Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm

Darlyn Childress. I am a parenting

educator and life coach, and I wanna

focus today a little bit on the parent education piece of my

work. And I'm not even sure where this episode is

gonna go. I hope it doesn't turn into a rant. But I have some things

on my mind about parenting thing that I wanted to share, and I

wanna talk about some of the the trends that I've

seen as I've done this work

for almost 15 years, and so I've seen a lot of things through the

years. When I started with my parent

education, I remember thinking, you know,

learning, like, that I didn't have to use pain and punishment and shame and

spanking and timeouts and all that stuff, and it felt

revolutionary to me. And it was like, wait. What? You

know? And Most of my peers,

people who are my age, gen x, we all sort

of were raised with this traditional parenting methodology

and, you know, didn't didn't even know that there

was an alternative. Like, we had no idea that there was this

other way to parent using compassion, using gentleness,

using connection. And

instead of, you know, pain, punishment,

manipulation, control, power. I remember talking to

my best friend and talking about Susan Stifleman's work about,

like, you know, instead of power, overpower with and and

really, like, finding ways to feel you

know, that we can discipline our kids without using punishment.

And that was a lot of my work in the beginning

of parent education was kind of helping parents see that

they didn't have to do those things, and it was not easy. I felt like

I was trying to convince convince parents to, like, see

this other paradigm, to understand that

There's a traditional paradigm of parenting, and it's based in

in power and control and that there's a new paradigm, which is

based more on mutual respect, emotional understanding, emotional

well-being. You know? When I first started

teaching parenting. No one knew anything about stress response. They didn't

know how the brain worked. I was teaching these concepts,

and people were like, oh my god. I had no idea. And and we

were growing and and, you know, moving towards a new way of parenting

together. And, you know,

amazing work. Right? And then watching parents to change the way

that they they parent. What I've noticed

now that it's been 15 years is that I don't

really have to spend a lot of time trying to convince

parents to, like, not use pain or punishment or

shame. It's like we've done a great job as a

society and in parent occasion to move move the

philosophies forward, and there's a lot more buy in. It's just like, of

course of course, I don't wanna hurt my kids. Of course, I don't wanna shame

my kids. Of course, I don't wanna, you know, create pain for them. I don't

wanna hurt them. And that's amazing.

It's amazing to see that just in, you know, a decade and a half

in, like, you know, 1 generation, essentially,

that we have grown, and parent education has moved

forward, and it's not behavior modification. And

there's so much beauty in seeing that we can

just, you know, emotionally coach our

kids. And I think anyone listening to this podcast

knows and feels the same. Like, you're like, yeah. No. I don't wanna hurt my

kids. And I wanna help you see that that's

actually beautiful that we're at this place

where it's just almost a a given, that

you wouldn't try to hurt your children in order to

get them to change their behavior. And not that long

ago, that was what we had to work on

with parents and in the, you know, the psyche

of parent education is moving

people towards greater understanding of human

human psychology and the way the brain works and the way that

feelings drive behavior. So I'm really

grateful actually of, like, all of the progress that we have

made in in parenting. But

what's on my mind today is maybe that we've come we've

almost gone too far in this, like, paradigm or,

like, this pendulum shift. And what I find myself

needing to talk about more and more lately is that

you The consequences aren't

mean, that it's not wrong to train your

children to to teach them that their behavior has an

impact and that,

yes, we don't want to intentionally, like, hurt our kids

or manipulate them or create any sort of pain or

shame. Like, that's there's no room for that. You don't need to do that, and

I know you don't want to. But what I've seen is that parents are

sort of afraid right now to have to

say no, to tell their children that,

like, yes. You can be unhappy, and you can be sad,

and you can be frustrated, and you cannot

hit or kick or punch me in the face, right,

to to say no. Like, your feelings

make sense, and your behavior or your strategy

is causing a problem, and it's it's not okay.

And I I I don't want anyone to feel bad

listening to this. I just want us to realize that we might

be moving towards maybe a little bit of permissiveness

because we're afraid that we're being mean if

we are firm, if we're following

through with a consequence. And I've struggle I

struggled with this, especially when I first learned about parenting

with compassion and understanding that feelings drive behavior.

I was like, you know, not sure

how I felt about consequences at all. And, like, a natural

consequence. I'm like, okay. Makes sense. Right? You say to your

kids, hey. You know?

If you don't eat breakfast right now, like breakfast is on the

table, and if you don't eat breakfast right now, your

belly's gonna be hungry later. Right? I've noticed

parents don't even wanna do natural consequences, but a natural consequence would be

like, okay. My mom has said breakfast was over, and I didn't

eat, and so now I have a hungry belly. Like, that's a

natural consequence of your behavior. It's like, if

I don't bring my jacket and I go outside and I

get cold, then I'm cold. And

we are. We tend to even want to, like, not let our kids experience

any discomfort because we're like, well, okay. But they need protein. Because if they don't

eat protein, they're not gonna be able to behave at school, and they're gonna have

a bad day, and they're gonna get in trouble, and they're gonna be misrecas. And,

like, we constantly are sort of rescuing our kids

from their own behavior, from their own results

because we're afraid that they'll be uncomfortable or that

it's wrong or mean to let our kids,

you know, experience, the result of their

actions. And I understand that we don't wanna,

like, Let our kids get sick or be hungry.

But a hungry belly is a good

lesson. It's a good way to learn how

to, you know oh, shoot. I better eat my

breakfast. Otherwise, my tummy's gonna hurt, and I'm not gonna be able to eat again

till snack. And the truth is, really, like, there's a

lot of meals coming up with kids. Like, have breakfast, and they have snack, and

they have lunch, and then they have their school snack, and then they have dinner,

and then they have before bed snack. Like, we have a lot of food. There's

a lot of opportunities to eat. And so we can let our kids experience

some natural consequences.

But I've just noticed more and more that

parents are feel nervous about letting their kids

be at all uncomfortable. Of course, we don't want our kids to,

like, be cold and get sick and things

like that. Like, I understand The natural

consequences sometimes don't feel affordable. But we

can say to our kids, like, you know, I'm

gonna put your jacket in your backpack,

and you can put it on when you get cold and, like, let them

be cold. Right? Instead of put your

jacket on. You need to wear it. You're gonna get sick. You can't be you

know? Don't be uncomfortable. We we are

almost afraid of letting them fail or or

feel that discomfort. And

I remember so natural consequences are one thing, and I remember thinking about,

like, logical consequences. Now what's a logical consequence?

A logical consequence is when you

bring the impact to your children. You let them see

the connection between their behavior and the result of their

behavior. Let me give you an example. Think about the natural

consequence of hitting your sibling. Okay? If

you play that out, the natural consequence is that your

kid doesn't have a good relationship with their sibling over

time. Right? I mean, in the short term, their sibling

is sad and in pain, but The

effect of that doesn't it can take a long time.

Like, say, I don't wanna learn to don't wanna

do my homework. Don't wanna learn to read. Right? The natural

consequences, I never learn to read. Well okay. That could

take a long time to happen. And

so as a parent, sometimes we need to, like, bring the impact

closer to our kids. We need to bring consequences closer to

them so that they experience

an impact, and then that impact is

motivating in order for them to, like, create

a change in behavior. The difference here is that we're

not intentionally making them feel pain or hurting them.

Like, if you don't practice your letters or you don't, you

know, redo your reading tonight, you know,

I'm gonna put you in a time out, and I'm not gonna talk to you

the rest of the night. And or, like, you're like, and you're gonna

grow up and be dumb, and you're not gonna know how to be with your

friends and, like, we kinda do the shame sprinkle. We

isolate them, emotionally disconnect. All of that, it makes it all

emotional, makes it all painful. And

that that's gross. Like, we don't want that. Right? So

if you don't know what else to do in order to

create an impact, you kinda get stuck. You're like, well, I

don't know. I guess they're not gonna read or, like, you know, you're like, I'm

gonna take away the iPad or whatever. And that's fine. You can take away

the iPad, but you want to show your children the connection

between their behavior and the impact.

And sometimes we have to create impacts so that they can see,

oh, it's in my best interest to do my reading. It's my best interest to

not hit my brother. It's in my best interest to,

you know, brush my teeth, to get my pajamas on, to put my socks

and shoes away in the right spot,

to be patient while my mom is, you know, out talking to the neighbor.

Right? So how do you teach your children

that like, the emotional regulation that they

need to manage their discomfort and at the

same time, allowing them to feel that discomfort

of their impact, the behavior. Right? How to bring that that

behavior and the impact closer to them so that

they can see the connection. So I always think about, like, the

model that I that I developed. It is

calm. Right? That's you. It's your emotional regulation. So I'm always

like, okay. Pretend you're totally emotionally regulated.

Then we go to connect. So, like, it's calm,

connect, limit, set, correct. So calm,

you're calm. Now connection is helping your children understand

feelings drive behavior. We want your children to

understand that their they have an emotional life,

that their emotional life is valid, that they're 100%

entitled to their feelings and their thoughts, and that they

also have power over their thoughts and feelings. They have the

ability to to see things from a different

perspective, to shift through emotion, to feel any feeling. Right? That's

all emotional health, and we do that through connection.

We do that through emotional coaching and, you know, the

the connection tool, the things that I teach in my class and on this podcast.

So on one hand, we have feelings drive behavior, and

then we have the limit in the middle, and then we have correction.

And correction is my behavior has an impact, and

it's my job to deal with that impact. Right?

That's what we're trying to help our kids. So we have, like, the internal

process that's going on inside of them, and then we have the external effect of

their behavior. And together,

the connect and the correction, right, the

impact part, the consequence part, Together,

those influence our children's behavior.

I often have you know, it's a podcast. You can't see my hands, but I

have, like, sort of the behavior in the middle. And on

one side, I kinda have my hand, like, on 1 wall.

Not a wall, but, like, 1 part on one side is

the feelings driving the behavior. And then on the other

side, I bring my my other hand to the side, and I say, okay. And

now your behavior has an impact. So

if, like, your feelings are driving your behavior, your behavior has an

impact. Together, you're teaching your

kids how to manage their emotions so they behave differently.

And we're in saying your behavior has an impact, and we wanna

bring that impact to them so that they learn

that they don't wanna deal with these negative impacts.

And so we don't have to use pain to teach them,

but we do have to demonstrate. We do have to show them that

their behavior has an impact, and we do that through consequences.

They don't have to be mean. It's not mean

to show your children. Hey. Look. When you

have a big meltdown and, you know,

it's all it's all fine. We're late. It it's okay. You had

big feelings. You didn't know what to do with them. And, you know, During

that process, you kicked and punched and threw some stuff, and

mommy was late for work and all of those things. Like,

I get it, kid. You know? Like, you can have your feelings.

And they also have an impact, and it's your job

to make that right. So my programs,

I teach really specific ways to do consequences. Like,

you know, restitution, how to restore back the impact

and and and fix the mistakes that your behavior caused.

And sometimes I've gotta admit, they're little artificial. We have to, like,

kinda be creative about creating impacts because

the impact is sometimes, like, energy. Right? Like, you just

you're drained. Or the impact is time. You

know? And it's like, how do you transfer that back to your kids?

But There is ways there are ways to transfer that

impact back to your children. But what I find is that a lot of

times, well, what happens is when you transfer that impact back

onto your kids, they might have a little another mini meltdown about it.

Like like, if, say, you're like, okay. We're all going to Target,

and everyone's excited. And then you have a huge

sibling conflict and a big meltdown, and you're just

drained, and you don't wanna take these kids to Target anymore because you're

like, that's not that's not I don't want to.

Like, Their behavior drained me, and it's like, I don't wanna

have to deal with that later. Right? I don't wanna have to, like, worry about

that. So that means you just turned your children, and they're

like, are we going to Target? And you're like, actually, no. I

wanted to, and we had that big sibling thing happening

earlier, and that's all fine. Like, you guys had your

big feelings, and that's okay. But now I don't wanna have to worry about

that happening again, or I don't have the energy to go to

Target now or to go to the park or go to your drop you off

at your play date. And they're gonna be like, oh, it's

so sad. And they're gonna make promises, and they're gonna be upset.

And you're like a lot of times parents don't wanna

have a consequence. They don't wanna put in that extra

effort to tell their kid, like, no. Your behavior caused a

problem, and now we're not doing blank, or now you're not having this privilege because

then the child will have another meltdown. And you're like,

I don't wanna deal with another meltdown. I get

it. But the truth is if you constantly

rescue your kids and don't let them experience the negative impact of

their behavior. You are being permissive. You

are not parenting, and

you're not showing your children that your feelings make

sense. Your behavior needs work. Right?

Your feelings are valid. Your strategy is

is needing improvement. We've gotta switch this strategy.

The way that you're coping with your feeling causes problems for you

and for others. And the way that we teach

them That their behavior causes problems is by showing

them the problems and letting them experience

the consequence of their behavior. And

you can do it without shame. You

can do it without being mean. You can do

it without being like, what's wrong with you? I've told you this a 100 times.

You need to quit. Stop it. Like, you don't have to do any of that.

You don't have to say anything. You're just very neutral about it.

It's, like, very emotionally connected. Like, of

course, You you're young. You're a kid. You're not sure

how to handle things. You get distracted.

You get upset. You get worried. And then

that shows up in your behavior. But while you were behaving that

way, you know, you dropped the leash and the dot the little

puppy went in the corner and went and peed. So now you gotta

clean up the pee pee. Right? Or like,

of course, you behave that way. You got distracted. You didn't wanna

eat breakfast. You didn't wanna do anything, and the kitchen is

closed. And so, you know, you can have you

can have snack in a couple of hours. And they're gonna get

upset. They're gonna cry. I don't wanna clean up the peepee. You made me

do it, or like, you didn't tell me. You didn't warn me. No.

No. No. Right? And so They're gonna have their big

feelings when they experience the consequence. And when you practice calm,

you're able to just be like, no problem. Of course, you're gonna feel upset

now. Like, being truly calm is being really

truly compassionate and being okay with however your kids show

up. That's a big, big skill that I'm constantly

teaching in my course and, like, in my programs because that's the

key to everything. Become a calm mama. Like, that's the key to everything.

Being okay with big feeling cycles. I'm like, yep. I'm gonna ride

this one out too. I've got it. No problem.

And you get better at that. I promise.

Now how do limit set it limit set fit in all

this. Right? That's why it's so important to be

able to practice the limit setting formula and t the thing that I teach

is like, I am happy to serve breakfast to

kids who are sitting at the table until the

timer goes off. Take it or leave it.

So you're really clearly communicating to your kids your boundary

and the limit and even informing them of what happens if they

don't listen. And so then when you're

like, Breakfast is over. Lunch is over. Dinner is

over. And they're like, but I didn't eat. You're like, I

know. That's hard. You're we'll

get you at the next meal. We'll have a big breakfast tomorrow.

I always did what I called, like,

before bed snack, especially when the kids, excuse me,

were little because we would often eat dinner pretty early,

like, 5:30 because of dinner, bath, and bed. Like, you kinda need

to chunk it up pretty early to get those kids in bed, you

know, at a decent time. So, like, 5:36. And then, you know, say

they're going to bed at 7:30. It's, like, been an hour and a half, and

if they didn't eat a good lunch or good dinner, I would then be like

I'd always have before bed snack. So it'd be like a piece of toast or,

like, a cheese stick or, you know, banana and peanut butter or something like

that so that they would have their bellies full. And then I would just trust.

Like, okay. I know they're gonna get another meal. Same with breakfast. Like, you

know, they eat breakfast. They don't eat breakfast. It's fine because I know they're gonna

snack at 10 o'clock. Right? They have, like, nutrition at

school. Like, they have there's lots of chances to have food. So letting

your kid kind of experience a hungry belly for an hour and a half, Not

bad good deal, but we wanna be able to give limits.

And that's where it's like, calm is all about you in my process.

Calm is all about you. Connect is connecting to their emotions, helping

them understand that their feelings are there. That's

why they're acting the way they're acting, and their feelings make sense.

Super validating, super compassion. Then we have so we have calm,

connect, limit set. Now limit set is like

whatever command you wanna give your kid, like, sit down

and eat. Stop hitting. Put your shoes

on. Get in the car. Stop talking to me like that.

Like, whatever command you wanna get give is what

we turn into a limit. And, like, whatever

threat you wanna give, you better stop it or else I'm not gonna give

you any more dinner. You flip that. Hey. Happy

to give you dinner as long as you stop that. So it's

like flipping that is part of just learning the new

language of limit setting. And we get better and better

about it when you take the course. You get the toolkit.

You get, like, you know, the connection tool, the limit setting formula, the

correction conversation. We have these 3 core tools,

and you learn those tools, and then you have, you know, 4 months with me

where you practice those tools and we scenario it out, like, over and over and

over, whether issue is bedtime, whether issue is, you know, morning

routine, homework, sibling stuff, you know, too much

sweets, too much screens, you know, not

sharing their toys. Any of the issues that come up,

you know, I have scripts in the workbook of, like, how to set limits for

these really kinda normal situations and

how that works. So you get better and better at it, and then it

becomes sort of second nature. It's like calm. You know how to

calm yourself using the pause break. Connect. You know how to connect with the

kids using the connection tool. Limit set. You know how to set a

limit using the limit set formula. Correction. You know

how to follow through with consequences, having a correction conversation,

and applying restitution, restoring back.

So why I'm sharing this today on this podcast episode is

just really because I wanna commend

parents. I really wanna honor and acknowledge

how far we've all come. And,

really, I wanna acknowledge and recognize millennial parents

and, like, how embedded it is in you to

show up for your kids with this compassion.

I am in my late forties. I'm Gen X.

My kids are Gen Z. They

you know? I'm sort of, like, on the other end of raising

my kids, and I've watched Gen X

really kinda struggle with trying to release

themselves from those punitive measures and from, like, thinking that

they have to lecture sure, and they have to use, you know, a little bit

of, like, you know, attacking the person

a little bit. Like, you're a liar versus you lied. Right?

Like, moving from shame, which is, you know, you you're

something's wrong with you and moving away from shame into, like,

You've done something wrong. It's been a lot of work for Gen

X parents. And, like, those of you who are listening, like, good for you. Like,

we did we did it. We did not have a model for this. Right?

But I wanna say, like, to the millennial parents out there

who have kids that are in this next generation. Alpha is

what I think they're gonna be called. It's like, you guys have it

in you already to, like, release from all that

punitive parenting style, and you don't

wanna shame your kids. Like, you have the purest intentions, and I'm

I love it. It's beautiful. I love not having to talk about,

hey. You know? Spanking's wrong. Like, you don't have to do that. Like,

I like that we don't have to spend time. Me convincing

you that this is the right not the right way to parent, but, like, this

is a paradigm that is available to you. Like, you're

already in it. You're already, like, connected and, like, committed. I love

it. It's beautiful. And I wanna invite

you to see that

permissive parenting is a pitfall of

gentle parenting. We

need to still parent our children,

which means we need to help them understand

that their behavior has a result.

So it's like their feelings are valid, their feelings make sense,

and their feelings show up in their behavior. When they don't know what to do

with big feelings, when they don't know how to handle it, sometimes

it shows up in off track behavior. They

are responsible for making right

when they are off track to getting back on track, if you will.

So if you're confused about how to do that,

I want you to know you're not alone. It's like, honestly,

this is a tie a part of parenting that's pretty

confusing. It's like

Previous generations had no idea how to emotionally connect or

coach their kids. And I know you're still struggling with that because you

don't have a map for that either, but, like, you're you're in it. You're, like,

working out. You're like, yeah. Of course. You're you can be sad. You, you know,

you guys are really sweet about how you parent your kids.

But then when you follow through and you wanna

show that their behavior has an impact, I know that you get really

lost and confused, and it feels mean, and it feels harsh, and it feels ugly,

and it feels gross. And you get stuck, and

sometimes you yell and then you're like, I don't wanna be like this. And

I wanna normalize that, of course, you don't know what to do because

there's not really a lot of models for

parenting in an impact based

way, consequence based way that's

not shaming. That's not painful.

We don't have a lot of models like this in our society. It's a

restorative justice model, really, that I'm teaching you. And

so I don't want you to feel lost.

Well, you will feel lost, and I don't want you to stay lost. So, you

know, reach out to me. Join my programs. Go back can listen

to episodes that I have about consequence and correction and

and limit setting. And, really, I'll work on, you know,

sharing more of these philosophies with you, you know, over the next couple of

weeks. But in general, I want

your takeaway this week to be Just noticing if

you are, like, feeling

as if your kids aren't experiencing any

consequences, and you kinda feel like their

behavior's a little out of control, but you feel lost about

it. Just start thinking. Like, what impact

is their behavior having, and how can I bring that

impact back to them? I always think we

have 3 resources in life. We have time. We have

energy, and we have money. And so, usually,

Our kids' behavior impacts one of those 3

things. And so when we are thinking about, like, what's the

impact here? Is it time? Is it energy? Is it money? How can

I transfer that back to my kids? And then we give them a

chance to, you know, make that right.

Very simple ways, like doing a simple chore for

you or, you know,

doing something alongside of you, or writing a note,

sending a voice mail to a friend, drawing a

picture. Maybe you don't do something that

you would normally do because of you know, you don't take them to the park

or something like that. You can gently just say, this is why.

It's because I don't have as much time because of your behavior

earlier. I don't have as much energy. I know this brings up

stuff for you, but I want you to think about the alternative. If you

don't bring impacts to your kids, how do they learn?

What alternative do you have? You can

talk, and you can explain, but experience

is the teacher, and you can do consequences

gently. You can do them without

hurting your relationship without creating without being

harsh, without being mean. You can be firm,

and you can be strong, and you can be the leader in your family. And

that does not mean that you become, like, an

authoritarian parent. Okay? So

a little bit of hope in there. I have a lot of hope. A lot

of hope. Not a little. Lot of hope for this next generation

and a little bit of a cautionary tale. Just, you know, being on to

yourself, noticing if you're rescuing, and and

maybe, you know, working on that a little bit. And, obviously,

I'm always here. I want you to take my course. I teach this

really specifically in the class for sure, and keep

listening to the podcast and reach out to me. You know, book

a consultation with me, and we can talk it through. And I can

help you figure out, you know, how to how to do how to do

be the parent you wanna be. Alright, mamas.

I will be thinking about you this week and wishing you

peace and calm and joy with your children and

also a little bit of strength in leadership. Alright. I

will talk to you