February 11, 2025 • 54 mins
Parenting does not come with instructions, and too often, mothers find themselves overwhelmed by the pressures of perfectionism, leading to feelings of mom guilt. Dr. Meg Meeker, a practicing pediatrician and renowned parenting expert, joins Shelley Johnson and Kathy Tucaro to share valuable insights on how to navigate the challenges of raising children. She is the host of the podcast Parenting Great Kids. She is a practicing pediatrician and top parenting expert, speaker, and author of seven books including a bestselling book that became a movie called Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. Dr. Meeker has appeared on The Today Show, Dateline NBC, Fox and Friends, NPR, Oprah and Friends, and many others. She emphasizes the importance of getting the basics right in parenting, offering guidance on avoiding pitfalls like helicopter parenting and pushing kids too hard. With a wealth of experience and common-sense advice, Dr. Meeker highlights the crucial role that parents play as role models and sources of support for their children. Tune in for practical tips on fostering healthy relationships with kids and empowering them for success in life.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
This is Women Road warriorswith Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.
From the corporate office tothe cab of a truck, they're here
to inspire and empower womenin all professions.
So gear down, sit back and enjoy.
(00:23):
Welcome.
We're an award winning showdinner dedicated to empowering women
in every profession throughinspiring stories and expert insights.
No topics off limits on our show.
We power women on the road tosuccess with expert and celebrity
interviews and information you need.
I'm Shelly.
And I'm Kathy.
(00:44):
Parental bonds are essentialfor children.
Kids need their parents forguidance and role models as they
make their way into the adult world.
There's no instruction manualfor parenting and there are many
things that children need.
The problem is kids don't comewith instructions.
Dr.
Meg Meeker is the host of thepodcast Parenting Great Kids.
(01:06):
Last year she did an episodeon mom guilt that's very prevalent
today.
Dr.
Meeker is a practicingpediatrician and top parenting expert,
speaker and author of sevenbooks, including a best selling book
that became a movie calledStrong fathers, strong daughters.
Dr.
Meeker has appeared on theToday Show, Dateline NBC, Fox and
(01:26):
Friends, NPR, Oprah andFriends, and many others.
Dr.
Meeker is here today to offerher insight on parenting and equipping
kids for life in spite of thecrazy world we have today.
Welcome, Dr.
Meeker.
Thank you so much for being onthe show with us.
Oh, thanks so much forinviting me.
I'm really looking forward to it.
Oh, are we?
(01:47):
Yes.
Oh my gosh.
Your insights are going to beso valuable on how to have strong
families with healthyparenting that empower parents and
children alike.
I know you talk about theimportance of fathers and their impact
on kids.
We'd also love to talk aboutyour insight on why fathers are just
as important as mothers andhow moms can get over their mom guilt.
(02:08):
You know, it seems like womenhave so much to do today with careers.
They can really suffer from that.
What can you share with ourlisteners to empower them as parents?
You know, one thing, I thinkthat mom guilt is enormous.
As a matter of fact, I don'tknow that I've ever met a mother
and I've been doing this about35 years in my practice.
(02:29):
Who doesn't feel guilty aboutsomething, something that she did
recently, something she did along time ago?
I certainly have felt it.
And now as a grandmother, Iwill say there's grandmother guilt.
So we got to really face thisand get over it.
But I think that we lack a lotof self confidence in our parenting
(02:50):
and particularly now with somuch information out there.
Younger parents, and I mean,you know, 40 and under read so much.
Their expectations for whatthey need to do for and with their
kids is really beyond the pale.
There's no way mothers couldbe and perform the way they think
(03:14):
they can because they've justgot, got so much information they're
reading out there.
And I will honestly say it'sharder for younger mothers now than
it was for me when I wasraising my kids because I, I just
didn't have as manyexpectations of myself.
And so I think a lot of themom guilt comes from the fact that
we expect ourselves to dothings and be someone we just can't
(03:38):
be.
And once we learn to let thatgo, then we can really sort of like
who we are as mothers and feelconfident in what we can do as mothers
and quit beating ourselves upall the time.
You know, when you think aboutit, social media, all you see are
these wonderful, idyllicpictures and everything's happy,
happy, happy.
Nobody puts anything out there.
(04:00):
Now it's really going on intheir lives.
It's easy to sit back and go,why is it not looking like that in
my life?
You know, I, I think women,especially women, I think they're
really, they judge themselvesa lot.
Well, we absolutely do.
And I think that mothers inparticular are very competitive people.
(04:21):
I'm a very competitive personby nature.
But I think that when it comesto being a mother, you want to at
least be as good as the othermothers, you know, or your friends.
And so you look at whatthey're doing and you want to make
sure that you're doing it andthen you're doing a little bit more.
For instance, when our kidswere younger, we live in northern
(04:42):
Michigan, we get a lot of snowin the winter and our neighbors kids
were skiing in a local ski club.
Now the skiing didn't.
It went from 6 o'clock atnight till 8 o'clock at night.
And I was sitting there doingcrafts with my kids.
They were.
I love crafts.
And anyway, I saw one carafter another going past my house,
(05:03):
taking their kids to ski team practice.
And I felt this awful feelingin the pit of my stomach, like, what
am I doing wrong?
Why, why are my kids not inski practice?
You know, I'm just a bad mom.
I'm just here with my K kidssort of doing crafts.
What's wrong with me?
Well, nothing.
But there you go, you sort offeel this pressure by.
(05:25):
You put this pressure on yourself.
Like if somebody else is doingthis with their kids, you, you need
to do that too, or at leastinvestigate it.
And I think it's hard for usto sort of admit that we're, we're
competitive people.
But we got to stop it becauseyou know, women are our friends and
our, and, and other women whoare parenting naked, their kids are
(05:45):
our friends too.
We need to stop competing withthem and trying to sort of outdo
each other.
And we do it in reallyunconscious ways.
You know, if you think about,have you ever run into a.
Well, of course you have agirlfriend at the store and you haven't
seen her in six months and youask how her family is and she starts
in on this litany of all thesewonderful things that her kid is
(06:06):
doing and what their gradesare and this and you just sort of
stare and you feel like adoofus, you know, like, why aren't
my kids that way?
Oh sure.
And she's not trying to bemean, you know, she's just excited
about her kids.
But that's our world.
And, and, and so it's, it'sreally hard.
And it's a world that if wearen't conscious of what's going
on around us, we're going tostart to feel pretty doggone awful
(06:31):
about the job that we're doing.
Well, you know, I think too, Isee kids going to all of these activities.
The neighbors next door, forinstance, have their kids and all
kinds of stuff.
It's non.
And they're both working parents.
That's exhausting.
I think that there's morepressure today to have kids involved
(06:51):
in all of these activities.
And that's gotta be stressfulfor the children too frankly.
And expensive.
Oh yeah, super expensive.
Well, you know, one of thethings I like to do as a pediatrician
is I'm a child advocate.
And I learned many, many yearsago by an old professor that if I
really wanted to help kids, Ihad to help parents.
(07:11):
Because parents have the powerin the kids lives.
And I think that, you know,that's one of the reasons that I
help, you know, moms a lot andencourage moms a lot and dads.
But I can tell parents howtheir kids feel about things.
For instance, how does the 10year old, 15 year old feel about
(07:33):
leaving school, going tosoccer practice, eating something
in the car and then going offto choir practice or orchestra practice
and then coming home at 8o'clock at night and only having
two or three hours forhomework to get up at 6:30 next morning
and start again.
Kids feel so much pressure tobe good enough for their parents
(07:57):
because kids, kids Feel thatthey, in order to get their parents
attention and parents to payattention, they have to keep doing
these things.
And if they don't keep doingthem, then their parents won't pay
attention.
I had a patient who is anoutstanding swimmer and she went
(08:20):
through college swimming andyou know, her parents would come
to every single swim meet.
They travel all around the country.
Well, then in college shedecided she didn't want to swim anymore.
And literally hercommunication with the parents just
sort of stopped.
And she said, I don't knowwhat to talk to my parents about.
They don't know what to talkto me about.
And so the activity wassomething that she perceived held
(08:45):
them together.
That's not what we want in ourrelationships with our kids.
We don't want performance tobond us together because our kids
feel in order to have a goodrelationship and relate to parents
and get their parentsattention and applause and affirmation,
they need to perform.
And that's a, that's a reallypainful lesson.
(09:08):
It really is.
Yeah.
And then that takes them thatattitude they carry into adulthood
too.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
Because then they grew up andthey go into the workplace and they
feel the only way to getaffirmation and attention and applause
is to be hyper good at something.
Well, eventually that's goingto catch up with you and you're going
(09:30):
to crash.
And we've all known friendswho've crashed.
I've crashed in my own life.
And it's no fun because youhave to reset and in order to reset,
you have to reevaluate, youknow, what is your worth and where
does it come from and what areyou really good at and what are you
bad at and does it reallymatter anyway?
(09:50):
Because in the end it kind ofdoesn't matter anyway.
Yeah.
So it can be pretty jolting.
So when did it get so crazywhere everything's such a frenzy
and the children are involvedwith all of these activities and
they're all of these pressureson them.
I don't think that was donelike 40 years ago.
No, no.
Well, here's my theory.
(10:11):
I went to an all women'sCollege in the 1970s.
Loved it.
I was very career driven.
Time I was 16, I said, I'mgoing to medical school.
That's it, no plan B.
And so I charged through highschool and college and medical school.
And during that period, themindset was I was one of 30 women
(10:33):
in our class of 90 somethingin medical school.
So it was very male dominated.
And the sense was we need tobe not just as good as the men, we
need to be better.
Okay, so we did that andthat's good.
We had fun careers, we enjoyed it.
But then we upped the ante.
And I think women did.
We did this to ourselves.
(10:53):
I, I think we did this to one another.
I could be wrong, but this iswhat I saw.
Then we said, okay, we're notonly great at our careers now, we
can be great full time momsand great career women.
And not only that, we can start.
Do you remember the slogan,bring home the best bacon and fry
(11:14):
it up in a pan?
Yeah, I remember my parentssaying, bringing.
Home the bacon, it's a little,it's a little goofy.
But it basically meant you'reexpected to be everything, you can
do it all.
But then we upped the anteeven more and said, guess what?
We can do it all alone.
And we don't need any help.
We don't necessarily need our friends.
(11:34):
We are far away from parentsand any support group, any supportive
family, you know, and if we'redivorced, that's okay.
We can still kind of go it alone.
And I think we just setourselves up to have such high expectations.
And then we started thinking,well, with, with our kids in order
(11:55):
to sort of compensate for thesense that we had to perform really,
really well.
That's when it spilled ontoour kids.
And I think we said, okay, youknow, I'm a high performer, I expect
you to be a high performer.
And again, a lot of this was subconscious.
And it's really not okay foryou to come home after school three
days a week and be bored.
(12:16):
That's just not what highperformers learn how to do.
And so I think, you know, Iguess a lot of is I'm sort of speaking
from myself as a mom and ex.
You know, my kids are grownnow, but just sort of my mindset
then.
And so I think a lot of it wasputting pressure on ourselves and
our peers.
And again, I think it comesdown to that competitiveness that,
(12:39):
you know, if your kid is justdoing one thing, my kid's going to
go do two things after school.
And we just sort of whipped itinto a little bit of a frenzy.
And so now it's the acceptance.
The norm for us as a greatparent is that your kids do a lot
of things and have greatfriends and they can perform really
well.
And if they're not doing wellin school, even in fourth grade,
(13:02):
you're going to get them a tutor.
And I think it's veryprevalent in the bigger cities.
From what I've experiencedGoing to New York, Chicago and la,
pressure is very, very intense.
That's my theory as a pediatrician.
Are you seeing more anxietywith children with all of this?
Oh, unquestionably, unquestionably.
Not just the, the amount ofanxiety, the intensity, intensity
(13:26):
of anxiety.
And younger kids with anxiety,you know, seven, eight, nine year
olds with anxiety.
And of course, a lot of it,you know, increased after Covid.
But I do think a lot of it iskids just feel a lot of pressure
to be and to do more and thatthey're not measuring up.
(13:47):
And I think it's.
Those messages are justinsidious all around them.
They come from all different places.
Teachers and friends andschools and church and, you know,
all certain places kids don't rest.
They don't, you know, sit homeand play Legos very long.
You know, they, they, theydon't have much quiet in their lives.
(14:08):
And I think they need that.
They have to have that.
They have to have that.
But I think sometimes, and I'mnot just pinning this all on parents,
I'm trying to, you know, thinkit all through.
We're uncomfortable with ourkids sort of being quiet and just
doing not much of anything.
But.
But kids learn.
(14:29):
They don't learn how toentertain themselves and just read
or as I said, play games or docrafts or something like that because
they're stimulated visuallyand from an auditory standpoint,
pretty much all day long, andit's too hard for their brains.
(14:49):
You know, I've thought thatthe constant stimulation, the external
stimulation, rather than beingable to learn to entertain yourself
as a child, I did have thatquiet time, and I lived in the country,
so I had to learn to entertain myself.
And what that did was bringout my creativity.
I read a lot of books.
I became very interested inwriting my own stories at a very
(15:11):
early age.
I don't think I would havedone that had I not had that alone
time and to be able to justkick back and get to know myself.
Right, yeah, for sure.
And I, and I think I'm thekind of person, and I agree with
you, I grew up, you know,having to do chores.
We lived on a farm and I.
And I did chores outside,which at the time I hated.
(15:32):
But now I wish I had morechores to do because I like big equipment
again, or any kind of equipment.
But I think there's so muchvalue in allowing kids to be in quiet,
to take, you know, socialmedia and phones and iPads and music
away from them, so that thelevel of stimulation just goes down
(15:58):
and down and down so that theycan really find quiet in their day.
And I think that kids have aharder time with that often than
parents do because we know howto train ourselves to pull back and
to go off and to do yoga,whatever we're going to do.
But kids don't really know howto do that.
And it's almost like theybecome addicted to stimulation, addicted
(16:20):
to someone telling them whatto do and how to do it and, and what
to listen to and what games to play.
And I think it, it's just, itovercharges their, their brains and
they don't.
Know how to communicate.
I mean, they're, they're,they're doing everything on their
device.
I mean, you look at teenagers,they're texting each other, they
can be sitting at the sametable, they're not talking.
(16:41):
As a matter of fact, if youwant to scare a teenager, talk to
them.
Yeah.
Or go up behind them and givethem a big old hug.
They'll turn around and take you.
You're absolutely right.
And I think that.
But, but let's be honest, asbusy working mothers, there's something
that feels kind of good aboutthe kid being on their device because
(17:03):
we've got stuff to do and wewant to make sure our child's entertained.
And I get it, you know, it'skind of like back in the old days
putting on Sesame street toyour three year old.
You felt guilty, but, but itwas kind of nice too.
And I think that, you know,there's that, you know, there's that
love, hate relationship withdevices as moms with their kids.
(17:25):
And I think that we have to bevery careful too because, you know,
the only way for kids to beremoved from the stimulation is for
parents to say, give me theiPad, give me your cell phone, give
me whatever.
And I will tell you, because Itook care of kids before, you know,
cell phones and teenagers willtell me, girls in particular, that
(17:48):
after they've been on socialmedia for X amount of time, they
get off it and just feel kindof, and, and we do know that the
amount of time a girl spendson social media is direct.
It parallels beautifullydepression in her life because it
just makes them feel so badlyabout themselves.
And that's just messages, notjust stimulation.
(18:10):
And so a lot goes on in themind of a teenager and a young kid
that we don't even see whenthey're on a screen, regardless what
they're doing on the screen.
Stay tuned for more of womenroad warriors coming up.
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(19:36):
Kathy Tucaro.
If you're enjoying thisinformative episode of Women Road
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We want to help as many womenas possible.
Mom guilt is all too common.
Too many people lack selfconfidence in their parenting.
Dr.
Meg Meeker says young parentstoday face unreasonable expectations
and there's no way mothers canbe and perform based on everything
(20:38):
they're reading or seeing.
Mob guilt comes from a placeof wanting to be someone we just
can't be and we need to stopbeating ourselves up over it.
Quite often we feel we need tocompete with other women and what
other families are doing andthe guilt just rises.
Women also have set themselvesup to have unrealistically high standards
and to do way too much.
(21:00):
This high performing agendaspills onto our children.
Often.
We put our kids inextracurricular activities that become
the central focus and putpressure on children to perform.
They think the only way to getattention and affirmation and applause
is to be hyper good at something.
According to Dr.
Meeker, that should not be the expectation.
Children also need to have theability to have quiet time to get
(21:23):
to know themselves.
Dr.
Meeker's talking about all ofthese things with us.
She's a practicingpediatrician and the host of the
podcast Parenting Great Kids.
She's a top parenting expert,speaker and author of seven books,
including a best selling bookthat became a movie called Strong
fathers, strong daughters.
Dr.
Meeker's common sense advicefor parenting in today's world is
(21:45):
golden.
Dr.
Meeker.
In our last segment, we talkedabout kids and teens on cell phones
and how they're consumed bythem and often just need a break.
You know, I would have been amenace if there'd been cell phones,
the smartphones when I wasgrowing up, you know, and I would
have been on it all the time,you know, because it would have been
(22:06):
fun and I would have beenexploring and.
Oh yeah, but when I think you.
Were sent outside, right?
Yeah, I mean, play outside, gofind something to do.
Exactly.
When the weather was nice, gooutside, you know, and I didn't want
to hang out in the house.
I mean, who wants to hang outwith adults?
They're boring.
Yeah, that's so true.
You wanted to go find stuff to do.
(22:27):
And I, I do worry about kidscreativity and imagination because
it's never called upon andeverything is, is written out and
spelled out for them.
And I think, you know, is goodto learn.
You know, I don't know thatkids as frequently have imaginary
friends now as much as theyused to.
(22:48):
But it was not uncommon for a5, 6 or 7 year old kid to have an
imaginary friend around thehouse that they would play with and
they do things with.
And we always thought therewere something psychiatrically wrong.
No, it was very healthy.
They were creating a life intheir mind.
And when you read books, youcreate what the characters look like
and how they dress, but yousee it on tv and that's why people
(23:09):
don't like to watch the movieas much as read the book, because
it doesn't stimulate theimagination and creativity.
Yep.
And so, you know, I think asparents we have to remember that
and we have to disciplineourselves to pull back sometimes.
And I encourage parents to,you know, go on a screen diet or
at least regulate the amountof hours that everybody in the home
(23:32):
is on a screen because thetruth is, it makes us feel better
too.
I, I don't, I'm sure you'vedone it where you go on YouTube and
you want to listen to a debateor you want to hear some wonderful
music, and all of a suddenyou're looking up the price of carpet.
I mean, and I spent 20 minuteslooking at carpet and I thought,
what a waste of time.
(23:52):
I don't even need carpet.
But I was, you know, it's just ridiculous.
And so it is.
It's just addictive.
And, and I admit it, you know.
That'S something that I'vethought about.
And I would love to ask youhow these electronic devices are
actually stifling theimagination, which is so necessary.
(24:13):
The imagination we have aschildren gives us the tools that
we need to become theengineers, the designers, the artists,
the musicians.
And if you don't have thatability, if you can't hone that because
you've got outside stimulationdoing it for you, I would think that
would really create a problem.
(24:33):
Well, it does.
It doesn't teach kids how tosolve problems, how to say, okay,
this is a problem here and Ineed to get through it and come out
on the other side, whetherit's doing a math problem, whether
it's a relationship problem,whether it's a school problem, anything.
Because the answer's always infront of you.
(24:54):
And so you lose thatstimulation of thinking critically.
And we don't teach our kids tothink critically and to, to think
deeply and to discuss deeplyand to wonder and to ask questions
and to, you know, even justsimple questions, you know, where
(25:17):
the stars come from, how manystars are there?
You know, why should I even,how do I even know it's a star?
But just to think and havethose conversations.
And it's really important toremember too, from the time a child
is about, you know, one toreally in their early 20s, they're
undergoing tremendous braindevelopment and rapid brain development
(25:41):
of different areas of the brain.
And so we can hardwire thatbrain, even the development, if kids
get stuck in one thing too long.
In other words, because your,your body, your brain is always sort
of trimming up synapses in the neurons.
(26:01):
And so the ones that aren'tused, it's like, it's like branches
of a tree.
If, if one branch doesn't, youknow, isn't producing leaves, it
gets cut off.
So if one branch is not beingused, say your creativity, your imagination,
it gets cut off.
And, and then the other onesthat are more focused on receiving
information and watching andlistening, those get stronger.
(26:22):
So in a way, we're reallyhardwiring our kids brains to be
engaged in receivinginformation and disengaged from thinking
critically and solving problems.
And we do know because there'sa lot out there now and the amount
of time on, you know, videosor screens, you know, social media,
(26:47):
whatever, about its effect onbrains and brain development.
So, you know, and I think ithappens on a lot of different levels
that we're not aware of, butwe know that at least on the basic
levels of brain development,it does have a profound effect.
So parents should have theirkids and they too should unplug.
Oh, yes, yes.
(27:08):
And that's one of the hardest things.
Believe it or not, I havefound this to be true, and I think
the research bears it out.
But don't quote me.
Kids have a harder time withtheir parents on devices than parents
do with their kids.
In other words, it botherskids more when their parents are
on a device than for a parentwhen a kid is on device.
(27:28):
And it makes sense because achild needs a parent.
A parent doesn't need a kid.
So if you're sitting in yourkitchen and you're in kindergarten
and you're coloring a pictureand dad is texting somebody, mom
is texting somebody on thephone and you're trying to say something
and they go, mm, yeah, mm.
But, you know, they're notpaying attention.
(27:50):
It makes the child feelinvisible and it makes them feel.
It's.
It's really not important thatI'm here now.
We're all gonna do that atsome point.
But it's the repeat, therepetition of that that really impacts
how kids feel aboutthemselves, their relationship, their
parents.
Now, you could be talking toyour child and your child is on their
(28:11):
device going, mm, yep.
It doesn't affect your selfesteem, but it does for a child because
they do feel invisible.
And they need to know thatyou're aware of their presence.
You like their presence, andthey're important to you.
That's something we needgrowing up.
Because that's absolutely.
I didn't get that.
(28:31):
I didn't get that at all.
And it was just like theharshest thing, the feeling of neglect
and not being wanted or lovedor get out of my way or everything
you say is stupid, so shutyour mouth.
Like, you know these things.
So it just.
Yeah, it was very, very traumatic.
And it took me years to getover that.
You know, it is.
And I think that I reallyappreciate you saying that because,
(28:54):
you know, a lot of parents go,well, I'm really not ignoring my
child.
I'm in the same room, but I'mon my phone.
You are ignoring your child.
And maybe it feels menial toyou, but it's impacting that child
on some level.
And then of course, you takethat to a further extreme where you're
mean to your child or you'reabandoning your child or your child's
(29:15):
invisible.
It does.
It takes years to get overbecause it sort of pierces you at
your very soul.
Yeah.
And we've got to be verycareful with that as parents because
we are playing with matches.
Maybe not full on fire, but weare playing with matches.
When we do this with our kids.
(29:36):
Too frequently, there's somany things that parents need to
think about.
You know, our children are not robots.
They.
They learn by what we're doing.
And the interactions everysingle day is a learning experience
that's going to carry thatchild into adulthood and impact how
they feel about themselves andhow they interact with the world
(29:57):
and ultimately how they raisechildren and the kind of success
that they have.
Yeah.
What is healthy parenting?
Is, Is there such a thing?
There is.
I, I think that.
Yes, I think that a healthyparent is someone.
Well, in order to.
How can I rephrase this?
(30:17):
Kids need very little, butthey need you to get the big stuff.
Right.
They don't need all the bellsand the whistles, and they don't
always need to be in thissport or this sport.
This sport.
They need to know theirparents are.
They need to feel affectionfrom their parents because when a
parent touches them and givesthem healthy affection, it makes
(30:41):
them feel that they'revaluable, that they're loved, that
they're liked, that they'reseen, that they're important when
they're in the room and theyneed to be accepted.
If kids.
There's so many things that wesay to our kids inadvertently or
a tone of voice we use withour kids.
It's like, that's not okay.
And that's not okay, andyou're not okay.
(31:03):
Well, you say that enough to achild and they feel, you know, really
unimportant.
And I think that anaffirmation, I mean, we, we need
to let them know that they can.
You know, we don't want to gooverboard and tell our, you know,
five foot two daughter thatshe can play, you know, Olympic basketball.
(31:25):
But, but just to affirm theircharacter and that they are strong
and that they can weatherthings and bad things do happen to
them, but they can get through it.
School and for instance, and,and those, I mean, those sound very
broad and general, but thoseare the things that really, really
matter to kids.
(31:46):
And to give them thatattention, you know, simple things
like Looking them in the facewhen you talk to them, look them
in the eyes.
You know, if they're up intheir room, you know, doing something,
open the door and peek in andsay, hey, how are you?
I haven't seen you in four days.
I just want to know how, howlife is and how you're doing, you
(32:07):
know, and if they don't wantyou there, they'll tell you.
But more often than not, kidswill like the fact that you really
want to pay attention to them.
And so just those few things,that's where healthy parenting begins.
And you know, and expand onthose things are where parenting
gets really good.
(32:27):
And that's how you raisereally solid kids.
Adults, it makes sense.
Well, they feel that they are worthy.
Yeah.
And they don't grow up withthe thought that they're not.
Because let's face it, when weget out in the real world, there
are people out there that aregoing to tell us we're not good enough.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, yeah.
And then we start tellingourselves that.
(32:49):
Because if you hear it enough,that's who you are.
Sure.
And then you go down to theworld and your colleagues and your
peers are sort ofcommunicating that to you, you know,
you might as well dive into a hole.
And it's very, very sadbecause I think mothers in general
have a lot of self doubt whenit comes to parenting and doing a
(33:09):
good job.
I think, you know, we just.
I, I know I did.
And even now as a grandparent,I'm constantly questioning what I'm
doing and what I'm saying tomy grandkids and is it good enough?
Is it the wrong thing, theright thing?
And I think, you know, why doyou worry about it so much?
My kids are grown and they'reokay, so hopefully my grandkids will
(33:29):
be too with my interaction.
But I think self doubt isreally pervasive.
Oh yes.
Well.
And social media has not madeit better.
No.
Because it's really, for manypeople, it's a show off zone.
You know, it's our way ofsaying, you know, here I am and look
at me and aren't I great?
(33:50):
You know, and I've laughedsometimes because I'll run into somebody's
store someplace and they'lllook at me and go, you know, do I
know you?
Huh?
And, and that what they see isvery different from what they see
on my website, which is aprofessional picture where my hair
and makeup are done, but Idon't really look like that in real
(34:12):
life.
And that's why people don'trecognize me, it's like, you know,
why?
Well, that's business.
But why?
We always put our, our bestfoot forward.
And you know, we can say,well, in our professional lives we
kind of need to do that.
Well, but, but in our personallives, it should be a whole different
thing.
But we do.
We, we end up sort of wantingto show our friends that how great
(34:36):
our trip to Tahiti was or howmuch fun we had, you know, with our
child, who's a straight Astudent going off to Stanford.
Isn't that wonderful?
And I don't know how you allfeel about Christmas cards, but Christmas
cards can be kind ofdemoralizing too.
When you get them from friendsand they give you this long litany
of all the wonderful thingstheir kids are doing.
(34:57):
It's kind of like social media.
You know, people saying, hereI am and here are the great things
that I am and my family are doing.
But really what it does is itbolsters them.
But the receiver feelsterrible about themselves when they're
reading it.
So social media really isdesigned to show off the person who's
posting, not to make thereaders feel good.
(35:20):
Right.
Because if you want to makethe readers feel good, you'd post
something very different thanyou're posting.
I actually got off personalFacebook and I'm, you know, a middle
aged woman.
But it was, it made me feelkind of bad because I saw my friends
traveling here and traveling there.
I'm like, I don't do that.
My husband isn't very thoughtful.
(35:40):
Why doesn't he ever say to me,let's go on a cruise, like her husband
did?
And I'm like, stop, stop, stop.
This is, this is hurting my marriage.
I'm going to shut down myFacebook page.
And I thought, if, if this isthe way you feel as, as in a middle
aged woman, how, how much, howmuch worse are you going to feel
if you're a 14 year old girl,has no clue who she is or what she's
(36:04):
supposed to be or what shewants can be devastating.
Yes.
And especially at that age,you want to be like your friends,
you want to be normal, youwant to be like everybody else.
Because if you're different,that's a bad thing, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And at that age too, I mean,adolescence is a rough time.
You have no idea who you are.
(36:25):
You're trying to figure it out.
And then of course, yourbody's changing and when you're a
female, you're going throughall these gross changes.
It's like, what is going On.
Yeah, yeah, well, and it ispainful and I think, you know, for
girls and for boys becausethere's hormonal shifts, there's
(36:45):
emotional swings.
You know, one time you'retalking to your 13 year old daughter
and she's loving and sweet andkind and then she goes upstairs,
comes back down and isspitting nails at you because.
And you think what, what did Ido wrong?
Well, you didn't do anything wrong.
That's how they are.
They're uncomfortable in theirbodies and they're mean to parents.
(37:07):
Not because they dislike theirparents, but because they're so uncomfortable
about themselves.
They're too tall, too skinny,too fat, too short, too pimply, too
stupid, too smart, whatever.
And they're just trying to gettheir footing and they're trying
to feel sort of okay aboutthemselves, about life.
But of course that's going tocome, come a long way down the road
(37:30):
and unfortunately a lot ofparents take them personally and,
and they believe, oh no, nowmy kid really hates me and my daughter
won't this, I said just settle down.
You know, your daughter justis not herself.
So kind of ride it out.
But you, you take a confusedteenager, young, young teen, prepubertal
and then they're going throughall those changes and then they're
(37:51):
getting hit with a lot ofmessages on social media and then
they don't have enough time tosort of sit and just be and talk
and be loved and communicatewith somebody who loves them in a
healthy way.
And it could be disaster for alot of them.
Oh yes, yes it can.
Well, they're still children.
(38:12):
They don't process things theway adults do.
They don't have the life experience.
First of all, you know, tothem being 20 years is, is like a
hundred based on their own perspectives.
Yes.
And of course part of being ateenager you figure your parents
know nothing.
Of course, you know, I know at18 I thought I knew everything and
(38:34):
though he advised I really didn't.
But in my parents, my parentsgot smarter as I got older, you know.
Yeah.
And then, and then it's hardas, as a parent you hit that point
with your kids where they lookat you and think you're really dumb
and, and you don't knowanything about anything and they
challenge you and even I justhave to laugh.
I think my son in law, my kidsare adults but sort of fairly young
(38:57):
adults said something to meabout a medical thing that I didn't
know what I was talking about.
He's in so many words he saidthat and looked at him like, are
you kidding me?
You know, you're, you're, youhave that much hubris that, that
you're telling me who'spracticed medicine for all these
years that I don't know whatI'm talking about.
And it wasn't a slight on me.
It was, it was a veryadolescent mindset.
(39:20):
I need to feel that.
I, I know a lot here, so letme have that.
And I'm like, well, I mightlet it go this time, but don't do
that again.
But you know, you'reabsolutely right.
It's part of thatdevelopmental process that they need
to think very different from,very differently from you and talk
(39:41):
differently from you to letthemselves know they are a fully
separate human being.
And this is really importantfor men or boys and their moms because
if you're 18 and stilldepending on your mother for a lot
of different things, it canfeel creepy.
(40:01):
And so you have to separatefor a while and then you come back
and your relationship is, is,is quite strong.
But there are all these weirdthings that our kids bring us through
that can, are, are reallytough, tough on our self esteem as
a mom and a parent.
Again, we're alwaysquestioning whether we're doing it
(40:22):
right or not.
In many ways, just like ourkids question whether they're doing
it right.
Sure.
Stay tuned for more of WomenRoad warriors coming up.
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Learnmore@truckingmovesamerica.com welcome
back to Women Road warriorswith Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.
(41:47):
As parents, we need to helpour kids unplug from electronic devices
so they can stimulate theirown imaginations.
That means we should unplug too.
Dr.
Meg Meeker says parents todaydon't teach their kids to think deeply
and critically.
That means getting off of all devices.
According to Dr.
Meeker, from the time a childis one to 20, they undergo rapid
(42:10):
brain development.
We can actually hardwire theirbrain if we allow them to get stuck
in one thing too long, whichis what devices do.
That cuts off development fordifferent portions of the brain.
That's why smart devices,social media and video games can
hamper a child's development.
Parents need to take time awayfrom their own devices too, so their
(42:31):
fully engaged with their children.
To stay glued to a smartphonemakes our kids feel invisible and
negatively impacts their self esteem.
As parents, we need to stop that.
Kids need a parent's attentionand healthy affection.
We need to affirm theircharacter and their worth.
These are just some of theways that healthy parenting begins
(42:51):
and how parents can reallyraise solid kids.
Dr.
Meeker has all kinds of greatinsight like this for parents.
She's a practicingpediatrician and the host of the
podcast Parenting Great Kids.
She's a top parenting expert,speaker and author of seven books,
including a best selling bookthat became a movie called Strong
fathers, strong daughters.
(43:13):
Dr.
Meeker has the sage and wisdomto help parents know when they're
doing too much or not enough.
Dr.
Meeker, there are some peoplewho helicopter parent.
I've heard of people in their20s who are still living with their
folks and their mother isdoing their laundry, making their
bed, doing all of that.
And I'm like really?
You know, I was in anapartment by the time I was 19, nobody
(43:33):
made my bed.
And, and aren't you glad, youknow, because that's how you learn
self sufficiency and that's,that's how you learn who you are
and what you're capable of andwhat you're good at and what you're
not good at.
And I think a lot of it stemsfrom the fact that we really believe
as mothers that if our kidsstruggle or if they fall down or
(43:58):
they go to work in dirtyclothes, that we have failed.
And we've got to get over that.
You know, we've got to get tothe point where we say to our kids,
you know what, not doing yourlaundry, not cooking your meals.
If you pray for, if you go forweeks without a meal, you're going
to lose weight.
That's the way it is.
Or yeah, it's on you.
(44:19):
You know, you go, you go towork dirty and you're, you're, I'll
Never forget my husband.
I was in the hospital, weweren't married or anything.
And he would own.
That's when you wear shirtsand ties.
And he would go to go to workin wrinkly shirts all the time.
And somebody in the hospitalsaid, you better iron those shirts
before you come here.
And he didn't know how to iron.
(44:40):
I said, well, you know, figureit out.
And he went home and ironedjust the front of his shirt, assuming
people only saw the front of him.
But you know, we.
That's funny.
Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous.
And you know, he cut his ownhair because he was cheap and his
mother, his parents just lethim have at it and it was so good
because he just sort offigured things out.
(45:02):
And kids have to do that.
They have to feel foolish attimes and they have to, you know,
go without some meals and theyhave to figure out how to pay their
rent and if, and if they're,and if their landlord comes and threatens
to evict them, they've got tofigure out how to resolve that problem.
(45:25):
And if you don't do that for ayoung adult man or woman, you cripple
them.
And that's what helicopteringparents do.
But helicoptering parents doit out of their own need.
I believe what that meant.
I've never heard that term before.
Helicoptering.
Yeah.
Oh, there's lawnmower parents.
What's that?
(45:45):
What's a lawnmower?
Worse than the helicopter parents.
They get.
They get down lower.
They get down lower and youknow, it's really just the hyper
controlling parents who justdon't want anything hurtful or in
any way, shape or form tohappen to, you know, Susie or Bobby.
They just can't handle that.
(46:07):
But I think one of the reasonsthey can't handle it is they feel
that they might have failed asa parent.
And I think on the flip side,a lot of the signing our kids up
for a million things is reallyall about the parents too.
Because if our kids do reallywell and we can tell people about
it, we feel like a really good parent.
(46:29):
But if your kid fails algebraor your kid gets evicted from his
apartment, you don't want totell anybody because you feel like
a bad parent.
And so, so we'll go to allthese great lengths to protect our
children so that they, thatwe're not embarrassed.
And they're not embarrassedbecause then they're.
(46:51):
Not a bad reflection.
Exactly.
I don't want to be the motherof the 20 year old who goes to work
in an unironed shirt and cutshis own hair.
But my, but my mother in lawlet my husband do it.
Not he was a grown up, but ifshe lived near him, she could have
said, no, no, no, no.
You have trouble, you know,going to a barber, you know, here's
(47:13):
20 bucks, go get your hair cut.
But she didn't.
She just let him.
And it was, it was a, it's, itwas, it was great.
So do you think part of thattoo is because parents don't want
to see their kids grow up?
It's an empty nest syndrome?
Yeah, I think that we want tofeel needed because if we feel needed,
(47:35):
then we feel fulfilled.
And I think a lot of times,you know, we buy into this sense
that we can be excellentparents, we can provide for our kids,
we give them these opportunities.
They're very dependent on usto be successful in life.
And if we let go of that andthey're on their own, they don't
need us.
(47:56):
And then who are we?
And when we need to deal withthat, you know?
And I think that for women,it's harder than for men because
we have to change.
We wear a lot of differenthats, more hats, I think, than men
do.
We go through so manytransitions in our lives from our
kids, you know, going all.
(48:16):
Going off to first grade andthen to junior high and then to high
school and then they leave for college.
And we're in all of that.
And so we, we grieve it a lotalong the way.
And men don't necessarily,because they're just doing a few
things.
And so I think it's harder formothers who tend to be more emotionally
(48:37):
in tune to their kids as well.
And we want our kids to alwayswant to come to us and ask advice.
We want our kids to know thatwe will be able to comfort them at
all times and give themsomething that nobody else can give
them.
And if we give that up and welet them go out on their own, it
(48:59):
cracks us.
And.
And I know I felt cracked.
And I remember my son who wasour baby, he was 18 years old and
he looked down at me one dayand he got very angry.
He says, mom, stop talking tome like there's always something
wrong with me.
And I was stunned.
(49:20):
And he was, he was right.
I was treating him like I wasalways looking to see if there was
a problem that he needed helpwith to be fixed.
He picked right up on that.
Like, why do you always thinkthere's something wrong with me that
I need you help me fix?
And I thought, man, and Ibacked Right off and let go.
(49:41):
And that was a huge turningpoint in our relationship and we
have a great relationship now.
But that, that hurt.
It hurt a lot.
But I think we do that becausewe want to live with a sense that
our, our kids need us there tofix something for them and they don't.
(50:03):
Communication so important.
Yeah.
And listening to the child.
A lot of times parents don'tdo that.
Dr.
Meeker, your, your insight is amazing.
Tangible, common senseobservations that are really helpful
to parents.
Both, both the mothers and Iwould love to talk about more things
here, but we have limited time.
(50:24):
Where do people find your books?
Where do they find yourpodcast and can they reach out to
you?
Of course.
My website'sMeakerParenting.com and they can
find anything they want.
Their, you know, books andcoaching and, and that kind of a
thing.
But it's meeker parenting.comso you do.
(50:45):
Coaching with people remotely?
I do.
And I tell you, yeah, I'vewritten a number of books and I've
flown all around the countrygiving lectures and da da da da da.
And I said what I really loveto do is this, what we're doing here.
I love to just talk to parentswho want to understand their kids
better.
(51:06):
And I do it a lot with fathersbecause they have so many questions
and they're afraid to go tosomebody and ask.
And I always thought, youknow, if, if my husband had somebody
other than me in his life totell him how to be a better dad,
it would have helped me somuch because he never listened to
(51:26):
me when I told him to do things.
And so I do a lot of thatbecause, you know, but my job basically
with all parents is just tounderstand what their kids are thinking,
what they need, what theywant, what they're feeling from their
parents.
Because I think once parentsunderstand the real power they have
in their kids lives, they willstart changing their behavior.
(51:49):
Because I think a lot ofparents who behave badly to their
kids, even if they think it'snot bad, really wound their kids.
But the flip side is if youspeak kindly and you're good to your
kids and you kind of like Italked about earlier, get the basics
right, your kids will be great.
(52:10):
So I don't, I try to justencourage parents about how much
power they have in their kidslives by letting them see inside
their kids.
And that's what my coaching is about.
I love this.
What is your website again?
Meeker parentingmeekerparenting.com okay, common
sense.
I mean, common sense.
You really put this in, in away that everyone can understand
(52:32):
and really grasp rather than alot of the stuff that people are
probably reaching out for andhearing and seeing and reading.
This just makes sense.
It does make sense.
And it's not rocket science.
You know, being a great parentis simple, but it's hard because
doing the simplest things arereally, really hard.
And so many times we, we focuson the, all the other stuff that
(52:55):
really our kids don't needbecause it's really hard to do the
big stuff, like, you know,talk to your kids the right way and
in a certain manner and notpretend like there's something wrong
with them all the time.
But anyway.
Yep.
So that's, that's just what Ilove to do.
Thank you so much for being onthe Stinker.
You're welcome.
This has been pleasure.
(53:15):
This has been tremendous.
I know our listeners are goingto just love this and, and I hope
they reach out to you.
Thank you.
We hope you've enjoyed thislatest episode.
And if you want to hear moreepisodes of Women Road warriors or
learn more about our show, besure to check out womenroadwarriors.com
and please follow us on social media.
(53:35):
And don't forget to subscribeto our podcast on our website.
We also have a selection ofpodcasts Just for Women.
They're a series of podcastsfrom different podcasters.
So if you're in the mood forwomen's podcasts, just click the
Power network tab onwomenroadwarriors.com youm'll have
a variety of shows to listento anytime you want to.
(53:56):
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and others.
Check us out and please followus wherever you listen to podcasts.
Thanks for listening.
You've been listening to WomenRoad warriors with Shelly Johnson
(54:16):
and Kathy Tucaro.
If you want to be a guest onthe show or have a topic or feedback,
email us@sjohnsonomenroadwarriors.com.
This is Women Road warriorswith Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.
From the corporate office tothe cab of a truck, they're here
to inspire and empower womenin all professions.
So gear down, sit back and enjoy.
(00:23):
Welcome.
We're an award winning showdinner dedicated to empowering women
in every profession throughinspiring stories and expert insights.
No topics off limits on our show.
We power women on the road tosuccess with expert and celebrity
interviews and information you need.
I'm Shelly.
And I'm Kathy.
(00:44):
Parental bonds are essentialfor children.
Kids need their parents forguidance and role models as they
make their way into the adult world.
There's no instruction manualfor parenting and there are many
things that children need.
The problem is kids don't comewith instructions.
Dr.
Meg Meeker is the host of thepodcast Parenting Great Kids.
(01:06):
Last year she did an episodeon mom guilt that's very prevalent
today.
Dr.
Meeker is a practicingpediatrician and top parenting expert,
speaker and author of sevenbooks, including a best selling book
that became a movie calledStrong fathers, strong daughters.
Dr.
Meeker has appeared on theToday Show, Dateline NBC, Fox and
(01:26):
Friends, NPR, Oprah andFriends, and many others.
Dr.
Meeker is here today to offerher insight on parenting and equipping
kids for life in spite of thecrazy world we have today.
Welcome, Dr.
Meeker.
Thank you so much for being onthe show with us.
Oh, thanks so much forinviting me.
I'm really looking forward to it.
Oh, are we?
(01:47):
Yes.
Oh my gosh.
Your insights are going to beso valuable on how to have strong
families with healthyparenting that empower parents and
children alike.
I know you talk about theimportance of fathers and their impact
on kids.
We'd also love to talk aboutyour insight on why fathers are just
as important as mothers andhow moms can get over their mom guilt.
(02:08):
You know, it seems like womenhave so much to do today with careers.
They can really suffer from that.
What can you share with ourlisteners to empower them as parents?
You know, one thing, I thinkthat mom guilt is enormous.
As a matter of fact, I don'tknow that I've ever met a mother
and I've been doing this about35 years in my practice.
(02:29):
Who doesn't feel guilty aboutsomething, something that she did
recently, something she did along time ago?
I certainly have felt it.
And now as a grandmother, Iwill say there's grandmother guilt.
So we got to really face thisand get over it.
But I think that we lack a lotof self confidence in our parenting
(02:50):
and particularly now with somuch information out there.
Younger parents, and I mean,you know, 40 and under read so much.
Their expectations for whatthey need to do for and with their
kids is really beyond the pale.
There's no way mothers couldbe and perform the way they think
(03:14):
they can because they've justgot, got so much information they're
reading out there.
And I will honestly say it'sharder for younger mothers now than
it was for me when I wasraising my kids because I, I just
didn't have as manyexpectations of myself.
And so I think a lot of themom guilt comes from the fact that
we expect ourselves to dothings and be someone we just can't
(03:38):
be.
And once we learn to let thatgo, then we can really sort of like
who we are as mothers and feelconfident in what we can do as mothers
and quit beating ourselves upall the time.
You know, when you think aboutit, social media, all you see are
these wonderful, idyllicpictures and everything's happy,
happy, happy.
Nobody puts anything out there.
(04:00):
Now it's really going on intheir lives.
It's easy to sit back and go,why is it not looking like that in
my life?
You know, I, I think women,especially women, I think they're
really, they judge themselvesa lot.
Well, we absolutely do.
And I think that mothers inparticular are very competitive people.
(04:21):
I'm a very competitive personby nature.
But I think that when it comesto being a mother, you want to at
least be as good as the othermothers, you know, or your friends.
And so you look at whatthey're doing and you want to make
sure that you're doing it andthen you're doing a little bit more.
For instance, when our kidswere younger, we live in northern
(04:42):
Michigan, we get a lot of snowin the winter and our neighbors kids
were skiing in a local ski club.
Now the skiing didn't.
It went from 6 o'clock atnight till 8 o'clock at night.
And I was sitting there doingcrafts with my kids.
They were.
I love crafts.
And anyway, I saw one carafter another going past my house,
(05:03):
taking their kids to ski team practice.
And I felt this awful feelingin the pit of my stomach, like, what
am I doing wrong?
Why, why are my kids not inski practice?
You know, I'm just a bad mom.
I'm just here with my K kidssort of doing crafts.
What's wrong with me?
Well, nothing.
But there you go, you sort offeel this pressure by.
(05:25):
You put this pressure on yourself.
Like if somebody else is doingthis with their kids, you, you need
to do that too, or at leastinvestigate it.
And I think it's hard for usto sort of admit that we're, we're
competitive people.
But we got to stop it becauseyou know, women are our friends and
our, and, and other women whoare parenting naked, their kids are
(05:45):
our friends too.
We need to stop competing withthem and trying to sort of outdo
each other.
And we do it in reallyunconscious ways.
You know, if you think about,have you ever run into a.
Well, of course you have agirlfriend at the store and you haven't
seen her in six months and youask how her family is and she starts
in on this litany of all thesewonderful things that her kid is
(06:06):
doing and what their gradesare and this and you just sort of
stare and you feel like adoofus, you know, like, why aren't
my kids that way?
Oh sure.
And she's not trying to bemean, you know, she's just excited
about her kids.
But that's our world.
And, and, and so it's, it'sreally hard.
And it's a world that if wearen't conscious of what's going
on around us, we're going tostart to feel pretty doggone awful
(06:31):
about the job that we're doing.
Well, you know, I think too, Isee kids going to all of these activities.
The neighbors next door, forinstance, have their kids and all
kinds of stuff.
It's non.
And they're both working parents.
That's exhausting.
I think that there's morepressure today to have kids involved
(06:51):
in all of these activities.
And that's gotta be stressfulfor the children too frankly.
And expensive.
Oh yeah, super expensive.
Well, you know, one of thethings I like to do as a pediatrician
is I'm a child advocate.
And I learned many, many yearsago by an old professor that if I
really wanted to help kids, Ihad to help parents.
(07:11):
Because parents have the powerin the kids lives.
And I think that, you know,that's one of the reasons that I
help, you know, moms a lot andencourage moms a lot and dads.
But I can tell parents howtheir kids feel about things.
For instance, how does the 10year old, 15 year old feel about
(07:33):
leaving school, going tosoccer practice, eating something
in the car and then going offto choir practice or orchestra practice
and then coming home at 8o'clock at night and only having
two or three hours forhomework to get up at 6:30 next morning
and start again.
Kids feel so much pressure tobe good enough for their parents
(07:57):
because kids, kids Feel thatthey, in order to get their parents
attention and parents to payattention, they have to keep doing
these things.
And if they don't keep doingthem, then their parents won't pay
attention.
I had a patient who is anoutstanding swimmer and she went
(08:20):
through college swimming andyou know, her parents would come
to every single swim meet.
They travel all around the country.
Well, then in college shedecided she didn't want to swim anymore.
And literally hercommunication with the parents just
sort of stopped.
And she said, I don't knowwhat to talk to my parents about.
They don't know what to talkto me about.
And so the activity wassomething that she perceived held
(08:45):
them together.
That's not what we want in ourrelationships with our kids.
We don't want performance tobond us together because our kids
feel in order to have a goodrelationship and relate to parents
and get their parentsattention and applause and affirmation,
they need to perform.
And that's a, that's a reallypainful lesson.
(09:08):
It really is.
Yeah.
And then that takes them thatattitude they carry into adulthood
too.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
Because then they grew up andthey go into the workplace and they
feel the only way to getaffirmation and attention and applause
is to be hyper good at something.
Well, eventually that's goingto catch up with you and you're going
(09:30):
to crash.
And we've all known friendswho've crashed.
I've crashed in my own life.
And it's no fun because youhave to reset and in order to reset,
you have to reevaluate, youknow, what is your worth and where
does it come from and what areyou really good at and what are you
bad at and does it reallymatter anyway?
(09:50):
Because in the end it kind ofdoesn't matter anyway.
Yeah.
So it can be pretty jolting.
So when did it get so crazywhere everything's such a frenzy
and the children are involvedwith all of these activities and
they're all of these pressureson them.
I don't think that was donelike 40 years ago.
No, no.
Well, here's my theory.
(10:11):
I went to an all women'sCollege in the 1970s.
Loved it.
I was very career driven.
Time I was 16, I said, I'mgoing to medical school.
That's it, no plan B.
And so I charged through highschool and college and medical school.
And during that period, themindset was I was one of 30 women
(10:33):
in our class of 90 somethingin medical school.
So it was very male dominated.
And the sense was we need tobe not just as good as the men, we
need to be better.
Okay, so we did that andthat's good.
We had fun careers, we enjoyed it.
But then we upped the ante.
And I think women did.
We did this to ourselves.
(10:53):
I, I think we did this to one another.
I could be wrong, but this iswhat I saw.
Then we said, okay, we're notonly great at our careers now, we
can be great full time momsand great career women.
And not only that, we can start.
Do you remember the slogan,bring home the best bacon and fry
(11:14):
it up in a pan?
Yeah, I remember my parentssaying, bringing.
Home the bacon, it's a little,it's a little goofy.
But it basically meant you'reexpected to be everything, you can
do it all.
But then we upped the anteeven more and said, guess what?
We can do it all alone.
And we don't need any help.
We don't necessarily need our friends.
(11:34):
We are far away from parentsand any support group, any supportive
family, you know, and if we'redivorced, that's okay.
We can still kind of go it alone.
And I think we just setourselves up to have such high expectations.
And then we started thinking,well, with, with our kids in order
(11:55):
to sort of compensate for thesense that we had to perform really,
really well.
That's when it spilled ontoour kids.
And I think we said, okay, youknow, I'm a high performer, I expect
you to be a high performer.
And again, a lot of this was subconscious.
And it's really not okay foryou to come home after school three
days a week and be bored.
(12:16):
That's just not what highperformers learn how to do.
And so I think, you know, Iguess a lot of is I'm sort of speaking
from myself as a mom and ex.
You know, my kids are grownnow, but just sort of my mindset
then.
And so I think a lot of it wasputting pressure on ourselves and
our peers.
And again, I think it comesdown to that competitiveness that,
(12:39):
you know, if your kid is justdoing one thing, my kid's going to
go do two things after school.
And we just sort of whipped itinto a little bit of a frenzy.
And so now it's the acceptance.
The norm for us as a greatparent is that your kids do a lot
of things and have greatfriends and they can perform really
well.
And if they're not doing wellin school, even in fourth grade,
(13:02):
you're going to get them a tutor.
And I think it's veryprevalent in the bigger cities.
From what I've experiencedGoing to New York, Chicago and la,
pressure is very, very intense.
That's my theory as a pediatrician.
Are you seeing more anxietywith children with all of this?
Oh, unquestionably, unquestionably.
Not just the, the amount ofanxiety, the intensity, intensity
(13:26):
of anxiety.
And younger kids with anxiety,you know, seven, eight, nine year
olds with anxiety.
And of course, a lot of it,you know, increased after Covid.
But I do think a lot of it iskids just feel a lot of pressure
to be and to do more and thatthey're not measuring up.
(13:47):
And I think it's.
Those messages are justinsidious all around them.
They come from all different places.
Teachers and friends andschools and church and, you know,
all certain places kids don't rest.
They don't, you know, sit homeand play Legos very long.
You know, they, they, theydon't have much quiet in their lives.
(14:08):
And I think they need that.
They have to have that.
They have to have that.
But I think sometimes, and I'mnot just pinning this all on parents,
I'm trying to, you know, thinkit all through.
We're uncomfortable with ourkids sort of being quiet and just
doing not much of anything.
But.
But kids learn.
(14:29):
They don't learn how toentertain themselves and just read
or as I said, play games or docrafts or something like that because
they're stimulated visuallyand from an auditory standpoint,
pretty much all day long, andit's too hard for their brains.
(14:49):
You know, I've thought thatthe constant stimulation, the external
stimulation, rather than beingable to learn to entertain yourself
as a child, I did have thatquiet time, and I lived in the country,
so I had to learn to entertain myself.
And what that did was bringout my creativity.
I read a lot of books.
I became very interested inwriting my own stories at a very
(15:11):
early age.
I don't think I would havedone that had I not had that alone
time and to be able to justkick back and get to know myself.
Right, yeah, for sure.
And I, and I think I'm thekind of person, and I agree with
you, I grew up, you know,having to do chores.
We lived on a farm and I.
And I did chores outside,which at the time I hated.
(15:32):
But now I wish I had morechores to do because I like big equipment
again, or any kind of equipment.
But I think there's so muchvalue in allowing kids to be in quiet,
to take, you know, socialmedia and phones and iPads and music
away from them, so that thelevel of stimulation just goes down
(15:58):
and down and down so that theycan really find quiet in their day.
And I think that kids have aharder time with that often than
parents do because we know howto train ourselves to pull back and
to go off and to do yoga,whatever we're going to do.
But kids don't really know howto do that.
And it's almost like theybecome addicted to stimulation, addicted
(16:20):
to someone telling them whatto do and how to do it and, and what
to listen to and what games to play.
And I think it, it's just, itovercharges their, their brains and
they don't.
Know how to communicate.
I mean, they're, they're,they're doing everything on their
device.
I mean, you look at teenagers,they're texting each other, they
can be sitting at the sametable, they're not talking.
(16:41):
As a matter of fact, if youwant to scare a teenager, talk to
them.
Yeah.
Or go up behind them and givethem a big old hug.
They'll turn around and take you.
You're absolutely right.
And I think that.
But, but let's be honest, asbusy working mothers, there's something
that feels kind of good aboutthe kid being on their device because
(17:03):
we've got stuff to do and wewant to make sure our child's entertained.
And I get it, you know, it'skind of like back in the old days
putting on Sesame street toyour three year old.
You felt guilty, but, but itwas kind of nice too.
And I think that, you know,there's that, you know, there's that
love, hate relationship withdevices as moms with their kids.
(17:25):
And I think that we have to bevery careful too because, you know,
the only way for kids to beremoved from the stimulation is for
parents to say, give me theiPad, give me your cell phone, give
me whatever.
And I will tell you, because Itook care of kids before, you know,
cell phones and teenagers willtell me, girls in particular, that
(17:48):
after they've been on socialmedia for X amount of time, they
get off it and just feel kindof, and, and we do know that the
amount of time a girl spendson social media is direct.
It parallels beautifullydepression in her life because it
just makes them feel so badlyabout themselves.
And that's just messages, notjust stimulation.
(18:10):
And so a lot goes on in themind of a teenager and a young kid
that we don't even see whenthey're on a screen, regardless what
they're doing on the screen.
Stay tuned for more of womenroad warriors coming up.
Dean Michael, the tax doctor here.
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Help us promote the best ofour industry.
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Learnmore@truckingmovesamerica.com welcome
welcome back to Women Roadwarriors with Shelly Johnson and
(19:36):
Kathy Tucaro.
If you're enjoying thisinformative episode of Women Road
Warriors, I wanted to mentionKathy and I explore all kinds of
topics that will power you onthe road to success.
We feature a lot of expertinterviews, plus we feature celebrities
and women who've been trailblazers.
Please check out ourpodcast@womenroadwarriors.com and
(19:58):
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We're also available whereveryou listen to podcasts on all the
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Also, don't forget to followus on social media.
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(20:18):
and other sites and tellothers about us.
We want to help as many womenas possible.
Mom guilt is all too common.
Too many people lack selfconfidence in their parenting.
Dr.
Meg Meeker says young parentstoday face unreasonable expectations
and there's no way mothers canbe and perform based on everything
(20:38):
they're reading or seeing.
Mob guilt comes from a placeof wanting to be someone we just
can't be and we need to stopbeating ourselves up over it.
Quite often we feel we need tocompete with other women and what
other families are doing andthe guilt just rises.
Women also have set themselvesup to have unrealistically high standards
and to do way too much.
(21:00):
This high performing agendaspills onto our children.
Often.
We put our kids inextracurricular activities that become
the central focus and putpressure on children to perform.
They think the only way to getattention and affirmation and applause
is to be hyper good at something.
According to Dr.
Meeker, that should not be the expectation.
Children also need to have theability to have quiet time to get
(21:23):
to know themselves.
Dr.
Meeker's talking about all ofthese things with us.
She's a practicingpediatrician and the host of the
podcast Parenting Great Kids.
She's a top parenting expert,speaker and author of seven books,
including a best selling bookthat became a movie called Strong
fathers, strong daughters.
Dr.
Meeker's common sense advicefor parenting in today's world is
(21:45):
golden.
Dr.
Meeker.
In our last segment, we talkedabout kids and teens on cell phones
and how they're consumed bythem and often just need a break.
You know, I would have been amenace if there'd been cell phones,
the smartphones when I wasgrowing up, you know, and I would
have been on it all the time,you know, because it would have been
(22:06):
fun and I would have beenexploring and.
Oh yeah, but when I think you.
Were sent outside, right?
Yeah, I mean, play outside, gofind something to do.
Exactly.
When the weather was nice, gooutside, you know, and I didn't want
to hang out in the house.
I mean, who wants to hang outwith adults?
They're boring.
Yeah, that's so true.
You wanted to go find stuff to do.
(22:27):
And I, I do worry about kidscreativity and imagination because
it's never called upon andeverything is, is written out and
spelled out for them.
And I think, you know, is goodto learn.
You know, I don't know thatkids as frequently have imaginary
friends now as much as theyused to.
(22:48):
But it was not uncommon for a5, 6 or 7 year old kid to have an
imaginary friend around thehouse that they would play with and
they do things with.
And we always thought therewere something psychiatrically wrong.
No, it was very healthy.
They were creating a life intheir mind.
And when you read books, youcreate what the characters look like
and how they dress, but yousee it on tv and that's why people
(23:09):
don't like to watch the movieas much as read the book, because
it doesn't stimulate theimagination and creativity.
Yep.
And so, you know, I think asparents we have to remember that
and we have to disciplineourselves to pull back sometimes.
And I encourage parents to,you know, go on a screen diet or
at least regulate the amountof hours that everybody in the home
(23:32):
is on a screen because thetruth is, it makes us feel better
too.
I, I don't, I'm sure you'vedone it where you go on YouTube and
you want to listen to a debateor you want to hear some wonderful
music, and all of a suddenyou're looking up the price of carpet.
I mean, and I spent 20 minuteslooking at carpet and I thought,
what a waste of time.
(23:52):
I don't even need carpet.
But I was, you know, it's just ridiculous.
And so it is.
It's just addictive.
And, and I admit it, you know.
That'S something that I'vethought about.
And I would love to ask youhow these electronic devices are
actually stifling theimagination, which is so necessary.
(24:13):
The imagination we have aschildren gives us the tools that
we need to become theengineers, the designers, the artists,
the musicians.
And if you don't have thatability, if you can't hone that because
you've got outside stimulationdoing it for you, I would think that
would really create a problem.
(24:33):
Well, it does.
It doesn't teach kids how tosolve problems, how to say, okay,
this is a problem here and Ineed to get through it and come out
on the other side, whetherit's doing a math problem, whether
it's a relationship problem,whether it's a school problem, anything.
Because the answer's always infront of you.
(24:54):
And so you lose thatstimulation of thinking critically.
And we don't teach our kids tothink critically and to, to think
deeply and to discuss deeplyand to wonder and to ask questions
and to, you know, even justsimple questions, you know, where
(25:17):
the stars come from, how manystars are there?
You know, why should I even,how do I even know it's a star?
But just to think and havethose conversations.
And it's really important toremember too, from the time a child
is about, you know, one toreally in their early 20s, they're
undergoing tremendous braindevelopment and rapid brain development
(25:41):
of different areas of the brain.
And so we can hardwire thatbrain, even the development, if kids
get stuck in one thing too long.
In other words, because your,your body, your brain is always sort
of trimming up synapses in the neurons.
(26:01):
And so the ones that aren'tused, it's like, it's like branches
of a tree.
If, if one branch doesn't, youknow, isn't producing leaves, it
gets cut off.
So if one branch is not beingused, say your creativity, your imagination,
it gets cut off.
And, and then the other onesthat are more focused on receiving
information and watching andlistening, those get stronger.
(26:22):
So in a way, we're reallyhardwiring our kids brains to be
engaged in receivinginformation and disengaged from thinking
critically and solving problems.
And we do know because there'sa lot out there now and the amount
of time on, you know, videosor screens, you know, social media,
(26:47):
whatever, about its effect onbrains and brain development.
So, you know, and I think ithappens on a lot of different levels
that we're not aware of, butwe know that at least on the basic
levels of brain development,it does have a profound effect.
So parents should have theirkids and they too should unplug.
Oh, yes, yes.
(27:08):
And that's one of the hardest things.
Believe it or not, I havefound this to be true, and I think
the research bears it out.
But don't quote me.
Kids have a harder time withtheir parents on devices than parents
do with their kids.
In other words, it botherskids more when their parents are
on a device than for a parentwhen a kid is on device.
(27:28):
And it makes sense because achild needs a parent.
A parent doesn't need a kid.
So if you're sitting in yourkitchen and you're in kindergarten
and you're coloring a pictureand dad is texting somebody, mom
is texting somebody on thephone and you're trying to say something
and they go, mm, yeah, mm.
But, you know, they're notpaying attention.
(27:50):
It makes the child feelinvisible and it makes them feel.
It's.
It's really not important thatI'm here now.
We're all gonna do that atsome point.
But it's the repeat, therepetition of that that really impacts
how kids feel aboutthemselves, their relationship, their
parents.
Now, you could be talking toyour child and your child is on their
(28:11):
device going, mm, yep.
It doesn't affect your selfesteem, but it does for a child because
they do feel invisible.
And they need to know thatyou're aware of their presence.
You like their presence, andthey're important to you.
That's something we needgrowing up.
Because that's absolutely.
I didn't get that.
(28:31):
I didn't get that at all.
And it was just like theharshest thing, the feeling of neglect
and not being wanted or lovedor get out of my way or everything
you say is stupid, so shutyour mouth.
Like, you know these things.
So it just.
Yeah, it was very, very traumatic.
And it took me years to getover that.
You know, it is.
And I think that I reallyappreciate you saying that because,
(28:54):
you know, a lot of parents go,well, I'm really not ignoring my
child.
I'm in the same room, but I'mon my phone.
You are ignoring your child.
And maybe it feels menial toyou, but it's impacting that child
on some level.
And then of course, you takethat to a further extreme where you're
mean to your child or you'reabandoning your child or your child's
(29:15):
invisible.
It does.
It takes years to get overbecause it sort of pierces you at
your very soul.
Yeah.
And we've got to be verycareful with that as parents because
we are playing with matches.
Maybe not full on fire, but weare playing with matches.
When we do this with our kids.
(29:36):
Too frequently, there's somany things that parents need to
think about.
You know, our children are not robots.
They.
They learn by what we're doing.
And the interactions everysingle day is a learning experience
that's going to carry thatchild into adulthood and impact how
they feel about themselves andhow they interact with the world
(29:57):
and ultimately how they raisechildren and the kind of success
that they have.
Yeah.
What is healthy parenting?
Is, Is there such a thing?
There is.
I, I think that.
Yes, I think that a healthyparent is someone.
Well, in order to.
How can I rephrase this?
(30:17):
Kids need very little, butthey need you to get the big stuff.
Right.
They don't need all the bellsand the whistles, and they don't
always need to be in thissport or this sport.
This sport.
They need to know theirparents are.
They need to feel affectionfrom their parents because when a
parent touches them and givesthem healthy affection, it makes
(30:41):
them feel that they'revaluable, that they're loved, that
they're liked, that they'reseen, that they're important when
they're in the room and theyneed to be accepted.
If kids.
There's so many things that wesay to our kids inadvertently or
a tone of voice we use withour kids.
It's like, that's not okay.
And that's not okay, andyou're not okay.
(31:03):
Well, you say that enough to achild and they feel, you know, really
unimportant.
And I think that anaffirmation, I mean, we, we need
to let them know that they can.
You know, we don't want to gooverboard and tell our, you know,
five foot two daughter thatshe can play, you know, Olympic basketball.
(31:25):
But, but just to affirm theircharacter and that they are strong
and that they can weatherthings and bad things do happen to
them, but they can get through it.
School and for instance, and,and those, I mean, those sound very
broad and general, but thoseare the things that really, really
matter to kids.
(31:46):
And to give them thatattention, you know, simple things
like Looking them in the facewhen you talk to them, look them
in the eyes.
You know, if they're up intheir room, you know, doing something,
open the door and peek in andsay, hey, how are you?
I haven't seen you in four days.
I just want to know how, howlife is and how you're doing, you
(32:07):
know, and if they don't wantyou there, they'll tell you.
But more often than not, kidswill like the fact that you really
want to pay attention to them.
And so just those few things,that's where healthy parenting begins.
And you know, and expand onthose things are where parenting
gets really good.
(32:27):
And that's how you raisereally solid kids.
Adults, it makes sense.
Well, they feel that they are worthy.
Yeah.
And they don't grow up withthe thought that they're not.
Because let's face it, when weget out in the real world, there
are people out there that aregoing to tell us we're not good enough.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, yeah.
And then we start tellingourselves that.
(32:49):
Because if you hear it enough,that's who you are.
Sure.
And then you go down to theworld and your colleagues and your
peers are sort ofcommunicating that to you, you know,
you might as well dive into a hole.
And it's very, very sadbecause I think mothers in general
have a lot of self doubt whenit comes to parenting and doing a
(33:09):
good job.
I think, you know, we just.
I, I know I did.
And even now as a grandparent,I'm constantly questioning what I'm
doing and what I'm saying tomy grandkids and is it good enough?
Is it the wrong thing, theright thing?
And I think, you know, why doyou worry about it so much?
My kids are grown and they'reokay, so hopefully my grandkids will
(33:29):
be too with my interaction.
But I think self doubt isreally pervasive.
Oh yes.
Well.
And social media has not madeit better.
No.
Because it's really, for manypeople, it's a show off zone.
You know, it's our way ofsaying, you know, here I am and look
at me and aren't I great?
(33:50):
You know, and I've laughedsometimes because I'll run into somebody's
store someplace and they'lllook at me and go, you know, do I
know you?
Huh?
And, and that what they see isvery different from what they see
on my website, which is aprofessional picture where my hair
and makeup are done, but Idon't really look like that in real
(34:12):
life.
And that's why people don'trecognize me, it's like, you know,
why?
Well, that's business.
But why?
We always put our, our bestfoot forward.
And you know, we can say,well, in our professional lives we
kind of need to do that.
Well, but, but in our personallives, it should be a whole different
thing.
But we do.
We, we end up sort of wantingto show our friends that how great
(34:36):
our trip to Tahiti was or howmuch fun we had, you know, with our
child, who's a straight Astudent going off to Stanford.
Isn't that wonderful?
And I don't know how you allfeel about Christmas cards, but Christmas
cards can be kind ofdemoralizing too.
When you get them from friendsand they give you this long litany
of all the wonderful thingstheir kids are doing.
(34:57):
It's kind of like social media.
You know, people saying, hereI am and here are the great things
that I am and my family are doing.
But really what it does is itbolsters them.
But the receiver feelsterrible about themselves when they're
reading it.
So social media really isdesigned to show off the person who's
posting, not to make thereaders feel good.
(35:20):
Right.
Because if you want to makethe readers feel good, you'd post
something very different thanyou're posting.
I actually got off personalFacebook and I'm, you know, a middle
aged woman.
But it was, it made me feelkind of bad because I saw my friends
traveling here and traveling there.
I'm like, I don't do that.
My husband isn't very thoughtful.
(35:40):
Why doesn't he ever say to me,let's go on a cruise, like her husband
did?
And I'm like, stop, stop, stop.
This is, this is hurting my marriage.
I'm going to shut down myFacebook page.
And I thought, if, if this isthe way you feel as, as in a middle
aged woman, how, how much, howmuch worse are you going to feel
if you're a 14 year old girl,has no clue who she is or what she's
(36:04):
supposed to be or what shewants can be devastating.
Yes.
And especially at that age,you want to be like your friends,
you want to be normal, youwant to be like everybody else.
Because if you're different,that's a bad thing, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And at that age too, I mean,adolescence is a rough time.
You have no idea who you are.
(36:25):
You're trying to figure it out.
And then of course, yourbody's changing and when you're a
female, you're going throughall these gross changes.
It's like, what is going On.
Yeah, yeah, well, and it ispainful and I think, you know, for
girls and for boys becausethere's hormonal shifts, there's
(36:45):
emotional swings.
You know, one time you'retalking to your 13 year old daughter
and she's loving and sweet andkind and then she goes upstairs,
comes back down and isspitting nails at you because.
And you think what, what did Ido wrong?
Well, you didn't do anything wrong.
That's how they are.
They're uncomfortable in theirbodies and they're mean to parents.
(37:07):
Not because they dislike theirparents, but because they're so uncomfortable
about themselves.
They're too tall, too skinny,too fat, too short, too pimply, too
stupid, too smart, whatever.
And they're just trying to gettheir footing and they're trying
to feel sort of okay aboutthemselves, about life.
But of course that's going tocome, come a long way down the road
(37:30):
and unfortunately a lot ofparents take them personally and,
and they believe, oh no, nowmy kid really hates me and my daughter
won't this, I said just settle down.
You know, your daughter justis not herself.
So kind of ride it out.
But you, you take a confusedteenager, young, young teen, prepubertal
and then they're going throughall those changes and then they're
(37:51):
getting hit with a lot ofmessages on social media and then
they don't have enough time tosort of sit and just be and talk
and be loved and communicatewith somebody who loves them in a
healthy way.
And it could be disaster for alot of them.
Oh yes, yes it can.
Well, they're still children.
(38:12):
They don't process things theway adults do.
They don't have the life experience.
First of all, you know, tothem being 20 years is, is like a
hundred based on their own perspectives.
Yes.
And of course part of being ateenager you figure your parents
know nothing.
Of course, you know, I know at18 I thought I knew everything and
(38:34):
though he advised I really didn't.
But in my parents, my parentsgot smarter as I got older, you know.
Yeah.
And then, and then it's hardas, as a parent you hit that point
with your kids where they lookat you and think you're really dumb
and, and you don't knowanything about anything and they
challenge you and even I justhave to laugh.
I think my son in law, my kidsare adults but sort of fairly young
(38:57):
adults said something to meabout a medical thing that I didn't
know what I was talking about.
He's in so many words he saidthat and looked at him like, are
you kidding me?
You know, you're, you're, youhave that much hubris that, that
you're telling me who'spracticed medicine for all these
years that I don't know whatI'm talking about.
And it wasn't a slight on me.
It was, it was a veryadolescent mindset.
(39:20):
I need to feel that.
I, I know a lot here, so letme have that.
And I'm like, well, I mightlet it go this time, but don't do
that again.
But you know, you'reabsolutely right.
It's part of thatdevelopmental process that they need
to think very different from,very differently from you and talk
(39:41):
differently from you to letthemselves know they are a fully
separate human being.
And this is really importantfor men or boys and their moms because
if you're 18 and stilldepending on your mother for a lot
of different things, it canfeel creepy.
(40:01):
And so you have to separatefor a while and then you come back
and your relationship is, is,is quite strong.
But there are all these weirdthings that our kids bring us through
that can, are, are reallytough, tough on our self esteem as
a mom and a parent.
Again, we're alwaysquestioning whether we're doing it
(40:22):
right or not.
In many ways, just like ourkids question whether they're doing
it right.
Sure.
Stay tuned for more of WomenRoad warriors coming up.
Dean Michael, the tax doctor here.
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(41:05):
consultation and get your life back.
Industry movement TruckingMoves America Forward is telling
the story of the industry.
Our safety champions, thewomen of trucking, independent contractors,
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Help us promote the best ofour industry.
Share your story and what youlove about trucking.
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Share images of a momentyou're proud of and join us on social
media.
Learnmore@truckingmovesamerica.com welcome
back to Women Road warriorswith Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.
(41:47):
As parents, we need to helpour kids unplug from electronic devices
so they can stimulate theirown imaginations.
That means we should unplug too.
Dr.
Meg Meeker says parents todaydon't teach their kids to think deeply
and critically.
That means getting off of all devices.
According to Dr.
Meeker, from the time a childis one to 20, they undergo rapid
(42:10):
brain development.
We can actually hardwire theirbrain if we allow them to get stuck
in one thing too long, whichis what devices do.
That cuts off development fordifferent portions of the brain.
That's why smart devices,social media and video games can
hamper a child's development.
Parents need to take time awayfrom their own devices too, so their
(42:31):
fully engaged with their children.
To stay glued to a smartphonemakes our kids feel invisible and
negatively impacts their self esteem.
As parents, we need to stop that.
Kids need a parent's attentionand healthy affection.
We need to affirm theircharacter and their worth.
These are just some of theways that healthy parenting begins
(42:51):
and how parents can reallyraise solid kids.
Dr.
Meeker has all kinds of greatinsight like this for parents.
She's a practicingpediatrician and the host of the
podcast Parenting Great Kids.
She's a top parenting expert,speaker and author of seven books,
including a best selling bookthat became a movie called Strong
fathers, strong daughters.
(43:13):
Dr.
Meeker has the sage and wisdomto help parents know when they're
doing too much or not enough.
Dr.
Meeker, there are some peoplewho helicopter parent.
I've heard of people in their20s who are still living with their
folks and their mother isdoing their laundry, making their
bed, doing all of that.
And I'm like really?
You know, I was in anapartment by the time I was 19, nobody
(43:33):
made my bed.
And, and aren't you glad, youknow, because that's how you learn
self sufficiency and that's,that's how you learn who you are
and what you're capable of andwhat you're good at and what you're
not good at.
And I think a lot of it stemsfrom the fact that we really believe
as mothers that if our kidsstruggle or if they fall down or
(43:58):
they go to work in dirtyclothes, that we have failed.
And we've got to get over that.
You know, we've got to get tothe point where we say to our kids,
you know what, not doing yourlaundry, not cooking your meals.
If you pray for, if you go forweeks without a meal, you're going
to lose weight.
That's the way it is.
Or yeah, it's on you.
(44:19):
You know, you go, you go towork dirty and you're, you're, I'll
Never forget my husband.
I was in the hospital, weweren't married or anything.
And he would own.
That's when you wear shirtsand ties.
And he would go to go to workin wrinkly shirts all the time.
And somebody in the hospitalsaid, you better iron those shirts
before you come here.
And he didn't know how to iron.
(44:40):
I said, well, you know, figureit out.
And he went home and ironedjust the front of his shirt, assuming
people only saw the front of him.
But you know, we.
That's funny.
Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous.
And you know, he cut his ownhair because he was cheap and his
mother, his parents just lethim have at it and it was so good
because he just sort offigured things out.
(45:02):
And kids have to do that.
They have to feel foolish attimes and they have to, you know,
go without some meals and theyhave to figure out how to pay their
rent and if, and if they're,and if their landlord comes and threatens
to evict them, they've got tofigure out how to resolve that problem.
(45:25):
And if you don't do that for ayoung adult man or woman, you cripple
them.
And that's what helicopteringparents do.
But helicoptering parents doit out of their own need.
I believe what that meant.
I've never heard that term before.
Helicoptering.
Yeah.
Oh, there's lawnmower parents.
What's that?
(45:45):
What's a lawnmower?
Worse than the helicopter parents.
They get.
They get down lower.
They get down lower and youknow, it's really just the hyper
controlling parents who justdon't want anything hurtful or in
any way, shape or form tohappen to, you know, Susie or Bobby.
They just can't handle that.
(46:07):
But I think one of the reasonsthey can't handle it is they feel
that they might have failed asa parent.
And I think on the flip side,a lot of the signing our kids up
for a million things is reallyall about the parents too.
Because if our kids do reallywell and we can tell people about
it, we feel like a really good parent.
(46:29):
But if your kid fails algebraor your kid gets evicted from his
apartment, you don't want totell anybody because you feel like
a bad parent.
And so, so we'll go to allthese great lengths to protect our
children so that they, thatwe're not embarrassed.
And they're not embarrassedbecause then they're.
(46:51):
Not a bad reflection.
Exactly.
I don't want to be the motherof the 20 year old who goes to work
in an unironed shirt and cutshis own hair.
But my, but my mother in lawlet my husband do it.
Not he was a grown up, but ifshe lived near him, she could have
said, no, no, no, no.
You have trouble, you know,going to a barber, you know, here's
(47:13):
20 bucks, go get your hair cut.
But she didn't.
She just let him.
And it was, it was a, it's, itwas, it was great.
So do you think part of thattoo is because parents don't want
to see their kids grow up?
It's an empty nest syndrome?
Yeah, I think that we want tofeel needed because if we feel needed,
(47:35):
then we feel fulfilled.
And I think a lot of times,you know, we buy into this sense
that we can be excellentparents, we can provide for our kids,
we give them these opportunities.
They're very dependent on usto be successful in life.
And if we let go of that andthey're on their own, they don't
need us.
(47:56):
And then who are we?
And when we need to deal withthat, you know?
And I think that for women,it's harder than for men because
we have to change.
We wear a lot of differenthats, more hats, I think, than men
do.
We go through so manytransitions in our lives from our
kids, you know, going all.
(48:16):
Going off to first grade andthen to junior high and then to high
school and then they leave for college.
And we're in all of that.
And so we, we grieve it a lotalong the way.
And men don't necessarily,because they're just doing a few
things.
And so I think it's harder formothers who tend to be more emotionally
(48:37):
in tune to their kids as well.
And we want our kids to alwayswant to come to us and ask advice.
We want our kids to know thatwe will be able to comfort them at
all times and give themsomething that nobody else can give
them.
And if we give that up and welet them go out on their own, it
(48:59):
cracks us.
And.
And I know I felt cracked.
And I remember my son who wasour baby, he was 18 years old and
he looked down at me one dayand he got very angry.
He says, mom, stop talking tome like there's always something
wrong with me.
And I was stunned.
(49:20):
And he was, he was right.
I was treating him like I wasalways looking to see if there was
a problem that he needed helpwith to be fixed.
He picked right up on that.
Like, why do you always thinkthere's something wrong with me that
I need you help me fix?
And I thought, man, and Ibacked Right off and let go.
(49:41):
And that was a huge turningpoint in our relationship and we
have a great relationship now.
But that, that hurt.
It hurt a lot.
But I think we do that becausewe want to live with a sense that
our, our kids need us there tofix something for them and they don't.
(50:03):
Communication so important.
Yeah.
And listening to the child.
A lot of times parents don'tdo that.
Dr.
Meeker, your, your insight is amazing.
Tangible, common senseobservations that are really helpful
to parents.
Both, both the mothers and Iwould love to talk about more things
here, but we have limited time.
(50:24):
Where do people find your books?
Where do they find yourpodcast and can they reach out to
you?
Of course.
My website'sMeakerParenting.com and they can
find anything they want.
Their, you know, books andcoaching and, and that kind of a
thing.
But it's meeker parenting.comso you do.
(50:45):
Coaching with people remotely?
I do.
And I tell you, yeah, I'vewritten a number of books and I've
flown all around the countrygiving lectures and da da da da da.
And I said what I really loveto do is this, what we're doing here.
I love to just talk to parentswho want to understand their kids
better.
(51:06):
And I do it a lot with fathersbecause they have so many questions
and they're afraid to go tosomebody and ask.
And I always thought, youknow, if, if my husband had somebody
other than me in his life totell him how to be a better dad,
it would have helped me somuch because he never listened to
(51:26):
me when I told him to do things.
And so I do a lot of thatbecause, you know, but my job basically
with all parents is just tounderstand what their kids are thinking,
what they need, what theywant, what they're feeling from their
parents.
Because I think once parentsunderstand the real power they have
in their kids lives, they willstart changing their behavior.
(51:49):
Because I think a lot ofparents who behave badly to their
kids, even if they think it'snot bad, really wound their kids.
But the flip side is if youspeak kindly and you're good to your
kids and you kind of like Italked about earlier, get the basics
right, your kids will be great.
(52:10):
So I don't, I try to justencourage parents about how much
power they have in their kidslives by letting them see inside
their kids.
And that's what my coaching is about.
I love this.
What is your website again?
Meeker parentingmeekerparenting.com okay, common
sense.
I mean, common sense.
You really put this in, in away that everyone can understand
(52:32):
and really grasp rather than alot of the stuff that people are
probably reaching out for andhearing and seeing and reading.
This just makes sense.
It does make sense.
And it's not rocket science.
You know, being a great parentis simple, but it's hard because
doing the simplest things arereally, really hard.
And so many times we, we focuson the, all the other stuff that
(52:55):
really our kids don't needbecause it's really hard to do the
big stuff, like, you know,talk to your kids the right way and
in a certain manner and notpretend like there's something wrong
with them all the time.
But anyway.
Yep.
So that's, that's just what Ilove to do.
Thank you so much for being onthe Stinker.
You're welcome.
This has been pleasure.
(53:15):
This has been tremendous.
I know our listeners are goingto just love this and, and I hope
they reach out to you.
Thank you.
We hope you've enjoyed thislatest episode.
And if you want to hear moreepisodes of Women Road warriors or
learn more about our show, besure to check out womenroadwarriors.com
and please follow us on social media.
(53:35):
And don't forget to subscribeto our podcast on our website.
We also have a selection ofpodcasts Just for Women.
They're a series of podcastsfrom different podcasters.
So if you're in the mood forwomen's podcasts, just click the
Power network tab onwomenroadwarriors.com youm'll have
a variety of shows to listento anytime you want to.
(53:56):
Podcasts Made For Women WomenRoad warriors is on all the major
podcast channels like Apple,Spotify, Amazon, Audible, YouTube
and others.
Check us out and please followus wherever you listen to podcasts.
Thanks for listening.
You've been listening to WomenRoad warriors with Shelly Johnson
(54:16):
and Kathy Tucaro.
If you want to be a guest onthe show or have a topic or feedback,
email us@sjohnsonomenroadwarriors.com.
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