trying to figure out how to.
I think we both are really trying to figure out how to
parent her in a way that supports her.
We mess up all the time in parenting Hunter and Maverick,
(29:35):
but I feel like I know what theyneed with Jade, it is.
It's much more of uncharted territory for both of us.
Yeah, we see you, and we want for you to see you too.
I think she does see herself, she just doesn't.
She's just not as vote. It's like the whole idea of the
(29:57):
compliments and appreciation under the table.
I think we just have to look harder.
Look harder. I'm committed to looking.
Harder to looking harder. Great.
She's lucky to have us. Yeah.
And we are so lucky to have her.You're so lucky to have her.
Love you, goosey. Love you, goosey.
Hey guys, if you're still here, you're definitely our kind of
(30:18):
person. Thanks for spending this time
with us on The Most Important Thing.
If this episode resonated with you, we'd love for you to follow
us wherever you get your podcasts and share it with
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