Welcome back to become a calm mama. I am your host. I'm

A Childress. I am a life and parenting coach,

and I a wanna talk about

parenting the kid in front of you. So this is something I say often.

It's one of my, like, favorite a, and I've talked about it a little bit

on the podcast in an earlier episode of, like, 5 things I say the

most. But one of the things I talk about is parenting the kid in front

of you, not the one you wish you had or

the one you're afraid they'll become. And I wanna

talk today about the this idea because there are

there are 3 things that come up when we're parenting our

kid and they don't act the way we wish they would act

or we don't like their behavior or we don't like parts of their personality.

And emotion comes up from that, and we can have

our own thoughts and feelings and then actions that come

from the way that we are perceiving our kids. And some of the things

that I wanna talk about today are really sort of

the problems when we look at our

kid and we make judgments about them, either wishing they

were different or worried that how they are is going to

be how they become in the in when they get bigger.

This came up for me because I this past week, I

was on an amazing trip with my youngest son, Sawyer,

who just turned 18. And what we did was I took

him on a trip just the 2 of us to Paris. I live in Los

A. And we so we flew across the country, across the

ocean, and we spent a week a, just the 2 of us in

Paris. And it was absolutely amazing. Like,

we had the best time, very little conflict between us. I

mean, really none. We both kind of dealt with our feelings even though it was

complicated. And, but I also got to spend

a lot of time with him, right, and get to know him and see who

he is right now. I got to sort of I wasn't really

parenting him that much, but just being with the kid in front of me,

like, getting to know my son as he is

now as this 18 year old. Parenthetically, he turned

18 while we were there. And for his 18th

birthday, that was the day that we booked the Eiffel Tower. And so we went

to the top all the way to the top. It was a beautiful

evening. It was the only clear day that we had where there

wasn't clouds and it wasn't raining. And we were at the top right at

sunset, and we had a little champagne toast, and he got to celebrate

his 18th birthday, like, on the top of the Eiffel Tower. I mean, how

amazing is that? Right? So cool. So I feel really, really

grateful that I had that opportunity. But like I said, I

got to spend a lot of time with him, and there were definitely points

of time where I'm like, oh, woah.

This is who you are. This is how you think. You know? This is

your young man attitude towards whatever.

And I found myself sometimes

feeling, like, not

angry, but uncomfortable or sad

or disappointed or, you know, I had some emotion about it.

And I wanted to really explore that for myself and and talk about

it on the podcast Become when we

have a a person that we're in a relationship with

and we make their behavior mean something negative,

then that is going to sour the way that we interact with

them. And it is going to sour our relationship with them, and it's gonna

sour their relationship with themselves, particularly if you're

their parent. So it's really important to work

on how we think and feel about our kids and

not put that negative attitude or

negative judgment about their behavior. Now

that's really hard, right? Because as a parent our

responsibility is to help our kids, you know,

learn how to be in a community, how to be in a relationship with

themselves and with others. And that means

there's being polite, having manners, being

generous, being kind, all of these different

values that we have that we want to see in our kids. And

when they're young, we sometimes see

sort of the opposite of that. You know, last couple weeks, I talked

about, you know, when your kid is lying to you or when they say I

hate you a how easy it is to look at your kid when

there's, like, lying and be like, oh my god. They're becoming a liar. They don't

have, you know, they don't have the the values that I

have or they say I hate you. That's so disrespectful. I'm

raising a disrespectful child. And what

happens is that we get kind of caught up in our own head about

that behavior, and it prevents us from actually parenting our children.

It prevents us from actually teaching them

the skills that they need in order to become who

they're meant to be. So we have to accept how they

are right now from a neutral place and to

see it as a part of their either part of

their personality that hasn't fully developed yet or part of

their skills or values that they haven't had an opportunity to learn

yet. Do you see I'm saying yet?

Because this is a big part of the perspective I want you to

take from this podcast episode is that your children are on a

journey of development. So the 3

problems that I see when you're parenting the

kid in front of you and you don't like them,

what happens is we either problem number 1

is that we make their behavior mean something about us.

So I'm gonna talk about that. So if we're looking at their behavior and we're

making it about us, like, I'm a bad parent, that

creates a problem. If we look at their our

kid, problem number 2 is if we make it

seem like that's who they are from now on.

So looking at our kid and making their current behavior means

something about the future. Like, oh, they

are disrespectful. They're going to become disrespectful.

Oh, they are lying. They're going to become a liar.

Oh, they're selfish. They're going to be a selfish person.

When you are looking at their behavior in the present and you're making

it mean something about the future, that is a problem.

So that's a problem number 2. And then problem number 3 is if you look

at their behavior and you make it mean that something is wrong with them, like,

that at their core, they are bad.

Like, there's something wrong with their personality. They're almost sociopathic or

something. Like, if you look at them and you're like, I do not

like this person and that something is wrong

with people who act like that, that is really gonna make

it's gonna mess up your kid. Okay? So I don't mean to

be, like, too super scary here, but those these three

things, if you make if you look at your kid's behavior and you make it

mean something about you, you make it something about the future or make it mean

something that's wrong with them. Those 3 are

parenting traps that will get you into some trouble.

Now you're gonna listen to this and you'll be like, I've done all three of

those things. Me too. I wanna

offer to you that the awareness of the thoughts that

you have is the beginning of shifting them.

You cannot change something unless you see it.

And you know you're not motivated to change something unless you see that

maybe something's not working about it. And so I want you

to not use this podcast episode as a way to judge yourself

and and condemn yourself and be like, oh, I've already screwed a. My kid you

know, even if your kid is, like, 20 a you have 20 years

of, you know, this kind of baggage, it's fine. Just fix it.

Apologize. Move forward. And make commit make a commitment to shift

how you think and feel about them. So I'm

gonna talk a lot about each one and then give

you some ways to shift. So this is your invitation

to grow yourself, and you

cannot grow if you are judging yourself. If you don't

like how you've been, then say thank

you to the past because it served you for some reason,

and then move forward into a new a new pattern.

Okay? So let's get into if you make it mean

something about you. So imagine that you have a

kid and they are at a birthday

party a, you know, it's their birthday party, say.

And, you know, there's a kid who wants to play with their new toy.

And you're like, oh, go ahead and play with your toys. Your friends aren't gonna

be here that long. Let them play with your toys. And they're like, no. I

don't want them to play with my toys. No. Everyone needs to leave my house.

Get out of here. You've seen this. Right? Like,

you know, kids get like, get out of my house. I don't want you here

anymore. And you then start to

worry how the other parents are

judging your kids' behavior. And you look at their

behavior, and you're like, oh my gosh. I must be a

bad parent if my kid acts this way.

When you are thinking, I've done something wrong, and that's why

my kid acts this way, or I'm a bad parent, and that's why they act

this way, You are going to get stuck in a self

centered trap. And what happens is that

you can end up being you I want you to be

neutral about their behavior. But if you're personalizing

it, then you're not in their narrative. You're in

yours. And you might overparent, be over strict, over

harsh, over mean, too quick. Don't

talk like that. That's not nice. Don't let you know, we get, like, a little

bit into correction before we go to connection. So this is

where I am cautioning to you

that not to make their behavior mean something about you.

It is information. It's just data. It's just a

like, oh, wow. This child right now in this moment is

struggling with this thing. They need support. They need

tools. But if you are worried that everyone is, you know, gonna judge

you, it makes it a lot harder to be present in

the moment and offer the child the support and the tools that they

need. Now I get it. What I am saying

is hard to do. So I had an interaction

like this on our trip, just one where, you

know, I'm I'm sure that my behavior sometimes was not great for my

kids. It's funny Become now that I have an adult child,

he'll see me through the lens of, like, adult to adult. Sometimes

if I'm in, like, I'm being too sharp or mean or rude to, like, a,

like, a health care provider or something like that, my son later will say to

me, like, wow. You were really harsh there. Like, you know, he's aware

of my behavior. So I am not perfect nor are your children perfect.

Right? It's just not a really helpful thing for a person in a

relationship to be like, oh, you're acting that way because I did something wrong.

It takes the personal responsibility away from the other person. It takes the

agency away from the other person. Your child needs to believe that

they have influence and power over how they act,

that they can change their behavior, that they can learn about themselves.

So when you personalize it and you become the self centered person and make it

about you, you prevent your child from learning and growing. Instead of

saying, how does this behavior affect me? How does it reflect

on me? What are people gonna say about me?

I'd rather you start thinking, how is this behavior gonna

affect my child? If they keep going in this way,

what might happen? What skill is missing here? What do they

need to learn here? And if you can look at behavior as

just a strategy, right? I talk about all the time on the podcast that

behavior is

unkind, you know, disrespectful, unkind,

you know, disrespectful, harsh, or

whatever they're doing, that is because they have a feeling that they're

overwhelmed by, that they don't know how to cope with. They they are

lacking a skill. And when you are calm

and you are present and you're not in your own head and making it mean

everything about you, you can say, A do you need here? Let me

support you. Let's problem solve. And if you give your

kids the skills they need in real time while they're dealing with their,

you know, emotions and while they're learning these things, then they grow up

and actually they don't become the thing that you're worried about.

So that takes me to number 2 is when we

there's parts of our kid that we don't like a we make it mean

something about the future. So we catastrophize or

worst case scenario, their behavior a we play it out

in a negative way and we play it out to the future,

what that does is it prevents your child from growing

and changing. It pigeonholes them.

It it creates a small narrow window of a

personality type. Oh, you are unkind. Oh,

you're selfish. You're not a generous person. You're not

a loving person. You're not a respectful person.

The child be that they pull that identity in and that

becomes part of their self-concept. And then it gets,

like, a. How if you leave clay out,

right, it will Become, hard.

But if if you keep molding it and wetting it and and manipulating

it, you can keep changing it. So we don't want to,

you know, put that into our child and be like, this is who you are

or this is who you're becoming. Instead, I would rather you be able to

say, oh, you this is where you

are right now. And you have so much time to grow and

change and become. I want you to think

about yourself in middle school

or yourself in in high school.

You it's harder for you to think about who you were when you were real

little. But I actually remember, like, doing bad things

when I was little or saying inappropriate things

and not necessarily knowing that they were

wrong, not necessarily knowing they were bad, and

needing to be taught, oh, if I do this, this hurts someone

else, and that's not who I wanna be. So

learning how to, approach your child

from, hey. Right now, you're learning and growing and struggling, and I'm gonna help

you learn. But if we look at them

and we say, you know, oh, this is who you are now.

This is who you're gonna become. This is this is, like, set in stone. That

is really difficult. So thinking about you as a little kid,

thinking about how much you've grown and changed, how much how

different you are. We were talking about this during the parenting teen

support group. I have this monthly support group for parents of teens. If you're interested,

let me know. We can get you in there. But we we

meet once a month, and we just talk about what it's like to raise teens.

And we talk about the struggles and challenges. And one of the things is we

feel when you're raising teens, like, you're running out of time. You know,

that you you don't you've got, oh, this is who they are, and you've, you

know, you don't have any more time to teach them or that, you know, it's

like it feels like they're done. And so this mom was talking about

how she's like, I'm not the same person I was in high

school. Like, I've changed a lot. And she's like, I'm like version

2.0. And then she's like, or 3.0 or 4.0. And we

started laughing about how probably every decade of our

life is a new version of, like, Darlynn 2.0 was my

twenties. Darlin 3.0 is my thirties. Darlin

4.0 is now in my forties. And so we all

have these versions of ourselves

And our core self is true and

lovable and worthy and wonderful, just like your you are,

and your children's core self is totally unconditionally

worthy of love and acceptance.

And some of their behaviors need work.

This mom said she said, you know, I learned about myself

that, like, some of my behaviors, you know, didn't work for

me anymore. And it's like, well, we only learn that because

we've made mistakes. We hurt people. We cause problems. We

lose jobs. We, you know, don't reach a goal. It's like

through obstacles, we grow. So I want you

to think about your kids as, like, version 1

point o. Some of you have kids 0 to 10. They're,

like, in, like, point 0. Like, there's 0 version. This

is, like, version beta. There's

not even really, like, who they're gonna be. They haven't even gone through adolescence

yet. So don't pigeonhole your kids. I

also sometimes talk about this when I talk about teens is

that we want to think of them as being

done. Like, Sawyer, he just turned 18. Okay. I'm done.

Right? I raised an a. And so he's done.

Like, my work is a, whatever. And it's not

because I'm not doing anything. He's him. He's

growing. He's changing. I'm always gonna have the ability to

speak love into his life and to speak guidance into his life

Become I've been doing that all along. I have

been working really hard to not judge him and pigeonhole him and make his behavior

mean anything about me and just allow him to be who he is

and love and unconditionally accept that person while

also helping guide him towards the best

version of himself. And so he's not

done. And I think about it like like a

cake kind of when you're baking. There are certain things that you

put in the oven that you aren't supposed to open the oven

while the thing is baking. Maybe you don't know this Become

opening that oven door changes

what's happening inside. And so you might wanna open the

oven to check if something is done. And when you open it, you're

letting all the steam out or you're changing the temperature. And

that changes the chemicals that are, like, inside of,

like, the baking soda or baking powder or whatever that's inside the cake.

Ironically, I looked at this up because I was like, which kinds of things are

you not supposed to open the oven for? And one

is a Victoria sponge calm. And it's because when you

open the door, you are letting in the cold

air, and you're losing some of that moist hot air. And then that

actually makes the cake, get denser and

even collapse. Like, that's also true if you make, like, a pop over.

If you open the door, it will it will flatten.

And so with your teens, not to belabor this, but with your

teens, I don't want you to be looking at who they are at 15 or

16 and being like, oh, you're cooked. A was like, no.

They're still in the oven. Do not judge. Don't start poking

around to see if they're done. They're not.

Version 1.0 is not finished yet.

Let the process happen. When I

looked this up, by the way, it was like, it said, cornbread is less

sensitive. And I was thinking to myself, some of us

are raising kids who are, like, fragile Victoria sponge

or, you know, popovers, and they're gonna take longer in the a, and we

really shouldn't judge them. And then others are like cornbread. You're

like, they're fine. You get open and look at them,

and they're fine. So I don't know if that's helpful, but I was

thinking about it. I was like, well, I don't have cornbread. I'm not I'm not

baking cornbread over here. I've got kids who have you know,

they're complicated. They're they gotta work themselves out.

So Lincoln's about to turn 20. I'm like, oh, we're getting into Lincoln

2.0, which is really fun. If you can lighten up about the future

and just kinda be like, this is who they are right now.

Parent the kid in front of you, not the one you wish you had or

the one you're afraid they'll become. Now a

last problem is when you make their

behavior mean that something is wrong with them at their core.

Like, that they're disturbed. Like, that they they they're

they're rotten. And I wanted to read a couple

of quotes. I've talked about this book before

on the podcast, but it's the myth of normal by Gabor

Mate. And the book is

the most powerful parenting book I've ever read, and it's not a parenting

book. So if you are at all curious about, like,

you know, how trauma works and and development

and what what humans need to thrive and how

how when we don't get our needs met, how that shows up in

our life. This book is phenomenal.

But he he talks about the two core

needs of every human, and I've talked about it on the podcast of a,

which is for our version of safety and then our need for authenticity.

So your child needs to feel safe and they need to feel,

accepted. What your child needs in order to

grow up and mature is they need to feel emotionally

safe. We cannot grow and change when we're feeling

judged or not worthy or bad at our core. If I'm bad at

my core, why I can't change? I have no agency. But

if I feel as if I have unconditional worth and I feel

safe in my relationships, then I'm able to go and grow in

the world. So what your kids really need is they

need to they need you to like who they

are. When you like who they are at

their core, their essential self, and you can speak

to them. Like, yes, you're acting selfish,

but you're not a selfish person. You're you're

saying sharp words, but you're not unkind. You are

kind. You're you can speak into

your child's life, what you want them to believe about themselves

and communicating your values and saying

you're worthy. No matter how you behave,

You need to be the one who first separates their

their self, their core self a their actions. When

you do that, when you're able to say, yes, this person, my child is

acting this way, but that doesn't mean that's who they are,

Then they get to grow up believing that about themselves. They can say,

I make mistakes, but I'm not a mistake.

I cause problems sometimes, but I'm not a problem.

I really I'm I'm feel so strongly about this because

I've I know this is the biggest thing. If you could give your

kids the gift of self love,

they won't have to unravel a ton of pain.

And the way that we end up, like,

transmitting that sense of self

loathing is in these subtle ways that we

are like, no. Don't act like that. You are being

you are unkind. Don't be unkind. I

can't even model it, to be honest with you because I've practiced not thinking

this way for so long. Like, instead of saying,

like, you're selfish. You're you're rude.

Right? Really being like, hey. Hey. You're being

rude. Are you okay? What do you need right now?

Do you need to take a break? Are you overwhelmed? Become I

know you're not actually rude. I know you're not a mean person.

That is so powerful for especially

for boys and girls, but girls especially need to be told, like, you are not

your actions. You are worthy. You are

lovable. You are good exactly as you are. Even

when you act badly, you are not bad. Brene

Brown is so wonderful the way she explains shame. And

she says, shame is something's wrong with me

and guilt is I've done something wrong.

And if you wanna shame proof your kids, which I know you

do, we have to really separate at this,

like, you know, this level of

behavior from from self. I

can act shitty, but it doesn't mean I am shitty.

So when you are able

to, love your child

and communicate your unconditional

acceptance of them and their self their your a their unconditional

worth, even in the midst of them acting

badly, that is magic. That is what we're

working on here. So

I wanna normalize that your first instinct when you

see your kids misbehave is

to catastrophize the future to or to

make it mean something bad about you as a parent, something you did wrong

a take all this responsibility, which takes away their agency.

You may end up thinking like, oh my god. My kid is just an asshole.

You know, that's who they are. That's just what they are. Your your

first instinct might be to go fall into these 3

traps, and that's

okay. Okay? Just catch yourself

a listen to this podcast episode again and commit back. And

that's why I think that a delight list

or a, you know, positive parenting vision, these two tools I teach

are so valuable because then you can go back and say, who is

my child at their core? And

every human at their core is loving.

We all want to be in relationships with other people.

We all wanna be kind and loving. And it's only

when our pain takes over that

that that core self gets interrupted.

So let recognizing who your child is at

their at their core is, like, who they were at the

at birth, at the baby, like, right when they were born.

That little baby is perfect. Right? It's so lovable.

They can't do anything wrong. They are just enough.

And it's only as they grow and they, you know, express

themselves in different ways and their behavior shows up that we start

to worry. So their core self is their essential,

worthy, lovable, perfect self.

See that person and then parent

the behavior, which behavior is a form

of communication, and it shows a skill gap. That's it.

Okay. I like I I wanted to share all

this. I've been this is, like, all been on my mind for a while. So

I'm glad to have done this episode. I hope it was helpful for you. Lately,

I've been receiving some emails and messages

on Instagram from some of you, and I just want you to know I love

them so much. Like, it brings me so much joy

to hear how the podcast is impacting you and how it's affecting you.

And some of you have asked for podcast episodes, so I have

those planned. So if there's a topic you want, you can email me and ask

me to do an episode on it. That that's fun. And, yeah,

just reach out. It's really great. I wanna have a I feel like we're in

community. So, this week, I want you

to go out when you see your kid's behavior, catch

yourself, reset your mindset, noticing if

you're making it mean that something's wrong with them, the future is ruined a

that something's wrong with you. That's when you need to reframe.

Okay. Mamas and dads, I know you a to. I hope you have

a great week, and I will talk to you next time.